- Despite the pandemic, Mitch McConnell is focusing on investigating the Obama administration. The Homeland Security Committee voted along party lines to issue subpoenas related to their investigation of Hunter Biden. The entire fiction of “Obamagate” rests on the concept that a presidential candidate and his family can not be investigated. Yet that’s what’s happening, but in this case there is absolutely zero basis to investigate Hunter Biden. The same senators supporting these subpoenas refused to issue them while investigating the president.
- Senior Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway compared Biden’s desire to have a woman as vice president to a fraternity member trying to find someone to have sex with at the end of a party.
- In a Tweet talking about how badly convicted felon and Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone was treated, the president has once again said that MSNBC host Joe Scarborough needs to be investigated for murder. This is the fourth time Trump has brought up the baseless conspiracy theory about Scarborough.
- The president threatened to withhold funding from Nevada and Michigan for mailing out absentee ballots. Michigan did not mail out absentee ballots. Trump deleted the tweet then correctly stated the state had mailed out applications for ballots. He called this illegal. He lied. Despite voting by mail himself, the president insists, without basis, that mail voter fraud is rampant. Voter fraud is incredibly rare with the most prominent recent example coming from Republican Mark Harris in North Carolina. When asked why the president instructed a cabinet member to withhold these funds on Twitter instead of speaking to him directly, press secretary McEnany said it’s because Trump is so transparent. The president asked Arkansas governor Hutchinson to back up his opposition to mail voting. Hutchinson instead said he was considering expanding it in Arkansas.
- The president is visiting a Ford plant tomorrow. The company had insisted Trump wear a mask during his visit. They’ve since backed down from that stance. The president has refused to wear a mask in public.
- Despite the fact that Covid-19 cases in America are still increasing, the Republican Party is searching for doctors they can put on TV to support re-opening the economy. Several states have seen their highest increase in deaths and/or infections in the last few days. Worldwide the worst increase in infections was yesterday. The Republican Party would rather pretend this is over.
- In brief comments today, the president said that he was awarded “Man of the Year” in Michigan. Trump has been repeating this for years. It’s a lie. He was never given such an award. When asked what he would do differently about the American response to the coronavirus, the president said “nothing.” The United States leads the world in both infections and deaths by a massive margin. This is largely attributable to Donald Trump.
- The next Inspector General at the State Department showed up to work today. This is illegal. The president is required to give 30 days notice to Congress before removing an IG. Trump instead put the IG on administrative leave and had his replacement begin work. Despite the illegality, Republicans in the Senate will do nothing about it. New IG Akard is not surrendering his OTHER position at the State Department which means that as of today, he is overseeing himself – a blatant conflict of interest. Again, Republicans in the Senate will allow this.
- A new report from the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy criticizes the current state of testing in the United States for numerous reasons. Most other countries have solved these issues but there is still no national coordination of testing policy because Donald Trump is president.