newyorker--2020-12-05--Trump’s Election-Fraud Bluster Finds an Audience

“ What I don ’ t believe is that Joe Biden won legitimately , without some sort of cheating or corruption .
There ’ s the evidence that seems to continue to mount .
It doesn ’ t add up , ” Molo said , seated on a high stool in a bar in the town of Peosta .
Molo , who is thirty and was wearing a white ball cap stitched with “ Keep America Great ” in golden thread , explained that he had listened to the November 19th press conference in which Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fantastical tales about a rigged election .
“ What we are really dealing with here , and uncovering more by the day , is the massive influence of Communist money through Venezuela , Cuba , and likely China , ” Powell said .
She endorsed a false Internet rumor that someone , maybe American soldiers , had seized computer servers in Germany as part of an investigation into Election Day vote manipulation in the United States .
Powell ’ s falsehoods proved too much even for Trump , and she was summarily cut @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their allegations troubling and hoped that the judiciary would take them up .
Even if Biden is declared the winner when the Electoral College meets this month , he said , “ it would be difficult to really believe it was totally on the up and up.
” The cues come from the top .
On November 23rd , a few hours after Emily Murphy , the head of the General Services Administration , finally started the formal federal transition machinery—without ever acknowledging that Biden was the apparent winner—Trump tweeted that this was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ political history.
” For good measure , he added , “ We will never concede.
” On Wednesday , he was at it again , posting on social media a mind-bending forty-six-minute video , in which he declared that it was “ statistically impossible ” that he had lost .
Standing in the Diplomatic Reception Room , behind a lectern that bore the Presidential seal , and appearing to read from a script , he called this “ an election that we won , without question.
” He offered a blinding array of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ The Democrats had this election rigged right from the beginning , ” he said , disparaging not just Democrats but hundreds of thousands of election clerks around the country who labored to deliver an accurate count .
Trump said that “ we think ” some of the vote-counting was done in other countries , and that the counting software itself had been manipulated : “ With the turn of a dial or a change of a chip , you can press a button for Trump and the vote goes to Biden @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this ?
” The fact is Trump lost the popular vote to Biden by more than seven million votes , and lost the Electoral College by seventy-four .
He lost five states that he won in 2016—one in the West , one in the South , and three in the Upper Midwest .
For the second time , he collected a smaller percentage of the national vote than Mitt Romney , whom he often mocks , won in 2012 .
“ The Election was a HOAX , ” Trump proclaimed , in a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be said again ?
—that there is not the remotest possibility that persons unknown orchestrated a conspiracy on the scale necessary to steal the election .
Trump ’ s own Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issued a statement calling this “ the most secure election in American history.
” And it was a Trump appointee who wrote the scathing decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit which rejected the President ’ s limp attempt to overturn Pennsylvania ’ s election results .
“ Charges of unfairness are serious , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ But calling an election unfair does not make it so .
Charges require specific allegations and then proof .
We have neither here.
” Even William Barr , Trump ’ s loyal Attorney General , said this week that “ we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.
” If Trump ’ s goal , more than a month after the election , is to defeat Biden and retain the Presidency , his effort is a historic failure .
True to form @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to build a significant following for his claims .
A Monmouth poll conducted in mid-November found that seventy-seven per cent of Trump ’ s supporters believe that Biden ’ s victory relied on fraud .
Forty-six per cent of Trump voters surveyed by an Economist/YouGov poll said that they have little or no confidence that their votes were accurately counted .
Could Trump be stoking outrage among his supporters to raise money for future political endeavors—or simply to pay off his own debts ?
If so , that part of the strategy is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Republican National Committee have continued to send appeals for donations , with the strong suggestion that the money will be spent on efforts to challenge the election results .
One , sent Thanksgiving weekend , declared a “ critical end-of-month deadline , ” much like fund-raising pitches during the campaign .
“ Hitting our goal is crucial to continuing our fight to protect Election integrity , and I need YOUR help to keep going , ” the text printed over Trump ’ s name read .
But the fine print on the donations @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would be deployed not to fight election irregularities but to fund Save America , Trump ’ s new leadership political-action committee .
The Trump campaign announced on Thursday that the fund-raising efforts have generated at least two hundred and seven million dollars since Election Day , much of it from small-dollar donors .
As Trump raged , some of his allies in media and politics slowly backed away , but others have joined his fight .
A fund-raising letter in Newt Gingrich ’ s name claimed , on November 28th , that “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ to STEAL the White House.
” A week earlier , I was listening to Sean Hannity ’ s radio show as I drove from Dubuque to Peosta .
Hannity , the wealthy Fox News personality who has served as a Trump cheerleader and confidant , played a clip of Trump saying , on Election Night , “ This is a fraud on the American public.
” The sixty-second piece—which ended with an introduction for Hannity ’ s show—said the Democrats would “ stop at nothing ” to win the Presidency .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ long years , ” an announcer ’ s voice said .
“ So , if you think this President is about to lay down , you ’ d best think again .
Your President worked tirelessly for you .
Now it ’ s our turn to help him.
” On November 23rd , the same evening that Emily Murphy began the formal transition , Hannity ’ s fellow Fox commentator Tucker Carlson looked at the camera and told his viewers that Democrats , “ the media , ” and “ Big Tech ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
He blamed “ legal harassment from the left ” for sidelining the National Rifle Association ’ s efforts to get out the vote .
“ The 2020 Presidential election was not fair , ” he said , “ and no honest person would claim that it was.
” Revealingly , he focussed on the Presidential election and not on down-ballot races in some of the same states , with the same voters and the same ballots , in which Republicans dramatically exceeded expectations .
Pauline Chilton , a Republican in Dubuque , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ election as fair .
A real-estate agent , born in South Korea and raised on Chicago ’ s South Side , she lost her race for the Iowa House of Representatives .
She ’ s O.K .
with that .
It was a rematch , and she collected forty-three per cent of the vote , a four-point improvement over 2018 .
What bothers her is the sense that Trump was robbed of victory , “ probably nationwide , the tactics that were used.
” She was persuaded by the Giuliani and Powell press @ @ @ @ @ @ @ prove that Trump won Pennsylvania by three hundred thousand votes , rather than losing it to Biden by the current margin of eighty thousand .
( He has offered no such proof .
Glenn Kessler , who runs the Washington Post ’ s Fact Checker column , called the performance “ the craziest news conference of the Trump presidency.
” ) Chilton said , of Giuliani and Powell , “ They seem to be very well prepared to fight this battle in court .
It sounds like they have an immense amount of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Undergirding her suspicions is the belief that Biden was too weak a candidate to beat Trump , and certainly could not have won nearly twelve million more votes than Barack Obama , who collected sixty-nine million votes in 2008 , when Biden was the Vice-Presidential nominee .
Chilton said , “ It ’ s hard to believe that that many more people voted for him over Obama .
I voted for Obama !
”

Nicholas Molo was a first-time volunteer for Republican candidates in Iowa this fall, working from a temporary office in Dubuque when he wasn’t on the job at a wealth-management firm, where he does client development. It was a very good year for the G.O.P. in the eastern part of the state. President Donald Trump thumped Joe Biden, the Republican senator Joni Ernst won reëlection, and Ashley Hinson, a state representative, stunned the first-term representative Abby Finkenauer, who had been seen as a rising Democratic star in Congress. In an ordinary year, the election would now be in the rearview mirror, but not this year, and not for Molo, who doesn’t think that Biden won the Presidency fair and square.
“What I don’t believe is that Joe Biden won legitimately, without some sort of cheating or corruption. There’s the evidence that seems to continue to mount. It doesn’t add up,” Molo said, seated on a high stool in a bar in the town of Peosta. Molo, who is thirty and was wearing a white ball cap stitched with “Keep America Great” in golden thread, explained that he had listened to the November 19th press conference in which Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, Trump’s attorneys, spread fantastical tales about a rigged election. “What we are really dealing with here, and uncovering more by the day, is the massive influence of Communist money through Venezuela, Cuba, and likely China,” Powell said. She endorsed a false Internet rumor that someone, maybe American soldiers, had seized computer servers in Germany as part of an investigation into Election Day vote manipulation in the United States. Powell’s falsehoods proved too much even for Trump, and she was summarily cut from the team, but Molo found their allegations troubling and hoped that the judiciary would take them up. Even if Biden is declared the winner when the Electoral College meets this month, he said, “it would be difficult to really believe it was totally on the up and up.”
The cues come from the top. On November 23rd, a few hours after Emily Murphy, the head of the General Services Administration, finally started the formal federal transition machinery—without ever acknowledging that Biden was the apparent winner—Trump tweeted that this was “the most corrupt election in American political history.” For good measure, he added, “We will never concede.” On Wednesday, he was at it again, posting on social media a mind-bending forty-six-minute video, in which he declared that it was “statistically impossible” that he had lost. Standing in the Diplomatic Reception Room, behind a lectern that bore the Presidential seal, and appearing to read from a script, he called this “an election that we won, without question.” He offered a blinding array of false charges, smears, and insinuations. “The Democrats had this election rigged right from the beginning,” he said, disparaging not just Democrats but hundreds of thousands of election clerks around the country who labored to deliver an accurate count. Trump said that “we think” some of the vote-counting was done in other countries, and that the counting software itself had been manipulated: “With the turn of a dial or a change of a chip, you can press a button for Trump and the vote goes to Biden. What kind of a system is this?”
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The fact is Trump lost the popular vote to Biden by more than seven million votes, and lost the Electoral College by seventy-four. He lost five states that he won in 2016—one in the West, one in the South, and three in the Upper Midwest. For the second time, he collected a smaller percentage of the national vote than Mitt Romney, whom he often mocks, won in 2012. “The Election was a HOAX,” Trump proclaimed, in a tweet. Yet the evidence shows—need it be said again?—that there is not the remotest possibility that persons unknown orchestrated a conspiracy on the scale necessary to steal the election. Trump’s own Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issued a statement calling this “the most secure election in American history.” And it was a Trump appointee who wrote the scathing decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit which rejected the President’s limp attempt to overturn Pennsylvania’s election results. “Charges of unfairness are serious,” the judge Stephanos Bibas wrote. “But calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here.” Even William Barr, Trump’s loyal Attorney General, said this week that “we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.”
If Trump’s goal, more than a month after the election, is to defeat Biden and retain the Presidency, his effort is a historic failure. True to form, however, Trump has proved able to build a significant following for his claims. A Monmouth poll conducted in mid-November found that seventy-seven per cent of Trump’s supporters believe that Biden’s victory relied on fraud. Forty-six per cent of Trump voters surveyed by an Economist/YouGov poll said that they have little or no confidence that their votes were accurately counted. Could Trump be stoking outrage among his supporters to raise money for future political endeavors—or simply to pay off his own debts? If so, that part of the strategy is working.
The Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee have continued to send appeals for donations, with the strong suggestion that the money will be spent on efforts to challenge the election results. One, sent Thanksgiving weekend, declared a “critical end-of-month deadline,” much like fund-raising pitches during the campaign. “Hitting our goal is crucial to continuing our fight to protect Election integrity, and I need YOUR help to keep going,” the text printed over Trump’s name read. But the fine print on the donations page said that most of the money would be deployed not to fight election irregularities but to fund Save America, Trump’s new leadership political-action committee. The Trump campaign announced on Thursday that the fund-raising efforts have generated at least two hundred and seven million dollars since Election Day, much of it from small-dollar donors.
As Trump raged, some of his allies in media and politics slowly backed away, but others have joined his fight. A fund-raising letter in Newt Gingrich’s name claimed, on November 28th, that “the Radical Left” is fighting hard “to STEAL the White House.” A week earlier, I was listening to Sean Hannity’s radio show as I drove from Dubuque to Peosta. Hannity, the wealthy Fox News personality who has served as a Trump cheerleader and confidant, played a clip of Trump saying, on Election Night, “This is a fraud on the American public.” The sixty-second piece—which ended with an introduction for Hannity’s show—said the Democrats would “stop at nothing” to win the Presidency. “This battle has been raging for four long years,” an announcer’s voice said. “So, if you think this President is about to lay down, you’d best think again. Your President worked tirelessly for you. Now it’s our turn to help him.” On November 23rd, the same evening that Emily Murphy began the formal transition, Hannity’s fellow Fox commentator Tucker Carlson looked at the camera and told his viewers that Democrats, “the media,” and “Big Tech” rigged the election in favor of Biden. He blamed “legal harassment from the left” for sidelining the National Rifle Association’s efforts to get out the vote. “The 2020 Presidential election was not fair,” he said, “and no honest person would claim that it was.” Revealingly, he focussed on the Presidential election and not on down-ballot races in some of the same states, with the same voters and the same ballots, in which Republicans dramatically exceeded expectations.


newyorker--2020-12-05--Congress Must Act Now to Provide an Economic Bridge to the Coronavirus Vaccine

In a year when much of the U.S. government ’ s response to the coronavirus pandemic has proved tragically inept , economic policy initially appeared to be a relatively bright spot .
In March and April , Congress passed four emergency-spending bills , most notably the CARES Act , which together authorized close to three trillion dollars in financial support for the unemployed , stricken businesses , and state and local governments that faced massive additional demands at the same time that their tax revenues were falling .
Although these spending bills were widely described as an economic stimulus , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Enacted at a time when the first wave of coronavirus infections was raging , with no cure or vaccine in sight , the bills were really a form of disaster aid , intended to get the country through an unprecedented public-health crisis .
In some areas , such as providing protective equipment and bonus payments to the essential workers who were putting their lives at risk , more could have been done .
But at greater than ten per cent of G.D.P.
, the over-all fiscal response was unrivalled in American peacetime .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ by other supportive measures , such as moratoriums on eviction for renters and mandatory forbearance for people struggling to make mortgage or student-loan payments .
As stay-at-home orders spread across the country , this policy response didn ’ t prevent an alarming increase in joblessness and income losses , particularly among minority and low-income groups .
It did help avert a downward spiral into a Great Depression-type scenario .
In terms of over-all declines in G.D.P.
, the coronavirus recession in the U.S. has been less steep than the downturns have been in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ estimates from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development , a Paris-based international research group , U.S. G.D.P .
will shrink by about 3.7 per cent in 2020 , compared to estimated declines of 5.5 per cent in Germany , 9.1 per cent in France , and 11.2 per cent in the United Kingdom .
That ’ s the good news .
Unfortunately , Congress and the Trump Administration failed to follow up on the initial spending measures , many of which were time-limited .
Over the summer , as the number of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ economists warned that a failure to act could lead to a second economic downturn—a double dip .
The weaker-than-expected employment report for November , which the Labor Department released on Friday , indicated that such an outcome is now looming , despite all the encouraging news on the vaccine front .
To provide the economy with a bridge to the point at which a vaccine will be widely available , Congress needs to act immediately .
If it doesn ’ t , there could be much more needless damage and suffering during the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from the jobs report was that payrolls rose by two hundred and forty-five thousand—a decent outcome in normal times , but these times are anything but normal .
Despite a steady bounce back in hiring since April , when the official unemployment rate reached 14.7 per cent , the non-farm economy as a whole still had 9.8 million fewer jobs than it did in February , when the pandemic hit .
And now , the pace of job creation has slowed a lot .
According to revised figures contained in the employment report @ @ @ @ @ @ @ eleven thousand jobs in September and six hundred and ten thousand in October .
The payrolls figure for November , which is based on a survey of businesses and government agencies , suggests that hiring fell by nearly sixty per cent last month .
Even that estimate probably understates the economic toll that the relentless spread of the virus is taking .
In calculating the jobs figures , the government carries out two surveys , and the second one—of households rather than businesses—indicated that total employment actually fell by seventy-four thousand in November @ @ @ @ @ @ @ positive , it is already out of date .
The government did the household survey work on which the number is based during the period from November 8th to 14th .
With the number of new coronavirus cases continuing to rise , economists expect a further slowdown in hiring and spending .
If current trends continue , the jobs report for December , which will come out in early January , could be very ugly .
The onus is now on Congress .
“ This morning ’ s jobs report indicates a clear @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the economics research team at Goldman Sachs said in a circular sent to the firm ’ s clients on Friday .
“ And the near-term outlook continues to depend on the evolution of the virus and the outcome of fiscal negotiations.
” After the jobs report was released , investors bid up stock prices again in anticipation of a legislative deal , likely based on a spending package that a bipartisan group of senators put forward earlier this week .
The proposal would be worth about nine hundred billion dollars , or about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of change .
Close to three hundred billion dollars would go to small businesses , including by extending the Paycheck Protection Program , which is designed to help companies retain their workers ; about a hundred and eighty billion would go to extending unemployment benefits ; a hundred and sixty billion dollars would be spent in additional aid to state , local , and tribal governments , which have seen their tax revenues fall sharply ; and eighty-two billion would go toward helping schools .
Democratic leaders in Congress have welcomed this proposal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and so has the President-elect , Joe Biden .
Mitch McConnell , the Senate Majority Leader , and Steven Mnuchin , the Treasury Secretary , haven ’ t gone that far , but McConnell did suggest on Thursday that a compromise was “ within reach.
” The two sides are hoping to reach a consensus on a package that could be attached to an omnibus spending bill , which must be passed before the end of next week to keep the government funded and open .
On Friday , the Republican-leaning U.S. Chamber @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for immediate action .
“ Today ’ s job report shows a slumping economic recovery , ” Neil Bradley , the organization ’ s executive vice-president , said in a statement .
“ The fire alarm is sounding on our economy , and the only question is whether Congress will respond.
” To fail to do so would be inexcusable .
Read More About the Presidential Transition • Donald Trump has survived impeachment , twenty-six sexual-misconduct accusations , and thousands of lawsuits .
His luck may well end now that Joe Biden is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unlikely to change the outcome of the election , Republicans are looking to strategies that might remain even after rebuffs both at the polls and in court .
• With the Trump Presidency ending , we need to talk about how to prevent the moral injuries of the past four years from happening again .
• If 2020 has demonstrated anything , it is the need to rebalance the economy to benefit the working class .
There are many ways a Biden Administration can start .
• Trump is being forced to give @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
But his efforts to build an alternative reality around himself will continue .
• Sign up for our daily newsletter for insight and analysis from our reporters and columnists .

In a year when much of the U.S. government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic has proved tragically inept, economic policy initially appeared to be a relatively bright spot. In March and April, Congress passed four emergency-spending bills, most notably the CARES Act, which together authorized close to three trillion dollars in financial support for the unemployed, stricken businesses, and state and local governments that faced massive additional demands at the same time that their tax revenues were falling. Although these spending bills were widely described as an economic stimulus, that term was a bit misleading. Enacted at a time when the first wave of coronavirus infections was raging, with no cure or vaccine in sight, the bills were really a form of disaster aid, intended to get the country through an unprecedented public-health crisis.
In some areas, such as providing protective equipment and bonus payments to the essential workers who were putting their lives at risk, more could have been done. But at greater than ten per cent of G.D.P., the over-all fiscal response was unrivalled in American peacetime. Importantly, the spending bills were accompanied by other supportive measures, such as moratoriums on eviction for renters and mandatory forbearance for people struggling to make mortgage or student-loan payments.
As stay-at-home orders spread across the country, this policy response didn’t prevent an alarming increase in joblessness and income losses, particularly among minority and low-income groups. It did help avert a downward spiral into a Great Depression-type scenario. In terms of over-all declines in G.D.P., the coronavirus recession in the U.S. has been less steep than the downturns have been in many European countries. According to new estimates from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, a Paris-based international research group, U.S. G.D.P. will shrink by about 3.7 per cent in 2020, compared to estimated declines of 5.5 per cent in Germany, 9.1 per cent in France, and 11.2 per cent in the United Kingdom.
That’s the good news. Unfortunately, Congress and the Trump Administration failed to follow up on the initial spending measures, many of which were time-limited. Over the summer, as the number of virus cases picked up again, many economists warned that a failure to act could lead to a second economic downturn—a double dip. The weaker-than-expected employment report for November, which the Labor Department released on Friday, indicated that such an outcome is now looming, despite all the encouraging news on the vaccine front. To provide the economy with a bridge to the point at which a vaccine will be widely available, Congress needs to act immediately. If it doesn’t, there could be much more needless damage and suffering during the next few months.
The headline figure from the jobs report was that payrolls rose by two hundred and forty-five thousand—a decent outcome in normal times, but these times are anything but normal. Despite a steady bounce back in hiring since April, when the official unemployment rate reached 14.7 per cent, the non-farm economy as a whole still had 9.8 million fewer jobs than it did in February, when the pandemic hit. And now, the pace of job creation has slowed a lot. According to revised figures contained in the employment report, the economy created seven hundred and eleven thousand jobs in September and six hundred and ten thousand in October. The payrolls figure for November, which is based on a survey of businesses and government agencies, suggests that hiring fell by nearly sixty per cent last month.
Even that estimate probably understates the economic toll that the relentless spread of the virus is taking. In calculating the jobs figures, the government carries out two surveys, and the second one—of households rather than businesses—indicated that total employment actually fell by seventy-four thousand in November. Even though the payrolls figure was positive, it is already out of date. The government did the household survey work on which the number is based during the period from November 8th to 14th. With the number of new coronavirus cases continuing to rise, economists expect a further slowdown in hiring and spending. If current trends continue, the jobs report for December, which will come out in early January, could be very ugly.
The onus is now on Congress. “This morning’s jobs report indicates a clear slowdown in labor market momentum,” the economics research team at Goldman Sachs said in a circular sent to the firm’s clients on Friday. “And the near-term outlook continues to depend on the evolution of the virus and the outcome of fiscal negotiations.” After the jobs report was released, investors bid up stock prices again in anticipation of a legislative deal, likely based on a spending package that a bipartisan group of senators put forward earlier this week.
The proposal would be worth about nine hundred billion dollars, or about four per cent of G.D.P.—a big chunk of change. Close to three hundred billion dollars would go to small businesses, including by extending the Paycheck Protection Program, which is designed to help companies retain their workers; about a hundred and eighty billion would go to extending unemployment benefits; a hundred and sixty billion dollars would be spent in additional aid to state, local, and tribal governments, which have seen their tax revenues fall sharply; and eighty-two billion would go toward helping schools. Democratic leaders in Congress have welcomed this proposal as the basis of a deal, and so has the President-elect, Joe Biden. Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader, and Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury Secretary, haven’t gone that far, but McConnell did suggest on Thursday that a compromise was “within reach.” The two sides are hoping to reach a consensus on a package that could be attached to an omnibus spending bill, which must be passed before the end of next week to keep the government funded and open.
On Friday, the Republican-leaning U.S. Chamber of Commerce added its voice to calls for immediate action. “Today’s job report shows a slumping economic recovery,” Neil Bradley, the organization’s executive vice-president, said in a statement. “The fire alarm is sounding on our economy, and the only question is whether Congress will respond.” To fail to do so would be inexcusable.
Read More About the Presidential Transition


newyorker--2020-12-05--William Barr’s Break with Donald Trump

William Barr’s Break with Donald Trump

The Fox News host Lou Dobbs was among the first Trump supporters to denounce William Barr .
On Tuesday , Dobbs began his nightly program by announcing “ progress ” in Donald Trump ’ s effort to remain in office and to vanquish “ the insidious , radical Dems , corporate America , Big Tech , and the deep state , who have tried to overthrow his Presidency for more than four years.
” Dobbs paused , briefly , and then lambasted Barr for having told the Associated Press earlier in the day that the Justice Department had found no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of election theft .
“ Today , a member of his own Cabinet appeared to join in with the radical Dems , and the deep state , and the resistance , ” Dobbs said .
“ For the Attorney General of the United States to make that statement , he is either a liar or a fool or both .
He may be , um , perhaps , compromised .
He may be simply unprincipled .
Or he may be personally distraught or ill. ” Barr ’ s actions during his tenure as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but he is not compromised , distraught , or ill .
Nor is he a member of a deep-state coup .
There is no deep-state coup .
As state and local Republican officials in six battleground states and nearly fifty judges have found , Joe Biden decisively won the 2020 election .
Barr ’ s refutation of Trump ’ s false claims came late , but , nevertheless , it deserves praise .
At long last , the country ’ s chief law-enforcement officer has defended American democracy .
And that , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Presidency , could cost him his job .
Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis , the lawyers for the Trump campaign , immediately issued a statement accusing Barr of failing to seriously examine the President ’ s claims : “ With all due respect to the Attorney General , there hasn ’ t been any semblance of a Department of Justice investigation.
” Online , Barr was vilified .
Joe Hoft , at the Gateway Pundit , wrote that Barr had destroyed “ his name for all eternity ” and claimed that he has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to keep Hillary Clinton , James Comey , and Robert Mueller out of jail .
“ Now we know why the DOJ didn ’ t arrest anyone for the past four years , ” Hoft wrote .
“ The reason is they wanted it this way .
.
.
.
They never were going to arrest anyone.
” On pro-Trump Reddit channels , Barr was declared a “ deep state ” agent .
The President was reportedly livid at Barr .
Asked at a White House event on Thursday if he still has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ ask me that in a number of weeks from now.
” What actually motivated Barr is unknown at this point , and nothing is likely to become clearer until after Trump leaves office , on January 20th .
This week , an associate of the Attorney General ’ s told me that Barr and Trump have barely spoken for weeks .
The associate said that Barr had intentionally distanced himself from Trump as the election approached , because he wanted to perform the traditional role of Attorneys General—declining to take legal actions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ candidate , particularly the President who appointed them .
That explanation is charitable .
During Barr ’ s interview with the A.P.
, he hedged , as he has in the past .
He disclosed that , in October , he had secretly appointed John Durham , a federal prosecutor investigating the F.B.I.
’ s 2016 Trump-Russia probe , as special counsel .
That move will please the President and make it more difficult for Biden ’ s new Attorney General to curtail Durham ’ s work .
Then , after Barr ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , his office released a statement saying , “ The Department will continue to receive and vigorously pursue all specific and credible allegations of fraud as expeditiously as possible.
” The week ’ s events exemplified the tragic , destructive , and cynical nature of the Trump-era Justice Department .
Barr has clear legal and political convictions—many of which infuriate liberals—but he has pursued them consistently throughout his career .
Like other Republicans , he seemingly embraced an alliance of convenience with Trump .
An adherent to the obscure legal view that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ contends that special-counsel and congressional investigations have become so excessive that they hamper a President ’ s ability to govern the country .
Barr viewed the F.B.I.
’ s 2016 Trump-Russia investigation , the subsequent appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel , and the convictions of Paul Manafort , Michael Flynn , and Roger Stone as illegitimate .
He did his best to reverse each of those measures , by undermining Mueller ’ s report and lessening the punishment of the Trump allies who were successfully prosecuted by Mueller .
During Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of “ waging a scorched-earth , no-holds-barred war of ‘ Resistance ’ against this Administration , ” adding , “ it is the left that is engaged in the systematic shredding of norms and the undermining of the rule of law.
” Critics accused Barr of doing the same , in helping Trump to demolish decades of effort to build public confidence that the law is applied equally to all Americans , regardless of their proximity to the President .
They contend that Barr ’ s politicizing of the Justice Department will lead @ @ @ @ @ @ @ most destructive Attorneys General in modern American history .
Until now , Barr has delivered virtually everything that Trump could possibly have wanted politically—from the Justice Department arguing that Manhattan prosecutors should not have access to Trump ’ s tax returns , to defying subpoenas from congressional oversight committees .
Those acts and others that Barr has taken set legal precedents that have made Trump one of the most powerful American chief executives , in legal terms , since Congress and the courts curbed Presidential power after Watergate .
In the final weeks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ went too far , apparently , even for Barr .
In the pursuit of victory and vengeance , Trump publicly called for him to open a criminal investigation of the Biden family , and demanded that Barr announce the results of the Durham investigation in time to sway votes .
After the election , Trump ’ s campaign pressured Barr to become the first U.S. Attorney General to aid a de-facto coup attempt—albeit a chaotic and , at times , comical one .
Barr ’ s public defense of Biden ’ s victory—at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ irreversible step for the Attorney General .
If Trump or his allies maintain control of the Republican Party , Barr will now have no future in it .
George Terwilliger , who worked for Barr in the Administration of George H. W. Bush , told the Times that Barr ’ s intention this week was “ just to be responsible.
” Terwilliger added that , when false conspiracies are being spread about the Justice Department , “ it is responsible to say no , that did not happen.
” Barr ’ s statement @ @ @ @ @ @ @ required of him in a democracy .
It also showed how utterly this President has failed to do the same .
Read More About the Presidential Transition • Donald Trump has survived impeachment , twenty-six sexual-misconduct accusations , and thousands of lawsuits .
His luck may well end now that Joe Biden is the next President .
• With litigation unlikely to change the outcome of the election , Republicans are looking to strategies that might remain even after rebuffs both at the polls and in court .
• With the Trump Presidency @ @ @ @ @ @ @ how to prevent the moral injuries of the past four years from happening again .
• If 2020 has demonstrated anything , it is the need to rebalance the economy to benefit the working class .
There are many ways a Biden Administration can start .
• Trump is being forced to give up his attempt to overturn the election .
But his efforts to build an alternative reality around himself will continue .
• Sign up for our daily newsletter for insight and analysis from our reporters and columnists .

The Fox News host Lou Dobbs was among the first Trump supporters to denounce William Barr. On Tuesday, Dobbs began his nightly program by announcing “progress” in Donald Trump’s effort to remain in office and to vanquish “the insidious, radical Dems, corporate America, Big Tech, and the deep state, who have tried to overthrow his Presidency for more than four years.” Dobbs paused, briefly, and then lambasted Barr for having told the Associated Press earlier in the day that the Justice Department had found no evidence to corroborate Trump’s claims of election theft. “Today, a member of his own Cabinet appeared to join in with the radical Dems, and the deep state, and the resistance,” Dobbs said. “For the Attorney General of the United States to make that statement, he is either a liar or a fool or both. He may be, um, perhaps, compromised. He may be simply unprincipled. Or he may be personally distraught or ill.”
Barr’s actions during his tenure as Attorney General may be up for debate, but he is not compromised, distraught, or ill. Nor is he a member of a deep-state coup. There is no deep-state coup. As state and local Republican officials in six battleground states and nearly fifty judges have found, Joe Biden decisively won the 2020 election. Barr’s refutation of Trump’s false claims came late, but, nevertheless, it deserves praise. At long last, the country’s chief law-enforcement officer has defended American democracy. And that, in the waning days of the Trump Presidency, could cost him his job.
Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis, the lawyers for the Trump campaign, immediately issued a statement accusing Barr of failing to seriously examine the President’s claims: “With all due respect to the Attorney General, there hasn’t been any semblance of a Department of Justice investigation.” Online, Barr was vilified. Joe Hoft, at the Gateway Pundit, wrote that Barr had destroyed “his name for all eternity” and claimed that he has spent his time in office working surreptitiously to keep Hillary Clinton, James Comey, and Robert Mueller out of jail. “Now we know why the DOJ didn’t arrest anyone for the past four years,” Hoft wrote. “The reason is they wanted it this way. . . . They never were going to arrest anyone.” On pro-Trump Reddit channels, Barr was declared a “deep state” agent. The President was reportedly livid at Barr. Asked at a White House event on Thursday if he still has confidence in Barr, Trump replied, “ask me that in a number of weeks from now.”
What actually motivated Barr is unknown at this point, and nothing is likely to become clearer until after Trump leaves office, on January 20th. This week, an associate of the Attorney General’s told me that Barr and Trump have barely spoken for weeks. The associate said that Barr had intentionally distanced himself from Trump as the election approached, because he wanted to perform the traditional role of Attorneys General—declining to take legal actions during an election season that favor one candidate, particularly the President who appointed them.
That explanation is charitable. During Barr’s interview with the A.P., he hedged, as he has in the past. He disclosed that, in October, he had secretly appointed John Durham, a federal prosecutor investigating the F.B.I.’s 2016 Trump-Russia probe, as special counsel. That move will please the President and make it more difficult for Biden’s new Attorney General to curtail Durham’s work. Then, after Barr’s comments about the election were attacked, his office released a statement saying, “The Department will continue to receive and vigorously pursue all specific and credible allegations of fraud as expeditiously as possible.”
The week’s events exemplified the tragic, destructive, and cynical nature of the Trump-era Justice Department. Barr has clear legal and political convictions—many of which infuriate liberals—but he has pursued them consistently throughout his career. Like other Republicans, he seemingly embraced an alliance of convenience with Trump. An adherent to the obscure legal view that the Presidency has too little power, Barr contends that special-counsel and congressional investigations have become so excessive that they hamper a President’s ability to govern the country.
Barr viewed the F.B.I.’s 2016 Trump-Russia investigation, the subsequent appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel, and the convictions of Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, and Roger Stone as illegitimate. He did his best to reverse each of those measures, by undermining Mueller’s report and lessening the punishment of the Trump allies who were successfully prosecuted by Mueller. During Trump’s impeachment, Barr accused Democrats of “waging a scorched-earth, no-holds-barred war of ‘Resistance’ against this Administration,” adding, “it is the left that is engaged in the systematic shredding of norms and the undermining of the rule of law.” Critics accused Barr of doing the same, in helping Trump to demolish decades of effort to build public confidence that the law is applied equally to all Americans, regardless of their proximity to the President. They contend that Barr’s politicizing of the Justice Department will lead him to be considered one of the most destructive Attorneys General in modern American history.
Until now, Barr has delivered virtually everything that Trump could possibly have wanted politically—from the Justice Department arguing that Manhattan prosecutors should not have access to Trump’s tax returns, to defying subpoenas from congressional oversight committees. Those acts and others that Barr has taken set legal precedents that have made Trump one of the most powerful American chief executives, in legal terms, since Congress and the courts curbed Presidential power after Watergate. In the final weeks of the campaign, though, Trump went too far, apparently, even for Barr. In the pursuit of victory and vengeance, Trump publicly called for him to open a criminal investigation of the Biden family, and demanded that Barr announce the results of the Durham investigation in time to sway votes. After the election, Trump’s campaign pressured Barr to become the first U.S. Attorney General to aid a de-facto coup attempt—albeit a chaotic and, at times, comical one.
Barr’s public defense of Biden’s victory—at a politically existential moment for Trump—was an irreversible step for the Attorney General. If Trump or his allies maintain control of the Republican Party, Barr will now have no future in it. George Terwilliger, who worked for Barr in the Administration of George H. W. Bush, told the Times that Barr’s intention this week was “just to be responsible.” Terwilliger added that, when false conspiracies are being spread about the Justice Department, “it is responsible to say no, that did not happen.” Barr’s statement showed an Attorney General doing what is required of him in a democracy. It also showed how utterly this President has failed to do the same.
Read More About the Presidential Transition


newyorker--2020-12-06--Countdown to a Coronavirus Vaccine

Countdown to a Coronavirus Vaccine

A nurse gave Honeycutt an injection .
Neither of them knew whether the liquid was a placebo or an experimental vaccine known as mRNA-1273 .
Developed by the Massachusetts-based biotech company Moderna , the vaccine contains a microscopic chain of messenger RNA , the atom-size instructions for building proteins .
No vaccine made from mRNA has ever been licensed for commercial use .
After the injection , Honeycutt was kept under observation for thirty minutes , to be sure that it did not trigger an anaphylactic reaction ; during that time , the vaccine , if that ’ s what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ crossing her cell membranes , into the cytoplasm , where the ribosomes would begin using its code to manufacture a defense against the virus .
Honeycutt hoped that she had got the real thing .
But , she said , “ you don ’ t know .
It could be saline.
” Honeycutt was one of thirty thousand volunteers nationwide , aged eighteen and older , in Moderna ’ s Phase III trial—the final test of safety and efficacy before a company applies to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for authorization .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ experimental vaccine is simple , at least in concept .
Half the volunteers receive a placebo , and half receive the vaccine .
No one can see who got what except the members of the Data and Safety Monitoring Board , an independent group of experts appointed by the National Institutes of Health .
Once a predetermined number of volunteers develop symptomatic cases , the board members take their first peek at the data .
On the morning of November 11th , Moderna announced that it had hit that threshold .
A few @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Monitoring Board held a call with Moderna ’ s management and N.I.H .
officials , telling them that , of ninety-five confirmed cases of COVID-19 among trial participants , ninety were in the placebo group .
Eleven volunteers had developed severe cases ; all of them were in the placebo group .
The vaccine was nearly ninety-five per cent effective .
Pfizer , working with the Germany-based immunotherapy company BioNTech , was performing similar trials on its own vaccine , with forty-two thousand volunteers .
A week earlier , Pfizer had released preliminary @ @ @ @ @ @ @ per cent effective .
Both companies still had to finish their trials , but the announcements were exciting .
Medical experts , including the top doctors at both Pfizer and Moderna , had been hoping that the vaccines would be seventy to eighty per cent effective .
“ Something like ninety-five per cent was really aspirational , ” Anthony Fauci , the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases , at the N.I.H.
, said .
“ Well , our aspirations have been met .
And that is really very @ @ @ @ @ @ @ these results in less than four months , an unprecedented pace , without any serious side effects .
“ It is difficult to convey to those outside the field how extraordinary this achievement has been , ” Kathleen Neuzil , who is co-leading the federal network that designs and oversees coronavirus-vaccine trials , told me .
“ The science and manufacturing allowed these vaccines to be developed in weeks , not years.
” Pfizer and Moderna have since applied to the F.D.A .
for emergency-use authorization , which could allow the first doses @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the year .
On the evening after Honeycutt got her shot , she signed into an app on her phone to record her temperature and any symptoms .
Her arm was sore .
Otherwise , she felt unchanged .
Both Moderna ’ s and Pfizer ’ s vaccines require two shots , roughly a month apart .
After twenty-eight days , Honeycutt returned to the clinic for a second injection .
The next morning , around nine o ’ clock , she started to get body aches and chills .
Her temperature @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
She bundled up and lay on the couch .
By noon , her temperature was above a hundred .
A few hours later , she felt better , she said , even excited : “ I felt like I got the vaccine.
” A crucial development has allowed Pfizer and Moderna to move quickly .
The spike protein alters its form once it fuses with a cell in our body ; after the lock is opened , the key changes shape .
In order for a vaccine to work , it has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ key—the spike ’ s delicate , unaltered form—so that the immune system can learn how to keep the lock closed .
Several years ago , Barney Graham , the deputy director of vaccine research at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases , and Jason McLellan , a professor at the University of Texas , were investigating another coronavirus , Middle East respiratory syndrome ( MERS-CoV ) , in the hope of developing a vaccine .
Earlier work on viruses suggested that , if they changed the genetic sequence slightly , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ They tried two mutations on the MERS spike protein , which worked , resulting in a potent vaccine .
“ It was a big moment when we realized that the idea was transferrable from one virus to another , ” Graham told me .
In 2017 , the N.I.H .
partnered with Moderna to see how rapidly they could develop an mRNA vaccine if there were a pandemic ; they accelerated the effort in mid-2019 .
Not long afterward , a mysterious cluster of viral pneumonia cases appeared in the city of Wuhan @ @ @ @ @ @ @ became real .
On January 10th , Chinese researchers published the sequence of the SARS-CoV-2 genome .
The next morning , Graham and his colleagues went to work developing a potential mRNA vaccine , using the stabilizing mutations from their research on MERS .
BioNTech , like Moderna , had been experimenting with mRNA vaccines .
In late January , when Ugur Sahin , BioNTech ’ s co-founder , realized that SARS-CoV-2 could cause a pandemic , the company began developing its own vaccine candidate .
A few weeks later , Sahin called @ @ @ @ @ @ @ research at Pfizer , and asked if her company would be interested in joining the effort .
Jansen said that she had been planning to call him .
The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are more similar than different .
In both , the mRNA is encapsulated in a substance called a lipid nanoparticle , a shell of precisely formulated fat , which helps carry the mRNA into our cells .
Like nearly every vaccine in use today , they also both require two doses .
( The flu shot is a single dose @ @ @ @ @ @ @ every year . )
The first dose exposes the immune system to the antigen , which creates a population of antibodies that can respond to it .
The second dose expands that population .
Anyone who catches the coronavirus between the first and second shots—a real risk in a pandemic—would likely have protection from severe disease , but no one knows yet the extent of that protection .
Johnson & Johnson is currently testing a coronavirus vaccine , in a trial of sixty thousand people , that could work with just one shot @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , however , so in November the company started a second , global Phase III trial that will give two shots to as many as thirty thousand participants .
Thirteen companies worldwide have made it into late-stage , large-scale clinical efficacy trials .
Back in April , to coördinate and accelerate this sprawling vaccine-development effort , Peter Marks , the director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research , at the F.D.A.
, proposed a moon-shot program that , as a longtime “ Star Trek ” fan , he dubbed Project Warp @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
team that will make the final call on granting emergency-use authorization to the leading vaccine candidates .
Acknowledging the stakes , he recalled a line from James Bond , in which the head of M.I.6 says , “ This is the big one , 007 .
Do not screw it up.
” Moncef Slaoui , the former head of vaccine development at GlaxoSmithKline , was eventually appointed the head of what is now known as Operation Warp Speed .
The program has so far provided at least twelve billion dollars to pharmaceutical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ manufacturing vaccines and drugs , with the biggest contracts awarded to Moderna , Sanofi ( which is partnering with GlaxoSmithKline ) , Novavax , Johnson & Johnson , and AstraZeneca .
All of them except AstraZeneca are using Graham and McLellan ’ s mutations .
According to Graham , the original RNA technology came from Drew Weissman , a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania , whose work was also heavily funded by the N.I.H .
“ What do they say ?
” Graham said .
“ Success has many fathers , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ BioNTech decided not to accept funds from Operation Warp Speed .
“ I wanted to liberate our scientists from any bureaucracy , ” Albert Bourla , the C.E.O .
of Pfizer , said in an interview on CBS ’ s “ Face the Nation.
” BioNTech did receive four hundred and forty-five million dollars in funding from the German government , and the two companies signed a contract with Operation Warp Speed to sell their first hundred million doses to the U.S. , at a cost of around two billion dollars .
They @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s publicly funded work when they created their vaccine ’ s mRNA sequence .
In trials on mice and monkeys , as well as in Phase I trials on people , Pfizer and Moderna showed that their vaccines were safe and provoked robust immune responses .
In May , companies and regulators began to suggest that a vaccine could be ready sooner than expected .
“ Once we started getting human data , then we really got more confident , ” Graham said .
Pfizer and Moderna began Phase III trials on July @ @ @ @ @ @ @ get sick—typically the most time-consuming aspect of a Phase III trial—was not likely to take long : COVID-19 cases were surging around the country .
The companies ’ stock prices soared as executives sold off their shares .
Donald Trump , too , tried to capitalize on the news .
By summer , he was hyping the possibility that a vaccine could be ready before the election , although few public-health experts believed this timeline to be realistic .
“ You could have a very big surprise coming up , ” Trump said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ re going to have a vaccine very soon , maybe even before a very special date .
You know what date I ’ m talking about.
” Bourla , the Pfizer C.E.O.
, had an idea to quell some of these concerns .
In early September , he and Sahin , of BioNTech , flew to Austria in a Pfizer jet to visit a vaccine-manufacturing facility .
During the flight , Sahin said , they talked about the issue of public trust , and the risk that the vaccines “ could be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that.
” Bourla suggested that all the front-runners in the vaccine race publish an open letter , reaffirming their commitment to safety , scientific rigor , and ethics .
Sahin thought that this was a great suggestion .
When Bourla returned to the U.S. , he called Fauci , who told me that he strongly encouraged the pledge .
Bourla rallied seven other companies , all of which were involved with Operation Warp Speed , and were likely aware that President Trump ’ s wish to hasten the arrival of a vaccine was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shortcuts .
“ You can feel if the public gets insecure about what is going on , ” Sahin said .
It seemed critical to be transparent about “ the independence of this process from any political influence.
” On September 8th , Pfizer , BioNTech , Moderna , AstraZeneca , GlaxoSmithKline , Sanofi , Johnson & Johnson , Merck , and Novavax released a joint pledge to “ stand with science , ” to make the “ safety and well-being ” of vaccinated individuals their “ top priority , ” and to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ standards ” for clinical trials and manufacturing .
“ So the pledge was ‘ Let ’ s not try to jump the gun , ’ ” Fauci told me .
The race for a vaccine was becoming as much a public-relations effort as a scientific one .
A week and a half later , Moderna and Pfizer published their trial blueprints , which are usually kept secret until a vaccine study is complete .
But the possibility that Pfizer might file for an emergency-use authorization before the election created more controversy .
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
has never granted an emergency-use authorization for a new vaccine .
To address the public ’ s concerns , the agency issued updated guidelines on October 6th , asking drugmakers to collect two months of safety data following the second injection before applying for an authorization .
This made the possibility of a preëlection vaccine almost nil .
Trump was outraged , and attempted to block the guidelines ’ release , a move that was widely condemned .
In an abrupt reversal , the guidelines were cleared the next day .
Still @ @ @ @ @ @ @ FDA Rules make it more difficult for them to speed up vaccines for approval before Election Day .
Just another political hit job !
”

In trials on mice and monkeys, as well as in Phase I trials on people, Pfizer and Moderna showed that their vaccines were safe and provoked robust immune responses. In May, companies and regulators began to suggest that a vaccine could be ready sooner than expected. “Once we started getting human data, then we really got more confident,” Graham said. Pfizer and Moderna began Phase III trials on July 27th. Waiting for enough volunteers to get sick—typically the most time-consuming aspect of a Phase III trial—was not likely to take long: COVID-19 cases were surging around the country. The companies’ stock prices soared as executives sold off their shares.
Donald Trump, too, tried to capitalize on the news. By summer, he was hyping the possibility that a vaccine could be ready before the election, although few public-health experts believed this timeline to be realistic. “You could have a very big surprise coming up,” Trump said in a press conference. “We’re going to have a vaccine very soon, maybe even before a very special date. You know what date I’m talking about.”
Around the time of Trump’s remarks, the COVID-19 Vaccine Confidence Project, a nonprofit effort to advise the F.D.A., began conducting focus groups with people most at risk: workers in health care, service, and retail, and members of underrepresented communities. Many respondents were skeptical about the haste with which the vaccines were being developed. “Some of our listening-session participants noted that they would want to wait months, or even years, before choosing to receive a vaccine,” Susan Winckler, the C.E.O. of the Reagan-Udall Foundation, which is leading the project, said. In an online presentation, Winckler shared direct quotes from the respondents, a Greek chorus of worry: “When I hear the F.D.A. say they have a particular process, but then I hear the White House say they can cut that in half or negate it, it brings more distrust”; “I am suspicious that they are trying to get it out before the election”; “A lot of people don’t trust the people who are making the vaccine because they are politically motivated, and we are all a bunch of guinea pigs.”
Bourla, the Pfizer C.E.O., had an idea to quell some of these concerns. In early September, he and Sahin, of BioNTech, flew to Austria in a Pfizer jet to visit a vaccine-manufacturing facility. During the flight, Sahin said, they talked about the issue of public trust, and the risk that the vaccines “could be politicized, and how to react to that.” Bourla suggested that all the front-runners in the vaccine race publish an open letter, reaffirming their commitment to safety, scientific rigor, and ethics. Sahin thought that this was a great suggestion.
When Bourla returned to the U.S., he called Fauci, who told me that he strongly encouraged the pledge. Bourla rallied seven other companies, all of which were involved with Operation Warp Speed, and were likely aware that President Trump’s wish to hasten the arrival of a vaccine was creating the impression that developers were taking shortcuts. “You can feel if the public gets insecure about what is going on,” Sahin said. It seemed critical to be transparent about “the independence of this process from any political influence.”
On September 8th, Pfizer, BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, and Novavax released a joint pledge to “stand with science,” to make the “safety and well-being” of vaccinated individuals their “top priority,” and to “adhere to high scientific and ethical standards” for clinical trials and manufacturing. “So the pledge was ‘Let’s not try to jump the gun,’ ” Fauci told me. The race for a vaccine was becoming as much a public-relations effort as a scientific one.
A week and a half later, Moderna and Pfizer published their trial blueprints, which are usually kept secret until a vaccine study is complete. But the possibility that Pfizer might file for an emergency-use authorization before the election created more controversy. In the past hundred years, the F.D.A. has never granted an emergency-use authorization for a new vaccine. To address the public’s concerns, the agency issued updated guidelines on October 6th, asking drugmakers to collect two months of safety data following the second injection before applying for an authorization. This made the possibility of a preëlection vaccine almost nil. Trump was outraged, and attempted to block the guidelines’ release, a move that was widely condemned. In an abrupt reversal, the guidelines were cleared the next day. Still, the President tweeted, “New FDA Rules make it more difficult for them to speed up vaccines for approval before Election Day. Just another political hit job!”
To many observers, the F.D.A.’s guidelines represented the bare minimum of what was necessary to insure a safe and effective vaccine. The World Health Organization has advocated for no less than three months of safety data. Most side effects will occur in the first two to three months, so two months of follow-up safety data “is pretty much a base case,” Scott Gottlieb, Trump’s former F.D.A. commissioner, who sits on Pfizer’s board of directors, said. “It’s a short time frame, but it’s appropriately aggressive given the circumstances.” Doran Fink, the deputy director of the F.D.A.’s vaccine division, emphasized that the agency had tried to balance two imperatives: “having the amount of safety data that we thought was absolutely necessary” and “not withholding a vaccine that could have an impact.”
Victoria Smith works as a family physician at an outpatient clinic owned by Ochsner Health, a network of hospitals and medical facilities across Louisiana. Back in March, New Orleans became one of the worst hot spots in the world, with a massive outbreak catalyzed in large part by the annual Mardi Gras celebration. Many of Smith’s patients got severely ill. Some died. Since then, Ochsner’s academic center has been running studies related to the virus, investigating how it has affected certain communities and how it might be treated. Two days after Pfizer’s and Moderna’s Phase III trials began nationally, Ochsner’s chief academic officer told Smith that his staff had opened enrollment for Pfizer’s trial. Smith signed up immediately. She knew that, as an African-American doctor, she could help establish trust in the vaccines. “I wanted to be a model to my patients, to communities of color,” she said, “to encourage people to take part.”
The companies were encouraged to recruit volunteers that reflected the country’s demographics. In late August, Slaoui, the head of Operation Warp Speed, told Moderna’s C.E.O., Stéphane Bancel, that the company had to slow down its trial in order to sign up more volunteers from Black and Latino communities, which have had much higher rates of infection and death during the pandemic than white communities have. The concern was not necessarily that physical responses to the vaccine might vary by race. “It was more to assure the public that the vaccine data, when it comes out, is applicable to everybody,” Tal Zaks, Moderna’s top doctor, told me. Moderna contacted leaders of historically Black universities and other academics with ties to Black and Latino organizations. Slaoui joined a virtual town hall organized by Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, in Atlanta, to ask for help in finding Black volunteers.
Moderna eventually recruited more than seven thousand Americans over the age of sixty-five, and more than five thousand with chronic conditions such as diabetes, obesity, and heart disease. Thirty-seven per cent of the study’s participants were from communities of color, which have historically been underrepresented in clinical research. But, according to a Stat-Harris poll conducted in early October, there remains a significant racial discrepancy in vaccine confidence. Only forty-three per cent of Black Americans said that they would agree to receive a vaccine as soon as one was available, versus fifty-nine per cent of white Americans. “There’s a long history in the United States of science being done on people of color and not with them,” Smith said. “I’m thinking of the Tuskegee experiment.” She continued, “So it is, I think, the work of our medical and scientific communities to decrease those disparities, but also to understand that mistrust and work to create trust.”
On November 30th, Moderna announced that it had arrived at the end of its trial, with a hundred and ninety-six COVID-19 cases among more than thirty thousand volunteers. A hundred and eighty-five of the people who got sick had received the placebo, indicating an efficacy rate of ninety-four per cent. All thirty people who got severely ill, including one person who died, were in the placebo group. The data was consistent across age, race, and ethnicity. Among the volunteers who contracted COVID-19, twenty-nine identified as Latino, six as Black, four as Asian-American, and three as multiracial; thirty-three were older than sixty-five.
The results were remarkably similar to Pfizer’s, which ultimately achieved an efficacy rate of ninety-five per cent. “The fact that two independent studies, with more than thirty thousand people in each one, both randomized and placebo-controlled, came to the same answer?” John Mascola, the head of the N.I.H. Vaccine Research Center, said. “That really gives you enormous confidence in their information.”
And yet there is still an entrenched anti-vaccination movement to contend with. Falsehoods circulating on social media claim that the vaccines will modify your DNA, and accuse Bill Gates of injecting people with location trackers. Francis Collins, the director of the N.I.H., said, “It is troubling, indeed, to see polls reflecting the vaccine hesitancy of Americans.” He pointed to “a lack of information about what the real details of the vaccine safety and efficacy were,” and “a lot of noise about it and a lot of conspiracy theories that have not helped.” Fauci emphasized the importance of making the public aware of “the transparency and the independence of the process, which I think they may not fully appreciate when they hear things about rushing or influence from the outside.” He noted the role of the Data and Safety Monitoring Boards, and the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, an independent body that holds public meetings to debate safety and efficacy considerations of the F.D.A.’s vaccine-approval process.
During an all-day meeting of the committee, on October 22nd, Archana Chatterjee, the dean of the Chicago Medical School, noted the challenge of insuring the scientific rigor of vaccine development “in the face of a pandemic that is killing hundreds of thousands of people across the globe.” She continued, “What we’re being asked to do is build this plane as we fly it.” The committee is expected to endorse Pfizer’s request for an emergency-use authorization on December 10th. Marks, the F.D.A. regulator, said that the agency plans to issue a final authorization “days to weeks” later. (The committee will vote on Moderna’s authorization on December 17th.)
For some, that won’t be fast enough. On December 1st, Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff, met with the head of the F.D.A., Stephen Hahn, to discuss why the agency “hadn’t moved faster to grant preliminary approval,” Bloomberg reported. The next day, shortly after regulators in the U.K. granted an emergency-use authorization to Pfizer, Meadows reportedly summoned Hahn back to the White House. According to Mascola, of the N.I.H., there is a simple explanation for the F.D.A.’s timeline: Pfizer has presented “a very large and complex set of data,” and “all that information has to be reviewed.” Investigators must double-check who tested positive for COVID-19, and what follow-ups were conducted to determine the severity of symptoms. “So far we only have Pfizer and Moderna’s word for it,” Mascola said. “What everyone wants is the F.D.A.’s word for it.”
For months, hundreds of thousands of vials of Pfizer’s and Moderna’s vaccines have been sitting in a few manufacturing plants in the United States and Europe. Based on recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, health-care workers and the elderly or chronically ill—about twenty million people—will be the first to receive a vaccine in the U.S. Scaling up to six hundred million doses—then safely and equitably distributing those doses around the country, and making sure that as many people as possible get a vaccine, including the second shot—is a breathtaking logistical challenge. “Something as simple as a supply chain usually would take five or six years,” Robert Johnson, the director of the Division of Influenza and Emerging Infectious Diseases at the U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, said. “We’re trying to do it in the course of a few months, with six candidates.”
Pfizer plans to manufacture 1.3 billion doses globally in 2021, but its vaccine must be stored at minus ninety-four degrees Fahrenheit, making mass distribution even more complicated. The company has created dry-ice-packed shipping containers that can hold some five thousand doses, in two-millilitre glass vials. Once the containers arrive at their destination, they serve as temporary storage units for fifteen days, assuming that they are opened no more than twice a day and that the dry ice is replenished. Each container carries a G.P.S.-enabled thermal sensor that will track its location and temperature. On average, Pfizer will have twenty cargo flights a day carrying vaccines all over the world.
Moderna plans to manufacture between five hundred million and a billion doses globally in 2021. Its vaccine, which can be stored at normal refrigerator temperatures for thirty days, will be easier to distribute. Zaks, the doctor from Moderna, told me that some of the company’s earlier efforts required storage at minus ninety-four degrees, but that there was no single “magic trick” that could easily be shared with Pfizer to apply to its vaccine. “It’s not a simple sauce,” Zaks said. “It is a collection of hundreds of small scientific steps.” (The two companies have not collaborated, he added, at least not in any way “that has been publicly disclosed.”)
Pfizer’s and Moderna’s vaccine-trial participants will be tracked for two years. A federal database, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, already monitors vaccination side effects. The C.D.C. has also created a smartphone-based program called V-SAFE, which will track the health of the roughly twenty million people who receive the first round of vaccines. “Long-term side effects are not common with vaccines,” Larry Corey, a virologist and a co-leader of the network overseeing coronavirus-vaccine trials, told me. “But you do need to do surveillance to assure safety.”


newyorker--2020-12-06--Getting Through the COVID Winter

Getting Through the COVID Winter

On November 25th , as millions of Americans were travelling for Thanksgiving , Angela Merkel , the German Chancellor , gave a press conference with a double-edged message .
For much of the pandemic , her country had kept the coronavirus relatively under control , only to see a second-wave surge ; a full third of the country ’ s eighteen thousand COVID-19 deaths occurred in November .
( Per capita , Germany has lost a quarter of the people the U.S. has lost . )
The government responded with more stringent controls and guidelines—closing bars and restaurants , limiting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the exponential growth in the number of infections has been broken.
” But , even with a vaccine on the horizon , the crisis isn ’ t over .
There needs to be , Merkel said , one more “ energetic push , ” which will require three things of her fellow-citizens : “ patience , solidarity , discipline.
” In the week after Thanksgiving , Donald Trump , who is not known for any of those qualities , put out a forty-six-minute video in which he made fantastic claims about the election @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the coronavirus as an “ excuse ” to send out mail-in ballots .
Merkel ’ s message is useful not only as a contrast to Trump but as a starting point in thinking about how Americans can get through the next few months .
We are in a strange limbo .
The F.D.A .
may issue emergency-use approval for Pfizer-BioNTech ’ s vaccine , after a meeting on December 10th , and for Moderna ’ s , after a meeting on December 17th , but the supply will be tightly limited at first @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t arrive until Inauguration Day , and the next wave of infections is already here .
On Thanksgiving , Governor Andrew Cuomo , of New York , said that , “ as the phases change , your plans should change.
” But to what ?
The contours of a winter catastrophe are becoming clear .
Last Thursday , the number of recorded daily deaths in the United States exceeded twenty-eight hundred , according to Johns Hopkins University , a record .
In Pennsylvania , the testing positivity rate surpassed thirty per cent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ per cent .
Governor Gavin Newsom , of California , said that the intensive-care units in many parts of his state , with its forty million people , would be over capacity by next week ; a dozen of Mississippi ’ s major hospitals have already run out of I.C.U .
beds .
Last Wednesday , Robert Redfield , the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , said in remarks at a virtual event held by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that December , January , and February were “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the public-health history of this nation.
” The next day , on a CBS podcast , Dr. Anthony Fauci said that he agreed with Redfield , and spoke about “ a surge superimposed upon a surge ” as a result of Thanksgiving gatherings .
He warned that the country ’ s death toll could double .
Both men said that an even greater disaster—a surge upon a surge upon a surge after Christmas—could still be avoided , if , as Fauci put it , “ we do the fundamental things.
” Those @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ we talk about all the time , ” such as mask wearing , social distancing , and avoiding indoor gatherings .
The repetitiveness of the instructions is tedious , perhaps , but it reflects a real urgency .
The lack of discipline at the top has been so extreme that it can be hard for the public to know what prudent choices look like—if Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sends out nine hundred invitations for departmental holiday parties held indoors , how bad could it be , one wonders , to have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , unfortunately , in more and more parts of the country , is pretty bad .
The numbers are rising so rapidly that a well-thought-out risk calculation made a month ago may no longer apply .
Cold weather , which exacerbates the spread of respiratory diseases , increases the need for vigilance , as it pushes people inside .
There have to be trade-offs , but data show that it should be possible to keep schools open if—a big , often neglected if—there are mitigating measures in place , such as ventilation , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , particularly , masks .
( Kansas , Pompeo ’ s home state , has a mask mandate that counties can opt out of ; a C.D.C .
study released in November reported that , in the counties that kept the mandate , cases fell by six per cent over the summer .
In those that didn ’ t , they doubled . )
Many Americans , of course , do not have the luxury of isolation , among them the health-care workers who will be fighting the pandemic during the next , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ distributing the vaccines is incredibly complex , involving everyone from commercial pilots ( who ’ ve been given a dispensation by the F.A.A .
to carry on board more dry ice , which it classifies as a hazardous material ) and FedEx drivers to pharmacists who will give the injections .
Solidarity , to borrow one of Merkel ’ s terms , may mean supporting those workers .
For people who can stay home , perhaps the promise of a vaccine will make it easier to be patient with the winter ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In another respect , though , Merkel ’ s instructions seem inadequate , at least for this country .
There is no reason to be patient with the G.O.P.
’ s adoption of Trump ’ s denialism , or with the failure of Senate Republicans to support COVID relief .
Richard Besser , a former acting director of the C.D.C.
, who now heads the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation , said that “ the ability to do the right thing in America , to protect yourself and your family , depends in large @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the color of your skin , and that ’ s just wrong.
” Many people who may have been exposed to someone who ’ s infected fear losing their jobs—or their homes—if they stay home from work .
They might be interacting with elderly , vulnerable relatives because they have no other option for child care .
Many of the income supports that Congress and states agreed on in the spring are gone or soon will be .
Some fourteen million people may lose unemployment benefits on December 26th , and a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the end of the year .
There is still time for Congress to act , if the will is there .
Close to a million positive coronavirus test results were reported in the U.S. in just the five days after the Thanksgiving weekend .
For those Americans—for us—the new phase is not an abstraction , and for many it will be a harrowing blur of caregiving , recovery , or loss .
We ’ ll need one another , and we ’ ll each need a new plan .
The virus won ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
♦

Illustration by João Fazenda
On November 25th, as millions of Americans were travelling for Thanksgiving, Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, gave a press conference with a double-edged message. For much of the pandemic, her country had kept the coronavirus relatively under control, only to see a second-wave surge; a full third of the country’s eighteen thousand COVID-19 deaths occurred in November. (Per capita, Germany has lost a quarter of the people the U.S. has lost.) The government responded with more stringent controls and guidelines—closing bars and restaurants, limiting gatherings—and now, Merkel announced, “the exponential growth in the number of infections has been broken.” But, even with a vaccine on the horizon, the crisis isn’t over. There needs to be, Merkel said, one more “energetic push,” which will require three things of her fellow-citizens: “patience, solidarity, discipline.”
In the week after Thanksgiving, Donald Trump, who is not known for any of those qualities, put out a forty-six-minute video in which he made fantastic claims about the election being stolen from him, and dismissed the coronavirus as an “excuse” to send out mail-in ballots. Merkel’s message is useful not only as a contrast to Trump but as a starting point in thinking about how Americans can get through the next few months. We are in a strange limbo. The F.D.A. may issue emergency-use approval for Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine, after a meeting on December 10th, and for Moderna’s, after a meeting on December 17th, but the supply will be tightly limited at first. Real, empowered national leadership won’t arrive until Inauguration Day, and the next wave of infections is already here. On Thanksgiving, Governor Andrew Cuomo, of New York, said that, “as the phases change, your plans should change.” But to what?
The contours of a winter catastrophe are becoming clear. Last Thursday, the number of recorded daily deaths in the United States exceeded twenty-eight hundred, according to Johns Hopkins University, a record. In Pennsylvania, the testing positivity rate surpassed thirty per cent. In Idaho, it reached fifty per cent. Governor Gavin Newsom, of California, said that the intensive-care units in many parts of his state, with its forty million people, would be over capacity by next week; a dozen of Mississippi’s major hospitals have already run out of I.C.U. beds.
Last Wednesday, Robert Redfield, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in remarks at a virtual event held by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that December, January, and February were “going to be the most difficult time in the public-health history of this nation.” The next day, on a CBS podcast, Dr. Anthony Fauci said that he agreed with Redfield, and spoke about “a surge superimposed upon a surge” as a result of Thanksgiving gatherings. He warned that the country’s death toll could double. Both men said that an even greater disaster—a surge upon a surge upon a surge after Christmas—could still be avoided, if, as Fauci put it, “we do the fundamental things.”
Those include practices, Fauci said, that “we talk about all the time,” such as mask wearing, social distancing, and avoiding indoor gatherings. The repetitiveness of the instructions is tedious, perhaps, but it reflects a real urgency. The lack of discipline at the top has been so extreme that it can be hard for the public to know what prudent choices look like—if Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sends out nine hundred invitations for departmental holiday parties held indoors, how bad could it be, one wonders, to have a few relatives over?
The answer, unfortunately, in more and more parts of the country, is pretty bad. The numbers are rising so rapidly that a well-thought-out risk calculation made a month ago may no longer apply. Cold weather, which exacerbates the spread of respiratory diseases, increases the need for vigilance, as it pushes people inside. There have to be trade-offs, but data show that it should be possible to keep schools open if—a big, often neglected if—there are mitigating measures in place, such as ventilation, contact tracing, capacity limits, and, particularly, masks. (Kansas, Pompeo’s home state, has a mask mandate that counties can opt out of; a C.D.C. study released in November reported that, in the counties that kept the mandate, cases fell by six per cent over the summer. In those that didn’t, they doubled.)
Many Americans, of course, do not have the luxury of isolation, among them the health-care workers who will be fighting the pandemic during the next, terrible weeks. And the task of distributing the vaccines is incredibly complex, involving everyone from commercial pilots (who’ve been given a dispensation by the F.A.A. to carry on board more dry ice, which it classifies as a hazardous material) and FedEx drivers to pharmacists who will give the injections. Solidarity, to borrow one of Merkel’s terms, may mean supporting those workers. For people who can stay home, perhaps the promise of a vaccine will make it easier to be patient with the winter’s restrictions—it won’t be forever.
In another respect, though, Merkel’s instructions seem inadequate, at least for this country. There is no reason to be patient with the G.O.P.’s adoption of Trump’s denialism, or with the failure of Senate Republicans to support COVID relief. Richard Besser, a former acting director of the C.D.C., who now heads the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, said that “the ability to do the right thing in America, to protect yourself and your family, depends in large part on how much money you make and the color of your skin, and that’s just wrong.” Many people who may have been exposed to someone who’s infected fear losing their jobs—or their homes—if they stay home from work. They might be interacting with elderly, vulnerable relatives because they have no other option for child care. Many of the income supports that Congress and states agreed on in the spring are gone or soon will be. Some fourteen million people may lose unemployment benefits on December 26th, and a partial federal eviction moratorium will lapse at the end of the year. There is still time for Congress to act, if the will is there.
Close to a million positive coronavirus test results were reported in the U.S. in just the five days after the Thanksgiving weekend. For those Americans—for us—the new phase is not an abstraction, and for many it will be a harrowing blur of caregiving, recovery, or loss. We’ll need one another, and we’ll each need a new plan. The virus won’t wait for Joe Biden to act. ♦
More on the Coronavirus


newyorker--2020-12-06--The Cryptic Crossword: No. 46

The Cryptic Crossword: No. 46

Some clues have been edited for clarity .
Subscribers can find explanations of the original puzzle ’ s answers in @ @ @

Some clues have been edited for clarity. Subscribers can find explanations of the original puzzle’s answers in our archive.


newyorker--2020-12-06--Sunday Reading: Art Against the Odds

Sunday Reading: Art Against the Odds

In 2003 , the novelist Laura Hillenbrand published a piece in The New Yorker about a debilitating illness she suffered while writing her best-selling book “ Seabiscuit.
” As the piece unfolds , Hillenbrand deftly chronicles her lengthy , arduous battle against chronic-fatigue syndrome .
It was during this period of her life , as her physical world constricted , that her work suddenly flourished .
“ Living in my subjects ’ bodies , I forgot about my own , ” she observes .
This week , we ’ re bringing you a trio of pieces about artists , musicians @ @ @ @ @ @ @ challenges .
In “ The Sonata Seminar , ” Alex Ross writes about the musical talents of the pianist Leon Fleisher , who lost the use of his right hand for decades due to a neurological condition .
And , in “ Life Lines , ” Daniel Zalewski explores the world of the artist Lonni Sue Johnson , who continues to suffer from amnesia after contracting viral encephalitis , in 2007 .
We hope that you find these pieces as captivating as we do .
For an artist with amnesia , the world @ @ @ @ @ @

Photograph by Alex Majoli / Magnum
In 2003, the novelist Laura Hillenbrand published a piece in The New Yorker about a debilitating illness she suffered while writing her best-selling book “Seabiscuit.” As the piece unfolds, Hillenbrand deftly chronicles her lengthy, arduous battle against chronic-fatigue syndrome. It was during this period of her life, as her physical world constricted, that her work suddenly flourished. “Living in my subjects’ bodies, I forgot about my own,” she observes.
More from the Archive Sign up for Classics, a twice-weekly newsletter featuring notable pieces from the past.
This week, we’re bringing you a trio of pieces about artists, musicians, and writers who have overcome great challenges. In “The Sonata Seminar,” Alex Ross writes about the musical talents of the pianist Leon Fleisher, who lost the use of his right hand for decades due to a neurological condition. And, in “Life Lines,” Daniel Zalewski explores the world of the artist Lonni Sue Johnson, who continues to suffer from amnesia after contracting viral encephalitis, in 2007. We hope that you find these pieces as captivating as we do.
— David Remnick
Photograph by Jacqueline O’Neill
How my life changed.
Leon Fleisher’s exuberant exploration of Schubert.
Photographs by Phillip Toledano
For an artist with amnesia, the world takes place through her pencil.


newyorker--2020-12-07--“Marsyas, After,” by Monica Youn

“Marsyas, After,” by Monica Youn

Dust loves me now , along with leaflets , plastic bags , anything unattached , anything looking for somewhere to stop , something to emblazon .
Too painful to brush them off , the day ’ s adhesions , too much a reënactment .
I float in my tub of blood-warm water ; element of indecision , if only it could be my habitat , if only the sawtoothed air I hate it , but , lacking skin , I ’ ve lost my capacity for scorn : that was my failing—not excess of pride , but that stooping to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ emulation could engender equality .
I stain everything I touch , it all stains me ; my raw surface is an unlidded eye , each stimulus its own white- hot knife , but why would I submit to be resheathed ?
To lessen pain ?
What used to distinguish me is already defeated , limp trophy flag of conquest ; now I could be like them if I chose .
But the acidulated democracy , it scours away the pigments they used to humanize their marmoreal self- regard , their eyes gone dull @ @ @ @ @ @ @ forever than become .

Audio: Read by the author.
Dust loves me now, along with
leaflets, plastic bags, anything
unattached, anything looking for
somewhere to stop, something
to emblazon. Too painful
to brush them off, the day’s
adhesions, too much
a reënactment. I float in my tub
of blood-warm water; element
of indecision, if only
it could be my habitat,
if only the sawtoothed air
didn’t insist on its own
uninterrupted necessity.
I hate it, but, lacking skin, I’ve lost
my capacity for scorn: that
was my failing—not excess
of pride, but that stooping
to pick up their accoutrements,
as if emulation could engender
equality. I stain everything
I touch, it all stains me;
my raw surface is an unlidded eye,
each stimulus its own white-
hot knife, but why would I
submit to be resheathed?
To lessen pain? What used
to distinguish me is already
defeated, limp trophy
flag of conquest; now I could be
like them if I chose.
But the acidulated
rain imposes a least
common denominator
democracy, it scours away
the pigments they used
to humanize their marmoreal self-
regard, their eyes gone dull
as the calluses I would rather
suffer forever than become.