‘Help us’: Doctors implore Minnesotans to follow virus rules

Doctors urged Minnesotans on Thursday to take COVID-19 seriously and to comply with new restrictions that take effect Friday night as they provided dramatic accounts of how the state’s health care system — especially its health care workers — is at a breaking point.

Dr. Carolyn McClain, an emergency physician at Twin Cities hospitals, said the pandemic has been one of the hardest times of her life. She worked in Haiti after the catastrophic earthquake of 2010 but said that she could at least go home after that.

“This is my home, and I am watching people die,” McClain told reporters at a briefing with Gov. Tim Walz and other doctors. “And that is hard. and it’s been going on for a long time.” Continue reading.

Trump and allies have sought to exclude 1 of every 10 votes in key states

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President Trump, his legal team and his allies have endorsed excluding nearly 1 out of every 10 votes in the states that decided the 2020 election.

That’s the latest count in light of a lawsuit the Trump campaign filed Tuesday in Nevada. The suit explicitly seeks to throw out 130,000 ballots in Democratic-leaning, Las Vegas-based Clark County over allegedly faulty signature-matching technology. Were the suit to succeed, 1 out of every 11 votes in the state would be invalidated.

That, of course, seems highly unlikely — and that goes double, given the Trump effort’s losing streak in court. But it’s emblematic of and similar in scale to the Trump team’s effort to exclude ballots in the states that mattered. To date, in fact, lawsuits and other efforts have sought the exclusion of nearly 10 percent of all ballots cast in six key states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The sum is now about 2.5 million votes out of just more than 25 million ballots cast in those states. Continue reading.

CDC advises Americans not to travel for Thanksgiving

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The CDC issued new guidance on Thursday advising Americans not to travel for Thanksgiving, warning doing so may increase the chance of getting and spreading COVID-19.

Why it matters: The U.S. has seen over 1 million new coronavirus case in just this past week — and indoor household gatherings nationwide could make the situation even worse.

  • “One of our concerns is people over the holiday season get together, and they may actually be bringing infection with them to that small gathering and not even know it,” Henry Walke, the CDC’s COVID-19 incident manager, said on a call with reporters.
  • “We’re very concerned about people who are coming together sort of outside their household bubble.” Continue reading.

Kenosha: How two men’s paths crossed in an encounter that has divided the nation

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Kyle Rittenhouse, in a jailhouse interview, said he used stimulus money to get a gun. The first man he shot had just left a psychiatric hospital.

In a summer roiled by protests for racial justice, Kenosha, Wis., moved into the national spotlight in August after a White police officer shot a Black man named Jacob Blake seven times in the back.

Peaceful protests during the day were followed by rioting and civil unrest at night. Just before midnight on Aug. 25, tensions peaked when a 17-year-old named Kyle Rittenhouse shot and killed 36-year-old Joseph Rosenbaum. Moments later, Rittenhouse shot two other men, one fatally.

Rittenhouse was arrested and charged with multiple counts of homicide and weapons offenses, but right-wing groups have rallied to his cause, celebrating him as a hero who sought to protect Kenosha from destructive rioting and who fired in self-defense. The events have become a litmus test for a deeply divided nation. Continue reading.

Romney: Consequences of Trump actions during lame-duck ‘potentially more severe’ than transition delay

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GOP Sen. Mitt Romney (Utah) warned in a new interview Thursday that President Trump’s actions during the lame-duck period could be even more dangerous than his refusal to allow President-elect Joe Biden to begin his White House transition. 

“The consequences of what’s happening during this lame-duck period, I think, are potentially more severe than the consequences associated with a late transition process,” the Utah Republican and 2012 GOP presidential nominee said on an episode of “The Axe Files” podcast released Thursday.

Romney specifically noted Trump’s decision to withdraw more troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, moves that defense officials said were premature given the circumstances on the ground and which drew alarm from allies that also have troops stationed in those two countries. Continue reading.

States That Imposed Few Restrictions Now Have the Worst Outbreaks

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Coronavirus cases are rising in almost every U.S. state. But the surge is worst now in places where leaders neglected to keep up forceful virus containment efforts or failed to implement basic measures like mask mandates in the first place, according to a New York Times analysis of data from the University of Oxford.

Using an index that tracks policy responses to the pandemic, these charts show the number of new virus cases and hospitalizations in each state relative to the state’s recent containment measures.

Outbreaks are comparatively smaller in states where efforts to contain the virus were stronger over the summer and fall — potential good news for leaders taking action now. States and cities are reinstating restrictions and implementing new ones: In recent days, the governors of Iowa, North Dakota and Utah imposed mask mandates for the first time since the outbreak began. Continue reading.

Rubio Threatens Senate Blockade Of Biden Cabinet Picks

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) said on Wednesday that the Senate should stop the tradition of granting deference to Cabinet nominees offered by President-elect Joe Biden. Rubio justified his position by claiming that Democrats “have been just so unfair” to Donald Trump.

“There’ll be a lot less deference given to presidential appointments because there was zero deference given to President Trump’s appointments,” Rubio told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt.

Rubio added, “There’s just no way that Biden’s nominations are going to be treated like they traditionally have been treated under previous presidents, simply because the atmosphere in the Senate has changed.” Continue reading.

President is wild card as shutdown fears grow

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Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are wondering if they can trust President Trump to sign legislation to keep the government funded and avoid a shutdown before the end of the year.

Republican and Democratic lawmakers say a government shutdown is not off the table and see Trump, who has refused to concede the election, as the main wild card.

White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, who met with Senate Republicans on Wednesday, said the president wants to keep the government funded. But he’s not ruling out the possibility of a year-end shutdown. Continue reading.

Trump Must Go, But He Plans To Kill Grandma First

Team Trump is trying to force our nation’s low-income elderly, blind and disabled out of their own homes and into death trap nursing homes during the coronavirus pandemic.

Joseph Hunt, who has since left the Justice Department, represented the Trump administration in a California lawsuit over Trump efforts to weaken working conditions for low-paid aides who help our nation’s elderly and disabled stay in their homes. The workers, mostly female, do chores like cooking meals, changing adult diapers and helping with baths.

Hunt asked federal Judge Vince Chhabria to throw out the lawsuit brought by California and five other states. Chhabria, an Obama appointee, heard arguments on the case in February but has not yet ruled. Continue reading.

Republicans in key Michigan county try to rescind election certification under pressure from GOP

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The two Republicans on an election board for Michigan’s Wayne County want to take back their votes to certify the election results.

The pair agreed to a last-minute compromise Tuesday night after seeking an audit for the vote count in the Detroit area, where they said the results were out of balance, but they complained later they felt threatened into backing the certification, reported the Washington Post.

“I rescind my prior vote,” wrote Monica Palmer, the board’s chairwoman, in an affidavit. “I fully believe the Wayne County vote should not be certified.” Continue reading.