How Much Damage Will Trump Do Between Today And January 20? He Badly Wants To Make A Deal For A Blanket Pardon

 

Who's still left?

Being better than Trump is the lowest imaginable bar but that doesn't mean that Biden isn't going to immediately make things better in a real way-- and for all of us. Reporting for the Washington Post yesterday, Laura Meckler, Danielle Douglas-Gabriel and Valerie Strauss wrote that "Trump tried to bully schools into opening their buildings, a hard-edge pandemic tactic that succeeded in places and backfired elsewhere. President-elect Joe Biden is hoping to pry them open with money for increased coronavirus expenses and clear guidance on how to do so safely, a shift that signals a new era for education policy in America. Under Trump, the Education Department has been led by Secretary Betsy DeVos, who alienated many by casting public schools as failures and promoting alternatives to them. Through executive action and negotiations with Congress, Biden wants to bolster public schools. Biden has promised hundreds of billions of dollars in new education spending, from preschool through college. He has proposed college debt forgiveness.

Many of Biden’s promises require new spending, and that will require support from Congress, a heavy lift, particularly if the Senate remains under Republican control.

Biden has promised to triple spending for the $15 billion Title 1 program, which targets high-poverty schools. He has said he would double the number of psychologists, counselors, nurses and social workers in schools. He has vowed new money for school infrastructure. And he has said he would dramatically increase federal spending for special education.

He also wants to fund universal prekindergarten for all 3- and 4-year-old children; make community college debt-free; and double Pell grants to help low-income students pay for college.

First up will be coronavirus-related spending, particularly if Congress has not passed a relief package before Inauguration Day. Some emergency funding for schools was approved in the spring, but the Trump administration has been unable to cut a legislative deal for additional money.

Biden has endorsed at least $88 billion to stabilize state education funding and help pay for protective equipment, ventilation systems, reduced class sizes and other expenses associated with operating school during the pandemic.

...[T]he new administration is likely undo many of the things that DeVos did, and redo some of the Obama administration policies that DeVos undid.

DeVos rescinded Education Department guidance meant to reduce racial disparities in school discipline, for instance, something the incoming administration can reinstate. The administration also spiked Obama-era guidance that offered protections for transgender students, including the right to use bathrooms corresponding with their gender identity. And it killed guidance on use of affirmative action in college admissions.

Other likely reversals: a Justice Department lawsuit alleging discrimination against White and Asian students at Yale University; a ban on federal grant recipients from holding diversity training, and an investigation into Princeton University, launched after the university’s president spoke of institutional racism on campus.

“It’s a new day around this national conversation about race and equity ... making sure communities are not intentionally or unintentionally left out opportunities will be key,” said Tiffany Jones, senior director of higher-education policy at the nonprofit Education Trust.

...Some observers expect the incoming administration to be even tougher on for-profit colleges than Obama was. Vice President-elect Kamala D. Harris was instrumental in bringing down Corinthian Colleges, a for-profit giant, when she was California state attorney general and as a senator supported efforts to hold predatory for-profit colleges to account.

“Policies will be designed to protect students and taxpayers first,” predicted Dan Zibel, who worked at the agency under Obama and is now chief counsel at the National Student Legal Defense Network, a nonprofit he co-founded. He said that would likely include “taking harder stances against schools and companies using financial aid system to scam students.”

And that's one department. Biden's team is going to have to do that in every facet of government-- and start doing it even while we are still living through a disruptive, vengeful lame-duck presidency, a lame duck Congress, an hostile and obstructive Senate and two Senate races (in Georgia) that are "life-or-death" struggles for each very antagonistic "side." Congress is back in DC today, "confronting," as Erica Werner, Paul Kane and Yasmeen Abutaleb reported last night, "a number of major problems but lacking clear signals from President Trump-- even as President-elect Joe Biden and his team are poised to begin engaging with congressional Democrats on their priorities. Congress faces a government shutdown deadline and crucial economic relief negotiations at a moment of extraordinary national uncertainty, with Trump refusing to concede the presidential election and with coronavirus cases spiking nationwide. Even before Biden takes office on Jan. 20, Congress must contend with a Dec. 11 government funding deadline. Failure to reach a deal would result in a government shutdown, and Trump has not signaled whether he would sign a new spending bill. At the same time, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) have both expressed the desire to pass new economic and health-care relief measures to address the surging coronavirus pandemic-- something Congress has not been able to do since the spring. But it is uncertain whether they will be able to find common ground in the weeks ahead: McConnell is pushing for a narrow and targeted bill, while Pelosi continues to insist on a broader and bolder relief package."

A handful of Trump’s staunchest allies insisted Sunday that the election is far from over. Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-SC), who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, claimed in an interview on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures” that there have been suspect voting incidents in Pennsylvania, Michigan and elsewhere.

“And I’m hellbent on looking at it,” Graham said. “Do not accept the media’s declaration of Biden. Fight back.”

Disorganized Crime by Nancy Ohanian

There is no evidence of any widespread fraud in the election. But the divisions among congressional Republicans over whether to acknowledge Biden as the president-elect mean that negotiations over a new spending package or coronavirus relief bill will proceed under something of a cloud.

Yesterday, on Fox, Lindsey Graham hissed that "If Republicans don't challenge and change the U.S. election system, there will never be another Republican president elected again. President Trump should not concede. We're down to less-- 10,000 votes in Georgia. He's going to win North Carolina. We have gone from 93,000 votes to less than 20,000 votes in Arizona, where more-- more votes to be counted." Meanwhile, Axios reported last night that apart from a few die-hards, most people close to President Trump know the race is over-- but no one wants to be the sacrificial lamb who tells him to concede, people familiar with their thinking tell me... Top Trump advisers sat the president down at the White House on Saturday and walked him through the 'options for success'... [T]hey made clear to Trump the likely outcome of waging these legal battles, but he was firm that he wants to forge ahead anyway... [E]ven Trump has discussed the possibility of not winning. He has accepted that losing may be an outcome but insists on pursuing what he claims is mass fraud. Several of his close advisers, including social media guru Dan Scavino and personnel director Johnny McEntee, are egging him on. But people one rung out have privately accepted reality. They know the court cases are dead ends, and some are already putting out job feelers."

Jordan Fabian reported for Bloomberg that Trump's legal advisers say his legal challenges are futile

What Is Trump Really Up To? It Sure Isn't Helping The GOP Suckers Who Enabled Him All This Time

On Wednesday, Brookings published a report by Jon Valant, School reopening plans linked to politics rather than public health, which is bound to be more than concerning for millions of parents and teachers. "One of the most enduring-- and maddening-- aspects of Betsy DeVos’s legacy as secretary of education will be the way she has politically charged complicated issues in education. By reducing nuanced issues to a simple directive or judgment, she has attached her reputation-- and President Trump’s reputation in turn-- to those positions, making the issues as polarizing as the two of them... [W]e need to be clear-eyed that national politics-- and the strings attached to federal resources-- can affect the decisions of local and state leaders. Politicization has become an immediate concern for the COVID-19 relief package, which now threatens to withhold funds from school districts in severely affected areas that need to build remote learning capacity. As Sarah Reber and Nora Gordon have argued, Congress needs to move quickly and generously, without playing games with school reopening politics. Now is a time for local and state policymakers to focus on the best interests of their communities, apart from how that relates to matters of ideology and national politics. Of course, better leadership from the federal government would take us a long way in that direction. How can the Republicans be rushing headlong into this minefield right before an election when the vast majority of Americans are skeptical-- at the minimum-- about reopening schools willy nilly, the way Israel did, much to its chagrin as the pandemic exploded across the country causing a worse shutdown than the first one-- as well as a case total of 70,970, the 33rd worst total in the world for a tiny country with the 96th biggest population? Because of the totally botched school reopening, Israel now has more cases than European countries with much bigger populations, from Holland, Belgium and Portugal to Poland, Greece and Czechia.

Is it possible that Trump just doesn't care that he's dragging the entire Republican Party down the toilet with him? The #NeverTrump conservative Republicans at The Bulwark have a theory about that. Although they assert that not losing is Trump's top priority, none of his other priorities include helping any Republicans below him on the ballot. In an intro to the theory, they quoted Bob Dole-- an institutional conservative Republican who very much did care about the well-being on the GOP, even as he was losing his 1996 election bid-- who more recently said of Señor Trumpanzee: "This man, in addition to his general bad character and unfitness for office, has no interest in the Republican party as an institution and will burn it to the ground if he thinks it will profit him one iota. Ceding control of the party to a person whose incentives have previously, and may in the future, wildly diverge from the party's incentives is an invitation to disaster."

That leads one to wonder about what Trump is doing for the party as election season approaches-- aside from tweeting out his lame and utterly insincere one-size-fits-all Twitter endorsements. This is how The Bulwark columnist sees Trump's hierarchy of priorities right now

(1) Win the election.
(2) Avoid blame for losing the election.
(3) Bind his voters more tightly to his own person.
(4) Establish a framework for his next venture.

You will note that "Protecting Congressional Republicans" is not on that list.

It is becoming clear-- even to Trump-- that barring extreme outside events, his primary goal is off the table. While it remains possible that some event intercede-- a meteor strike, a shooting war, a health crisis-- there is nothing that Trump himself can really do to change the outcome of the election.

And so as you move down Trump's incentive structure, he has pivoted to items (2), (3), and (4).

In furtherance of those goals, we should expect Trump to be more erratic and outlandish, more openly racist, and to flirt even more openly with outright delegitimization of the election.

Why? Because these actions will shift blame away from himself, activate and validate the bitter-enders who are part of the Trump cult, and provide him with a launch pad for his post-presidential scheme, where he can promise to give people the real story of what happened with the election. (For just $9.95 a month.)

All of this will be-- just objectively speaking-- good for Trump. It will make him money, enhance his hold on the Republican party, and pave the way for him to be the decider on the party's 2024 nominee.

It is unlikely to be good for the Republican Party.

In all the hand-wringing about how the awful, no-good Never Trumper types want to "burn it all down" you rarely see any Republicans complaining about how it's Trump who's doing the actual burning.

Which only proves my point. The party made a deal with a man they did not fully understand. And now they're trying to pass the bill to someone else.

They deserve Trump and I have no tears for them. They inflicted Trumpism on the rest of us with, in most cases, eyes wide open. No tears when I see careerist hacks like Susan Collins, Steve Daines, Joni Ernst, Dan Sullivan, Martha McSally, Cory Gardner, Michael McCaul, Roger Williams, Donald J. Bacon, Fred Upton. John Katko, Ken Calvert and dozens and dozens more out on their asses after the first of the year. My eyes will be dry.

Un-Re-Opening... California Takes The Step

"Die For Him Grandpa" by Nancy Ohanian

California is a COVID-mess, particularly the southern part of the state, where all the counties followed Gov. Gavin Newsom into a wait-and-see approach (while the Bay Area counties ignored Newsom's cowardice and shut down fast and managed to stave off the worst of the pandemic that is devastating southern California. Even though Newsom is making it next to impossible to get tested in L.A. County any more, on Sunday the state reported 7,702 confirmed new cases-- bringing the state total to second in the nation and 8,293 cases for every million Californians. California will be number one in the country in August. Yesterday the state reported another 8,350 new cases, bringing the state total to 336,037 and 8,505 cases per million Californians. L.A., Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside counties are all out of control.

L.A. Unified, America's second largest school district (730,00 students) and the San Diego Unified (135,000 students), the two largest districts in the state, announced yesterday what was inevitable-- the autumn will be all on-line classes. In case anyone was having any second thoughts about that, the teachers unions-- with 83% backing from the rank and file-- said teachers would not be showing up for scheduled classes on August 18.

The NY Times noted that the "joint announcement came as Education Secretary Betsy DeVos continued to press the Trump administration’s case to quickly reopen public schools, not only for students’ social and emotional development, but also to allow parents to return to work fully. In television appearances over the weekend, she downplayed both the virus and the school reopening guidelines issued by the administration’s own public health officials. 'I think the go-to needs to be kids in school, in person, in the classroom, because we know for most kids, that’s the best environment for them,' Ms. DeVos said on CNN’s State of the Union. She also reiterated the administration’s stance that guidelines issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention deeming in-person classes the 'highest risk' option were not mandatory. President Trump threatened last week to cut off federal funding to schools that did not reopen their campuses."

Los Angeles school superintendent Austin Beutner, seeming to answer DeVos, said, "There’s a public health imperative to keep schools from becoming a petri dish." He added that schools "can’t just tap our heels together" like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz and "pretend it’s appropriate to bring people back" despite "skyrocketing" rates of new infections.

Reopening by Nancy Ohanian

No reputable public health experts agree with Trump and DeVos that reopening in locales undergoing massive spikes is OK. "The recommendations from the president and Ms. DeVos," wrote The Times reporters, "have been disputed by many public health officials and teachers. On Friday, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Federation of Teachers, the National Education Association and AASA, the School Superintendents Association issued a statement saying that reopening recommendations should be 'based on evidence, not politics.' The groups added that 'we should leave it to health experts to tell us when the time is best to open up school buildings, and listen to educators and administrators to shape how we do it.'"

School districts in San Jose, Oakland and San Bernardino are following suit and sticking to remote teaching only.

The decision also comes as districts throughout the state are confronting resistance from California’s politically powerful teachers’ unions. Like many districts, both Los Angeles and San Diego have been engaged in tense negotiations over pandemic working conditions.

The Los Angeles teachers’ union called last week for campuses to remain closed and for learning to be fully remote when the district resumes classes on Aug. 18, saying Mr. Trump’s reopening push was part of a “dangerous, anti-science agenda.” In an informal survey released Friday of 18,000 United Teachers Los Angeles members, 83 percent agreed that campuses should not physically reopen.

And the state’s largest teachers’ union wrote a sharply worded letter last week to Gov. Gavin Newsom-- a Democrat elected with their support-- expressing concern “that politics are being played with the lives of children and the educators who serve them.”

“It is clear that communities and school districts have not come close to meeting the threshold for a safe return to in-person learning, even under a hybrid model,” the 310,000-member California Teachers Association wrote.

Some $13.5 billion went to K-12 education from the federal relief package passed in March by Congress. But education groups and school districts estimate that schools will need much more money to safely reopen, and with the economic impact of the pandemic having depleted many local and state budgets, it is unclear where it will come from.

As recently as late last week, leaders in San Diego Unified were promoting their plan to reopen five days a week, in person, for all students whose families chose that option. But the district had also warned that the health, sanitation and educational costs of reopening physical classrooms safely were so steep-- a minimum of $90 million for the coming school year-- that they would not be able to do so without a significant infusion of federal dollars.

So, that's the schools. What about the rest? It's widely believed that Newsom, pushed by his corporate donors and generally a real coward with the spine of a jellyfish, opened the state up too soon. So now he's trying to institute another lockdown-- ordering restaurants, bars, gyms, movie theaters and other businesses that serve customers indoors, and he ordered bars to close. USA Today reporter Nicole Hayden went into the fine-points of an order than goes into effect immediately.

She wrote that the order indicates that "all counties are required to close indoor operations of restaurants, wineries, tasting rooms, movie theaters, family entertainment centers, zoos, museums, card rooms and all bars. The 30 counties that are on the state’s targeted engagement list are ordered to close additional businesses. The targeted counties, which account for 80% of the state’s population, are also required to close indoor operations of fitness centers, places of worship, offices for non-critical sectors, personal hair services, and indoor malls. The state's engagement list details counties that are struggling to contain the spread of the virus. A week ago, just 23 counties were on this list. Placer, Sonoma, Sutter and Yuba counties were added to the list today."

As intensive care bed usage continues to surge across the state-- ICU capacity in Riverside County hit 100% on Friday-- Newsom says his actions will become more aggressive.

About 36% of the states total ICU beds remain available. In Placer, Lake and Butte counties, less than 20% of ICU beds are available, Newsom says.

"This continues to be a deadly disease," he said on Monday. "This continues to be a disease that puts people in our ICUs, in our hospitals and is currently putting a strain on our hospital system ... We're starting to see in some rural parts of the state an increase in ICU use that is generating some concern."

Across the state, COVID-19 hospitalizations increased 28% over a two-week period, which is better than the 50% increase presented about a week ago. However, officials expect to see another surge in cases and hospitalizations in the coming weeks because of the July 4 holiday.

"When you start to see ... constraint in terms of ICU beds an additional increase in use and utilization in ventilators it then draws our attention. The data then bears a consequence. The consequence being the data driving the decision to utilize that dimmer switch," Newsom said.

This "dimming" of the economy, as Newsom refers to the closures, comes after his administration allowed counties to reopen before they were prepared.

Of the 49 counties that were allowed to follow a quicker path in mid-May, 49% failed to meet at least one of the reopening criteria mandated by the state, according to an analysis by the Palm Springs Desert Sun.

At that time, nearly a third of the counties that received the green light didn’t have enough contact tracers, and more than 20% were failing to conduct enough coronavirus tests on a daily basis.

Newsom on Monday acknowledged that testing in California is currently "inadequate" to meet the needs of the state. He said it is "unacceptable" that the state is not able to do more widespread testing. Just last week, San Bernardino County canceled 11,000 coronavirus tests due to a supply shortage.

Counties began to show signs of struggle in June, as cases began increasing as a result of the reopening. Newsom said if counties didn't shape up, the state would step in, and gave a two-week deadline from the date they were initially placed on the targeted engagement list.

However, eight counties-- home to 35% of the state’s population-- were allowed to blow past that deadline, according to a Desert Sun analysis, and the state took no concrete action.

It wasn't until early July that the state took action, threatening to withhold funding from counties and closing bars ahead of the Fourth of July weekend in counties on the watch list.

Now, Newsom says he plans to use the "dimmer switch ... a little bit more forcefully."

The governor acknowledged that the state was able to control the spread of the virus following the initial sweeping stay-at-home orders.

"We were able to suppress the spread of this virus, we were able to knock down the growth of this in the beginning. We are going to do that again, there is no doubt in my mind," he said.  

Oregon is taking a similar path, banning indoor social gatherings of more than 10 people and requiring all people to wear face coverings outdoors when they cannot maintain a 6-foot distance from people outside their households. California and Oregon... 48 to go.

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

Click on image to enlarge

by Noah

And lately he's been inciting his party to riot, even coupling his encouragement with sly mentions of the 2nd Amendment, a clear signal to create White House approved gun violence if there ever was one. For Trump, it's not enough to just call his fanatical followers "very fine people" He wants them to prove it all over again.

Yep, Trump wants the Republican jihadists out in the streets, crowded together, 6 inches of separation, protesting their own well-being just as Republicans previously took the streets and airwaves to protest Obamacare. We don't need no stinkin' health! Trump is sending out his minions in red states and swing states alike, particularly Virginia, Minnesota, and, first of all, Michigan. It's all about "Death, Mayhem, and Re-election!" How's that for a campaign slogan? He's got "Education" Secretary Betsy DeVos coordinating funding from neo-nazi arms of the Republican Party such as her home state's Michigan Freedom Fund, the semi-deceptively named Michigan Conservative Coalition, and Operation Gridlock. Does she have some pipe bombers in vans lined up, too?

This is the unfolding of a key element of the Trump 2020 re-election strategy being put forth by republican leaders. RNC Chaircretin Ronna Romney McDaniel is still insisting on a physical party convention to nominate the man they all want anyway. Think of all of those Republican delegates and their attendants and servants, crowded together, passing the virus back and forth. Go Ahead. Make my day! Jared The Twit has probably already bought a controlling interest in a casket company. Buy one now! And, for a little extra, each casket can be emblazoned with a bronze Trump logo and a numbered presidential seal!

To Trump and his Republican Party, up to millions of American lives are expendable if their plague-ridden corpses get him re-elected so he can escape various statutes of limitation and do more looting of the United States Treasury of our taxpayer dollars for himself and his donors. Moscow Mitch applauds and you have to know that somewhere off in some damp dark corner ex-Speaker Paul Ryan is rubbing his fetid fecal-encrusted paws together with glee.

And, isn't it strange and ironic that the Republicans are protesting state governments who they see as trying to tell them what they can and can't do with their bodies.

How Connected Is The Trump Campaign With The Stay-At-Home Protests In States With Democratic Governors?

The Calculation by Chip Proser

RNC Chairwoman Ronna Romney told the Washington Examiner that "no matter what, we will be having a physical convention-- or, a physical nominating process." I'm not sure what a 'physical nominating process' is, but she isn't the only Trumpist barking about bringing together large numbers of right wingers. ABC News reported that the Trumpanzee Show plans to get back out on the road-- albeit probably not in normal place, just in places deemed "safe," so... like Wyoming. North and South Dakota, Alaska, Iowa, Montana, Nebraska, West Virginia, maybe Hawaii and Vermont if they can find anyone who would want to see Trump do his stand up routine in either state. "But," reported ABC, "as the virus continues to spread across the country and large gatherings are barred in many states to help fight the spread of the coronavirus, public health experts warn against prematurely re-starting the economy while areas around the country still lack crucial supplies. Health experts say the return of events like large political rallies could be detrimental to combating the pandemic... Some Republican strategists point out that if the president's forced to forgo campaign rallies leading up to November it would be a significant blow." Meanwhile, Americans across the political spectrum, trust Dr. Fauci Far more than they trust Señor Trumpanzee. Blow up this chart by clicking on it:

The very authoritarian billionaire DeVos family is paying for the promotion of the protests in Michigan and other Midwestern states with Democratic governors through 3 interconnected neo-fascist front groups, Operation Gridlock, Michigan Freedom Fund and the Michigan Conservative Coalition, which are trying to recapture the energy of the Tea Party in time to help Trump and Republicans in November.

Friday morning, Trump was encouraging protestors who were rallying against social distancing policies of his own government-- although states with Democratic governors: Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia. Maybe he got the idea from Limbaugh who told his Hate Talk Radio audience yesterday that "People aren’t going to put up with this. People instinctively know we got to get back to work. We have to reopen the economy. People instinctively know now that however bad this is, it isn’t as bad as they all told us." By people he means members of the Republican Party Death Cult. Normal people accept social distancing as a necessity after Trump botched the American response to the pandemic, which has resulted in the most infections and deaths of any country in the world. This chart shows the cases per 1 million as of Friday morning:

• San Marino- 12,820 (435 cases)
• Andorra- 9,008 (969 cases)
• Luxembourg- 5,559 (3,480 cases)
• Iceland- 5,140 (1,754 cases)
• Spain- 4,023 (188,093 cases)
• Switzerland- 3,129 (27,078 cases)
• Belgium- 3,118 (36,138 cases)
• Italy- 2,852 (172,434 cases)
• Monaco- 2,395 (94 cases)
• France- 2,267 (147,969 cases)
• U.S.A.- 2,114 (699,850 cases)
• Liechtenstein- 2,072 (79 cases)
• Portugal- 1,866 (19,022 cases)
• Netherlands-1,777 (30,449 cases)
• Germany- 1,682 (140,886 cases)
• Austria- 1,620 (14,586)
• Qatar- 1,619 (4,663 cases)
• U.K.- 1,601 (108,692 cases)
• Israel- 1,500 (12,982 cases)

Meanwhile, poor African countries look relatively unscathed. But looks can be brutally deceiving. While African countries are reporting tiny numbers on cases and only a small handful per million in their populations, that has more to do with lack of medical infrastructure than good health. Look at these numbers-- from 10 dozen Africa countries:

• Uganda- 6 cases (1 per million)
• South Sudan- 4 cases (0.4 per million)
• Libya- 49 cases (7 per million)
• Mozambique- 34 cases (1 per million)
• South Africa, 2,783 cases (47 per million)
• Ethiopia- 96 cases (0.8 per million)
• Congo- 143 cases (26 per million)
• Senegal- 342 cases (20 per million)
• Nigeria- 493 cases (2 per million)
• Ivory Coast- 688 cases (26 per million)

The Associated Press reported that things aren't as rosy for Africa as those numbers indicate. Even under a best case scenario Africa could see 122 million infections and 200,000 deaths. But Africa rarely gets any best case scenarios, and under a worst-case scenario the U.N. Economic Commission for Africa estimates that with no interventions against the pandemic, Africa could see 1.2 billion infections and 3.3 million deaths. "Any of the scenarios would overwhelm Africa’s largely fragile and underfunded health systems, experts have warned. Under the best-case scenario, $44 billion would be needed for testing, personal protective equipment and treatment, the report said, citing UNECA estimates. The worst-case scenario would cost $446 billion."

Poverty, crowded urban conditions and widespread health problems make Africa “particularly susceptible” to the virus, the U.N. report said. “Of all the continents Africa has the highest prevalence of certain underlying conditions, like tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS.”

On Thursday, a World Health Organization official said one projection over the next six months shows more than 10 million severe cases of the virus.

...The new report also warns of severe economic pain across Africa amid the pandemic, with growth contracting 2.6% in the worst-case scenario and an estimated 27 million people pushed into extreme poverty. The World Bank has said sub-Saharan Africa could fall into its first recession in a quarter-century.

“Collapsed businesses may never recover,” the new report said. “Without a rapid response, governments risk losing control and facing unrest.”

Back to America, Republican Party strategist and #NeverTrumper Rick Wilson's screed on Trump leading the pro-plague states of America to a COVID-Civil War is right on the mark. "Donald Trump fired the first shots in the COVID Civil War this week, a modern-day Jefferson Davis of the Pro-Plague States of America sending his opening salvo from Fort Twitter at Democratic governors who dared to question if it wasn’t just a wee bit early to end the stay-at-home orders in states still far to the left of the peak. He started the week with claims of “total authority” and then cried about a supposed mutiny by mouthy state leaders. By Friday, he was up to calls to 'liberate' states. Who does he want people to rise up against, exactly: People who don't want to die? People who don't want protesters spreading a deadly disease that's already killed 34,000 Americans? Governors who swore an oath to serve their states and protect their citizens? Science? Medicine?"

On A Scale Of 1 To 10, Would You Agree That The Pure Evil Embodied By Erik Prince Is A Million? A Billion?

Forget for a moment that Erik was inculcated at any early age into treason and evil by his older sister, Betsy DeVos. Instead, just recall that over 2 decades ago Prince set up Blackwater-- an international mercenary operation-- that has been lobbying for war ever since... and getting billions of dollars in U.S. government contracts, much of his businesses' work hidden from public scrutiny, for fighting and spying all over the world. Prince finally started facing some semblance of accountability-- though not much-- in 2007 when his mercenaries in Baghdad indiscriminately started shooting into crowds of Iraqi civilians murdering 17 and wounding dozens of others, some critically. It took until 2014 for 3 of Prince's men to be convicted for manslaughter and until last year for another one to be convicted for murder. But Prince, who worked for Bush, Obama and Trump has been personally immune from prosecution. He sold Blackwater to foreign investors in 2010, at which time he moved to Abu Dhabi to organize an elite force of mercenaries to protect the monarchy from people desiring to move out of the 14th century. And, of course, he has been deeply involved with the Trumpist regime, even before Trump was elected. He has kicked back around a half a million dollars-- that we know of-- to politicians who have helped him, including $150,000 to a Ted Cruz SuperPAC, almost $200,000 to the RNC, about $50,000 to state Republican parties in 21 states and maxed out donations to Trump, Dan Rohrabacher, Kris Kobach, Mike Pence and other neo-fascist Republicans.

Would it surprise you to know he was also using the immense sums of money funneled to him by conservative politicians to infiltrate Democratic campaigns and progressive groups? It shouldn't-- and New York Times reporters Mark Mazzetti and Adam Goldman exposed the whole thing on Saturday. Trump, who has sent him considerable money, had him assemble a pack of spies to illegally infiltrate groups Trump considered his enemies, like Democrats and labor unions (such as the teachers' union).

One of the former spies, an ex-MI6 officer named Richard Seddon, helped run a 2017 operation to copy files and record conversations in a Michigan office of the American Federation of Teachers, one of the largest teachers’ unions in the nation. Mr. Seddon directed an undercover operative to secretly tape the union’s local leaders and try to gather information that could be made public to damage the organization, documents show.

Using a different alias the next year, the same undercover operative infiltrated the congressional campaign of Abigail Spanberger, then a former C.I.A. officer who went on to win an important House seat in Virginia as a Democrat. The campaign discovered the operative and fired her.

Both operations were run by Project Veritas, a conservative group that has gained attention using hidden cameras and microphones for sting operations on news organizations, Democratic politicians and liberal advocacy groups. Mr. Seddon’s role in the teachers’ union operation-- detailed in internal Project Veritas emails that have emerged from the discovery process of a court battle between the group and the union-- has not previously been reported, nor has Mr. Prince’s role in recruiting Mr. Seddon for the group’s activities.

Both Project Veritas and Mr. Prince have ties to President Trump’s aides and family. Whether any Trump administration officials or advisers to the president were involved in the operations, even tacitly, is unclear. But the effort is a glimpse of a vigorous private campaign to try to undermine political groups or individuals perceived to be in opposition to Mr. Trump’s agenda.

Mr. Prince, the former head of Blackwater Worldwide and the brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, has at times served as an informal adviser to Trump administration officials. He worked with the former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn during the presidential transition. In 2017, he met with White House and Pentagon officials to pitch a plan to privatize the Afghan war using contractors in lieu of American troops. Jim Mattis, then the defense secretary, rejected the idea.

Mr. Prince appears to have become interested in using former spies to train Project Veritas operatives in espionage tactics sometime during the 2016 presidential campaign. Reaching out to several intelligence veterans-- and occasionally using Mr. Seddon to make the pitch-- Mr. Prince said he wanted the Project Veritas employees to learn skills like how to recruit sources and how to conduct clandestine recordings, among other surveillance techniques.

...Prince is under investigation by the Justice Department [LOL-- think William Barr] over whether he lied to a congressional committee examining Russian interference in the 2016 election, and for possible violations of American export laws. Last year, the House Intelligence Committee made a criminal referral to the Justice Department about Mr. Prince, saying he lied about the circumstances of his meeting with a Russian banker in the Seychelles in January 2017.

Once a small operation running on a shoestring budget, Project Veritas in recent years has had a surge in donations from both private donors and conservative foundations. According to its latest publicly available tax filing, Project Veritas received $8.6 million in contributions and grants in 2018. Mr. O’Keefe earned about $387,000.

Last year, the group received a $1 million contribution made through the law firm Alston & Bird, a financial document obtained by the New York Times showed. A spokesman for the firm said that Alston & Bird “has never contributed to Project Veritas on its own behalf, nor is it a client of ours.” The spokesman declined to say on whose behalf the contribution was made.

The financial document also listed the names of others who gave much smaller amounts to Project Veritas last year. Several of them confirmed their donations.

The group has also become intertwined with the political activities of Mr. Trump and his family. The Trump Foundation gave $20,000 to Project Veritas in 2015, the year that Mr. Trump began his bid for the presidency. The next year, during a presidential debate with Hillary Clinton, Mr. Trump claimed without substantiation that videos released by Mr. O’Keefe showed that Mrs. Clinton and President Barack Obama had paid people to incite violence at rallies for Mr. Trump.

In a book published in 2018, Mr. O’Keefe wrote that Mr. Trump years earlier had encouraged him to infiltrate Columbia University and obtain Mr. Obama’s records.

Last month, Project Veritas made public secretly recorded video of a longtime ABC News correspondent who was critical of the network’s political coverage and its emphasis on business considerations over journalism. Many conservatives have gleefully pounded on Project Veritas’s disclosures, including one particularly influential voice: Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son.

The website for Mr. O’Keefe’s coming wedding listed Donald Trump Jr. as an invited guest.

Mr. Prince invited Project Veritas operatives-- including Mr. O’Keefe-- to his family’s Wyoming ranch for training in 2017, The Intercept reported last year. Mr. O’Keefe and others shared social media photos of taking target practice with guns at the ranch, including one post from Mr. O’Keefe saying that with the training, Project Veritas will be “the next great intelligence agency.” Mr. Prince had hired a former MI6 officer to help train the Project Veritas operatives, The Intercept wrote, but it did not identify the officer.

Mr. Seddon regularly updated Mr. O’Keefe about the operation against the Michigan teachers’ union, according to internal Project Veritas emails, where the language of the group’s leaders is marbled with spy jargon.

They used a code name-- LibertyU-- for their operative inside the organization, Marisa Jorge, who graduated from Liberty University in Virginia, one of the nation’s largest Christian colleges. Mr. Seddon wrote that Ms. Jorge “copied a great many documents from the file room,” and Mr. O’Keefe bragged that the group would be able to get “a ton more access agents inside the educational establishment.”

The emails refer to other operations, including weekly case updates, along with training activities that involved “operational targeting.” Project Veritas redacted specifics about those operations from the messages.

In August 2017, Ms. Jorge wrote to Mr. Seddon that she had managed to record a local union leader talking about Ms. DeVos and other topics.

“Good stuff,” Mr. Seddon wrote back. “Did you receive the spare camera yet?”

As education secretary, Ms. DeVos has been a vocal critic of teachers’ unions, saying in 2018 that they have a “stranglehold” over politicians at the federal and state levels. She and Mr. Prince grew up in Michigan, where their father made a fortune in the auto parts business.

AFT Michigan sued Project Veritas in federal court, alleging trespassing, eavesdropping and other offenses. The teachers’ union is asking for more than $3 million in damages, accusing the group of being a “vigilante organization which claims to be dedicated to exposing corruption. It is, instead, an entity dedicated to a specific political agenda.”

Project Veritas has said its activities are legal and protected by the First Amendment, and the case is scheduled to go to trial in the fall.

Other Project Veritas employees on the emails include Joe Halderman, an award-winning former television producer who in 2010 pleaded guilty to trying to extort $2 million from the comedian David Letterman. Mr. Halderman was copied on several messages providing updates about the Michigan operation, and in one message, he gave instructions to Ms. Jorge. Project Veritas tax filings list Mr. Halderman as a “project manager.”

Two other employees, Gaz Thomas and Samuel Chamberlain, were also identified in emails and appeared to play important roles in the Michigan operation. Efforts to locate Mr. Thomas were unsuccessful. A man named Samuel Chamberlain who matched the description of the one employed by Mr. O’Keefe denied he worked for Project Veritas. He did not respond to follow-up phone messages or an email.

...Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, said in a statement: “Let’s be clear who the wrongdoer is here: Project Veritas used a fake intern to lie her way into our Michigan office, to steal documents and to spy-- and they got caught. We’re just trying to hold them accountable for this industrial espionage.”

In 2018, Ms. Jorge infiltrated the congressional campaign of Ms. Spanberger, posing as a campaign volunteer. At the time, Ms. Spanberger was running to unseat a sitting Republican congressman in a race both parties considered important for control of the House. Ms. Jorge was eventually exposed and kicked out of the campaign office.

It was unclear whether Mr. Seddon was involved in planning that operation.

Mr. Seddon was a longtime British intelligence officer who served around the world, including in Washington in the years after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He is married to an American diplomat, Alice Seddon, who is serving in the American consulate in Lagos, Nigeria.

Mr. O’Keefe and his group have taken aim at targets over the years including Planned Parenthood, The New York Times, The Washington Post and Democracy Partners, a group that consults with liberal and progressive electoral causes. In 2016, a Project Veritas operative infiltrated Democracy Partners using a fake name and fabricated résumé and made secret recordings of the staff. The year after the sting, Democracy Partners sued Project Veritas, and its lawyers have since deposed Mr. O’Keefe.

In that deposition, Mr. O’Keefe defended the group’s undercover tactics, saying they were part of a long tradition of investigative journalism going back to muckraking reporters like Upton Sinclair. “I’m not ashamed of the methods that we use or the recordings that we use,” he said.

He was asked whether he had provided any of the group’s secret recordings of Democracy Partners to the Republican National Committee or any member of the Trump family. He said that he did not think so.

In 2010, Mr. O’ Keefe and three others pleaded guilty to a federal misdemeanor after admitting they entered a government building in New Orleans under false pretenses as part of a sting.

As you may have noticed, Blue America endorsed Tom Guild for the Oklahoma City congressional seat on Friday. Tom also noticed the explosive NY Times piece and told us that Prince "needs to make better use of his time rather than trying to find dirt on congressional campaigns, labor organizations, and other groups hostile to Donald Trump. Hell, tens of millions of Americans and billions of folks worldwide are hostile to the Donald. As they say, paranoid people have enemies, too. For someone who said he was going to drain the swamp, there is an awful lot of new dirty water in the Tidal Basin these days. If Mr. Trump would spend more time governing, go legit, and up his game, he could at long last give Americans an ounce of confidence in his administration. But as the old song says, he loves that dirty water in the River Charles (channel Potomac). E pluribus Unum gives way to a new national motto... You get your dirt and I’ll get mine... We’ll get together and have a bad time! This is definitely no way to run a railroad!!"

Trumpist Regime Is Riven With Corruption That Few Are Paying Attention To During The Impeachment Process

While everyone is watching everything impeachment-related, the ordinary business of Trumpist destruction continues unabated. Let me give you two examples: air quality and education quality, although all of Trump's cabinet secretaries are working towards destruction of everything we cherish about our country. CBS reporter Kate Gibson wrote that while Obama was president air quality kept improving, But after the catastrophe in 2016, we've had two years of increases in the amount of pollutants in the air "with potentially deadly ramifications." Two analysts working for the EPA, Karen Clay and Nicholas Muller, "found that particulate matter air pollution fell 24% in the U.S. from 2009 to 2016, but it increased 5.5% the following two years. 'That increase was associated with 9,700 premature deaths in 2018'... [they wrote] in a paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research."

"The chemical composition of particulates point to increased use of natural gas and to vehicle miles traveled as likely contributors to the increase" in pollution, the economists wrote. "We conclude that the effect is due to diesel vehicles as well as some industrial boilers."

The findings could bolster theories advanced by experts such as Oxford University economist Kate Raworth who argue that unrestrained economic growth is contributing to climate change.

...The researchers also point to a decline in EPA enforcement of the Clean Air Act as a factor that could explain worsening air quality. The law, established in 1970, is responsible for preventing hundreds of thousands of premature deaths and hundreds of millions of cases of respiratory and heart disease, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group. 

But that's not an anomaly; that's how the Trumpets Regime works. Yesterday Danielle Douglas-Gabriel wrote for the Washington Post how Betsy DeVos has been spending millions of taxpayer dollars on unaccredited for-profit fake "colleges," many of them scams like Trump "University." She reported that "A trove of documents released Tuesday by the House Education and Labor Committee shows the Education Department provided $10.7 million in federal loans and grants to students at the Illinois Institute of Art and the Art Institute of Colorado even though officials knew the for-profit colleges were not accredited and ineligible to receive such aid."

Barr, Pompeo, Trump, Pence by Nancy Ohanian

The documents build on prior reports from the committee describing efforts by Education Department officials to shield Dream Center Education Holdings, owner of the Art Institutes and Argosy University, from the consequences of lying to students about the accreditation of its since-closed schools. Now it appears the Education Department tried to shield itself from an ill-fated decision to allow millions of dollars to flow to those schools. Rep. Robert C. “Bobby” Scott (D-VA), chairman of the House Education Committee, is threatening to subpoena Education Secretary Betsy DeVos for more documents related to the department’s role in Dream Center’s actions. Scott says the agency has obstructed the committee’s investigation and refused to answer questions, as emails and letters paint a picture of a federal agency complicit in an effort to place profits before students.

...By law, for-profit colleges must be fully accredited to participate in federal student aid programs. Neither the Art Institute of Colorado, the Art Institute of Michigan or the Illinois Institute of Art in Chicago and Schaumburg held that seal of approval from their accreditor, the Higher Learning Commission, in the 2018 spring semester. In reviewing Dream Center’s 2017 acquisition of the chain, the accrediting commission raised concerns about the quality of education at the campuses and downgraded their status for up to four years.

The accreditor issued a public notice in January 2018 and instructed Dream Center to inform students, but the Los Angeles company continued to advertise that the schools were accredited. Students kept enrolling, and the Education Department kept giving them federal loans, despite the schools’ ineligibility. Dream Center, which has since folded, could not be reached for comment.

Letters from senior Education Department official Michael Frola to the presidents of the two Art Institute campuses were among the documents made public Tuesday by House Democrats. Frola acknowledges in the May 2018 letters that the schools’ accreditation status made them ineligible to receive federal loans and grants through their students.

The for-profit schools’ downgraded designation as “preaccredited” institutions prohibited the receipt of federal student aid, although nonprofit schools with the same status can receive aid. To rectify the problem, Frola said, the department would retroactively-- and temporarily-- designate the Art Institutes as nonprofits effective Jan. 20, 2018, the date they lost their accreditation.

At the time, Dream Center was seeking approval from the Education Department, the accrediting commission and the Internal Revenue Service to turn the chain of for-profit colleges it purchased in 2016 into nonprofit schools. That designation would shield the company from having to report whether graduates were earning enough to repay their student loans.

The conversion was still in the works when Frola sent the letters. The timing and scope of the temporary conversion by the Education Department are causing alarm among House Democrats.

“The grant of temporary nonprofit status was directed at what had at that time, been a five-month lapse in eligibility, and five months where Dream Center was receiving funds in violation of [the Higher Education Act] and accompanying regulations,” Scott wrote in a letter Tuesday to DeVos. “This special treatment allowed more students to become entangled in Dream Center, magnifying the abrupt closure of the schools and the displacement of thousands of students.”

Former Art Institute of Colorado and Illinois Institute of Art students are suing DeVos and the Education Department, accusing them of unlawfully issuing loans the students say they should not be forced to repay. The National Student Legal Defense Network, a legal aid group representing the students, used many of the documents unearthed by House Democrats as evidence in the complaint.

“We’ve known for a long time that the Art Institutes lied to students about losing accreditation. Now, we know that the Department of Education misled them, too,” said Eric Rothschild, an attorney at the National Student Legal Defense Network who is representing the students.

Robert J. Infusino, one of the students involved in the case, was pursuing a degree in audio production at the Illinois Institute of Art when the school announced in summer 2018 it would be closing at the end of the year. Infusino, 23, was livid when he learned during a meeting about the imminent closing that the school had lost accreditation six months earlier but had not informed students.

He was $28,000 in debt for a degree he was a few months shy of completing. But transferring his credits to another school became a nightmare because few were willing to accept classes from an unaccredited institution. When Infusino finally found an online school willing to give him a chance, he had to retake classes, spend more money and take more time to complete his education.

“Had I known what was going on, I would have had time to evaluate the situation, maybe transfer before wasting time and money,” Infusino said. “I thought the government was supposed to look out for students. I feel betrayed.”

Is there are solution-- aside from just getting rid of DeVos, something that is dependent on getting rid of Trump, of course. Well even beyond that, Bernie has a good idea. His message to young Americans and their parents: "We want you to get the best education that you can, regardless of the income of your family. Good jobs require a good education. That is why we are going to make public colleges and universities tuition free, and cancel all student debt. Just 30 years ago, tuition and fees at a public, four-year university totaled $3,360 per year in today’s dollars. That same degree today costs more than $10,000 per year in tuition and fees and more than $21,000 per year including room and board. Meanwhile, median hourly wages for college graduates have risen by less than $1 since 2001, when adjusted for inflation. The promise of higher pay has not materialized for recent college graduates, who have been taking out more and more in student loans to keep up with the skyrocketing cost of tuition. This has led to a generation of young people unable to start families, buy homes, and follow their dreams... You are not truly free when you graduate college with hundreds of thousands of dollars in student debt. You are not truly free when you cannot pursue your dream of becoming a teacher, environmentalist, journalist or nurse because you cannot make enough money to cover your monthly student loan payments. And you are not truly free when the vast majority of good-paying jobs require a degree that requires taking out tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt to obtain. We are going to end the racial and class disparities that persist throughout higher education. We will close these gaps and ensure all Americans, no matter their race, income, zip code, or immigration status receive a high quality education. Not only will we guarantee the right to a good, public education for all-- from childcare and pre-kindergarten through college-- we will free generations of Americans from the outrageous burden of student loans by canceling all existing student debt."

Forget About Going Back To Normalcy-- That Does Not Exist Any Longer

Not normal: Federal Judge Sallie Kim held Trump Education Secretary Betsy DeVos in contempt of court for violating an order to stop collecting loan payments from former students of scam colleges. Kim fined Education Department $100,000 for violating the preliminary injunction. "The exceedingly rare judicial rebuke of a Cabinet secretary came after the Trump administration was forced to admit to the court earlier this year that it erroneously collected on the loans of some 16,000 borrowers who attended Corinthian Colleges despite being ordered to stop doing so."

Not normal: Tulsi Gabbard pretending to be a Democrat and also still pretending to be running for president. Here's the video she sent out to her constituents last night finally telling them she's not running for Congress, though she didn't mention she has her sights set on the governors' mansion (2022)-- as a pathway to the White House (God forbid).





In her Intercept post yesterday-- Ilhan Omar Explains Why She Endorsed Bernie Sanders-- Akela Lacy explained that the once skeptical almost-Elizabeth Warren supporter was back-- firmly-- in Bernie's camp. "Sometimes," said Ilhan, "you have to be reminded about the vision you truly believe in, and where your core values lie. And for me, I know that there are people that have to switch some things around, and there are people that are just easy to believe in. And I was reminded that Bernie is one of the people."

Asked whether she meant that Warren had switched things around, Omar said, “For me.”

Most Democrats, she said, belong to the “Warren wing” of the party. “I mean it’s the one thing that everybody accuses us of. We think we’re the smartest in the room. We are very policy-oriented. We care about the details. And there is that aspect of Warren that is exciting. She has a plan for everything,” Omar said. “But there is, I think, an expansion of what universal values are, and how we should be thinking about what kind of revolutionary ideas this country needs in order for these structural changes that Warren talks about to be implemented. And that person who will carry that out is Bernie.”

Interestingly, over the past few days, the ActBlue "Bernie Congress" page-- which you can link by clicking on the thermometer on the right-- has started filling up with courageous congressional candidates who feel the same way Ilhan does. Bernie's the one... more than any of the other potential presidential nominees. He's the polar opposite of not just Trump, but also of Biden ("Status Quo Joe") who doesn't seem to understand that going "back to normalcy" will do nothing but guarantee another extreme reaction that will bring us another Trumpist kind of response from voters who are fed up with what Biden and his big money backers think is "normalcy."

UPDATE: I Was In Elizabeth Warren's Camp

Kim Williams worked as a diplomat under Obama and then worked as a university professor. Now she's running for Congress in California's Central Valley, for a seat held by a reactionary Blue Dog, Jim Costa. "Like Rep. Omar," she told us this morning, "I was in Elizabeth Warren’s camp. Anyone who’s ever heard me speak knows that I spend a great deal of time talking about policy. We simply can’t fix the many problems my district faces without bold and detailed plans. But we also need a heart, and we have to show up. And that’s what Bernie Sanders has done here. The three counties in my district are often referred to as the forgotten California. It’s the poorest district in this wealthy state, and one of the poorest districts in this nation, which probably explains why few presidential candidates make their way here. Bernie is the only candidate to have prioritized and invested in the Central Valley. Bernie has not only had the political courage to go against the media and the moneyed interests that have hurt so many working Americans long before anyone else, he has shown a genuine affection for so many forgotten people that are tired of Democrats who only care about them on election years. In his words and deeds, he has shown up, and that gives me the confidence to know he’ll show up in every way that counts as president."

Republican senators are not going to save us from Trump. We have to do that ourselves-- hopefully by replacing him with Bernie in 13 months. The House is going to impeach him and the Senate is going to find him "innocent." And then it will be up to the voters to remove Trump and his Senate (and House) enablers. National Review editor Rich Lowry dispelled the fantasy of a Trump removal for Politico yesterday. Republican senators," wrote Lowry, "will soon be receiving an invitation to tear apart the Republican Party ahead of the 2020 elections, and they are going to decline to accept it. It’s a trope of pro-impeachment commentary that it should be simple for Republican senators to swap out President Donald Trump, who puts them in an awkward position every day, for Vice President Mike Pence, an upstanding Reagan conservative who could start with a fresh slate in the runup to the 2020 election." [Feh!]

Lowry points out that the idea may sound fine but it's big flaw "is that is entirely removed from reality. If Senate Republicans vote to remove Trump on anything like the current facts, even the worst possible interpretation of them, it would leave the GOP a smoldering ruin. It wouldn’t matter who the Democrats nominated for 2020. They could run Bernie Sanders on a ticket balanced by Elizabeth Warren and promise to make Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez secretary of the Treasury and Ilhan Omar secretary of Defense, and they’d still win." Don't we wish!

A significant portion of the Republican Party would consider a Senate conviction of Trump a dastardly betrayal. Perhaps most would get over it, as partisan feelings kicked in around a national election, but not all. And so a party that has managed to win the popular vote in a presidential election only once since 1988 would hurtle toward November 2020 divided.

How does anyone think that would turn out?

A lot of Trump supporters are going to want to blame the Republican establishment even if Trump loses in 2020 fair and square, with the backing of the united party apparatus. Imagine what they will think if a couple of dozen Republican senators decide to deny him the opportunity to run for reelection, without a single Republican voter having a say on his ultimate fate. It’s hard to come up with any scenario better designed to stoke the populist furies of Trump’s most devoted voters.

Trump himself isn’t going to get convicted by the Senate and say, “Well, I’m a little disappointed in your judgment to be honest. But it was a close call, and Mike Pence is a great guy, and I’m just grateful I had the opportunity to serve this country in the White House for more than three years.”

He won’t go away quietly to lick his wounds. He won’t delete his Twitter account. He won’t make it easy on anyone. He will vent his anger and resentment at every opportunity. It will be “human scum” every single day.

And it’s not as though the media is going to lose its interest in the most luridly telegenic politician that we’ve ever seen. The mainstream press would be delighted to see Trump destroyed, yet sad to bid him farewell. The obvious way to square the circle would be to continue to give Trump lavish coverage in his post-presidency. He’d be out of the White House but still driving screaming CNN chyrons every other hour.

In other words, Trump’s removal wouldn’t be a fresh start for Pence and the GOP in an accelerated post-Trump era; it would be more like getting stuck in the poisonous epilogue of the Trump era, awaiting the inevitable advent of the Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden or Pete Buttigieg era.

All of this is why the “cracks in the Republican Senate” coverage is so ridiculous and overwrought. It depends on the idea that GOP senators-- who, it is true, are continually frustrated by Trump’s controversies-- are on the verge of engineering their party’s own destruction. There was even some “cracks showing” analysis around Mitch McConnell saying the other day that he didn’t remember a conversation with Trump, as recounted by the president, praising his call with the Ukrainian president. The obvious explanation is that McConnell really didn’t recall such a conversation, not that the shrewdest, most realistic politician in Washington was getting ready to immolate himself and his party as soon as the articles of impeachment arrive from the House.

Mitt Romney has gotten a lot of coverage for his excoriating comments about the Ukraine mess and the Syria pullout. He really might vote to convict when it comes to it, but he’s not a broad indicator of the direction of the party. As goes Romney on impeachment ... so goes Romney on impeachment.

It’s possible to come up with a scenario in which Ukraine developments are much worse than it’s possible to imagine right now, and Trump’s support craters, even among Republicans. Then, you might have GOP senators voting to convict. This is just another path to the destruction of the party’s hopes in 2020, though, because there’s no way it would snap back from a Nixonian meltdown at the top in less than a year.

Nonetheless, Sean Eldridge's Stand Up America has decided to spend six figures trying to persuade House Republicans in swing districts to vote for impeachment-- you know, the Republicans that Trump called "human scum" the other day. Eldridge's list of targets:

• Fred Upton (MI)
• Will Hurd (TX, retiring)
• John Katko (NY)
• Francis Rooney (FL, retiring)
• Chip Roy (TX)
• Brian Fitzpatrick (PA)
• Jaime Herrera Beutler (WA)
• Peter King (NY)
• Chris Smith (NJ)
• Elise Stefanik (NY)

Eldridge didn't include his own congressman, Lee Zeldin, even though he would be a perfect strategic target. "It's time for Republicans in Congress," said Eldridge, "to grow a spine and defend our democracy by supporting the impeachment inquiry, because no one-- including Donald Trump-- is above the law." (DCCC talking points.)