Masks work. Especially respirator-style N95 masks.

Amid an ongoing pandemic and outbreaks of influenza and RSV caused by airborne viruses, arguing over the virus-blocking power of masks remains one of the COVID era’s signature follies. Disconcertingly, despite decades of evidence of their efficacy, some of the disagreement comes from a few in the medical field itself, misusing science and endangering lives......

It is therefore deeply concerning that prominent medical figures have misrepresented the protection provided by masks, when the evidence supports N95 respirators or better, ideally with two-way masking.

Medical policy makers failed to learn the lesson of the 2003 SARS-1 outbreak, exposed again in the current global pandemic: a novel pathogen requires a precautionary approach that includes airborne respiratory protections until proven otherwise. With millions dead and immense—and still growing—personal and economic damage inflicted by long COVID, failing to adjust now will continue to do enormous harm.

It is not too late to do better.

Trump slams Harris’ treatment of Pence, oblivious to the humor. "There are no clips of Trump laughing because he can't and doesn't laugh. He never mastered the art of faking a laugh. Sociopaths don't laugh or have a sense of humor."

That is, he’s trying to stay out of the campaign. As The Hill noted, Trump apparently thought it’d be a good idea to bring Pence back up over the Labor Day weekend.

Former President Trump in an interview broadcast late Sunday slammed Vice President Harris as “vicious” and claimed her treatment of former Vice President Mike Pence during a debate was “horrible.” Trump, speaking on Fox News’s “Life, Liberty and Levin,” pointed to the viral moment during the 2020 vice presidential debate when Harris rebuked Pence’s interruption with the phrase, “Mr. Vice President, I’m speaking.”

The Republican candidate, referring to Harris, specifically said, “She’s a nasty person. The way she treated Mike Pence was horrible.”

https://x.com/Acyn/status/1830403489845113152

.....In case anyone’s forgotten, it was Trump who lobbied Pence to participate in a scheme to overturn the election. When those efforts didn’t work, it was Trump, during a pre-riot rally on Jan. 6, who added unscripted comments about the then-vice president’s reluctance to show “courage.”

Soon after, during the insurrectionist assault on the Capitol, the then-president had an opportunity to urge the insurrectionists to end the attack. Instead, Trump published a tweet again insisting that Pence lacked the “courage” to overturn the election, which necessarily put the Hoosier in greater danger.

In the months that followed, Trump defended rioters’ “hang Mike Pence” chants, blamed Pence for the violence at the Capitol and taunted his former vice president as a “delusional” coward and a bad person.

But sure, tell us another one about how Harris was a big meanie toward Pence, whose life Trump put in danger on Jan. 6.

Former President Donald Trump said Sunday that he had “every right” to interfere with the 2020 election, even as two criminal cases involving those allegations hang over him. On Monday, Kamala Harris’ campaign charged that the comments were evidence that Trump believed he was “above the law.”

In a Fox News interview that aired Sunday, Trump went on a long screed about the Justice Department and its treatment of him, charging he had been targeted. Trump marveled that the criminal charges did nothing but boost his poll numbers, because, he surmised, his supporters didn’t buy them in the first place.

“Whoever heard you get indicted for interfering with a presidential election where you have every right to do it, you get indicted, and your poll numbers go up?” Trump said. “When people get indicted, your poll numbers go down. But it was such, such nonsense.”

Last week, Trump was indicted again in his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss. He is accused of trying to carry out a multipronged effort that included trying to disenfranchise voters in certain states and of interfering with the election results by repeatedly claiming it was stolen, even though he knew those claims were false. Authorities say Trump’s false claims were a catalyst for the violence attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. He faces similar charges of election interference in Fulton County, Georgia.

On Monday, Harris campaign spokesperson Sarafina Chitika blasted Trump’s comments and asserted that they were another example of the “chaos, fear, and division” Americans experienced under Trump.

“Everything Donald Trump has promised on the campaign trail — from ‘terminating’ the Constitution, to imprisoning his political opponents and promising to rule as a dictator on ‘day one’ — makes it clear that he believes he is above the law. Now, Trump is claiming he had ‘every right’ to interfere in the 2020 election. He did not,” Chitika said in a statement.

The words below were taken verbatim from a campaign speech former President Donald Trump delivered in Potterville, Michigan, Thursday when he was attempting, at least initially, to criticize Kamala Harris’ record in San Francisco, presumably referring to her tenure as district attorney there:

She destroyed the city of San Francisco, it’s — and I own a big building there — it’s no — I shouldn’t talk about this but that’s OK I don’t give a damn because this is what I’m doing. I should say it’s the finest city in the world — sell and get the hell out of there, right? But I can’t do that. I don’t care, you know? I lost billions of dollars, billions of dollars. You know, somebody said, ‘What do you think you lost?’ I said, ‘Probably two, three billion. That’s OK, I don’t care.’ They say, ‘You think you’d do it again?’ And that’s the least of it. Nobody. They always say, I don’t know if you know. Lincoln was horribly treated. Uh, Jefferson was pretty horribly. Andrew Jackson they say was the worst of all, that he was treated worse than any other president. I said, ‘Do that study again, because I think there’s nobody close to Trump.’ I even got shot! And who the hell knows where that came from, right?

This is ... impossible to follow. Trump’s asides stack atop each other with such density that it’s dizzying for even professional political observers to discern what he’s trying to get at. Why is a presidential candidate leapfrogging from talking about Harris’ policy record to the bath he took on a property he owns to where he ranks on the list of “horribly” treated presidents? His asides themselves are often unintelligible. What is this alleged anecdote about his San Francisco property meant to convey? What does he even mean about how horribly presidents were treated? To cap it all off, Trump casually tossed out an insidious conspiracy theory. He implies we don’t know who shot him, when of course we do. Trump has been embedded in the public consciousness as a rule-breaker for so long that it can be easily to forget how far he is from fulfilling the basic requirement of a politician to speak clearly......

Trump’s deteriorating ability to clearly communicate is a consequential feature of his 2024 candidacy. That deterioration may not have been as salient when Trump, 78, had 81-year-old President Joe Biden as an opponent. But it’s all the more clear as he now faces off against 59-year-old Vice President Kamala Harris. Questions about Biden’s mental acuity were rightly raised in this election cycle. Questions about Trump’s mental acuity should be raised, too.

https://x.com/atrupar/status/1829262159802507374

.....As my colleague Jim Downie has pointed out, Biden’s exit from the race not only sharpens public awareness of Trump’s age and communication struggles, it also shields Democrats from accusations of hypocrisy. Now, as Harris energetically lays out how she wants to improve the country, Trump’s bizarre speeches look even more concerning than they did before. After all, during his first term, Trump’s imprecise, impulsive way of communicating made him exceptionally dangerous when speaking about sensitive diplomatic and national security issues, such as in his policies toward North Korea. Those risks will only be greater if he becomes president again. And it’s genuinely chilling to imagine a less capable, less focused Trump handling another major public health crisis such as Covid. Trump's seeming decline isn't his worst quality — but it likely would make many of his vices worse.

Nearly 25 years later, another Republican presidential candidate is at the center of a similar controversy, but those waiting for a similar statement of contrition will likely be waiting for an exceedingly long time. From the Times’ report:

Mr. Trump and his campaign published photos and video of the former president laying flowers and flashing a thumbs-up at the graves of Marines killed during the withdrawal from Afghanistan three years ago. Other graves are visible in the footage, including one of a Green Beret who died by suicide. The images are still online.

The core details of the former president’s controversy are difficult to dispute. Team Trump was made aware of federal laws, Army regulations, and Pentagon policies, which clearly prohibit political activities on cemetery grounds. Team Trump apparently decided to ignore those restrictions, and according to an official written statement from the U.S. Army, when an employee who works at the cemetery attempted to ensure adherence to the rules, she was “abruptly pushed aside,” despite Trump campaign denials about a physical altercation......

As the story enters its second week, there’s no shortage of relevant developments:

On Labor Day, Harris addressed the matter directly for the first time, accusing Trump in a social-media message of “disrespect[ing] sacred ground, all for the sake of a political stunt.” The Democratic nominee went on to say, “If there is one thing on which we as Americans can all agree, it is that our veterans, military families, and service members should be honored, never disparaged, and treated with nothing less than our highest respect and gratitude.”

At public events late last week, Trump talked about the controversy in ways that didn’t make a lot of sense.

Fox News responded to the story by accusing President Joe Biden of “skipping” an “event” at Arlington last week. In reality, there was no special event.

VoteVets released a striking new ad in response to the scandal.

Last week, officials from the Trump campaign suggested they would soon release footage that would exonerate the former president and his aides. To date, that has not happened.

Where will the controversy go next? Time will tell, but a growing number of congressional Democrats, including Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, are pursuing the matter and seeking additional information and details about what transpired. Watch this space.

KENOSHA, WI (The Borowitz Report)—Robert F. Kennedy Jr. raised eyebrows at a Trump rally on Tuesday by sharing a recipe for turducken using a bear, a whale, and a worm.

“I know that Thanksgiving is still a few months away,” Kennedy told a confused MAGA crowd. “But it’s not too early to start scavenging for a dead bear and whale head, and checking to see if you have a worm in your brain.”

As Kennedy outlined the preparations for the unusual delicacy, Donald J. Trump could be seen offstage making a frantic throat-slitting gesture to aides.

Kennedy was absent from the next campaign stop, having been shoved from Trump’s limo and left on the side of the highway.