Dear Commons Community,

Veteran Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein has publicly named 21 Republican senators he says have “repeatedly expressed extreme contempt for [Donald] Trump and his fitness” for office.

As Trump continued to try to subvert the results of a presidential election he clearly lost to Joe Biden, Bernstein said on Twitter (see post above) he was “not violating any pledge of journalistic confidentially [sic]”.

His information, he said, came from “colleagues, staff members, lobbyists [and] White House aides”.

Then he named names.

They were: Rob Portman (Ohio), Lamar Alexander (Tennessee), Ben Sasse (Nebraska), Roy Blunt (Missouri), Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), John Cornyn (Texas), John Thune (South Dakota), Mitt Romney (Utah), Mike Braun and Todd Young (Indiana), Tim Scott (South Carolina), Rick Scott and Marco Rubio (Florida), Chuck Grassley (Iowa), Richard Burr (North Carolina), Pat Toomey (Pennsylvania), Martha McSally (Arizona), Jerry Moran and Pat Roberts (Kansas) and Richard Shelby (Alabama).

The list contained senior Republican figures such as Thune, the majority whip; Rubio, acting chair of the intelligence committee; and Grassley, a former judiciary committee chair.

Some on Bernstein’s list, Sasse, Cornyn, Collins and Murkowski among them, have criticized Trump publicly. Romney, Rubio, Murkowski, Toomey and Collins have recognized Biden as president-elect.

Bernstein, 76, worked with Bob Woodward on the Washington Post’s coverage of the Watergate scandal, which led to the resignation of Richard Nixon in 1974.

Woodward’s coverage of Trump has produced two bestselling books, Fear and Rage, which have relied on unnamed sources highly critical of Trump – and, in the latter case, the president’s own on-record and highly damaging thoughts.

Speaking to CNN on Friday, Bernstein said: “Many, if not most, of these individuals, from what I have been told, were happy to see Donald Trump defeated in this election as long as the Senate could be controlled by the Republicans.”

He went on to say that with few exceptions, their craven public silence has helped enable Trump’s most grievous conduct—including undermining and discrediting the US the electoral system.

Tony

GSA Administrator Emily Murphy

Dear Commons Community,

With the backing of President Donald Trump, the head of the General Services Administration informed President-elect Joe Biden yesterday  that the official governmental transition process has been approved.

GSA Administrator Emily Murphy, after weeks of delay, said in a letter to Biden that he is now able to access millions of dollars in federal funds and other resources to begin his transition to power. Trump in a pair of tweets vowed to continue his legal fight but said, “I am recommending that Emily and her team do what needs to be done with regard to initial protocols, and have told my team to do the same.”

Biden’s transition had been stalled by the GSA as Trump waged a spurious legal battle across the country to contest the results. Michigan certified its results yesterday and Pennsylvania plans to do so shortly.

It is also expected today that Biden will officially announce a number of cabinet-level appointments.

The presidential election is over!

Tony

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7sH_RC5inI

Dear Commons Community,

BBC/PBS NOVA recently aired two documentaries (see above trailer)  highlighting written communication as one of the greatest inventions in human history.  The first documentary examines the development of the alphabet.  It is an incredible presentation of how the letters of the alphabet evolved from the hieroglyphs of ancient Egypt, China and the Sinai Peninsula to Phoenicia, Greece and Rome.  For example, it shows how the letter “A” started as a hieroglyph symbol for a bull.  It takes the viewer to the ruins of Serabit El-Khadim on the Sinai Penisula where one of the first alphabets was  depicted on its walls somewhere between 1850 BC and 1550 BC.

The second documentary examines the development of writing implements such as pens and paper to the invention of movable type and the printing press.  It shows how papyrus, parchment and paper were actually made. There is also interesting commentary on the importance of Johannes Gutenberg’s decision to print the Bible as his first commercial book. Prior to the printing press an illuminated book might cost as much as the price of a house.  The vast majority of people at the time, if they could read, could never afford to buy a book so providing something  as popular as the Bible might excite them enough to buy it at a reasonable cost.

In sum, I found both documentaries an education.

They are available for free viewing at the NOVA website:

Alphabet A to Z:  https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/a-to-z-the-first-alphabet/

How Writing Changed the World: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/a-to-z-how-writing-changed-the-world/

Below is a review that appeared in last week’s Science.

Great stuff!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie blasted President Trump’s legal team as it pursues its bumbling quest to overturn the November election.

“Quite frankly, the conduct of the president’s legal team has been a national embarrassment,” Christie said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”

Trump lost the Nov. 3 election to President-elect Joe Biden, but has launched a series of lawsuits seeking to claim victory in states narrowly won by the Democrat. But the cases have been largely dismissed, and judges have consistently rejected Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud.

The Trump campaign lost one of its most important cases on Saturday night, when a federal judge in Pennsylvania both rejected a major Trump lawsuit in the state and excoriated the president’s legal team for its speculative arguments. In the decision, the Republican judge even mocked the Trump team for presenting a “haphazardly stitched together” argument, “like Frankenstein’s Monster.”

Despite the humiliating legal setback, Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani issued a statement on Saturday claiming that the rejection “turns out to help us in our strategy to get expeditiously to the U.S. Supreme Court” through the appeals process.

Both Giuliani and fellow attorney Sidney Powell have advanced a number of conspiracies about the election, including last week at a surreal press conference in which they claimed a “massive influence of communist money” had been funneled into the election.

On Sunday, Christie cited the conduct of Powell in particular for her unsubstantiated claim that the Republican governor of Georgia is part of a conspiracy to rig the election against Trump.

“Sidney Powell [is] accusing Gov. Brian Kemp of a crime on television, yet [is] unwilling to … lay out the evidence she supposedly has,” said Christie, a former U.S. attorney. “This is outrageous conduct by any lawyer.”

Georgia is one of the states narrowly won by Biden; Trump is pursuing a recount unlikely to change the result.

Reuters reported late yesterday that Powell was no longer on Trump’s legal team.

Christie further praised Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., for clearly acknowledging Biden’s victory after the Pennsylvania judge’s ruling on Saturday night. In a statement, Toomey described Judge Matthew Brann as a “longtime conservative Republican whom I know to be a fair and unbiased jurist.” Trump responded to the statement on Twitter, where he called Toomey “no friend of mine.”

Christie said he hopes more Republicans step forward.

“As much as I’m a strong Republican, and I love my party, it is the country that has to come first,” he said.

Republicans – come out, come out, wherever you are.  Don’t be afraid of the big, bad Trump!

Tony

 Riderless Horse at John F. Kennedy’s Funeral

Dear Commons Community,

We remember that on Nov. 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated while riding in a motorcade in Dallas.

Crowds of excited people lined the streets and waved to the Kennedys. The car turned off Main Street at Dealey Plaza around 12:30 p.m. As it was passing the Texas School Book Depository, gunfire suddenly reverberated in the plaza.

Bullets struck the president’s neck and head and he slumped over toward Mrs. Kennedy. The governor was also hit in the chest. 

The car sped off to Parkland Memorial Hospital just a few minutes away. But little could be done for the President. A Catholic priest was summoned to administer the last rites, and at 1:00 p.m. John F. Kennedy was pronounced dead. Though seriously wounded, Governor Connally would recover.

The president’s body was brought to Love Field and placed on Air Force One. Before the plane took off, a grim-faced Lyndon B. Johnson stood in the tight, crowded compartment and took the oath of office, administered by US District Court Judge Sarah Hughes. The brief ceremony took place at 2:38 p.m.

The United States was never the same.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The Associated Press reported yesterday that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo will receive an International Emmy award for his once-daily televised briefings on the coronavirus pandemic that killed tens of thousands of New Yorkers this spring.

The International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, whose members include media and entertainment figures from over 60 countries and 500 companies, announced  it plans to present the award to the Democratic governor in a live-streamed show tomorrow.

International Academy President & CEO Bruce L. Paisner said Cuomo is being honored with the academy’s Founders Award for using his briefings to inform and calm the public. Previous recipients include former Vice President Al Gore, Oprah Winfrey, and director Steven Spielberg.

“The governor’s 111 daily briefings worked so well because he effectively created television shows, with characters, plot lines, and stories of success and failure,” he said. “People around the world tuned in to find out what was going on, and New York tough became a symbol of the determination to fight back.”

Cuomo used his more than 100 Powerpoint-driven slideshows and his sometimes emotional, sometimes acerbic style to provide daily updates and detail his administration’s efforts to shutter the economy and avoid predictions of as many as 100,000 people hospitalized at once.

The pandemic peaked in early-to-mid April, when over 18,000 people were hospitalized at once and hospitals and nursing homes reported as many as 800 deaths in one day.

New York has reported at least 34,187 deaths of people due to COVID-19, according to data from John Hopkins University & Medicine. And at least 6,600 residents have died in nursing homes, according to state data, which doesn’t state how many nursing home residents died in hospitals.

The number of daily infections, hospitalizations and deaths plummeted as Cuomo slowly reopened the state’s economy this summer, when about 1% of tests were coming up positive.

New York is now seeing far fewer deaths and hospitalizations than this spring. Still, the state’s daily average of COVID-19 cases over the past seven days has more than doubled in two weeks as cases surge nationwide.

My wife and I watched Governor Cuomo regularly while isolating in our home.  We deeply appreciate all he has done in New York to help keep us safe.

Well-deserved recognition!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

President Trump aka Typhoid Trump or “Patient Zero” in the White House continues to spread coronavirus among family and friends.  Donald Trump Jr., Rudy Giuliani, and Rudy’s son, Andrew Giuliani (a White House Aide), are in quarantine.  Trump Jr. and Andrew Giuliani tested positive for the virus.  It was not clear whether Rudy Giuliani was tested.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The short piece below appeared in the Boston Globe on Tuesday in its opinion section.  It is a call for the American press to make Donald Trump irrelevant and to allow our country to heal from his mean-spirited divisiveness.  The cable news and other media have to forgo their ratings and profits and allow our country to come together under Joe Biden’s leadership.  Stop covering Trump’s ridiculous news conferences and stop spending hours of coverage on his tweets no matter what he says unless he apologizes for his behavior during these past four years.

Tony

—————————————————————————-

Boston Globe

November 17, 2020

If a presidency falls in the forest, does it have to make a sound?

Journalists: Leave your chairs empty in the White House press briefing room.

There has been more than enough coverage of the Trump-estuous toddler masquerading as presidential. Bullies and bigots hunger for attention. It’s Donald Trump’s biggest success.

He’s been extolled or excoriated, psychoanalyzed, politically dissected, trounced over unfulfilled promises, and called out on prevarications. The media have put his every tweet, rant, and crumb of disinformation on record. This contributes to the brainwashing of what can only be called his cult following, who are fueled by his continuing presence in the news.

Stop. Please. Leave him to rant alone, like one would a 4-year-old, sent to his room until he can behave and rejoin the adults.

No more investigative decoding of his moral imperviousness, his ineptitude, his speciousness, his national and international abominations. The media’s analytical prowess and journalistic courage are spun, by the Trumplicans who bow to him, as vicious and vain attacks on their idol. This media attention helps him build his wall — between red and blue states, between the United States and its allies, between caring for the planet and destroying it.

Dear Commons Community,

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention yesterday advised Americans not to travel for the Thanksgiving holiday to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

Dr. Henry Walke, the CDC’s Covid-19 incident manager, said there is “no more important time than now for each and every American to redouble our efforts to watch our distance, wash our hands and, most importantly, wear a mask.”

“CDC is recommending against travel during the Thanksgiving period,” he said. “For Americans who decide to travel, CDC recommends doing so as safely as possible by following the same recommendations for everyday living.”

Walke added that the CDC is concerned “about the transportation hubs.” He said he’s worried people won’t be able to maintain social distancing while waiting in line, for example, to board buses and planes.

“We’re alarmed,” Walke said, adding that the country has seen an “exponential increase” in cases, hospitalizations and deaths recently. “One of our concerns is that as people over the holiday season get together, they may actually be bringing infections with them to that small gathering and not even know it.”

Roughly 30% to 40% of Covid-19′s spread is driven by people without symptoms, he said.

“From an individual household level, what’s at stake is basically increased chance of one of your loved ones becoming sick and then hospitalized and dying,” Walke said. “We certainly don’t want to see that happen. These times are tough. It’s been a long outbreak.”

Dr. Erin Sauber-Schatz, the CDC’s community intervention and critical population task force lead, said “we are asking people to be flexible,” adding that those who are visiting at-risk people should be especially careful.

Thanksgiving celebrations should be limited only to those people living in the same household, a definition the CDC clarified yesterday. Sauber-Schatz said only people who have been living in the house for the 14 days before the gathering should be considered a member of the household. That would exclude college students and members of the military who planned to go home for the holidays.

Show your love for your family by staying home!

Tony