Covid-19

A seemingly confused Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) defended Jacob Chansley, the so-called QAnon Shaman, because he was reportedly a vegetarian.

During Wednesday's confirmation hearing for attorney general nominee Pam Bondi, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) noted that Kash Patel, President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for FBI director, had expressed belief in QAnon conspiracy theories.

"Its core belief is that a cabal of satanic, cannibalistic, child molesters are embedded within our government and are conspiring against President-elect Trump," Durbin explained. ...

The state of Florida accidentally overpaid a healthcare company to the tune of more than $5.2 million, and the CEO then loaned herself all of that and then some, according to a news report.

Tallahassee Democrat reports that the mistake was made after Florida's Division of Emergency Management made a deal with South Florida's Trinity Health Care Services to register people for COVID-19 vaccinations. FDEM was supposed to pay Trinity an invoice amount of $50,578.50, records show.

"An error in reading a decimal point can lead to a costly mistake. Just ask the state of Florida," according to the Tallahassee report, which notes that the state "accidentally paid $5,057,850.00 to Trinity, an overage of five million bucks." ...

Donald Trump made an announcement about his upcoming administration, and his biggest fans are not happy about it.

Trump said on Friday that he had chosen Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, a physician and Fox News medical contributor, as his surgeon general. She also "serves as a medical director at CityMD, a network of urgent care centers in New York and New Jersey," according to Politico's reporting.

“Dr. Nesheiwat is a fierce advocate and strong communicator for preventive medicine and public health,” Trump said on Friday in a statement on his Truth Social platform. “She is committed to ensuring that Americans have access to affordable, quality healthcare, and believes in empowering individuals to take charge of their health to live longer, healthier lives.” ...

Democrats and pundits have offered a multitude of explanations to try to explain Vice President Kamala Harris' loss to President-elect Donald Trump this week. But one political data expert is offering a different take on why so many voters rejected Harris.

In a Saturday essay for the Guardian, Ben Davis — who worked on the data side of Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vermont) 2020 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination — argued that all of the current explanations for Trump's rout are incomplete. He noted that while the prevailing consensus is that Trump had the better economic message and Democrats were too focused on identity politics, Harris' campaign was actually laser-focused on kitchen-table issues while identity was rarely discussed.

Rather, Davis opined that President Joe Biden's decision to quietly sunset pandemic-era safety net programs may have been what stuck out the most in voters' memories of Biden's economic oversight. He wrote that when programs that helped prevent Americans from being evicted, provided them with direct financial assistance and granted them other emergency benefits colored voters' perceptions of the economy more than anything else. And when they were suddenly taken away, it paved the way to Trump's eventual victory....

Donald Trump has promised to give Robert F. Kennedy Jr. a major role overseeing public health, and an expert shuddered at what that could mean for Americans.

The president-elect has said he would allow Kennedy to “go wild” on health, food and medicine in some unspecified role in his second administration, and public health expert Dr. Paul Offit appeared Friday morning on CNN to discuss the dangers posed by the vaccine opponent's plans.

"To be honest, I can't believe we are having this conversation," said Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital, Philadelphia. "If you do know the science and technological advances have allowed us to live 30 years longer than we did 100 years ago. Now you have this man, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a science denialist, a virulent anti-vaccine activist and a conspiracy theorist, who will have some sway over public health."...

Joy Behar, co-host of ABC's The View, argued right-wing media outlets should be held responsible after Donald Trump was re-elected as president of the United States.

During Wednesday's post-election show, co-host Sunny Hostin called Trump "a complete aberration."

"He is a politician that is twice impeached," she noted. "How is it that we have normalized someone who tried to start an insurrection, who is an election denier, who is a convicted felon, who is twice impeached, who has filed for bankruptcy six times?"...

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) suggested over the weekend that a Trump administration official may have quietly contacted a federal appeals judge to stall a contempt inquiry, and the legal analyst interviewing him declared that if so, “people are going to jail.”

In a clip flagged by political video aggregator Acyn Torabi from the Legal AF podcast, Whitehouse laid out a hypothetical involving D.C. Circuit Judge Neomi Rao, a Trump appointee.

“If some MAGA official communicated to Judge Rao or her chambers and that resulted in the administrative stay that held the door open and kept the facts from the Senate Judiciary Committee for his confirmation and stalled investigation into misconduct by the DOJ,” Whitehouse began, “ask any judge how big a deal that is.”...

President Donald Trump cut off reporters and walked away after they repeatedly demanded evidence for his claim of widespread mail-in voting fraud in California.

Trump spoke to reporters outside the White House on Monday as he prepared to board Marine One for campaign events.

The midterm elections are less than a month away, on Nov. 3....

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) bragged about a road salt win at a Maine Senate debate, and her challenger's comeback had observers cheering.

On Tuesday, Collins faced Democratic challenger Troy Jackson in a debate weeks before the midterms. Asked what she would do about President Donald Trump's tariffs on Canada, Collins pointed to a specific victory.

"I was successful at getting road salt removed from the tariff list," Collins said. Jackson responded by pouncing on the answer....