Crooked Media - What A Day: Unmasked and answered

The utterly thinkable has happened: Donald Trump has contracted coronavirus.
 

• Trump announced that he and Melania both tested positive for COVID-19 in a late-night tweet, shortly after the Thursday revelation that his close aide Hope Hicks had tested positive after traveling on Air Force One with him sans mask. The White House contends that Trump is experiencing mild symptoms, and Melania has tweeted the same of herself; Trump has nevertheless been taken to Walter Reed as a “precautionary measure.” Many of the most powerful people in government and politics have been exposed (along with reporters, aides, and the entire White House support staff), the country has tipped into a brave new world of chaos, and all of it was entirely preventable.
   
• The president’s personal plague journey is a perfect miniature of the carelessness he’s shown on a national scale. Trump proceeded with his usual schedule after learning that Hicks had tested positive, complete with a crowded New Jersey fundraiser, at which he downplayed the virus. The White House did not publicly disclose Hicks’s diagnosis, nor inform everyone who had been in contact with her. Trump’s family and campaign staff refused to wear masks at the Tuesday debate, which Trump participated in without being tested before heading onstage to mock Joe Biden for wearing masks and not holding superspreader rallies. Trump and his team then attended a Minnesota fundraiser where people sang motherfucking karaoke on Wednesday. 
   
• We don’t know how the West Wing outbreak began (the law-and-order candidate initially blamed the military and police), but there’s increasing evidence to suggest that Trump’s Rose Garden nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court last weekend was a superspreader event. Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT)—who attended without a mask but with the urge to hug—has tested positive, as has the president of Notre Dame. Other confirmed infections in and around Trumpworld include RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, and at least three members of the White House press corps. As the consequences of flouted safety measures burst into view all around them, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany and Chief of Staff Mark Meadows have continued to brief reporters without wearing masks. 

This mother of all October surprises throws the election homestretch into more or less total uncertainty. Here’s what we know:

• Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have both tested negative—an overwhelming relief, but thanks to the Trump team’s recklessness on Tuesday, they’re not completely out of the woods yet. (This statement from Kristin Urquiza, one of Biden’s guests at the debate, is worth a read.) It’s not clear whether or how the remaining debates will go forward. The Trump campaign announced that all scheduled events involving the Trump family will go virtual or be postponed, while Biden returned (masked) to the campaign trail today. 
   
• Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell meanwhile insists that Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation process is “full steam ahead,” evidently willing to risk the lives of his members to deny health coverage to everyone else. Barrett herself reportedly already had coronavirus over the summer, and tested negative as of this morning. (This, incidentally, makes her a walking pre-existing condition, who has guaranteed health-care for life, but wants to take away yours.) In terms of continuity of government (such as it is), Vice President Mike Pence has tested negative, and filled in for Trump on his one scheduled Friday phone call.

It was likely only a matter of time before Donald Trump was touched by the virus that he’s already allowed—through negligence, corruption, and lies—to kill more than 200,000 Americans. The only certainty we have is that the stakes of this election have never been starker, and with Saturday marking one month until November 3, the work we need to do to win has never been more urgent. VoteSaveAmerica.com. 

On Saturday we will be ONE MONTH OUT FROM ELECTION DAY. Holy shit. It’s happening. If you haven’t yet, now’s the time to get involved—make some calls, get voters registered before their deadlines. Registration deadlines start as early as this Sunday, October 4th, so double-check to make sure you're registered. Our Adopt A State program is running a big weekend of action, and you can find more volunteer opportunities on votesaveamerica.com  →

A federal judge has (once again) ordered the Trump administration to continue the Census count through the end of October. Judge Lucy Koh wrote that Commerce Secretary/Oldest Man Wilbur Ross’s directive to end the count on October 5 was an “egregious violation” of her injunction order reinstating the October 31 end date. The Trump administration is in the process of appealing that order, but the appeals court has denied Trump’s request to put the ruling on hold in the meantime. At stake here is the data Trump needs for an anti-immigration power grab: If Census counting ends by October 5, he’ll have the apportionment data in time to implement his (illegal) policy of excluding undocument immigrants from the redistricting process, starving their communities of representation and federal resources. If not, and he loses the election, he and Republicans are out of luck.

• First Lady Melania Trump talked smack about Christmas and caged children on secretly-recorded audio, and somehow this was the small October surprise. “Who gives a fuck about the Christmas stuff and decorations? I say that I’m working on Christmas and planning for the Christmas and they said, ‘Oh, what about the children that they were separated?’ Give me a fucking break.” She don’t really care do u?
   
• Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron has released 20 hours of audio recordings from the Breonna Taylor grand jury. The recordings don’t include which charges prosecutors asked the jury to consider. 
   
• House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she’s open to a potential standalone airline-relief bill all of a sudden, which is an...interesting negotiation technique. 
   
• Cleveland, OH, has reported 11 coronavirus cases stemming from the presidential debate. 
   
• Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) is rightly getting sued up the wazoo by a voting rights group, the Texas Democratic Party, and others, over his order to close ballot-dropoff locations. 
   
• Seventeen House Republicans voted against a resolution to condemn QAnon, whose cult-members targeted Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ) with death threats. A total of 52 Republicans either voted against the resolution, abstained, or voted present. Malinowski became a QAnon target thanks to a defamatory ad commissioned by the National Republican Campaign Committee.
   
• Well, um...Kimberly Guilfoyle.
   
• Rick Moranis was randomly sucker-punched on a walk in Manhattan, in a troubling expansion of the October surprise genre. 
   
• Ireland’s Supreme Court has ruled that Subway’s bread is not bread, just when America is too distracted to fight back. 

Democratic leaders who have been working with Facebook to stem the spread of election misinformation say the company isn’t up to the task of preventing chaos. Democratic sources said that monthly calls with Facebook had left frustrated party members with the sense that the company isn’t doing nearly enough to stop disinformation attacks against Democratic candidates, or to prepare for dangerous post-election rhetoric: “They’re essentially slapping Band-Aids on wounds that require emergency room stitches.” Facebook has reportedly been using the meetings to run a public-relations charm offensive, rather than to work towards substantive solutions, which certainly sounds familiar.

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A North Carolina judge has approved the state’s plan to extend the absentee ballot deadline, and make it easier for voters to fix any problems on their ballot. 

Gov. Phil Murphy (D-NJ) has backed legislation that would codify Roe v. Wade into state law. 

Five major environmental groups will launch a joint effort to boost 30 Democratic House campaigns, and four Senate campaigns. 

It has begun.