There's a hell of a lot of news moving these days; it takes me hours to sort through it all. By far the most alarming story tonight is the one I've listed first, that around 10 Republican senators are discussing what to do if Trump refuses to leave office peacefully after he loses the election to Biden.
First, will he lose the election? There are still six days left and I suppose anything could happen, but the best indications we can locate indicate that he will lose by a substantial margin. Nate Silver's polling aggregation site "538" projects that Biden has a 88% chance of winning; Trump 12%.
If I were helping one of my grandchildren with math, the easiest way of illustrating those odds would be to get 25 pennies and set three of them to the side. "Those three are Trump," I could say. "The other 22 are Biden."
But what is frightening about him losing is the prospect that Trump won't leave of his own accord. I suppose ultimately that Congress would have to declare a state of war and send the military into the White House to extract him like an infected tooth.
Alas, this isn't Hollywood, I keep forgetting.
But it apparently is reality TV, and the star actor is prone to temper tantrums. He can't stand it when he loses in the ratings.
Well, hold on to your stirrups, because somebody may be about to lose in the ratings big-time. And if he won't go peacefully, the rest of us will have to act. I don't want to even contemplate the scale of action that will have to become.
***
Here you go...
* As many as 10 GOP senators are “talking with each other about how to restrain what they regard as an out-of-control” president who is “determined to do anything to hold on to office regardless of its legality,” Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein told CNN’s Ana Cabrera without naming anyone involved. Trump has refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses, and has repeatedly tried to undermine the integrity of the electoral process by claiming the only way he can lose is if the vote is rigged. [HuffPost]
* Crowd Chants ‘Lock Her Up’ After Trump Lashes Out at Whitmer -- President Trump lashed out at Michigan’s governor, Gretchen Whitmer, during his rally in Lansing, Mich. Tuesday criticizing her for imposing too many restrictions to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. (NYT) This is what Hitler was like in the 1930s. (DW)
* Police de-escalation training gaining renewed clout as law enforcement seeks to reduce killings (WashPo)
* France Emerges as Covid-19 Epicenter as Cases Surge Across Europe (WSJ)
* The five conservatives on the Supreme Court affirmed an appeals court ruling overturning a decision that would have extended Wisconsin’s mail-in ballot receipt deadline by six days. Absentee ballots in Wisconsin now must be received by the close of polls on Election Day or they'll be trashed. Hidden within the main concurrence written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh are two threats much greater than overturning six extra days for ballots to arrive by mail: He explicitly endorsed legal theories that could help President Donald Trump stop the counting of mailed ballots after Election Day or, worse, override results with the help of Republican state legislatures. [HuffPost]
* Colleges Slash Budgets in the Pandemic, With ‘Nothing Off-Limits’ -- Liberal arts departments, graduate student aid and even tenured teaching positions are targets as the coronavirus causes shortfalls. (NYT)
* Trump is right: He can’t contain the virus. But a better president could. (WashPo)
* Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan slammed the court’s decision not to extend the deadline to receive mail-in ballots in Wisconsin and said it would “disenfranchise large numbers of responsible voters in the midst of hazardous pandemic conditions.” Her dissent was joined by liberal justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor. “The Court has failed to adequately protect the Nation’s voters,” she added. [HuffPost]
* Japan’s New Leader Sets Ambitious Goal of Carbon Neutrality by 2050 (NYT)
* Biden’s ‘gaffe’ is the truth: Oil is history (WashPo)
* 90,000 Told to Flee as California Fires Nearly Double in Size -- The Silverado Fire and the Blue Ridge Fire grew rapidly overnight, forcing more evacuations in Irvine and other parts of Orange County. (NYT)
* Southern California Edison said its equipment may have sparked a fast-moving wildfire that forced evacuation orders for some 100,000 people and seriously injured two firefighters on Monday as powerful winds across the state prompted power to be cut to hundreds of thousands. A smoky fire exploded in size to over 11 square miles after breaking out around dawn in Orange County, south of Los Angeles. Gusts pushed flames along brushy ridges in Silverado Canyon and near houses in the sprawling city of Irvine, home to about 280,000 residents. There was no containment. [AP]
* Hospitals in nearly every region report a flood of Covid-19 patients (WashPo)
* Storm-weary Louisiana is once again under a hurricane warning, with Zeta leaving Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula on a path that could hit New Orleans Wednesday night. (AP)
* Latino communities are pivotal in Pennsylvania, where their share of the population has more than doubled in the past 20 years. Sixty-nine percent of Puerto Ricans in Pennsylvania say the federal government has not responded to Hurricane Maria well, suggesting an eagerness to cast out the Trump regime. [HuffPost]
* The moon may hold frozen water in more places and in larger quantities than previously suspected, which is good news for astronauts at future lunar bases who could tap into these resources for drinking and making rocket fuel. While previous observations have indicated millions of tons of ice in the permanently shadowed craters of the moon’s poles, this latest research take the availability of lunar surface water to a new level. [AP]
* Even vampire bats practice social distancing when they get sick: study (Market Watch)
* The Dodgers beat the Rays in game six to win their first World Series since 1988. (Fox)
***
'Cause everyone makes mistakes
Oh, yes they do
Your sister and your brother and your dad and mother too;
Big people, small people, matter of fact, all people!
Everyone makes mistakes, so why can't you?
-- Sesame Street
-30-
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