NY Times with the driving story of the election right now:
Emerging clusters at schools and on high school teams raise concerns about wider community spread
Across the country, concerns are growing that as many districts, especially in the South, reopen for in-person classes, schools are becoming a setting where new clusters of cases are erupting.
The numbers are not yet anywhere near those of the clusters that have cropped up in nursing homes, prisons and food processing plants. Nursing homes alone account for more than 382,000 cases and more than 64,000 deaths in the United States, according to New York Times data.
Yet many experts fear that schools have the potential to transmit the virus widely in the community.
That will get people’s attention.
[N.B. Connecticut had a major power outage and internet disruption, and it’s still not 100% back on the grid. I am, though, and glad to be back. Thanks for your patience.]
It’s too soon for the pundits to write everything up about Kamala Harris. Find and post if you can.
Me, I’m thrilled. And the first dividend was yesterday when the cable shows covered Harris and not Donald Trump’s press conference, which has no basis for daily live coverage. The second dividend was the fund raising.
The big papers are running “the safe choice” essays. But/and there’s this, because that’s not really the play:
And a classy statement:
Stable race in WI, check the details:
Brian Tyler Cohen sums up a Donald Trump press conference response to the virus:
Obama fought WWII but was forced to concede defeat because of the pandemic of 1917 and since then the cupboards have been bare. They couldn't even test for it because there weren't any tests. All the while our soldiers didn't have any bullets. No bullets. Could you imagine? No bu…
And no water. You buy a new house and the water doesn't work but Trump has fixed that. New water but old lightbulbs. The new bulbs explode. We want college football. The players want to play.
They say, "Sir--" and they're crying. You've never seen men cry like this. "Sir, we must
We won the Revolutionary War by taking the airports. We took the airports. And we had the biggest hurricanes, from the standpoint of wetness and water. So much wet. But that's what many people say. He's stuck in the basement. You have to wonder why. Person man woman camer
And they were spying on us. They admitted it. "Sir," they said-- and they were crying also. "We spied on you." The deep state I call it. And you get cancer just from standing near a windmill. And if you're a bird, forget it. Biden and AOC want to kill the birds. Check the manual.
Bruce Bartlett:
That the consultant class nearly always stays in its partisan lane is mostly because their clients insist upon it, not trusting those who work for the other side. Also over time consultants acquire specific knowledge about the nature of each party's constituency that helps them.
But at their core, the consultants must be non-ideological to be effective. They can't allow their personal policy preferences to bias them against those policies most likely to win an election in a particular place at a particular time. That would make them bad at their job.
Which brings me to Stuart Stevens, a prominent Republican consultant who has turned against the party he worked for all his adult life. Ross Douthat criticizes him today for not being ideological, for turning against the GOP for non-policy-related reasons.
For some reason, turning against one's party simply because its leader, its apparatchiks & its grassroots base are utterly repulsive and disgusting is not good enough. Douthat expects a critique of their policy positions and why they are wrong to be the reason for estrangement.
Stevens offers no such critique and thus Douthat implies that his criticism of the GOP is superficial or even insincere. But that is not Stevens' job, that is the job for policy nerds like me, which I happily provide in many, many books and articles. So do lots of other nerds.
Domenico Montanaro/NPR:
Arizona Focus Group Sees Trump's Crime Attack On Biden As 'Far From Reality'
An elderly white woman is watching the news. An anchor reports that cities want to "defund" the police, as she hears a noise coming from elsewhere in the house.
She calls 911 — as Fox News Channel's Sean Hannity says that Joe Biden is "absolutely on board with defunding the police" — only to be told that there is no one there to answer her call and she should leave a message.
The ad ends with the words "You won't be safe in Joe Biden's America" on the screen and the woman's phone dropping to the floor.
"If we start talking about that ad being reality, we've got a lot of problems," said Shyla, a self-described President Trump supporter from Arizona, after being shown the campaign spot. She described the ad as "very far from reality."
Shyla was one of eight people from the Phoenix area who recently participated in a 90-minute virtual NPR/Marist focus group. The group included Trump supporters, Biden backers and undecided presidential voters. Only participants' first names were used.
FiveThirtyEight:
Biden Is Polling Better Than Clinton At Her Peak
But she did lead by more in certain key states.
Faced with these numbers, though, a lot of people — Republicans, Democrats and people with no particular party affiliation — raise a reasonable question: “Wasn’t Hillary Clinton leading in the polls too?”
Well, yes. But not quite like this. We compared Biden’s standing to where Clinton was at this point in the polls four years ago. [2020 polling averages]
We specifically chose this point in the cycle in 2016 because it’s about where Clinton hit her peak — on Aug. 7, 2016, following the Democratic National Convention, Clinton had a 7.5-point lead over Trump in national polls.
Clinton never topped that lead. But as you can see in the chart below, even at her post-convention peak, Clinton’s lead over Trump still wasn’t as large as Biden’s is now.
Ben White/Politico:
Trump’s bet on a preelection rebound meets a new test
Lawmakers have left town and Trump aides don’t expect new stimulus talks anytime soon. That leaves the U.S. economy without much of the government aid that had been propping it up.
For the moment, struggling small businesses are running out of their initial aid with no replenishment in sight. State and local governments face mounting budget shortages that could spur significant layoffs this fall. And schools are waiting on much-needed funding to open safely.
Struggling households bolstered by previous direct federal payments may get no more cash anytime soon. And expanded unemployment benefits may drop substantially — even if Trump’s move survives in court — while millions remain out of work. Trump’s payroll tax deferral could also prove difficult to implement and is, at least for now, only a temporary reprieve rather than a permanent cut.
Bobby Roth/USA Today:
My new film 'Pearl' is a love story that grew out of the greatest tragedy of my life
'Pearl' isn’t about my sister, though I thought of her every day during filming. It's about love, life and changing the conversation on gun violence.
Many years ago, I met Gunter Wallraff, an undercover journalist who was a master of disguise. He told me, “I play roles to discover who I am.”
In "Pearl," I began writing a story rooted in the greatest tragedy of my life and discovered it was actually a beautiful love story.
One night, I left my office in an excited state. I was on my way to pick up my wife. We were having dinner at a friend’s house with a famous movie star who was one of my favorite actors, so my mood was buoyant. As I climbed into the driver’s seat of my car my phone rang. It was my wife; “Pull over,” she said. I replied, “What's wrong?” She said again, “Pull over.” Her voice frightened me. I said, “I'm parked.” She said, “Your sister’s been shot.”
Jamelle Bouie/NY Times:
How to Foil Trump’s Election Night Strategy
To keep the president from claiming victory on Nov. 3, Biden supporters who can vote in person may well have to.
If Trump is leading on election night, in other words, there’s a good chance he’ll try to disrupt and delegitimize the counting process. That way, if Joe Biden pulls ahead in the days (or weeks) after voting ends — if we experience a “blue shift” like the one in 2018, in which the Democratic majority in the House grew as votes came in — the president will have given himself grounds to reject the outcome as “fake news.”
The only way to prevent this scenario, or at least, rob it of the oxygen it needs to burn, is to deliver an election night lead to Biden. This means voting in person. No, not everyone will be able to do that. But if you plan to vote against Trump and can take appropriate precautions, then some kind of hand delivery — going to the polls or bringing your mail-in ballot to a “drop box” — will be the best way to protect your vote from the president’s concerted attempt to undermine the election for his benefit.
And finally, something different to keep an eye on: Qualcomm burning both ends of the candle. China sanctioned Cruz, Cotton, Rubio, head of human rights watch, etc for opposing them on Uyghur and Hong Kong security law. But Qualcomm is happy to play along, and in the midst of a chaotic Trump administration with no coherent foreign policy, try and make a buck.
WSJ:
Qualcomm Lobbies U.S. to Sell Chips for Huawei 5G Phones
Smartphone chip maker warns of potentially losing billions of dollars in sales because of export limits
U.S. officials have for more than a year argued that placing restrictions on Huawei is necessary because they see it posing significant national-security risks regarding links to the Chinese government, a stance some U.S. allies are beginning to embrace. Last month the British government said it would bar telecom companies from purchasing new equipment made by the company. Huawei denies it is a threat and says it operates independently of the Chinese government.
Qualcomm’s campaign seeks to seize upon the Trump administration’s sometimes competing policy priorities of confronting Chinese security threats while ensuring the financial health of U.S. companies critical to American technological competitiveness, many of whom have significant business interests in China. It also underscores how U.S. efforts to restrict sales of semiconductors to China are rippling through complex manufacturer and customer relationships in an industry that spans the globe.
Biden and Harris are going to have a lot of cleaning up to do, and not just at home.
