Trump's Supreme Evil Keystone Plan

The Trump regime is finally making its move to disenfranchise millions of voters and steal the election, through the Supreme Court, starting with Pennsylvania. SCOTUSblog's Amy Howe:

Telling the court that “the vote in Pennsylvania may well determine the next President of the United States,” the campaign of President Donald Trump went to the Supreme Court on Wednesday afternoon. In a 10-page filing in Republican Party of Pennsylvania v. Boockvar, the president’s campaign asked to join the Pennsylvania Republican Party’s appeal of a ruling by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court that requires election officials to count mail-in ballots received by Nov. 6. The justices rejected a plea from the party to fast-track their challenge to that ruling last week, but an opinion from Justice Samuel Alito left open the possibility that the court could take up the dispute again.

Under the state supreme court’s ruling, which relied on a provision in the state constitution, all ballots received by Nov. 6 will be counted if they are postmarked by Election Day, Nov. 3, lack a postmark or have a postmark that is unclear. On Oct. 19, the justices turned down a request from the Pennsylvania Republicans to put that ruling on hold while the party appealed. Four of the court’s conservative justices – Alito and Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh – indicated that they would have blocked the state supreme court’s decision. Justice Amy Coney Barrett was not yet on the court at the time.

In an opinion that accompanied the court’s order denying the party’s motion to expedite consideration of its petition, Alito argued that it “would be highly desirable” for the justices to weigh in on the constitutionality of the state supreme court’s decision before the election, but he acknowledged that there was not enough time to do so. He added, however, that the Republican Party’s petition could still be decided “under a shortened schedule” later. Alito also stressed that ballots received after the polls closed on Election Day would be segregated, so that they could be excluded from the results if the state court’s decision were later overturned.

In its motion to intervene, the Trump campaign contended that the Supreme Court, rather than the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, “should have the final say” on the questions that could determine the outcome of the presidential election. In anticipation of that possibility, the campaign explained, it wants to join the Supreme Court proceedings. The Trump campaign, it reasoned, “has a direct, concrete stake in the outcome” of the proceedings “and, ultimately, the lawfulness of Pennsylvania’s vote tally.”

The Supreme Court instructed Pennsylvania election officials and the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, which are defending the state court’s ruling, to respond to the Trump campaign’s motion to enter the case by Thursday at 5 p.m.

Alito's opinion, of course, is that SCOTUS should take up the question of whether ballots that arrived after Election Day in the mail can be counted at all, and we know there's at least two votes on the Court (Kavanaugh and Gorsuch) for the Bush v. Gore Rehnquist opinion that only state legislatures should be allowed to make voting rules for a state, which would necessitate that possibly tens of thousands of votes be tossed, enough to give Trump Pennsylvania, and possibly the presidency if such a sweeping ruling was applied to all states retroactively for this election.

And of course since other states haven't set aside ballots received when Secretaries of State, election officials and Governors made changes to voting allowances this year for COVID-19, SCOTUS could rule that the entire presidential election should be sent to the US House for President (and Senate for Vice-President) giving Trump and Pence four more years.

Worse, they could nullify all kinds of election results for federal and state races under Rehnquist's opinion. It would be absolute chaos.

As I've been warning people for months now, unless Biden won overwhelmingly, this was always going to go to Trump's 6-3 SCOTUS.

It's far from over.

The Road To Gilead, Con't

The first major case in the new Roberts Court era with Justice Amy Coney Barrett is a case that could redefine the entire history of American civil rights as we know it by making the primary test of a person's rights being infringed upon wholly dependent not on whether a person is caused physical or economic harm by another, but whether a person's spiritual, religious beliefs are violated as being the main criteria.

 

 

When the Supreme Court on Wednesday hears Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, much attention will be on the new justice — it’s Amy Coney Barrett’s third day hearing oral arguments — and on a hot-button case about whether the city may cancel the contract of a Catholic foster care agency because it won’t work with same-gender couples. But a potentially broader issue will arise during the hearing that could potentially reshape the status of religion in U.S. law — further strengthening religious freedom rights in ways that some say has already gone too far.

In Fulton, the court will consider whether the city violated the First Amendment by disallowing Catholic Social Services from being part of its foster care system.

The justices are also being asked to overturn a ruling that has been controversial for religious conservatives since it was made 30 years ago: Employment Division v. Smith. The decision, which says a person’s religious motivations don’t exempt them from neutral, generally applicable laws, was written by Justice Antonin Scalia and said that without limits “every citizen [would] become a law unto himself.”

The Trump administration is supporting Catholic Social Services. It says the court does not need to overturn Smith to rule for the agency and alleges there’s evidence of religious bias in the way the city went about enforcing the law.

The court this week said it would entertain taking up Smith, but it is not obliged to make any ruling or detailed comment about it. However, multiple justices have made comments reflecting their willingness to reconsider that ruling, and lawyers are prepared to present arguments about Smith broadly — and how it pertains to Fulton.

The possibility that the newly 6-3 conservative-majority court could overturn Smith and set a new precedent about the legal status of religion comes as the country is deeply unsettled about how to balance LGBTQ and other rights with the rights of religious traditionalists. There are increasingly diverse views about what constitutes religiosity in general and how it should be weighed against other rights and when and how much religion can be burdened.

A 2016 Pew poll showed Americans split down the middle on whether religious business owners who work in the wedding industry should be required to provide services to same-sex couples or be allowed to refuse. A much higher percentage — 67 percent — said employers with religious objections to providing contraception as part of their health-care plan should still be required to do so.

Demographics also show a country steadily becoming more religiously diverse, pluralistic and secular.

“On the one hand, you look at the [Supreme] Court, and especially with Barrett, religious freedom will be locked up for a while, even as the culture is moving in this other direction unabated,” said Daniel Bennett, a political scientist at John Brown University who focuses on religion.

But this feels like a moment of huge potential for some religious groups and their advocates — religious conservatives in particular — who in recent decades have come to see themselves as endangered. Forty-six percent of evangelicals in an AP-NORC poll earlier this year said their religious freedom was under threat, as did 36 percent of Catholics.

Philadelphia Archbishop Nelson Pérez wrote in a Monday op-ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer that the Catholic church in the Fulton case is being told to “leave its faith at the door if it wants to serve those in need.”

That sense of threat prevails even though many religious liberty experts across the ideological spectrum agree that the legal place of religion has been getting stronger and more secure in the last decade or so. There have been multiple high-profile recent wins at the Supreme Court on cases including those favoring religious business owners (Burwell v. Hobby Lobby), religious employers (Our Lady of Guadalupe v. Morrissey-Berru), religious displays (American Legion v. American Humanist Association) and religious schools (Espinoza v. Montana).

Those cases touch on the two big arenas of religion in constitutional law — the establishment clause and the free exercise clause. Establishment cases deal with the Constitution’s ban on Congress endorsing, promoting or becoming too involved with religion. Free exercise cases deal with Americans’ rights to practice their faith.

 

If the Supreme Court strikes down E.D. vs. Smith, we become a theocracy, full stop. 

That's what's at stake.

That's what was always at stake.

But America decided four years ago and again two years ago that Trump and Mitch McConnell should make those choices.

StupidiNews!

• More than 2,200 inmates in New Jersey already awaiting release due to sentencing credits will be released this week as the state battles this fall's national COVID-19 resurgence.
• As the US approaches 10 million COVID-19 cases, the European Union has already surpassed 11 million as major outbreaks in Germany, Italy, France and the UK continue.
• At least 5 are dead in Honduras as Tropical Storm Eta heads back out over warmer water and towards Florida, the storm slammed into Central America this week as a Category 4 storm.
• Marijuana ballot measures passed in five states this week as the number of states now allowing at least some usage of marijuana is now up to 38.
• The Trump regime has officially left the Paris Climate Agreement, but Joe Biden has indicated that one of his first acts after inauguration would be rejoining the global climate compact.

Last Call For House Definitely Afire

Dave Wasserman, Cook Political Report's House guru, is the first to admit his calls were catastrophically wrong, and that the likely voter models did not account for the 70% turnout in this week's election favoring the Republicans so much, nor the massive ticket-splitting as Never Trump Republicans and independents racked up huge voting totals for GOP House candidates.

 

Republicans appear to have swept at least 18 of the 27 races in our Toss Up column, with Democrats leading precariously in only three of those races and another six up in the air. Republicans also appear to have won at least four of the races in our Lean Democratic column (FL-26, SC-01, TX-23 and TX-24) and even one race in our Likely Democratic column, where Miami Democratic Rep. Donna Shalala (FL-27) went down to defeat.

Meanwhile, beyond two North Carolina seats that Democrats were guaranteed to pick up because of redrawn district lines, Democrats appear to have only picked up one other GOP seat with Carolyn Bourdeaux in GA-07. This Gwinnett County seat also performed strongly for Biden. There's also a chance Democrat Hiral Tipirneni will defeat GOP Rep. David Schweikert in AZ-06, but there are plenty of Arizona votes left to count.

There will be a lot for everyone to unpack in the days, weeks, and months ahead about what much of the survey data got wrong at multiple levels. But credit should be given to the NRCC, led by chair Tom Emmer and executive director Parker Hamilton Poling, as well as the Congressional Leadership Fund led by executive director Dan Conston, for continuing to invest on offense when other consultants wrote races off.

The day after the election is always a fog of war, but there are three lessons from the early House results:

1. Democrats suffered a catastrophic erosion in Hispanic support.

The races where Republicans most vastly outperformed everyone's priors were heavily Hispanic districts that swung enormously to Trump. These include both GOP pickups in Miami (Carlos Gimenez in FL-26 and Maria Elvira Salazar in FL-27) as well as Republican Tony Gonzales's hold of Rep. Will Hurd's open TX-23. Amazingly, Republicans didn't lose a single seat in Texas.

2. It was a stellar night for Republican women.

We already knew before the election five more GOP women were coming to the House from safe red seats: Kat Cammack (FL-03), Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA-14), Mary Miller (IL-15), Lisa McClain (MI-10) and Diana Harshbarger (TN-01). But after last night, Republicans are on track to more than double their current count of 13 women.

Among last night's GOP winners were Maria Elvira Salazar (FL-27), Victoria Spartz (IN-05), Ashley Hinson (IA-01), Michelle Fischbach (MN-07), Yvette Herrell (NM-02), Kendra Horn (IN-05), Nancy Mace (SC-01) and Beth Van Duyne (TX-24). It's also possible they will be joined by Young Kim (CA-39), Michelle Park Steel (CA-48), Mariannette Miller-Meeks (MN-02), Nicole Malliotakis (NY-11) and Claudia Tenney (NY-22).

3. Democrats' "national security freshmen" found ways to survive an otherwise poor night for their party in the House.

Although Democrats' challengers mostly fizzled, the four Democratic women from Trump districts who signed a letter last September launching an impeachment inquiry built bipartisan brands that paid off: Reps. Elissa Slotkin (MI-08), Mikie Sherrill (NJ-11), Elaine Luria (VA-02) and Abigail Spanberger (VA-07).

We'll have much more to say soon, but for now it's clear that House Republicans' centerpiece of female recruitment was a success, while House Democrats' centerpiece of Texas was a bust. And, Speaker Nancy Pelosi will need to navigate a much narrower majority in January.

 

The Dems got destroyed in Texas, and things went pear-shaped in Florida too. Latino outreach in Arizona was successful however. There are lessons there if the Dems choose to learn them.

 

Republicans already have.

The Fight For $15 Flies Far For Florida

Florida voters handily approved a hike in the state's minimum wage to $15 an hour, and Republicans are seething.

Voters in Florida have decided to amend the state’s constitution to increase the minimum wage to $15 per hour by Sept. 30, 2026.

With more than 60-percent of voters approving of Amendment 2, the state’s minimum wage will gradually go up.

The Florida Constitution, Article X, Section 24, will be modified to increase the existing state minimum wage from $8.56 an hour to $10 an hour starting Sept. 30, 2021. It then will increase by $1 each year until reaching $15 an hour in September 2026. Afterward, increases in minimum wage will be adjusted for inflation.

Lawyer John Morgan and his campaign, Florida For a Fair Wage, spearheaded this amendment.

“I’m confident because Floridians are compassionate and know that giving every worker a fair wage means not just lifting up those who would directly benefit but lifting up our broader economy when hardworking folks have more money to spend,” Morgan previously said.

In a letter to the Miami Herald, the president and CEO of the Florida Restaurant & Lodging Association wrote that an increase in the minimum wage would result in business owners finding ways to control costs.

“Solutions include reducing the number of employees and the hours that remaining employees work and seeking labor alternatives like automation,” Carol B. Dover stated ahead of the amendment’s passage.

 

The thing is though the "crushing job-killing minimum wage hike" hasn't killed the other seven states where $15 minimum wage is now law.

 

You know what has hurt low-paying jobs?

 

COVID-19 and the Republican response to it.

Orange Meltdown, Con't

As he all but promised to do on Twitter last week, Donald Trump held a 2 AM press conference and declared victory with millions of ballots still uncounted, and says his campaign will go to the Supreme Court to stop counting.

President Donald Trump early Wednesday morning kept up his tactic of characterizing counting all ballots as cheating.

“Millions and millions of people voted for us tonight,” he told gathered supporters at the White House. “And a very sad group of people is trying to disenfranchise that group of people and we won’t stand for it.”

It’s the same old story: Trump has argued for weeks that vote-counting should be stopped after Election Day — meaning, just throw out any ballots that take more than a few hours to count.

“We were getting ready for a big celebration,” he added. “We were winning everything, and all of the sudden it was just called off.”

“Frankly we did win this election,” he lied later.

 

It gets worse. Much much worse.

Shortly after Trump said “we’ll be going to the Supreme Court, we want all voting to stop,” MSNBC anchor Brian Williams abruptly cut in to call Trump out on his misleading claim that “frankly, we did win the election.”

“We are reluctant to step in, but duty bound to point out when he says we did win this election, we’ve already won, that’s not based in the facts at all,” Williams said.

 

We're now in a full-blown capital C Constitutional Crisis. 

 

We have been for a while now, frankly, but this is one where we don't come back from as a country without tremendous bloodshed if Trump is not stopped here. He is openly stating he will steal this election through the Supreme Court.

I've been warning about this scenario for months now.

 

It's finally here.

 

Only historically catastrophic things happen from this point on.

StupidiNews!

• A new Harvard Business School study finds that the number of Americans unable to pay bills has doubled since Republicans allowed CARES Act unemployment benefits to expire.
• Hurricane Eta has reached Nicaragua as a Category 4 storm, Eta is expected to move over inland Nicaragua and Honduras over the next 24-48 hours.
• Current US hospitalizations for COVID-19 have topped 50,000, the highest level in three months, as the number of daily new COVID-19 US cases continues to top the 100,000 mark.
• New Jersey voters have legalized recreational marijuana use, while Oregon voters have decriminalized a number of federally illegal drugs in small doses.
• A new study on haunted houses being "scary fun" finds that there's a hormonal mind/body balance point between being terrified and being thrilled by fear.
  

Last Call For A Long Week Ahead

 We still don't know a winner here at 11:30 PM EST, and we won't know for several days, most likely.

• Pennsylvania
• Michigan
• Wisconsin
• Georgia
• Florida
• North Carolina

All have yet to really be called, although Florida is probably going to be a Trump win. 

Arizona and Minnesota got called for Biden late in the evening however.

We'll see you in the morning.

California Goes Viral, Con't

Even if Joe Biden is eventually declared President after all the Trump legal tomfoolery, even after another two-and-a-half months of Trump doing scorched earth damage in the wake of a loss, if California is any example, Trump's federal judges (and Supreme Court!) will be blocking Democratic state and national executive orders for years, making getting anything done to fix the mess we're in almost impossible.

A Northern California county judge on Monday preliminarily ordered Gov. Gavin Newsom to stop issuing directives related to the coronavirus that might interfere with state law.

Sutter County Superior Court Judge Sarah Heckman tentatively ruled that one of the dozens of executive orders Newsom has issued overstepped his authority and impinged on the state Legislature.

She more broadly barred him “from exercising any power under the California Emergency Services Act which amends, alters, or changes existing statutory law or makes new statutory law or legislative policy.”

It’s the second time a judge in the same county has reached the same conclusion, which runs counter to other state and federal court decisions backing the governor’s emergency powers. An appeals court quickly stayed the earlier order in June.

Heckman’s decision will become final in 10 days unless Newsom’s attorneys can raise new challenges. Newsom did not immediately comment or say if he will appeal.

The case centers on a single Newsom executive order in June requiring election officials to establish hundreds of locations statewide where voters can cast ballots in the November election. But lawmakers subsequently approved the same requirement, and the judge’s decision will have no effect on Tuesday’s election.

She acted in a lawsuit brought by Republican Assemblymen James Gallagher and Kevin Kiley, who said Newsom, a Democrat, was single-handedly overriding state laws in the name of keeping Californians safe.

“This is a victory for separation of powers,” the lawmakers said in a joint statement. Newsom “has continued to create and change state law without public input and without the deliberative process provided by the Legislature.”

Heckman wrote in a nine-page decision that the California Emergency Services Act “does not permit the Governor to amend statutes or make new statutes. The Governor does not have the power or authority to assume the Legislature’s role of creating legislative policy and enactments.”

Newsom used his emergency powers to virtually shut down the state and its economy in the early weeks of the pandemic.

“Nobody disputes that there are actions that should be taken to keep people safe during an emergency,” the lawmakers said. “But that doesn’t mean that we put our Constitution and free society on hold by centralizing all power in the hands of one man.”

 

After decades of the "unitary executive" legal principle, Republicans are now arguing that Governors have no powers, and that everything rests with state legislatures...which happened to be controlled by Republicans in many cases.  California's is not, but blocking Newsom's orders, as was the attempted case here in Kentucky a few months ago, is the point. 

Even if they are temporary, it disrupts the process and undermines authority. If Republicans cannot rule, Trump's judges will make sure the country remains ungovernable, even in deep blue California.

 

Europe's Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

Multiple gunmen opened fire Tuesday in Vienna, attacking in several locations around the center of the city, as authorities continue to hunt the attackers in what Chancellor Sebastian Kurz is calling "a repulsive terror attack".

Gunmen armed with rifles have opened fire in six different locations in central Vienna, killing three people and wounding several more, police say.

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz called it a "repulsive terror attack" and said one gunman was also killed.

Police were searching for at least one attacker who was still at large, the interior minister said.

The shootings took place near Vienna's central synagogue but it is not yet clear if that was the target.

The city's police chief said two men and a woman were killed. At least a dozen other people were wounded, officials said.

The attack happened just hours before Austria imposed new national restrictions to try to stem rising cases of coronavirus. Many people were out enjoying bars and restaurants which are now closed until the end of November.

European leaders strongly condemned the shooting. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he was "deeply shocked by the terrible attacks".

Police said the incident began at about 20:00 (19:00 GMT) on Monday, near the Seitenstettengasse synagogue, when a heavily armed man opened fire on people outside cafes and restaurants.

Members of the special forces quickly arrived at the scene. One policeman suffered a gunshot wound before other officers shot the perpetrator, who was armed with an automatic rifle, a pistol and a machete.

Jewish community leader Oskar Deutsch tweeted that the synagogue was closed at the time the attack began.

 

Just remember that as bad as things are here in the US, Europe has seen multiple terrorist attacks like this in the last several years, and there's no indication that the EU is dealing with their right-wing white supremacist fascism problem any better than the United States is, especially during a resurgent pandemic.

StupidiNews, Election Day Edition!

• It's Election Day here in America. If you're heading to the polls today, be safe, mask up, and check vote.org to double-check your polling place location.
• If anyone tries to stop you from voting, know your rights. Call 1-866-687-8683 to reach the Election Protection Hotline.
• Get out there and vote!
  

Last Call For Zandar's Final Map

In the end, I agree with Charlie Cook. Trump is out of time, Biden's lead is too big, Trump would have to run the table on too many states, and the only real question is how big Biden's victory margin will be.

On a hundred-odd Zoom meetings, webinars, and conference call speeches that I’ve participated in over the past two months, virtual attendees continue to raise the possibility of a contested presidential election, even though the chances of that have been getting smaller all the time. Every day that Trump remains behind in the polls, outspent badly and with the early vote gushing in, the cone of uncertainty narrows, and the odds of such an upset goes down.

Joe Biden’s path to 270 electoral votes seems pretty straightforward: Hold all 20 states (plus the District of Columbia) that Hillary Clinton carried four years ago, which total 232 electoral votes, just 38 short of the majority threshold of 270. Then win each of the three states that Clinton lost by eight-tenths of a point or less: Michigan (0.2 percentage points) Pennsylvania (0.7), and Wisconsin (0.8). That gives him 278 electoral votes, eight more than needed. Biden will likely also carry two congressional districts that eluded Clinton in 2016, Nebraska’s 2nd District and Maine’s 2nd, giving him 280 electoral votes. That would represent a “skinny” Biden win.

A big Biden win would bring in Arizona, Florida, and North Carolina, and might also include one or two states from the next tier, mostly likely Georgia or Iowa, although don’t count out Ohio or Texas. Generally speaking, Trump is underperforming his 2016 pace by 3 to 8 points, depending upon the state or district.

The RealClearPolitics average of national polls pegs Biden’s lead at 7.4 points, 51.1 to 43.7 percent. But that’s a less discriminating measure, including as it does some mediocre surveys, some that seemed congenitally slanted toward one side or the other, and some that would be better utilized lining hamster cages. The FiveThirtyEight modeled average of national polls, which is more selective than the RCP average but still includes some surveys that I consider rather sketchy, puts the Biden lead at 8.8 points, 52 to 43.2 percent.

I believe his actual lead is more like 9 or 10 points, based on the higher-quality, live-telephone-interview national polls conducted since the first debate, as well as the gold standard of online polling, the Pew Research Center’s mammoth poll of 11,929 voters released two weeks ago.

Any way you slice it, these are pretty good leads, considerably higher than the 3.2-point national margin that Hillary Clinton had over Trump in the RCP average on Oct. 29, 2016. When all the votes were counted, the margin ended up being 2.1 percent.

If I had to give you a map, and I do, frankly, it would look like this.

305-233 Biden.  And I think I might be underestimating GA, FL, OH, and TX.

God I hope I'm right.

You're Vlad Marugov, The Sausage King Of Moscow?

Hey, it's not election news for once as the Sausage King of Moscow has been assassinated by crossbow bolt. Nope, serious. May even have not been Putin's fault, either.

 

A Russian oligarch, nicknamed The Sausage King, has been murdered with a crossbow, investigators say.

Vladimir Marugov and his partner were in an outdoor sauna when they were attacked, reportedly by two masked assailants.

The woman managed to escape through the window and call the police.

Detectives found the body of Mr Marugov, who owned some of Russia's largest meat-processing plants, in the sauna with a crossbow next to it.

The attack happened at Mr Marugov's countryside estate, about 40km (25 miles) outside the capital, Moscow, early on Monday morning, Russia's Investigative Committee (similar to the FBI in the US) reported.

It did not name the man, but local media identified him as Mr Marugov, the owner of the Ozyorsky and Meat Empire sausage factories.

The intruders demanded cash from Mr Marugov, before fleeing in a car, the Investigative Committee said.

The getaway car was later recovered on the outskirts of the town of Istra, outside Moscow.

 

This is twenty, thirty minutes of a good Guy Ritchie film right here.  Somebody get me Jason Statham, Peter Stormare, Rooney Mara and Dave Bautista.

Also, just kidding, everything having to do with Russian oligarchs dying is Putin's fault.

Trump Goes Viral And Fauci Goes Off

Leading US infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci is warning of a dire several months ahead as Donald Trump continues to lie to America about COVID-19 at his rallies, with just hours to go before Election Day. And for the first time, Fauci is now openly blaming Trump for the country's failures in controlling the pandemic.

Fauci, who once took a starring role in the response and briefed the president almost every day as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, described a disjointed response as cases surge. Several current and former senior administration officials said the White House is almost entirely focused on a vaccine, even though experts warn it is unlikely to be a silver bullet that ends the pandemic immediately since it will take months under the best of circumstances to inoculate tens of millions of people to achieve herd immunity.

Officials told governors on a call Friday that they hoped to begin distributing a vaccine by the end of the year, giving some specific guidance on how states would receive their first doses. Fauci focused on the rise in cases, according to people familiar with the call.

Fauci said the White House coronavirus task force meets less frequently and has far less influence as the president and his top advisers have focused on reopening the country. “Right now, the public health aspect of the task force has diminished greatly,” he said.

Fauci said he and Deborah Birx, coronavirus task force coordinator, no longer have regular access to the president and he has not spoken to Trump since early October. “The last time I spoke to the president was not about any policy; it was when he was recovering in Walter Reed, he called me up,” he said. Fauci said he phones into meetings of other staffers but largely avoids the West Wing because “of all the infections there.”

He also lamented that Scott Atlas, a neuroradiologist and Trump’s favored pandemic adviser, who advocates letting the virus spread among young healthy people and reopening the country without restrictions, is the only medical adviser the president regularly meets with.

“I have real problems with that guy,” Fauci said of Atlas. “He’s a smart guy who’s talking about things that I believe he doesn’t have any real insight or knowledge or experience in. He keeps talking about things that when you dissect it out and parse it out, it doesn’t make any sense.”

Fauci said he actually appreciated chief of staff Mark Meadows saying last weekend on CNN that the administration was not going to control the pandemic. “I tip my hat to him for admitting the strategy,” he said. “He is straightforward in telling you what’s on his mind. I commend him for that.”

 

At this point, don't be surprised if Fauci is silenced completely or even fired after the election. (Trump even suggested he would do so "a few days after the election" at one of his rallies last night.)

At one point during the interview, Fauci said he needed to be careful with his words because he would be blocked from doing appearances in the future.

Judd Deere, a White House spokesman, offered blistering criticism of Fauci for his comments in a statement to The Washington Post on Saturday. Deere said Fauci “knows the risks [from the coronavirus] today are dramatically lower than they were only a few months ago.”

“It’s unacceptable and breaking with all norms for Dr. Fauci, a senior member of the President’s Coronavirus Task Force and someone who has praised President Trump’s actions throughout this pandemic, to choose three days before an election to play politics,” Deere said. “As a member of the Task Force, Dr. Fauci has a duty to express concerns or push for a change in strategy, but he’s not done that, instead choosing to criticize the President in the media and make his political leanings known by praising the President’s opponent — exactly what the American people have come to expect from The Swamp.”

Deere added that the president “always put the well-being of the American people first,” citing his decision to cut off travel from China, his early shutdown of the country and his mobilization of the private sector to deliver critical supplies and develop treatments and vaccines.

 

It's far from the first time the Trump regime has gone after Fauci, but this is definitely the first time that the good doctor has taken a swing or three back like this. Should Trump win a second term, Fauci's name is almost certainly at the top of the list of Trump's mass loyalty purge.

President Donald Trump and his top aides are planning a huge overhaul of his Cabinet if he wins a second term, scuttling officials in key health-related and intelligence jobs who Trump views as disloyal, slow-acting or naysayers.

The shift would amount to a purge of any Cabinet member who has crossed the president, refused to mount investigations he has demanded, or urged him to take a different, more strict tack on the coronavirus response.

The evictions could run the gamut from senior health officials to much of the national security leadership. Already, the White House and administration officials have started to vet names of health care experts who could take over the agencies running many elements of the government’s pandemic response and overseeing the country’s health insurance system, according to two Republicans close to the White House. And the president is eying a remake of leadership at the FBI, CIA and Pentagon, exasperated with what he perceives as unwillingness to investigate his preferred subjects or take on the government’s “deep state.”

This personnel overhaul of the Trump Cabinet at the start of a second term would mirror the turnover his administration has already experienced during his first four years. Of the 23 Cabinet-level posts in the Trump White House, only seven officials lasted all four years. Many, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt and Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, had public and contentious departures. And it would represent a fully unencumbered Trump, no longer constrained by political considerations or pushback from Congress.

“I can only imagine the score-settling Trump would undertake if he won,” said one Republican close to the White House about the potential Cabinet shakeup.

235,000 Americans and counting are already dead, and hundreds of thousands more will follow in the weeks and months ahead, regardless of who wins the election. Trump will spend his final days in power making those who chose to vote him out of office suffer, win or lose.

So, if you're somehow still on the fence over your vote on Tuesday, for the love of God, vote for Biden.

Four more years of Trump will kill millions of us.

 

StupidiNews!

• Trump regime officials are planning to put up "non-salable fencing" around a four-block area surrounding the White House, the same fencing used earlier this year during protests.
• A Georgia Democratic campaign rally was moved to a Zoom virtual event after Georgia militia Trump supporters threatened the rally with armed violence.
• DC Federal Judge Emmet Sullivan has ordered the US Postal Service to "deliver every possible ballot" to election offices by Tuesday's cutoff time.
• The Trump regime is expected to announce a 180-day moratorium on asylum entries due to "COVID-19 concerns" this week as the White House begins a new crackdown on immigration.
• Tropical Storm Eta is the 28th named storm in 2020, tying 2005's Atlantic record, and is expected to reach Category 1 hurricane strength on Monday before hitting the western Yucatan Peninsula.