Category: Uncategorized

Plus, Military Concerns, Gov. DeSantis, Fox

Trumpster Diving

“A Republic, if you can keep it.”

* Legacy update: Not that it much helps, but we all saw the narcissist-in-chief’s temper tantrum coming. Early on it was the General Services Administration refusing to process paperwork needed to release funds for President-elect Biden to begin the transition process. That was classless and dangerous in a fraught world. But, as insiders and GOPster incumbents know, the vile egotist that is Donald Trump needs groveling enablers and political grief counseling after losses in the electoral and popular vote affirmed his “loser” status. “(Biden) only won in the eyes of the FAKE NEWS MEDIA,” claimed Trump in another Twitter-flagged tweet. “This was a rigged election. I concede nothing.”

Also conceding nothing (and unmoved by electoral ambulance chasing): the Cyber Security and Infrastructure Security Agency. “The Nov. 3 election was the most secure in American history,” notably declared the CSISA. “There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”

Then there was the recent Trump motorcade that cruised down Washington streets lined with sign-toting, mostly maskless, cult-leader supporters–before rolling on to the outgoing president’s Virginia golf club. How incongruously fitting that there are still post-election, “stop the steal,” de facto campaign rallies during a post-election, pandemic-preying, presidential transition.

* “There will be a smooth transition to a second Trump Administration.” That was Secretary of State Mike Pompeo somehow equating transition smoothness with the narcissistic avatar of self-serving chaos.

* (Un)friendly fire: “Mark Esper has been terminated. I would like to thank him for his service.” That was the demander-in-chief thanking, as only he can–via tweet–his defense secretary. Esper may have stayed longer had he not indicated that the military should remain an apolitical institution and that he opposed invoking the Insurrection Act to place active-duty troops on the streets to quell possible post-election protests. It’s also a reminder that Joe Biden’s defense secretary will have a damage-control and morale-agenda at the outset.

* Speaking of the military, it knows that President Biden will not be prioritizing the partially-built U.S.-Mexico border wall that has cost $15 billion so far. The military also knows that this means no more money diverted from the military budget to compensate for Mexico not paying for it.

* Still speaking of the military, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, was hardly nuanced about presidential “fealty.” “We are unique among militaries,” he underscored. “We do not take an oath to a king or a queen, a tyrant or a dictator. We do not take an oath to an individual.”

* Timing matters: The Trump Administration is advancing plans to auction drilling rights in the U.S. Arctic National Wildlife Refuge before the inauguration of Joe Biden. The president-elect has vowed to block oil exploration in the Alaska wilderness.

* Yo, Philly: Pennsylvania turning blue was critical to Trump’s loss. The Philadelphia vote count went to Biden by about a 4-1 margin. Still wonder how many “Iggles” fans are Trumpsters.

* Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody is one of 10 Republican attorneys general calling for a Pennsylvania election ruling on late-arriving absentee ballots to be overturned by the Supreme Court. Pam Bondi would have done no less.

* “I do believe the election is over–and we do have a new president.”–That was Ted Olson, who successfully argued for George W. Bush in the 2000 Bush v. Gore Supreme Court case.

* Advisers have tried to persuade Trump to drop the “fraud” talk. It has obvious legal implications that his team has been unable to back up. So Trump has dialed back; the election, he’s now asserting, was, uh, “rigged.” Whatever.

* Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is fawningly supportive of Trump’s efforts to avoid conceding defeat. Hypocritically ironic that when he won his gubernatorial race by 0.4 percent, he declared victory four hours after the polls had closed.

* “A matter of weeks.” That, according to the prevaricator-in-chief, is the time frame until a vaccine is shipped to vulnerable populations.

* More than 130 Secret Service officers who helped protect the White House and the president have been ordered to quarantine because they tested positive for the coronavirus or had close contact with infected co-workers.

* The rationales for questioning the electoral college are more than manifest. The ultimate bottom line: Without it, there would have been no minoritarian Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump.

“Yes, we did.”

* Joe Biden and Donald Trump: the president-elect and the president-evict.

* The president-elect had the highest number of popular votes–some 78 million–in U.S. history.

* Prominent among world leaders who have yet to make a congratulatory call to President-elect Biden: Brazil, China, North Korea, Russia and Turkey. No surprise: Biden is no autocrat’s favorite choice for America’s president.

* “The Democratic blue wall of the past might have been factory and union workers in the Midwest, but in the future it might be sprawling subdivisions in the exurbs of Phoenix and Atlanta.”–Conor Sen, Bloomberg.

* Only once in the last 30 years have GOPsters won the presidential popular vote. There’s a reason.

#AloneTogether

* The CDC currently defines a high-risk contact in need of a 14-day quarantine as an individual who has been exposed to an infected person for a total of 15 minutes.

* “Everyone trusts their family. But no one knows where Uncle Tommy has been.”–Alabama football coach Nick Saban.

* 60 percent: The minimum threshold to achieve herd immunity in a population.

* The Walt Disney Co. has posted an annual loss of $2.8 billion during the 2019-20 fiscal year.

* At Southwest Airlines, overall passenger revenue is down 70 percent; business travel is off 90 percent.

* “Downcast Trump makes baseless election fraud claims in White House address.” That was the headline on the New York Post’s website on the Thursday after the election. Coming from the Trump-friendly tabloid, that had to sting.

* “The Fox News Decision Desk can now project that former Vice President Joe Biden will win Nevada and Pennsylvania, putting him over the 270 electoral votes he needs to become the 46th president of the United States.”–That was Fox anchor Bret Baier on the Saturday after the election–further stoking Trump’s sense of embarrassment, anger and outrage over a media minion’s disloyalty.

* “It’s like we’re living in the Roman Empire, and Mark Zuckerberg is Caesar. At least that would explain his haircut.”–Sacha Baron Cohen.

* Ironic that both times the Lightning won the Stanley Cup were in the context of blind-siding scenarios that drastically impacted the following seasons. The 2019-20 Stanley Cup champions can anticipate lots of pandemic-causing unknowns in 2021–from when the season will actually begin and how many games will be scheduled to attendance limits and whether players can remain safe without a bubble. Back in 2003-04, the Bolts Stanley Cup win was followed by a season canceled by a lockout.

* The Rays’ Kevin Cash deserved his American League Manager of the Year award. It wasn’t even close. What he won’t deserve is the Blake Snell/World Series asterisk that will forever be associated with his name in baseball lore.

* Kim Ng, who was hired by MLB’s Miami Marlins, has become the first female general manager in the four major North American pro sports leagues. She was brought in by Marlins CEO Derek Jeter, who became MLB’s first CEO of color in 2017.

* “The (transition) process has not failed our country in more than 200 years, and it is not going to fail our country this year.”–Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins.

* “(Trump’s) strategy will fail, has no chance of affecting the outcome, does damage to the country and won’t, in the end, satisfy or change him.”–Republican election-law attorney Matthew Sanderson.

* “Donald Trump lost what, by any evidence we have so far, was a free and fair election. It’s critical for other Republican leaders to stand up and explain what actually happened.”–Former Trump national security adviser John Bolton.

* “By helping him to stoke the base’s paranoia, (Republicans) are making it less, not more likely that he climbs down off the crazy tree.”–Mona Charen, The Bulwark.

* “I think it’s going to take a lot of work over a number of years to recover that trust and that standing.”–Michele Flournoy, former undersecretary of defense for policy (2009-12) and a top Biden candidate for Secretary of Defense, on the challenge of regaining closer cooperation with our international partners.

* “It’s the real-time threat assessment information, intelligence briefing that we would like to see (President-elect Biden) have access to.”–Senior Biden transition adviser Jen Psaki.

* “Why, when somebody has won millions more votes than their opponent, are we still deliberating over 10,000 votes here, 5,000 votes there?”–Carol Anderson, professor of African-American studies at Emory University.

* “Democracy isn’t the objective; liberty, peace and prosperity are. We want the human condition to flourish. Rank democracy can thwart that.”–Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee.

* “The first time in American history that the election of the vice president would be more historic than the election of the president.”–Joel Goldstein, St. Louis University law professor emeritus.

* “Trump underperformed his party. … How could Republicans do so well when Trump didn’t? Because the election was about him. Democrats turned out in massive numbers not to vote for Joe Biden but to vote against Donald Trump. Trump, not Biden and not Kamala Harris, energized the Democratic base.”–Jonah Goldberg, The Dispatch.

* “Our swing voter is not red-to-blue. Our swing voter is … the non-voter to voter.”–New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

* “The American people have voted for divided government and a less divisive tone in national politics.”–William A. Galston, Wall Street Journal.

* “A Trump pushed outside the legal moat that surrounds the White House becomes, for the most part, a Trump who can be sued and penalized just as any other American can. That could also give fresh traction to the sexual assault cases against him.”–Tim O’Brien, Bloomberg News.

* “Its insistence on denying reality has reduced the GOP to a state beyond parody.”–Leonard Pitts, Miami Herald.

* “A scalpel rather than a bulldozer.”–SCOTUS Chief Justice John Roberts, on what the court should use when reviewing laws.

* “The success of the Pfizer vaccine means that the plague year of 2020 will be remembered as the time when traditional vaccines began to be supplanted by genetic vaccines. … These new vaccines deliver a piece of genetic coding that will instruct human cells to produce, on their own, components of a targeted virus. These safe components can then stimulate the patient’s immune system.”–Walter Isaacson, Tulane history professor and former chairman of CNN.

* “I wish President Trump would publicly concede and honor America’s tradition of peaceful transfers of power. … It’s time for Florida Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott to publicly accept Joe Biden as our president-elect.”–Mike Fasano, the Republican tax collector in Pasco County and a former state legislator.

* “I think Gov. DeSantis sees himself as a presidential hopeful. And anything he does that could be interpreted as cooperating with Biden would hurt him.”–State Sen. Janet Cruz, D-Tampa.

* “The Boston Tea Party members would have been lawfully shot under Florida’s law by the British East India Tea Company.”–Former Miami-Dade prosecutor Aubrey Webb, in reference to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ proposed expansion of the state’s stand your ground law.

* “We’re shifting from decades of developers ruling the roost.”–Re-elected Democratic County Commissioner Pat Kemp.

* “It’s ironic, but a Category 5 hurricane is way easier to forecast than a tropical storm. It’s just the way it is–the upper-level support just isn’t there and the models have a hard time grabbing tropical storms.”–Ruskin-based National Weather Service meteorologist Stephen Shively.

“A Republic, if you can keep it.”

• Deadlines and voting results don’t always overlap. But we know Donald Trump, alas, won Florida. And, so far, no civil-unrest reports across the country. But regardless of who the next president is, we can still say this about the inflection-point election still under scrutiny. American “exceptionalism”needs redefining and reworking. Having the biggest economy, the strongest military, myriad elite universities and research institutions, incredibly diverse geography, a world-famous, welcoming statue and an iconic Declaration of Independence is not enough. We’ve become a celebrated ideal with an asterisk for the ages, because America is now exceptionally vulnerable. It’s what happens, frankly, when a sizable chunk of a democracy’s electorate is uninformed (serious civics/modern media classes, anyone?), lazy, easily manipulated by technology and too enamored of a cult leader-demagogue playing the anti-“socialist,” media-demonizing, bigot card across the board. Yes, America is still exceptionally important. But decreasingly so if Trump doesn’t hear “You’re fired” from the voters. America has been a beacon of hope; will it now be barely a blinker? If we’re headed toward a democratic abyss, shouldn’t we be precipiced off?
• “I believe deeply in the principle of an apolitical U.S. military. In the event of a dispute over some aspect of the elections, by law, U.S. courts and the U.S. Congress are required to resolve any disputes, not the U.S. military. I foresee no role for the U.S. armed forces in this process.”—That was Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark A. Milley, still embarrassed by having accompanied–in uniform–Trump for his optics-wincing, photo-op church walk across Lafayette Square.
• “After the election, we’ll get the best stimulus package you’ve ever seen.” That was the stimulator-in-chief. As with, say, infrastructure, the Mexico-underwritten Wall, health care and pandemic management, timing is everything. It’s understandable that Trump would want to wait until after the election to move on the sort of economic relief that many Americans desperately need. Afterall, “Pelosi’s only looking to bail out badly run Democrat cities.” Yeah, the scapegoater-in-chief has America’s back.
• Profiles in carnage: Imagine, a political party that has been skewing so extremist has only won the popular vote for president once in the past three decades. There is no better rationale for getting rid of the electoral college.
• Life’s hypocritical ironies: “I equally wish the Republican Party would place a greater value on life outside the womb. You cannot choose just one and define yourself as pro-life.” That was Jerushah Duford, the self-described “pro-life” granddaughter of the Rev. Billy Graham, who is voting for Joe Biden and warning fellow Christians to distance themselves from a president who’s trying “to hijack our faith for votes.”
• Some 5,000 Americans die weekly from COVID-19. Surely, Trump knows that. Surely.
• “We saved two million lives.” This is the savior-in-chief giving disingenuous a bad name. Had the United States done absolutely nothing—NOTHING–then, yes, many more lives would have been lost. How much lower can the dissembler-in-chief’s subterranean bar go?
• “If I can get better, anybody can get better. And I got better fast.”—That was the super-spreader-in-chief, who was treated at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center under conditions unavailable to and unaffordable by the average American.
• “A system of government that makes the People subordinate to a committee of nine unelected lawyers does not deserve to be called a democracy.”—That was the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, the revered mentor of incoming SCOTUS Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Too bad that quote wasn’t part of the confirmation process.
• “Hydrosonic missiles.” That was Commander Bone Spurs referring to hypersonic missiles. The former is actually the name of a toothbrush. But close enough.
• “Sometimes, when you are up to your elbows in alligators, it is hard to remember your original objective was to drain the swamp.”—President Ronald Reagan.
• Senators, it has been suggested, should wear uniforms like NASCAR drivers, so we can identify their corporate sponsors.
• Donald Trump: “I’m thrilled to be here in my home state of Florida.” Beyond embarrassing.

#AloneTogether

• Overall U.S. employment: nearly 11 million below previous level. But the warehousing and storage industry is one of the few sectors whose employment is higher than pre-pandemic.
• Deadman’s curve: “Rounding the corner.” That was the super-spreader-in-chief’s characterization of the pandemic at his socially proximate, mainly maskless, Tampa rally. The day before, the U.S. had set a record of nearly 84,000 confirmed cases.
• According to HART, buses have seen a 60 percent decline in ridership.
• Sunday’s USL championship game between the Tampa Bay Rowdies and Phoenix Rising was canceled dueto the virus.
• Defending Wimbledon champion Simona Halep has tested positive.
• Florida’s average weekly positivity rate: 5.5 percent. Hillsborough County: 6 percent.
• 29,000: the number of families served last holiday season by Metropolitan Ministries. 40,000: the number of families expected to need Metropolitan Ministries this season.

“Yes, we can.”

• Bottom line: “It is what it is because he is who he is.”—Joe Biden.
• According to Morning Consult, a data intelligence company, Americans aged 65 and older are 23 percentage points less likely to support Trump now than they were four years ago. Just one of a number of demographic difference-makers that favor Dems if the difference-makers turn out and vote.
• “We don’t agonize. We organize.”—U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, at Biden’s Tampa rally.
• Latino voters now account for about one in five ballots cast in the Sunshine State. That’s twice their share from just 20 years ago.
• “Trump has doubled down on ‘Covid, Covid, Covid’ and the ‘hoax’ of this virus, and older voters aren’t buying it.”—University of Florida political scientist Daniel Smith.
• “An overwhelming majority of active socialists in the United States today are democratic socialists—they believe that political and economic democracy are both indispensable and interconnected. That means they have a duty and an interest in thwarting the emergence of an authoritarian regime.”—Zeeshan Aleem, publisher of What’s Left.

• We know all too well the factors that can enable fraught elections. Prominent among them: the neither-of-these-“two evils” rationalists and the hissy-fitters who didn’t get their nominee–who then sit out the election. Or it’s ideologues who go third party, which eases their conscience but can invite a worst-case scenario. Then, of course, there’s the media—from social to Rush Limbaugh. And it’s hardly in a democracy’s interest to have a candidate owned by a major network. But the problematics can include the non-Fox, mainstream media; we’re not just talking Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham now.

We’re also talking the conservative-establishment Wall Street Journal. That’s you, Peggy Noonan, whose WSJ opining is too often a lead-editorial anchor for the Tampa Bay Times. She can be more dangerous than a Foxster or a Breitbarter. That’s because she’s a real journalist with a really disingenuous touch. And that’s a real concern. She’s aware and observant enough to (this week) remind us that Trump lied about the pandemic and produced chaos. And “it would only be worse, more dangerous, more careless in a second term.” Moreover, noted Noonan, this White House is “mostly populated by second- and third-rate people, with the seasoned and competent fired and fled. It’s all so dangerous. A vote for him is not possible for me.” Good. But then she moves on to GOPster talking points that stereotype and demean the progressive left. Then she acknowledges that she is sitting out the election. “Is abstaining an honorable choice? For me it is the only one.”

No, abstaining is not honorable, no matter how democratic reality and civic responsibility appears through the skewed Noonan lens. And if it’s the “only” choice, that means not voting for the one person who is the only viable option to four more years of white grievance, autocratic arrogance, international disparagement and climate-change denial. If you can’t see the rationale for doing everything to remove an existential threat, then at least abstain from sharing your complicity in helping keep America grating.

• “(Trump’s) jealous of COVID’s media coverage.”—Former President Barack Obama.
• Saw a media reference to “rap legend” 50 Cent, who inimitably retracted his Trump endorsement. “F*** Donald Trump. I never liked him.” Two takeaways. Before Cent retracted, he endorsed someone he never liked? Second, how devalued is “legend”?
• Google is banning all election-related ads for a week after Nov. 3. The ban, explained Google, is necessary “to limit the potential for ads to increase confusion post-election.”
• “In the absence of real competition, Google manages to get away with shamelessly tracking your shopping habits, video-watching preferences and the content of your email conversations. … With its dominant market share in search, estimated at 88 percent, Google will be hard pressed to convince a judge that it lacks monopoly power.”—Tim Wu, Columbia University law professor and author of “The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age.”
• Comcast, the nation’s biggest cable operator, just passed a milestone—one that highlights the shift occurring across the media spectrum: It now has more streaming subscribers than cable-TV subscribers.
• Former Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg has been a frequent guest on Fox News. But unlike some partisan politicians (think Rick Santorum on CNN) who cross the media aisle to expand career opportunities, Buttigieg was about making the case for Biden by doing more than preaching to the converted. At the very least, by being smart, articulate, inoffensive–and a former Naval officer–he makes it more difficult to stereotype and dismiss the LGBTQ community.
• If you catch the latest Sacha Baron Cohen “Borat” mockumentary (“Borat Subsequent Moviefilm”) be ready to fast forward. It’s not a matter of politics. It’s just cheesy, annoying and insulting. No wonder Rudy Giuliani shows up. BTW, what the hell was he doing in that hotel suite with a faux-journalist babe and that poorly-timed, uh, shirt tuck-in while lying in bed on his back?
• “In COVID times, when tourism spending is on hold, it was good to see the country mentioned in the media. Not in the nicest way, but it’s good to be out there.” That was Kairat Sadvakassov, the deputy chairman of Kazakhstan’s tourism board, on his country’s return to pop culture–even if in a demeaning context—after the release of the latest “Borat” movie.
• Former Minnesota Sen. Al Franken was on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” last week. It was awkward, unfunny and made you wonder what he had been smoking.
• Sean Connery, 90, has died. He was the original, iconically cool, seemingly irreplaceable James Bond. Daniel Craig might agree.