Greg Sargent/WaPo:
Amanda Carpenter/Bulwark:
Ben Collins/NBC:
Aaron E Carroll/Atlantic:
MedPage Today:
Paul Waldman/WaPo:
WaPo:
The Arizona ‘audit’ just destroyed a big GOP lie — in more ways than one
As of now, the audit’s findings are known only from a draft that’s floating around. As The Post reports, it appears to confirm Biden’s victory in the state’s most populous county:
After nearly six months and almost $6 million — most of it given by groups that cast doubt on the election results — the draft report shows that the review concluded that 45,469 more ballots were cast for Biden in Maricopa County than for Trump, widening Biden’s margin by 360 more votes than certified results.
A spokesman for the audit, Randy Pullen, told an Arizona news outlet that it found there wasn’t “massive fraud.”
That’s reassuring, right? Well, no, it isn’t.
That’s because the audit also magically did purport to “find” serious problems with the vote counting. As The Post notes, it “undercut” its own conclusion about the validity of the outcome by suggesting that some ballots might have been “improperly accepted and counted.”
There will be no decertification of the 2020 election — the audit does not call for one, and even if it had, there is no lawful way to decertify. As we have every step of the way, Arizona will follow the law. https://t.co/b2ILMkOShF 5/
— Doug Ducey (@dougducey) September 25, 2021
Amanda Carpenter/Bulwark:
The Arizona “Audit” Was Election Subversion
The subversion will continue until morale improves.
At the outset the Cyber Ninjas’ presentation about its wildly incompetent review of the Maricopa County’s 2020 election, state Senate President Karen Fann stated that she had never intended to overturn the election. Oh no. She insisted all she had ever sought to do was satisfy voters’ concerns about fraud. It was just a weird coincidence that during the process former President Trump and Republican State Senator Wendy Rogers kept saying things like “Decertify the election!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Fann’s protestations were, in technical terms, complete bullshit. These partisan, kangaroo court investigations being passed off as “audits” are nothing but blatant attempts at election subversion. Their only purpose is to delegitimize the 2020 election.
But those who still feel icky about saying they’d like to reinstate Trump as president have an easy out. They just do what Fann did. They play along and act like it’s all perfectly normal. They’re just tending to the concerns of The People. They’re just asking questions.
"This partisan effort in AZ appears to be ending the same as it begun — highly biased, incompetent individuals running the process, delay after delay, and very importantly, completely un-transparent," David Becker, founder of @ElectionInnov, said.https://t.co/4EOiQqCKIp
— David Becker (@beckerdavidj) September 24, 2021
Ben Collins/NBC:
'Vigilante treatments': Anti-vaccine groups push people to leave ICUs
As the anti-vaccine movement escalates its rhetoric, doctors warn that they're dealing with the fallout: "They’re starting to target people, the messengers — nurses and doctors."
Anti-vaccine Facebook groups have a new message for their community members: Don’t go to the emergency room, and get your loved ones out of intensive care units.
Consumed by conspiracy theories claiming that doctors are preventing unvaccinated patients from receiving miracle cures or are even killing them on purpose, some people in anti-vaccine and pro-ivermectin Facebook groups are telling those with Covid-19 to stay away from hospitals and instead try increasingly dangerous at-home treatments, according to posts seen by NBC News over the past few weeks.
The messages represent an escalation in the mistrust of medical professionals in groups that have sprung up in recent months on social media platforms, which have tried to crack down on Covid misinformation. And it’s something that some doctors say they’re seeing manifest in their hospitals as they have filled up because of the most recent delta variant wave.
Aaron E Carroll/Atlantic:
Many Parents Won’t Vaccinate Their Kids. Here’s Why.
Even parents who are enthusiastic about the vaccines may not want their young children to be first in line.
Parents tend to be skeptical of new vaccines. Whenever one is introduced, many of them are initially hesitant to adopt it. Take the varicella vaccine, for instance. Approved by the FDA in 1995, it protects against the virus that causes chickenpox, an extremely contagious, common, and unpleasant childhood infection. Even though the vaccine was highly effective and showed few side effects, uptake levels were initially low, with only 34 percent of eligible adolescents fully immunized by 2008. In my experience with my own patients, parents were concerned about the vaccine’s safety and efficacy, and weren’t convinced that chickenpox was a serious enough illness to warrant a vaccination. Immunization rates did improve over time. By 2018, about 90 percent of children had been vaccinated. But if history repeats itself, people hoping for parents’ speedy uptake of the COVID-19 vaccines may need to reset their expectations.
The Data, per Mayorkas: nearly 30K have crossed the border near del Rio since September 9 --12,400 will e allowed to have their immigration cases heard --2K deported so far --5K held by CBP, could be deported or released --8K fled back to mexico
— Michelle Hackman (@MHackman) September 24, 2021
MedPage Today:
CDC Overrules Advisors on Pfizer Booster for High-Risk Workers
— Recommendations now align with terms of FDA authorization, agency says
Gerald Harmon, MD, president of the American Medical Association, applauded the decision in a statement.
"Given that we are in the midst of a global pandemic that continues to cause widespread illness and death, we must do everything we can to protect our frontline health care professionals," he said. "We believe this recommendation is a critical step to preserve our nation's health care capacity and prevent illness among those who have continued to put their own health and safety at risk to care for patients."
Hoyer also told me Pelosi is "working towards" getting the party's reconciliation bill on the floor by next week, even as there are major differences within their party to resolve. "Both bills are going to pass," he said confidently.
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) September 24, 2021
Paul Waldman/WaPo:
The meltdown among Democrats shows our budget debates are insane
If you’ve been following the reconciliation debate — in which people have been absolutely obsessed with the supposedly terrifying number of $3.5 trillion — you might have thought the defense bill would produce enormous breast-beating about out-of-control spending and debt. After all, that $3.5 trillion is over 10 years, or $350 billion a year, less than half of what we’re going to spend on the military.
But that’s not what happened. Apart from a brief to-do over whether the bill would include funding for Israel’s Iron Dome defense system, the defense bill moved through the process efficiently and with little controversy.
There were no painful negotiations, no ultimatums, no desperate threats. President Biden did not have to beg and plead to secure anyone’s vote. And you sure didn’t see centrist members of Congress expressing deep concern about its size, claiming it was irresponsible to add so much to the national debt — although we’ll easily be spending $8 or $9 trillion on the military over the same 10-year period.
"We will respond promptly to these questions as they arise," Psaki said. "And certainly as they come up from Congress and certainly we have been working closely with Congressional committees and others as they work to get to the bottom of what happened on 1/6."
— Ryan Nobles (@ryanobles) September 24, 2021
WaPo:
All migrants have been cleared from encampment in Del Rio, Tex., homeland security secretary says
“Less than one week ago, there were approximately 15,000 migrants in Del Rio, Texas, the great majority of whom were Haitian nationals,” Mayorkas said. “As of this morning, there are no longer any migrants in the camp underneath the Del Rio International Bridge.”
Mayorkas’s appearance capped a week that left the Biden administration scorched by intraparty anger, and Republican attacks on the White House’s immigration policies and border management struggles
So, I highly recommend reading @Patrick_Wyman's essay on the American gentry—about how power and wealth in most of this country isn't held by billionaires, but local millionaires. It's all around excellent. And I want to offer a little chaser. https://t.co/oADuIRs9cl
— Jordan Weissmann ? (@JHWeissmann) September 24, 2021