• The toll continues. Possessors of integrity, moral gravitas and capable decision making based on science continue to be disposed of, as they are inconvenient to this lame duck administration’s self-interested aims – or perhaps simply due to mindless revenge. It’s detestable. From the NY Times, see:
• Frank Bruni, writing in the NYT about the election of our president, captures the essence of how I feel quite nicely in his How Will I Ever Look at America the Same Way Again? column. An excerpt:
“In him we forgave florid cruelty, overt racism, rampant corruption, exultant indecency, the coddling of murderous despots, the alienation of true friends, the alienation of truth itself, the disparagement of invaluable institutions, the degradation of essential democratic traditions.
He played Russian roulette with Americans’ lives. He played Russian roulette with his own aides’ lives. In a sane and civil country, of the kind I long thought I lived in, his favorability ratings would have fallen to negative integers, a mathematical impossibility but a moral imperative. In this one, they never changed all that much.”
• From the New York Times:
“A group of 20 Republican former federal prosecutors endorsed former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. on Tuesday, calling President Trump “a threat to the rule of law in our country” who uses the Justice Department “to serve his personal and political interests.”
“He has politicized the Justice Department, dictating its priorities along political lines,” the signatories said in an open letter. “We do not support his re-election.”
The letter from the former U.S. attorneys includes signatures from appointees of every Republican administration since President Eisenhower’s.
“The president has clearly conveyed that he expects his Justice Department appointees and prosecutors to serve his personal and political interests in the handling of certain cases — such as the investigations into foreign election interference and the prosecution of his political associates — and has taken action against those who have stood up for the interests of justice,” the letter said.”
• This NYT editorial lays it all out – “End Our National Crisis – The Case Against Donald Trump“; as they opine, “This is the moment when Americans must recover that sense of outrage” and act to remove “the worst American president in modern history” from office. Vote.
• Demi Lovato speaks truth to power in this music video created by the Lincoln Project.
• NY Times opinion columnist Jamelle Bouie talks about long lines at the polls in low-income areas acting as the equivalent of poll taxes – one of the many ways voter suppression continues to manifest itself. From Bouie’s lates newsletter: “Voters in affluent precincts don’t face long lines. White voters don’t tend to face long lines. Long lines for voting are most common in areas where Black Americans and Hispanics make up a majority of voters, and they are generated by concrete policy decisions: cuts to voting resources in the form of fewer polling stations, poll workers and voting machines.
The culprits, as has often been the case in decisions that limit access to the ballot, are Republican lawmakers and officials who have made the reduction of voting resources a deliberate strategy for shrinking the size of the electorate. In Georgia, for example, the Republican former secretary of state (and current governor) Brian Kemp closed 214 polling stations between 2012 and 2018, often in rural, high-poverty areas with significant Black populations. In Texas, as well, Republicans have fought to reduce options for early voting, contributing to long waits this past week.
When you see long lines for voting, Americans devoting entire days to exercising their right to suffrage, you should remember that these lines are a choice meant to burden our ability to choose our leaders. You should be angry.”
And then there’s Paul Krugman’s How the G.O.P. Can Still Wreck America column. Sigh. Please make sure you vote.
• Anne Applebaum’s excellent piece in The Atlantic references the Cornell University misinformation study in laying it all out (italics are my own):
“…Trump’s super-spreading of disinformation has already changed America. Just a few days ago, Cornell University published a study showing that 38 percent of media stories containing misinformation about the virus refer to the president: Trump is literally, not metaphorically, the single most important reason so many Americans distrust information they receive about the disease. He is literally, not metaphorically, the reason so many Americans distrust our electoral system too. He is literally, not metaphorically, the reason so many Americans distrust one another…And we are all … unsurprised. This kind of obfuscation, this level of confusion, is exactly what we have come to expect from our national leader. Trump has destroyed our trust with wanton abandon—trust in our political system, trust in our institutions, trust in science, trust in America itself—simply because it benefits him, personally, to do so. Whatever happens to Trump over the next few weeks, that is the legacy that will outlast his presidency. It has already distorted and changed and altered the country just as profoundly as the coronavirus itself.”
• Barton Gellman, writing in the Atlantic, lays out ways in which DJT could hijack the election. Don’t read it before bedtime, the nightmares could be horrific. This story, appearing in conjunction with the orange one’s response to questions about a peaceful White House transition should he lose the election, are most alarming. “We’re going to have to see what happens,” he told reporter Brian Karem during a news conference at the White House. “You know that I’ve been complaining very strongly about the ballots, and the ballots are a disaster.”, “Get rid of the ballots and you’ll have a very peaceful — there won’t be a transfer, frankly. There will be a continuation,” The potential ways things could go sideways are terrifying.
• Featuring VP Pence’s former homeland security, counterterrorism and coronavirus staffer Olivia Troye, this is a powerful (and eminently believable) indictment of our current president’s character and empathy. Worth watching.
• Eric Topol does a wonderful takedown in his Medscape piece Dear Commissioner Hahn: Tell the Truth or Resign, calling out FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn’s derelict behavior re. several of his recent statements and Agency decisions, ones obviously in obeisance to political pressure. Worth a read.