WTF Just Happened Today

Tuesday, September 15, 2020

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

• Global: Total confirmed cases: ~29,402,000; deaths: ~932,000

• U.S.: Total confirmed cases: ~6,596,000; deaths: ~196,000

• Source: Johns Hopkins University

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

• ???? 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 / Washington Post / NBC News / Wall Street Journal)

1/ The Justice Department opened a criminal investigation and issued grand jury subpoenas to John Bolton’s publisher and literary agent. The department convened a grand jury after failing to stop publication of “The Room Where It Happened” this summer to investigate whether Bolton unlawfully disclosed classified information. The subpoenas, to Simon & Schuster and Javelin, requested all communications with Trump’s former national security adviser. Bolton, however, didn’t receive a subpoena. In the book, which was released in June, Bolton painted a picture of an out-of-control president consumed by his own re-election. Trump, meanwhile, has tweeted that he wants Bolton prosecuted, claiming he “broke the law” and “should be in jail, money seized, for disseminating, for profit, highly Classified information.” (New York Times / Wall Street Journal / CNN / Axios)

• ???? The WTF Just Happened Today? Book List

2/ A federal judge ruled that Chad Wolf is likely unlawfully serving as acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Judge Paula Xinis also temporarily barred the Trump administration from enforcing Wolf’s new asylum restrictions on members of two immigration advocacy groups. Judge Xinis said former acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin MacAleenan’s appointment was “invalid under the agency’s applicable order of succession, and so he lacked the authority to amend the order of succession to ensure Wolf’s installation as Acting Secretary.” He added that “by extension, because Wolf filled the role of Acting Secretary without authority, he promulgated the challenged rules also ‘in excess of […] authority,’ and not ‘in accordance with the...

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