So, POTUS Has COVID. What Else Could We Expect from 2020?
Everything you need to know for Friday, Oct. 2: Barely open NC bars + Raleigh's busted downtown + how not to convince the world you’re not a white supremacist
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Friday, Oct. 2, 2020
32 days until the election
8 days until the voter registration deadline (click here to see if you’re registered)
14 days until early voting begins (you can register during early voting, too)
26 days until the deadline for absentee ballot requests
🚨🚨🚨 BREAKING NEWS 🚨🚨🚨
In a 1 a.m. tweet, Donald Trump announced that he and Melania Trump had tested positive for COVID-19.
Trump seems to have contracted the virus from adviser Hope Hicks, who flew with him to the debate on Tuesday.
After White House officials learned of Hicks’s symptoms, Trump and his entourage flew Thursday to New Jersey, where he attended a fundraiser at his golf club in Bedminster and delivered a speech. Trump was in close contact with dozens of other people, including campaign supporters, at a roundtable event.
The president did not wear a mask Thursday, including at the events at his golf course and on the plane, officials said. He was tested after he returned to the White House, but he also appeared on Sean Hannity’s TV show from the residence by telephone. …
Trump told Fox News’s Sean Hannity during a live interview Thursday night that he and the first lady were tested after they learned about Hicks and were awaiting the results. …
Trump also suggested Hicks could have contracted it from members of the military or law enforcement.
“It is very, very hard when you are with people from the military, or from law enforcement, and they come over to you, and they want to hug you, and they want to kiss you because we really have done a good job for them,” the president said. “You get close, and things happen. I was surprised to hear with Hope, but she is a very warm person with them. She knows there’s a risk, but she is young.”
Trump, however, is 74, an age that makes him particularly at risk of the disease that has killed more than 205,000 Americans.
After Trump’s tweet, the White House physician released a statement:
From The New York Times:
Mr. Trump’s positive test result posed immediate challenges for the future of his campaign against former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic nominee, with barely a month until Election Day. Even if Mr. Trump, 74, remains asymptomatic, he will lose much of his remaining time on the campaign trail. If he becomes sick, it could raise questions about whether he should remain on the ballot at all. …
During late-night conversations, aides to Mr. Trump were discussing whether he should give an address to the nation on Friday from the White House or find some other way for him to reassure the public. But the aides were still in a state of shock as they absorbed the news, and there was no immediate word on how far the infection may have spread among senior White House officials, who generally do not wear masks in deference to the president’s disdain for them.
For posterity, let’s bookmark this moment in history:
Today’s Numbers
837,000: Number of people who filed new initial unemployment claims last week, ahead of new mass layoffs by Disney, Allstate, and furloughs at American Airlines and United Airlines. (About an hour from now, the feds will release the September unemployment numbers, the last report before the election.)
650,000: Number of people who had claims processed for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, which aids gig workers and the self-employed.
26.5 million: Number of Americans claiming unemployment as of Sept. 12.
10,800,000,000: Number of dollars estimated to be spent on the 2020 election, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
4: Percentage of North Carolina registered voters who have already voted, according to the State Board of Elections.
ABOVE THE FOLD
—> How Not to Convince People You’re Not a White Supremacist
Since the debate on Tuesday, Donald Trump and company have furiously walked back his “stand back and stand by” Proud Boy moment, telling reporters he has no idea who the far-right hate group is. The White House similarly tried to argue that President Nice People on Both Sides™ has “always denounced white supremacy.”
Down-ballot Republicans, meanwhile, are getting nervous—not because the president won’t condemn extremists, but because his failure to do so is endangering them.
“On Wednesday, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, called it ‘unacceptable not to condemn white supremacists,’ without criticizing Mr. Trump by name, while Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said the president should ‘make it clear Proud Boys is a racist organization antithetical to American ideals.’”
By definition, Trump’s base at least tolerates white supremacy. But his base isn’t big enough for him to win. To have a chance, Trump needs to reach voters who aren’t already in his corner, which means he needs to shake off the notion that he plays footsie with racists.
Which means he probably shouldn’t do this:
A day after he refused to condemn white supremacists at the first presidential debate, President Trump unleashed a xenophobic attack on Representative Ilhan Omar at a rally in Minnesota Wednesday night, accusing her of telling “us”—meaning his overwhelmingly white audience—“how to run our country.” …
“Another massive issue for Minnesota is the election of Joe Biden’s plan to inundate your state with a historic flood of refugees,” he said.
“Seven hundred percent increase, refugees, coming from the most dangerous places in the world, including Yemen, Syria, and your favorite country, Somalia, right?” Mr. Trump said later, to a chorus of boos.
The Trump administration has capped the number of refugees it will admit into the United States at 15,000 during the next year, a historic low that reflects the president’s increasing vilification of immigrants on the campaign trail.
Especially while this is happening:
Asked at yesterday’s presidential debate if he would condemn white supremacist violence by groups like the Proud Boys, President Trump was defiant, remarking: “Almost everything I see is from the left-wing, not the right-wing.” But that very same day, the FBI issued an intelligence report warning of an imminent “violent extremist threat” posed by a far-right militia that includes white supremacists—identifying the current election period up to the 2021 inauguration as a “potential flashpoint.”
LOCAL & STATE
—> OK, Bars Aren’t Really Open
Yesterday, while talking about Governor Cooper bringing North Carolina into phase 3, I mentioned that bars could open. Turns out, that’s true and it’s not.
Bars can only open outdoors, at 30 percent of outdoor capacity or 100 guests, whichever is less.
Patrons must wear masks when not eating or drinking.
Alcohol sales shut off at 11 p.m.
Music venues can open at 30 percent capacity, but visitors have to be seated and all alcohol must be consumed outdoors, which seems, well, pointless.
Bar owners, who have been barely hanging on—if that—for six months—aren’t exactly thrilled with the gov’s benevolence.
From a press release Raleigh bar owner Zack Medford, the head of the N.C. Bar and Tavern Association, posted on Facebook:
30% Outdoor-Only Bar Reopening is Pointless, NCBATA Says
Gov. Roy Cooper had a chance to do the right thing today and give North Carolina bar owners a chance to survive. Instead, he chose an unworkable path.
The governor is allowing private bars to open at 30 percent capacity outside with absolutely no inside service. Most municipalities don’t issue occupancy certificates for outdoors, so under the rules, those bars will be limited to seven customers per 1,000 square feet. That’s seven. It is virtually impossible to pay for staff and overhead with fewer than 20 customers. To have 20 customers, a bar would need to have at least 60 seats outside, or 3,000 square feet of patio space. Out of 93 bars surveyed by the N.C. Bar and Tavern Association, only six qualify to have more than 20 customers. Fifty-nine have a dozen outside seats or fewer.
Meanwhile, COVID-19 is making a comeback even as more businesses reopen.
“North Carolina reported 2,277 new COVID-19 cases Thursday, the most new daily cases confirmed since July 30. … The COVID-19 death toll climbed by 47 people, the state Department of Health and Human Services reported Thursday, bringing the total to 3,579.”
Today in COVID: As of noon Thursday, per DHHS.
—> Raleigh’s Downtown Chill
Zack owns several bars in downtown Raleigh, which was hit first by the coronavirus shutdown and then by the looting and vandalism that have accompanied the Black Lives Matter protests since spring. Earlier this week, CBS 17 interviewed House of Swank’s John Pugh, who said the damage was crushing business:
“I think it’s definitely had kind of a chilling effect on foot traffic downtown, we have to roll with the punches with that. Like everyone else downtown, we’ve had to pivot, the plywood goes up, the plywood goes down.”
Last weekend, downtown businesses sustained $76,000 in damage, the N&O reported.
“Bill King, the director of the Downtown Raleigh Alliance, said in an email that seven storefronts had at least one broken window and several more had been tagged with graffiti. In a phone interview, King said there was much less damage than during the late May protests shortly after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.”
—> Chapel Hill Signs Off on Downtown Grubb Project
On Wednesday, the Chapel Hill Town Council voted 5–3 to approve a development agreement with Grubb Properties and 8–1 in favor of an $8 million land swap essential to the deal. Here are the important parts:
Chapel Hill pays Grubb $1.7 million, plus the deed to the Wallace Parking Deck on Rosemary Street.
Grubb gives the town the CVS parking deck just down the block, as well as an adjacent parking lot.
Grubb redevelops the Wallace deck with 250,000 square feet of office and lab space.
The town replaces the CVS deck and lot with a new parking garage with a patio for food trucks.
There were a few hiccups. Most importantly, the town’s staff muffed the traffic study. It’s clear the new projects will add to traffic, just not by how much. Hongbin Gu, Allen Buansi, and Jessica Anderson opposed the agreement, with Gu opposing the land swap, too.
“I like the project. A lot,” Anderson told me in a text message yesterday. “I just wanted to get the [traffic impact analysis] corrected/right, and I wanted to get additional risk mitigated should there be a no-build scenario. I would have happily voted for it with stipulations or voted for it next week once it was in better shape.:
—> Weather
Partly cloudy, high of 69. It will actually feel like 🍁 🍁 🍁.
NATION & WORLD
—> The Lede: The War on Voting, Continued
Part 1.
Last weekend, some 10,000 voters in Madison, Wisconsin, dropped off absentee ballots with poll workers stationed at parks, part of a city-organized event called Democracy in the Park. The city plans to do it again this weekend.
The Republican state legislature is threatening to have the votes invalidated.
On Friday, an attorney with the law firm Troutman Pepper Hamilton Sanders, representing Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, sent a cease-and-desist letter to Witzel-Behl arguing that the park event is an “illegal collection of ballots” and “falls outside lawful categories.”
In the letter, Misha Tseytlin, who previously worked as the state solicitor general under Republican Attorney General Brad Schimel, warned that the ballots collected could be challenged in court and invalidated.
“We urge you in the strongest possible terms to abandon this unlawful effort immediately, in order to avoid the threat of invalidated ballots and needless litigation,” Tseytlin said in the letter. “At minimum, your office should keep any ballots collected during this illegal effort separate from all other ballots that your office receives.”
The letter contained no legal support for the claims. The Democratic-leaning city has so far shrugged off the legislature’s gambit.
Part 2.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued a proclamation yesterday that, for “security” reasons, dictates that each county can only have one location for voters to drop off mail-in ballots.
Abbott: “These enhanced security protocols will ensure greater transparency and will help stop attempts at illegal voting.”
Reality: There’s no evidence of any attempts of illegal voting through mail-in voting.
Reality, part 2: The most recent polls have Trump up between zero and five points. The 538 average puts him up 47–46. In 2016, he won Texas by nine.
—> So You Think Amy Barrett Isn’t Gunning for Roe?
Remember how, when Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett and everyone to the left of Aunt Lydia freaked out about her being a right-wing fruit loop, Barrett assured us that she would “apply the law as written” and set aside her own views, etc., etc.?
Trump has taken the same line: “Trump, on Tuesday night, tried to downplay the notion that Barrett’s confirmation could result in the overturning of Roe, saying that there was no way to know that abortion rights could be affected by her taking the seat of the recently deceased Ruth Bader Ginsburg.”
Yeah, about that:
“Amy Coney Barrett, the supreme court nominee, signed off on an advertisement in 2006 that called for the overturning of Roe v Wade, and called the landmark abortion rights decision ‘barbaric’ and a ‘raw exercise of judicial power.’ … The first page of the ad, which is signed by Barrett and her husband, Jesse, states that life begins at ‘fertilization.’”
“On the second page of the two-page spread, the [St. Joseph County Right to Life organization] condemns Roe and claims that ‘the majority of those abortions were performed for social reasons.’ It also claims that an ‘increasing majority’ of Americans are opposed to abortion as a ‘method of birth control.’ ‘It’s time to put an end to the barbaric legacy of Roe v Wade and restore law that protects the lives of unborn children,’ it states.”
How crazy is that organization?
“In an interview with the Guardian, Jackie Appleman, the executive director of St. Joseph County Right to Life, said that the organization’s view on life beginning at fertilization—as opposed to the implantation of an embryo or a fetus being viable—did have implications for in vitro fertilization, which usually involves the creation of multiple embryos.”
“Asked whether doctors who perform abortion ought to be criminalized, Appleman said: ‘We support the criminalization of the doctors who perform abortions. At this point, we are not supportive of criminalizing the women. We would be supportive of criminalizing the discarding of frozen embryos or selective reduction through the IVF process.’”
Here’s the ad.
—> The EU Is Suing Britain Over Brexit
As expected, the European Commission decided Thursday to press on with legal action against Britain over its plans to override parts of the Brexit agreement. The EU had given Prime Minister Boris Johnson an ultimatum last month not to renege on an agreement to prevent a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. The British Parliament is considering a bill that would override that deal. The EU isn’t happy about it.
“Critically, the dispute has not so far derailed the talks on a trade agreement between Britain and the European Union. If those are successful, they could resolve many of the points at the center of the legal action and pave the way for a compromise.”
“European officials have repeatedly said that they will not break off negotiations, and that their objective is to defend the integrity of the single market, to ensure a level playing field for trade with Britain and prevent having a physical border on the island of Ireland.”
“Though there has been more optimism recently, some analysts believe that Mr. Johnson has yet to focus on the concessions he needs to make to secure a breakthrough.”
—> Polling Update
National: Biden 54–41 (CNBC/Change Research)
Kansas Senate: Marshall (R, inc.) 43–39 (Keep Kansas Great PAC, R-internal)
Arizona Senate: Kelly (D) 51–42 (Data for Progress)
Maine Senate: Gideon (D): 46–41 (DFP)
Iowa Senate: Greenfield (D): 44–42 (DFP)
South Carolina Senate: Graham (R, inc.) 45–44 (DFP)
Maine: Biden 53–39 (DFP, Indivisible, D)
North Carolina 8th Congressional District: Hudson (R, inc.) 44–42 (Brilliant Corners, Pat Timmons-Goodson internal)
The University of Virginia’s Center for Politics now has Joe Biden leading in states that amount to 279 electoral votes, with another 80 EVs still considered toss-ups.
– 30 –
—> Sanity Break: Working from Home With Pets
The Huffington Post offers 27 reader-provided photos of what happens when your fuzzy friends become your fussy coworkers.
—> What You’re Watching Today
Weird Al Auto-tuned the debate, why not?
—> The Roundup
I’ve been in the kill-the-filibuster camp for a while, but if you’re not there yet, here’s 9,000 words on why it’s a good idea.
The English language’s biggest driver of COVID-19 disinformation is—drumroll, please—Donald Trump.
The St. Louis Fed reported a big drop in personal disposable income in August, which a) indicates that we pulled back on stimulus measures too soon, and b) won’t help Trump’s re-election.
The Irish Supreme Court has ruled that Subway’s sub rolls can’t legally be considered bread. Too much sugar.
Defeated Iowa congressman Steve King, R-Racism, took to the House floor yesterday to complain that the term “white nationalism” was conceived by (((George Soros))) and warn that “Western civilization is under assault and I have been 100% correct on this.”
Shot: The Trump administration’s U.S. Geological Survey director is sitting on his own scientists’ report about polar bears in the Arctic and insisting upon changes. The report, which says that sea ice loss due to climate change is threatening the bears’ survival, could affect a $3 billion oil-drilling project.
Chaser: Greenland’s ice sheet is losing ice at the fastest rate in 12,000 years.
—> Image Du Jour
What the hell is going on at the University of Alabama?
Take care of yourselves. We’ll you Monday.