Cooper: “This Is Deadly Serious”

Everything you need to know for Tuesday, Nov. 24: Richard Hudson should resign + fewer people in NC jails + what to make to Grandpa Joe’s Cabinet

Nov 24, 2020

Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2020

2 days until Thanksgiving
16 days until Hanukkah
20 days until the Electoral College votes
31 days until Christmas
37 days until this cursed year ends
57 days until this cursed presidency is over

Today’s Number: 52,000

Enplaned passengers on American Airlines flights at RDU in October, compared with Delta’s 46,800. From January and October, American and Delta had roughly the same share of the RDU market—27% and 28%, respectively—a significant year-over-year improvement for American. Why?

“American Airlines has taken advantage of other airlines’ reluctance to sell middle seats—to allow for some social distancing.”

ABOVE THE FOLD

—> Gov. Cooper: “This Is Deadly Serious”

Governor Dad gave us a stern talking-to yesterday for not taking COVID seriously enough.

“This week our state and the country are reporting record high case numbers and hospitalizations. I have a stark warning for North Carolinians today: We are in danger. This is a pivotal moment in our fight against the coronavirus. Our actions now will determine the fate of many.”
There are now 20 “red” and 42 “orange” counties, meaning they have critical or substantial community spread.
Durham, Wake, and Orange are all “yellow,” meaning there is “significant” spread. Alamance is red.
He also tightened the state’s mask mandate. Wear one everywhere, including at home when people are over or at friends’ houses.
Retailers will be more responsible for enforcing the mandate.
“This is deadly serious.”
“We don’t want to go backward, but we will if it’s necessary. The next 7 to 14 days will tell us whether we are stemming the tide or whether we need to ratchet it up even more.”

Read Cooper’s new executive order here.

—> U.S. Rep. Richard Hudson Should Resign

There are only two possibilities: Either Richard Hudson, just re-elected to represent North Carolina’s 8th Congressional District:

Believes what he’s saying, in which case he’s too stupid to be entrusted with public office;
Or he doesn’t, in which case he’s too duplicitous to be entrusted with public office.

While a handful of Republicans have started to acknowledge that President Trump’s election fraud claims are going nowhere, Hudson—who will serve on the House GOP’s leadership team this year—dove straight into the sewer.

“[Hudson] characterized the unsubstantiated allegations leveled by the Trump team as ‘breathtaking’ and ‘serious enough that they need to be investigated.’ Hudson said ‘yes,’ states should delay certifying the results until the allegations are ‘adequately investigated.’”
“Asked if he’d be OK if state legislatures named electors that differed from the outcome of the vote counts in their states, Hudson told CNN: ‘Yeah, that’s the constitutional process.’” (No, it’s not.)
Hudson gave himself an out: “‘I mean, it’s breathtaking to think about,’ Hudson said of the allegations. ‘And if it’s not true, then there needs to be a reckoning on our side.’”
Longtime North Carolina Dem political operative Thomas Mills speculates that Hudson is eyeing Richard Burr’s Senate seat in 2022.

—> TL;DR: Hudson is one of many Republicans staking out this terrain. But that doesn’t mean he should get a pass. Again, there are only two possibilities:

He believes this lunacy, or he doesn’t. He’s either playing along with an authoritarian attempt to subvert democracy because he’s delusional or gullible or because he thinks it serves his interests. There’s no legitimate reason for what he’s doing; there’s no both sides to this story.
In a saner world, either option would be permanently disqualifying.

—> STRAY THOUGHT: No one cares what I think. The real question is, why doesn’t anyone else—local media, pundits, even political operatives—think participating in an insane, conspiracy-addled attempt to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters is beyond the pale?

—> COVID Means Fewer People in NC Jails

Silver linings in the COVID cloud for the criminal justice reformers:

Arrests by Raleigh cops fell nearly 40% year-over-year from January to September. Citations declined by 61%.
Local jail populations have fallen by between 20% (Wake) and 56% (Orange), and from February to July, county jail populations statewide dropped by nearly 30%.
The number of people locked up after probation revocations declined 53% between January and September.
Some of this is the byproduct of fewer calls for service during the pandemic. But it’s also due to efforts to reduce local jail populations, especially in Durham.

But as a wise man once said, every rose has its thorn:

Nonfatal shootings in Durham are up 72% from last year.
Former city manager Tom Bonfield: “I think the COVID environment changed the concern over consequences if they do get arrested. Not many people are staying in jail. Trials and cases are being extended considerably because we aren’t operating. The longer cases are delayed, the more likely they are going to be dismissed.”
One thing reformers stress is that criminals tend to worry about being caught, not their punishment; that is, the severity of their sentence isn’t as much a factor in their calculation as whether they can get away with it. Bonfield, however, says that in Durham, a lack of consequences is contributing to crime.

—> FORESTS AND TREES: That “nonfatal shootings” number catches eyeballs, but a wider view of Durham’s year-to-date crime data doesn’t tell such a clear story.

Homicides are down 18%.
Burglaries, robberies, and larcenies are about the same.
Rapes are up 12%.
Aggravated assaults have risen by 35%, mostly due to those nonfatal shootings.
Motor vehicle theft is up 37%.
Total property and violent crime is up about 5%.

—> The North Carolina Roundup

N.C. State researchers have developed a chip that, once implanted into the brain, might help treat Alzheimer’s.
N.C. State researchers—different ones—are calling for greater transparency in the gene-editing of plants.
No matter their symptoms, the North Carolina Veterinary Medical Association says your pet probably doesn’t have COVID.
A North American right whale calf—a rare whale species—was found dead on the Outer Banks.
Very Serious Kraken Releaser Sidney Powell, a Raleigh native and UNC-Chapel Hill grad, has responded to the Trump campaign canning her on account of being too nuts even for them. It is perfect. Just chef’s kiss perfect.

—> Weather

High of 57 today and clear. Actually, it will be mostly clear and mild the rest of the week … except for Thanksgiving, when it will rain. For this, we can thank WRAL meteorologist/Friend of PRIMER Elizabeth Gardner.

By 7 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day, there will be a decent amount of rain in central North Carolina, but it should quickly come to an end because of the cold-front moving through. Showers are expected to move out by early afternoon on Thursday.

NATION & WORLD

—> The Lede: Joe Biden Will Bore You Now

While every day of the Trump administration presented a new roller coaster, Joe Biden is charting a much more conventional course, stocking his Cabinet with Obama vets most people haven’t heard enough about to be offended by.

—> ANTHONY BLINKEN: The most important of these picks is Anthony Blinken, Biden’s nominee to be secretary of state.

A longtime foreign policy adviser, Blinken “has been described as having a ‘mind meld’ with Biden on a range of issues that will be important in his early tenure.”
He served as Bill Clinton’s foreign policy speechwriter, was the staff director for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when Biden was chair, and worked for Biden when he was VP before joining President Obama’s staff as deputy secretary of state.
“He has been described as having a centrist view of the world, but has also supported interventionist positions. He once broke with Biden and supported military action in Libya, for example. During the Obama administration, he advocated for American action in Syria. His reputation as a nonideological consensus-builder is also in the mold that Biden is attempting to craft in his administration.”
He also pushed Biden toward voting for the Iraq War.
His first priorities: rejoin the Paris accord, stop the US from leaving the WHO, and restore the Iran nuclear deal.
After leaving the Obama White House, Blinken and Michèle Flournoy—a possible defense secretary—founded a consulting firm that apparently helps tech companies get Pentagon contracts, though it won’t name its clients.
Matt Duss, Bernie Sanders’s foreign policy adviser, immediately endorsed the decision. Other progressives have been less enthusiastic, given his interventionist streak.
Also: Blinken has a band called (sound it out) Ablinken. Listen on Spotify here.

—> THE REST: John Kerry will be Biden’s climate czar. Lately, he’s been involved in a project called World War Zero, which aims to get elites on board with the idea that climate change is, in fact, a problem.

The whole point is that right now, there’s too much polarization. There’s too much ideology. There’s too much pitting people in one program against another, whether it’s AOC and the Green New Deal versus a carbon fee—whatever it is. People are missing the point that right now, we’re not collectively demanding accountability overall in the political structure to make climate change a primary issue. We’ve got to start there.

Also—no surprise here—former Fed chair Janet Yellen will go to Treasury. She’ll be the first woman to have that job.

There are some other firsts among Biden’s other choices:

Alejandro Mayorkas, a Cuban-American, will be the first Latino secretary of homeland security. His first tweet after the announcement signaled that the Biden administration will be much more open to refugees than its predecessor.
Avril Haines will be the first woman director of national intelligence

His national security picks—who also include national security adviser Jake Sullivan and UN ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield—comprise

former senior officials from the Obama administration, most of whom worked closely together at the State Department and the White House and in several cases have close ties to Mr. Biden dating back years. They are well known to foreign diplomats around the world and share a belief in the core principles of the Democratic foreign policy establishment—international cooperation, strong U.S. alliances and leadership, but a wariness of foreign interventions after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

—> WHAT IT MEANS: A desire for a steady, competent, boring government that doesn’t perpetually leak, backstab, and generate tornadoes of headlines. For better or worse, that will likely lead to an administration of insiders and longtime Democratic hands.

Pros: Fewer scandals and off-the-charts boneheaded decisions.
Cons: Groupthink, a bias toward the way things have always been done.
Worth noting: All have previously passed background checks. With the Trump administration currently denying the Biden team access to transition resources, that might be a factor in Biden’s decision-making. Or they might just be people Biden knows and trusts.

—> The Brief: 5 Stories to Read Today

“Our ability to detect lying versus truthful witnesses is mediocre. The meta-analysis by Bond and DePaulo, based on a database of more than 25,000 veracity judgments, showed that the average score was at chance level (54% correct), and that none of the professions that we might expect to be good lie detectors—police investigators, psychiatrists, interviewers in recruiting companies—scored better than laypersons. Due to the clever experimental designs and creative use of real-life situations by highly competent researchers over the last few decades, we have got an answer to the critical question of whether we can detect deceit by looking at peoples' behavior; the answer is no.” (Frontiers in Psychology, citations omitted)
“When it comes to political discourse, educated Trump voters are more likely than working-class Trump supporters to view politics as a zero-sum game and to have less tolerance for disagreement with political opponents. Trump supporters with college degrees are also considerably more distrusting of experts than people with college degrees who live in small towns and rural areas, so there really is something about Trumpism that is more powerful than geography and demographics.” (The Dispatch)
“House Democrats are pushing to adopt a Senate-backed measure that would strip the names of Confederate leaders from military bases over a slower timeline as they look to break an impasse with Senate Republicans and the White House on defense policy legislation. … President Donald Trump has promised to veto defense legislation that would strip the names, equating doing so to rewriting U.S. history.” (Politico)
“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly made a secret trip to Saudi Arabia on Sunday, a visit that would mark a significant shift in the historically hostile relations between the Jewish state and the Arab power that is home to Islam’s holiest sites. … According to the Israeli publication Ynet, Netanyahu spent only a few hours late Sunday in the Saudi coastal city of Neom, where he met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and [Secretary of State Mike] Pompeo. In August, Israel and the United Arab Emirates reached an agreement to establish formal relations and open up trade, security, and tourism ties. … [In] recent weeks, speculation has risen in Israel that Riyadh and Jerusalem are close to a similar agreement.” (WaPo)
“As President-elect Joe Biden moves deliberately to transition towards the White House, even while Trump refuses to accept defeat, he has laid out a fast-paced agenda to unwind Trump’s harsh immigration policies. But even if Biden quickly orders a final end to family separations and re-opens the border for asylum-seekers, his plans could stall without action at the Justice Department, which holds extensive power over the immigration system. … Biden’s justice officials will have to contend with an immigration appeals court loaded by Barr with conservative judges known for denying asylum.” (The Marshall Project)

—> Et Cetera

The GSA is finally ready to start the transition.
A third COVID vaccine, produced by AstraZeneca and Oxford University, proved 90% effective in trials. It would also likely be cheaper than the two other vaccines, and 4 million doses will be ready by December.
Michigan certified its election for Joe Biden.
General Motors dropped its support for President Trump’s lawsuit to block California from setting fuel economy standards.
Lin Wood, one of President Trump’s attorneys, suggested that Georgia voters not back Republicans David Purdue and Kelly Loeffler in the January Senate runoff elections until they “fix steal of the 11/3 GA election.” Chuck Schumer approves this message.
Republicans have won every statewide runoff in Georgia history.
The case for why Trump can’t pardon himself.
Trump can—one last time—pardon a turkey: Corn or Cob, which, as best I can tell, are not nicknames for Eric or Don Jr.
As recently as last year, a third of Americans still believed the birther lie. Trump’s voter fraud nonsense will probably stick around just as long.
Evergreen news, but still relevant: The Arctic is much, much warmer than it should be.
Patrick Quinn, the co-creator of the ALS ice-bucket challenge, died at 37.
Speaking of Netanyahu ….