This could have gone very differently, and very badly

Lost in the news about how Trump is both a tax avoider and a failure as a businessman comes the story that police were called to the home of Trump’s former campaign manager and now campaign aide Brad Parscale by his wife because he was heavily armed and had made threats about causing self-harm.

Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Brad Parscale has been hospitalised after he threatened to harm himself, according to Florida police and campaign officials.

Police were called to the home in Desota Drive in the Seven Isles community of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, late on Sunday afternoon. The home is owned by Bradley and Candice Parscale.

“When officers arrived on scene, they made contact with the reportee (wife of armed subject) who advised her husband was armed, had access to multiple firearms inside the residence and was threatening to harm himself,” Fort Lauderdale police said in a statement.

“Officers determined the only occupant inside the home was the adult male. Officers made contact with the male, developed a rapport, and safely negotiated for him to exit the home.”

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Trump taxes revealed

Trump has long tried to hide his taxes from public view, putting forward one bogus excuse after another. It was never quite clear what he was hiding, whether that he was not as wealthy as he claimed or that he cheated on his taxes or, more likely, both. The New York Times seems to have finally got the information and has released a report that says that Trump paid next to no taxes in the past ten years. They are going to publish analyses of his taxes but not the documents themselves I order to protect the source.
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Election transition fears

As the election draws ever nearer, Seth Meyers takes a closer look at the question of whether there will be a peaceful transition of power.

Although Trump keeps stoking fears that he may not agree with the election results if they show him losing, and this has caused great alarm, I am not so worried. What he would be advocating is a coup and that requires the support of the military. I simply do not think that the US military is going to go along with his attempt to overturn the result of the election even in the unlikely event that his supporters take to the streets en masse to demand that he be allowed to remain in power.

Hilarious episode of This American Life

I have written many times before about my admiration for the way that this radio program tells stories, whether they are dealing with serious political issues or whimsical ones. This show really must be listened to to get the full effect, because these people are terrific storytellers, expertly blending in pauses, inflections, and music to great effect that gets lost with just the written word. Reading the transcript is nowhere near as good. Last week they had a particularly good episode that at times had me laughing out loud. It mostly dealt with watching films and TV.
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How much physical distancing is safe?

As the pandemic drags on and countries try to grapple with how to achieve some semblance of normalcy in the fact of restrictions, they seem to have arrived at three general recommendations to help slow the spread of the virus. Wash hands with soap and water or use sanitizers, wear masks, and keep one’s distance from other people. While those seem straightforward enough, there are a lot of uncertainties within them. For example, when it comes to masks, while there has emerged a broad scientific consensus that wearing them is a good thing, what types of masks are better and are they meant to prevent the wearer from spreading infections to others or from getting infected by others or both?
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Radiolab on jury nullification

I have written many times about jury nullification, the little known right of juries to acquit defendants even if the defendant has clearly violated the law, if the jury feels that the law used to convict them is unjust.

We are all familiar with the process by which laws are created. We, the citizens, vote legislators into office. These legislators propose and debate bills. Once passed by the legislature and signed by the elected executive, these bills become laws and that, we think, is the end of the story unless courts rule the law to be unconstitutional. We are now obliged to follow the laws. If we do not like a law, the only option is to get the legislature to change it.
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Has the pandemic second wave begun?

As the death toll goes past 200,000, health experts have been warning that we should brace ourselves for a surge in new coronavirus cases in the fall, especially if people start to let down their guard and not follow safety precautions, either because they got tired of being restricted or they felt that the crisis had passed. Recall that with the 1918 pandemic, it too started in the early part of that year, subsided in the middle, and then roared back towards the end of the year and most of the deaths occurred in that second phase.

This graphic from the New York Times suggests that there has been a recent surge in new cases, which is worrying.

What’s the matter with Delaware Republicans?

Lauren Witzke is yet another QAnon supporter who has won a Republican primary and is going to be the party’s candidate for a federal office, this time for the senate seat in Delaware. But it appears that QAnon is not the only thing she believes in. She also has dabbled with flat-Earth and 9/11 conspiracy theories. She will challenge incumbent Democratic senator Chris Coons.
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This is where anti-science fervor leads

When people have a terminal illness and are confronted with the real possibility of imminent death, one cannot fault them for taking desperate measures in the hope of a miracle cure. This was what we saw in the early days of the AIDS epidemic when people were dying in large numbers and there was no effective treatment. Sufferers felt that the conventional protocols for finding treatments that depended on the usual three phases of trials to ensure safety and efficacy were far too slow and that seriously ill patients should be allowed to try experimental treatments that had not met the standards for approval.
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