Disappointed or at the very least yawning  Turns out that anonymous “senior administration official” who wrote the New York Times op-ed in 2018 was Miles Taylor, the former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security. As Michael Shear reports at the Times, Taylor was also the author of “A Warning,” a book he wrote the following year in which he compared Trump to a “12-year-old in an air traffic control tower, pushing the buttons of government indiscriminately, indifferent to the planes skidding across the runway.”
Here’s Miles Taylor’s own statement explaining why he is no longer “Anonymous.” As you probably guessed, Trump claims not to know who he is.. Laura Bischoff tweets that “.@OhioState Mershon Center just canceled a planned webinar featuring Miles Taylor that had been scheduled for tomorrow.” But a “Lotta people feel disappointed today or are at the very least yawning,” says Jacob Kornbluh. It’s also worth noting, “The man whom the NYT allowed to anonymously claim, in an op-ed, to be ‘part of the resistance’ inside the Trump Admin was in fact a top DHS official during the travel ban, child separation and efforts to turn back asylum seekers, @shearm reports,” tweets Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs. Maybe not as...exciting? Then there’s this question: “LOL. In what universe is Miles Taylor a ‘senior administration official’?” Marc Thiessen wonders. “Ask yourself: if he had put his name on that oped would anyone have cared? What a joke.” On that note, “What if the Times had simply described him as an administration official? Accurate, no chance of hype, but maybe not as...exciting?” Paul Farhi links to a piece he wrote with Sarah Ellison at The Washington Post, The New York Times called ‘Anonymous’ op-ed author Miles Taylor a Trump ‘senior official.’ Was that accurate?  “The verdict here seems to be ‘no.’ At the time the column published, he was deputy chief of staff at DHS. A grant of anonymity for an op-ed is a very unusual move, one that puts the publication’s credibility on the line,” Karen Tumulty points out. So “WaPo throws some shade,” tweets Don Seiffert.
Voter suppression as a campaign strategy Nick Corasaniti and Danny Hakim of The New York Times have a new piece on the Trump campaign’s three-pronged strategy to make voting harder in Pennsylvania since he’s trailing in the polls there. Daniel Drezner says, “Many folks on this hell site like to bash the ‘both sides’ nature of some political coverage but this story and its headline do not do that in any way whatsoever.” Ryan J. Reilly agrees, tweeting, “It’s remarkable to see this plainly stated. Kudos to the Times for the framing on this.” “If Trump is somehow re-elected this way, why would anyone else have any reason to regard it as legitimate?” Matt Ford wonders. The point is, “The mainstream position of the Republican Party is that only the people who are going to vote for Mr Trump should have their ballots counted, and those who are not should be obstructed by any means available,” tweets Adam Serwer.  Meanwhile, Lawrence S. Krasner, Philadelphia’s district attorney, had a few choice words for Trump, warning, “We will not be cowed or ruled by a lawless, power-hungry despot. Some folks learned that the hard way in the 1700s.”
In another battleground state, Andrew Pantazi of The Florida Times-Union reports that the Duval County judge leading the vote-counting board donated to Trump 12 times. That’s not allowed. “Must read: Important election story from @apantazi. He will continue following this issue today. So follow Andrew if you don’t already,” Mary Kelli Palka urges.  And here you go: David Siders and Zach Montellaro of Politico explain Why Trump needs to suppress the vote to win. His inability to capture 50% in national polling or in his approval rating means he has to take “extraordinary attempts to limit the number of votes cast across the battleground state map,” they write.
Marty Kady highlights, “‘Never before in modern presidential politics has a candidate been so reliant on wide-scale efforts to depress the vote as Trump.’ @davidsiders on Trump’s systemic effort to keep turnout low.” “Call it what it is: Voter suppression as campaign strategy,” tweets Ben Lefebvre. Ratcliffe’s improv Also at Politico, Natasha Bertrand and Daniel Lippman bring us the scoop that Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe went off script with Iran remarks, officials say. On Twitter, Bertrand shares, “DNI Ratcliffe strayed from his prepared remarks last week to say publicly that Iran’s spoof emails intimidating Dems were aimed at ‘damaging President Trump,’ blindsiding FBI Director Wray and CISA Director Chris Krebs who were standing behind him.” Was that really just last week? If you say so. “Another area where John Ratcliffe went off script, the officials said: He omitted any references to the Proud Boys during last week’s briefing, even though the group was named in his prepared remarks,” Lippman adds. Full of absolute sociopaths More Politico scoops, this one from Dan Diamond: The Trump appointee steering the $300M ad campaign to “defeat despair” about coronavirus privately pitched a different theme — “Helping the President will Help the Country.”  About this story, Bill Grueskin says, “You’ll come for details on how then-HHS official Michael Caputo was planning to spend $300 million on an ad campaign to boost Trump before the election, but you’ll want to stay for the internal spreadsheet which rates celebrities on their willingness to participate. It includes categories like ‘Black Americans, superspreaders’ and wistful results like ‘Britney Spears - Declined.’” (Restaurateur Guy Fieri is listed as “overcommitted.”)
Basically, “This administration is full of absolute sociopaths. Also, not only do they mark the actors political leanings, in some cases, they mark whether they’re a supporter of gay rights or gun control. The GOP is a fundamentally broken party,” says Erick Fernandez. Oliver Willis predicts, “In the coming years we’re going to learn about how Trump hijacked and looted billions of tax dollars for himself. This is the tip of the iceberg, I am certain.” President Inject Bleach has a plan In April, Jared Kushner bragged to Bob Woodward that Trump was taking the country ‘back from the doctors,’ comments that came as more than 40,000 Americans already had died from the virus, which was ravaging New York City, as CNN’s Michael Warren, Jamie Gangel and Elizabeth Stuart report.  “Ah, yes, President Inject Bleach really showed up those doctors and Jared wanted us to know. how’s that worked out?” tweets Joe Sudbay. To be fair, “Well, @jaredkushner was correct when he told @realBobWoodward that @POTUS was ‘going to own the open-up.’ But he meant it as a good thing,” notes Katherine Eban.
And back in present day, Erin Banco of The Daily Beast reports that, despite publicly downplaying it, Trump and his team of White House advisers are pushing herd immunity as a way to help control the COVID-19 outbreak. What’s worse, according to three senior health officials working with the White House coronavirus task force, they have begun taking steps to turn the concept into policy. In other words, “the white house is objectively pro-covid,” tweets Jamelle Bouie. The sheer quantity of Trump misdeeds Eric Lipton and Benjamin Weiser of The New York Times have new details this morning on how a Turkish Bank Case Showed Erdogan’s Influence With Trump. The Justice Department’s handling of the accusations against Halkbank reveal how Turkey’s leader pressured the president, prompting concern from top White House aides, they report. “This story is one huge five alarm Trump corruption scandal with individual acts of corruption by Barr, Whitaker, and Mnuchin,” tweets Matthew Miller. Adds Daniel Drezner, “What Trump tried to do in Ukraine was an impeachable offense. What he tried to do regarding a Turkish bank was way, way worse.” But you may not even be aware of it. As Matthew Yglesias points out, “Totally random third tier Trump scandals are much more serious than anything Hunter has done, but the sheer quantity of Trump misdeeds forces a lot of crowding out.” Folks, this is weird A new investigation by Jeremy Merrill of The Markup reveals Facebook’s black box algorithm charged the Biden campaign higher ad rates on average than it charged the Trump campaign. “Folks, this is weird,” he shares “I did some arithmetic on how much Facebook charged Trump and Biden for ads, using its auction + algorithms pricing system. Biden paid a bit more on average, but way more in July/August in swing states. Trump paid more in early Oct.” Aaron Sankin calls it “An absolute barn burner from @jeremybmerrill about how Facebook needs to pump its users full of wild, inchoate rage at all times, so it charged a lower rate for Trump’s political ads, which do precisely that, than for Biden's ads, which don’t.” “Outrage: The currency of the internet,” tweets Ricky Young. Oh great Juliet Eilperin of The Washington Post reports that Trump plans to strip protections from Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, one of the biggest intact temperate rainforests. It’s one of the biggest public lands rollbacks of his presidency and a “Huge blow for the environment,” tweets James Hohmann.  And then there’s this. Frank Bajak of AP News reports federal agencies are warning that cybercriminals are unleashing a wave of data-scrambling extortion attempts against the U.S. healthcare system designed to lock up hospital information systems, which could hurt patient care just as nationwide cases of COVID-19 are spiking. To quote Jake Bleiberg, “For Fuck’s Sake!”
Tom Porter highlights the fact that “Cybercriminal gangs are being used as proxies by Russia to disable US hospital computer systems, one expert has told AP. Alex Holden said he has ‘no doubt that the Russian government is aware of this operation — of terrorism, really.’” “Oh great. We were overwhelmed with good news anyway,” tweets Dorothy Parvaz. Winter is gonna be lonely Here’s one you’ll want to spend some time with. From Mariano Zafra and Javier Salas of El Pais, A room, a bar and a class: how the coronavirus is spread through the air. The risk of contagion is highest in indoor spaces but can be reduced by applying all available measures to combat infection via aerosols. With data and interactive visuals, this piece gives you an overview of the likelihood of infection in three everyday scenarios, based on the safety measures used and the length of exposure. “Breathing, speaking and shouting. This is the best explainer I've seen on how airborne transmission is a ‘major transmission route’ for the coronavirus,” tweets Judi Rever. Charlie Warzel thinks “this is maybe the best visual explanation for infection scenarios that i've encountered. winter is gonna be real hard/lonely.” Yes, it’s very illuminating, and, unfortunately (or fortunately? depending?), “This drives home the case for not hosting your family at Thanksgiving this year,” tweets Diane Brady. Elsewhere Reuters reports that a knife-wielding attacker shouting “Allahu Akbar” (God is Greatest) beheaded a woman and killed two other people at a church in the French city of Nice on Thursday. “Horrifying,” tweets Musa Okwonga. “As with the murder of Samuel Paty, brutal killings by religious fundamentalists to force people and the state into knee-jerk responses. They must not succeed.” BBC News reports that the Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has suspended Jeremy Corbyn from the party over his reaction to a highly critical report on anti-Semitism. “Wow. Bravo, Sir Keir,” tweets Eylon Aslan-Levy. The Economist weighs in on America’s election and makes the argument for why it has to be Biden. For starters, “Donald Trump has desecrated the values that make America a beacon to the world.” Looking for some good news somewhere? Look to Taiwan. As Cindy Wang and Samson Ellis report at Bloomberg, a Record 200 Days With No Local Covid-19 Cases Makes Taiwan the Envy of World. As Nick Killham puts it, “covid coming out second best vs Taiwan rn.” A few more - U.S. economic growth expected to be impressive from July to September, but the data is complicated. In that piece, Rachel Siegel and Andrew Van Dam of The Washington Post take a look at “why figures that may look super strong and healthy are actually...much more complicated,” tweets Siegel.
- In what Kara Voght describes as a “hell of a dark and ironic scoop,” AJ Vicens and Ali Breland of Mother Jones report, QAnon is supposed to be all about protecting kids. Its primary enabler appears to have hosted child porn domains.
- 3 dead, millions without power after Zeta sweeps southern states. Tim Fitzsimons has the latest at NBC News.
- Kelly Loeffler tells Doug Richards of 11Alive that she’s “not familiar” with the infamous Trump Access Hollywood video. Okey doke.
- Sydney Page of The Washington Post explains why these women just walked Harriet Tubman’s 116-mile journey from the Underground Railroad. Tweets Page, “After George Floyd’s killing, Linda Harris was inspired to retrace Harriet Tubman’s footsteps from Cambridge, Md., to Kennett Square, Pa., along the Underground Railroad. She found some kindred spirits to join her.”
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