Here’s the coronavirus death toll through October 12. The raw data from Johns Hopkins is here.

October 12, 2020, Washington, District of Columbia, USA: Judge Amy Coney Barrett, gives her opening statement during the first day of her Senate confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on October 12, 2020 (Credit Image: © Erin Schaff - Pool Via Cnp/CNP via ZUMA Wire)

The coverage of Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation hearings is annoying me more than I thought it would. I understand that mainstream news outlets have to cover it straight, but at the same time it means that news consumers who aren’t politics junkies never get the real story, namely:

• Barrett is very conservative and will almost certainly vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, Obamacare, and Chevron if she gets a chance. These will not necessarily take the form of explicit overrules, but the practical impact will still be to get rid of them.
• Barrett will, of course, refuse to comment on any of this as a nominee. But it hardly matters since everyone already knows her opinions.
• In any case, the entire hearing is just kabuki anyway. Republicans will all vote to confirm Barrett, and Democrats will all vote to oppose her.
• None of this has anything to do with judicial philosophy. It’s because Barrett will almost certainly support Republican positions and oppose Democratic positions. There have been cases in the past when Republicans have nominated candidates who turned out to be only weak partisans, but those days are long gone. Nobody with questionable loyalties makes it past their filters any longer.

Anyone who cares enough about politics to read this blog already knows this, and also knows that all the words being spilled on both sides are little more than a charade. Republicans will vote for Barrett because she’s a Republican and they have enough votes to confirm her. That’s it. That’s the whole story. 

I was getting low on animal pictures, so on Friday I spent the day at the San Diego Zoo to restock. The weather was lovely and the sky was lightly overcast, which provided perfect, even lighting for most of my pictures. Later in the day, however, the sun started to peek out occasionally, producing some dramatic shadows here and there. That’s how I got this picture of a Great Blue Turaco in one of the zoo’s many, many aviaries.

Coming up eventually: lions and tigers and bears! And lots more colorful birds.

UPDATE: I’ve added a second picture of the Turaco for those of you who want a better idea of what it actually looks like.

Senate confirmation hearings for Amy Coney Barrett are underway, and already the headlines are jumping:

Wait. That’s the wrong headline. Sorry. But I guess it’s too late to do anything about it. Congratulations, Lakers, on finally catching up to the hated Celtics in the title count!

Here’s the coronavirus death toll through October 11. The raw data from Johns Hopkins is here.

Here’s the coronavirus death toll through October 10. The raw data from Johns Hopkins is here.

Andrew Harnik/AP

Now that Donald Trump is off the dex, he’s changed his mind and suddenly wants a stimulus deal with Democrats. Here’s his latest proposal:

The new $1.8 trillion offer is an increase from the White House’s most recent proposal of around $1.6 trillion, which Pelosi had dismissed as too meager. Among the changes: The new offer proposes $300 billion for cities and states, up from $250 billion in the earlier proposal; it maintains a $400 weekly enhanced unemployment insurance benefit from the previous version, but for a somewhat longer duration, according to a person familiar with the contents who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss them.

The White House’s offer on stimulus checks includes $1,000 per child, instead of the $500 per child provided in the original Cares Act approved in March, according to two people with knowledge of the plan. The increase in the payment to children appears to be intended as a compromise measure for rejecting tax credits for children pushed by Pelosi in negotiations.

Apparently this is actually a $1.88 trillion offer. And honestly, it’s not that bad. Pelosi should ask for $400 billion for cities and states, which would bring the total to $1.98 trillion, and call it a day. Trump would get to say that he kept Democrats under $2 trillion but still came through for the American people. Pelosi could basically say the same. And if the assistance to cities and states is too small, it’s at least a decent start.

It’s not clear if Republicans would pass a $2 trillion bill, but I imagine Trump still has some pull even as far down in the polls as he is. In any case, if Biden wins the election Republicans obviously won’t do anything, so this is our last chance to do something to help the people most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s well worth a try.

Here’s the coronavirus death toll through October 9. The raw data from Johns Hopkins is here.

I’m taking the day off, so we might as well have Friday Catblogging early. But is this catblogging or rabbitblogging?

Adam Vieyra/Mother Jones

Donald Trump can pretend all he wants that he deserves an A+ for his handling of COVID-19, but here in the real world we all know better. It was “totally under control,” he said early on when it was spreading like wildfire. It would “disappear like a miracle.” Wearing a mask was unnecessary. “I don’t think I’m going to be doing it.” The result: 210,000 dead so far, with more to come.

There’s far, far more, of course, and we’ve compiled the ultimate timeline of Trump and the coronavirus, which shows just how reckless and incompetent he’s been in the face of the biggest pandemic in a century. If you can stand to relive it, just click here.