WTF Just Happened Today

Wednesday, September 9, 2020

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• ???? Dept. of “We Have It Totally Under Control.”

• Global: Total confirmed cases: ~27,629,000; deaths: ~899,000

• U.S.: Total confirmed cases: ~6,335,000; deaths: ~190,000

• Source: Johns Hopkins University

• ???? COVID-19 Live Blogs: New York Times / Washington Post

• ???? How To Vote In The 2020 Election In Every State. Everything you need to know about mail-in and early in-person voting in every state in the age of COVID-19, including the first day you can cast your ballot in the 2020 election. (FiveThirtyEight / NBC News / Wall Street Journal)

1/ Top Trump appointees at the Department of Homeland Security repeatedly tried to “censor or manipulate” reports on Russia’s interference in the U.S. elections because it “made the President look bad.” According to a whistleblower report filed by former senior DHS official Brian Murphy and released by the House Intelligence Committee, Murphy said that on at least two occasions Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf “instructed” him that an “intelligence notification” about Russian disinformation efforts should be “held” and that he should “instead start reporting on interference activities by China and Iran.” Murphy also said that Acting Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Ken Cuccinelli directed senior career officials at DHS to change intelligence assessments to make the threat of white supremacy “appear less severe” and include information on “left-wing” groups. Murphy was removed from his position at DHS and assigned to a management role in July. (Washington Post / New York Times / CNN / ABC News / Politico)

2/ Trump privately admitted weeks before the first confirmed U.S. COVID-19 death that he knew the coronavirus “is deadly stuff […] more deadly” than the flu, but he “wanted to always play it down” because “I don’t want to create a panic.” In a series of recorded interviews with journalist Bob Woodward in early February and March, Trump acknowledged the “deadly” nature of the coronavirus, saying it’s “pretty amazing” that “you just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed,” while publicly insisting that the virus was “going to disappear” and that “everything is working out