Election security is supported with paper ballots

Chris Krebs, was the director of the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency

Scott Pelley: Let me ask for your reaction to some of the vote fraud that the president and his team have been alleging. Votes tabulated in foreign countries.

Chris Krebs: So all votes in the United States of America are counted in the United States of America. I don't-- I don't understand this claim. All votes in the United States of America are counted in the United States of America. Period.

Scott Pelley: Voting machines corrupted by mysterious actors in Venezuela?

Chris Krebs: So again, there's no evidence that any machine that I'm aware of has been manipulated by a foreign power. Period.

Support election security with paper ballots! 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/11/30/cybersecurity-202-chris-krebs-fiercely-defends-election-while-president-trumps-attacks-it-get-weirder/

US election security official fired by Trump slams ‘farcical’ claims of voter fraud in interview.

Chris Krebs said he stands by his assessment that the 2020 election was "the most secure in American history".

Krebs was sacked after repeatedly striking down the president’s conspiracy theories surrounding his loss.

Chris Krebs was not “necessarily surprised” when President
Donald Trump fired him in a tweet. (!Fired for doing his job!)

But, in an interview with CBS News’ “60 Minutes,” (Scott Pelley) the former elections security official said he stands by his assessment that the 2020 election was “the most secure in American history.”

Krebs, former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security, was fired on November 17 after repeatedly striking down the president’s conspiracy theories surrounding his loss.

In an interview airing in full on Sunday, (November 29, 2020) Krebs described the claims being circulated by Trump and his allies as “farcical.”

“The proof is in the ballots,” Krebs said. “The recounts are consistent with the initial count and, to me, that’s further evidence – that’s confirmation – that the systems used in the 2020 election performed as expected, and the American people should have 100 per cent confidence in their vote.”

Scott Pelley, 60 Minutes transcript with Chris Krebs:

Though the transition has begun, Donald Trump remains largely holed up in the White House tweeting false accusations of a rigged election from behind a crumbling wall of lawsuits. No legal challenge, no recount, no audit has changed the outcome in any state. Mr. Trump's claim that millions of votes were deleted or switched is denied by the official he chose to secure the nation's election systems. Christopher Krebs called the 2020 vote "the most secure in American history" which promptly got him fired. Tonight, in his first interview since he was dismissed, Krebs tells us why he believes the vote was accurate and why saying otherwise puts the country in danger.

Chris Krebs: I have confidence in the security of this election because I know the work that we've done for four years in support of our state and local partners. I know the work that the intelligence community has done, the Department of Defense has done, that the FBI has done, that my team has done. I know that these systems are more secure. I know based on what we have seen that any attacks on the election were not successful.

Two years ago, Donald Trump put Christopher Krebs in charge of the new Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. Krebs, a lifelong Republican, was confirmed unanimously by the Senate.

His agency, known by its acronym, "CISA" helps secure computer systems anywhere that a security breach could be catastrophic, nuclear power plants for example, and the election hardware in all 50 states.

Scott Pelley: Why are you speaking to us?

Chris Krebs: I'm not a public servant anymore, but I feel I still got some public service left in me. And, you know, it's hard once you take that oath to uphold and defend the constitution from threats foreign and domestic, it's hard to walk away from that. And if I can reinforce or confirm for one person that the vote was secure, the election was secure, then I feel like I've done my job.

Krebs, who's 43, worked on cybersecurity in the Bush administration, became director of cybersecurity policy at Microsoft and joined the Trump Department of Homeland Security in 2017. His priority was to stop anyone from repeating Russia's 2016, election hacking and disinformation.

Chris Krebs: So we spent something on the order of three and a half years of gaming out every possible scenario for how a foreign actor could interfere with an election. Countless, countless scenarios.

Scott Pelley: So back in 2017, as you're looking ahead to the election in 2018 and then ultimately the election in 2020, you have a to-do list. And the to-do list includes what?

Chris Krebs: Paper ballots. Paper ballots give you the ability to audit, to go back and check the tape and make sure that you got the count right. And that's really one of the keys to success for a secure 2020 election. 95% of the ballots cast in the 2020 election had a paper record associated with it. Compared to 2016, about 82%.

Scott Pelley: And with a paper record, you can go back and verify what the machine is saying by physically counting the paper?

Chris Krebs: That gives you the ability to prove that there was no malicious algorithm or hacked software that adjusted the tally of the vote, and just look at what happened in Georgia. Georgia has machines that tabulate the vote. They then held a hand recount and the outcome was consistent with the machine vote.

Scott Pelley: And that tells you what?

Chris Krebs: That tells you that there was no manipulation of the vote on the machine count side. And so that pretty thoroughly, in my opinion, debunks some of these sensational claims out there-- that I've called nonsense and a hoax, that there is some hacking of these election vendors and their software and their systems across the country. It's-- it's just-- it's nonsense.

Before the election, as the president called mail-in ballots a fraud, Krebs' team released a report highlighting the safeguards built into mail-in voting. His agency knocked down rumors and exposed an Iranian plot to intimidate voters. On Election Day, November 3, Krebs assembled a team in his command center to defend the vote.

Chris Krebs: We had the Department of Defense Cyber Command. We had the National Security Agency. We had the FBI. We had the Secret Service. We also had representatives from the Election Assistance Commission, which is the federal independent agency that supports the actual administration of elections. We had representatives from some of the-- vendors, the election equipment vendors. And they're critical because they're the ones out there that know what's going on on the ground if there's any sort of issue with some of their systems. And we had representatives from state and local governments.

Scott Pelley: How did the day go?

Chris Krebs: It was quiet. And there was no indication or evidence that there was any sort of hacking or compromise of election systems on, before or after November 3rd.

And yet, this was the president, November 5.

Donald Trump on November 5: And this is a case where they're trying to steal an election, they're trying to rig an election.

Nine days after Election Day, Mr. Trump tweeted falsely that machines from Dominion Voting Systems deleted millions of votes. Krebs couldn't remain silent. His agency and its election security partners answered with a public statement.

Scott Pelley: To quote from the November 12th statement that CISA and its partners put out, "The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history. There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes or changed votes or was in any way compromised."

Since he was fired, about a dozen Republican senators have vouched for Krebs' work.

Scott Pelley: The president's essentially saying in that tweet that you did a lousy job, that you and your team blew it, and allowed massive fraud, all across the country.

Chris Krebs: We did a good job. We did it right. I'd do it a thousand times over.

Still, the president's lawyers have filed at least a dozen suits and spun conjecture without evidence.

Rudy Giuliani on November 19: And you should be more astounded by the fact that our votes are counted in Germany and in Spain...

Scott Pelley: As you watched Rudy Giuliani's news conference at the Republican National Committee headquarters, what were you thinking?

Chris Krebs: It was upsetting because what I saw was a apparent attempt to undermine confidence in the election, to confuse people, to scare people. It's not me, it's not just CISA. It's the tens of thousands of election workers out there that had been working nonstop, 18-hour days, for months. They're getting death threats for trying to carry out one of our core democratic institutions, an election. And that was, again, to me, a press conference that I just-- it didn't make sense. What it was actively doing was undermining democracy. And that's dangerous.

Scott Pelley: Let me ask for your reaction to some of the vote fraud that the president and his team have been alleging. Votes tabulated in foreign countries.

Chris Krebs: So all votes in the United States of America are counted in the United States of America. I don't-- I don't understand this claim. All votes in the United States of America are counted in the United States of America. Period.

Scott Pelley: Voting machines corrupted by mysterious actors in Venezuela.

Chris Krebs: So again, there's no evidence that any machine that I'm aware of has been manipulated by a foreign power. Period.

Scott Pelley: Communist money from China and Cuba used to influence the election.

Chris Krebs: Look, I think these-- we can go on and on with all the farcical claims that-- alleging-- interference in the 2020, election, but the proof is in the ballots. The recounts are consistent with the initial count, and to me, that's further evidence, that's confirmation that the systems used in the 2020 election performed as expected, and the American people should have 100% confidence in their vote.

Scott Pelley: In a news conference a lawyer who was representing the president at the time, Sidney Powell, said specifically that the Dominion Company's voting machines, quote…

Sidney Powell on November 19: It can set and run an algorithm that probably ran all over the country to take a certain percentage of votes from President Trump and flip them to President Biden.

Chris Krebs: Votes were cast in Georgia, for instance, again, on paper. They were counted by a machine. They were subsequently recounted by hand. The outcomes of that count were consistent. If there was an algorithm that was flipping votes or changing votes, it didn't work. I think the more likely explanation, though, is that there is no algorithm, that the systems performed as intended. That the series of security controls before, during, and after an election protected those systems from any sort of misbehavior.

Most elections are run by each state's secretary of state. But not one of them, Democrat or Republican has reported ballot rigging that would change the election. Some are paying a price for integrity.

Chris Krebs: And it's, in my view, a travesty what's happening right now with all these death threats to election officials, to secretaries of state. I want everybody to look at Secretary Boockvar in Pennsylvania, Secretary Benson in Michigan, Secretary Cegavske in Nevada, Secretary Hobbs in Arizona. All strong women that are standing up, that are under attack from all sides, and they're defending democracy. They're doin' their jobs. Look at-- look at Secretary Raffensperger in Georgia, lifelong Republican. He put country before party in his holding a free and fair election in that state. There are some real heroes out there. There are some real patriots.

At the Capitol, the stage is going up for Inauguration Day, January 20. Well before that, on December 14 the presidential electors will cast their ballots—which should settle the election. Christopher Krebs told us it's ironic that the disruption and disinformation he feared from abroad came, instead, from Pennsylvania Avenue.

Scott Pelley: The president says you're dead wrong about election security, and to him you say what?

Chris Krebs: There is no foreign power that is flipping votes. There's no domestic actor flipping votes. I did it right. We did it right. This was a secure election.

Chris Krebs: Yeah, I stand by that.

Scott Pelley: Trump tweeted after that statement, quote, "The recent statement by Chris Krebs on the security of the 2020 election was highly inaccurate, in that there were massive improprieties and fraud." Do you remember what the president said at the end of that tweet?

Chris Krebs: Oh, I was terminated? Is that-- yes. I recall that.

Scott Pelley: Were you surprised?

Chris Krebs: I don't know if I was necessarily surprised. It's not how I wanted to go out. I think I-- the thing that upsets me the most about that is I didn't get a s-- chance-- to say goodbye to my team. And I'd worked with them for three and a half years, in the trenches. Building an agency, putting CISA on the national stage. And I love that team. And I didn't get a chance to say goodbye, so that's what I'm most upset about.

Delusional and incompetent - GOP alert! Donald Trump must exit ASAP!

https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-joe-biden-donald-trump-georgia-elections-412fde2947cbb1ee23ce37b9bc4660ef

WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump still won’t bring himself to concede the election he decisively lost to President-elect Joe Biden. But he’s now acknowledging he will leave the White House if Biden’s win is affirmed by the Electoral College, which is firmly on track to do just that in a few weeks.

News18-Buzz reported:  But on Thanksgiving, November 27, Trump said that he will leave the White House if the Electoral College formalizes President-Elect Joe Biden's victory — even as he insisted such a decision would be a 'mistake'.

Delusional- Fanciful thinking- incompetent Trump!

'Don't Ever Talk to President that Way': Still Delusional, Donald Trump Snaps at Reporter

Trump said Thursday that he will leave the White House if the Electoral College formalizes President-Elect Joe Biden's victory — even as he insisted such a decision would be a 'mistake'.

American president-elect Joe Biden is scheduled to take oath on January 20, but seems like the outgoing president, Donald Trump, is yet to concede defeat even after almost a month of elections. Ever since the results were declared and democrat Joe Biden emerged victorious after months of polarised campaigning, Trump has been alleging vote fraud and refuses to accept defeat.

And now, he has done it again. He snapped at a reporter during a press briefing at the White House and reiterated that he is the president of America and that there was a massive fraud in the voting process. "You're just a lightweight. Don't talk to me that way. I'm the President of the United States. Don't ever talk to the President that way," he told Reuters correspondent Jeff Mason during a question-and-answer session in the White House.

The fact that a sitting American president even had to address whether or not he would leave office after losing reelection underscores the extent to which Trump has smashed one convention after another, over the last three weeks. While there is no evidence of the kind of widespread fraud Trump has been alleging, he and his legal team have nonetheless been working to cast doubt on the integrity of the election and trying to overturn voters’ will in an unprecedented breach of democratic norms.

Trump spoke abusively to reporters in the White House’s ornate Diplomatic Reception Room, after holding a teleconference with U.S. military leaders stationed across the globe. He thanked them for their service and jokingly warned them not to eat too much turkey, then turned to the election after ending the call. 

(Like a spoiled brat!)....Trump repeated grievances and angrily denounced officials in Georgia and Pennsylvania, two key swing states that helped give Biden the win.

Trump claimed, despite the results, that this may not be his last Thanksgiving at the White House. And he insisted there had been “massive fraud," even though state officials and international observers have said no evidence of that exists and Trump’s campaign has repeatedly failed in court.

Trump's administration has already given the green light for a formal transition to get underway. Nevertheless, delusional and incompetent, Trump took issue with Biden moving forward.

Donald Trump must not expect quid pro quo from #SCOTUS

Trump must concede but refuses to acknowledge the obvious.

He is delusional.  Yet, Trump is likely to seek a quid pro quo from the United States Supreme Court! 

Donald Trump has lost the 2020 election. 

Maine Writer- In fact, he lost twice.  He never received the majority of the popular vote in 2016 and he lost the popular vote in 2020.

Echo opinion published in Bakersfield.com, in California:

 

Nevertheless, Trump is now trying to undermine our democratic process. I believe Trump’s goal is to take the election result to the Supreme Court, where he has a chance to silence the people’s will.

During his term Trump appointed three Supreme Court justices. 

Now the reason why a president can appoint justices is for the reason of checks and balances. The president can change the direction of the court. This way the judiciary branch doesn’t have too much power. However, I believe the president is trying to take advantage of this and have the Supreme Court give him a second term.


By claiming fraud and saying that the election was unconstitutional, Trump can take this case all the way to the Supreme #SCOTUS where the court can “repay” the president for his appointments and invalidate the election. Whether this is his plan or not, the president’s actions are concerning because he is putting unnecessary fear into the minds of Americans. He is creating doubt in our election process which has been secure for almost two and a half centuries. For the good of the nation, Trump must concede.

Jonathan Arenas, Bakersfield

Trump's Exit - Follow the neon lights and don't let the door hit your ass on the way out!

Echo opinion by Frank Donatelli published in Newsweek

Donatelli's Republican political consultant's experienced point of view. 

Date Line White House:  Washington DC

America is nearing three weeks since the election of Joe Biden and President Trump has yet to accept the reality that he has lost. 

While it's true he ran better than many pollsters predicted, it's also the case that this election wasn't particularly close, certainly not as measured against historically close contests of 1960, 1968, 1976 and of course 2000 that featured the Florida recount.

Trump won an historic 72 million votes. However, Biden won 78 (now tallied to over 80 million*) million and virtually every vote was turned out by Trump—for and against him. In other words, Trump drove his own defeat.

Biden won 51 percent of the popular vote, a larger percentage than any Democrat since 1964, save Barack Obama's victory in 2008. Biden reestablished the "Blue Wall" by recapturing Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, all by larger margins than Trump's wins in his "historic"—just ask him—victory four years ago. Biden also won the fast growing and increasingly diverse states of Georgia and Arizona, giving him 306 electoral votes, the exact number Trump won in 2016.

Trump's gumshoe lawyers continue to file—and lose—lawsuits of little merit. Given the historically large election turnout amidst an ongoing pandemic, this election was remarkably well run and free of fraud. It is disheartening that the same people who attack athletes for dishonoring America by kneeling during the national anthem are all too quick to tarnish the crown jewel of America, namely free and fair democratic elections, by alleging widespread fraud where none exists.

But what is likely to happen is that slowly, silently, power will begin to slip away from the (failed!) Commander in Chief. His press conferences and tweets and the inaction of his hapless apparatchik who refused to release transition funds until last night will not change that. The process will speed up considerably once states begin to "certify" the results of the election and Trump's lawsuits continue to fail.

You already see the change. The Biden transition is announcing key appointments to his White House staff. He'll soon be making cabinet nominations, inducing speculation regarding potential candidates. Biden's public remarks will contain evidence of policy changes he intends to make and establish a general tone of how he will govern. Trump may continue to fire his own people, but the discussion of future policy directions will lie with Biden's transition team and the president elect.

Foreign leaders have already reached out directly to President Elect Joe Biden to offer congratulations and willingness to work with the new president. Even Trump allies like Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel, Boris Johnson in Britain and President Erdogan in Turkey, have joined the chorus of congratulations. The naming of a new National Security Advisor and Secretary of State designate will supercharge the changing focus of foreign countries from the White House and State Department to the incoming administration.  (An amazing acceptance statement from Secretary of State nominee Anthony Blinken!) 

Biden has also hit the ground running on what is sure to be his top priority—dealing with the surge of COVID 19 cases around the country. While Trump does little (except play golf!), President Elect Biden has appointed a task force to spearhead his administration's efforts to handle a crisis that will peak at the beginning of his term and represent his first challenge as president. He has already met with a bipartisan group of governors who will have an outsized role in distributing a vaccine that may be just around the corner. Biden's focus is clearly on how he, not the current president, plans to deal with a pandemic that risks killing tens of thousands more Americans.

Congress still has to approve a budget for Fiscal Year 2021, that began October 1. Historically the outgoing chief executive has deferred to the new president, but Trump is unlikely to follow that precedent. While he retains the power to negotiate with Congress on the outlines of a short or long term measure for this fiscal year, the public discussion will soon focus on Biden's budget priorities for the out years.

President Elect Joe Biden's team is already working on its own budget plan. The plan could include some revisions for Fiscal 2021, but also set his parameters for 2022, and beyond. His team will soon begin working with key congressional leaders, hopefully in both parties, on strategy, goals and priorities, something that is desperately needed to solve America's long term fiscal imbalances. The Trump team will be (useless) spectators to all of this.

And of course, the country will look forward to a State of the Union address given by Joe Biden. Along with his Biden's Inaugural Address, those two speeches will become the focal point of public discussion as 2020, turns into the New Year.

President Biden, First Lady Dr. Jill Biden and his family will occupy the White House. In the wee hours of January 20, President Trump and his family will remove the last of their belongings and say a final goodbye to the White House permanent staff. Some presidents have left a note of congratulations and good luck for their successor. By tradition, the President elect and his spouse will arrive for morning coffee with the president before they leave to ride jointly to the Inaugural festivities at the Capitol. After the swearing in, the ex-president will fly off to his post presidential home. The new president takes up residence in the White House.

Most of this will happen again. The important point is that there will again be a peaceful transition of power just as there has been for each presidential election of the 240 years of our Republic.

Frank Donatelli served as assistant for political affairs to President Ronald Reagan and as deputy chairman of the Republican National Committee during the 2008 presidential campaign of John McCain.

*President Elect Joe Biden becomes first presidential candidate in U.S. history to surpass 80 million votes!

God Bless America: Impressive introduction to Secretary of State nominee Anthony Blinken

President Elect Joe Biden:  Experience and leadership, fresh thinking and perspective, and an unrelenting belief in the promise of America. I’ve long said that America leads not only by the example of our power, but by the power of our example. And I’m proud to put forward this incredible team that will lead by example.

As Secretary of State, I nominate Tony Blinken. He’s one of the better prepared for this job. No one’s better prepared in my view. He will be the Secretary of State who previously served in top roles on Capitol Hill, in the White House and in the State Department. He delivered for the American people in each place. For example, leading our diplomatic efforts and the fight against ISIS, strengthening America’s alliance and positions in the Asian-Pacific, guiding our responses to the global refugee crisis with compassion and determination. And he will rebuild morale and trust in the State Department, where his career in government began.

And he starts off with the kind of relationships around the world that many of his predecessors have had to build over the years. I know, I’ve seen him in action. Tony’s been one of my closest and most trusted advisors. I know him and his family, immigrants and refugees, a Holocaust survivor, who taught him to never take for granted the very idea of America as a place of possibilities. Possibilities. Tony is ready on day one.

Short bio:  Blinken attended Harvard University before getting a law degree at Columbia University. After a little work in journalism, he set a course for foreign policy, eventually holding several senior positions in the Clinton and Obama administrations over three decades. His father, one of the founders of the New York investment bank E.M. Warburg Pincus & Company, served as then-President Bill Clinton's ambassador to Hungary from 1994 to 1998.

Tony Blinken:
Good afternoon. Mr. President-elect, Vice President-elect Harris, thank you for your trust and your confidence. If confirmed by the United States Senate, I will do everything I can to earn it. Mr. President-elect, working for you, having you as a mentor and friend has been the greatest privilege of my professional life. So many people have brought me to this day. From college classmates to band mates, my colleagues in the Clinton and Obama administrations, in the Senate, and at the State Department. I thank them all. And I ask forgiveness for my insatiable appetite for bad puns. Mostly, I’d like to thank my family. Sisters and sisters-in-law, brothers-in-law, nieces and nephews, my wonderful in-laws, the Ryans, and especially my wife, Evan Ryan, and our children, John and Leila. They are truly my greatest blessings.

For my family, as for so many generations of Americans, America has literally been the last best hope on earth. My grandfather, Maurice Blinken, fled pogroms in Russia and made a new life in America. His son, my father, Donald Blinken, served in the United States Air Force during World War II, and then as a United States ambassador. He is my role model and my hero. His wife, Vera Blinken, fled communist Hungary as a young girl and helped future generations of refugees come to America. My mother, Judith Pisar, builds bridges between America and the world through arts and culture. She is my greatest champion.

And my late stepfather, Samuel Pisar, he was one of 900 children in his school in Bialystok, Poland*, but the only one to survive the Holocaust, after four years in concentration camps. At the end of the war, he made a break from a death march into the woods in Bavaria. From his hiding place, he heard a deep rumbling sound. It was a tank. But instead of the iron cross, he saw painted on its side a five pointed white star. He ran to the tank, the hatch opened, an African-American GI looked down at him. He got down on his knees and said the only three words that he knew in English that his mother taught him before the war, God bless America.

That’s who we are. That’s what America represents to the world, however imperfectly. Now we have to proceed with equal measures of humility and confidence. Humility because, as the president-elect said, we can’t solve all the world’s problems alone. We need to be working with other countries. We need their cooperation. We need their partnership. But also confidence because America at its best still has a greater ability than any other country on earth to bring others together to meet the challenges of our time. And that’s where the men and women of the State Department, foreign service officers, civil service, that’s where they come in. I’ve witnessed their passion, their energy, their courage up close. I’ve seen what they do to keep us safe, to make us more prosperous. I’ve seen them add luster to a word that deserves our respect, diplomacy. If confirmed, it will be the honor of my life to help guide them. And so thank you all. And may God bless America.

*In the early 1900s, Białystok was reputed to have the largest concentration of Jews of all the cities in the world. In 1931, 40,000 Jews lived in the city, nearly half the city's inhabitants.

President Elect Joe Biden advances a Francophile diplomat to Secretary of State

Anthony Blinken: This is excellent news for the international community! Published in Frenchly, the on line magazine, reporting about all things French!

“
Put simply, the world is safer for the American people when we have friends, partners and allies,” Blinken said in 2016. He has described Europe as “a vital partner” and has dismissed the Trump administration’s plans to remove U.S. troops from Germany as “foolish, it’s spiteful, and it’s a strategic loser. It weakens NATO, it helps Vladimir Putin, and it harms Germany, our most important ally in Europe.”

Europeanist, multilateralist, internationalist- Anthony (Tony) Blinken’s ties to Europe are lifelong, deep and personal — and he is a fierce believer in the transatlantic alliance. (Reported in Politico.)

He is the candidate destined to become the next Secretary of State. Moreover, Antony Blinken is a Francophile who speaks fluent French and even has a baccalauréat from a French lycée in Paris. Joe Biden is expected to announce his nomination on Tuesday, November 24, according to several U.S. media outlets.

A well-known figure in international circles, this close confidant of the President-elect was Deputy National Security Advisor, before becoming Deputy Secretary of State between 2015 and 2017 under the presidency of Barack Obama. Described as Biden’s “alter ego,” this 58-year-old New Yorker spent part of his life in France. His mother Judith moved with him and her new husband, Holocaust survivor Samuel Pisar (and father of the Franco-American President of Project Aladdin, Leah Pisar), to Paris in the 1970s. Young “Tony” – he was 9 years old – studied at the very selective École Jeanine Manuel (EABJM), an international school considered one of the best high schools in France and which also saw the attendance of the children of Nicolas and Cécilia Sarkozy, Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg, and members of the Bouygues family.

Robert Malley, CEO of the International Crisis Group, who studied at the same high school as Antony Blinken, told the Financial Times that his French years, which coincided with the end of the Vietnam War, forged the diplomat: “Tony was an American in Paris – both terms are important. He was very conscious of being American and he believed in American values. But he also understood how foreign policy could affect the rest of the world because he lived abroad and saw how others looked at the United States. At the time, the country was not particularly popular in Europe, especially in France. Tony navigated between these two worlds.”

“I found myself very early in my life playing diplomat, trying to explain the United States to my classmates,” Blinken said at a parliamentary hearing. It’s a good thing. If he is confirmed by the Senate, as is required for any appointment as Secretary of State, he will have to use his diplomatic skills to revive relations with Europe, which have been damaged after four tumultuous years.

Donald Trump #Trumpvirus coronavirus and cultism

The Rise (and Fall?) of Donald Trump's Viral Death Cult
by Brian Glyn Williams

Trump chose to divide the nation rather than protect Americans during the coronavirus pandemic.  #Trumpvirus #genocide

Brian Glyn Williams is Professor of History at University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth and author of seven field research based books including Counter Jihad. The American Military Experience in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, and he previously worked for the CIA’s Counter Terrorism Center. His website can be found at: brianglynwilliams.com

Cult leader and murderer Jim Jones

Editor's note: an update to this story has been added to reflect developing news as of November 20, 2020.

In 1978 cult leader Jim Jones convinced 909 of his brainwashed followers in Jonestown, Guyana to drink cyanide-laced Kool Aid and kill themselves. Since that shocking collective suicide, the term “drinking the Kool Aid” has become a metaphor for anyone who has been seduced by someone else to do something irrational or self-injurious.

Flash forward to 2020, when Republican senator Bob Corker fretted of Trump’s takeover of the Republican Party: “It’s becoming a cultish thing, isn’t it? It’s not a good place for any party to end up with a cultlike situation.” It is widely accepted even by many Republicans that Trump launched a cult-like movement, one that in this case called on his followers not to drink Kool Aid, but to inject disinfectant to “knock it [Coronavirus] out” and to seek medically unproven and potentially lethal treatments with hydroxychloroquine. As the head of an anti-science cult, Trump openly mocked and attacked medical scientists and encouraged his followers to avoid the advice of his own CDC (Centers for Disease Control) and frontline doctors and nurses. These medical professionals, it should be recalled, pleaded with the public to help them in their desperate fight to save lives by simply wearing masks and practicing social distancing.

In leading the resistance against the CDC guidelines designed to protect the American public, Trump convinced millions of his devoted followers to potentially die for his cult of personality in what history may record as a metaphorical “drinking of the hydroxychloroquine.” While Trump--in a reversal of President Harry Truman’s bold acceptance of presidential responsibility “the buck stops here”--weakly proclaimed “I don’t take responsibility at all” for the fact that America lost approximately a quarter of a million lives to the ravages of this pandemic on his watch, history will record that much of the death stemmed from his far reaching, cult leader-like decisions.

Trump’s War on the CDC and the Truth

Trump’s litany of lethally misguided decisions began in January when his economic adviser Peter Navarro presciently warned him in a memo that COVID-19 could take more than half a million American lives and cause nearly $6 trillion in economic damage. The somber threat assessment of up to half a million lives lost, which tracks with current trajectories for the pandemic, seems to have sunk in. In February Trump was recorded in an interview with legendary author Bob Woodward acknowledging the unprecedented threat the virus posed to both the population he was sworn to protect...and the economy. In the unprecedentedly frank interview Trump did something he has still not done publicly: he honestly acknowledged the real threat to millions of Americans the lethal virus posed stating "this is deadly stuff," adding that the coronavirus was maybe five times "more deadly" than the flu.

Soon thereafter the consensus among medical professionals came to be that wearing masks was the best means for preventing the spread of this “deadly stuff” (i.e. airborne viral droplets). Using high-speed video one study found that hundreds of droplets were generated when saying a simple phrase, but that nearly all these droplets were blocked when the speaker’s mouth was covered by a damp washcloth. Surgeons and other medical professionals had been wearing medical masks to stop the spread of germs for decades, so it was no-brainer to call for them to be worn in the COVID-19 crisis, just as they had been by doctors fighting Ebola in Africa.

As the head of a cult of personality that his son in law Jared Kushner openly admitted launched a “hostile takeover” of the Republican Party, Trump could have, in February, donned a MAGA mask or an American flag mask and channeled John F. Kennedy’s bold call for patriotic sacrifice by proclaiming to his diehard followers “Ask not what your mask can do for you, but what your mask can do for your nation!” Trump’s devoted followers openly proclaimed in interviews that if he told them to don a mask they would. Trump could have also done as South Korea’s president did and boldly launched a federal, unified, top down, nationwide emergency response that involved a government-enforced mandatory use of face masks, a strict ban on social gatherings, and a highly effective national Coronavirus tracing program that led to the strictly enforced quarantining of South Koreans who tested positive for the virus. In systematically implementing these central government policies on a nationwide basis, South Korea, with a population of almost 52 million, was able to limit its COVID 19 deaths to a remarkable 464 deaths as of October 31 (that translates to fewer than 3,000 deaths in America with a population of 330,000 instead of the current toll of 250,000 deaths and climbing).

History will show that the above commonsensical steps are exactly what Trump did not do. Instead he chose to divide the nation with an “us” versus “them” approach to masks and social distancing. Trump clearly saw the pandemic as political rather than a health crisis. The calculated tack he pursued played a major role in the fact that America began to lose over 1,300 to the virus in a single day (more than twice the entire number of nationwide COVID 19 deaths in South Korea in 9 months) and to see over 170,000 new cases in a single day. By mid November America was experiencing the daily equivalent of a Jonestown mass suicide or a 9/11-scale mass casualty terror attack three times a week. Under the president’s leadership America would see the most Coronavirus cases of any nation in the world and become the global epicenter, even as the unemployment rate ultimately soared to 14.7%, the highest since the Great Depression. In the epidemiological sense the USA came to resemble the “hot zone” of Congo during the Ebola outbreak and European nations banned their citizens from flying to America.

The president’s self serving calculus in deliberately not following the highly effective South Korean model or advice of the medical community and instead undermining his own government’s CDC’s safety measures was as cold, calculating and cynical as it was immoral. It is patently obvious that Trump saw the virus as a threat to the economy and recent history clearly shows that incumbent presidents who preside over a strong economy get reelected. Anything that would enable the American people to continue to work and keep the economy going, even as morgues and Intensive Care Units were overwhelmed with the dead and dying, was, in Trump’s self-interested Machiavellian perspective, legitimate. Trump was cynically prepared to sacrifice the health and lives of millions of Americans on the altar of his ambition to be reelected via a sound economy.

What were the president’s subsequent fateful, strictly economy-based decisions that helped lead the USA, which Fox News reported has just four percent of the world’s population, to suffer twenty five percent of the world’s deaths to the virus that other countries like New Zealand controlled? First, instead of being truthful and urgently warning the American people that COVID 19 was “five times more deadly than the flu,” as he acknowledged in his interview with Bob Woodward, Trump deliberately and repeatedly lied about and downplayed its threat. In February, for example, he tried to convince the American people not to be afraid of the deadly virus that would by mid November infect almost 11 million and kill almost 250,000. The president would mislead his nation by describing the deadly pandemic as nothing more than the “common flu” and falsely stating “This is a flu. This is like a flu.” Trump repeatedly lied to the American people about the lethality of the contagious virus he had previously been warned about and offered false information such as “You know, a lot of people think that goes away in April with the heat — as the heat comes in. Typically, that will go away in April.” Trump would also prevaricate and say of Coronavirus, "it's going to disappear. One day it's like a miracle, it will disappear” as well as “Coronavirus numbers are looking MUCH better, going down almost everywhere,” and cases are “coming way down.”

Trump’s Policies That Aided the Spread of the Coronavirus

But Trump’s ultimately self-defeating policies went further than simply deceiving the American people and lulling his blind cult followers into a false sense of security as hundreds of thousands of their fellow countrymen died. As America’s governors responsibly moved on an ad hoc basis to fill the federal level national leadership void and, in a patchwork fashion, implement CDC guidelines to protect their populations due to the absence of a top-down, nationwide government policy, Trump calculatingly encouraged armed anti-mask and anti-social distancing protestors in Michigan. He cynically called on them to “liberate!” their state from its Democratic governor and openly fight against his own CDC’s health guidelines. Taking cues from the president, one group of 13 militiamen who were opposed to the Michigan governor’s spring lockdown hatched a plot to kidnap, try and execute her before they were arrested by the FBI.

To compound matters, Trump then irresponsibly carried out a series of cringe-inducing mass rallies in the fall that were later found to have been “super spreader” events where throngs of packed and maskless devotees risked their lives. Fox news would report that after a largely maskless Trump rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma there was a record high surge in Coronavirus cases. Trump’s true believers in the rallies blindly showed their devotion to the cult of Trump by proudly ignoring the very social distancing and mask guidelines meant to protect them and their loved ones. Among those who appear to have become infected (and later died) at one of Trump’s irresponsibly lethal rallies was former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain who proudly had his maskless picture taken with fans at the Tulsa, Oklahoma rally.

As the high priest of a cult that replaced the Republican Party’s self-proclaimed pro-life stance with what could be considered a pro-death stance, Trump’s lethal policies of rejecting masks and social distancing and lulling Americans with such recent falsehoods as “we are rounding the corner [on the pandemic]” beautifully” enabled the deadly virus to spread closer and closer to us all. Among the false tenets of Trump’s cult was the “nothing is happening here” mantra that there was no skyrocketing death toll just “more testing for the virus.”

In addition to unquestioned truths, cults often need an “apostate,” “heretic” or “ungodly” enemy to focus their true believers’ wrath against. Reverend Jim Jones’ cult in Guyana focused its followers fury on the “sinful” American government. Trump soon found a sinister enemy for his followers to focus on, the very American medical professionals who were risking their lives in overwhelmed Intensive Care Units to save patients infected with COVID 19. Far from depicting the previously widely respected medical professionals as frontline heroes in the war on the deadly pathogen, Trump spread a falsehood among his followers that doctors were financially incentivized to lie and exaggerate Coronavirus deaths in order to receive financial bonuses from his government. This easily disproved lie served to undermine his followers’ belief in the skyrocketing death toll from the Coronavirus and further incentivize them to ignore the health guidelines of the now distrusted medical professionals. Not since Typhoid Mary, a 19th century cook who consciously infected dozens with the deadly disease, had an American done so much to infect other Americans.

If this were not damaging enough to the American people’s health, Trump actively worked to undermine and discredit America’s top infectious disease expert, his widely respected Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci. Trump described Fauci, who polls showed had more support than Trump, as a “disaster” and health care professionals as “idiots.” Outdoing the president, his former advisor Steve Bannon had his online show banned from Twitter after he called for Dr. Fauci to be decapitated and his head put on a pike in front of the White House. Fauci, who became the focus of intense and widespread anti-masking sentiment among Trump followers, received so many death threats that he was given FBI bodyguards for his protection. Meanwhile, at his packed maskless campaign rallies Trump mocked his opponent Joe Biden to boos from the audience proclaiming that Biden would do something terrible, “listen to Dr. Fauci” and “listen to scientists.”

Blindly accepting the president’s anti-medical science preaching was not a huge leap for his cult followers. It will be recalled their party had a history of denialism towards science traceable back to the 1970s when many Republicans rejected the medical community’s findings that cigarettes caused cancer (not to mention their more recent rejection of the science behind global warming). But the million-vote question remained; Would the president’s falsehoods and anti-Fauci and anti-science approach to the pandemic resonate with those beyond his diehard base who had not drunk the Hydroxychloroquine?

The High Political Cost of Trump’s Efforts to Play Down the Virus and Sabotage the CDC.

The signs that Trump’s approach was not resonating with those beyond the reach of the Fox evening news echo chamber or his ecstatic rallies began to appear almost as soon as Joe Biden became the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate and began to contrast himself to Trump by wearing a mask in public and practicing social distancing. One candidate wore his mask as a symbol of his belief in science while the other chose not to and instead promised his followers the Coronavirus would go away any day now. Trump openly mocked Biden for wearing a mask in the first debate and mocked him for “staying in his basement” during the lockdown.

As Trump, his spokeswoman, his former spokeswoman, his head of Housing and Urban Development, his chief of staff, his wife and son, as well as Vice President Pence’s staff, several Republican Senate allies, one governor and 130 of his Secret Service bodyguards tested positive for COVID (even as Biden and his staff remained negative), the differences between the contenders’ policies and understanding of the real threat the pandemic posed became increasingly glaring. Polls began to show that increasing majorities felt Biden was better suited to deal with the pandemic than Trump who defined himself as an anti-Coronavirus “cheerleader.” While Trump created an alternative universe for his denialist followers where he claimed the virus was “disappearing,” fifty-five percent of voters listened to the prognostications of the health experts and felt the worst was yet to come. And far from turning on Dr. Fauci, a poll by the Independentreported that he was the only person associated with the Trump administration who saw their approval rating rise.

Sensing that his denialist approach was not reaching the un-converted who were worried about the mounting death toll and spread of the virus as the election approached, a self pitying Trump griped at a rally “With the fake news, everything is COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID. I had it. Here I am, right?” His message that COVID was not a real threat because he had survived it with the support of the best doctors in the world was cold comfort to the hundreds of thousands of American families burying loved ones killed in the pandemic or those who had become infected and suffered terrible “long haul” effects from the virus. As the election loomed Trump’s final message remained one of defiance and imperviousness to the facts. At a rally he encouraged Coronavirus fatigue among his followers saying of Americans“They’re getting tired of the pandemic — aren’t they? You turn on CNN. That’s all they cover: ‘COVID, COVID, pandemic. COVID, COVID, COVID. They’re trying to talk people out of voting. People aren’t buying it, CNN, you dumb bastards.”

But even if Americans were tired of the pandemic they were not willing to do as White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows did when he threw in the towel and surrendered to Coronavirus saying “we are not going to control the pandemic.” As the election fast approached, a worried Republican pollster captured the unease in the Trump camp stating “I think the polling is picking up everything, which is that the pandemic is overwhelmingly the most important issue facing the country. And right now, that’s not helpful to the president.” Democratic advisor James Carville captured the mood of voters in 1992 with the phrase “it’s the economy stupid” and the key takeaway from numerous polls on the eve of the election seemed to be “it’s the Coronavirus stupid.” Whether Trump liked it or not the election was going to be a referendum on his handling of the greatest health emergency the nation had seen since the 1918 Influenza pandemic.

Even as Trump held his final rallies, Midwestern states like Wisconsin that had voted for him in 2016, became the global epicenter of the deadly virus that many Trump supporters had previously thought would be limited to New York and other coastal Democrat-governed states. Millions of Americans (including many of the vulnerable elderly who were written off as expendable by Trump followers who were focused on getting young people to reopen the economy at all cost) came to blame Trump for the spread of the virus that he had systematically downplayed. While polls showed Trump was trusted on the economy, a Gallup poll taken less than a month before the election showed that by a margin of 52% to 39%Americans trusted Biden more than the president when it came to the spreading pandemic. To compound matters, in a rejection of his anti-mask campaign that should have served warning to Trump, 90 percent of those polled in October said they wore masks. This boded ill for a president who had made anti-maskism a central tenet of his reelection campaign and boded well for Biden, who wore a mask proudly.

Far from being a rallying point to gain new voters, Trump’s instinct to politicize what should have been a unifying medical issue hurt him among the majority of voters who trusted Dr. Fauci over the president. A clear majority believed in the science behind wearing masks and social distancing and an October poll showed that six in ten Americans were favorable to those wearing masks despite Trump mocking them. Despite his best efforts to turn the nation against masks, Trump was going against the majority. Tellingly, by turning such widely approved, commonsensical health measures as wearing masks into a sign of disloyalty to his cult, Trump lost the support of many non-cult voters in highly infected states that had voted for him in 2016, such as Arizona and Wisconsin (these two states flipped to Biden in the November 2020 elections and helped give him the presidency). In Georgia, where the Republican governor emulated Trump by suing the mayor of Atlanta to prevent her from having mandatory wearing of masks, voters similarly flipped the state from Trump to Biden in the November election.

Ironically, governors such as Ohio Republican governor Mike Dewine who moved quickly and decisively to enact strict measures to enforce lockdowns, social distancing, and mask wearing, instead of downplaying the pandemic with falsehoods and sabotaging the CDC, saw their approval ratings go up. Trump, it seemed, had gambled the lives of millions of Americans on what turned out to be a losing bet that they would in essence not listen to their lying eyes and ears and instead trust his promise that “we are rounding the bend.” In retrospect the president should have followed Mike Dewine’s path to widespread popularity among undecideds, Democrats and Republicans by being honest with the American people and working to save American lives…instead of his job.

In the end, the Washington Post was to report 82, percent of voters who said the Coronavirus was their most important issue in choosing a president supported Biden, according to preliminary national exit polls. This was all Biden needed to secure an exact repeat of Trump’s 2016 electoral college victory over Hilary Clinton (which he repeatedly described as a “landslide”), by a count of 306 to 232 votes. While Trump had needlessly alienated many voting constituencies before the election, including Mexican Americans (describing Mexicans in blanket terms as “rapists”) and Arizonians (launching a campaign to degrade the state’s beloved senator and Vietnam hero John McCain), it was his unpopular Coronavirus policies that cost him the most support in the tight 2020 presidential election. Simply put, tens of millions refused to drink his cult of death Kool Aid and subscribe to his alternative universe, where the virus would just “go away” and wearing masks to protect themselves and fellow citizens was somehow disloyal to the president, unpatriotic and un-American. For a clear majority of Americans masks remained a sign of collective and personal responsibility, not a sign of being un-American.

There is no way of knowing how many Americans’ lives were lost as a result of the president’s anti-CDC campaign to stir such fervor among his true believers. A new study, however, shows that universal wearing of masks, if belatedly mandated (as South Korea did), could save 130,000 lives by the end of February 2021. As grieving Americans bury more of their Coronavirus-infected loved ones than were lost in the Korean War, Vietnam War, Gulf War, War on Terror and Operation Iraqi Freedom combined, it remains to be seen whether Trump and his loyal cult followers will belatedly assist the CDC in trying to save those 130,000 lives during the remainder of his one term presidency… or whether his self-serving calls for mass suicide by the blind faithful are unquestioningly obeyed as they were in Jonestown. There are, however, worrying signs that Trump will hold more of his super spreader rallies where he has promised to fight to delegitimize the election results and make his claim that the election was “stolen” from him. In fact this process has already begun. On November 14, thousands of maskless Trump supporters organized by the openly racist Proud Boys gathered in Washington for a “Stop The Steal” rally to protest against the supposed stealing of Trump’s presidency.

Regardless of whether or not Trump concedes defeat or goes on a pandemic spreading tour to once again rally his true believer base, one thing is abundantly clear. In January 2021 America will have a new president. On November 9thpresident elect Biden channeled President John F. Kennedy by reaching out to the nation with a plea for all Americans, regardless of their political orientation, to wear masks stating “It doesn’t matter who you voted for, where you stood before Election Day. It doesn’t matter your party or your point of view. We can save tens of thousands of lives if everyone would just wear a mask for the next few months. Please, I implore you, wear a mask. Do it for yourself. Do it for your neighbor. A mask is not a political statement, but it is a good way to start pulling the country together.” Biden has proposed a plan (available on his website) to follow in South Korea’s footsteps and for the first time launch a federal, nationwide, top down program designed to increase tracing, provide more funds for efforts to assist medical facilities and governors in battling the pandemic, and encourage more mask wearing and social distancing (despite Trump’s claims Biden has not called for a nationwide lockdown). Biden has also promised to listen to the medical experts and that is perhaps something that the families of almost a quarter of a million families who buried loved ones lost to the pandemic under Trump can take some solace from.

Update November 20. On November 19, Dr. Anthony Fauci announced during the first Coronavirus task force briefing held by the Trump administration in four months that vaccines had been produced by the very medical scientists the president had derided to his followers as “idiots.” As the daily death toll in America approaches 2,000 and daily infection rates surpassed 187,000 this came as welcome news to a traumatized nation that lost more to the pandemic than any other country. Dr. Fauci, the target of so much hatred from Trump’s cult followers, announced in the widely covered briefing that New York city-based Pfizer and Boston-based Moderna had created vaccines that he assured the American people were safe (here he was pushing back on New York governor Andrew Cuomo’s criticism that they might not be safe). Fauci and Vice President Pence, who was far more visible than Trump who showed his utter lack of interest in the pandemic by not attending a Coronavirus Task Force meeting in five months, then announced plans to distribute the vaccine as early as late December, first to health workers who are at far greater risk as they treat infected patients. There is thus cause for hope that the virus that has taken the lives of over a quarter of a million Americans in less than nine months can be treated.

Sadly, the rollout of the vaccine in the largest medical distribution in American history will certainly come too late for tens of thousands of Americans who will continue to die in the pandemic’s greatest and deadliest spike yet over the next few months. The global epicenter of the raging virus as of late November is in the Dakotas where Republican governors proudly refused to issue mask mandates and skepticism of the Coronavirus “hoax” (as Trump labelled it) is rife. As a result of a widespread culture of Coronavirus denialism and anger at masks, North Dakota has the highest mortality rate of any state or any country in the world according to Fox News. In the Dakotas Trump’s cult of death is taking its highest toll and one frustrated South Dakota nurse wrote that many of her patients dying of the virus were still engaged in denialism about it. She recorded the sad reality of Trump’s continuing impact on those who believe their cult leader, not the distrusted medical scientists, as follows:

"I have a night off from the hospital. As I’m on my couch with my dog I can’t help but think of the Covid patients the last few days. The ones that stick out are those who still don’t believe the virus is real. They tell you there must be another reason they are sick. They call you names and ask why you have to wear all that 'stuff' because they don’t have COViD because it’s not real. Yes. This really happens."

It it not surprising, given his influence among Republicans which is amplified by Fox News pundits such as Laura Ingraham who has attacked governors who issues mask mandates as “Coronavirus crazed tyrants,” (Jonestown junkie Ingraham!) that counties that voted for Trump have higher infection rates than those that did not.

To compound matters, as the incoming Biden administration---which has proclaimed “there is nothing macho about not wearing as mask. Wearing a mask is a sign of being patriotic”---prepares to take the White House and control of the campaign to defeat the pandemic on January 20, 2021, the Trump administration has refused to assist it out of spite. More than two weeks since his decisive election loss, Trump remains dug in at the White House, refusing to concede and to help his successor deal with the pandemic. Since becoming a lame-duck president, Trump has not only blocked cooperation with the incoming Biden administration, he has remained largely silent on the Coronavirus and instead focused on undermining the integrity of the election results.

A concerned Biden has fretted that, if his administration has no cooperation in preparing to take over the distribution of the vaccine and other health measures before January 20, 2021, “more people could die.” But for all the fact that Trump is proactively trying to prevent cooperation between his health officials and the incoming Biden administration, cracks are appearing in his cult. As thousands of Midwesterners see their communities ravaged by what they were told was a hoax and see loved ones die, there is a new sense of skepticism towards Trump’s war on the science of defeating the pandemic among many disillusioned former cult members.

Among the disillusioned is North Dakota governor Doug Burgum who broke with his former anti-mask policies as North Dakotans began to become infected and die in the thousands. On November 13, Burgum parted ways with Trump and announced that “the era of individualistic responsibility” for wearing masks and social distancing had ended and he as governor was mandating masks and other social distancing measures designed to protect North Dakotans. It remains to be seen whether this major break with a cult that has been responsible for so many deaths across the nation in 2020, signals a growing rejection of Trump’s influence over his followers…or whether it remains an anomaly in a movement that still has the unquestioned loyalty of millions of citizens in the most pandemic-wracked nation on the earth.

Everybody except for Sean Hannity knows where Michigan ends and Canada begins - OMG!

Fox News right wing pundit Sean Hannity must have had the same United States history teacher as his cult leader Donald Trump had, because, obviously, they are both geographically challenged.

The majority of people living in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan are of either Finnish, French Canadian, Cornish, Scandinavian, German, or Native American descent.

Opinion echo published in the Detroit Free Press by Brian Manzullo:

The Upper Peninsula is a lot of things: Beautiful, natural, rural, teeming with minerals, you name it. But it is most definitely and inarguably not Canada.

Unfortunately, it was labeled as such during Thursday night's "Hannity" on Fox News, when conservative talk show personality Sean Hannity was discussing Wisconsin's 2020 election recount efforts.

As Hannity talked, a map of Wisconsin aired on the screen, with surrounding states such as Michigan, Minnesota and Iowa labeled in initials on the map. But the Upper Peninsula is labeled ... "Canada."



Look, just because the Yooper dialect shows similarities to Canadians (eh?), that doesn't make the Upper Peninsula part of Canada. As we all know, the U.P. was granted to Michigan in 1836, a year before Michigan was admitted to the union, in exchange for Michigan ceding the Toledo Strip to Ohio. (Still the greatest trade of all time, by the way.)

Anyway, the reactions on social media were swift.  "Sean, check your map. You have the upper peninsula of Michigan labeled as Canada!", Tweet by S D S @Juniper1123 on November 19th.

So, we should look at the bright side: At least the Upper Peninsula was on the map at all. Both Google and "Saturday Night Live" left the U.P. off the United States last year.

TickPick notoriously left the U.P. off its map and picked a fight with Yoopers in 2017, but it eventually led to a heartwarming ending over beers, which might be one of the most Yooper (UP) stories of all time.

We leave you all with this reminder, which apparently needs to be hammered into our heads until we can't see straight:

For everyone outside the state with eyes on Michigan tonight, a few reminders: ➜ It's Michigander, not Michiganian ➜ It's pop, not soda ➜ Even though too many maps leave it off, the Upper Peninsula is still very much there!

Pandemic- A serious social perspective

A Facebook blog written by:

Dora Anne Mills, MD, MPH in "Not-So-Brief"  COVID-19 Update. Sunday November 15, 2020.   DATELINE- Maine

Tale of Two Worlds 

Sometimes, I feel like I’m living in two worlds, tugging each other in opposite directions, as we careen down a hill. 

Dissonant coronavirus pandemic split screen

Maybe others feel the same way? Just take a look at what’s been in the newspapers the last week. On one hand, I read some are disturbed about the indoor pandemic prevention gathering limit being reduced in Maine from 100 to 50. 

On the other hand, many are tiptoeing around and being careful to get groceries and other staples delivered or from curbside pickup so they can avoid stepping into indoor public places. Many are attending religious services online to assure a safer way to worship. I read that people are upset about youth hockey and similar sports being cancelled, impacting their children’s emotional as well as physical health. Yet, I also read that others are upset about outbreaks caused by sports and some school closures because of student athletes who test positive. (One positive tested athlete, if exposing a team, means that students from different grades and cohorts have been exposed, thus sometimes resulting in a school closure). I read about protests against masking. Some seem to feel their rights are violated. Others say masks make them feel uncomfortable. 

Yet others don’t believe they work. Sometimes, I’m reminded of my parents, who in the 1970s disliked the emerging seatbelt recommendations and laws. Having taken driver’s ed, I had seen films about the need for seatbelts and pestered them about it. My mother said seatbelts always felt too tight and constraining. They questioned if they were effective, given the circulating misinformation about internal injuries from seatbelts. However, it didn’t take many months for their minds to change. Perhaps it was the pestering from their teenage daughter. Maybe it was them realizing how many people they actually knew who had died because they didn’t weren’t wearing a seatbelt. Or maybe it was the irritating high-pitched dinging noise their new car made, reminding my parents to buckle up. They didn’t think twice about wearing seatbelts after making it a habit. I’m sure if they were alive today, my parents would not relish wearing a mask. After all, none of us do. But I believe they would agree mask requirements do not take away their freedoms any more than seatbelts do, and that any discomfort and inconvenience are worth the costs. 

And one major difference - masks are not permanently needed. Hopefully in a few months there won't be a need for us to wear them. The challenge of course, is that unlike the transition to seatbelts, we don’t have months for people to adjust to masking. Especially now that winter is bearing down on us, so is the pandemic. I am reminded daily of our heroic nurses and other health professionals who are wearing tight-fitting N-95 masks with face shields or hoods, gloves, and full protective outfits for 12+ hours per day. They tell me they often find it easier to and choose to work an entire shift without a meal break because of the time and effort it takes to don and doff this protective equipment. I know some of them are anxious, because they see a steady increase of very sick patients showing up on hospital doorsteps, desperate for help. I read that people feel the pandemic cannot be too bad, since they don’t even know of anyone with the disease, or if they do, the person recovered. And if it were so common, then why don’t they know of anyone who has died from it? As grim as the data are, it’s often hard for us to realize how severe this pandemic is until it hits us close to home. However, it may be helpful to look at the other leading causes of death - cancer, heart disease, or unintentional injuries (car crashes, drug overdoses). 

Most of us probably know too many people who have tragically died of each of these. 

Nevertheless, in any given eight-month period, it’s not uncommon that we don’t personally know someone well who has passed from each of these. For instance, I know plenty of people who have tragically died in car crashes or of cancer over the years, but (thankfully) no one I know very well has died from either of these the last eight months. The same may be true with COVID. We may or may not know someone well who has passed from it this last eight months. But that doesn’t make it uncommon. I read that people feel the pandemic is not too bad, since mainly old people are dying from it. It may help for us to be reminded that this is true of most of the leading causes of death. Older people are much more likely to die from these diseases than younger people are. This is true of cancer, heart disease, stroke, Alzheimer’s, and diabetes. Yet I believe all of us think these diseases deserve our collective attention - including how to prevent and treat them - even if they strike older people more than those who are younger. 

On November 11, we honored those serving our country by observing Veterans Day. The origin of this day was at 11 am on November 11, 1918 when the armistice between the Allies and Germany went into effect to end World War I. President Wilson remarked how a diverse coalition had come together and were victorious, and how the armistice “foretells the enduring conquests which can be made in peace when nations act justly and in furtherance of common interests.” (Remarks on 11/11/19) However, as is somewhat the case now as well as with the original Armistice Day, there were two wars. The world had not only been at war against each other, but also against the 1918 pandemic with influenza. In fact, 85% of the 53,000 American military personnel who died in World War I died of the pandemic. As is the case today, there were also efforts to de-emphasize the pandemic and to keep life as normal as possible. But the data from those times are clear. Several studies show those communities that recognized the science and pulled together to help each other, recovered sooner and better than those that did not. When we’re in the same pew, the same team, and the same side working for the common good, we can, as the hymn says, rise together on eagle’s wings and shine like the sun. We need to keep faith - in science, in our common humanity, and in the universal Golden Rule of treating others as you would want to be treated. But it’s not enough to keep the faith, we also need to spread it by working together. 

Indeed, working together, we are stronger.

#ThankYouDora