Month: September 2020

Harry Enten at CNN:

There’s a common view that the vacant Supreme Court seat created by the death of Antonin Scalia helped Republicans in the 2016 election by motivating religious conservatives who otherwise were not fans of Mr. Trump.

Indeed, a Pew poll at the time found that Trump supporters were eight points likelier than Clinton supporters to call Supreme Court appointments a “very important” issue. The exit poll was even more stark: 21 percent of voters said Supreme Court appointments were the most important issue, and they backed Mr. Trump over Hillary Clinton, 56-41.  

But this year, it’s Democrats who are more likely to say the Supreme Court is “very important” to their vote, according to Pew Research.  It’s not hard to see why a Supreme Court vacancy would have been more motivating to Republicans in 2016, but more motivating to Democrats today. After all, it was the Republicans who feared losing a seat and the balance of the court four years ago. This time, it’s the Democrats.

Actually, the balance of the court is already conservative. That ship sailed when the only moderately conservative swing Justice Kennedy retired and they replaced him with the beer-addled, political operative, Brett Kavanaugh. (Counting on Roberts to reliably be a swing voter in the most important cases is wishful thinking.) Nonetheless, I think the fact that Mitch McConnell has packed the lower courts and is willing to do whatever it takes to steal yet another seat, probably motivates Democrats about the courts more than they have ever been motivated by that issue before.

More evidence:

Democratic donors gave more money online in the 9 p.m. hour Friday after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death was announced — $6.2 million — than in any other single hour since ActBlue, the donation-processing site, was started 16 years ago.

Then donors broke the site’s record again in the 10 p.m. hour when donors gave another $6.3 million — more than $100,000 per minute.

The unprecedented outpouring shows the power of a looming Supreme Court confirmation fight to motivate Democratic donors. The previous biggest hour, on Aug. 20, when Joseph R. Biden Jr. spoke on the final night of the Democratic convention, saw $4.3 million in donations processed, according to an ActBlue spokesperson.

Before noon on Saturday, donations to Democratic causes and campaigns on ActBlue since Justice Ginsburg’s passing had topped $45 million.

ActBlue does not show where donations go in real time but much of the grassroots energy appeared focused on the Senate, which would have the power to confirm or block any nominee picked by President Trump.

Hours after Justice Ginsburg’s death, Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, pledged that whomever Mr. Trump picked to replace her would receive a confirmation vote. “President Trump’s nominee will receive a vote on the floor of the United States Senate,” he said in a statement.

RIP, RBG. You will be remembered as a moral hero, one of the greatest this nation has produced. I will let others praise you at length but especially now, it is crucial that focus be brought on your peers who are not moral heroes, those who lack your bravery and integrity.

Trump has an uncanny ability to bring out moral cowardice in those around him. And he extracts it not only from weak-willed individuals like, say, Michael Cohen. He has the capacity to turn some of the most powerful people on the planet — America’s politicians and media elite, for example — into chickenshit.

It’s incredible: If any president but Trump had said that ingesting bleach might be a way to treat Covid-19, the calls for an immediate resignation would have have been broad, angry, and swift. And yet, as far as I can recall, not a single powerful national figure did much more than figuratively roll their eyes.

More recently, Trump’s open embrace of an insane pandemic control ”plan” that everyone who can operate a calculator knows will kill between two and six million Americans would, with any other leader, lead to his immediate removal. But once again, not a single influential person in this country openly called, as far as I know, for him to leave for proposing, and possibly implementing, such a perverted idea.

The refusal by those with power to fully stand up to Trump’s combination of bullying, stupidity, incompetence, and insanity is one of the most striking aspect of his reign. It will puzzle historians for centuries (assuming humans survive). Yes, there was impeachment, some court cases, a few indictments, and there have been millions of appalled words written.

But the obvious conclusions — that every minute he is in office, Trump is a danger to the entire world and must leave immediately — is rarely voiced by anyone with influence. Weirdly, the failure to openly call for his stepping down continues despite widespread whispered consensus among the powerful and influential that the situation is very dangerous.

This is the very definition of moral cowardice. What is astounding is that Trump has caused otherwise take-no-quarter politicians to pull their punches, politicians who may be ruthless but who would nevertheless never tolerate such wanton disregard for American lives.

Their rationalizations have changed but the cowardice has been there from the beginning.
Remember this one, from Anonymous? I do: “No need to call for his resignation. There will be grown ups in the room who will restrain him.” How’d that work out?

Just last week, the excuse was: “It’s less than two months until election. We just need to wait.” After yesterday’s news, I can only worry about what’s next.

And then there’s this very common one, the most outrageous and openly cowardly rationalization of all: “There isn’t the political will to remove him.”

On matters of important principle, on matters of life or death, on matters of sheer basic morality, such cynical strategic calculations don’t matter. If you have an opportunity to speak publicly and widely, you have an obligation to call upon Trump to step down (or resign or be removed by the Senate) when he is blithely advocating, if not implementing, a plan that could kill up to 6 million of your fellow citizens. Including, of course, you, your children, and your parents.

Let’s be clear: this is not about strategy. If openly demanding Trump’s resignation or removal from office results in sparking a groundswell, naturally that would be fantastic. But whether it does or not, as Masha Gessen once wrote, the truth needs to be plainly spoken to authoritarians even at personal risk. That is what moral heroism looks like.

We are living with the consequences of this era’s moral cowardice. The latest disaster, of course, is that the extreme right will control the Supreme Court for at least a generation. Would it have made a difference if powerful people had overcome their cowardice and called, early and often, for Trump’s removal? No way to know, but what is certain is that an attitude of “let’s just wait for the election” did nothing to avert catastrophe.

I have no idea how Trump brings out so much deep moral cowardice in so many very powerful people. But even now, it is critical that they (and we) not give into terror and speak the truth we all know. For the good of this country and the world, Trump needs to leave office now. Today. Only a few prominent voices have said so publicly. But they all know it’s true and it’s shameful they’re not saying so

I don’t know what’s going to happen once the election is decided but I’m expecting to see more of this sort of thing on election day. Possibly with guns. Trump is encouraging it.

Trump Supporters came over to the early voting site to protest while people are in line to Vote in FairFax Virginia. #EarlyVoting pic.twitter.com/Lkkl4o2aAc

— Anthony Tilghman (@AnthonyTilghman) September 19, 2020

As you can see here they are blocking the entrance to the voting site. #EarlyVoting #VA #FairFax pic.twitter.com/KJ6fbLdP3G

— Anthony Tilghman (@AnthonyTilghman) September 19, 2020

In case you were wondering, this is not normal. In fact, there are laws against campaigning around polling places. But this is Trump’s America and they do what they want.

And yes, they have retired their Tea Party costumes for these garish flag outfits and red hats, but they are the same people. They love to play dress-up.

He’s going to be insufferable on this on the campaign trail regardless of what Mitch McConnell will do. Bit will it help him?

Here’s an interesting thread by The Cook Report’s Dave Wasserman with some details I was unaware of:

I’ve heard some analysts argue a SCOTUS fight will help Trump by shifting “what 2020 will be about” from his mismanagement of COVID to a more straightforward partisan cage match.

That could happen, but I’ve always seen some big risks for Trump in a pre-election SCOTUS fight… Namely, the potential for the Roe v. Wade/abortion issue to tear Trump’s coalition apart.

Much of his 2016 support came from voters who disliked Hillary Clinton, liked his rhetoric on immigration/trade, but are *pro-choice* – especially secular, blue-collar women. This morning, I dove into 2016 CCES data (50,000+ person national survey).

Only 15% of Clinton’s voters at least leaned pro-life and 11% held mixed views (74% at least leaned pro-choice).

But 22% of Trump’s voters at least leaned pro-choice and another 13% held mixed views. Although Trump downplayed abortion in 2016, voters w/ mostly pro-choice attitudes made up more than a fifth of his support in plenty of battleground states:

25% in Iowa
24% in Florida
24% in Pennsylvania
24% in Michigan
21% in Arizona
20% in Wisconsin
20% in Ohio 

For decades, many of these blue-collar, pro-choice Trump voters had voted for Democrats because they saw Republicans as the party of “Bible thumpers” who moralized against abortion & gay marriage.

Then Trump came along, and they didn’t mind him as much. Now, there may actually be an opportunity for Dems to win back many of these voters by tying Trump to the “DC swamp:” Mitch McConnell and Rs who want to “end Roe v. Wade, cut more taxes for billionaires” etc.

In fact, Biden is *already* winning many of these blue-collar voters. The under-utilized Dem message Rs should be most scared of probably goes something like this:

“In 2016, Trump promised to drain the swamp. Instead, he became the swamp: he let Mitch McConnell and stock-dumping, ultra-far right GOP senators write his entire domestic agenda.” After all, the Obama-Trump voters Biden needs to win back may have been yearning for a political “outsider” in ’16 but are still:

1) extremely against tax cuts for wealthy Americans
2) decidedly against repealing the ACA
3) substantially pro-choice . 

That’s the first time I’ve seen a description of the Obama-Trump voters that made sense to me. They didn’t think Trump was really a conservative and they hated Hillary.

I get the sense that the Biden campaign is already looking at these voters with his “Scranton vs Park Avenue” talking points. But the abortion issue is now more live than ever (although counting on John Roberts to ultimately uphold Roe vs Wade was always an extreme long shot in my view anyway.) If Trump overplays his hand on the campaign trail with extremist talk about abortion, it may seal his fate with these people.

The Democrats can help by making the ACA case, which will be heard next term, a center piece of the campaign down the stretch.

He and his rabid cult members celebrate police injuring a member of the press at a peaceful protest.

https://twitter.com/davidgura/status/1307318498205425665

So, @realDonaldTrump, you call my getting hit by authorities in Minneapolis on 5/30/20 (by a rubber bullet, btw, not a tear gas cannister) a “beautiful thing” called “law and order”. What law did I break while covering an entirely peaceful (yes, entirely peaceful) march?

— Ali Velshi (@AliVelshi) September 19, 2020

"Are you having a good time with your refugees?" — Trump immediately pivots to full blown racism pic.twitter.com/ds9UEpLf9v

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 18, 2020

"We'll prosecute 'em. Yeah. Why not?" — Trump suggests congress members AOC, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib should be prosecuted pic.twitter.com/3Sz4c5B8al

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 18, 2020

Trump threatens to pull licenses from NBC and CNN, even though they don't have licenses pic.twitter.com/sLVDZijcAS

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 19, 2020

Trump, who regularly uses a teleprompter, mocks Joe Biden for using a teleprompter pic.twitter.com/tmO9uSVTU4

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 19, 2020

Trump tosses some red meat to his QAnon base by talking about human trafficking, as cries of "save our children!" are heard from the audience pic.twitter.com/oi5ErvwPPI

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 19, 2020

He’s nuts.

But, ofcourse, he’s been given a new lease on life with the passing of RBG, or at least he thinks he has. If Mitch steals the seat, it might just be what seals his defeat. What ahorrible price to pay …

The Glorious RBG by Irin Carmen

Ruth Bader Ginsburg used to instruct her clerks to get it right and keep it tight, so I’ll try to do the same. Only someone so stubborn and single-minded, someone so in love with the work, could have accomplished what she did — as a woman, survived discrimination and loss; as a lawyer, compelled the Constitution to recognize that women were people; as a justice, inspired millions of people in dissent. (I asked her once in an interview what she had changed her mind about and she refused to answer. “I don’t dwell on that kind of question,” she said. “I really concentrate on what’s on my plate at the moment and do the very best I can.”) What made her RBG would also enact the most tragic and sickening ironies of today.

The feminist with a fundamentally optimistic vision, who believed that people, especially men, could be better, might be soon replaced by the rankest misogynist. The litigator and jurist who long subordinated her own immediate desires to the good and legitimacy of institutions, who had preached that slow change would stave off backlash, lived long enough to see Trump and the Federalist Society tear off the Court’s thin veneer of legitimacy anyway. In the 2013 voting-rights dissent that earned her the Notorious RBG nickname, Ginsburg offered an addendum to Martin Luther King Jr.’s suggestion that the arc of history eventually bent toward justice: “if there is a steadfast commitment to see the task through to completion.” She was thus committed. Still, today she leaves the work not only unfinished but at risk of being undone.

Read on …

A Remembrance by Nina Totenberg: A five-decade-long-friendship that began with a phone call.

A former NC congressman understands what the former president apparently does not. “He still seems not to get what the Republican Party has become,” Brad Miller tweeted Friday night in response to President Barack Obama’s statement on the passing of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg:

“Four and a half years ago, when Republicans refused to hold a hearing or an up-or-down vote on Merrick Garland, they invented the principle that the Senate shouldn’t fill an open seat on the Supreme Court before a new president was sworn in,” Obama wrote.

“A basic principle of the law — and of everyday fairness — is that we apply rules with consistency, and not based on what’s convenient or advantageous in the moment.

“The rule of law, the legitimacy of our courts, the fundamental workings of our democracy all depend on that basic principle. As votes are already being cast in this election, Republican Senators are now called to apply that standard,” Obama wrote.

Fat chance. This is not a republic governed by rules and norms anymore. Not so long as Donald Trump holds the White House and Republican leaders push empty patriotic slogans while undermining everything they claim to believe.

It has been clear for decades, their faith in this constitution, this republic, all along has been as phony as Trump University and the Trump Foundation. They have simply found a leader corrupt and shameless enough to wear it in public. As their base shrinks and demographics turn against them, they might have moderated their stances on immigration and minorities as their own 2012 post mortem suggested. But no.

Instead they retrenched. They had already gerrymandered their way to ensuring minority rule in state houses across the country, demonstrating a willingness to hang onto power by any means necessary.

There are no rules here. No norms that remain inviolable. One person, one vote? Disposable. Rules? Consistency? Everyday fairness? Those are for suckers and losers. Ask the man leading the Republican Party.

In Field of Dreams, James Earle Jones’s character acted as if there were no rules to chase an intruder from his apartment. Confronted with his own history of pacifism, he relents and puts down the crowbar. Terence Mann had a conscience. Don’t expect McConnell and his allies to.

Democrats on the Hill had best come to terms with that.

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Associate Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is irreplaceable. Her opinions were sharp and incisive, her struggles and her workouts inspiring. She became both a feminist icon and an action figure. She died after a long struggle with cancer on Friday, the first night of the Jewish New Year. Crowds of mourners immediately formed outside the Supreme Court in Washington to sing “We Shall Overcome” and for a recitation of the Kaddish.

A recitation of the Kaddish, the Jewish mourners prayer, outside the Supreme Court building. pic.twitter.com/OcNWQCQaHj

— Gabe Fleisher (@WakeUp2Politics) September 19, 2020

Ginsburg said often that she stood on the shoulders of giants. Perhaps it takes one to know one. Nothing I can write here can do her appropriate tribute. I leave that to Dahlia Lithwick who knew her and who offers advice on what comes next. RBG may be irreplaceable, yet she will be replaced:

America has lost a warrior and it’s OK to be crushed. I am flattened. And I will mourn, because she deserves to be mourned. But we are also facing an almighty battle that will rage in the coming weeks, with attempts to fill her seat in an unseemly and grotesque manner. It will be hard, and painful, but if you find yourself feeling hopeless and powerless, then you are empathically doing it wrong. Because if anyone had a right to say “nah,” it was the woman who couldn’t get a job or a clerkship after graduating at the top of her class. But she pushed on, and then she pushed forward. She stepped into the fight of the phenomenal women who paved the path before, and now, well, it’s time to step into her fight and get it finished. I think the Notorious RBG would have peered owlishly out at all of us tonight and asked what the heck we are waiting for. And I think we can probably honor her best by getting to it.

Former Vice President Joe Biden gave this statement Friday night: “Tonight and in the coming days, we should focus on the loss of the justice and her enduring legacy. But there is no doubt – let me be clear – that the voters should pick the president and the president should pick the justice for the Senate to consider. This was the position the GOP Senate took in 2016.”

RBG is my son's hero. He said take me to D.C. to put flowers on the steps of the Supreme Court. So, we are leaving from Oklahoma right now. ❤

— Amy Edwards 🏳️‍🌈 🇺🇦 (@AmyEdwardsLPC) September 19, 2020

That was Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s rationale for holding Antonin Scalia’s Supreme Court seat open for ten months and handing Barack Obama’s pick to Donald Trump.

On that note, I can add something based on how the GOP operates in North Carolina.

I know nothing of U.S. Senate procedure, just that with McConnell in charge, as we have learned, norms are disposable. My caution to Senate Democrats is they may not have the coming days to mourn and had best watch their backs. Expect no hearings. No vetting. Just a snap vote. Any day.

“I want you to use my words against me. If there’s a Republican president in 2016 and a vacancy occurs in the last year of the first term, you can say Lindsey Graham said let’s let the next president, whoever it might be, make that nomination." pic.twitter.com/quD1K5j9pz

— Vanita Gupta (@vanitaguptaCR) September 19, 2020

N.C. Republicans had threatened an override of Gov. Roy Cooper’s (D) budget veto for months in the summer of 2019. House Speaker Tim Moore (R) claimed he had said repeatedly “he would hold the veto override when the votes were secured.” He pushed back the vote 32 times in July and August because he did not. On Sept. 10, Moore again put the override vote on the next day’s calendar. Democratic Leader Darren Jackson asked Republican Rules Committee chair David Lewis if they could hold off the vote until the afternoon so they could caucus. The two leaders agreed, or so Jackson thought. The next day being Sept. 11, many members including the governor would be attending memorial events in the morning.

When the session opened at 8:30 a.m., Moore called a vote on the veto override within minutes. It passed 55-15 with 38 Democrats and 10 Republicans not voting. They were not in the chamber.

With that in mind, which GOP senators are behind in their races, which are tied, and which few may have independent streaks, etc., does not impress. All the punditry we will hear surrounding how McConnell could muster 51 votes to approve a new Supreme Court pick seems like so much inside-the-Beltway navel-gazing.

Here in North Carolina, Moore vowed he would hold the 2019 veto override only when he had secured the votes. He secured his three-fifths override margin on a day over 40 percent of House members were absent, most of them Democrats. They had been misled. On 9/11.

Democrats who were there responded with fury. Rep. Deb Butler unleashed an epic tirade against Moore on the floor of the House. Moore told the press that afternoon, “If they didn’t want it to pass, all they had to do was show up for work.”  

There are 100s of frightening possibilities that flow from the #RuthBaderGinsbergDeath including that a contested election in Nov will now rule in #Trump favor, almost assuredly.

— Laurie Garrett (@Laurie_Garrett) September 18, 2020

With Ginsburg gone ands Trump’s reelection chances in jeopardy, all bets are off, Jonathan Last writes at The Bulwark:

If Trump and Republicans replace Ginsburg it will destroy the remaining public legitimacy of the Supreme Court. Full stop.

The Republican party’s willingness to invent, bend, cherry-pick, or break rules and norms as needed in the pursuit of power would be undeniable. Already Republican activists have begun creating ludicrous, tortured rationales: Since 1880, no Senate with more than three left-handed members has failed to vote on the nominee of a president whose name contains the letter “d.” To anyone with ears to hear and eyes to see, these justifications are an affront to common sense and basic fairness.

If Republicans choose this route, their ruthlessness would have resulted in not one, but two SCOTUS seats that will be widely regarded as stolen. And worse: stolen by a president who was himself elected despite a decisive loss in the popular vote.

“My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed,” Ginsburg told her granddaughter before her death. May she have her last wish.

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So cool:

Watch approx 10,000 ducks head out to ‘work’ in Thailand’s rice paddies 🦆 pic.twitter.com/7whvGaLnRC

— NowThis Impact (@nowthisimpact) September 18, 2020

They were just following orders:

On June 30, as the coronavirus was cresting toward its summer peak, Dr. Paul Alexander, a new science adviser at the Department of Health and Human Services, composed a scathing two-page critique of an interview given by a experienced scientist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Dr. Anne Schuchat, a 32-year veteran of the C.D.C. and its principal deputy director, had appealed to Americans to wear masks and warned, “We have way too much virus across the country.” But Dr. Alexander, a part-time assistant professor of health research methods, appeared sure he understood the coronavirus better.

“Her aim is to embarrass the president,” he wrote, commenting on Dr. Schuchat’s appeal for face masks in an interview with the Journal of the American Medical Association.

“She is duplicitous,” he also wrote in an email to his boss, Michael R. Caputo, the Health and Human Services Department’s top spokesman who went on medical leave this week. He asked Mr. Caputo to “remind” Dr. Schuchat that during the H1N1 swine flu outbreak in 2009, thousands of Americans had died “under her work.”

Of Dr. Schuchat’s assessment of Covid-19’s dangers, he fumed, wrongly, “The risk of death in children 0-19 years of age is basically 0 (zero) … PERIOD … she has lied.”

Dr. Alexander’s point-by-point assessment, broken into seven parts and forwarded by Mr. Caputo to Dr. Robert R. Redfield, the C.D.C. director, was one of several emails obtained by The New York Times that illustrate how Mr. Caputo and Dr. Alexander attempted to browbeat career officials at the C.D.C. at the height of the pandemic, challenging the science behind their public statements and attempting to silence agency staff.

On Friday, two days after Mr. Caputo went on medical leave and Dr. Alexander was dismissed from the Health and Human Services Department, the C.D.C. reversed a heavily criticized recommendation suggesting that people who have had close contact with a person infected with the coronavirus do not need to get tested if they have no symptoms. The emails shed light on the monthslong fight that led to their departures.

Far from hiding what they knew about the virus’s danger, as Bob Woodward’s new book contends President Trump was doing, the emails seem to indicate that aides in Washington were convinced of their own rosy prognostications, even as coronavirus infections were shooting skyward.

At the same time, Mr. Caputo moved to punish the C.D.C.’s communications team for granting interviews to NPR and attempting to help a CNN reporter reach him about a public-relations campaign. Current and former C.D.C. officials called it a five-month campaign of bullying and intimidation.

For instance, after Mr. Caputo forwarded the critique of Dr. Schuchat to Dr. Redfield, C.D.C. officials became concerned when a member of the health department’s White House liaison office — Catherine Granito — called the agency to ask questions about Dr. Schuchat’s biography, leaving the impression that some in Washington could have been searching for ways to fire her.

In another instance, Mr. Caputo wrote to C.D.C. communications officials on July 15 to demand they turn over the name of the press officer who approved a series of interviews between NPR and a longtime C.D.C. epidemiologist, after the department in Washington had moved to take ownership of the agency’s pandemic data collection.

“I need to know who did it,” Mr. Caputo wrote. A day later, still without a reply, Mr. Caputo wrote back. “I have not received a response to my email for 20 hours. This is unacceptable,” he said. “I need this information to properly manage department communications. If you disobey my directions, you will be held accountable.”

On Friday, a department spokeswoman said Mr. Caputo, in his comments about interview approvals, had been trying to make sure that the C.D.C. followed protocols dating to prior administrations that the department clear interview requests for health officials. The C.D.C. did not have an immediate comment, nor did Mr. Caputo.

In the months leading up to their exits, the two had routinely worked to revise and delay the C.D.C.’s closely guarded and internationally admired health bulletins, called Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports, in an effort to paint the administration’s pandemic response in a more positive light.

Far from apologetic, Dr. Alexander told The Globe and Mail of Toronto this week that the C.D.C. had written “pseudoscientific reports” and that he was better suited to examine data than agency scientists.

“None of those people have my skills,” Dr. Alexander said. “I make the judgment whether this is crap.”

They had to dig deeply to find someone as deluded and narcissistic as Donald Trump but they found him.

Michael Caputo is a mentally ill dirty trickster. This has been known for a very long time. It’s totally unsurprising that he’d install a hack like Alexander in an important job like this. Putting Caputo in charge of health messaging during a deadly pandemic is right up there with the most reckless decisions Trump has ever made.