The White House Staff Is Freaking Out and So Is Mitch McConnell's Senate Majority

Authored by esquire.com and submitted by prampsler
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Well, things got worse as Friday rolled along, and one of the central focal points was the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett, which, in any political context that made any kind of sense, would be delayed until it could be guaranteed that everyone would come out of the process healthy and, well, alive. It was reported that the judge may have had the virus over the past summer, and that she had quarantined herself as a precaution. From the Washington Post:

Two of the officials said she tested positive for the virus in the summer. All of the people spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose her medical condition. The White House declined to comment on Barrett’s earlier diagnosis. As the Supreme Court nominee, Barrett is now tested daily and most recently had a negative test for covid-19 Friday morning, according to deputy White House press secretary Judd Deere. Deere said she was last with President Trump, who has tested positive for the virus, on Saturday, at her Rose Garden ceremony announcing her nomination to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Barrett has been on the Hill at least three times this week, meeting with roughly 30 senators in one-on-one meetings to discuss her nomination.

One of those meetings was with Senator Mike Lee, the konztitooshunal solar from Utah, and, well, you can guess what also happened on Friday. From Politico:

The Utah Republican is an integral member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is considering the Supreme Court nomination of Amy Coney Barrett. Lee was at her announcement on Saturday at the White House and met with Barrett on Tuesday. He also spoke to reporters after his meeting with Barrett and attended committee meetings and party lunches.

When Barrett's nomination was announced at the White House, one of the honored guests was Father John Jenkins, the president of Notre Dame, where Barrett taught law, and, well, you can guess what also happened next. From CNN:

"During self-quarantine this week, University of Notre Dame President Rev. John I. Jenkins, CSC, learned that a colleague with whom he has been in regular contact tested positive for COVID-19. Fr Jenkins was tested and found to be positive for COVID-19 too. As a result, he is entering an extended period of isolation as indicated by University medical personnel and county health officials," the message said...This comes nearly a week after Jenkins attended the announcement for the White House Supreme Court of the United States nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett. He was seen at the announcement shaking hands and not wearing a mask.

The WaPo's indefatigable Robert Costa live-tweeted events from what appeared to be an increasingly panicked U.S. Senate all Friday afternoon. He reported that several Republicans have gone to Mitch McConnell to ask that the Senate be taken out of session at least for next week so that everyone can self-quarantine before the Judiciary Committee hearings into the Barrett nomination begin. Further, Costa tweeted out more information about the festivities surrounding the Barrett announcement last week, which now appear to have possibly been something of a disease vector.

Per 2 WH officials and a conservative ally outside the WH who was present, there were at least two private gatherings/receptions last Sat. around ACB announcement, one in the Cabinet room and another in Diplomatic Reception Room. Very little distancing, few masks. Lots of VIPs.

McConnell says the nomination remains at full throttle and on schedule, but the reporting out of Washington indicates that the White House staff is completely freaking out, and that the Senate majority over which McConnell presides is wondering if pumping the brakes a bit might be the play now. Costa managed to pry this money quote out of a GOP aide, who wants the Leader to take next week off:

"If some in the Republican caucus get sick, we are screwed."

Expect McConnell to go full steam ahead on confirming Barrett. Tasos Katopodis Getty Images

You may have noticed that, before the president* entered quarantine, one of his newest hobby-horses is ending diversity training programs in government that he says teach people how to hate our country. This is, of course, insane, but somebody—coughStephenMillercough—appears to have convinced him there are votes in it, no matter how strongly it buttresses the president*'s reputation as a Ross Barnett cosplayer. Well, a government employee helpfully posted on the electric Twitter machine the memo announcing this change of policy that was sent out by Russell T. Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, and it reads like some "reverse discrimination" screed from 1976.

Review these trainings to determine whether they teach, advocate, or promote the divisive concepts specified in the Executive Order on Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping (e.g., that the United States is fundamentally racist or sexist or that an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive). Reviews of specific training curriculum materials can be supplemented by a broader keyword search of agency financial data and procurements for terms including, but not limited to: "critical race theory," "white privilege," "intersectionality," "systemic racism," "positionality," "racial humility," and "unconscious bias." When used in the context of diversity training, these terms may help to identify the type of training prohibited by the E.O. Searching for these key words without additional review does not satisfy the review requirements of the E.O.

This, of course, isn't a coherent government policy, and it sure as hell has nothing to do with the search for equality. It's the government sanctioning a bunch of Breitbart comment section conjuring words. If Russell T. Vought knows anything about "critical race theory" beyond how to spell all three words, I'll buy him a new hat. (As we learned during his confirmation hearings, Vought is a Christocentric bag of pecans who would like all the Muslim faithful to know that they're going to hell. He also doesn't seem to know what a subpoena is, since he ignored congressional subpoenas to testify in the investigation into the scandal surrounding aid to Ukraine.) It's going to take decades to get all the idiot graffiti sponged off the institutions of democratic government when these guys all get chased back to the Heritage Foundation where they belong.

It’s a Stephen Miller joint. ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS Getty Images

WWOZ Pick To Click: "Chain On My Thing" (Denise Keeble): Yeah, I pretty much still love New Orleans.

Weekly Visit To The Pathe Archives: Here, from 1959, is a lion drinking beer at a British pub because I thought we all needed video of a lion drinking beer at a British pub and it's my blog, dammit. History—and beer—is so cool.

Things have gone badly sideways for Daniel Cameron, the Republican attorney general in Kentucky who pronounced the killing of Breonna Taylor as having been justified. On Friday, thanks to community pressure and an order from a local judge, an audio recording of the grand jury proceedings into the case over which Cameron presided was released. Cameron's press conference now looks as though it were a bit...redacted. This began with one member of the grand jury, who requested that the transcripts be released and that the grand jurors be freed to talk to the media, because the juror thought Cameron had misinformed the public in his initial press conference at which he announced that nobody would be prosecuted in connection with Taylor's killing.

Things are going less well for Daniel Cameron all of a sudden. Jon Cherry Getty Images

Similarly, in Washington, federal judge Reggie Walton has had enough of Attorney General William Barr's shenanigans with the Mueller report. (Barr issued a severely dishonest "summary" of the report prior to its release that poisoned discussion of the actual report to this day.) From The Hill:

District Judge Reggie Walton said the Trump administration had failed to justify certain redactions from the report on the special counsel's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. The specific redactions he took issue with cover the decisionmaking process within former special counsel Robert Mueller's team over whether to charge certain people with crimes during the probe. "Based on the Court’s review of the unredacted version of the Mueller Report, the Court concludes that the Department has failed to satisfy its burden to demonstrate that the withheld material is protected by the deliberative process privilege," Walton, who was appointed by former President George W. Bush, wrote in his 40-page opinion.

The phrase "running to ground" is going to get a real workout over the next few months, I'm hoping.

Is it a good day for dinosaur news, National Geographic? it's always a good day for dinosaur news!

That 150-million-year-old plume was the first fossil ever tied toArchaeopteryx lithographica—a name now given to a feathered dinosaur found in nearby rocks. About the size of a raven, that ancient animal’s mix of bird and dinosaur features showed an example of evolutionary transition, providing support for Charles Darwin’s theories. Today, the feather that started it all is arguably the most famous fossil of its kind. But it’s also among the most controversial—with one 2019 study even suggesting that it didn’t belong to Archaeopteryx at all.

Apparently, this resolves a controversy regarding this feather, and the feather became a lifetime enthusiasm for a a scientist in Florida who was determined to prove that the feather did indeed belong to Archaeopteryx, and who now claims to have done so. It lived then to make him happy now.

I'll be back on Monday with the latest from the chronic ward. Be well and play nice, ya bastids. Stay above the snake-line, and, hey, don't be like the president*. Wear the damn mask.

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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Tangerine_memez on October 3rd, 2020 at 02:08 UTC »

There are more people in the white house with corona than there are cases in the entire country of New zealand

beaucephus on October 3rd, 2020 at 00:59 UTC »

The Republicans did this to themselves. Trump did this to himself.

sld126 on October 3rd, 2020 at 00:58 UTC »

Lol. Being anti science always has consequences sooner or later.