Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

In my day, never was longer.

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

Republicans in disarray!

Let’s finish the job.

President Biden is doing good where he can, and getting it done.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Bad news for Ron DeSantis is great news for America.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

The problem people have with Biden’s age is the color of the VPs skin.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

I was confident that someone would point it out and thought why not me.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

I was promised a recession.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

Bogus polls are all they’ve got left. Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls a year from now.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

There’s always a light at the end of the frog.

You are here: Home / Elections / Biden-Harris 2020 / The Biden Administration’s Job One

The Biden Administration’s Job One

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This is Job One, and Joe Biden is on it.

The numbers of sick and dead are shooting up the steep part of the exponential curve, where they become hard to control. Most of the country is seeing uncontrolled spread of the virus – that means that people don’t know how they contracted it. The numbers set records every day now.

One of the first things Biden has done since he became President-Elect is to announce that he will name, on Monday, a 12-member COVID task force.

The task force will be led by three co-chairs: former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner David Kessler and Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith from Yale University.

I have no doubt that the three will be available to the press immediately, and that they will have strong messages about how to deal with the pandemic. The first message will be that we are not talking politics, we are talking about a barely living organism that has no respect for status or ideology. Its mathematics are stark, but not inexorable if we meet it with our intelligence. To begin, mask up, distance from other people, and wash your hands.

Biden will engage.

“There are some things he’s going to do right off the bat,” said Nicole Lurie, a Biden campaign adviser who served as the Obama administration’s top pandemic-preparedness official. “He will reach out to Tony Fauci. He will declare his intent to be an active participant in the WHO and in the world. And I believe that in very short order, he’ll be in touch with governors and mayors around the country, listening to what it is that they’ll need to pivot this response.”

There’s a tradition for the President-Elect to avoid competing with the President, but there is no competition here, because, even as more White House staff are infected with the virus, Trump continues to do nothing. And the virus continues its mindless multiplication.

The response must be immediate. The incubation period of the virus means that people infected today will show symptoms a week or two later; the path of the disease to death is another week or two. Some people will not die but will be disabled, perhaps permanently.

What Biden and the task force can do is less than will be possible after he is inaugurated on January 20; for example, only then can he invoke the Defense Production Act to make protective equipment and medications more available. Congressional action will be needed, too, so that schools can be made more safe and people will not have to risk their livelihood to keep safe.

But we must start now. Mask up, distance from other people, and wash your hands.

Cross-posted to Nuclear Diner

Reader Interactions

137Comments

  1. 1.

    Cermet

    The only issue is how many will die before President elect Biden can finally take office and start to manage this epidemic.

  2. 2.

    NotMax

    Almost certainly not original to Hawaii (I think?), the state is widely promulgating a slogan about the wheres and whens of masking up.

    “If you have to ask, wear a mask.”

  3. 3.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Cermet: That’s far too pessimistic. Trump has provided a vacuum, and Biden is stepping into it. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the CDC and other agencies following his lead. They all know how bad this is becoming.

  5. 5.

    p.a.

    Who are the people in the current misadministration after tRump who can do the worst at circumventing Biden’s covid response shadow-governing? Pence, Ayers…?

  6. 6.

    Matt McIrvin

    Sounds like he’s hitting the ground running. And even if he lacks presidential power, governments and institutions will know that is coming and can act accordingly.

  7. 7.

    zhena gogolia

    Yesterday at 11:25 or so was the first moment I thought, “We may see an end to this Covid way of existence before I’m 100 years old.”

  9. 9.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @p.a.: CDC and FDA have already shown resistance to Trump’s mismanagement. Individuals like Mike Pence have little influence over the civil service staff now that they are short-timers. I think none will be able to do much unless they want to directly challenge Biden’s actions.

  10. 10.

    Frankensteinbeck

    It didn’t occur to me until I started reading this – yes, a whole lot of people in power will want to start following Biden’s lead as if he’s already president. And then you went there explicitly. Sections of the federal government, even, are going to go to Biden for instructions and to make requests. Foreign countries certainly will want to negotiate with the sane, knowledgeable guy who will be in charge in two months rather than the deranged idiot currently president. Governors who actually care about governing, ditto. That is nuts, but Trump has given them all no choice.

    Trump will be enraged, but… who cares? What will that change? The ‘asshole’ dial has been at 10 this whole four years anyway.

  11. 11.

    dr. bloor

    @Cheryl Rofer: Is there any particular precedent for a federal agency to tell a sitting POTUS to bugger off because his designated successor has better ideas?

    I’m so old I remember when we used to get pissed off about transition administrations trying to exercise influence before taking office.

  14. 14.

    different-church-lady

    I don’t know if I think this or just hope it, but Biden will have a shadow presidency that the government agencies will follow as much as they can get away with. They have no reason to obey the deposed strongman anymore.

  15. 15.

    bbleh

    Panels and information are all very good, but there are still two fundamental problems. First, we have more cases than in either of the previous two waves, the numbers are increasing exponentially, and we’re moving into flu — i.e., transmissible respiratory virus — season, which in Europe has already led to sharp increases requiring lockdowns even though their baseline rates were a tiny fraction of ours.  And second, a substantial fraction of our population is impervious to messaging — in fact, they actively resist it and likewise resist any sensible preventive measures — and they are less likely to follow Biden’s lead than they might have been even half-hearted measures by Trump.

    We’re in a hole, and half the population is still stubbornly digging.  We can cheer on Biden’s efforts, and those of us in the reality-based world can take sensible precautions — up to and including another lockdown, which may well be necessary — but we shouldn’t expect more widespread success.  The virus is running rampant in Trump Country — look at the numbers in the Plains states! — and nothing is going to stop it from getting many times worse.

    This has been your Daily Downer.

  16. 16.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    Biden will tread carefully.  Biden is a professional with class.  But other people will come to HIM, or listen to his statements of what he will do and act on them immediately.  Now that you’ve pointed it out… yeah, this will happen.  What a strange situation we’re about to be in.  Still an improvement.

  17. 17.

    different-church-lady

    There’s a tradition for the President-Elect to avoid competing with the President…

    Considering the number of traditions and norms Trump has ignored or outright smashed, I ain’t gonna put up with noise pearls make when they’re being clutched over this.

  19. 19.

    Matt

    The first message will be that we are not talking politics, we are talking about a barely living organism that has no respect for status or ideology.

    I wish this was true, but let’s be clear: we’re sharing a country with 60ish million people who’d rather die than admit that Dear Leader was wrong. They’ve resisted even the most basic public-health measures so far, and they’re not going to suddenly change course. COVID has become a political (and religious) issue because conservative leaders have deliberately staked out a “science isn’t real, I know better” position.

  20. 20.

    Baud

    Biden can provide leadership, even if he can’t provide the legal authority of the federal government yet.

  23. 23.

    Punchy

    @bbleh: the fact that The Completely Illegit Election Stealin’ Biden Poopyface Admin is telling them to use masks is THE precise reason they wont.

    We’re right back into those Obama years, where we all wished Obama would announce that fellow citizens should NOT eat rat poison, just to thin the GOP herd a bit.

  24. 24.

    dr. bloor

    @bbleh: 

    We’re in a hole, and half the population is still stubbornly digging.

    Worse, a measurable portion of the non-diggers are becoming more apathetic. Mask response has generally been good in the stretches of New England and New York that I frequent with regularity, although compliance has most definitely tapered off. It doesn’t help that governors like Baker and Raimondo are half-assing their responses to second wave numbers that are worse than the first wave.

  25. 25.

    The Moar You Know

    As I said to my wife last night when Biden announced the task force:

    “Well, Biden’s just done more about COVID than Trump has in a year.”

    I’m glad they get it.  You fix this before anything else, because nothing else can be fixed until this is.

  26. 26.

    debbie

    It has now been two weeks since Ohio State’s first game, which was played at home. The number of new cases in Ohio has increased by 55% over two weeks. Yesterday, there were slightly over 5,000 new cases. I’m thinking there’s a connection between these things….  ?

  29. 29.

    Another Scott

    @debbie: SNL was delayed last night because of a ND football game.  Hundreds of kids rushed the field when it was over…

    :-(

    Cheers,

    Scott.

  30. 30.

    Wag

    I’m bringing my comment fro AL’s COVID thread up here:

    Take solace in the examples from recent history. BLM protests went on for hours, day after day, but were uniformly masked.  The CDC never released a report about s super spreader event linked to the protests, and f there would have been any way to use COVID to discredit the BLM protests, there is no doubt in my mind that the trump administration would have used it both to discredit the movement, and to discredit the utility of masks.

    On the other hand, look to the Dakotas, and the super spreader event in Sturgis, as well as Trump’s own rallies. No masks anywhere, and now the northern plains leads the country in the recent outbreak.

    In my professional opinion as an academic physician, I am cautiously optimistic that yesterday’s celebrations will not lead to worsening outbreaks.

  32. 32.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Another Scott: Didn’t their Grand Vizier or some other priesty-priest pushback against mask wearing, and then got Covid from the super spreader event on the WH lawn?

    That’s really too bad.

  35. 35.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Baud: He can provide a central national platform for true information about the virus, about vaccines, about the efficacy of masks. Information that we can trust and believe. We haven’t had that. It matters.

  36. 36.

    artem1s

    It’s likely the transition team will be working with the WH in the typical way (god bless everyone of them). But I’m betting the COVID effort will be focusing on governors and mayors. Even if red states still want to sit around with their heads up their butts waiting on heard immunity, a lot can be done to help those states and municipalities that want to protect their citizens. Team Biden can offer legal help on how to circumvent disruption from the WH and help them with coordinating the supply chain and labor shortages between cities. They can’t do anything about federal funding until Jan, but they can get the states set up so they know what the plan is on day one. I wouldn’t be surprised if the messaging is bottom up. Apply pressure locally to mayors and senators and state supreme courts to apply pressure to McConnell’s Senate to get a stimulus bill passed. And it should always be referred to as McConnell’s Senate. Put the onus on him if things are going bad and let him take victory laps if he cooperates. It will encourage a split between the WH and Moscow Mitch. And show a way for the other boot lickers to escape from Trumplandia. If they continue to obfuscate, have the state AG’s go after them on state charges. It should be considered organized crime to willfullly commit genocide. IF they cooperate they can show that to the judge when they are brought up on charges.

    The state governors can do a lot to coordinate their buying power until Jan. The west coast already has. The voters can turn out and demand town halls from their deadbeat Senators on why they aren’t doing anything to help. Put Stacey on it!

  37. 37.

    SFAW

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    You might have noticed a change yesteday.

    What change? I must have missed it.

    It’s nice to be able to read about something the President — “Elect” or otherwise — without my BP spiking, and without saying/thinking “what an asshole.”

    My only worry is that The Traitor Bill Barr will dispatch his flying monkeys to find some obscure section of the US Code, from which they can level “treason” or “sedition” charges against President Biden’s actions or his team. This is not really a worry — I’m not totally nuts … yet — but given the vindictive/psychotic behavior(s) of the Traitor-in-Chief and his minions over the past four years, nothing would surprise me.

    [OK, that’s not completely true: were Trump to issue an adult, conciliatory concession speech, I might have a stroke or heart attack. But the chances of that speech happening are on a par with me QB-ing the Jets to the Super Bowl championship this season. ]

  38. 38.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud: Also, most organizations making changes require time to ramp up.

    With Biden providing leadership now, any people or organizations that wish to follow that leadership can begin preparations now to put things in place that will hopefully allow some fast action starting Jan 21.

  39. 39.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @artem1s: Thank you for your informative and reality-based analysis. It’s a refreshing change from the doomsayers whining about, “We’re all doomed.”

  40. 40.

    Suzanne

    @SFAW: I’m not sure how spiteful they’re going to be on the way out, for no other reason than that being well and truly spiteful requires some degree of creativity and effort. I consider it more likely that Trump spends the next ten weeks at Maralago writing pardons for his friends and getting the USSS to pay him. Not a damn thing is going to happen.

    Maybe this is just me being wishful. But I also think that he really is just lazy AF.

    I mean…. I see the Shakespearean tragedy that is Four Seasons Total Landscaping, and I see people whose hearts really just aren’t in it.

  42. 42.

    Punchy

    Qanon Q here:  since their whole platform is based on the premise that Pres Trump roots out pedos and jails Dems and such, what haps to them come Jan 21?  Do they suddenly believe Citizen Trump will do all this?  Do they adopt a new politician as their savior?  Will they continue to eat boogers?

  44. 44.

    WaterGirl

    @dr. bloor:

    Worse, a measurable portion of the non-diggers are becoming more apathetic. Mask response has generally been good in the stretches of New England and New York that I frequent with regularity, although compliance has most definitely tapered off.

    It doesn’t help that governors like Baker and Raimondo are half-assing their responses to second wave numbers that are worse than the first wave.

    I would posit that that happens when people feel helpless and hopeless, and it seems like anything they could do would be like salt in the ocean.

    Those people can most definitely be reached with Biden’s leadership.

    Also, any governors who have been following the Trump’s lead either to curry favor or to stay out of trouble no longer have reason to follow Trump’s lead.

    Some portion of Trump followers will be able to see that the emperor has never had any clothes.

    Let’s not give up before Biden has even had his first workday after being chosen as our next president.

  46. 46.

    SFAW

    @Suzanne:

    I think Shitgibbon and his “upper echelon” of traitors (or some of them, at least) will try various forms of fuckery. I think the lower level may also, but it probably depends on how much Kool-Aid they’ve drunk.

    I expect you remember the various tales of Clinton-Admin fuckery done before Bush was inaugurated, and which of course turned out to be bullshit. I am less confident in this maladministration. [That is: less confident that they won’t pull any crap.]

  49. 49.

    catclub

    @Matt: we’re sharing a country with 60ish million people who’d rather die than admit that Dear Leader was wrong.

     

    So the vote totals look like about 145-6 M votes cast.  I thought we a re a nation of about 330M people.  So how many under 18?  How many non-citizens?  I will guess 20% under 18 ->66M  and 10% non-citizens ->33M  leaves 231M  and only 146M voted, who are likely eligible.

  50. 50.

    SFAW

    @Punchy:

    Qanon Q here:  since their whole platform is based on the premise that Pres Trump roots out pedos and jails Dems and such, what haps to them come Jan 21?  Do they suddenly believe Citizen Trump will do all this?  Do they adopt a new politician as their savior?  Will they continue to eat boogers?

    1. They’ll still be insane
    2. Yes
    3. Tom Cotton will help their savior in the Quest
    4. You have to ask?
  52. 52.

    catclub

    @SFAW: I expect you remember the various tales of Clinton-Admin fuckery done before Bush was inaugurated, and which of course turned out to be bullshit. I am less confident in this maladministration.

     

    LOTS of email archives to try to delete.  also accounts at stormfront accessed from government computers. Private email servers. etc

  54. 54.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @SFAW:

    This is not really a worry

    It’s not any kind of worry, because Trump already gave that order.  It’s been tried.  More than once.  Barr has come up empty handed.  He has no flying monkeys that can arrest Biden without a real charge, and they can’t come up with a real charge.

    One of my great reliefs about the next couple of months is that Trump cannot actually get worse.  As the joke has run, what would Trump do differently if he was trying to destroy America?  Our pain has come precisely because he has thrown every handful of shit he could poop out, immediately and with no self-restraint.  He will only get less destructive when he realizes he has nothing to personally gain from playing president anymore.  I’m only worried about document destruction.

  55. 55.

    Tokyokie

    @Cheryl Rofer: More to the point, career civil service officers also know how NOT to get things done. Any particularly looney directions they receive will be lost in procedural maneuvering that will prevent them from being implemented.

  57. 57.

    The Moar You Know

    Qanon Q here:  since their whole platform is based on the premise that Pres Trump roots out pedos and jails Dems and such, what haps to them come Jan 21?  Do they suddenly believe Citizen Trump will do all this?  Do they adopt a new politician as their savior?  Will they continue to eat boogers?

    @Punchy:  No.

    I’m sure this is going to be part of Adam’s post tonight, so sorry if this is a spoiler; they’re going to start blowing shit up, some of them.

    I don’t know if you all noticed both the security and the bulletproof plexiglass stage shielding last night at Biden’s speech.  I have never seen security like that before, not for anyone, and I think the Secret Service knows that we are in for some shit.  I very much hope President Biden and VP Harris plan to do as few public outings as possible for the next year.

  59. 59.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @The Moar You Know:

    I have never seen security like that before, not for anyone, and I think the Secret Service knows that we are in for some shit.

    I’ve seen it for both Obama and Trump. Also for Angela Merkel and other national leaders.

    One of the things I’ve wondered about is how many assassination threats there have been against Trump. There were a great many against Obama, and we heard about the numbers although of course not the specifics.

  61. 61.

    Splitting Image

    @dr. bloor:

    Is there any particular precedent for a federal agency to tell a sitting POTUS to bugger off because his designated successor has better ideas?

    I’m so old I remember when we used to get pissed off about transition administrations trying to exercise influence before taking office.

    For the coronavirus, Biden’s “leadership” is mostly going to amount to showing more deference to the medical team which is already in place, such as Fauci. Biden won’t be replacing the scientists with his own guys, or putting his own stamp on things, but he will be nodding his head when Fauci talks and saying “This guy is making sense. Listen to him.” If this looks like it’s interfering with Trump’s authority during the handover, it’s only because Trump has been undermining his own agency, saying maybe the virus will go away on its own, or maybe you can drink bleach, or maybe this or maybe that.

    This alone is a big improvement, although how much good it will do in the Trumpiest parts of the country is anyone’s guess.

  63. 63.

    Mai Naem mobile

    If Donnie does fire Fauci like he’s been threatening Biden should hire him the next day for this task force. Fauci is popular and will know what has been done and not been done in case Donny decides not to cooperate with information.

  64. 64.

    Fair Economist

    What concerns me is that we are seeing increases even in places like LA county which are already under the full range of reasonable restrictions (no eating inside, online school, work at home, etc.) Those should be enough (they were here in OC when they were in place). Is it noncompliance? Home parties? SubcuItures? Poverty? I don’t know, but we need to find out and figure out how to stop whatever it is.

  66. 66.

    Frank Wilhoit

    @Frankensteinbeck: It will be the opposite.  There are plenty enough Republican burrowers throughout the Executive Branch to block any ameliorative steps.  Job 1 on 20 Jan. will be to get them out. All that can be done in the meanwhile is to start identifying them.

  67. 67.

    WaterGirl

    @The Thin Black Duke: I still think there should be a concerted effort to identify everyone who requested a ballot but never received one.  And a major effort to identify everyone who voted by mail to follow up to confirm that their ballot had a status of receive and ready to be counted.

    I suspect but obviously cannot prove that a whole lot of ballots are never received.  If they follow up on this, we could know whether that is the case.

    I guess the new cabinet-level position – The Department of *Democracy & Voting Rights – could ask the states for lists of all ballots requested and all ballots received, and could follow up from there.

    *I can hope, can’t I?

  71. 71.

    WaterGirl

    @The Moar You Know: I thought Biden – who looked great in his suit last night, as he always does – looked heavier and bulkier than usual, so I think he was wearing some bulletproof article of clothing under his regular clothes.

    Same with Kamala – who looked beautiful in her white suit – also looked bulkier, so I assume she was wearing something bulletproof, also.

  73. 73.

    Kristine

    @Suzanne:

    I mean…. I see the Shakespearean tragedy that is Four Seasons Total Landscaping, and I see people whose hearts really just aren’t in it.

    Also add in the rank incompetence of low quality hires. I was concerned about legal challenges until I read about all the filings that fell apart like wet toilet paper. FSTL was the icing on the urinal cake. They’re flailing. People are laughing at them and tuning them out. I know that Adam will be in later today to harsh our mellows good and hard, but at this point I’m wondering if pointing and laughing and outright ignoring and working around can defuse the worst of their planned shit-flinging.

  75. 75.

    PAM Dirac

    @Fair Economist:

     

    I don’t know, but we need to find out and figure out how to stop whatever it is.

    I think the the main thing the Biden team can do right now is establish working relationships with governors, mayors, local public heath officials and really listen to them. Each area is going to have their own particular set of problems, resources, and expertise. It’s not so much influencing the federal response right now (although with the current vacuum it probably will anyway), but starting on Jan 20 with a federal response that is thought out, cooperative, and takes into account differing situations and needs. All of that is work that the current yo-yos have no interest in doing, so I doubt very much that there will be much more than the usual whining.

  76. 76.

    Cheryl Rofer

    Moar here. This is particularly important.

    Biden’s goal, these people say, is to have people hear the same message from leaders at all levels of government and from members of both parties — something that has been lacking this past year as mask-wearing became a political flash point.

  79. 79.

    Amir Khalid

    @Mai Naem mobile:

    I think Trump has run out of time to fire Dr Fauci. He’d have to fight Dr Fauci’s boss Francis Collins to get it done. And there’s nothing his lame-duck self can do if Dr Collins sits on the matter for two months.

  82. 82.

    Amir Khalid

    @WaterGirl:

    Or maybe, without continual travelling and meetings and rallies to take up their time, Joe and Kamala have taken up bodybuilding. (he suggested implausibly.)

  83. 83.

    Roger Moore

    @Punchy:

    I don’t think anyone really knows what will happen with Q Anon. In a lot of ways, it seems like a cult, so you can guess some of what will happen from other cults whose leader has lost power and prestige.  Some of the people will angrily leave and complain about having been misled.  Some people will quietly leave and pretend they never paid any attention to it.  But those are the people who were never that tightly attached in the first place.  I expect a lot of the true believers to double down on their belief.  The most likely explanation I can see them adopting is that Trump’s apparent loss is just another part of the strategy, and he’s just going deeper underground to root out the pedophiles.  The other possible explanation is that the conspiracy got him, and he will need to be replaced as the head of the effort.  I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see them splinter, with some continuing to support Trump and some following whomever is presented as his replacement.

  84. 84.

    PAM Dirac

    @Amir Khalid:

     

    He’d have to fight Dr Fauci’s boss Francis Collins to get it done.

    He can just fire Collins, but  then he would have to find someone willing to be acting NIH director that would be willing to fire Fauci and then be fired in a month or two. He might be able to dig up someone but it certainly wouldn’t be anyone who wants a future at NIH.

  85. 85.

    O. Felix Culpa

    Good morning! We won, so I am happy. There’s more work to do, of course, but there was always going to be. Biden is already a more positively effective president than we’ve had in the last four years. He and Kamala and the rest of their team are smart, seasoned politicians and know how to get shit done because they know how government works. And because they, you know, actually care about the public welfare.

    Thank you, Cheryl, for this thoughtful post.

  86. 86.

    SFAW

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    It’s not any kind of worry, because Trump already gave that order.  It’s been tried.  More than once.  Barr has come up empty handed.  He has no flying monkeys that can arrest Biden without a real charge, and they can’t come up with a real charge.

    New/different actions by Biden mean new potential for charges. Trump has been told by the SCOTUS that his tax records can’t be withheld, but his lawyers keep coming up with new, slightly different bullshit arguments, and force it through the process again; they’ll try to keep doing that until they get the result they want, or so they hope.

  87. 87.

    Chris Johnson

    @Punchy: They were always terrorist cells and it’s pure accident that anyone got to pretend their leader was the President.

    Even if Trump DIES the Q message will be that he is alive, that he is Superman, and to go out and kill libs and black people.

    It was never any different. That’s the ultimate goal of that stuff. It is nothing more than radicalization towards terrorism, and was never anything different.

  88. 88.

    SFAW

    @PAM Dirac:

    He can just fire Collins, but  then he would have to find someone willing to be acting NIH director that would be willing to fire Fauci and then be fired in a month or two.

    Louis DeJoy can multitask for a month or two. Or Shill Barr. Or Ben Carson. Or Barbie McInaney. Or Melanis. Or Ivanka.

    Oops! I forgot Poland Jared! Jared will fix it!

  90. 90.

    Immanentize

    @Chief Oshkosh: I’ve been wondering how many people in the West Wing — and across the administration — will suddenly learn they either have COVID or were “exposed” to COVID and therefore need an immediate 14 day quarantine? It would be a good off ramp!

  92. 92.

    germy

    Fox News has suspended Jeanine Pirro’s show.

    Apparently she got into a ‘spat’ over airing baseless voter fraud claims.

    I guess she’ll get a couple of days to cool off.

  93. 93.

    MobiusKlein

    Am I the only person who wants Trump to resign immediately, have Pence handle the last 70 days?

  94. 94.

    different-church-lady

    @Fair Economist: The problem is that it only takes a few morons to bump the numbers up.

    I had a friend in New Hampshire FREAKING OUT on my behalf because she was seeing Mass. go red on the color maps: “OH MY GOD BE CAREFUL DOWN THERE!!!!” I had to point out to her that (a) I already mask everywhere I go, (b) I already don’t go where I don’t have to go, and (c) the difference between green and red on the map was 4 cases per thousand versus 8 cases per thousand.

    My chances of exposure had no realistic increase, but the chance of things getting back out of control overall were increasing.

    Risk assessment: people absolutely fucking suck at it.

  98. 98.

    Immanentize

    @The Thin Black Duke: I really think that Biden can be a hero to almost all of the US by setting the USPS right again.  The short viddy of people on the street cheering the USPS truck as it went by left me crying with hope.  How crazy was that scene?

    PS. Also follow through on E. Warren’s ideas about post office banking.

  99. 99.

    PAM Dirac

    @SFAW:

     

    Jared will fix it!

    That would be good for a laugh. Of course it won’t matter anyway. Fauci can be removed as Director of NIAID by the NIH Director, but he can’t be fired from his civil service position with out going through the formal process. Which will go about as well as the drumpf court challenges. So even if the idiots put in the work to remove him as director, he just becomes plain NIH employee until Jan 20.

  102. 102.

    Suzanne

    @Kristine: I also think most of the low-quality hires are quickly awakening to the reality that the Trumps will never repay any loyalty, and that they better figure out the next thing pretty quick.

  103. 103.

    SFAW

    @Immanentize:

    I’m wondering if Barr’s former/future partners at the firm suggested he lay low.

    People kept hoping he had COVID, but I had semi-suspected that he’s been cooking up some sort of “ELECTIONZ FRAUDZ!!” fuckery for various swing states. Either I was worng — which is my current assumption — or he just couldn’t make it happen. But your speculation is interesting, and hadn’t occurred to me.

  105. 105.

    different-church-lady

    @SFAW: Unlike a lot of people in this administration, Barr is an actual attorney. He is well aware of what he can be put in jail for, and he knows his protector loses power in a few weeks.

  106. 106.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Frank Wilhoit:

    Nope.  Trump does not do burrowers.  That was Cheney’s thing.  Trump just fires as many people as he can and does not replace them.  One of the problems we’ve heard many times is that there’s a management gap where the civil servants are working without direction, because the posts between them and the top political posts are empty.

  107. 107.

    different-church-lady

    OT: We have our answer of how Trump is going to deal with defeat — he’s just going to golf it away.

    President Trump arrived at his namesake golf course in Sterling, Va., on Sunday morning, one day after Biden was declared the winner of the presidential race.

    The excursion marked Trump’s 210th day golfing since becoming president, according to CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller — 105 more than Barack Obama, Trump’s predecessor, whom he excoriated for golfing.

    Yes, that’s correct, he has golfed exactly TWICE as much as Obama.

    And by the end of his term, he will probably have golfed 283 days.

  110. 110.

    Kristine

    @Immanentize: I’ve felt for a while now that post office banking would be a fantastic fix. It sets up banking branching in places that never had them, and it allows people who don’t want to bank online the chance to bank face to face with folks they’ve probably known for a while.

  112. 112.

    Archon

    Im still convinced that Fox News calling Arizona early for Biden completely wrong footed the Trump campaigns plan to use the late counting PA mail in vote to cloud the election results and stay in power.

  113. 113.

    SFAW

    @WaterGirl: 

    If the latter, the dumpster fire has already golfed 4x Obama’s golfing.

    Someone should tell him that if he keeps golfing, he’ll erase Obama’s “golfing legacy.” That someone would earn the thanks of a grateful nation.

  115. 115.

    Ohio Mom

    I’ve been wondering where this leaves my Governor. DeWine started off strong on Covid but was soon derailed by the Masks Are A Violation Of My Rights crowd.

    It’s clear he doesn’t like Trump but has felt it necessary to make pro-Trump noises.

    I think he would appreciate the cover President Biden could give him for pushing Covid suppression efforts — he would probably love to be able to mandate things like partial shutdowns and not have to take responsibility: Biden made me do it.

    But would that be enough for him to stand up and prevail over the crazies?

    As I’ve said before, I almost feel sorry for the guy. But then my better side takes over.

  117. 117.

    germy

    “I cannot tell a lie” – George Washington

    “I cannot tell the truth” – Donald Trump

    “I cannot tell the difference” – Republicans

  118. 118.

    Matt McIrvin

    @dr. bloor: I measure changes in mask compliance in suburban northern Mass. by the way people are behaving at Market Basket when I go once every few weeks or so.

    To me, it seems like people are doing better with the masks than they were back in the summer. I just went today and didn’t see any of them hanging off one ear or any noses sticking out. There were people not wearing them at all outdoors, though, which I don’t think they’re supposed to be doing any more.

    And the state lifted their supermarket capacity restrictions months ago, so there’s been no line at the door, and today the place was just getting crowded enough to be a little alarming.

    Baker’s response to the second wave certainly seems like too little. Anything to keep the restaurants open at least some of the time! Just hope the virus only spreads at certain times of the day, I guess.

    He just decided to deal with so many towns being in the red by changing the definition of “red”, and that’s a little alarming too.

    It’ll be interesting to see if a national policy coming from Biden has an effect on people like Baker–a moderate Republican governor of a deep-blue state. He’s gotten high marks from the people on his handling of COVID but I wonder how much of that is just inertia/ignorance, because it seems like he’s dropping the ball right now.

  120. 120.

    germy

    No joke, I was listening as my friend called the Trump voter fraud hotline to report Trump voted in Florida w/o a legal residence and the Trump staffer told him "Amy Coney Barrett is going to decide the election" and hung up. https://t.co/4zUnQGzchS— Timothy Johnson (@timothywjohnson) November 7, 2020

    Obviously Rudy is full of shit that the hotline has generated any legitimate tips, but to put a point on it, during one of my calls, I described Wisconsin Republicans encouraging voter fraud in PA (https://t.co/gXge9Rhp1S), and was told it was "too complicated" and hung up on.— Timothy Johnson (@timothywjohnson) November 7, 2020

  121. 121.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Archon:

    Im still convinced that Fox News calling Arizona early for Biden completely wrong footed the Trump campaigns plan to use the late counting PA mail in vote to cloud the election results and stay in power.

    I am having a total Nelson Muntz laugh about it, because when they’re all counted, Arizona might even flip to Trump after all! He’ll have won Arizona but gotten nothing out of it! When Fox prematurely called it, it killed any gathering narrative of Trump having an “Election Night win”.

  122. 122.

    Sab

    @Immanentize: How can he fix USPS with McConnell in the way. I always thought the post office damage was more McConnell’s idea than Trump’s. Too many people of color with union protections and benefits.

  125. 125.

    OldDave

    @WaterGirl:Did Obama golf 105 in his first term

    It would appear 105 times during the same period – but how one counts makes a difference.  105 games?  105 trips?  I dunno.  Politifact says Obama golfed 333 times over eight years.

  128. 128.

    WaterGirl

    @Ohio Mom: what governors are up in 2022?  Seems like those red governors will be at a disadvantage if they don’t get on board. That would make for a stark difference between states by 2022.

  131. 131.

    Barbara

    I simply cannot believe what is happening in the Dakotas.  This must be to some extent the ongoing result of Sturgis but they currently are number one and two for infection rates in the US and possibly the world.  Their death rates are escalating quickly.

  134. 134.

    gkoutnik

    @germy: Not to mention hollowing out of the State Department, antagonizing allies, and coddling despots – in the words of Paul Simon, “Gone at last, gone at last… I pray it’s gone at last.”

  135. 135.

    wvng

    @Cheryl Rofer: Julia Ioffe just had a major investigative piece in GQ on the possible energy (microwave) weapons that Russia and others seem to be using against western targets like CIA officers, to damage their brains. Do you have any knowledge about these? With a possible range of more than a mile, I would imagine political leaders would be at risk of attack.

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