NY Times:
Why These Voters Rejected Hillary Clinton but Are Backing Joe Biden
For many Democrats and independents who sat out 2016, voted for third-party candidates or backed Donald Trump, Mr. Biden is more acceptable to them in ways large and small than Mrs. Clinton was.
We can debate the ‘why’, but it is so there to see.
David Folkenflik/NPR:
Analysis: Questionable 'N.Y. Post' Scoop Driven By Ex-Hannity Producer And Giuliani
Yet this was a story marked more by red flags than investigative rigor.
To start, the emails have not been verified as authentic. They were said to have been extracted from a computer assumed — but not proven — to have belonged to the younger Biden. They were said to have been given to the Post by Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who is known for making discredited claims about the Bidens.
The venue is also suspect. The pro-Trump New York Post is owned by Rupert Murdoch, a steady supporter of the president despite recently casting doubt on Trump's reelection prospects. The lead reporter was a former producer for Sean Hannity, Trump's best friend on his favorite news network, Fox News, also controlled by the Murdochs. And the story asserted the existence of a meeting absent any documentation that it actually occurred. (The Biden campaign says the tabloid never sought comment on the veracity of the claims.)
Meanwhile the real issue is this:
WaPo:
As coronavirus cases rise, red-state governors resist measures to slow the spread, preach ‘personal responsibility’
With cases surging to new highs and hospital capacity running low, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum teared up describing a state “caught in the middle of a covid storm.”
To weather it, he said at a news conference last week, people would need to keep their distance, wear masks and avoid gatherings. But the one thing North Dakota did not need were legal limits on reckless behavior.
It’s a job for everyone.
WaPo:
How the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally may have spread coronavirus across the Upper Midwest
Within weeks of the gathering that drew nearly half a million bikers, the Dakotas, along with Wyoming, Minnesota and Montana, were leading the nation in new coronavirus infections per capita.
It had been a long ride back from Sturgis, S.D., so when he first felt an ache at the back of his throat, Kenny Cervantes figured he was just tired. He’d traveled the 400-some miles on his Harley, rumbling through wide-open farm and prairie land on his way home to Riverdale, Neb., where his girlfriend was waiting.
A lifelong motorcycle enthusiast, the 50-year-old construction worker and father of five had been determined to go to the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, a holy grail for bikers. Even when his girlfriend, Angie Balcom, decided to stay back because she was worried about being around so many people during a pandemic, Cervantes was adamant about going.
“I don’t think there was nothing that was going to stop me,” he said.
Back home, Cervantes took Tylenol for his throat and went to bed early. But he woke up the next morning coughing so hard he struggled to catch his breath. Over the next few days, the pain in his chest made him fear that his heart might stop, and a test later confirmed he had the novel coronavirus, which causes the disease covid-19. He was admitted to the hospital 11 days later, on Aug. 27. Soon, his girlfriend and his sister were sick, and Cervantes was going over everything he did and every place he visited in Sturgis, wondering where the virus had found him.
NY Times:
U.S. records over 70,000 cases in one day for the first time since July.
More than 70,450 new coronavirus cases were reported in the United States on Friday, the highest figure since July 24, according to a New York Times database. More than 900 new deaths were recorded.
At least nine states set single-day case records on Friday: Wyoming, Minnesota, Wisconsin, West Virginia, North Dakota, Indiana, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado. And as of midday Saturday, Indiana and Ohio had set records.
Amy Siskind/WaPo:
This is not normal
A guide to what the next president will have to unwind
WEEK 1 “Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory” is how Richard Spencer greets members of his “alt-right” movement gathered in Washington to celebrate Donald Trump’s victory; the group, mostly male white nationalists, responds with cheers and Nazi salutes.
Jill Lawrence/USA Today:
The Trump and Never-Trump eras could end soon. Thanks for the memories and inspiration.
Conservatives are setting aside policy priorities to vote for Biden and other Democrats. Would I be this honorable if our situations were reversed?
There will never be a liberal-conservative consensus on abortion or guns or how people should get health care, or even if the government should make sure they have insurance. And it’s hard to envision agreement on taxes, given the continuing grip of a conservative economic philosophy that aggravates inequality rather than trickling down to those who need help.
But that’s what makes it remarkable to me that people are willing to give up on these convictions for now; to vote for Democrats Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and cross their fingers that the new administration won’t find a way to enlarge the Supreme Court, launch Medicare for All and make Washington, D.C., a state — on Day One.
Charlie Sykes/NYDN:
The cowards' comeuppance: It’s too late for a radical reinvention of the Trump GOP
As late-stage Trumpism slouches toward defeat, it has belatedly dawned on some GOP senators that they may be about to share Donald Trump’s fate.
Politico reports that it has “has become safe at last to diss Donald Trump — or at least to distance themselves from him in unmistakably purposeful ways.” The party is reportedly “gripped by dread,” and we hear that “even Trump loyalists are chafing when asked how deep their support for the president runs.” By one account, the “list of Republican senators suddenly finding religion is as long as it is surprising.”