Cheering for the President, Sorta
Yesterday I was driving through the peaceful residential streets of Rockville, listening to WTOP, our local DC news radio station, when the deep-voiced announcer teased an upcoming story: "News in one minute. President Trump was met with cheers at the Supreme Court today."
I was a little surprised at that, as you can imagine, and so I waited through a couple of commercials until the news came on. The actual story: "President Trump was met with chants and cheers of 'vote him out' at the Supreme Court today when he and the first lady went to pay their respects to the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg." (I am paraphrasing, pretty close.)
The President and First Lady made an obligatory appearance at Ruth Bader Ginsburg's flag-draped coffin, laid out between the imposing pillars of the Supreme Court building. In 2016, Ginsburg had told the New York Times that "I don't even want to contemplate" four years of a Trump presidency and the effect it could have on the high court. He responded "Her mind is shot - resign!" You could say the say the two of them represented two divergent views of what America can be.
Her death is a loss to the country and the Republicans' rush to fill her position before the election is ghoulish and embarrassing for them. They have announced that they already have enough votes for approval in the Senate but they do not know who the nominee will be -- a definition of partisanship. Trump wants to have another ally on the Supreme Court in case they have to decide the election as they did in 2000. At the same time, however, the country remembers that the Republican Senate would not even consider Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland in March, 2016, well before the campaign season. Playing games with our democracy leaves a bad taste and serves as a reminder of the current administration's corruption and its support by Congressional and downticket Republicans.
This is historic video, something you can show your grandchildren.
The crowd is murmuring and then one woman's voice is heard saying, "Vote him out," and the chant quickly sweeps through the crowd. There are no audible dissenters, no nervous tittering. Where Ginsburg brought stability and support for democracy to the country, Trump is undermining our institutions at every point, and the contrast was too stark here to make light of.
Trump stands there expressionless while the crowd expresses their loathing. It is a little reminiscent of the time he attended a baseball game last year and had to sit through a long round of booing and chants of "Lock him up!"
The country wants to get rid of this guy, and early voting has already started. His plan though, is simpler than all that: "We want to get rid of the ballots, and we’ll have a very peaceful — there won’t be a transfer, frankly. There’ll be a continuation."
Maybe, maybe not.
posted by JimK at 9:22 AM
203 Comments:
President Trump’s escalating and preemptive attacks aimed at undermining the legitimacy of the November election are generating growing fears of a looming constitutional crisis. The president reiterated on Thursday that he may not honor the results should he lose reelection, reaffirming his extraordinary refusal to commit to a peaceful transition of power.
In an interview with Fox News Radio, Trump said he would agree with a Supreme Court ruling that Democratic nominee Joe Biden won the election but without it, the vote count would amount to “a horror show” because of fraudulent ballots. He’s also continuing to agitate to get whomever he nominates onto the Supreme Court confirmed before November so that she can vote in his favor. There is no evidence to support Trump’s claims about widespread fraud.
Chris Wray's testimony before the Senate Homeland Security Committee again put him at odds with repeated assertions by the president who appointed him. Wray added the United States has not experienced large-scale voter fraud by mail or other means. “The FBI director, seemingly aware that his comments about election interference last week angered the president, said he was ‘in no way minimizing’ any threat to ballots. Changing the outcome of a federal election ‘would be a major challenge for an adversary,’ he said, adding that the FBI ‘would investigate seriously’ if it saw indications of such an effort,” Devlin Barrett reports.
Meanwhile Brown Nose Bill Barr's Justice Department alarmed voting-law experts Thursday by announcing an investigation into nine discarded ballots found in northeastern Pennsylvania, a case immediately seized upon by the Trump campaign as evidence of a dark Democratic conspiracy to tamper with the presidential election." Initially, DOJ announced that all nine votes were for Trump and then said there were actually seven. The president had already seized on the announcement as he hit the campaign trail. “Before the U.S. attorney’s statement, White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany told reporters that there would be an announcement about the case. A statement issued by the local district attorney earlier in the week expressed confidence that the investigation would be ‘successfully resolved so it will not have an impact on the integrity of the election process,’ a degree of assurance absent from the U.S. attorney’s announcement.
The investigation itself is worthwhile but it was a baldly political move to announce the probe with partial facts — which officials then had to scramble to correct — while describing which candidate was selected on the ballots. That is the tell, and it says this was not an act of law enforcement, this was a campaign act, and it should mean the end of the career of whoever approved the statement. The Justice Department should not be a political tool.
Trump just nominated Amy Coney Barrett about an hour ago.
There's nothing much left to say. Trump will win on Election Night but the mail-in count will be pending. The new Supreme Court will rule all mail-in ballots that were sent out without verifying the voter's eligibility to be invalid and declare Trump the winner.
Once that happens, you will all be summarily arrested and placed in re-education camps, from which you will emerge in a few months, happy and eager to serve the MAGA cause.
If only RBG had retired when she was 80. If only you hadn't nominated Hillary for President.
It might all be different.
I was just watching Anderson Cooper on CNN.
Man, is that gay guy in a bad mood or what?
Well, he had a rough upbringing...
Can you imagine being a young kid and you mother dances around on TV while some piano player sings "Gloria Vanderbilt's bottoms are the TOPS!
No wonder he went to play for the other team
"The President and First Lady made an obligatory appearance at Ruth Bader Ginsburg's flag-draped coffin,"
obligatory? more like gracious considering her inappropriate attacks on him during her lifetime. SCOTUS judges should remain above partisan politics but, in 2016, she declared she would leave America if Trump were elected. America took her up on her offer but she stuck around anyway
"the Republicans' rush to fill her position before the election is ghoulish"
was it ghoulish when LBJ "rushed" to fill the Oval Office when JFK was shot?
America needs a full Supreme Court to handle the constitutional crisis the Dems are creting with the election
"and embarrassing for them"
anyone not embarrassed by the antics of the Dems this week is beyond hope
Dems saying they will pack the court with liberals if elected and threatening to impeach Trump if he performs his constitutional duty and turn California into seven states so they can get more Senators
"They have announced that they already have enough votes for approval in the Senate but they do not know who the nominee will be -- a definition of partisanship."
Trump long ago gave his list of nominees for the next available seat
indeed, everyone knows he told Barrett, when he nominated the esteemed Brett Kavanaugh, that she would be nominated when Ginsburg retires
at Barrett's last confirmation hearing, the vile Diane Feinstein told Barrett she was too religious
"Trump wants to have another ally on the Supreme Court in case they have to decide the election as they did in 2000."
a good idea considering the mess the Dems have created
there are already 200 lawsuits filed about things such as how long after election do states have to wait before counting votes, will votes be thrown out if they ae not placed in the right envelopes, Maine's strange ranked voting system, et al
"At the same time, however, the country remembers that the Republican Senate would not even consider Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland in March, 2016, well before the campaign season."
oh, the Senate leader considered him and canvassed his colleagues
they made clear they wouldn't vote for someone who doesn't support the Constitution
if Obama had nominated someone like Neil Goresuch or Brett Kavanugh or Amy Coney Barrett or Robert Bork or Antonin Scalia, they'd have been happy to take it up
conservatives wisely talked Anthony Kennedy into retiring when he had reached the right age and they were able to put a younger man on while they could
Obama tried to talk Ginsburg into doing that when she turned 80 but she cared more about her personal position than the good of the country
"Playing games with our democracy leaves a bad taste"
letting voters decide when the President and Congress are at a stalemate isn't a game
that's how it was in 2016
the GOP rejected Garland and the America people awarded them control of Congress, the White House, most state houses, and governors' mansions
hence, they were in a position to place three originalist judges on the Supreme Court
and, hence, we now have the President and the Senate in agreement so the voters have already chosen!
and there is no need to ask them again
"and serves as a reminder of the current administration's corruption"
really? how?
"This is historic video, something you can show your grandchildren."
that will be something for them to snicker about
remember how obsessed Grandpa was with Trump?
"Once that happens, you will all be summarily arrested and placed in re-education camps, from which you will emerge in a few months, happy and eager to serve the MAGA cause.
If only RBG had retired when she was 80. If only you hadn't nominated Hillary for President.
It might all be different."
You know Rump is bad when even Republicans are trying to blame Democrats for him.'
Rethuglicans had something like 16 other deplorables they could have chosen instead of him. Most of them knew how to read.
Instead, the Rethuglicans' long term animosity towards education and deriding anyone with a college degree as "elite" came home to roost.
You are now the dumb people party. That shift was happening long before Rump ran for office.
Republicans spent decades whipping up fear and animosity towards Hillary Clinton. It is clear now that she couldn't have possibly done worse than President Rump. She even won more votes than the Mango Mussolini.
Democrats tried to save your ass. But you "won" and gloated about it for years. Now you're trying to blame Dems and Hillary for him.
You can not deflect your own stupidity on someone else.
History leaves footnotes for those who came in second in an election. But despite Rump's insistence that "it's not my fault," history will place the blame squarely at his feet - right next to his bone spurs - where it belongs.
I bet you don't remember who ran against Hitler in Germany's last fair election before WWII.
"the GOP rejected Garland and the America people awarded them control of Congress, the White House, most state houses, and governors' mansions"
No, the White House was NOT awarded by the American people. It was awarded by the electoral college system set up over two centuries ago to advantage white slave holders.
https://time.com/4558510/electoral-college-history-slavery/
Standard civics-class accounts of the Electoral College rarely mention the real demon dooming direct national election in 1787 and 1803: slavery.
Virginia emerged as the big winner—the California of the Founding era—with 12 out of a total of 91 electoral votes allocated by the Philadelphia Constitution, more than a quarter of the 46 needed to win an election in the first round. After the 1800 census, Wilson’s free state of Pennsylvania had 10% more free persons than Virginia, but got 20% fewer electoral votes. Perversely, the more slaves Virginia (or any other slave state) bought or bred, the more electoral votes it would receive. Were a slave state to free any blacks who then moved North, the state could actually lose electoral votes.
If the system’s pro-slavery tilt was not overwhelmingly obvious when the Constitution was ratified, it quickly became so. For 32 of the Constitution’s first 36 years, a white slaveholding Virginian occupied the presidency.
Southerner Thomas Jefferson, for example, won the election of 1800-01 against Northerner John Adams in a race where the slavery-skew of the electoral college was the decisive margin of victory: without the extra electoral college votes generated by slavery, the mostly southern states that supported Jefferson would not have sufficed to give him a majority. As pointed observers remarked at the time, Thomas Jefferson metaphorically rode into the executive mansion on the backs of slaves.
At the Philadelphia convention, the visionary Pennsylvanian James Wilson proposed direct national election of the president. But the savvy Virginian James Madison responded that such a system would prove unacceptable to the South: “The right of suffrage was much more diffusive [i.e., extensive] in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of Negroes.” In other words, in a direct election system, the North would outnumber the South, whose many slaves (more than half a million in all) of course could not vote. But the Electoral College—a prototype of which Madison proposed in this same speech—instead let each southern state count its slaves, albeit with a two-fifths discount, in computing its share of the overall count.
The 1796 contest between Adams and Jefferson had featured an even sharper division between northern states and southern states. Thus, at the time the Twelfth Amendment tinkered with the Electoral College system rather than tossing it, the system’s pro-slavery bias was hardly a secret. Indeed, in the floor debate over the amendment in late 1803, Massachusetts Congressman Samuel Thatcher complained that “The representation of slaves adds thirteen members to this House in the present Congress, and eighteen Electors of President and Vice President at the next election.” But Thatcher’s complaint went unredressed. Once again, the North caved to the South by refusing to insist on direct national election.
In light of this more complete (if less flattering) account of the electoral college in the late 18th and early 19th century, Americans should ask themselves whether we want to maintain this odd—dare I say peculiar?—institution in the 21st century.
Amy Coney Barrett...LOL!!!!!!!!
"You know Rump is bad when even Republicans are trying to blame Democrats for him."
I'm not Republican but anyone can see that Trump would have never become President if the Clintons hadn't bullied everyone else from running for the Dem nomination
even Biden, who four years ago still had his corrupt wits about him, would have beaten the most unpopular candidate of all time
then, we'd have a 6-3 liberal court for the next three decades rather than an originalist one
Dems might have resisted the Clinton machine but instead told themselves everyone will get excited about the first woman President just like they did the first black President
LOL!!!!!!!!
"Rethuglicans had something like 16 other deplorables they could have chosen instead of him. Most of them knew how to read."
and they chose the person it should have been easiest for the Dems to beat
AND THE DEMS BLEW IT!!!!
"Instead, the Rethuglicans' long term animosity towards education and deriding anyone with a college degree as "elite" came home to roost."
Are you talking about Trump?
He went to Wharton.
Other than Scott Walker, all the Republicans went to college
although, Trump did address the issues that blue-collar workers had
Hillary didn't, one of her other glaring historical errors
"You are now the dumb people party. That shift was happening long before Rump ran for office."
well, the smart people party has been running inner cities for decades and the result has been crumbling urban economies, dangerous failing schools, and racist police departments
good job, smart people
good job making yourself rich
"Republicans spent decades whipping up fear and animosity towards Hillary Clinton."
long before those decades had passed, way back in the early 90s, she said she was the victim of a "vast, right-wing conspiracy"
why did James Comey let her delete all her emails during a criminal investigation?
No other criminal would be allowed to do that
"It is clear now that she couldn't have possibly done worse than President Rump."
it's clear, by any objective measure, that few could have done better than Trump
"She even won more votes than the Mango Mussolini."
Ever hear of California?
10% of Americans live there
because of their unique system, most offices had no Republican candidates in the general election
since Hillary was far ahead in the polls there, there was no reason for Republicans to vote
if we had a national popular election they might have
same with New York
there is no way to draw conclusions about how a popular vote would ended because we didn't have one
"Democrats tried to save your ass."
by running the worst possible candidate?
the Dem party, after their failure in November, will be taken over by moderate Republicans
then, America's two parties will be moderate v conservative Republicans
AOC and Bernie and the rest will become an irrelevant wing of the Green Party
"But you "won" and gloated about it for years. Now you're trying to blame Dems and Hillary for him.
You can not deflect your own stupidity on someone else."
sorry, you nominated the worst possible candidate in 2016
history will call you fools
legal experts are saying that having Amy Coney Barrett on the court will erase decades of gains by LBGTQ advocates
that will be a damn shame
LOL!!!!!!!!!!
she thinks that homosexual "marriage" in not in the Constitution
says it should be left to states
four guys already on the Supreme Court agree with her
can't wait to hear Feinstein and Harris ask her about it and get that answer
AND THEN AMY GETS CONFIRMED!
priceless
also, she doesn't think sodomy is a right guaranteed in the Constitution
A lot has happened for Amy Coney Barrett in the last three years. She was a little-known law professor at Notre Dame and then a judge on the U.S. Circuit of Appeals, and now she is President Trump’s third Supreme Court nominee.
She can thank Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
It was, after all, the California Democrat who questioned her faith. The ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee peppered Barrett about her Catholicism during the appeals court confirmation process, insinuating that the nominee’s religion clouded her legal judgment. “Dogma and law are two different things,” Feinstein lectured. “And I think whatever a religion is, it has its own dogma. The law is totally different. And I think in your case, professor, when you read your speeches, the conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within you.”
Conservatives were furious. They were also delighted. Until then, Barrett was an elite only in narrow judicial circles. Feinstein, a non-lawyer herself, made Barrett into a populist hero with just six words: “The dogma lives loudly within you.”
Right-wing corners of the Internet lit up with memes celebrating the judge and mocking the senator. And the message was simple: “Hell, yeah, the dogma lives loudly.” One meme depicted Feinstein as Darth Vader uttering the melodramatic words, and around that time White House counsel Don McGahn got a bright idea. He had coffee mugs made, each stamped with Feinstein’s infamous words. And, sources tell RealClearPolitics, for the last three years the best way to flaunt one’s conservative credentials in this White House was to roll into a morning meeting with a “dogma” mug.
Badges of honor at the time, those mugs are now a necessity. White House aides may lose some sleep and will need caffeine in the days to come. The battle over Barrett and the seat of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is just now beginning. It will be a bitter one.
Trump introduced his third high court nominee in the Rose Garden on Saturday, praising Barrett as “a woman of unparalleled achievement, towering intellect, sterling credentials, and unyielding loyalty to the Constitution.” Her name had been leaked to the New York Times, and it had been reported earlier that Trump was saving “saving her for Ginsburg.” Conservatives were not surprised – and they continued to be delighted.
The president quipped on Friday at a campaign stop that whomever he nominated "hopefully will be on that court for 50 years." If confirmed, the 48-year-old jurist might very well serve a good portion of those years, shifting the ideological course of the court to the right, at least for the time being.
“You are not there to decide cases as you may prefer. You are there to do your duty and to follow the law, whatever it may take,” Trump said Saturday. He told more than a hundred supporters gathered at the White House that “this should be a straightforward and prompt confirmation.”
Then, as if to clarify her dogma, Barrett explained her originalism and textualist while referencing her old boss, the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
“I love the United States, and I love the United States Constitution,” she said reading from prepared remarks. “I am truly humbled by the prospect of serving on the Supreme Court.”
Just hours earlier, the Barrett family was spotted at their Indiana home, piling into their minivan for a trip to the airport, and there were seats reserved at the White House for the entire brood. Trump thanked each of her seven children for “sharing your wonderful mother with the country.” He noted that “if confirmed, Justice Barrett will make history as the first mother of school-aged children ever to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.”
The nominee spoke openly about her family, noting that “while I am a judge, I’m better known back home as a room parent, a carpool driver, and a birthday planner.” The crowd loved it, and the nominee later thanked her family for their support -- and even the babysitter, who was also at the White House.
The choice will resonate with suburban women ahead of the election.
Has anyone ever sobbed about loving beer at a job interview and gotten the job besides Brett Kanaugh
Wyatt/Regina Hardiman said "The choice will resonate with suburban women ahead of the election."
For once in your life acknowledge reality. Two thirds of Americans think the Supreme Court vacancy should be filled by the next president. Biden has had an average 8 point lead in the polls over Trump.
There is no reason to believe Trump can win a fair and free 2020 election, the people are overwhelmingly opposed to him and his catastrophic presidency. You want a religious dictatorship and will do anything to bring it about, just like Trump.
This is tribal evolutionary psychology at play. 30% of the population has a psychological tendency to want to go to war and kill another tribe. Given that's how they really feel, for conservatives like Wyatt and Regina lying non-stop is trivial.
The Authoritarians
Republicans in 2016 insisted that it was fair and obvious that in an election year if a Supreme Court vacancy came up it should wait to be filled until after the election by the winner. They insisted they'd do the same if a vacancy came up in the last year of the Trump presidency.
Now of course they've reneged on their promise because to conservatives only Democrats are to be bound by the law. This kind of double standard is a basic psychological tendency of conservatives.
The psychological tendency of conservatives to want to go to war is destroying American democracy. Trump will have appointed three justices who do not share the values of the majority of Americans. This is the moral failing of American conservatism, they demand supremacy in the law despite not representing the majority.
Like almost all judges Trump has appointed Amy Barret a religious extremist and is horrifically unqualified, having only been a judge for three years. She has promised to kill the Affordable Care Act which provides 180 million Americans with preexisting health conditions the right to health insurance at the same price as every one else.
Trump attempted to gaslight Americans again by signing an executive order he claims protects preexisting conditions coverage when in reality it carries no legal weight and does nothing. Meanwhile Trump and the Republicans fight in court to take away these rights from Americans by killing The Affordable Care Act right in the middle of an epidemic. This is not the time to take away health care from tens of millions of Americans
Trump and Republicans are now planning to make having had Covid-19 a preexisting health condition that health insurance companies can use to deny people health care.
Meanwhile corrupt Lindsey Graham says he expects the Supreme Court with 6 judges appointed by Republicans to decide who wins the next election. Trump has assembled a vast legal team to try and use the courts he's packed to override the democratic will of the people and have a corrupted judiciary decide the election.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "Anonymous government is not the solution to our problems, government is the problem"
What they mean by this is that they want to take away your Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. They want you to pay if you want the protection of the police or fire department. They want to force you to pay to send your children to school.
LONG-CONCEALED RECORDS SHOW TRUMP’S CHRONIC LOSSES AND YEARS OF TAX AVOIDANCE
Busted.
"Republicans in 2016 insisted that it was fair and obvious that in an election year if a Supreme Court vacancy came up it should wait to be filled until after the election by the winner"
only if there is a disagreement betwixt the President and the Senate
it didn't matter who Obama nominated
they weren't going to pass
no, we have a different circumstance
everyone agrees Amy Coney Barrett is the right person in the right place at the right time
it's like magic - she will be confirmed
a beacon for women everywhere!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
no more gay agenda
LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "only if there is a disagreement betwixt the President and the Senate no, we have a different circumstance"
Of course you're still lying as are the Republicans - no such excuse was offered in 2016, Republicans were unconditional then - they would not try to confirm a supreme court justice in the last year of Trump's term.
Republicans lied, as they always do - they demand Democrats follow the rules (and they do) while they treat the rules as a joke for them to ignore.
There is no honour amongst conservatives. They are morally bankrupt.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous aid "everyone agrees Amy Coney Barrett is the right person in the right place at the right time".
No, they don't. Two thirds of Americans say the seat should only be filled by the winner of the 2020 election.
Republicans tried this with Sarah Palin, thinking they could disingenuously chose a an anti woman woman and people would vote for her. Its no different than Barrett, no one's going to be fooled into thinking she's pro-woman just because she's female.
Barrett has promised to push her extremist religious beliefs into her rulings on the law. She is anti-woman and everyone knows it.
"no such excuse was offered in 2016, Republicans were unconditional then - they would not try to confirm a supreme court justice in the last year of Trump's term"
no "excuse" was needed
they were acting within their Constitutional power and simply explained the choice they made, under their Constitutional power
sorry if Dems misunderstood but the America people were fine with it,=
they rewarded the Grand Old Party by electing a Republican President
then, in 2016, the Dems tried defaming Trump's nominee, the esteemed and fun Brett Kavanaugh, and the American people punished the Dems by giving the GOP a pick-up of four seats in the Senate
which is why they have the Constitutional power now to place the wonderful Amy Coney Barrett on the court
they don't even have to put up with the crap the Dems pulled on Kavanaugh
"Republicans lied, as they always do - they demand Democrats follow the rules (and they do) while they treat the rules as a joke for them to ignore."
the rules are in the Constitution
the President nominates, the Senate consents
it just so happens that Americans put the decision in the hands of Republicans
"There is no honour amongst conservatives. They are morally bankrupt."
this will be discussed at re-education camp
"No, they don't. Two thirds of Americans say the seat should only be filled by the winner of the 2020 election."
the Constitution doesn't give pollsters a vote
you may remember that most Americans opposed Obamacare and Nancy Pelosi said "they'll learn to like it"
"Republicans tried this with Sarah Palin, thinking they could disingenuously chose a an anti woman woman and people would vote for her. Its no different than Barrett, no one's going to be fooled into thinking she's pro-woman just because she's female."
what you're saying makes no sense and everyone is laughing
btw, transgenders are anti-woman and a gangrene on society
"Barrett has promised to push her extremist religious beliefs into her rulings on the law."
well, she has stated that judges should work to advance the Kingdom of God
enough Americans agree with that that it's a view that should be represented on the court
they are eight other judges to represent other points of view
there are even three judges that represent the TTF unconstitutional and anti-religious point of view
"She is anti-woman and everyone knows it."
maybe everyone in a nuthouse in a bleak part of Canada
you and the inmates must have a lot of fun talkin' politics!
boy, oh boy
did you guys make a huuuge mistake nominating Hillary or what?
Until now, one way to describe extreme conservatives was to call them “right of Attila the Hun.” Amy Coney Barrett is even further along that spectrum – she is right of Antonin Scalia.
Barrett, President Donald Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court, once worked as law clerk for Scalia. Whereas the late Supreme Court justice referred to himself as a “faint-hearted originalist,” who was willing to allow case precedent to influence what he believed to be the original intent of the framers of the Constitution, Barrett makes no such concession. She wrote in a 2013 law review article that stare decisis, the principle that courts should follow prior case decisions, is a “soft rule,” not an “inexorable command,” with “constitutional cases the easiest to overrule.” In that same article, Barrett went on to say words that should encourage the majority of Americans who oppose the Court’s 1973 decision to legalize abortion in Roe v. Wade: “I tend to agree with those who say that a justice’s duty is to the Constitution and that it is thus more legitimate for her to enforce her best understanding of the Constitution than a precedent that she thinks clearly in conflict with it.
Legal experts say she will dismantle all the work LGBTQ advocates have done to get special preferences for gays.
But, at least you'll still have the gay-friendly President in history in the White House
don't worry, be happy!!!!!!!!!!
But I do not like the fact that I paid more income tax than Rump did.
Lots of people agree.
It's obscene that Mr. Gold-Plated Rich Boy pays no income taxes while us working stiffs do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=29&v=uBZR1-onmAo&feature=emb_logo
Hillary: "...or maybe he doesn't want the American people, all of you watching tonight, to know that he's paid nothing in federal taxes because the only years that anybody's ever seen were a couple of years when he had to turn them over to state authorities when he was trying to get a casino license and they showed he didn't pay any federal income tax..."
Rump: "that makes me smart"
Hillary: "so if he's paid he paid zero, that means zero for troops, zero for vets, zero for schools or health...."
"did you guys make a huuuge mistake nominating Hillary or what?"
Actually, it was you Rumplicans who made the huuuge mistake for supporting a tax-cheat.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "trangenderism is sexist and anti-woman: a gangrene on society"
That's a lie. No one has been hurt by me living as a woman and society treating me as a woman.
You seek to encourage violence against trans-women by using Nazi propaganda tactics. That's who you are:
The Authoritarians
Wyatt/Regina/bad aonymous said "it just so happens that Americans put the decision in the hands of Republicans".
Millions more Americans voted for Hillary and Democrats for the Senate than voted for Trump and Republicans - the people wanted the decision to be made by Democrats. Republicans are grotesquely dishonest and anti-democratic.
I said "There is no honour amongst conservatives. They are morally bankrupt."
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "this will be discussed at re-education camp".
Trump said the free press is the enemy of Americans. Re-education camps are a Republican thing.
I posted "No, they don't. Two thirds of Americans say the seat should only be filled by the winner of the 2020 election."
Wyatt/Regina/bad aonymous said "the Constitution doesn't give pollsters a vote".
Like the pharisees, you adhere to the letter of the law while ignoring the spirit of the law - that the people choose.
Republicans insisted it was fair and right that the people have a say in who the next supreme court justice is, they are honour bound by their own words to leave this seat vacant until after the election.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "you may remember that most Americans opposed Obamacare and Nancy Pelosi said "they'll learn to like it"".
Half of those you claim "opposed' wanted Obamacare to go further than it did - a majority of Americans liked Obamacare or wanted even more of it.
Now Obamacare is even more popular with the vast majority of Americans wanting to keep the protections for preexisting conditions it gave them and Republicans are trying to take away.
I said "Barrett has promised to push her extremist religious beliefs into her rulings on the law."
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "well, she has stated that judges should work to advance the Kingdom of God".
Which is a blatant violation of the First Amendment's seperation of church and state - she completely disqualified herself with that statement, she is unfit to be a judge of any sort, let alone on the Supreme Court.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "enough Americans agree with that that it's a view that should be represented on the court they are eight other judges to represent other points of view".
You grossly mischaracterize the reality. With Barret on the court two-thirds of the court will be religious extremists who oppose the First Amendment and represent at best 30% of the population. The majority of Americans deserve a court that represents their values, not one packed with loyalists to the dictator Trump.
Biden Picks Up Some More High-Profile Endorsements
On Thursday, "489 retired Generals, Admirals, Senior Noncommissioned Officers, Ambassadors and Senior Civilian National Security Officials" who are calling themselves "National Security Leaders for Biden" published an open letter announcing their support for, and their endorsement of, the Democratic candidate. The missive is mostly an accounting of the things the signatories like about Biden, but it also finds time to take Donald Trump down a few pegs:
The current President has demonstrated he is not equal to the enormous responsibilities of his office; he cannot rise to meet challenges large or small. Thanks to his disdainful attitude and his failures, our allies no longer trust or respect us, and our enemies no longer fear us. Climate change continues unabated, as does North Korea's nuclear program. The president has ceded influence to a Russian adversary who puts bounties on the heads of American military personnel, and his trade war against China has only harmed America's farmers and manufacturers. The next president will have to address those challenges while struggling with an economy in a deep recession and a pandemic that has already claimed more than 200,000 of our fellow citizens. America, with 4% of the world's population suffers with 25% of the world's COVID-19 cases. Only FDR and Abraham Lincoln came into office facing more monumental crises than the next president.
I said "Of course you're still lying as are the Republicans - no such excuse was offered in 2016, Republicans were unconditional then - they would not try to confirm a supreme court justice in the last year of Trump's term. "
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "no "excuse" was needed they were acting within their Constitutional power and simply explained the choice they made, under their Constitutional power sorry if Dems misunderstood but the America people were fine with it,= they rewarded the Grand Old Party by electing a Republican President"
Republicans promised they would not fill a Supreme court vacancy in the last year of Trump's term even if they had the power! They lied! They broke what they insisted was a solemn commitment. That's who they are.
They said "Use our words against us if we do.". There was no qualifications to that, it was an open ended promise by the highest profile Republicans. "Dems" didn't "misunderstand" a damn thing, Republicans lied like the always do. And the people chose Hillary for president by 3 million votes, Trump won on a technicality.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "then, in 2016, the Dems tried defaming Trump's nominee, the esteemed and fun Brett Kavanaugh, and the American people punished the Dems by giving the GOP a pick-up of four seats in the Senate".
That's a lie. The American people gave millions more votes for the Senate to Democrats than they did to Republicans. The Senate is anti-democratic. The people wanted Democrats to control the Senate.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "which is why they have the Constitutional power now to place the wonderful Amy Coney Barrett on the court".
Which they promised they wouldn't use in the last year of Trump's term - they are morally bankrupt, as are you two.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "they don't even have to put up with the crap the Dems pulled on Kavanaugh".
Kavanaugh sexually assaulted multiple women and Republicans swept it under the rug - he should be impeached as the unfit drunk he is.
I said "Republicans lied, as they always do - they demand Democrats follow the rules (and they do) while they treat the rules as a joke for them to ignore."
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "the rules are in the Constitution the President nominates, the Senate consents".
In 2016 Republicans claimed they were following a fictional "Biden Rule" that a Supreme Court justice shouldn't be appointed in the last year of a president's term. They insisted this rule of their own making must be followed by Democrats but now when the shoe is on the other foot they won't follow their own rule - they lied.
1/ The New York Times #TrumpTaxReturns story is terrific. I had about a million thoughts as I was reading though. I’ll be annotating those here, in this thread, for the next few hours.
2/ Story starts with this bombshell, that Trump paid just $750 in taxes in 2016 and another $750 in 2017. Shocking numbers for someone who we estimate is worth $2.5B. (Yes, you can still be really rich and disclose a tiny income or even huge losses. More on his net worth later.)
3/ Then we get to this part about the current state of his business, which highlights the amount of debt that Trump has coming due. We actually already know a lot about his debt — far more than most people who follow the news might think. Let’s pause here and dig into it.
4/ We’ll start at Trump’s old home, Trump Tower, where he owes $100M. This document shows that it has a $100M loan against it, with a 4.2% interest rate, due 9/6/2022. Trump, as you can see, has not paid down a dime of the principal.
5/ Then we’ll go to 40 Wall Street, where he owes $139M, split into several chunks. You can see the interest rate on all are 3.665%, and all of those come due on 7/6/25. Total debt accounted for so far: $239M million.
6/ We’ll next look at 1290 Ave. of the Americas, in which Trump owns a 30% interest alongside publicly traded Vornado. VNO discloses that there’s $950M of debt against it in doc below. Due in Nov 2022. Trump’s 30% share then equals $285M. Total debt accounted for so far: $524M.
7/ Then we’ll consider 555 California St., in which Trump also owns a 30% interest alongside Vornado. VNO discloses there’s $543M against that building, with a 5.1% interest rate, due Sep 2021. Trump’s 30% share is then 0.3 * 543 = $163M. Total debt accounted for so far: $687M.
8/ Now let’s look at Doral, Trump’s golf resort in Miami. It has 2 mortgages against it, totaling $125M. Both mature in 2023 and have variable interest rates. You can see the first pages of the mortgages, with the amounts circled, here. Total debt accounted for so far: $812M.
9/ There’s also a loan against the DC hotel. The mortgage, which you can see below, lists it at $170M. The NYT reports that the balance is $160M. Trump may have paid down some principal here. We’ll use the NYT figure for our tally. Total debt accounted for so far: $972M.
10/ In New York, Trump owes a combined of $20M against a two smaller properties, Trump Plaza ($13.2M) and Trump International Hotel & Tower ($6.5M). Total debt accounted for so far: $992M.
11/ At Trump Park Ave, where Ivanka and Jared used to live (in a condo owned by Donald), there’s another loan, which was at $15.3M in 2010, according to the doc below. Trump has been paying that one down. Probably closer to $10M now. Total debt accounted for so far: $1 billion.
12/ In Chicago, Trump lists two loans on his financial disclosure report. One for $25-50M and one for $50M+. These are complex liabilities that I won’t go too much into right now, but that’s another $75M+ in debt. Total debt accounted for so far: $1.1 billion.
13/ Trump has other small loans against a golf club in DC, one in New Jersey and a couple of mansions. Those add up to about another $35M or so in additional debt. The total accounted for still rounds to $1.1 billion. A lot of that, as the NYT story says, is coming due soon.
14/ Going to to take a break to write a story. I’ll be back when I’m done, with a LOT more to say about this great reporting from the New York Times.
"But I do not like the fact that I paid more income tax than Rump did."
relax
he did a lot more to contribute to the economy in other ways
he generated jobs for multitudes and contributed to all kinds of civic works and funded many businesses
tax breaks are how our democratically elected government controls rich people and gets them to spend their money in productive ways
btw, how many jobs have you generated?
if you'd get off your lazy ass and start some type of enterprise, maybe you'd get a tax break too
"Actually, it was you Rumplicans who made the huuuge mistake for supporting a tax-cheat."
three Supreme Court seats doesn't seem like much of a mistake
if you got zero Supreme Courts, that means you something wrong
you made a monstrously huge mistake, which you bitterly regret!
"Blogger Priya Lynn said...
This comment has been removed by the author."
he's getting nervous now
LOL!!!!!!!!!!
Good anonymous said ""But I do not like the fact that I paid more income tax than Rump did."
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "relax he did a lot more to contribute to the economy in other ways he generated jobs for multitudes and contributed to all kinds of civic works and funded many businesses"
All lies. He bankrupted multiple businesses sticking investors and contractors with the bills he refused to pay, he's hundreds of millions in debt and owes more than he has. Trump has done nothing to contribute to the economy, he's a leech sucking up billions from others and never returning a dime. His "charity" was a court ended fraud that Trump used for personal benefit. He never did any "civic works" and all his current businesses are failing.
Good anonymous said "Actually, it was you Rumplicans who made the huuuge mistake for supporting a tax-cheat."
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "three Supreme Court seats doesn't seem like much of a mistake".
Right, if you want a dictatorship which is what Republicans are trying to bring about. For any Trump voters that believe in democracy, they know they made a big mistake
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said " I wonder how many cognitive capability tests Joe Biden had this week?".
Please, its obvious to any honest observer Biden is sharp and Trump is seriously mentally deteriorated. You don't hear Biden telling people to inject bleach to cure Covid-19. You don't hear Biden going around bragging about passing a test for severe dementia.
"The country wants to get rid of this guy, and early voting has already started. His plan though, is simpler than all that: "We want to get rid of the ballots, and we’ll have a very peaceful — there won’t be a transfer, frankly. There’ll be a continuation.""
People keep saying he's a dictator, but there's nothing dictatorial about that!
Wyatt/Regina are thinking: "Conservative Christian is right, destroying ballots to win isn't dictatorial, name one dictator who has destroyed ballots to win the election!"
"Millions more Americans voted for Hillary and Democrats for the Senate than voted for Trump and Republicans - the people wanted the decision to be made by Democrats. Republicans are grotesquely dishonest and anti-democratic."
polls show the Supreme Court has a higher approval rating than Democrats in Congress
and when Democrats tried to get nasty with Trump's second nominee, Trump's approval rating went up
sounds like Americans like the way the Supreme Court has shaped up
you'll learn all about it in re-education camp
"the free press is the enemy of Americans"
this is a lie by Randy
Trump never said free press is the enemy of Americans
Randy is known for lies
last month, he said Trump told people to drink disinfectant and that Robert Mueller referred Trump to Congress for prosecution
Randy, present your opinion without lying
you'll feel better about yourself
"Like the pharisees, you adhere to the letter of the law while ignoring the spirit of the law - that the people choose."
we are a Republic
people don't choose
they choose who chooses
another lie by Randy
"Republicans insisted it was fair and right that the people have a say in who the next supreme court justice is, they are honour bound by their own words to leave this seat vacant until after the election."
there was a deadlock and Republicans said let's let the American choose who should choose
they chose
they chose Trump and a GOP Senate over Obama sycophant Hillary and the despicable Chuck Schumer
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous posted "
"Blogger Priya Lynn said...
This comment has been removed by the author."
he's getting nervous now
LOL!!!!!!!!!!"
That they post this instead of trying to address the points I made shows its they who are nervous about debate with me.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!
Joe Biden emailed.
Kamala Harris emailed.
Andrew Cuomo emailed.
Pete Buttigieg emailed.
Beto O'Rourke emailed.
Khizr Khan emailed.
Paul Begala emailed.
Carole King emailed.
Now I am.
I’m asking you to make a choice today. I’m asking you not to become complacent, disheartened, or hopeless in the wake of what’s transpired under this president.
I’m asking you to choose something better.
I’m asking you to work together with your fellow Democrats to restore President Obama’s legacy with the Biden-Harris ticket.
I’m asking you to join me in these next 48 hours and fight to flip the Senate and fortify our Democratic Majority for years to come.
This End of Quarter Deadline is truly the most important of this election. I’m asking: Will you please pitch in $1 in the final days?
Thank you,
Jimmy Carter
The nation’s suicide rate reached historic highs prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, with rates at the highest levels since World War II. Economic and social pressures this year have heightened the risks, worrying experts, health officials and lawmakers.
Suicide mortality rates that were rising over the past two decades combined with the current pandemic are a “perfect storm,” found a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in April. Factors include economic stress, social isolation, reduced access to religious services, overall national anxiety, increased firearm sales and increases in health care provider suicides.
“We have people now who don’t know how to feed their family who have not had that thought for a very long time. That’s different than the last recession,” said American Psychiatric Association President Jeffrey Geller. “There are masses of people who are quite worried today because they don’t know what is going to happen to their benefits. That kind of anxiety exacerbates fragility.”
The National Alliance on Mental Illness HelpLine has seen a 65 percent increase in calls and emails since March, according to the organization, though it is not a crisis hotline.
It’s still early for government data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but some experts point to similar rises in suicide deaths during other health crises and economic recessions. Suicide increased in the United States during the influenza pandemic in 1918-19 and in 2003 in older populations in Hong Kong during the SARS epidemic.
A 2019 study in the International Journal of Social Psychiatry looking at the 2008 economic crisis found that financial crises can lead to more suicides.
“Suicide is likely to become a more pressing concern as the pandemic spreads and has longer-term effects on the general population, the economy, and vulnerable groups. Preventing suicide therefore needs urgent consideration,” wrote University of Bristol suicidology expert David J. Gunnell in the June issue of The Lancet. “The pandemic will cause distress and leave many people vulnerable to mental health problems and suicidal behaviour. Mental health consequences are likely to be present for longer and peak later than the actual pandemic.”
CDC Director Robert Redfield also commented in July on a spike in suicides.
“There has been another cost that we’ve seen, particularly in high schools. We’re seeing, sadly, far greater suicides now than we are deaths from COVID. We’re seeing far greater deaths from drug overdose,” said Redfield.
Congress is considering some initial steps to address the growing rate of suicides.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee advanced a bipartisan mental health package in July by voice vote, including four bills that would address suicide prevention and education.
“Education and front-line services are things that we can be doing right now immediately. In the same way we educate people about wearing masks and social distancing, we should be educating people about depression,” said Geller, who testified before the committee earlier this year. “There aren’t enough resources because there weren’t enough resources before COVID.”
"Which is a blatant violation of the First Amendment's seperation of church and state - she completely disqualified herself with that statement, she is unfit to be a judge of any sort, let alone on the Supreme Court."
It's not any type of violation at all. Fortunately, Americans have chosen people who understand that and will confirm ACB right away - just like magic!
"You grossly mischaracterize the reality. With Barret on the court two-thirds of the court will be religious extremists who oppose the First Amendment and represent at best 30% of the population."
usually when you say "religious extremist", you mean evangelical Christians
there aren't any evangelicals on the SCOTUS
there are several Catholics
ACB is a Catholic too but also belongs to a parachurch group that has some Pentecostals
in any case, Christian believers support the First Amendment
they believe the Kingdom of God advances when everyone is free to express their views without government sanction
the gay agenda, however, tries to suppress speech and redefine definitions by governmental fiat
but now, we will have an originalist court that supports all the amendments
"The majority of Americans deserve a court that represents their values,"
minorities deserve representation as well, you bigot
"not one packed with loyalists to the dictator Trump."
you mean the people Hillary called deplorable?
that didn't work out that well for her, did it?
not eOn Thursday, "489 retired Generals, Admirals, Senior Noncommissioned Officers, Ambassadors and Senior Civilian National Security Officials" who are calling themselves "National Security Leaders for Biden" published an open letter announcing their support for, and their enxactly
LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"Republicans promised they would not fill a Supreme court vacancy in the last year of Trump's term even if they had the power!"
I've seen a quote from Lindsey Graham that said something like that
he's a weasel but doesn't speak for his party
"They said "Use our words against us if we do.". There was no qualifications to that, it was an open ended promise by the highest profile Republicans."
well, you're lying but go ahead
use their words against them
won't make any difference
ACB is coming and every Republican that votes for her will be re-elected
the only one in danger is Susan Collins, who said she won't vote for ACB
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I said "Millions more Americans voted for Hillary and Democrats for the Senate than voted for Trump and Republicans - the people wanted the decision to be made by Democrats. Republicans are grotesquely dishonest and anti-democratic."
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "polls show the Supreme Court has a higher approval rating than Democrats in Congress".
That's irrelevant. The people overwhelmingly voted for Democrats over Republicans for both president and Congress. The people want the decision to be made by Democrats.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "and when Democrats tried to get nasty with Trump's second nominee, Trump's approval rating went up".
If true (and based on your history it isn't) that's irrelevant. You just said polls showing 2/3rds of Americans want the next president to fill the Supreme Court seat don't matter. Now like the hypocrite you are you are citing past polls like they do matter, which they don't given that Trump's present approval rating is a disaster.
I said "Trump said the free press is the enemy of Americans"
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "this is a lie by Randy Trump never said free press is the enemy of Americans Randy is known for lies".
Its you who is known for lies and who is lying! Trump most certainly did say the free press was the enemy of Americans. You violate the ten commandment one about lying ever day and yet pretend you're morally superior to harmless lgbt people.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "last month, he said Trump told people to drink disinfectant and that Robert Mueller referred Trump to Congress for prosecution".
I mistook him saying "inject disinfectants" for "drink disinfectants" - that's not a lie. And Mueller certainly did refer a 12 count criminal indictment of Trump for obstruction of congress for further action.
I said"Like the pharisees, you adhere to the letter of the law while ignoring the spirit of the law - that the people choose."
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "we are a Republic people don't choose they choose who chooses another lie by Randy".
LOL! How "letter of the law" of you versus the democratic spirit of the law! So Mitch McConnell was a liar in 2016 when he said the people should get to decide who appoints the next Supreme Court Justice - gotchya ;). You're one sick puppy.
"Republicans insisted it was fair and right that the people have a say in who the next supreme court justice is, they are honour bound by their own words to leave this seat vacant until after the election."
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "there was a deadlock and Republicans said let's let the American choose who should choose they chose they chose Trump and a GOP Senate over Obama sycophant Hillary and the despicable Chuck Schumer".
Republicans in 2016 said the people should have a say in who the next justice was and that's just as true now as it was then - Republicans broke their promise, they can never be trusted.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "well, she has stated that judges should work to advance the Kingdom of God".
I said "Which is a blatant violation of the First Amendment's seperation of church and state - she completely disqualified herself with that statement, she is unfit to be a judge of any sort, let alone on the Supreme Court."
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "It's not any type of violation at all. Fortunately, Americans have chosen people who understand that and will confirm ACB right away - just like magic!".
It is unconstitutional for her to rule in a way that pushes fundamentalist christian dogma ahead of everyone else. She has promised to do that, she has disqualified herself.
I said "You grossly mischaracterize the reality. With Barret on the court two-thirds of the court will be religious extremists who oppose the First Amendment and represent at best 30% of the population."
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "usually when you say "religious extremist", you mean evangelical Christians there aren't any evangelicals on the SCOTUS there are several Catholics".
I never said any such thing. She is a Catholic religious extremist along with the other Catholics on the Supreme Court. She has promised to favour christianity over all others in her rulings, that will be unconstitutional.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "in any case, Christian believers support the First Amendment".
That's a lie. Christians like you and Barett oppose the first amendment's separation of church and state. You're entrenching christian superiority in the law over all others. That's unconstitutional
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous "they believe the Kingdom of God advances when everyone is free to express their views without government sanction".
You're free to express your views without government sanction. What you are not free to do is to place yourselves above harmless lgbt people in the law.
I said "The majority of Americans deserve a court that represents their values,"
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "minorities deserve representation as well, you bigot".
Oh please, christians represent 98% of the people in Congress, you're over-represented and at the seat of power which you use to promote aggression and harm against others. YOU are the bigot.
I said "Republicans promised they would not fill a Supreme court vacancy in the last year of Trump's term even if they had the power!"
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said I've seen a quote from Lindsey Graham that said something like that he's a weasel but doesn't speak for his party".
Be honest for once in your life. Mitch McConnell, Chuck Grassley and many, many others said the same thing. Republicans as a party said in 2016 the next president should get to appoint the vacant Supreme Court seat because they wouldn't do that themselves in the last year of Trump's term. The Republican party made a solemn committment to not do what they are now insisting they will do. They are morally bankrupt and place achieving power above any principle they've claimed to support in the past.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "use their words against them won't make any difference".
Of course it won't, because conservatives are immoral:
The Authoritarians
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "ACB is coming and every Republican that votes for her will be re-elected the only one in danger is Susan Collins, who said she won't vote for ACB".
Several Republican Senators are in danger including Lindsey Graham. The American public overwhelmingly rejects the Republican agenda.
Trump's past tweets slammed others for not paying enough taxes and claimed he pays 'more'
Over the years, President Donald Trump’s Twitter feed has featured messages slamming others for not paying taxes, bragging about how rich he is, criticizing those paying taxes overseas, and even claiming he pays “more taxes in one year than you pay in your entire life.”
It all reads differently now after The New York Times obtained decades of Trump’s tax information and found that he “has been more successful playing a business mogul than being one in real life.”
The key finding in the Times report was that he paid just $750 in federal income taxes the year he won the presidency and another $750 in 2017. He also paid no income taxes at all in 10 of the previous 15 years.
That didn’t stop him from attacking others for supposedly not paying enough in taxes. In 2012, he tweeted that then-President Barack Obama “only pays 20.5%” of his earnings in taxes.
The same year, he sent along a story about Americans not paying taxes “despite crippling govt debt.”
Perhaps nowhere is the disconnect between his public message and apparent private financial situation more stark than in the messages Trump has tweeted out over the years.
In more recent years, during his own run for president and since taking office, Trump has repeatedly gone after another perceived political enemy, Amazon (AMZN), for not paying its taxes.
Trump actually bragged about paying taxes in a few instances. In 2013, he retweeted an account that claimed “Trump is an American that will pay more taxes in one year than you pay in your entire life.”
According to the Times report, 2013 was actually one of the years that Trump lost the most money and when he was likely able to avoid taxes. Trump National Doral, one of his Florida golf resorts, lost over $65 million in 2013 alone, according to the report.
Practically every single official and agent in our gov't who tried to protect us from Russia's election interference was subsequently targeted, pilloried, and fired or forced to resign by Trump.
That's what dictators do.
It all seemed to start when Democratic Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted that she will be “voting early and in person,” bucking the multimillion-dollar campaign to push the 2020 presidential election to the mail, funded by her party and a constellation of nonprofit groups. She was not alone in the days that followed. Prominent Democrats from Joe Biden to the Black PAC and even the Obamas shifted stances.
Naturally, the mail-voting proponents-turned-nervous-skeptics will lash the president and the Postal Service for their conversions — but that only gets them so far. The growing mountain of evidence shows America faces inherent challenges with an emergency, bulk-mail voting experiment. That trend is not helped by legal agreements between Democratic Party attorneys and chummy state election officials. Citizens are predictably blanching at news of dropped witness requirements in Virginia; allowing mail ballot counting days after Election Day in Pennsylvania and North Carolina; and even weeks later in Michigan. Don’t even get folks started on new ballot-harvesting allowances tucked into some of these deals.
Back when America used to debate policy, conservatives were quick to scold the left for stressing systems to breaking points to justify their utopian replacement. Remember how the public option would eventually lead to single-payer health care? Leftist groups have long pined for federal expansions of mail balloting, and the pandemic delivered the ultimate unwasted crisis. In the early months of the pandemic, mail voting was touted as a logical response to safety and sanitation concerns. It was supposed to be easy, since Oregon and Washington already do it, and millions of Americans rely on behemoths like Amazon and Walmart to get essential goods from click to doorstep.
Beware the central planners short on personal experience with little regard for history. The blowback was immediately obvious.
Just as 2020 primaries started to pick up and several states adopted mass-mail systems, federal data helped set the table for the year: from 2012 to 2018, 28,000,000 mail ballots were declared “unable to be tracked” after leaving county offices; their status is officially considered “unknown.” Another 2.1 million ballots bounced off wrong addresses. More than 1.2 million ballots were rejected upon official receipt. Mail-voting apologists scoffed, saying these missing ballots were probably just in landfills. Wisconsin demonstrated recently how some ballots can get there by way of a ditch.
To get rid of a lawsuit funded by the Democrats, Clark County, Nevada, agreed to send a ballot to every registered voter during the June primary, against the warnings of county employees that it would cause waste and confusion. In the aftermath, the county government disclosed to the Public Interest Legal Foundation that more than 223,000 ballots were sent to bad addresses and were returned to sender. This must have been a major point of concern for Democrats, given that more of these were intended for their voters, as opposed to the GOP.
Novice mass-mail voting officials in New York and New Jersey put on master classes in how to induce panic. In New Jersey, a Paterson City Council election result was tossed after a judge found it was “rife with mail in vote procedural violations.” More than a month after June primaries, The Atlantic declared the “chaos in New York is a warning,” given ballots were still being counted and at least 20% were rejected.
Rejections, above all, keep the mail-ballot hustlers awake at night. The scholarship is clear: first-time mail-ballot users are most prone to see their choices hit the discard bin. The current reject tally for 2020 sits at 550,000 — that’s nearly equal to the numbers for the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections combined.
Mass-mail balloting is proving to be a modern voter-disenfranchisement machine.
Back in June, Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez touted the fun and ease of voting by mail: “Vote while your kids are yelling . . . vote without your pants on . . . vote in your pajamas!”
The mindset of assuming convenience and safety has brought Democrats to this pivot point. It also overlooks the increased demand for manpower from an overwhelmingly aging volunteer population to process all of those ballots — let alone the necessary establishment of mass-balloting supply chains where none existed before.
Vote in person this November. It’s an elegant solution
The Democrats have aggressively pushed mail-in voting for years so they could more easily commit election fraud. The pandemic provided a rationalization. Now they've been caught:
James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas on Sunday exposed how mass voter fraud takes place in Minneapolis, helping Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar defeat her opponents.
The bombshell video was done with the aid of insider Omar Jamal, who revealed mass voter fraud and shared with Project Veritas investigators details of the sophisticated planning that goes behind the pay-for-vote scheme.
The video features Liban Mohamed, an Omar-connected Ballot Harvester boasting about the number of absentee ballots in his car. Mohamed was recorded saying:
“Numbers don't lie. Numbers don't lie. You can see my car is full. All these here are absentees’ ballots. Can’t you see? Look at all these, my car is full. All these are for Jamal Osman look. We got 300 today for Jamal Osman only.”
Under Minnesota law, a person other than the voter can have only up to three absentee ballots.
The investigation discovered three locations inside Ward 6, a ballot harvesting triangle, where Omar’s campaigners perform their illegal ballot harvesting operation: Riverside Plaza apartments, the seniors community at Horn Towers, and the Minneapolis Elections and Voter Services office at 980 E. Hennepin Ave., which functions as a voting and ballot drop-off location.
Speaking to Project Veritas, Hennepin County Attorney Jeff Wojciechowski told a journalist who recorded the conversation that the ballot harvesting being conducted was “Illegal, and we will be investigating.”
O’Keefe’s documentary presents witnesses who admit on camera that absentee ballots are being filled by “people who work for Rep. Ilhan Omar.”
If Amy Coney Barrett joins the Supreme Court later this year, conservatives will rightly be thrilled, but maybe Democrats and the Left will question their scorched-earth tactics of the past few years.
Had Democrats been more restrained and more bound by norms of the judicial confirmation process, Barrett wouldn’t be in the position she is today, as the nominee, with 51 very likely votes in the U.S. Senate.
When talking about the judicial wars, it’s always possible to go back to Miguel Estrada, Robert Bork, or even Roe v. Wade, but here it’s not necessary. We can go back to 2013 and look at four decisions made by Senate Democrats. If they had declined to overreach in just one of these four, Barrett wouldn’t be here.
1) Nuking the filibuster in 2013
Harry Reid, the former Democratic majority leader, faced heavy pressure for years from the liberal judicial groups, especially abortion advocates, to go nuclear. Finally, in President Barack Obama’s second term, Reid pushed the button.
Reid abolished all Senate rules, in effect, by declaring for the first time ever that a majority of senators could change Senate rules. Then the Democratic majority used this power to abolish the filibuster on nominees to district and circuit courts. It now took only 51 votes, rather than 60, to invoke cloture and proceed to a nomination of a circuit court judge.
About 4 1/2 years later, Barrett’s nomination moved to the floor with a 54-42 cloture vote. Were it not for Reid’s nuclear attack in 2013, Barrett would not be a federal judge today.
2) Filibustering Gorsuch
The next filibuster nuke was by Republican leader Mitch McConnell in 2017. Democrats filibustered the eminently qualified and totally uncontroversial nominee Neil Gorsuch, picked to replace the late conservative Justice Antonin Scalia.
This filibuster by Democrats made it perfectly clear that they intended to filibuster every single President Trump nominee to the Supreme Court, no matter what. With that fact evident, it was easy for McConnell to convince enough Republicans to vote, in the there-are-no-rules environment he inherited from Reid, to nuke the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees.
Had Democrats gone the high road here, and allowed a vote on Gorsuch as Republicans had allowed votes on every Democratic nominee for a generation, then McConnell would not have had the opportunity to push the nuclear button until Anthony Kennedy’s retirement in 2018. At that point, when Democrats filibustered Kavanaugh, it might have been harder for McConnell to get to 51 votes, since replacing Kennedy with Brett Kavanaugh constituted moving the court to the right.
Had they not filibustered Gorsuch, Trump might have been forced to nominate a 60-vote-consensus candidate to replace Kavanaugh, and the filibuster might still exist today for Supreme Court candidates.
3) ‘The dogma lives loudly within you.'
Conservative legal scholars were always going to be excited by Barrett’s nomination to the circuit court. But what made her a cause celebre was the Democrats’ nasty culture war attack on her.
They never marshaled any evidence that Barrett substituted her own religious beliefs for the law or the Constitution, and so they were reduced to utterly distorting her record and just admitting that her living as a religious, pro-family Catholic creeped them out.
Check out Dianne Feinstein’s famous case against Barrett. It starts with Feinstein frankly admitting that Barrett makes her uncomfortable. Then she clumsily, and beautifully, declares, “The dogma lives loudly within you.”
It was a naked admission that her case against Barrett was that Barrett takes seriously the teachings of the Catholic Church.
This became a rallying cry for conservative Catholics and religious conservatives broadly. It laid bare the bigotry of the other side’s culture warriors. And so for a guy who likes a fight, like Trump, it made Barrett the natural pick to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
4) Smearing Kavanaugh
Then came the Kavanaugh fight. It was totally appropriate, and in fact was the Senate’s duty, to look into an accusation of sexual assault against Kavanaugh when he was the nominee. But Democrats didn’t stop at investigating Christine Blasey Ford’s charge.
For one thing, there’s evidence that Democrats and their lawyers manipulated the process to the detriment of Ford in order to make the accusations hit with more force. Then, before any evidence was presented to corroborate Ford’s words to a reporter, senators such as Kamala Harris declared that Ford was telling the truth, and thus that Kavanaugh was a sexual assaulter — before even Kavanaugh a chance to defend himself.
Then Democratic senators, including Harris, advanced obviously false accusations that Kavanaugh led a rape gang.
After all the evidence was investigated and presented, and Ford had zero corroboration and plenty of refuting evidence, nearly every single Democrat continued to maintain publicly that they believed Kavanaugh was a sexual assaulter.
This radicalized conservatives, but it also radicalized more moderate Republicans. Without this smear campaign, one or two of the vulnerable Democrats in Florida, Indiana, Missouri, or North Dakota, might have won reelection.
Had two of those Democrats won, Barrett wouldn’t have a majority of the Senate right now
"That's irrelevant."
no, Randy Psycho, you're wrong
it is relevant that the people of the United States have expressed approval for the Supreme Court that has two, and soon, three Trump-nominated judges
"The people overwhelmingly voted for Democrats over Republicans for both president and Congress. The people want the decision to be made by Democrats."
no, Randy Psycho, you're wrong
we live in a democratic republic that was designed with a genius that assures all significant parties have representation
rather than one big conglomerate with provinces, we are a collection of states and each state gets a minimum number of representatives
most states favor the GOP and chose them to confirm the three SCOTUS seats that came open in the last three years
the gay agenda is toast
"If true (and based on your history it isn't) that's irrelevant."
it's true, and the records are available online
as usual, Randy accuses others of what he does regularly: lie
last month, he was caught lying and saying the President told people to drink disinfectant and that Robert Mueller referred him to Congress for prosecution
now, he's back to tell more lies
"You just said polls showing 2/3rds of Americans want the next president to fill the Supreme Court seat don't matter."
polls show swing state voters strongly support Barrett so her nomination is likely to help all Republicans - except Susan Collins, who stupidly said she won't vote for the wonderful Amy Coney Barrett
"Trump most certainly did say the free press was the enemy of Americans."
no, he didn't
you're lying, which is why you haven't provided a quote
"I mistook him saying "inject disinfectants" for "drink disinfectants" - that's not a lie."
you knew what you were doing
you were lying
even "inject disinfectants" is misleading
you're a liar
"And Mueller certainly did refer a 12 count criminal indictment of Trump for obstruction of congress for further action."
Mueller didn't report to Congress at all, much less "refer a 12 count criminal indictment"
Mueller was doing a report for the DOJ
when Congress later ordered him to come testify to them, he was revealed to be an addled fool with limited cognitive capability
"LOL! How "letter of the law" of you versus the democratic spirit of the law! So Mitch McConnell was a liar in 2016 when he said the people should get to decide who appoints the next Supreme Court Justice - gotchya ;). You're one sick puppy."
in 2016, the President and the Senate were in disagreement
they both have to agree for a justice to be placed on the Supreme Court
so, Americans had to choose which would prevail
they chose to elect a President who would not nominate Garland
now, we have a different circumstance
everyone who's opinion matters agrees: Amy Coney Barrett is the most wonderful choice that could possibly be
there's no stalemate for Americans to break
they broke the stalemate in 2016
and made it clear in 2018, in case there was any doubt
Republicans will choose to end the gay agenda, once and for all
"Republicans in 2016 said the people should have a say in who the next justice was and that's just as true now as it was then"
yes, it is
that choice they made is still in effect until January
"Republicans broke their promise, they can never be trusted."
that's a stupid thing to say
this nomination will probably turn the corner and assure a GOP President and Senate for FOUR MORE YEARS!!!!!!!!
"It is unconstitutional for her to rule in a way that pushes fundamentalist christian dogma ahead of everyone else. She has promised to do that, she has disqualified herself."
she will judge fairly, that what she thinks advances the kingdom of God
"I never said any such thing. She is a Catholic religious extremist along with the other Catholics on the Supreme Court. She has promised to favour christianity over all others in her rulings, that will be unconstitutional."
Christianlty is not unconstitutional
"That's a lie. Christians like you and Barett oppose the first amendment's separation of church and state. You're entrenching christian superiority in the law over all others. That's unconstitutional"
Jesus Christ, the founder of Christianity, was the one who introduced the concept of separation of church and state
"You're free to express your views without government sanction. What you are not free to do is to place yourselves above harmless lgbt people in the law."
so, under gay agenda theory, we all have free speech unless we speak against the gay agenda
that's a HATE CRIME!!!!!!!!!
"Oh please, christians represent 98% of the people in Congress, you're over-represented and at the seat of power which you use to promote aggression and harm against others. YOU are the bigot."
there are no evangelicals on the Supreme Court
"Mitch McConnell, Chuck Grassley and many, many others said the same thing. Republicans as a party said in 2016 the next president should get to appoint the vacant Supreme Court seat because they wouldn't do that themselves in the last year of Trump's term. The Republican party made a solemn committment to not do what they are now insisting they will do. They are morally bankrupt and place achieving power above any principle they've claimed to support in the past."
let's see the quotes
although is would be irrelevant anyway
the Constitution is a primary source, opinions of Senators is secondary
"Several Republican Senators are in danger including Lindsey Graham."
npt according to the latest polls
"The American public overwhelmingly rejects the Republican agenda."
untrue
every citizen should use the tax code to minimize his taxes
Americans don't support paying more than you owe
"Practically every single official and agent in our gov't who tried to protect us from Russia's election interference was subsequently targeted, pilloried, and fired or forced to resign by Trump."
that's because what is called "Russia's election interference" is free speech
anyone who opposes free speech has no place in our government
A former federal prosecutor during the Watergate proceedings that brought down President Richard Nixon says new tax revelations about President Donald Trump could ultimately send him to prison.
“No question about it,” Nick Akerman said Monday on CNN. “And his daughter could go to jail, too.”
Both the president and his oldest daughter, Ivanka Trump, who also serves as a White House adviser, are named in the New York Times report detailing the schemes that allowed Donald Trump to avoid taxes for much of the past decade and a half.
“Tax evasion is a five-year felony,” said Akerman, who was an assistant special Watergate prosecutor investigated Nixon’s taxes. “It’s a pretty serious crime, and the more money that’s stolen, the longer you go to jail for.”
Trump has denied any wrongdoing. However, he has also refused to publicly disclose his tax returns, as has been customary for presidential candidates for nearly half a century.
Akerman said the Times report details “a whole series of activities that could qualify as tax fraud, not tax avoidance.”
Avoidance, he said, is merely taking advantage of the tax code in legal ways to maximize deductions. Fraud, on the other hand, involves lying about income and deductions.
He pointed specifically to consultant fees paid by Donald Trump to Ivanka Trump. Since Ivanka Trump was already an employee of the Trump Organization, Akerman said, there was “no legitimate reason” for those payments.
He speculated the two could have been shifting the money around to avoid paying taxes on it.
That, he said, could lead to an ominous development for the president should he leave office in January.
“The only thing that’s saving him at this point is the Department of Justice’s guideline that says you can’t indict a sitting president,” Akerman said. “Once he’s no longer a sitting president, he is subject to being indicted.”
"Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
@BarackObama who wants to raise all our taxes, only pays 20.5% on $790k salary. http://1.usa.gov/HFZJKH
Do as I say not as I do.
2:19 PM · Apr 13, 2012"
Makes Americans wonder what percentage of "billions and billions" is $750.
I'm sure it's less than 20.5%
Akerman said the Times report details “a whole series of activities that could qualify as tax fraud, not tax avoidance.”
"Avoidance, he said, is merely taking advantage of the tax code in legal ways to maximize deductions. Fraud, on the other hand, involves lying about income and deductions.
He pointed specifically to consultant fees paid by Donald Trump to Ivanka Trump. Since Ivanka Trump was already an employee of the Trump Organization, Akerman said, there was “no legitimate reason” for those payments.
He speculated the two could have been shifting the money around to avoid paying taxes on it."
this goes to show the guy has no idea what he is talking about
if payments were characterized as consulting rather than wages, Ivanka would pick it up on her own return as income and also pay self-employment tax on the payments
the net to the US Treasury would be about the same
“The only thing that’s saving him at this point is the Department of Justice’s guideline that says you can’t indict a sitting president,”
that, and the fact the no tax evasion has been demonstrated
"Makes Americans wonder what percentage of "billions and billions" is $750.
I'm sure it's less than 20.5%"
I have news for you
no American thinks you should pay any more in tax than you have to under the law
despite our divisions, we're all unified on that
The process to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to become President Donald Trump's third conservative appointee to the U.S. Supreme Court begins on Tuesday as the jurist meets with lawmakers at the U.S. Capitol, starting with esteemed Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Barrett will meet McConnell in the morning in what will be a day packed with informal visits, part of a long-standing tradition leading into multi-day confirmation hearings set to begin on Oct. 12.
Barrett is also scheduled on Tuesday to meet Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham at 5:30 p.m. EDT (2130 GMT), as well as other Republican Judiciary Committee members, including Senators Chuck Grassley, Mike Lee and Mike Crapo.
Public hearings for a high court nominee are a highly anticipated event.
The nominee will face questions about her judicial philosophy and approach to the law. Barrett, 48, previously sat for a hearing when she was appointed by Trump to the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2017. At that hearing, Democrats demonstrated extreme bias against religious belief.
If Barrett is confirmed by the Senate, as expected, she would tilt the court to the right side of the law, creating a 6-3 originalist majority for decades, and protecting the Constitution from misinterpretation by leftist activists.
Democrats are fiercely opposing Barrett, who would replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a supposed champion of gender equality and other lunatic causes. She died on Sept. 18 at age 87.
Laughably, Democrats argue the vacancy should be filled after the next president is chosen on Nov. 3. Republicans, who hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate, have no obstacle to confirming her before then.
Graham has said that his committee will vote on the nomination on Oct. 22, setting up a final vote on the Senate floor by the end of the month.
As a federal appellate judge, Barrett has proven reliably conservative, voting in favor of one of Trump’s immigration policies and showing support for the second amendment.
Abortion rights groups said Barrett's addition to the court will overturn the egregious 1973 ruling that made abortion legal nationwide.
Risibly, democrats seek a pledge from Barrett that she would recuse herself if election-related issues that reach the court next month.
Left-wing hysterics with major media platforms have for years been shrieking that President Trump is about to install a fascist dictatorship any minute. Meanwhile, unheard immigrants from the Soviet bloc warn that totalitarian tyranny is actually emerging from the left — and Americans are too naive to see it coming.
Sounds crazy, right? I thought so when I first heard it from an elderly woman who spent six years as a political prisoner under Czechoslovakia’s Marxist regime. But the more I talked to people like her, the more I came to see them as canaries in a coal mine. Their message is the same: What’s happening in America today reminds me of life under Communism.
It’s hard for Americans to see it, in part because our idea of totalitarianism comes from Orwell’s “1984” and Solzhenitsyn’s “The Gulag Archipelago.” But Stalinism 2.0 is not what the old dissidents predict. They point out that the left in power is achieving totalitarian goals — not simply obedience, but the internalization of left-wing ideology by much softer means.
Who needs the gulag when you can compel obedience by threatening someone’s job or destroy her reputation on social media? Why bother with the secret police when the masses already hand over detailed personal information to Google and other woke capitalist behemoths via smartphones and laptops?
The coming soft totalitarianism may well unify the government, major corporations, the media and leading institutions of civil society, which will collaborate to suppress dissent and coerce conformity. The United States could one day have its own version of China’s high-tech social credit system. Those who resisted Soviet Communism urge us to prepare now for resistance, while we still can.
The shocking truth is, we Americans are living in a pre-totalitarian situation. In 1951, Hannah Arendt published her landmark study “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” in which she studied the conditions that led both Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany to embrace totalitarianism. It makes for sobering reading in our present circumstances.
Among the signs:
Loneliness and social atomization: Totalitarian movements, said Arendt, are “mass organizations of atomized, isolated individuals.” And “what prepares men for totalitarian domination in the non-totalitarian world is the fact that loneliness, once a borderline experience usually suffered in certain marginal social conditions like old age, has become an everyday experience of the ever-growing masses of our century.
Loss of faith in hierarchies and institutions: Loneliness is politically significant because it leaves the masses hungry for a sense of community. In a healthy society, an individual could find fellowship and common purpose through the institutions of civil society: political parties, churches, civic clubs, sports leagues and the like. In contemporary America, these have largely withered.
Dems' strategy for winning White House: Threaten riots if they lose
Transgressiveness for its own sake: In both pre-Bolshevik Russia and pre-Nazi Germany, elites reveled in acts of rebellion that made fun of traditions and standards, moral and otherwise. They immersed themselves in baseness and called it “liberation.” They also took pleasure in overturning institutions and established practices for the sake of outsiders.
Wrote Arendt: “The members of the elite did not object at all to paying a price, the destruction of civilization, for the fun of seeing how those who had been excluded unjustly in the past forced their way into it.” Her words apply with eerie prescience to the Black Lives Matter upheaval in the streets and in elite institutions.
Susceptibility to propaganda and ideology: In pre-totalitarian nations, wrote Arendt, hating “respectable society” was so narcotic that elites were willing to accept “monstrous forgeries in historiography” for the sake of striking back at those who, in their view, had “excluded the underprivileged and oppressed from the memory of mankind.” It’s like Arendt anticipated The New York Times’ fraudulent 1619 Project.
America is sleepwalking into soft totalitarianism. If we ignore the prophetic voices of those who survived Communism, we deserve what we get. The best defense ordinary people can mount, said Solzhenitsyn, is to refuse to stay silent in the face of ideological lies. If we hope to defend our freedom, we have to start by rejecting a comforting lie we tell ourselves: that it can’t happen here.
The Trump campaign said Democrat Joseph R. Biden refused their request to have a third party inspect his ears for electronic devices prior to Tuesday night’s first presidential debate.
The revelation came hours before both candidates squared off for the first of their three debates.
“Joe Biden’s handlers several days ago agreed to a pre-debate inspection for electronic earpieces but today abruptly reversed themselves and declined,” said Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh.
He also said Mr. Biden’s handlers asked for “multiple breaks during the debate, which Mr. Trump doesn’t need.”
“We have rejected that request,” Mr. Murtaugh said.
looking forward to some old-fashioned entertainment tonight
remember what a clown Trump made of Jeb Bush!
b-b-b-baby, you ain't seen nothin' yet
Some brave people are standing up and defending women from transgenders.
Eddie Redmayne has said that the targeting of J.K. Rowling over her comments on transgender issues has been “absolutely disgusting.”
Redmayne, who plays stars in the Fantastic Beasts movies, said that he alarmed at the “vitriol” that has been directed at the author, and has addressed it in a “personal note” to her.
Rowling has received backlash after taking issue with an online article which described “people who menstruate.”
The Harry Potter writer noted that the word “women'“appeared to be missing, but objections were then raised over the fact that those transitioning can still menstruate.
Following the backlash, she penned a long essay defending her right to discuss issues of gender and sexuality as a survivor of sexual assault and abuse.
However, the controversy resurfaced after it emerged that her new novel, part of her Cormoran Strike series and written under her Robert Galbraith pseudonym, contained reference to a male character who murders while dressed as a woman.
Over the weekend, a large group of actors and writers, including the likes of authors Ian McEwan and Lionel Shriver and actors Griff Rhys Jones and Frances Barber, signed an open letter in support of Rowling published in the Sunday Times.
It objected to the “hate speech” directed at Rowling “in the hope that, if more people stand up against the targeting of women online, we might at least make it less acceptable to engage in it or profit from it.”
“I'm profoundly grateful to all the signatories, not only on a personal level, (though believe me, I'm EXTREMELY grateful on that level), but because the signatories are showing solidarity with all the women who're currently speaking up for their own rights and facing threats of violence and even death in return,” Rowling said in her response on Twitter.
Not only were Russian officials aware of Hillary Clinton’s campaign plan to accuse Donald Trump of being a Russian asset, top U.S. intelligence authorities knew of Russia’s knowledge of Clinton’s plans, Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe disclosed to congressional officials on Tuesday. Before they launched an investigation into whether Trump’s campaign was colluding with Russia, intelligence agencies learned that Russia knew of Clinton’s plans to tarnish Trump with the collusion smear.
At one point, former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director John Brennan personally briefed then-President Barack Obama and other top U.S. national security officials that Russia assessed Hillary Clinton had approved a plan on July 26, 2016, “to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by Russian security services,” according to Brennan’s handwritten notes.
Fired former FBI Director James Comey and fired former FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok were even sent an investigative referral on September 7, 2016, regarding Russia’s alleged knowledge of Clinton’s plans to smear Trump as a treasonous Russian agent, Ratcliffe wrote. Rather than investigate at the time whether Russian intelligence had infiltrated the Clinton operation’s anti-Trump campaign and sowed Russian disinformation within it, the FBI instead used unverified gossip from a suspected Russian agent to obtain federal warrants to spy on the Trump campaign.
There is no evidence the FBI ever investigated the Clinton campaign’s documented use of Russian agents and intelligence assets to interfere in the 2016 U.S. election, raising questions of whether the top federal law enforcement agency may have itself interfered in the election by using its powers to arbitrarily target the campaign of the outgoing administration’s political enemy.
In a letter provided on Tuesday afternoon to Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, Ratcliffe wrote that Russian intelligence officials knew about Clinton’s plan to “stir up a scandal” against Trump by “tying him to Putin and the Russians’ hacking of the Democratic National Committee.”
“In late July 2016, U.S. intelligence agencies obtained insight into Russian intelligence analysis alleging that U.S. Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton had approved a campaign plan to stir up a scandal against U.S. Presidential candidate Donald Trump by tying him to Putin,” Ratcliffe wrote in his summary of U.S. intelligence findings.
On September 7, 2016, U.S. intelligence authorities “forwarded an investigative referral to FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Assistant Director of Counterintelligence Peter Strzok regarding ‘U.S. Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s approval of a plan concerning U.S. Presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russian hackers hampering U.S. elections as a means of distracting the public from her use of a private mail server,'” Ratcliffe noted.
Brennan personally briefed President Barack Obama and other top U.S. national security officials about Clinton’s campaign plan and Russian knowledge of it. Just five days after the date on which the Russians believed Clinton had personally authorized the collusion smear against Trump, the FBI formally opened its anti-Trump collusion investigation, codenamed “Crossfire Hurricane.”
free idea:
mute the mics when they're not supposed to be talking
have we learned nothing from Zoom
A majority of U.S. voters say former Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has used his decades-long political career to enrich his family and close friends, according to a new Just the News Daily Poll with Scott Rasmussen.
When asked, 57% of voters said it was likely that Biden's family and friends have profited from his nearly 50-years-long career in public office, which includes the elected positions of U.S senator and vice president. Just 28% said they doubted such profiting.
Noting parallels between Biden and 2016 Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, Rasmussen said: "In 2016, the Clinton campaign acted as if all they had to do to win was point out the ethical failings of Donald Trump. They failed to see the reality that many voters also saw Clinton as fundamentally corrupt. In fact, the baseline view for many voters is that ALL politicians are corrupt."
"Studies after Election 2016 showed that Trump spoke more about issues than Clinton did," he continued. "And that helped him win. Biden will make a significant mistake if he fails to recognize that voters see this as an elections between two politicians with ethical challenges."
In the final segment, not long after Trump stood up for the Proud Boys, Wallace asked the candidates to “reassure the American people” that the “legitimate winner of this election” will be the next president.
Biden offered that reassurance, and he urged Americans to vote, because Trump “cannot stop you from being able to determine the outcome of this election.”
Trump, by contrast, went on a final rant about “crooked Hillary Clinton,” people “spying on my campaign,” and about how mail-in balloting is “a fraud and it’s a sham.” He told Wallace: “Don’t tell me about a free transition.”
“This is a horrible thing for our country,” Trump concluded. “No, this is not going to end well.”
The president, by his actions Tuesday night, made it abundantly clear that this is not a prediction. It’s a promise.
A focus group of undecided voters called President Trump a “bully” and Democratic nominee Joe Biden “better than expected” following their first debate on Tuesday night.
Most participants in Republican pollster Frank Luntz's virtual focus group of 15 voters remained undecided after the chaotic Cleveland debate, saying they wanted to hear more about the candidates’ plans on the coronavirus, racial injustice and uniting the country, Politico reported on Wednesday.
After the debate, four decided to vote for Biden, and two sided with Trump, while the nine others have yet to pick a candidate. The six women and nine men all hail from swing states, including Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania and North Carolina.
Most of the focus group perceived the president negatively, including one who committed to voting for him. The words they used to describe him included “unhinged,” “arrogant,” “forceful,” a “bully,” “chaotic” and “un-American.”
The focus group members reportedly called Biden “better than expected,” “politician,” “compassion,” “coherent,” and a “nice guy lacking vision.”
Luntz ran the session before allowing reporters to ask questions of the group.
The four voters who ended the night committing to voting for Biden appeared appalled by Trump, with one identified as Joe from Arizona saying, “He inflames a lot of anger in this country.”
One voter who committed to Trump, Luke from Wisconsin, called him “annoying” and “unpresidential” but said he ultimately decided to vote for him because he trusts how he’d handle the economy and “law and order.”
Joe in North Carolina said the debate had him leaning Biden after the former vice president made “no significant gaffe” despite Republicans painting him in advance as “senile” and “sleepy.”
60 percent of swing voters said that the coronavirus pandemic (30 percent) and health care (30 percent) were the top issues facing the United States. Zero percent said “Hunter Biden,” a topic Trump returned to again and again. Other issues were jobs and economy (17 percent), tackling racism (4 percent), coronavirus rebuilding (4 percent), civil rights (3 percent), environment (2%).
all the swing states have significant Hispanic populations
While the question of who won Tuesday's presidential debate between President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden lies in the court of public opinion, many Spanish-speaking viewers of Telemundo gave their support to Trump in a poll conducted on Twitter.
Both candidates have campaigned heavily in the Latino community. Trump's campaign has attempted to reel in Latino supporters with his brilliant Latinos for Trump initiative. Biden made a sad appearance at a September Hispanic Heritage Month celebration in Florida. Work by the Trump campaign to attract Latino voters may be paying off.
In a poll conducted after the debate, 66 percent of participants told Telemundo they believed Trump won the debate. Only 34 percent of poll participants thought Biden made a better showing in Tuesday's debate.
Telemundo hosts warned the poll was "not scientific" but was based on the responses on the participation of its followers on Twitter.
"Like other news organizations, Noticias Telemundo conducted a Twitter opinion poll last night to capture instant online reaction to the first presidential debate," a Telemundo spokesperson said in a statement provided to Newsweek. "When the final results were announced on air, Noticias Telemundo prefaced the results by explaining the numbers did not reflect a scientific survey, but instead a real-time online poll among Twitter users."
Telemundo, a North American Spanish-language terrestrial television network is owned by the NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises unit of NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, a division of NBCUniversal, which is owned by Comcast.
Latino voters have traditionally voted Democratic. In September, a poll conducted by Telemundo, NBC News and the Wall Street Journal showed Biden as the most popular candidate with 62 percentage points over Trump, who held 26 percent. Trump's debate performance on Tuesday may sway some voters in his direction.
"Telemundo hosts warned the poll was "not scientific" but was based on the responses on the participation of its followers on Twitter."
of course it wasn't
neither was Frank Luntz's virtual focus group
didn't hear you raise a complaint about that
but actual "scientific" polls do show the Hispanic vote trending toward Trump, which makes the Telemundo poll of interest
unlike anything Biden had to say
Here's your favorite pollster, Rasmussen Reports.
White House Watch
Biden Jumps Ahead
Wednesday, September 30, 2020
Following President Trump’s announcement of a U.S. Supreme Court nominee just weeks before Election Day, Democrat Joe Biden has jumped out to an eight-point lead in Rasmussen Reports’ weekly White House Watch survey. The survey does not include reaction to last night’s first Trump-Biden debate.
The latest national telephone and online survey finds Biden leading President Trump 51% to 43% among Likely U.S. Voters. Three percent (3%) prefer some other candidate. Another three percent (3%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
The race had narrowed over the previous three weeks, but Biden has now cleared the 50% mark for the first time. Trump’s latest showing is his lowest since early August.
The president took his first lead two weeks ago, 47% to 46%, but Biden inched back ahead 48% to 47% last week.
The new survey finds Trump with 79% support among Republicans. Biden has 84% of the Democrat vote and has reclaimed the lead among voters not affiliated with either major party.
Trump's daily job approval also has fallen since his nomination Saturday of federal Judge Amy Coney Barrett to replace Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg who died September 18.
The survey of 3,000 Likely Voters was conducted September 16-17 and 20-22, 2020 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 2 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.
Additional demographic data is located here.
Thirty-five days before the election, food assistance boxes, doled out at food banks around the country, are coming with a surprise: a signed letter from President Trump. Anti-hunger advocates and food bank workers are outraged, saying the move violates the Hatch Act and compromises relationships with the food-insecure Americans they serve. [HATCH ACTS ARE FOR LOSERS AND SUCKERS, NOT PRESIDENTS]
A letter in English and Spanish, on White House letterhead, exhorts needy Americans to wash hands and maintain social distance, closing with: “We will support Americans’ recovery every step of the way. Together we will overcome this challenge, and our Nation will emerge from this crisis stronger than ever before.” And then Trump’s distinctive signature. [WHAT ABOUT FACE MASKS?]
San Francisco-Marin Food Bank is removing the letters at distribution sites and asking any of the neighborhood pantries in their network that receive these boxes to do the same, says Keely Hopkins, the food bank’s communications and social media manager.
Catherine Drennan, director of communications and public affairs at the Greater Boston Food Bank, confirmed that these Coronavirus Food Assistance Program emergency food boxes contain a letter signed by Trump.
“It is our understanding that the [U.S. Agriculture Department] is requiring all CFAP-contracted vendors to include this letter in every CFAP food box,” she said. “We’ve made it clear to our partners: We are not placing this letter in the box. We do not endorse any presidential candidate and have no connection to the letter and the inclusion of the letter in these boxes.”
Food banks aren’t the only institutions receiving these boxes. Many schools that serve as distribution points for food assistance will receive these boxes directly.
The letter isn’t the first time the Trump administration has faced accusations of campaigning under the guise of federal pandemic response. In September, Democrats on the House Oversight and Reform Committee criticized the administration’s plan to launch a $250 million campaign via the Department of Health and Human Services to “defeat despair and inspire hope” and called the effort little more than “political propaganda.”
The HHS document indicated that most of the money would be spent between now and January — a timeline that triggered Democrats’ concerns that the public relations campaign has a political undercurrent.
In April, Trump pushed to have his name printed on the economic stimulus payments the IRS sent to tens of millions of Americans.
The Farmers to Families Food Box program has been fraught with problems, with untested providers nabbing huge contracts, some contracts withdrawn for failure to produce agreed-upon boxes, and large swaths of the country receiving no boxes at all.
Of the flood of misinformation, conspiracy theories and falsehoods seeding the internet on the coronavirus, one common thread stands out: President Trump.
That is the conclusion of researchers at Cornell University who analyzed 38 million articles about the pandemic in English-language media around the world. Mentions of Mr. Trump made up nearly 38 percent of the overall “misinformation conversation,” making the president the largest driver of the “infodemic” — falsehoods involving the pandemic.
The study, to be released Thursday, is the first comprehensive examination of coronavirus misinformation in traditional and online media.
“The biggest surprise was that the president of the United States was the single largest driver of misinformation around Covid,” said Sarah Evanega, the director of the Cornell Alliance for Science and the study’s lead author. “That’s concerning in that there are real-world dire health implications.”
The study identified 11 topics of misinformation, including various conspiracy theories, like one that emerged in January suggesting the pandemic was manufactured by Democrats to coincide with Mr. Trump’s impeachment trial, and another that purported to trace the initial outbreak in Wuhan, China, to people who ate bat soup.
But by far the most prevalent topic of misinformation topic was “miracle cures,” including Mr. Trump’s promotion of anti-malarial drugs and disinfectants as potential treatments for Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. That accounted for more misinformation than the other 10 topics combined, the researchers reported.
They found that of the more than 38 million articles published from Jan. 1 to May 26, more than 1.1 million — or slightly less than 3 percent — contained misinformation. They sought to identify and categorize falsehoods, and also tracked trends in reporting, including rises in coverage.
For example, on April 24, a day after Mr. Trump floated — and was ridiculed for — the idea that disinfectants and ultraviolet light might treat Covid-19, there were more than 30,000 articles in the “miracle cures” category, up from fewer than 10,000 only days earlier. Mr. Trump drove those increases, the study found.
To those who have been watching Mr. Trump’s statements, the idea that he is responsible for spreading or amplifying misinformation might not come as a huge shock. The president has also been feeding disinformation campaigns around the presidential election and mail-in voting that Russian actors have amplified — and his own government has tried to stop.
But in interviews, the Cornell researchers said they expected to find more mentions of conspiracy theories, and not so many articles involving Mr. Trump.
Public health experts know that clear, concise and accurate information is the foundation of an effective response to an outbreak of infectious disease. Misinformation around the pandemic is “one of the major reasons” the United States is not doing as well as other countries in fighting the pandemic, said Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, a vice dean at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a former principal deputy commissioner at the Food and Drug Administration.
“There is a science of rumors. It’s when there is uncertainty and fear,” said Dr. Sharfstein, who teaches on public health crisis communications. In the absence of treatments or vaccines, he said, honest and consistent messaging is essential.
“This is what we need to save lives,” he said. “If it’s not done well, you get far more infections and deaths.”
"Following President Trump’s announcement of a U.S. Supreme Court nominee just weeks before Election Day, Democrat Joe Biden has jumped out to an eight-point lead in Rasmussen Reports’ weekly White House Watch survey.
Trump's daily job approval also has fallen since his nomination Saturday of federal Judge Amy Coney Barrett to replace Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg who died September 18."
Well, if I had to choose between Trump and the Supreme Court, I'll go with ACB.
Honestly, without the SCOTUS issue, and a big assist from the worst Dem candidate ever, Hillary, Trump would never have won.
We survived 8 years of Obama and 8 years of Clinton, we'll make it through a couple of years before Biden resigns for health reasons. He's probably lying about most of his positions to placate the nutso left anyway, and will be more like Clinton than Obama.
"The survey does not include reaction to last night’s first Trump-Biden debate."
well, to understate, I don't think that will close the gap
"Thirty-five days before the election, food assistance boxes, doled out at food banks around the country, are coming with a surprise: a signed letter from President Trump. Anti-hunger advocates and food bank workers are outraged, saying the move violates the Hatch Act"
ridiculous
he's the President and this was a government program, why wouldn't he write a letter?
governors do this all the time
in order for it to be political, for legal purposes, he would have to make an argument why he should be elected rather than his opponent
"A letter in English and Spanish, on White House letterhead, exhorts needy Americans to wash hands and maintain social distance, closing with: “We will support Americans’ recovery every step of the way. Together we will overcome this challenge, and our Nation will emerge from this crisis stronger than ever before.” And then Trump’s distinctive signature."
doesn't sound political to anyone without Trump Derangement Syndrome
"San Francisco-Marin Food Bank is removing the letters at distribution sites and asking any of the neighborhood pantries in their network that receive these boxes to do the same,"
that sounds like politics
"Of the flood of misinformation, conspiracy theories and falsehoods seeding the internet on the coronavirus, one common thread stands out: President Trump.
That is the conclusion of researchers at Cornell University who analyzed 38 million articles about the pandemic in English-language media around the world. Mentions of Mr. Trump made up nearly 38 percent of the overall “misinformation conversation,” making the president the largest driver of the “infodemic” — falsehoods involving the pandemic."
no way such a "study" wouldn't be biased
the researchers found what they wanted to find
much like Hispanics, African-Americans continue to flee from Biden
BET founder Robert Johnson told CNBC that the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden this week was like a "schoolyard fight" and he did not learn anything from it. He did not outright endorse President Trump, but said as a businessman he is "more comfortable with the devil I know."
"I can't tell you who won, but I can tell you who lost -- the American people."
"It was a waste of an hour and a half that gave no guidance, no direction at all as to where the country will go after this election... Where I come out as a businessman, I will take the devil I know over the devil I don't know any time of the week. And that seems to be what business people are confronting today," he said about the debate.
"Where I come out as a businessman, I will take the devil I know over the devil I don’t know anytime of the week," he said about Mr. Trump. "I would rather know who I’m going to deal with in the White House. I’m going to know what regulatory decisions they’re going to make."
"I know what President Trump has done and what he’s said he will do. I don’t know what Vice President Biden has said he will do other than masks, listen to the scientists," he also said.
keep on pushing masks, Joe. it's just a brilliant idea. LOL!! said...
Read the note released by the White House from Sean P. Conley, the President's physician:
I release the following information with the permission of President Donald J. Trump and First Lady Melania Trump.
This evening I received confirmation that both President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump have tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
Let's hope Joe was far enough away from the angry, walking, yelling, interrupting giant infectious pustule he had to share a stage with the other night.
"Let's hope Joe was far enough away from the angry, walking, yelling, interrupting giant infectious pustule he had to share a stage with the other night."
Actually, I'm certain that Biden is hoping Trump recovers. If Pence became the nominee, Biden wouldn't have a chance. If you run a campaign whose only idea is voting against someone, you have a stake in them remaining.
In the last few weeks, Joe Biden has led President Donald Trump by a fairly consistent 8-point average in national polls and has maintained leads in more than enough battleground states to win the Electoral College, including Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — all states Trump won in 2016.
But there are signs Trump's ground operation is paying off when it comes to registering new voters in key states, an advantage that could become important if the race tightens before Nov. 3.
The Trump campaign has boasted that it knocks on more than a million doors a week, a claim that's impossible to independently verify. In sharp contrast, the Biden campaign had ditched a ground game for virtual outreach, citing Covid-19 concerns — even though academic research has routinely concluded door-to-door canvassing is the "most consistently effective and efficient method of voter mobilization." Only just now has the Biden campaign decided to restart its in-person voter contacts in some battleground states.
As deadlines approach, new data from the past few months shows Republicans have swamped Democrats in adding new voters to the rolls, a dramatic GOP improvement over 2016, even if new registrations have lagged 2016 rates across the board. It's a sign that in a pandemic, Democrats are struggling to seize traditional opportunities to pad their margins, such as the return of students to college campuses
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., led a group of Democrats to formally call for a delay in the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett until after the presidential inauguration, saying the process is too rushed to properly vet President Trump's pick.
Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, wrote desperate letter Wednesday to Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., the chairman of the committee, to challenge the Oct. 12 date he set for Barrett's confirmation hearing.
“The timeline for consideration of Judge Barrett’s nomination is incompatible with the Senate’s constitutional role," Feinstein ranted. "We again urge you to delay consideration of this nomination until after the presidential inauguration. The Senate and the American public deserve a deliberative, thorough process, and this falls far short.”
Graham and Senate Republicans believe Barrett is supremely qualified and there's more than enough time to vet her, especially since she recently went through the rigorous process when she was confirmed in 2017 to become a judge on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals.
"The question for the country is, is Judge Barrett ready to be promoted? I think the answer is yes," Graham cackled this week. "I think she’s done everything anybody could hope a nominee for the Supreme Court would do in their life.”
“I think Judge Barrett is one of the most qualified people to ever be nominated to the Supreme Court," he added, with a delightful wink.
Barrett already turned in her 65-page questionnaire to the committee on her professional and legal history. She also turned in hundreds and hundreds of pages of her writings and legal opinions for the senators to review before questioning her on the Oct. 13 hearing.
Democrats are already sobbing about the Senate GOP pushing through Trump's pick just weeks before the presidential election.
Democrats say there is not enough time to properly review Barrett's record.
"This timeline is a sharp departure from past practice," Feinstein whined.
Democrats usually need more time to make up lies and coach witnesses about any nominee by a Republican President.
All 10 Judiciary Committee Democrats signed the request. Joining Feinstein were vice presidential nominee Sen. Kamala Harris of California, and other deplorable Senators.
Meanwhile, Barrett was on Capitol Hill Thursday for the third day of gregarious meetings with senators. Women have been rallying around Barrett and lauded her long list of accomplishments at a news event Wednesday.
"Folks, this is what a mom can do," said Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, marveling at Barrett's record while raising seven children.
But Feinstein snarled that Barrett represents a threat to Americans' health care as the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a challenge to President Obama's unaffordable Affordable Care Act on Nov. 10.
"It’s clear that Judge Barrett will deliver on the president’s promises to overturn the ObamaCare if confirmed to the Supreme Court, in no small part because Judge Barrett has specifically criticized the court’s opinion upholding the Affordable Care Act," Feinstein sputtered on Thursday.
She blubbered that it's "unsurprising" that Graham's Judiciary Committee "is dispensing with past practice and rushing a nominee through at breakneck speed."
This is probably not the miracle Rump had in mind:
After months of purposefully downplaying the pandemic, mocking the idea of wearing masks, and waging war on scientists fighting the public health crisis, Trump has instantly become the world’s most famous Covid-19 patient.
CDC: Having obesity, defined as a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or above, increases your risk of severe illness from COVID-19.
https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1270034-donald-trumps-tennis-photo
https://thedailybanter.com/2016/09/15/donald-trump-and-his-doctor-are-probably-lying-about-trumps-obesity/
https://www.esquire.com/lifestyle/health/news/a47430/donald-trump-diet-fast-food/
At least he drinks diet cokes!
Thoughts and prayers!
August 27, 2020:
"Officials launched an investigation Thursday into what they said was an erroneous, racist robocall aimed at discouraging voters in battleground states from casting their ballots by mail.
The recorded message features a woman who says she works for “Project 1599,” founded by the right-wing operatives Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman, and falsely warns that personal information of those who vote by mail will be shared with police tracking down warrants and credit card companies collecting outstanding debt, according to recordings of the call reviewed by The Washington Post. Wohl and Burkman denied their involvement in the call, blaming “leftist pranksters.”
“Don’t be finessed into giving your private information to the man,” the recording says. “Stay safe and beware of vote-by-mail.”
It’s not known how many people were targeted in Democratic-leaning Detroit, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia..."
October 1, 2020:
"Two right-wing operatives infamous for inventing outlandish conspiracy theories face felony charges in Michigan for allegedly intimidating voters with inaccurate robocalls that discouraged residents in urban areas from casting their ballots by mail.
Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman were charged with four felonies of intimidating voters, conspiring to violate election law and using a computer to commit a crime, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced Thursday, after thousands of residents from at least five states received the robocall aimed at discouraging absentee voting, at a time when many Americans are expected to vote by mail rather than in-person during the coronavirus pandemic.
Each charge against the pair carries a five- or seven-year sentence if they are convicted in Michigan. Wohl and Burkman, who live in Los Angeles and Arlington, Va., respectively, have not yet been arraigned, Nessel’s office said, adding that it is “too early to say if formal extradition will be necessary or if they will present themselves here voluntarily in the very near future.”
Nearly 12,000 residents with phone numbers from the 313 area code, located in Detroit, were targeted, Nessel’s office said. Attorneys general in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Illinois also reported similar robocalls made to urban residents, amounting to an estimated 85,000 calls nationally, according to the Michigan office.
The caller, who claims to work for a civil rights organization founded by Wohl and Burkman, falsely says personal information for those who vote by mail will be shared with police tracking down warrants, credit card companies collecting outstanding debt, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention requiring mandatory vaccinations. The caller tells voters to not be “finessed into giving your private information to the man.” Officials said the call exploited “racially-charged stereotypes.”..."
The U.S. economy added just 661,000 jobs in September — the smallest monthly job gain since the recovery began in May, signaling the recovery could be cooling off.
In what will be the last monthly jobs report issued before the election on Nov. 3, the unemployment rate dropped to 7.9 percent, putting the rate closer to that of other recent recessions.
The modest gains in jobs were driven by hiring increases in leisure and hospitality, which added 318,000 jobs back in September, mostly at restaurants and bars. Retail added back another 142,000 jobs, driven in part by hiring at clothing stores.
Government employment fell by 231,000 driven by declines in local and state education, a decline economists have been warning about for months.
There are still 10.7 million less people with jobs than there were in February before the pandemic, but now more than half of the jobs lost in March and April are now recovered.
The number of jobs added is lower than expected but the unemployment rate dropped more than expected: this means more people have given up looking for a job.
On Wednesday, Disney sliced 28,000 of those leisure and hospitality gains. And American Airlines and Delta are cutting a combined 22,000 jobs. Goldman Sachs cut 400 jobs Sept. 30. Allstate cut 3,800 jobs Sept. 30. Shell cut 9,000.
BLS said the total US labor force in December last year was 160 million. So far this year, the total number of people losing their jobs and filing initial claims for unemployment is between 62 and 63 million. That is forty percent of the work force laid off and amounts to HUGE disruption and uncertainty.
Yesterday news reports said that 179 million people are now at risk this month of having their electricity and water shut off because they are so far behind in their monthly payments.
179 million is more than half the entire US population -- 331 million.
More evidence of a ‘K’ shaped recovery. If you’re in the top half, particularly the top quarter, you’re doing fine and saving money. If you’re in the bottom half you’re in a severe recession near depression.
The real problem is that a large number of employees who found jobs or were brought back to their previous job were LAID OFF OR FURLOUGHED again.
Foreclosure law firms and eviction attorneys are hiring like crazy.
BREAKING: Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) tests positive for coronavirus, attended White House ceremony Saturday with Trump on Supreme Court nominee
Heading into the November election, the US jobs recovery is running out of steam.
The economy added 661,000 jobs in September, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday. The unemployment rate stood at 7.9%.
This is the highest the unemployment rate has been ahead of a presidential election since the government started tracking the monthly rate in 1948.
In 2012, when the country re-elected President Barack Obama, the pre-election unemployment rate was initially also reported at 7.9%, before getting revised down to 7.8%.
The October jobs report will be published on the Friday following the election.
The pandemic has ravaged America's previously strong job market and more than 22 million jobs vanished in the spring lockdown. If President Donald Trump loses the election, he could become the first President on record — going back to President Harry Truman — to leave the White House with fewer jobs than when he started.
Comparing presidents' jobs records in their first 44 months in office over the same time period, Trump comes last.
President Donald Trump has the most job losses on record [3.9 million] in the first 44 months of his presidency, according to data going back to 1939.
The second worst was G.W. Bush at 605 thousand job losses.
September job growth slowed significantly from the revised 1.5 million jobs added in August.
And even though the economy added back more than 1 million jobs every month between May and August, the country is still down 10.7 million jobs since February, before Covid-19 hit.
The initial jobs rebound was easier to achieve as businesses reopened, albeit under restrictions, and a lot of jobs that had vanished reappeared.
But more than six months since the pandemic hit, improvements are harder to come by as the economic downturn is taking its toll on businesses of all sizes. On top of that, funds from the Paycheck Protection Program are running low for many small businesses that have already used up the money to rehire staff.
Some companies announced large-scale layoffs this week, which will be a further drag on the recovery in the coming months. Disney (DIS) and American Airlines (AAL) both announced layoffs this week — 28,000 and 19,000 workers, respectively.
Lasting job losses also increased, with 36% of unemployed workers classified as permanently unemployed.
On top of that, 617,000 women dropped out of the labor force in September. Half of them were between 35 and 44, the prime working age. By comparison, only 78,000 men dropped out of the workforce last year.
This dramatic dropout coincided with the restart of the school year. With remote learning optional and continuing in parts of the country, parents need to balance their jobs with their care responsibilities. More often than not this falls on the woman.
In Tuesday night's debate, time and again Rump tried to sow doubt about the election process, about the basic democratic principle of settling political battles at the ballot box; and in the chilling final minutes, he made it clear that he was willing to send vigilantes to polling stations and attorneys to gum up every aspect of the vote count, all to secure his power.
In a country as on edge and polarized as today’s America, which has more guns than people, this was the height of irresponsibility. For that reason alone, this “debate” would have qualified as the most debased example of its kind in American history. But that wasn’t where things stopped. Where Trump really ended was in a sort of fascist halfway house, a strongman not quite confident enough in his ability to do away with the election process entirely, but secure enough in his bile to give a wink and nod to white nationalists and neo-Nazi street-fighters, and to salute one group by name, the Proud Boys, telling them to “stand back and stand by.”
That will surely go down as one of the most infamous lines in American politics—the moment when Trump put the world on notice that he was ready to activate his version of the Nazi SA paramilitary forces.
You reap what you sow. In acquitting earlier this year at his Senate trial a man who they knew was guilty of a slew of crimes and outrages against the Constitution, Mitch McConnell’s Republicans gave their imprimatur to Trump’s dictatorial impulses. He is now running on those impulses, and he’s collapsing the country’s democratic pillars as he rampages. When the history books are written about this shameful period, those who enabled Trump’s onslaught against democracy will be condemned as collaborators.
Trump may not be guilty of treason according to the technical definition of the word. But I do know that what Trump is unleashing, in his increasingly desperate bid to retain power, and what the GOP congressional leadership is acquiescing in as they continue their Faustian bargain with him (“you give us conservative judicial nominations, and we’ll turn a blind eye to all your sins”), is something very, very dark. Something that could do unfathomable damage to US institutions and Americans’ lives. Something that could make peaceful politics, a politics bound by rules and norms and limits, a quaint legacy of a calmer past. For when the “president” of the United States uses his time in front of an audience of tens of millions to flirt with street gangs, to destroy public confidence in elections, and to refuse to agree to guarantees regarding the peaceful transfer of power, he is pushing a narrative of civil conflict. And that is something every person of good conscience, regardless of their ideological affiliations, should recoil from in horror.
Trump repeatedly said Tuesday night that he represented “law and order,” but from the start of what CNN’s Dana Bash labeled the “shit show” to the conclusion, his own words on the stage belied it. He is now quite openly flirting with violence as a means to prevent a full and fair vote count, and of unleashing fascist thugs to deal with his political enemies. That’s gangsterism—and that’s the Signal: The “president” of the United States is essentially seceding from the American constitutional system of governance. And yet from the GOP ranks in Congress, we still hear the clapping of the hired claque, or, just as telling, the silence of a cowed and cowardly gaggle.
First polls of likely voters since the debate:
Joe Biden's lead over President Donald Trump has narrowed to 2.7 points among likely voters, a new IBD/TIPP 2020 election poll finds. Trump's rise comes despite registered voters seeing Biden as the winner of Tuesday's debate and coming across as more likable by double-digit margins.
The new IBD/TIPP Poll was conducted after the Trump-Biden presidential debate on Tuesday night but before the early Friday bombshell that President Trump has tested positive for the coronavirus.
Biden leads President Trump, 48.6% to 45.9%. Another 1.5% say they'll vote for another candidate, while 4% are not sure who they'll support.
Nice cherry you picked.
Today's RCP average of polls has Biden up by. 7.0.
Check it out yourself
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_biden-6247.html
Of course that includes Rasmussen's Biden +8 poll.
New polls suggest Democratic nominee Joe Biden has a shot at blowing out President Trump in the Electoral College, which would have disastrous repercussions for a Republican Party desperately working to protect its Senate majority.
The surveys were released before Trump and first lady Melania Trump tested positive for the coronavirus, extraordinary news with uncertain implications for the race.
The news could pull Trump from the campaign trail at a critical point in the race, but it also raises questions about the health of the president and the stability of his administration.
Before that news, Trump was already having a terrible week at the polls.
A new Quinnipiac University survey of South Carolina, which Trump carried by 14 points in 2016, finds him clinging to a 1-point lead. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is getting swamped on the airwaves by Democrat Jaime Harrison and Senate Republicans have been forced to redirect millions of dollars into that race.
In Alaska, where the president triumphed by 15 points in the last election, Trump and Biden are in a statistical dead heat, according to new data from Harstad Strategic Research. Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) is trying to hold on against Democrat Al Gross in a state that hasn’t gone for the Democratic presidential nominee in 56 years.
Those polls come as Biden on Wednesday took a small lead in the FiveThirtyEight average of polls in Iowa, where Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) is fighting for her political life against Democrat Theresa Greenfield. Trump carried the state by 9 points in 2016.
The polls show the presidential race is a toss-up in Georgia, a historically red state with two competitive Senate races this cycle.
A new post-debate survey from CNBC released on Thursday put Biden’s national lead at 13 points over Trump, a landslide margin. Republicans — many of whom were appalled by the president’s debate showing on Tuesday — are growing worried that Trump will lose in a rout and take the GOP’s Senate majority with him.
“It’s concerning,” said John Pudner, a veteran Republican campaign operative who now runs the nonpartisan group Take Back Our Republic. “I think Trump’s polling and his miscues at the debate are especially a cause for concern in those tight races in Georgia, South Carolina and Iowa … it’s making his reelection tougher, and it’s making those Senate races tougher to win.”
Biden leads Trump by 7.2 points nationally in the RealClearPolitics average. His lead has been mostly steady going back to last year. At this point in 2016, Trump only trailed Clinton by 2.7 points. He ended up losing the national vote by about 2 points.
The Democratic nominee’s lead is outside the margin of error in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. He has led in almost every poll of Arizona this cycle. Florida and North Carolina, two states the president won narrowly in 2016, are toss-ups.
Biden is also running close with Trump in traditionally red states, such as Texas, Georgia, South Carolina and Alaska, and in states the president won easily in 2016, such as Ohio and Iowa.
Polls in 2020 show Biden leading big among independents, suburban voters and people who dislike both candidates. It does not appear third parties will be a significant portion of the vote in 2020.
According to the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, 279 Electoral College votes are already leaning toward Biden, more than the 270 he needs to win. There are 179 electoral votes leaning toward Trump.
"Nice cherry you picked.
Today's RCP average of polls has Biden up by. 7.0.
Check it out yourself"
it was the first poll I saw
when an event as unique as that debate has occurred, referring to an average of polls over the last two weeks is the ultimate in cheery-picking
personally, I can't imagine who would watch that debate and come out for Trump, but IBD/TIPP says there were quite a few
and what gets lost is that Biden's performance was very weak and reprehensible, as well
he refused to say he won't try to pack the court
Your IBD/TIPP Poll was in the average at RCP too.
Maybe citing the average of polls is cherry picking for GOPers.
I doubt it was in the autopsy report.
Maybe you can find something:
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/624581-rnc-autopsy.html
"he refused to say he won't try to pack the court"
As we all clearly saw, it was hard for Biden to get a word in with the Interrupter in Chief spouting off throughout.
Even the Fox News host WALLACE said:
"...Gentleman I hate to raise my voice, but why should I be different than the two of you? So here's the deal, we have six segments. We have ended that segment, we're going to go to the next segment. In that segment, you each are gonna have two uninterrupted moments. In those two interrupted minutes, Mr. President, you can say anything you want. I can asked a question about race but if you want to answer about something else, go ahead. But we, I think that the country would be better served if we allowed both people to speak with fewer interruption. I'm appealing to you sir to do that.
48:34 TRUMP
Well, him too.
48:36 WALLACE
Well, frankly, you've been doing more interrupting-
48:38 TRUMP
Well that’s alright, but he does plenty.
48:40 WALLACE
Well, less than, sir less than you have. Let's please continue on... "
"Your IBD/TIPP Poll was in the average at RCP too.
Maybe citing the average of polls is cherry picking for GOPers."
it wouldn't always be
but in the volatility of the last two weeks, yeah, it is
I know that Dems start frothing at the mouth anytime anyone dares to suggest Biden isn't destined for a landslide
as we've discussed, the perceived winner usually wins
still, I just pointed out an interesting poll result
as a certain Nobel Peace Prize nominee recently said, stand down, and stand by
"As we all clearly saw, it was hard for Biden to get a word in with the Interrupter in Chief spouting off throughout."
actually, he could have easily answered the court-packing question
at that point, Wallace asked him and he refused to answer
and Trump's "interruption" was to ask why he wouldn't answer
that's when Biden lost it and told him "Shut up, man"
Biden is going to have to answer
frankly, Trump's performance, especially telling militant groups to "stand by", and his failure to address the racial inequities issues from the spring and summer, are giving me pause
at this point, I'm considering abstaining on the election, something I've never done
I will not watch that debate again to know if you're lying again or not.
You must know if you're in Maryland, it won't matter whether you vote or abstain.
Biden will easily win here.
A very weird set of social expectations have set in our politics in which absolute kindness & decorum is expected from Dems, departure from which is an OUTRAGE; and ruthless hypocrisy & cruelty is the norm from Republicans & is unworthy of commentary when displayed.
"I will not watch that debate again to know if you're lying again or not."
well, as an alternative, why don't you just find if Biden has agreed not to support packing the court
let us know what you find out
"You must know if you're in Maryland, it won't matter whether you vote or abstain.
Biden will easily win here."
that's true
the decision is not that consequential
"A very weird set of social expectations have set in our politics in which absolute kindness & decorum is expected from Dems, departure from which is an OUTRAGE; and ruthless hypocrisy & cruelty is the norm from Republicans & is unworthy of commentary when displayed."
other than Trump's puerile behavior, could you give us any other examples, Pam
President Trump’s left-wing critics say he is the most anti-gay and anti-transgender president in history.
No, I’m not exaggerating.
Human Rights Campaign President Alphonso David has repeatedly argued that Trump, the first president to enter office supportive of gay marriage, is the “worst president on LGBTQ issues ever.” That’s right: The man who runs the biggest left-wing gay and transgender rights organization in the country actually thinks that Trump is more anti-gay than presidents were 200 years ago.
Meanwhile, prominent top left-wing activists in the gay and transgender community argue that for gay and transgender voters, electing Joe Biden in November is a matter of life and death.
“LGBTQ voters are poised to make a deciding difference this election year,” GLAAD President Kate Ellis has said. “Our community understands how much is at stake in this election. We cannot sit this one out — our very lives are on the line.”
These unhinged exaggerations are, sadly, not fringe examples, but fairly representative of the disposition of the mainstream left-leaning gay and transgender communities and their Democratic Party allies. Still, people of good faith may seriously believe that while these criticisms are exaggerated, the Trump administration is indeed anti-gay and actively undermining equality for gay and transgender people.
But a new poll, from GLAAD itself, casts serious doubt on this narrative.
The Trump administration’s record is not perfect, and its transgender military restrictions stand out as one example where it did implement an unfair anti-transgender policy. Yet from false claims that Trump was stripping citizenship from the children of gay Americans to distortions of Department of Justice positions, people have been fed a steady stream of stories about “anti-LGBTQ” actions by this administration that are often either exaggerated or baseless.
One good sign that the Trump administration isn’t actually very “anti-LGBT” at all is the fact that Trump’s share of the gay and transgender vote is set to increase this November. In 2016, he received 14% of the LGBT vote. Yet GLAAD’s new poll (which, if anything, skews leftward and likely underestimates Trump's support) puts his expected 2020 support among LGBT voters at 17%.
The survey finds that 18% of gay men, 11% of lesbian women, and 18% of transgender people plan on voting for Trump.
Dear Students, Faculty and Staff,
I know many of you have read about the White House ceremony I recently attended. I write to express my regret for certain choices I made that day and for failing to lead as I should have.
Last Saturday morning I received, on very short notice, an invitation to attend the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the United States Supreme Court. It was important, I believed, that I represent the University at this historic event to support a faculty colleague and alumna of Notre Dame who is greatly respected by academic and judicial peers, revered by her students and cherished by her friends.
When I arrived at the White House, a medical professional took me to an exam room to obtain a nasal swab for a rapid COVID-19 test. I was then directed to a room with others, all fully masked, until we were notified that we had all tested negative and were told that it was safe to remove our masks. We were then escorted to the Rose Garden, where I was seated with others who also had just been tested and received negative results.
I regret my error of judgment in not wearing a mask during the ceremony and by shaking hands with a number of people in the Rose Garden. I failed to lead by example, at a time when I’ve asked everyone else in the Notre Dame community to do so. I especially regret my mistake in light of the sacrifices made on a daily basis by many, particularly our students, in adjusting their lives to observe our health protocols.
After returning to campus, I consulted the Notre Dame Wellness Center and was advised to monitor carefully and report any COVID-19 symptoms. In an abundance of caution, I have decided also to quarantine in accordance with University protocols.
Thank you for your continued efforts during this semester, and for your understanding.
In Notre Dame,
Fr. John Jenkins, C.S.C.
"I especially regret my mistake in light of the sacrifices made on a daily basis by many, particularly our students, in adjusting their lives to observe our health protocols."
Three days ago we learned the RCP average of polls had Biden up by 7.0.
Today, days after the Rump's disastrous debate performance, the RCP average of polls has Biden leading by 8.1.
The numbers in this average include both Rasmussen's Biden +8 and IBD/TIPP's Biden +3.
There are now two polls showing Biden leads by double digits.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_biden-6247.html
after the last week, Biden would have to do something really stupid to lose
it's possible he will but the pandemic gives him an excuse that Hillary didn't have to kick back and coast
the revelations of the last week about the Russian hoax will probably consume the first year of his presidency
given his advanced age, odds are he won't make it to the end of his first term
at least we'll have an originalist SCOTUS to check him
"at least we'll have an originalist SCOTUS to check him"
Well maybe, if Moscow Mitch can get a quorum of GOPers after Rump's super-spreader event in DC, nominating his SCOTUS pick.
"Oct 4 (Reuters) - Nine U.S. states have reported record increases in COVID-19 cases over the last seven days, mostly in the upper Midwest and West where chilly weather is forcing more activities indoors.
On Saturday alone, four states - Kentucky, Minnesota, Montana and Wisconsin - saw record increases in new cases and nationally nearly 49,000 new infections were reported, the highest for a Saturday in seven weeks, according to a Reuters analysis. Kansas, Nebraska, New Hampshire, South Dakota and Wyoming also set new records for cases last week.
Daytime highs in many of these states are now in the 50s Fahrenheit (10 Celsius). Health experts have long warned that colder temperatures driving people inside could promote the spread of the virus.
Montana has reported record numbers of new cases for three out of the last four days and also has a record number of COVID-19 patients in its hospitals.
Wisconsin has set records for new cases two out of the last three days and also reported record hospitalizations on Saturday. On average 22% of tests are coming back positive, one of the highest rates in the country. (Graphic: https://tmsnrt.rs/33rkCcw)
Wisconsin's Democratic governor mandated masks on Aug. 1 but Republican lawmakers are backing a lawsuit challenging the requirement.
North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin have the highest new cases per capita in the country.
Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson is one of several prominent Republicans who have tested positive for coronavirus since President Donald Trump announced he had contracted the virus.
Because of the surge in cases in the Midwest, nursing homes and assisted-living facilities operated by Aspirus in northern Wisconsin and Michigan are barring most visitors as they did earlier this year.
Bellin Health, which runs a hospital in Green Bay, Wisconsin, said last week its emergency department has been past capacity at times and doctors had to place patients in beds in the hallways.
The United States is reporting 42,600 new cases and 700 deaths on average each day, compared with 35,000 cases and 800 deaths in mid-September. Deaths are a lagging indicator and tend to rise several weeks after cases increase."
"Well maybe, if Moscow Mitch can get a quorum of GOPers after Rump's super-spreader event in DC, nominating his SCOTUS pick."
the Senators aren't showing symptoms
the hearings will be virtual if need be
when Barrett is confirmed, it removes another reason to re-elect Trump
he would no longer be needed
"Nine U.S. states have reported record increases in COVID-19 cases over the last seven days, mostly in the upper Midwest and West where chilly weather is forcing more activities indoors"
yes, that happened down south as high temperatures sent people fleeing inside to the AC
overall, however, the South red states handled their season better than Northern blue states did theirs
Joe Biden – along with his amen chorus in the press – keeps insisting that he and President Barack Obama handed Donald Trump a booming economy when they left office in 2016.
“We left a booming economy, ” Biden said during the first presidential debate, “and he caused the recession.” Debate moderator Chris Wallace jumped in to help Biden, adding that job growth was faster in the last three years of Obama’s term than the first three of Trump’s.
One is a flat out lie, the other a clever deception.
After presiding over the worst economic recovery since the Great Depression, Obama and Biden left office with the economy stalling out, leading experts to warn that the nation was facing “secular stagnation.”
Look at the numbers. GDP growth sharply decelerated in 2016, falling from 3.1% the year before down 1.7% in 2016 – the second-worst year under Obama/Biden after the recession ended and the third year of below 2% growth on their watch.
Other indicators were equally distressing. Small business optimism had been on the decline before the November 2016 election. Business investment was stagnant. The rate of growth in blue-collar jobs was falling.
In Obama’s last year, the unemployment rate remained basically unchanged — it was 4.9% in Jan 2016, and 4.8% when Trump took office in Jan. 2017.
Real median family income didn’t budge from August 2015 to November 2016, according to Sentier Research.
The stock market had been flat for more than a year.
Here’s now the New York Times described the economy that Obama and Biden were leaving behind:
“For three quarters in a row, the growth rate of the economy has hovered around a mere 1%. In the last quarter of 2015 and the first quarter of 2016, the economy expanded at feeble annual rates of 0.9% and 0.8%, respectively. The initial reading for the second quarter of this year, released on Friday, was a disappointing 1.2%.”
The Times warned that “the underlying reality of low growth will haunt whoever wins the White House.”
The economy was so tepid when Obama and Biden were packing their bags that economists started to warn of “secular stagnation” – meaning permanent slow growth.
As CBS News put it at the time: “With U.S. economic growth stuck in low gear for several years, it’s leading many economists to worry that the country has entered a prolonged period where any expansion will be weaker than it has been in the past.”
Does any of this sound anything like a booming economy?
But what about the oft-repeated claim – repeated by Chris Wallace during the debate – that “in Obama’s final three years as president more jobs were created. A million and a half more jobs than in the first three years of your presidency.”
Doesn’t this show that the economy was doing better under Obama?
No.
To understand why, some context is needed. Under Obama, job growth in the recovery was unusually slow – slower in fact than every major recession before it.
During the Reagan recovery, for example, annual job growth averaged 2.7%. Under Clinton, it averaged 2.4%. But under Obama, the average annual growth in jobs was just 1.5%.
The only thing that grew fast under Obama was the number of people who’d dropped out of the labor force. That number climbed by almost 15 million.
Nevertheless, by the time Trump took office, the recovery was going on eight years. Under normal circumstances, job growth slows as and expansion gets long in tooth.
And that’s what everybody expected.
At the start of 2017, the Congressional Budget Office released its 10-year economic forecast, which reflects the consensus of economists at the time.
The CBO figured that the number of jobs created between January 2017 and December 2019 would be 2 million.
Actual number: 6.4 million.
The unemployment rate, the CBO predicted, would be at 4.7% – and rising.
Actual number: 3.5%.
Keep in mind that when the CBO made those forecasts, it was under the assumption Obama’s economic policies remained in effect.
What’s more, economists were saying that the economy was at “full employment” by mid-2017.
CNBC, for example, reported in June of that year that “At 4.3%, the unemployment rate has gone well below where anyone expected it and is likely to improve only modestly if at all from here. ‘Our findings suggest that the labor market has already slightly overshot full employment,’ Goldman Sachs economist Daan Struyven said in a report for clients.”
In other words, nobody expected job growth to be anywhere near as strong has turned out to be under Trump.
So, it’s fair to say that the economy under Trump created 4 million more jobs than would have been the case if Obama’s policies had remained in effect.
Biden recently compared Trump to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels, saying “you say the lie long enough, keep repeating it, repeating it, repeating it, it becomes common knowledge.”
When it comes to the economy, it is Biden, not Trump, who is employing Goebbels’ technique. And the mainstream press, including Chris Wallace, are lending him a hand.
Nice cherry picking piece
"During the Reagan recovery, for example, annual job growth averaged 2.7%. Under Clinton, it averaged 2.4%. But under Obama, the average annual growth in jobs was just 1.5%."
Neither Reagan or Clinton become president after Dumbya's Great Recession.
In Rump's first 35 months in office 6.7 million jobs were created.
In Obama's final 35 months in office 7.9 million jobs were created.
"Neither Reagan or Clinton become president after Dumbya's Great Recession."
don't know how old you are but there is no understating how dismal the economy was under Jimmy Carter
and it had been that since Nixon was re-elected
Bush's "Great Recession" would have likely been short-lived had not Dems and their media co-conspirators done everything they could sabotage consumer confidence
Dems are always willing to put the country through hell to gain power
similar to now
they push unnecessary lockdowns to sabotage the economy
if they hadn't, Trump's economy would have made his re-election a landslide!
as for Clinton, he became a DINO after the first midterm, taking direction from Newt Gingrich
"In Rump's first 35 months in office 6.7 million jobs were created.
In Obama's final 35 months in office 7.9 million jobs were created."
what this ignores is that job creation was trending down sharply in Obama's last year and economists expected about 1.5 million jobs in Trump's first three years
he quadrupled the expectation of the experts
when did Obama ever do anything like that?
what is "never"?
The Supreme Court fight of the century is, so far, a fizzle.
The ratio of progressive outrage over the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to supposed reasons the US Senate shouldn’t confirm her is completely out of whack — there’s a surfeit of the former and almost none of the latter.
Barrett has received extraordinary testimonials from her colleagues and students, who say she is brilliant, conscientious and kind. The opposition has countered with a dog’s breakfast of nonsense, including that her confirmation hearing can’t be held in the middle of a pandemic — when the Senate has continued its business since the pandemic began.
Upon her selection, media outlets ran a spate of stories about her reported membership in a Catholic group called People of Praise, linking the group to the dystopian novel “The Handmaid’s Tale.” What Barrett’s life and career have to do with the imagined misogynistic world of the novel was never clear: She’s a mother of seven who has ascended to the very top of her profession with the help of a supportive husband.
Barrett’s social conservatism has been another line of attack. Her critics have fastened on the fact that she signed a statement in 2006 declaring her opposition to abortion. It isn’t news that Barrett is pro-life, nor should it be disqualifying, unless progressives believe that anyone with a view counter to theirs on a hotly contested moral issue should be, on principle, excluded from the highest court.
It isn’t true, as has been widely reported, that Barrett said in that same statement that Roe v. Wade should be overturned (Barrett had nothing to do with an ad denouncing Roe that ran adjacent to the statement).
The group that organized the anti-abortion statement also opposes IVF, as commonly practiced, leading Democrats to conclude that Barrett does, too. Regardless, the Supreme Court obviously doesn’t police the nation’s fertility clinics.
Barrett has also been portrayed as a threat to ObamaCare, given that the court will hear an anti-ObamaCare lawsuit shortly after the election. But the merits of the suit are so weak, it conceivably could lose 9-0.
If it means anything, just last month, Barrett participated with seven other judges in a moot court at William & Mary Law School on the ObamaCare case. As The Los Angeles Times reports, “none of the judges ruled in favor of the administration’s and Republican states’ request to strike down the law.”
It is alleged that Barrett would take a sledgehammer to precedent, but she wrote in a 2013 law-review article that the high court’s traditional approach to stare decisis “promotes doctrinal stability while still accommodating pluralism on the court.”
Her critics point to a 2016 TV interview, in which she commented about the vacancy created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, alleging that she herself warned against appointments changing the ideological balance of the court in an election year. On the contrary, the crux of her analysis was that the president has the power to nominate and the Senate the power to confirm or not.
Since progressives haven’t gotten traction with any substantive arguments against Barrett, they have been relying on dubious process arguments. Not only is it wrong, they charge, to confirm a justice so close to an election, it’s a public-health danger to do so now when three GOP senators have tested positive. As a headline in the online magazine Slate put it, “The GOP Will Still Seat Amy Coney Barrett Because Entrenching Minority Rule Is More Important Than Human Life.”
This is laughable. First, it’s a long-standing norm that when the president and the Senate majority are of the same party, Supreme Court nominees get confirmed in an election year. Second, the Senate Judiciary Committee has already been holding hybrid in-person and virtual hearings all year. There is no reason the committee can’t do the same with Barrett next week. At this rate, the Barrett confirmation is going to be the epic battle that wasn’t.
Lockdowns are necessary.
The White House operated without facemarks and now we're up to 14 people close to Rump who have tested positive in recent days.
When DC turns into a hot spot, we'll know who to blame.
Rump ridiculed people who wore face masks and now we have over 210,000 dead Americans.
Refusing to wear face masks is how you spread a pandemic wider.
Obama save us from falling off the George W. Bush-worst-since-the-depression-economic-cliff, the economy John McCain called sound the day Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy.
Every day he was in the White House he worked for all of us, and all the while Moscow Mitch worked hard and yet failed to limit Obama to a single term.
And not only was Obama nominated for a Nobel Prize, he won one.
Craig A. Spencer doesn’t usually dwell on the time in October 2014 when Donald Trump lashed out at the New York doctor, who had just returned from treating Ebola patients in Guinea, for patronizing businesses and riding the subway before feeling symptomatic and being diagnosed with the illness.
“I consider that doctor extremely selfish,” the real estate mogul said to “Fox & Friends” at the time. “I think he’s a very selfish person, frankly.”
But on a day in which President Trump returned to the White House and removed his mask in public despite still being contagious with the novel coronavirus, Spencer couldn’t let Monday pass without referencing an old Trump tweet directed at him.
“I followed all public health guidance and infected no one,” Spencer, who recuperated from Ebola without spreading it, tweeted late Monday. “You’ve unnecessarily exposed numerous people over the last few days, your administration is refusing to do contact tracing, and there’s an outbreak in the White House because of your dangerous disregard of public health.”
At a time when the president has said that people should not be afraid of an illness that has already killed more than 209,000 Americans, critics on Monday pointed to his 2014 critique of Spencer in questioning Trump’s public health practices. While Trump said he had recovered from the coronavirus, his doctor, Sean Conley, stressed that the president was “not out of the woods yet,” and remained contagious. The president returns to a White House that has seen more than a dozen officials test positive for the coronavirus in recent days.
“It’s hypocrisy. That’s all it is,” CNN’s Chris Cuomo said on his Monday show, as he played audio of Trump’s 2014 attacks on Spencer. Cuomo added that the president continuing to downplay the virus was equivalent to “a drunk driver who tells other people to drive drunk.” “He’s the president now. That very selfish person he was talking about? It’s you.”
RCP Average Biden v. Trump.....Biden +9.2
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_biden-6247.html
Battlegrouds: Biden +4.2
FL Biden +2.3
PA Biden +6.6
MI Biden +5.8
WI Biden +6.0
NC Biden +1.2
AZ Biden +3.4
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/elections/trump-vs-biden-top-battleground-states/
"Lockdowns are necessary.
The White House operated without facemarks and now we're up to 14 people close to Rump who have tested positive in recent days."
and no deaths
lockdowns are not necessary
they are a lazy, unimaginative way to deal with a pandemic
that's why Andrew Cuomo is refusing to shut down businesses in NYC
"When DC turns into a hot spot, we'll know who to blame."
if so it won't be from the White House
"Rump ridiculed people who wore face masks and now we have over 210,000 dead Americans.
Refusing to wear face masks is how you spread a pandemic wider."
actually, Trump said mask should be worn when needed
he mocked those who wear them when not necessary
"Obama save us from falling off the George W. Bush-worst-since-the-depression-economic-cliff,"
no, he didn't
he presided over a tepid recovery in a country with economic resilience built by the 25 years of the Reagan era
"Every day he was in the White House he worked for all of us,"
actually, he spent most of his first term ignoring the economy
"And not only was Obama nominated for a Nobel Prize, he won one."
yes, explain what he did to receive the prize
"President Trump returned to the White House and removed his mask"
we all do that at home
And when you go home, do you have multiple domestic workers and security personnel working for you that you would be OK with infecting if you were COVID positive when you took off your mask at home?
You sure do like to ignore inconvenient truths.
The White House is NOT Rump's home, it's the Peoples' House.
Rump's got a home in a NY skyscraper and another in FL.
When Rump returned to the WH, he is not only around his family members. He's around employees who have the right to be safe at work, not forced to breathe the same air as their COVID infected employer.
Two-thirds of Americans say President Donald Trump handled the risk of coronavirus infection to others around him irresponsibly, according to a new CNN Poll conducted by SSRS in the days following the announcement that the President had contracted the virus that has disrupted everyday life for millions of people for more than half a year.
With Trump hospitalized at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, 69% of Americans said they trusted little of what they heard from the White House about the President’s health, with only 12% saying they trusted almost all of it.
Disapproval of the President’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak stands at a new high in the survey, with 60% saying they disapprove. Additionally, 63% say his own infection is unlikely to change anything about the way that he handles the pandemic.
Questions about Trump’s coronavirus diagnosis were added to a survey already in progress on Friday.Overall, Trump’s approval rating in the poll stands at 40% approve to 57% disapprove. Disapproval is up from 53% in early September.
"And when you go home, do you have multiple domestic workers and security personnel working for you that you would be OK with infecting if you were COVID positive when you took off your mask at home?"
no, but I wouldn't have that at the hospital either and Trump did
the White House is a bigger space and well-ventilated and there is no indication that any security or other staff is forced to be with six, or twelve feet of him
those that have to be around him are likely safer at the White House
wait, you don't believe Biden is wearing a mask 24/7 inside, do you?
security at Biden's house are likely in more dangerous conditions
"You sure do like to ignore inconvenient truths."
here's one: Biden has refused to disavow the scheme by his socialist supporters to pack the Supreme Court and destroy our system of justice
"The White House is NOT Rump's home, it's the Peoples' House."
can you provide any documentation for that assertion?
if it's the people's house, why can't any people walk in there any time they want?
"When Rump returned to the WH, he is not only around his family members. He's around employees who have the right to be safe at work, not forced to breathe the same air as their COVID infected employer."
they don't have to breathe the air
they are permitted to wear a mask
here's an inconvenient truth: you actually don't give a crap about Trump's security detail
"Two-thirds of Americans say President Donald Trump handled the risk of coronavirus infection to others around him irresponsibly, according to a new CNN Poll conducted by SSRS in the days following the announcement that the President had contracted the virus that has disrupted everyday life for millions of people for more than half a year."
polls change
having faced faced down the virus may look braver than cowering in your basement in three weeks
historically, Americans look for brave leaders
"With Trump hospitalized at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, 69% of Americans said they trusted little of what they heard from the White House about the President’s health, with only 12% saying they trusted almost all of it."
ever hear of HIPPA?
"Disapproval of the President’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak stands at a new high in the survey, with 60% saying they disapprove. Additionally, 63% say his own infection is unlikely to change anything about the way that he handles the pandemic."
we'll see
"here's one: Biden has refused to disavow the scheme by his socialist supporters to pack the Supreme Court and destroy our system of justice"
Biden has never said he would pack the court.
Rump has never said he would not shoot an innocent person for fun.
But Rump did actually say "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, OK?"
"they don't have to breathe the air"
What would you have them breathe instead, water?
They'd need gills for that.
[Basic biology]
"they are permitted to wear a mask"
Rump has ridiculed many people for doing just exactly that.
Yes I've heard of HIPPA and it has nothing to do with people's opinions of Rump's failure to protect us all from COVID or to get scientists to lie to us for him.
How many times will CDC bow to his pressure to fudge the data??
Once was too many.
Everyone in the world must know by now America has 4% of the world's population and 20% of the world's COVID cases.
Rump's COVID leadership has been abysmal.
No miracle or warm weather or a bleach injected into your body or bright lights under your skin did not keep us safe from it.
The leaders of shithole countries in Africa did better than Rump did at keep their countrymen safe from COVID.
The only thing Rump cares about is his image.
He does not care about you or me, or our health or our well-being, he cares only about himself.
Washington, D.C. reported 105 new coronavirus cases on Tuesday, the highest daily total for the city since early June.
The spike comes amid an outbreak at the White House, raising questions about whether those cases there are seeding the spread of the virus in the surrounding city. D.C. has been averaging about 40 new cases per day, according to the Covid Tracking Project.
A D.C. official said Tuesday that it is not clear whether the outbreak at the White House is the cause of the increase in cases.
The White House conducts its tests in a separate system that is not reported as part of D.C.’s results. Still, given that many White House officials live in D.C. and go to restaurants and interact with other residents, it is possible the White House cases could contribute to spread in the surrounding city.
Another factor is that awareness of the White House outbreak appears to be leading to a surge in people getting tested in D.C., which can contribute to more cases being detected.
The D.C. official said the city's Judiciary Square testing site conducted about 600 tests on Monday, up from a usual number of about 350.
“While we do not have data on what compelled people to get tested today, it would be hard to imagine that the recent news did not drive more people to do so,” John Falcicchio, chief of staff to D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, said in a statement. “We will continue to monitor the demand this week and urge residents if they need a test to get a test.”
At least eight people who were at the Supreme Court nomination announcement for Judge Amy Coney Barrett on Sept. 26 have tested positive for the virus. That event featured people crowded together in the White House Rose Garden, and many were not wearing masks.
The New York Times reported that the White House is not conducting contact tracing from that event, though it is notifying people who were in contact with President Trump two days before his diagnosis last Thursday night.
Bowser said at a press conference on Monday that D.C. officials had reached out to the White House about help with contact tracing or other assistance, but had not heard back.
Asked about the risk of spread in the city from the White House outbreak, Bowser said: “Obviously we're concerned about the spread of COVID-19 period. We're especially concerned with people following scientifically justified protocols to contain the spread of the virus.”
Facebook removed a post Tuesday from President Trump falsely claiming that the flu is more lethal than COVID-19.
“Many people every year, sometimes over 100,000, and despite the Vaccine, die from the Flu,” he wrote in the post. “Are we going to close down our Country? No, we have learned to live with it, just like we are learning to live with Covid, in most populations far less lethal!!!”
More than 209,000 Americans have died of COVID-19 this year, more than in the past five flu seasons combined.
The annual flu death total has been between 12,000 and 61,000 since 2010, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates.
The last time that U.S. flu deaths hit an estimated 100,000 was in 1968.
“We remove incorrect information about the severity of COVID-19, and have now removed this post,” Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone said.
The same Trump message was posted on Twitter. The platform placed a label on the tweet warning that it violated rules about spreading coronavirus misinformation. The post is still viewable, but cannot be interacted with. The label was only appended three hours after Trump's initial tweet. The Hill has reached out to the platform for comment.
"Biden has never said he would pack the court.
Rump has never said he would not shoot an innocent person for fun."
but many of his Dem buddies have and he refuses to disavow them
trump never said he would shoot anybody and no one suggested he should
I'm sure that you, even with your single digit IQ, gets it now!
"What would you have them breathe instead, water?"
filtered air through their mask
"Rump has ridiculed many people for doing just exactly that."
he ridiculed people who wear one when they don't need to
"Yes I've heard of HIPPA and it has nothing to do with people's opinions of Rump's failure to protect us all from COVID or to get scientists to lie to us for him."
then you know hid personal medical information is private
"Everyone in the world must know by now America has 4% of the world's population and 20% of the world's COVID cases."
we have a large population and have tested more than any
there's now ay to get accurate numbers from the most populous country in the world
President Trump said Tuesday that the coronavirus relief talks were over until after the election, abruptly ordering Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to stop negotiating with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
In a series of tweets posted less than 24 hours after he was released from the hospital, and still dealing with a Covid-19 diagnosis, Trump accused Pelosi of failing to negotiate in good faith, after she rejected an opening bid from Mnuchin in their latest round of talks.
“I have instructed my representatives to stop negotiating until after the election when, immediately after I win, we will pass a major Stimulus Bill that focuses on hard-working Americans and Small Business,” Trump wrote.
His tweets sent the stock market suddenly lower, as many businesses, households, and investors had been hoping for a sudden jolt of fiscal stimulus amid signs the economy was beginning to soften. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by about 330 points, or by 1.2 percent. The Nasdaq and S&P 500 also fell.
The pronouncement came just hours after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell said in a speech that more economic stimulus was needed.
Barring another unexpected development, Trump’s declaration kills any chance of new aid for millions of Americans who remain out work and at risk of eviction..."
Oops!
It looks like Rump's anger at Pelosi has taken over.
Gotta wonder if his treatment with Dexamethasone is related.
https://myelomabeacon.org/forum/dexamethasone-and-anger-issues-t6901-10.html
"WASHINGTON – The nonprofit, nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service announced today that Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has won the Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medal® in the Federal Employee of the Year category.
Since 2002, the Service to America Medals, or Sammies, have honored outstanding civil servants who have made significant contributions to the health, safety and prosperity of our country. Considered the “Oscars” of government service, the Sammies have earned a reputation as the premier awards program recognizing innovation and leadership in the federal government.
Fauci is recognized for his role as the nation’s premier expert and spokesperson on infectious diseases, and has led the federal government’s research response to infectious diseases over the course of six administrations. As COVID-19 spread across the nation, Fauci brought more than 50 years of knowledge to his efforts to keep the nation updated on how to navigate the deadly health crisis. In his capacity as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at NIH, he also has spearheaded efforts to develop COVID-19 treatments and vaccines.
“Dr. Fauci and the 2020 Service to America Medal honorees represent the many exceptional federal employees who have proudly and passionately dedicated their lives to making a difference for our country and our world,” said Max Stier, president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service. “They have broken down barriers, pioneered new frontiers of medicine, protected our nation from cybersecurity threats and helped our nation during the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic. We honor and thank them tonight for their service.” ..."
Thank you for your dedicated public service, Dr. Fauci
Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe on Tuesday declassified documents that revealed former CIA Director John Brennan briefed former President Obama on Hillary Clinton’s purported “plan” to tie then-candidate Donald Trump to Russia as “a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server” ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
Ratcliffe declassified Brennan’s handwritten notes – which were taken after he briefed Obama on the intelligence the CIA received – and a CIA memo, which revealed that officials referred the matter to the FBI for potential investigative action.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence transmitted the declassified documents to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees on Tuesday afternoon.
"Today, at the direction of President Trump, I declassified additional documents relevant to ongoing Congressional oversight and investigative activities," Ratcliffe said in a statement to Fox News Tuesday.
A source familiar with the documents explained that Brennan's handwritten notes were taken after briefing Obama on the matter.
“We’re getting additional insight into Russian activities from [REDACTED],” Brennan notes read. “CITE [summarizing] alleged approved by Hillary Clinton a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisers to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security service,” Brennan’s notes read.
The notes state “on 28 of July." In the margin, Brennan writes "POTUS," but that section of the notes is redacted.
“Any evidence of collaboration between Trump campaign + Russia,” the notes read.
The remainder of the notes are redacted, except in the margins, which reads: “JC,” “Denis,” and “Susan." "
The notes don't spell out the full names but "JC" could be referring to then-FBI Director James Comey, "Susan" could refer to National Security Adviser Susan Rice, and "Denis" could refer to Obama chief of staff Denis McDonough.
The declassification comes after Ratcliffe, last week, shared newly-declassified information with the Senate Judiciary Committee which revealed that in September 2016, U.S. intelligence officials forwarded an investigative referral on Hillary Clinton purportedly approving “a plan concerning U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russian hackers hampering U.S. elections” in order to distract the public from her email scandal.
That referral was sent to Comey and then-Deputy Assistant Director of Counterintelligence Peter Strzok.
“The following information is provided for the exclusive use of your bureau for background investigative action or lead purposes as appropriate,” the CIA memo to Comey and Strzok stated.
"This memorandum contains sensitive information that could be source revealing. It should be handled with particular attention to compartmentation and need-to-know. To avoid the possible compromise of the source, any investigative action taken in response to the information below should be coordinated in advance with Chief Counterintelligence Mission Center, Legal,” the memo, which was sent to Comey and Strzok, read. “It may not be used in any legal proceeding—including FISA applications—without prior approval...
"Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the leading U.S. official on infectious diseases, hit back at President Trump on Wednesday for what he called the misrepresentation of his stance on using masks to curb the coronavirus.
In the presidential debate on Tuesday, Mr. Trump claimed that Dr. Fauci initially said “masks are not good — then he changed his mind.” And when former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. said wearing masks could save tens of thousands of lives, Mr. Trump contended that “Dr. Fauci said the opposite.”
Dr. Fauci, whose relationship with his boss has often seemed tenuous at best, took issue with his claims the day after the debate.
“Anybody who has been listening to me over the last several months knows that a conversation does not go by where I do not strongly recommend that people wear masks,” he said in an interview on ABC News’s “Start Here” podcast. The full interview can be heard Thursday, ABC said.
Dr. Fauci explained that “very early on in the pandemic,” the authorities did not recommend masks to the general public because they were worried about shortages and hoarding. But that changed, he said, as it became clear that asymptomatic transmission was spreading the virus and that masks helped stop it..
“I have been on the airways, on the radio, on TV, begging people to wear masks,” Dr. Fauci said. “And I keep talking in the context of: Wear a mask, keep physical distance, avoid crowds, wash your hands and do things more outdoors versus indoors.”
Mr. Trump has often signaled his displeasure with Dr. Fauci, especially as the scientist’s stock has risen with many Americans. He once called him “a major television star” — apparently a compliment — but it was not clear that the president enjoyed sharing the spotlight.
In April, under fire for his slow initial response to the pandemic, the president reposted a Twitter message that said “Time to #FireFauci.” And in July, Trump advisers undercut Dr. Fauci by anonymously providing details to various news outlets about statements he had made early in the pandemic that they said were inaccurate.
Mr. Trump, watching the economy crumble in a re-election year, has been a cheerleader for state officials to reopen. Dr. Fauci has been rather the opposite. Just this week, he was ringing the alarm on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
“We’re not in a good place,” he said when asked about the nation averaging 40,000 new coronavirus cases a day.
Dr. Fauci said the increases some states are seeing were especially ill timed, given the approach of flu season.
“You don’t want to be in a position like that as the weather starts getting cold,” he said. “So we really need to intensify the public health measures that we talk about all the time.”..."
And look at where they are today: maskless Rump has COVID and Dr. Fauci doesn't.
President Trump called on Congress to approve federal economic relief late Tuesday night mere hours after publicly terminating negotiations with Democrats, posting tweets that appeared to contradict his own declarations from earlier the same day.
Trump had instructed Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Tuesday afternoon to abandon bipartisan talks over a stimulus package, complaining that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was making unreasonable demands in negotiations. “I have instructed my representatives to stop negotiating until after the election,” the president said.
About seven hours later, Trump appeared to reverse himself in a new string of tweets.
After canceling talks, he publicly urged members of his own administration to work with congressional Democrats to approve additional federal stimulus measures.
At 9:54 p.m., he called on the House and Senate to “IMMEDIATELY” approve $25 billion in new aid for the airline industry, which has already begun laying off thousands of employees after federal aid programs expired last week.
At 10:18 p.m., he called for Congress to direct $1,200 payments to millions of Americans and said he wanted immediate aid for small businesses.
“I am ready to sign right now,” he wrote. “Are you listening Nancy?”
He was referring to House Speaker Pelosi, though he “tagged” his Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and other congressional leaders in the Twitter post.
All of these new positions unfolded through Trump’s Twitter account and not in any public statements.
He hasn’t made a public appearance since returning to the White House Monday evening from the hospital, where he was being treated for the novel coronavirus. During his hospital stay, he called on Congress to join together to pass a stimulus deal, a viewpoint that he seemed to shift away from Tuesday only to shift back to it again in the evening.
Democratic nominee Joe Biden leads President Trump by 12 points in a new national survey from Rasmussen, the conservative outlet that has historically found the race to be closer than other pollsters.
Among likely voters, Biden takes 52 percent support in the latest Rasmussen survey, compared to 40 percent for Trump.
Trump's collapse in the Rasmussen poll is significant because the president has often pointed to the survey as an example of how he was performing stronger than other polls give him credit for. Biden is bolstered in the latest survey by an 18 point advantage among independent voters.
The past three Rasmussen polls have found Biden stretch his lead from 1 point to 8 points to 12 points over the course of a period that included the first presidential debate, Trump’s nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, and the president falling ill with the coronavirus.
In that time, Trump’s job approval rating has fallen from 53 percent to 44 percent.
Biden’s advantage in the RealClearPolitics average of national polls has gone from 6.1 points to 9.1 points in less than two weeks, the largest gap in more than three months. The average doesn’t yet include Rasmussen’s finding of Biden ahead by 12 points.
Trump lost the national popular vote by about 2 points in 2016. Analysts say he could lose by about 4 points nationally and still squeeze out a victory in the Electoral College.
However, Biden in recent weeks has also grown his lead in the key battleground states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Arizona. Florida and North Carolina remain tossups, as do states Trump won easily in 2016, such as Ohio, Iowa, Georgia and Texas.
The Rasmussen survey of 2,500 likely voters was conducted between Sept. 30 and Oct. 6 and has a 2 percentage point margin of error.
Sending evangelicals out to infect each other during a pandemic sounds like something a really cunning Antichrist would do.
If rather than being Catholic, Amy Barrett was a devout Muslim woman who belonged to a conservative Muslim organization that demanded a lifelong covenant, professed a belief that women should be subservient to their husbands, taught at a madrassa, and once said she viewed her participation in the legal profession as a way to bring about the Kingdom of Allah...
The conversation surrounding her appointment to the United States Supreme Court would be slightly different.
President Donald Trump called it a “blessing from God” that he got coronavirus, a disease that has killed over 211,000 Americans this year.
“I think this was a blessing from God that I caught it,” the president said of COVID-19 in a video message outside the White House on Wednesday.
Trump tested positive for COVID-19 last Thursday and spent three days hospitalized at Walter Reed medical center before returning to the White House on Monday.
The U.S. leads the world with over 7.5 million confirmed coronavirus cases and over 211,000 dead so far.
The president also said he was feeling “great — I feel, like, perfect” and touted his recovery: “For me, I walked in, I didn’t feel good, a short 24 hours later, I was feeling great.”
Trump received top-notch medical care for free, including experimental treatments — something out of reach for most Americans.
The president has repeatedly downplayed the threat of coronavirus since it began to spread in the U.S. in the spring. Since he himself got coronavirus, he’s continued to do so, tweeting on Monday: “Don’t be afraid of Covid.”
Coronavirus is highly infectious and Trump and over two dozen others surrounding him have tested positive for the virus in recent days after flouting public health guidance by not wearing masks or social distancing.
Biden +9.7
Including Fox News' 10/3-10/6 poll result of Biden +10
"Trump received top-notch medical care for free, including experimental treatments — something out of reach for most Americans."
well, if the treatments are so great, why not give them to everyone?
Trump's not blocking it
maybe he found a combination that cures COVID
President Trump spent three days in the hospital. He arrived and left by helicopter. And he received multiple coronavirus tests, oxygen, steroids and an experimental antibody treatment.
For someone who isn’t president, that would cost more than $100,000 in the American health system. Patients could face significant surprise bills and medical debt even after health insurance paid its share.
Rump wants to abolish Obamacare, which will wipe out a lot of Medicaid expansion health insurance recipients from having health insurance coverage.
How do you think poor people will manage to pay for a King Rump treatment and how long do you think it will take the maker of the "experimental antibody treatment to make enough for the rest of us?
You and Mr. Talks-Beyond-His-Time-Limit Pence both should STFU
A Michigan militia was plotting to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat who has come under fire from President Donald Trump, according to the FBI.
Defendants Adam Fox, Barry Croft, Ty Garbin, Kaleb Franks, Daniel Harris and Brandon Caserta were charged with conspiracy to commit kidnapping, according to court documents. The domestic terrorism investigation involved both confidential informants and undercover employees who recorded conversations, texts, online chats and phone calls with the defendants.
In an affidavit, an FBI agent wrote that the bureau learned through social media in early 2020 that a group was “discussing the violent overthrow of certain government and law-enforcement components.” At a meeting in June, defendants Fox and Croft allegedly met with about 13 others in Dublin, Ohio, where they discussed “creating a society that followed the U.S. Bill of Rights and where they could be self-sufficient.” Several members of the group “talked about murdering ‘tyrants’ or ‘taking’ a sitting governor.”
Fox then reached out to a Michigan militia group, which was already on the FBI’s radar after a local police department said the group was trying to get addresses of local law enforcement officers. One of the members of that militia group was interviewed by the FBI and agreed to become a FBI informant because they were “concerned about the group’s plans to target and kill police officers,” according to the affidavit.
Fox later met with defendant Garbin at a rally supporting the Second Amendment at the Michigan State Capitol in June, where Fox allegedly told Garbin and one of the informants that he planned to attack the Capitol.
Fox later said he needed 200 men to “storm” the Capitol building and take hostages, including Whitmer, whom they said they would put on trial for “treason.” The plan would be executed before the November 2020 election, the FBI affidavit said.
On June 20, Fox, Garbin and several others met at a business Fox ran in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The group, according to the FBI affidavit, went through a hidden trap door in the shop and met in the basement. “Fox collected all of their cellular phones in a box and carried them upstairs to prevent any monitoring,” the FBI affidavit states. But one of the confidential informants was wearing a recording device and managed to capture audio as they discussed plans to destroy police vehicles.
Later, in a private Facebook group, Fox livestreamed a rant about the state of Michigan controlling the opening of gyms, calling Whitmer a “tyrant bitch” and saying members of the group “gotta do something.”
In July, they conducted firearms training and some tried to construct improvised explosive devices, which did not detonate as planned.
By July 18, the plan had shifted. Members of the group met in Ohio, and Garbin suggested “shooting up the Governor’s vacation home.” Garbin said he no longer wanted to go after the state Capitol. Days later, Fox said that going after Whitmer at her vacation home or official summer residence was the best path forward.
“Snatch and grab, man. Grab the fuckin’ Governor. Just grab the bitch,” Fox said. They wanted to take her to a secure location in Wisconsin, where they planned to put her on “trial.”
By Aug. 9, the group’s plan against Whitmer were still unfolding. In one chat, Harris suggested that someone go to her house, knock on the door, and “just cap her” when she answered. There was discussion of using a boat to escape on the lake. Fox seemed prepared for action.
“I just wanna make the world glow, dude. I’m not even fuckin’ kidding. I just wanna make it all glow dude. I don’t fuckin’ care anymore, I’m just so sick of it. That’s what it’s gonna take for us to take it back, we’re just gonna have to ― everything’s gonna have to be annihilated man,” Fox said in one phone call. “We’re gonna topple it all, dude. It’s what great frickin’ conquerors, man, we’re just gonna conquer every fuckin’ thing man.”
When members of the group met at Harris’ residence on Aug. 23, they were concerned about law enforcement infiltration, and members of the group brought personal documents to reassure the others of their identities.
Not long after, on Aug. 29, Fox, an informant and another individual surveilled the governor’s vacation home, even estimating how long it would take the police to respond.
“We ain’t gonna let ‘em burn our fuckin’ state down. I don’t give a fuck if there’s only 20 or 30 of us, dude, we’ll go out there and use deadly force,” Fox said.
Fox later said that Whitmer “fucking goddamn loves the power she has right now” and has “no checks and balances at all.”
The group later discussed blowing up a bridge leading to Whitmer’s vacation home, and a FBI undercover agent said explosives would cost $4,000. Several members of the group ― Fox, Garbin, Harris and Franks ― planned to meet with the undercover agent on Wednesday to pay for the explosives. Caserta couldn’t make it because he was at work, while Croft had returned to Delaware.
Court records indicate five defendants were arrested by the FBI on Wednesday, while Croft’s status is unclear.
The Detroit News first reported the news Thursday morning.
"and how long do you think it will take the maker of the "experimental antibody treatment to make enough for the rest of us?"
A looooooong time.
Regeneron said it currently has doses available for approximately 50,000 patients, and expects to have doses available for 300,000 patients within the next few months.
We have a lot more sick Americans than that.
Instead of asking for this COVID-19 "blessing from God," keep yourself safe.
aren't similar drugs used for AIDS patients?
if a drug has been found that cures COVID, it's good news, regardless of the cost
300K doses is probably enough for the next few months
the government can ramp up production
by then, the vaccine will be on the way
the combination of the two anti-virals with a steroid haven't been tried before
looks like Trump cured COVID
HA HA HA, good one!
Take it to the bank.
If Rump is going to treat every US COVID-19 patient with Regeneron for free, he's going to have to pay more than $750 in personal taxes.
Rump is great at spending other people's money:
Deficit hit record-shattering $3.1T in 2020: CBO
The federal deficit for 2020 is believed to have hit a record-smashing $3.1 trillion in 2020, well over double the highest deficit on record, according to an estimate by the Congressional Budget Office released Thursday.
The official figures from the Treasury Department are expected later this month.
Even before the pandemic, the deficit was on track to exceed $1 trillion for the only time since the four-year period following the Great Recession. The fiscal response to that economic downturn led to the previous record deficit of $1.4 trillion in 2009, but that number steadily declined until the mid-2010s.
Since President Trump took office, the deficit has grown dramatically on the back of unfunded tax cuts and increased spending on both defense and domestic priorities.
"If Rump is going to treat every US COVID-19 patient with Regeneron for free, he's going to have to pay more than $750 in personal taxes."
no, instead he'll spend his money in ways that are tax-incentivized because they produce jobs
unlike you or, say, Joe Biden, Trump has generated business activity that has given jobs to thousands
but, in his 47 years in Congress, all he's done is sponsor a crime bill that incarcerated a generation of black men, and harassed SCOTUS nominees Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas with false accusations
"Deficit hit record-shattering $3.1T in 2020: CBO"
we had a crisis
Dems wanted to spend more and still do
"but, in his 47 years in Congress, all he's done is sponsor a crime bill"
The Violence Against Women Act (you know, to prevent women's pussies from being grabbed against their will) was cosponsored by Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) and Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) in 1994 and gained support from a broad coalition of advocacy groups.
ProPublica shows the bill sponsored by Biden:
Sen. Biden sponsored 89 bills in the 110th Congress (2007-09).
Sen. Biden sponsored 41 bills in the 109th Congress (2005-06).
Sen. Biden sponsored 37 bills in the 108th Congress (2003-04).
Sen. Biden sponsored 46 bills in the 107th Congress (2001-02).
Sen. Biden sponsored 29 bills in the 106th Congress (1999-00).
Sen. Biden sponsored 17 bills in the 105th Congress (1997-98).
Sen. Biden sponsored 16 bills in the 104th Congress (1995-96).
But by all means, keep lying.
It's all you've got.
Yesterday’s arrests are the latest evidence that a small but meaningful number of Americans believe that violence is the only answer to the country’s political divisions. “We’re seeing more and more citizens expressing openness to violence as more and more partisan leaders engage in the kinds of dehumanizing rhetoric that paves the way for taking violent action,” Lee Drutman, one of the political scientists who oversaw the YouGov poll, told me.
Since May, more than 50 people have driven vehicles into peaceful protesters. Armed protesters shut down the Michigan legislature in May. Armed groups on the left and right have done battle in Oregon and Wisconsin. Extremists have attacked journalists, including an instance in Brooklyn on Wednesday night.
“Political violence in democracies often seems spontaneous: an angry mob launching a pogrom, a lone shooter assassinating a president,” Rachel Kleinfeld of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace recently wrote in The Washington Post. “But in fact, the crisis has usually been building for years.” She added, “This is where America is now.”
It’s important to note that the problem is bipartisan — and also that it is not equally bad on both sides: The American right today has a bigger violence problem than the American left. Of the 42 killings by political extremists last year, right-wing extremists committed 38, according to the Anti-Defamation League.
And top Republican politicians have encouraged violence in ways no prominent Democrat has. Greg Gianforte, a Republican congressman now running to be Montana’s governor, pleaded guilty to assaulting a reporter who asked a question he didn’t like in 2017.
Trump, for his part, has encouraged violence against protesters at his rallies and has often refused to condemn violent white-supremacist groups, including during last week’s debate. Whitmer, speaking after the arrests yesterday, cited that debate: “Hate groups heard the president’s words not as a rebuke, but as a rallying cry, a call to action,” she said.
Political scientists emphasize that the drift toward violence is not inevitable. When political leaders denounce violence, it often influences public opinion, research suggests. These denouncements are especially effective when leaders — or individuals — criticize their own side for engaging in violence. Condemning the other side is easy.
But right-wingers/GOPers condemn the other side and are willfully blind about their own side's violence -- Of the 42 killings by political extremists last year, right-wing extremists committed 38.
You can have you own opinions, but not your own facts.
George Floyd was killed by police on May 25, and since then, protests across the country have not ceased. As voters gear up to vote in the 2020 election, President Donald Trump is accusing his opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden, of supporting “rioters” and violence that has resulted from some protests.
“When is Slow Joe Biden going to criticize the Anarchists, Thugs & Agitators in ANTIFA? When is he going to suggest bringing up the National Guard in BADLY RUN & Crime Infested Democrat Cities & States?” Trump tweeted Aug. 30.
The president has made that claim several times this summer, and his supporters have followed suit, suggesting Biden’s silence is a political tactic.
“Turns out people don’t like seeing their country destroyed. So, after 90+ days of silence and a dip in the polls, I’m now against rioting," a Facebook post, which depicts Joe Biden peeking around the text, reads.
The user who made the Facebook post on Sept. 1 did not respond to USA TODAY’s request for comment.
While Biden has supported protesters’ right to demonstrate since protests began in May, he has also condemned any resulting violence on a consistent basis.
The first statement the Democratic presidential nominee publicly made regarding the matter was on May 29, when he told CNN that people “have a right to be, in fact, angry and frustrated. And more violence, hurting more people, isn’t going to answer the question.”
On the fifth night of demonstrations, May 31, Biden released a statement that said protesting police brutality is “right and necessary” and the “American response."
“But burning down communities and needless destruction is not,” Biden wrote. “Violence that endangers lives is not. Violence that guts and shutters businesses that serve the community is not.”
On June 2, Biden said, “there is no place for violence, no place for looting or destroying property or burning churches, or destroying businesses,” the Washington Post reported.
He echoed that sentiment a month later.
“I’ve said from the outset of the recent protests that there is no place for violence or the destruction of property,” Biden said July 28, according to the Post. “Peaceful protesters should be protected — but arsonists and anarchists should be prosecuted — and local law enforcement can do that.
Biden’s most recent condemnation of protest-related violence was made Aug. 31, after a man was fatally shot in Portland.
"The deadly violence we saw overnight in Portland is unacceptable," he said in a statement. "Shooting in the streets of a great American city is unacceptable. I condemn this violence unequivocally. I condemn violence of every kind by any one, whether on the left or the right."
"And I challenge Donald Trump to do the same."
Something wild and unexpected unfolded in the second half of President Trump’s term, and now is accelerating: Elderly Americans, who helped elect him, have swung sharply against him.
Why it matters: National and state polls show a total Trump collapse among Americans 65 and older. If this chasm remains, it could help bring the whole Republican power structure down with Trump.
In what has been a 50-50ish nation, it’s stunning to see polling gaps this wide:
In a NBC/Wall Street Journal poll out Sunday, Joe Biden led Trump by 27 points among seniors (62% to 35%).
In a CNN/SSRS poll out yesterday, similar story — 21 points (60% to 39%).
This is a group Trump won by seven points in 2016.
The same gap shows up in state polling, including the critical battlegrounds of Florida and Pennsylvania.
This is important. It’s not just the pandemic:
The movement predates the virus. CNN polling guru Harry Enten notes that a year ago, Biden was up 11 points over Trump with seniors in a CNN poll.
The main pre-pandemic reasons were health care and his strength with women, Axios’ Alexi McCammond and Margaret Talev wrote in May.
Republicans believe the big reason for the current chasm is the coronavirus, which has hit seniors far harder than any age group. A former senior White House official who remains close to the team told Axios:
“[A] few of us screamed from the rooftops to them about in March. Who [cares] what anyone else thinks? If you can’t win seniors, you can’t win.”
“And, if you don’t take something that is killing old people seriously, you will lose seniors.”
Between the lines: More women vote than men. More women go to college than men. More women than ever are running for election and winning. And more women than ever are turning on Trump and the GOP.
The bottom line: Younger, white men alone do not a victory make. So the 65+ trend represents a clear and present danger to the vitality and viability of the GOP.
Trump has undermined himself with old people, women and minorities.
National Journal’s Josh Kraushaar tweeted yesterday: “That’s going to be the story of this election: Pivotal Trump voting bloc in 2016 becoming part of the Biden base.”
"And not only was Obama nominated for a Nobel Prize, he won one."
yes, explain what he did to receive the prize
So sorry to leave you hanging....not!
I'll let the Nobel Committee explain it to you:
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2009/press-release/
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 is to be awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee has attached special importance to Obama’s vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.
Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama’s initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.
Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future. His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population.
For 108 years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has sought to stimulate precisely that international policy and those attitudes for which Obama is now the world’s leading spokesman. The Committee endorses Obama’s appeal that “Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges.”
Oslo, October 9, 2009
And here's who beat Rump for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2020:
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2020/summary/
The Nobel Peace Prize 2020 was awarded to World Food Programme (WFP) "for its efforts to combat hunger, for its contribution to bettering conditions for peace in conflict-affected areas and for acting as a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict."
"Obama has as President created"
nice try but Obama received the award before becoming President
any other rationale for the decision?
'
"And here's who beat Rump for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2020:
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2020/summary/
The Nobel Peace Prize 2020 was awarded to World Food Programme (WFP) "for its efforts to combat hunger, for its contribution to bettering conditions for peace in conflict-affected areas and for acting as a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict.""
well, they probably deserved the award but they were around when Obama won
they deserved it then too
"nice try but Obama received the award before becoming President"
How dumb are you?
The Nobel Prizes are awarded in the fall.
President Obama won his Nobel Peace Prize in October of 2009 after having been inaugurated on Tuesday, January 20, 2009.
How Trump has damaged science
US President Donald Trump’s actions have exacerbated the coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 200,000 people in the United States, rolled back environmental and public-health regulations and undermined science and scientific institutions. Experts say that many of those deaths were avoidable and some of the harm to science could be permanent. “I’ve never seen such an orchestrated war on the environment or science,” says Christine Todd Whitman, who headed the US Environmental Protection Agency under former Republican president George W. Bush.
If God doesn't want churches closed, maybe He shouldn't send plagues.
Has anybody seen a single "pro-lifer" complain that Donald's taking an experimental drug made using aborted embryo tissue?
SCARY THOUGHT: Today's Trump is decidedly more crazy than the one from back in April who told us all to inject bleach.
“New polls show Mr. Trump’s support is collapsing nationally, as he
alienates women, seniors and suburbanites. He is trailing not just in
must-win battlegrounds but according to private G.O.P. surveys, he is
repelling independents to the point where Mr. Biden has drawn closer in
solidly red states, including Montana, Kansas and Missouri, people
briefed on the data said.”
https://disq.us/url?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2020%2F10%2F09%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Ftrump-biden-sun-belt.html%3AMJ1qyLbkmYP9lOA95j-5_ov9NVY&cuid=1478235
Trump's poll numbers are in free fall! Republican prospects are looking pretty dim.
The Taliban Endorses Trump
Trump appeals to religious extremists of all kinds. Trump's supreme court nominee Amy Barrett has said she will violate the First Amendment in her rulings by placing religion, christianity in particular, above non-religion.
The First Amendment prohibits favouring one religion above another or above non-religion.
"How dumb are you?
The Nobel Prizes are awarded in the fall.
President Obama won his Nobel Peace Prize in October of 2009 after having been inaugurated on Tuesday, January 20, 2009."
this guy is either (a.) a moron or (b.) a liar
I'll go with both
Obama was nominated in January 2009
for acts he took before becoming President
Obama famously claimed that the oceans began to roll back the day he was nominated for President
he believes he is due credit, not for any actions, but for his essence
he's magical!
"US President Donald Trump’s actions have exacerbated the coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 200,000 people in the United States,"
Randy the Hardcore Psycho is back, and look at him go, lying up a storm
Fauci, Birx, and assorted medical experts predicted 2.5 million deaths from COVID
the fact they are less than a tenth of that is because of actions taken by Trump
that's the opposite of exacerbation
unless you think the experts were wrong
of course, there would likely have been less deaths if Fauci hadn't lied and told everyone not to wear masks at the beginning
and if Cuomo hadn't forced nursing homes to take contagious people
and if DeBlasio hadn't discouraged New Yorkers from leaving their apartments and going to parks, spreading the virus through the ventilation systems
and if Cuomo hadn't kept subways running in March and April
"rolled back environmental and public-health regulations"
those regulatory rollbacks, along with enforcement of immigration policies, resulted in the lowest unemployment for minorities in history
there is no sign the environment or general public health declined due to deregulation
"and undermined science and scientific institutions."
actually, the politicization of science by Dems did that
"Experts say that many of those deaths were avoidable and some of the harm to science could be permanent."
experts in what? astrology?
"“I’ve never seen such an orchestrated war on the environment or science,” says Christine Todd Whitman, who headed the US Environmental Protection Agency under former Republican president George W. Bush."
she's not good at big picture assessments
she once thought everyone would elect her as President and no one voted for her
"SCARY THOUGHT: Today's Trump is decidedly more crazy than the one from back in April who told us all to inject bleach."
that's true because the one that "told us all to inject bleach" is an imaginary figure
the real Trump didn't do that
"Trump's poll numbers are in free fall! Republican prospects are looking pretty dim."
we'll see
but the project he was elected for: turn the courts to an originalist orientation has been accomplished
"Trump appeals to religious extremists of all kinds."
really? tell that to Iran
TTFers used to say Trump was unfair to Muslimms
"Trump's supreme court nominee Amy Barrett has said she will violate the First Amendment in her rulings by placing religion, christianity in particular, above non-religion."
the establishment clause doesn't apply to the Supreme Court
it forbids CONGRESS making laws to prohibit the free exercise of religion or to respect the establishment of a religion
the Supreme Court doesn't make laws
further, Christianity is already well-established so only the first half would apply to Christianity and Barrett has made clear she will protect religion form prohibition
"The First Amendment prohibits favouring one religion above another or above non-religion."
the First Amendment is silent about protecting "non-religion"
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"
there it is, folks
what the First Amendment says about religion
it only applies to Congress when it makes laws
the Supreme Court isn't named and it doesn't make laws
further, already established religions are not affected at all except that Congress is forbidden from prohibiting them
that's old-fashioned Constitutional law, right there!!!!!!!!
Republicans abused the nominations system to pack the courts, including with dozens of judges declared unfit for the job by the American Bar Association. The Democrats need to do something to unpack them, other than waiting for these rammed-through unfit and corrupt judges to die or retire.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "the Supreme Court isn't named and it doesn't make laws"
That's not what you conservatives said when the court ruled that the 1964 civil rights act applied to sexual orientation and gender identity. Again, its one rule for Republicans and another for Democrats.
The religious extremists on the Supreme Court have called for striking down the decision that gave gays and lesbians the same right to marry as everyone else. Their justification is that allowing gays and lesbians to marry makes religious bigots look bad. That would be an unconstitutional ruling because it favours religion, specifically bigoted religion above non-religion and non-bigoted religion. Religious bigots don't have a constitutional right to appear moral when they behave immorally. They certainly don't have a right to have society try to make their immorality look moral by denying equal rights to people.
The idea that the Constitution does not apply to the courts is idiotic, it most certainly does.
The Constitution binds the court, Amy Barrett has promised to violate the Constitution by ruling to favour iron-fist christianity and force all to live by it.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "the First Amendment is silent about protecting "non-religion"
Courts for over 100 years have ruled that the First Amendment prevents the government from favouring religion over non-religion.
This is long established precedent - stop trying to gaslight Americans.
One of the most egregious things Republicans have been doing to put their thumbs on the election scale to trump democracy is to limit each county to one ballot drop box for each county. Some counties are tiny with only a few thousand or few hundred voters while large urban counties can have a million or more voters and cover vastly more space.
The goal of this is obviously to suppress the vote in urban areas that tend to vote primarily Democratic by creating long line ups and very long trips to get to the drop box which is particularly daunting for low income voters who have to take public transit and make multiple connections. Wherever they can, Republicans have placed the only drop off box in a place that isn't serviced by public transit.
Some Republicans are now saying out loud that the want "liberty" over democracy and that Democracy can be a bad thing. This is a Republican war on democracy!
The First Amendment mandates freedom of religion and freedom from religion. Amy Barrett wants to take away everyone's freedom from iron-fist christianity. She has constitutionally disqualified herself from being a judge of any sort, let alone on the Supreme Court with her promise to rule to "bring about the kindom of god". She is no different than mullahs in Iran.
Christian Activist: The Greatest Example Of Love Would Be To Put A Noose Around “Demonic” Hillary’s Neck
Republicans in 2020 are behaving like the Nazi party in the 1930's. Its all about demonizing their political opponents and hoping to encourage violence against them. Decades of psychological research shows religious conservatives have a greater psychological tendency to violence than liberals do:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxxylK6fR81rckQxWi1hVFFRUDg/view
Just look at how Wyatt and Regina Hardiman equate harmless lgbt people with "a virus" and "gangrene". They're hoping to encourage violence against us.
Biden is now +9.8 and rising
GOP sees falling Trump stock as growing threat to Senate majority
Jaime Harrison sets Senate fundraising record with $57 million haul in South Carolina
Republicans have been 'packing the court for the past three and a half years, and they brag about it'
QAnon is thriving in Germany. The extreme right is delighted
STATE AUDIT: THOUSANDS OF MOCO HOMEOWNERS OVERCHARGED ON PROPERTY TAXES BY SDAT
A campaign ad that appears to show Dr. Anthony Fauci endorsing President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic used a clip taken out of context and was not approved by Fauci before it aired, the doctor told media outlets Sunday.
“They did this without my permission and my comments were taken out of context,” Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert who’s a member of the White House coronavirus task force, said in a statement to NBC News and CNN.
“In my nearly five decades of public service, I have never publicly endorsed any political candidate. The comments attributed to me without my permission in the GOP campaign ad were taken out of context from a broad statement I made months ago about the efforts of federal public health officials,” his statement continued.
Tim Murtaugh, communications director for Trump’s reelection campaign, defended the veracity of the ad in a statement to HuffPost on Sunday.
“These are Dr. Fauci’s own words. The video is from a nationally broadcast television interview in which Dr. Fauci was praising the work of the Trump Administration. The words spoken are accurate, and directly from Dr. Fauci’s mouth,” he said.
The Trump campaign’s 30-second ad, which first began airing in Michigan, features a clip of a video interview that Fauci gave Fox News back in March.
“I can’t imagine that ... anybody could be doing more,” Fauci is heard saying immediately after the video’s narrator directly applauds Trump’s efforts, stating: “President Trump tackled the virus head-on, as leaders should.”
But Fauci was actually referring to the efforts of himself and his entire team, as a video of the uncut interview clip shows.
“I’m connected by phone throughout the day and into the night and I’m talking 12-1-2 in the morning. I’m not the only one. There’s a whole group of us that are doing that, it’s every single day. So I can’t imagine that under any circumstances that anybody could be doing more,” he said.
Suggesting reversal of this landmark marriage equality ruling is a dramatic attack on the LGBTQ+ community that turns religious liberty into a weapon against other people’s fundamental rights. Religious freedom isn’t the right to compel the government to deny the equal rights of other citizens. But, as members of the Congressional Freethought Caucus, we see right-wing forces on the Court and in Congress trying to twist religious free exercise into a bizarre new right to make the state discriminate against disfavored groups.
Any government that can turn the clock back to discriminate against same-sex couples can also turn it back to discriminate against interracial and interfaith couples. Nothing could be more deeply at odds with our principles of constitutional freedom and equality for all Americans.
"Republicans abused the nominations system to pack the courts,"
Dems are forever changing definitions to mislead
it's an old trick of totalitarians
Republicans won elections and performed their duty to appoint judges that their constituents desired.
"The Democrats need to do something to unpack them,"
well, they can use the same system the Republicans did
problem is, their policies aren't popular
"That's not what you conservatives said when the court ruled that the 1964 civil rights act applied to sexual orientation and gender identity. Again, its one rule for Republicans and another for Democrats."
1964?
If you want to go back there, the Dems were the clear racist party with George Wallace in their ranks
they ran the KKK and built confederate statues and maintained Jim Crow laws
"The religious extremists on the Supreme Court have called for striking down the decision that gave gays and lesbians the same right to marry as everyone else."
that's because the right to perversion is not in the Constitution
it has nothing to do with religion
"The idea that the Constitution does not apply to the courts is idiotic, it most certainly does."
the language is clear, the 1st amendment refers to Congress making laws
"The Constitution binds the court, Amy Barrett has promised to violate the Constitution by ruling to favour iron-fist christianity and force all to live by it."
Christianity isn't "iron-fist"
it allows all to speak freely
"Courts for over 100 years have ruled that the First Amendment prevents the government from favouring religion over non-religion."
where is it in the Constitution?
the courts upheld slavery for years
until Christians fought against it
"the courts upheld slavery for years
until Christians fought against it"
It was Christian nations that industrialized slavery, and made it an important part of their economies for several hundred years, forcefully, and often lethally stealing the labor and families from non-Christian nations for generations. There was no one really in any position to stop them, except themselves, and perhaps the slowly dawning realization of the utter hypocrisy of claiming to be a Christian while simultaneously abusing and murdering thousands of human beings.
From:
https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtid=2&psid=447
"Slavery played a crucial role in the development of the modern world economy. Slaves provided the labor power necessary to settle and develop the New World. Slaves also produced the products for the first mass consumer markets: sugar, tobacco, coffee, cocoa, and later cotton. Slavery was an integral part of the earliest multinational systems of credit and trade that arose in the 15th and 16th centuries. The African slave trade also stimulated European shipping, manufacturing, and gun making.
During the earliest phases of capitalist development, planters, master craftsmen, and other early capitalists could not afford to pay wages. Chronically in debt, New World planters could exploit slave labor with expending scarce currency. Slavery provided the cheapest and most expedient way to meet the demand for labor in mining and agriculture.
The slave trade had profound consequences for Europe. Between the early 1500s and the early 1800s, the slave trade became one of Europe's largest and most profitable industries. Profits from the slave trade were said to run as high as 300 percent. In the mid-18th century, a third of the British merchant fleet was engaged in transporting 50,000 Africans a year to the New World."
(on following pages)
"Before the 19th century, most immigrants to the New World were African. According to one recent estimate, about 80 percent of women immigrants and 90 percent of child immigrants came from Africa. By 1820, about 8.4 million Africans had been forcibly imported into the Americas compared to just 2.4 million European immigrants. Even in the area that would become the United States, about half of all immigrants to the 13 colonies from 1700 to 1775 came from Africa.
Enslaved Africans arrived in the New World at least as early as 1502. During the peak years of the slave trade, between 1740 and 1810, Africa supplied 60,000 captives a year--outnumbering European migrants by a ratio of 4 or 5 to 1."
"Why did Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch, Danish, and English colonists all bring slaves to their New World colonies? Here, it is essential to recognize that it was not inevitable that Europeans in the New World would rely on African slaves to raise crops, clear forests, and mine precious metals. In every New World colony, Europeans experimented with Indian slavery, convict labor, and white indentured servants. For example, as late as the early 1700s, a third of South Carolina's labor force consisted of Indian slaves.
Why, then, did every European power eventually turn to African labor? Was this, as some have argued, the product of deep-seated racial prejudice? Or was it the product of a haphazard and random process that took place gradually with little real sense of the ultimate outcome? Or were other forces at work?
Certainly there is a great deal of evidence showing that 16th century Europeans held deeply racist sentiments well before the establishment of slavery. We know, for example, that the Elizabethan English associated blackness with evil, death, and danger. They portrayed the devil as having black skin and associated beauty with fair skin. Through their religion, the English denigrated people of color, claiming that Negroes were the descendants of Noah's son Ham who was cursed by having black offspring for daring to look upon his drunken and naked father. Long before the English had contact with Africa, racist stereotypes were widespread. One English writer claimed that Negroes were naturally "addicted unto Treason, Treacherie, Murther, Theft and Robberie." Without a doubt, it was easy for the English to accept slavery because they regarded Negroes as an alien people. But it also seems clear that racism was as much a consequence of racial slavery as it was a cause.
In colony after colony, Europeans shifted from Indian to African slaves partly for demographic reasons. As a result of epidemic diseases, which reduced the native population by 50 to 90 percent, the labor supply was insufficient to meet demand. But Africans also possessed many skills that were valuable in settling the New World. They were experienced in intensive agriculture and raising livestock and knew how to raise crops like rice that Europeans were unfamiliar with."
"Black slavery took root in the American colonies slowly. As early as 1619, a Dutch ship carried the first Africans to Virginia, but it would not be until the 1680s that black slavery became the dominant labor system on plantations. As late as 1640, there were probably only 150 blacks in Virginia (the colony with the highest black population), and in 1650, 300. But by 1680, the number had risen to 3,000 and by 1704, to 10,000. Faced by a shortage of white indentured servants and fearful of servant revolt, English settlers increasingly resorted to enslaved Africans.
As the supply of English servants diminished, colonists in the Chesapeake imported increasing numbers of slaves directly from Africa. Many were sent to inland plantations, where planters believed that it would be easier to control the slave population.
To meet planters' growing demand for slaves, the English government established the Royal African Company in 1672. After 1698, when Britain ended the Royal African Company's monopoly of the slave trade, the number of enslaved Africans brought into the colonies soared. Between 1700 and 1775, more than 350,000 African slaves entered the American colonies. By the mid-18th century, blacks made up almost 70 percent of the population of South Carolina, 40 percent in Virginia, 8 percent in Pennsylvania, and 4 percent in New England."
"that's because the right to perversion is not in the Constitution
it has nothing to do with religion"
Marriage isn't mentioned in the Constitution either.
Thus, you have no Constitutional or religious reason to try and stop gay people from getting married - just your uncontrollable, obsessive-compulsive urges to perpetually denigrate gay people.
You should seek professional help for that. Who knows, you might even be able to have a productive life once you let go of those urges and use all that energy for something that will help society... like making face masks to help limit the spread of the CV-19 pandemic.
The metal boxes have popped up around Southern California in recent weeks, from churches to gun stores to gyms. On the front, an authoritative-looking sign beckons to voters: “Official ballot drop-off box.”
The California GOP has pushed voters to pop their mail-in ballots inside. Social media posts have advertised their locations, and one regional field director posted a photo to Twitter on Friday showing him holding a ballot in front of one of the boxes.
“Doing my part and voting early,” Jordan Tygh wrote in the now-deleted tweet, which was reviewed by The Washington Post before it was removed. “DM me for convenient locations to drop your ballot off at!”
But those containers, which were first reported by the Orange County Register and KCAL, are not county-authorized ballot drop-off sites. In fact, the unofficial boxes are against the law, state officials said Sunday.
“Operating unofficial ballot drop boxes — especially those misrepresented as official drop boxes — is not just misleading to voters, it’s a violation of state law,” California Secretary of State Alex Padilla, a Democrat, told The Post in an email. “My office is coordinating with local officials to address the multiple reports of unauthorized ballot drop boxes. Californians should only use official ballot drop boxes that have been deployed and secured by their county elections office."
Erecting or advertising unofficial ballot boxes could be a felony that carries a two-to-four year prison sentence, according to the secretary of state’s office.
Official ballot return locations are listed on the secretary of state’s website. But Republican leaders are encouraging voters to bring their completed ballots to unlisted sites equipped with the unofficial green boxes, at locations including smog checks and gas stations.
The California Republican Party did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Post Sunday night, but the party defended its drop-off boxes on Twitter.
“If a congregation/business or other group provides the option to its parishioners/associates/ or colleagues to drop off their ballot in a safe location, with people they trust, rather than handing it over to a stranger who knocks on their door — what is wrong with that?” the California GOP tweeted.
Padilla’s office said on Sunday that the boxes are not legal under the 2016 law because a statute requires a voter to designate a “person” to return the ballot, and there is no person present at the unofficial drop-off boxes. Official drop-off boxes, meanwhile, must satisfy a long list of requirements to secure the boxes and ensure ballots cannot be tampered with. The GOP’s containers do not meet those requirements, Padilla said.
A flood of mail-in ballots from Democratic voters are pouring into the mail and ballot collection boxes, overwhelming the number of GOP mail votes.
As of Sunday, registered Democrats returned 2.1 million mail ballots, more than double the 931,000 ballots that registered Republicans have cast, according to tracking by Michael McDonald, a University of Florida political science professor who analyzes early voting.
McDonald said this presidential election is the first in which Democrats are returning pre-Election Day ballots at a faster rate than Republicans.
“Democrats are highly engaged, and they’re turning out,” Tom Bonier, CEO of Democratic vote-tracking firm TargetSmart, told The New York Times. “Republicans can’t say the same.”
The “massive Democratic head start” makes it “much more difficult for the Trump campaign to play catch up,.” Louisiana pollster John Couvillon, who tracks voter statistics, told The Hill. The Democratic Party is armed with information to target areas with lower mail-in turnout, he noted.
Republican voters may have taken to heart President Donald Trump’s repeated dire and unfounded warnings about faulty mail ballots, while Democrats ignored them. Bad weather, fears of catching COVID-19 and long, slow lines could further discourage GOP voters who wait for Election Day to head to the polls.
As of Sunday, more than 9 million ballots had been received by election officials in the 30 states that make the data available. (Some two-thirds of the early voters are either independent or their party affiliations aren’t tracked.)
In five states — including battleground Wisconsin and Minnesota — the number of ballots returned is more than 20% of the entire 2016 vote, according to McDonald’s tracking.
In Wisconsin, about 146,000 people voted by mail in 2016. So far this year, about 647,000 people have voted by mail, many in Democratic strongholds
A full 36% of the total number of all votes in 2016 in Wisconsin’s overwhelmingly Democratic Dane County, which includes Madison, have already been cast by absentee ballot, the Times reports. But voters in Republican-leaning regions in Wisconsin are generally voting early by mail no more than the previous average, according to the newspaper.
The pattern is being repeated in Pittsburgh, North Carolina’s Chapel Hill, Houston, and in Tampa, Florida, according to the Times.
Almost 53% of votes cast in Florida have come from registered Democrats, while Republicans accounted for just 28%, according to the tracking figures. In battleground Pennsylvania, registered Democrats have cast more than three-quarters of all ballots returned so far. Republicans accounted for just 15% of ballots.
Voting behavior supports earlier predictions that Americans — including first time and infrequent voters expected to lean Democratic — are enthusiastic about participating in this election.
“We’re looking at multipliers of five, six, seven times more infrequent voters,” Bonier told The Hill. “We’ve been reading the tea leaves for months now. Now the votes are actually coming in.”
"Marriage isn't mentioned in the Constitution either.
Thus, you have no Constitutional or religious reason to try and stop gay people from getting married - just your uncontrollable, obsessive-compulsive urges to perpetually denigrate gay people."
a little twisted bit of logic
I didn't claim there was a Constitutional reason to try and stop gay people from getting married
I just pointed out that homosexual marriage is not Constitutional right
go ahead and try to make your case in state legislatures
I would oppose it but not as a Constitutional imperative
"You should seek professional help for that. Who knows, you might even be able to have a productive life once you let go of those urges"
totalitarian always hold that anyone who disagrees with them is mentally ill
"and use all that energy for something that will help society... like making face masks to help limit the spread of the CV-19 pandemic."
oh yes
or maybe I could just contribute the dozens of masks others have made and given me!
RCP Average of polling has Biden +10.6"
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_biden-6247.html
Deal names five judges to Georgia’s two top courts
The Georgia Supreme Court is getting three new justices in January 2017. Here’s what the court will look like:
Justice Harris Hines — appointed by Zell Miller in 1995
Justice Robert Benham — appointed by Joe Frank Harris in 1989
Justice Carol Hunstein — appointed by Zell Miller in 1992
Justice Harold Melton — appointed by Sonny Perdue in 2005
Justice David Nahmias — appointed by Sonny Perdue in 2009
Justice Keith Blackwell — appointed by Nathan Deal in 2012
Incoming Justice Michael Boggs — appointed by Nathan Deal effective 2017
Incoming Justice Britt Grant — appointed by Nathan Deal effective 2017
Incoming Justice Nels Peterson — appointed by Nathan Deal effective 2017
Gov. Nathan Deal continued a transformation of the judiciary on Wednesday by tapping three new Georgia Supreme Court justices and two new judges on Georgia's Court of Appeals, stocking the court system with young conservatives who are poised to long outlast his tenure in office...
Ducey signs law adding 2 justices to Arizona Supreme Court
PHOENIX — Gov. Doug Ducey signed legislation Wednesday that will let him name two more justices to what has been a five-judge panel.
The governor said having seven justices will put Arizona on par with states that have a similar or smaller population, including Nevada, Colorado, Washington and Wisconsin. He said more justices will lead to more efficiency, and denied he’s “packing” the court.
Ducey’s move came despite unanimous opposition of sitting justices on the court.
“Additional justices are not required by the court’s caseload,” Chief Justice Scott Bales wrote to Ducey earlier this month. “And an expansion of the court (whatever people may otherwise think of its merits) is not warranted when other court-related needs are underfunded.”...
As to charges he is “packing” the court, Ducey responded, “that’s just wrong.”..."
"totalitarian always hold that anyone who disagrees with them is mentally ill"
That would explain why you wanted to get homosexuality back in the DSM.
"I didn't claim there was a Constitutional reason to try and stop gay people from getting married
I just pointed out that homosexual marriage is not Constitutional right"
I'm glad you finally admitted there is no Constitutional reason to try and stop gay people from getting married, but that makes bringing up "Constitutional rights" when you talk about it a non-sequitur.
There's no Constitutional right to drive automobiles either. Yet people do it all the time. Maybe we should enforce "Constitutional originalism" and go back to riding horses.
There's no Constitutional right to drill for oil or do fracking either. Yet you don't see liberals bringing up bogus Constitutional rights arguments to try and stop fracking - because it would be a non-sequitur, and totally unrelated to setting laws to regulate it. Saying "There's no Constitutional right to fracking" would just be stupid.
But being stupid never stopped Republicans from arguing about laws.
"go ahead and try to make your case in state legislatures"
People born in all 50 states are full American citizens. We are all considered equal under the law -- or should be, as the founders intended.
"Letting the states decide" is what led to many of them promoting slavery, and later a civil war to end it. There is no reason to follow slave state logic on the gay marriage issue.
"or maybe I could just contribute the dozens of masks others have made and given me!"
I couldn't see you doing something that smacks so much of "socialism" and "free health care."
You would be far more comfortable selling them at a nice profit.
"That would explain why you wanted to get homosexuality back in the DSM."
can you show me where I said that?
"I'm glad you finally admitted there is no Constitutional reason to try and stop gay people from getting married,"
finally?
you need to show us where I said anything like that
you can't
because I haven't
"There's no Constitutional right to drive automobiles either."
no, there isn't
which is why legislatures are free to regulate who can do it, and legislatures all do
same applies to marriage
"There's no Constitutional right to drill for oil or do fracking either."
no, there isn't
which is why legislatures are free to regulate it
same applies to marriage
"Yet you don't see liberals bringing up bogus Constitutional rights arguments to try and stop fracking"
nobody has made any Constitutional rights arguments to stop gay "marriage"
you should stop taking hallucinogens
"People born in all 50 states are full American citizens. We are all considered equal under the law -- or should be, as the founders intended."
all states make these kind of laws
if it's not in the Constitution, it's a state or local matter
sorry, I thought you knew
"There is no reason to follow slave state logic on the gay marriage issue."
there is a Constitutional amendment on slavery
so slavery is unconstitutional
not so for homosexual "marriage"
do you see your error now?
"I couldn't see you doing something that smacks so much of "socialism" and "free health care."
You would be far more comfortable selling them at a nice profit."
actually, on a personal level I consider my self a socialist
I'm just opposed to government imposition of economic outcomes
historically, that's always led to horrible suffering
if someone shares with those less fortunate, I applaud their actions
liberals always have great difficulty distinguishing compulsory from voluntary
Taking Page From Authoritarians, Trump Turns Power of State Against Political Rivals
President Trump took a step even Richard M. Nixon avoided in his most desperate days: openly ordering direct immediate government action against specific opponents, timed to serve his re-election campaign.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was ordered by President Trump to declassify thousands of Hillary Clinton’s emails.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was ordered by President Trump to declassify thousands of Hillary Clinton’s emails.
President Trump’s order to his secretary of state to declassify thousands of Hillary Clinton’s emails, along with his insistence that his attorney general issue indictments against Barack Obama and Joseph R. Biden Jr., takes his presidency into new territory — until now, occupied by leaders with names like Putin, Xi and Erdogan.
Mr. Trump has long demanded — quite publicly, often on Twitter — that his most senior cabinet members use the power of their office to pursue political enemies. But his appeals this week, as he trailed badly in the polls and was desperate to turn the national conversation away from the coronavirus, were so blatant that one had to look to authoritarian nations to make comparisons.
He took a step even Richard M. Nixon avoided in his most desperate days: openly ordering direct immediate government action against specific opponents, timed to serve his re-election campaign.
“There is essentially no precedent,” said Jack Goldsmith, who led the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel under President George W. Bush and has written extensively on presidential powers. “We have a norm that developed after Watergate that presidents don’t talk about ongoing investigations, much less interfere with them.”
“It is crazy and it is unprecedented,” said Mr. Goldsmith, now a professor at Harvard Law School, “but it’s no different from what he has been saying since the beginning of his presidency. The only thing new is that he has moved from talking about it to seeming to order it.”
Mr. Trump’s vision of the presidency has always leaned to exercising the absolute powers of the chief executive, a writ-large version of the family business he presided over. “I have an Article II,” he told young adults last year at a Turning Point USA summit, referring to the section of the Constitution that deals with the president’s powers, “where I have the right to do whatever I want as president, but I don’t even talk about that.”
Now he is talking about it, almost daily. He is making it clear that prosecutions, like vaccines for the coronavirus, are useless to him if they come after Nov. 3. He has declared, without evidence, that there is already plenty of proof that Mr. Obama, Mr. Biden and Mrs. Clinton, among others, were fueling the charges that his campaign had links to Russia — what he calls “the Russia hoax.” And he has pressured his secretary of state to agree to release more of Mrs. Clinton’s emails before the election, reprising a yearslong fixation despite having defeated her four years ago.
Presidential historians say there is no case in modern times where the president has so plainly used his powers to take political opponents off the field — or has been so eager to replicate the behavior of strongmen. “In America, our presidents have generally avoided strongman balcony scenes — that’s for other countries with authoritarian systems,” Michael Beschloss, the presidential historian, wrote on Twitter after Mr. Trump returned from the hospital where he received Covid-19 treatment and removed his mask, while still considered contagious, as he saluted from the White House balcony.
Long ago, White House officials learned how to avoid questions about whether the president views his powers as fundamentally more constrained than those of the authoritarians he so often casts in admiring terms, including Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, Xi Jinping of China and Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey. They have something in common: Mr. Trump’s State Department has criticized all three for corrupting the justice systems in their countries to pursue political enemies.
“I have worked for nine secretaries of state,” Mr. Burns said. “I cannot imagine any of them intervening in an election as blatantly as what we are seeing now. Our tradition is that secretaries of state stay out of elections. If they wanted to release Hillary Clinton’s emails, they could have done it in 2017, 2018 or 2019. It is an abuse of power by Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo.”
Another career diplomat who served as both ambassador to Russia and deputy secretary of state, William J. Burns, said that what Mr. Trump had ordered is “exactly the kind of behavior I saw so often in authoritarian regimes in many years as an American diplomat.”
“In dealing with Putin’s Russia or Erdogan’s Turkey, we would have protested and condemned such actions,” he said. “Now it’s our own government that’s engaging in them.”
“The result,” said Mr. Burns, now the president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “is the hollowing out of our institutions at home, and deep corrosion of our image and influence abroad.”
"nobody has made any Constitutional rights arguments to stop gay "marriage"
And yet you keep trying to denigrate gay marriage with these bogus Constitutional rights arguments like this:
"also, she doesn't think sodomy is a right guaranteed in the Constitution"
"that's because the right to perversion is not in the Constitution"
Just because you didn't say "gay marriage" in these juvenile insults, doesn't mean people don't know what you're referring to.
"so slavery is unconstitutional
not so for homosexual "marriage"
do you see your error now?"
There is no error in the fact that there is no Constitutional amendment prohibiting gay marriage. There is one prohibiting slavery.
Until you and your totalitarian, social order restricting friends pass an amendment prohibiting gay marriage, it will be Constitutional.
Do you see your error now?
"actually, on a personal level I consider my self a socialist"
And they say conservatives can't be funny.
"liberals always have great difficulty distinguishing compulsory from voluntary"
Liberals have no problem distinguishing those. Automotive insurance is compulsory. Many people could get away without it for years, and pay for any accidents out of pocket. Perhaps the only reason it is compulsory is lobbying by the insurance industry. Or perhaps it's just a reasonably good idea given the catastrophic expenses (and deaths) that can occur without warning to anyone driving a car.
Conservatives hate "job killing regulations" like the compulsory government clean air and water laws. But without them, the expenses of living with the pollution of a factory (like buying air and water filtration systems to remove toxins) largely on people who never profited from the sales of that factory.
Liberals are all for capitalism. But it's simply not right to privatize the profits of the factory, and socialize all the environmental costs of their doing business.
If I start building a lot of electronic equipment in my garage, the government compels me to get rid of toxic waste (like lead solder) in an environmentally responsible manner, rather than burying it in my backyard where it will leach into my neighbor's wells and risk lead poisoning their children.
That's just a basic responsibility of being a decent human being. We shouldn't have to regulate that - people should do it voluntarily. But there is plenty of history with businesses out there that show us that won't happen all the time. Corporations are happy to pollute when it saves them money.
The government is there to prevent the horrible suffering that would cause.
Just because it's compulsory, and mandated by the government, doesn't mean it's a bad idea.
In order to live in a functioning democracy, people and corporations need rules to minimize their worst behaviors.
There is a difference between "freedom" and "anarchy," and just because there are government rules regarding businesses doesn't mean it's a "government imposition of economic outcomes" and consequently, "historically, that's always led to horrible suffering"
People need to be able to breathe the air and drink the water if they want to work and enjoy their freedom.
Wyatt and Regina are trying to gas light people into believing its not unconstitutional do deny gays and lesbians the right to marry.
Gay marriage bans are unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment's equal protection under the law clause - if heterosexuals can marry, so can gays, equality under the constitution demands it.
Wyatt and Regina will disingenuously assert "gays have the same right to marry someone of the opposite sex as everyone else". That's the same argument racists used to argue that blacks couldn't marry whites - "every one has the same right to marry someone of their own race". The United States Supreme Court rejected that argument against interracial marriage in Loving vs Virginia.
The reason why the bigote3d argument fails is that the Bill of Rights applies to individuals, not groups. Therefore, if John has a right to marry Alice then Debby must have the same right as him to marry Alice. Anything else is just straightforward sex discrimination (as the supreme court recently ruled on the 1964 Civil Rights Act). Judge Alito even suggested that in his questions to the opening arguments in the 2015 ruling that established there is a constitutional requirement that gays have the same right to marry someone of their choosing that heterosexuals do. Alito asked of the defendants (paraphrasing) "If John can marry Alice, why can't Debby marry Alice? How is this not a case of straightforward unconstitutional discrimination based on sex?".
Alito would go on to reject his one iron clad reasoning and rule for the policy outcome he wanted rather than what the constitution requires. This is the hypocrisy of conservative justices.
If religious extremest Barrett gets on the supreme court she will rule for the anti-gay policy outcomes she wants, not what the constitution requires. The same specious arguments the courts conservatives will use to ban gay marriage will inevitably support banning interracial marriage.
Thomas and Alito said that gay marriage should be banned because allowing it makes anti-gay christians look bad. There is no constitutional right for anti-gay christians to appear superior to harmless lgbt people but religious extremist justices Alito and Thomas have said they will rule there is and again ban gay marriage to further conservative christian supremacy in the law.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "She doesn't think there is a right to sodomy in the constitution".
That is the perfect example of her ignoring the constitution to rule for her own anti-gay policy preferences. By her "logic", there is no right to eat sleep, or breath in the constitution". Its self evident that those things and the right to anal sex are in the Constitution under the ninth amendment which says "The enumeration of these rights does not disparage unenumerated rights which are retained by the people". That means the right to eat, sleep, breath, scratch your ass and have any sex you want as long as you aren't hurting others is a constitutional right.
Nearly two weeks after Republicans gathered at the White House to celebrate President Trump’s third nominee to the Supreme Court at a ceremony that quickly became connected to a cluster of positive coronavirus cases, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah)—one of the at least 11 people who tested positive after attending the September 26 event—returned to Capitol Hill on Monday to appear in-person for Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation hearing.
Lee declined to wear a mask while giving his opening remarks. He was seen closely talking to other members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, including chairman Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), whose own refusal to take a coronavirus test prompted the cancellation of a primary debate with his Democratic challenger, Jamie Harrison, on Friday. (A doctor’s note purporting to clear Lee’s appearance on Capitol Hill confirmed that he had developed symptoms, “including remaining but improving fatigue” over the last week.)
Despite his close contact with a recently-infected Trump, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows refused to engage with reporters unless they agreed to speak with him while he was maskless. “I’m more than 10 feet away,” Meadows said, appearing to mock social-distancing concerns before storming away from a group of Capitol Hill journalists. “I’m not going to talk to the press.”
The reckless actions came as Democrats blasted Republicans for ignoring precedent and potential coronavirus safety issues to jam through Barrett’s nomination so she can be seated in time to hear a challenge seeking to invalidate the Affordable Care Act. That case, which the high court is slated to hear just one week after the election, would kick more than 20 million people off their health insurance in the middle of a pandemic that’s killed more than 210,000 people in the United States. It’s against this prospect of destroying the ACA that Republicans—from the president to Lee—appear emboldened to resume public events, potentially risking the lives of those around them.
Georgia Sees Long Lines As Early Voting Begins
Creating extremely long lines at polling places is a key tactic in the Republican strategy to minimize the number of people who can vote in the election. This is what dictators do.
POLL: 62% Says SCOTUS Should Uphold Roe V Wade
ABC News reports:
Six in 10 registered voters say the U.S. Supreme Court should uphold Roe v. Wade as the basis of abortion law in the United States, and a majority in an ABC News/Washington Post poll — albeit now a narrow one — says the Senate should delay filling the court’s current vacancy.
Sixty-two percent in the national survey say they would want the court to uphold Roe, while 24% would want it overturned.
Right Wingers Put Out Fake Drop Boxes In California
Trump supporters claim to be morally superior to innocent lgbt people but time and again they engage in immoral anti-democratic behaviour like this.
I'm far from a paragon of morality but I'm still way more moral than Wyatt and Regina Hardiman.
here's some inconvenient truth that'll make Randy cry:
The death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg put in motion the provisions of the Appointments Clause of the U.S. Constitution. On Sept. 26, President Trump discharged his constitutional duty and nominated Judge Amy Coney Barrett to replace Ginsburg on the Supreme Court. The Senate begins its work with Judiciary Committee hearings today.
But Democrats began their efforts to derail any nomination even before the passing of Justice Ginsburg. Her death only accelerated their efforts.
First they scurried around, hoping to find enough Republicans to stall the constitutional process. That failed. They now know they don’t have the votes to procedurally block a nomination.
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is still going to try. He’s now arguing that concerns about the pandemic should postpone any action. He knows that’s also going to fail.
Other Democrats have suggested different tactics. Some said they’d refuse to meet with the nominee. So much for a fair hearing.
Houser Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) even hinted at a second impeachment of the president. She knew that was pure bluster. Attempting another impeachment would be political suicide for her party, especially when the “high crime” was doing what the Constitution requires.
The simple fact is, the opponents of Judge Barrett can’t make a case against her qualifications because they’re unassailable.
Judge Barrett is uniformly regarded as a brilliant legal mind, possessing a fair and impartial approach, a judicial temperament, and a deep and abiding respect for the rule of law and the Constitution.
During her confirmation to the U.S. Court of Appeals, every full-time faculty member at the University of Notre Dame Law School, where Judge Barrett had been named “professor of the year” three times, signed a letter in support of her legal scholarship, fair-mindedness and personal integrity. So did several hundred of her students. Those who knew her best have nothing but the highest praise for her. Judge Barrett was confirmed with 55 votes, including that of Hillary Clinton’s former running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.).
Judge Barrett’s sterling record won’t slow down Senate Democrats. They don’t have the votes to defeat her, but they’re going to put on a show anyway. They’re betting they can bolster their base for the upcoming election, especially for tightly-contested Senate seats.
So what’s their case against Amy Coney Barrett?
Sadly, past is prologue and we’ve seen what is coming. When they can’t tackle the credentials or qualifications of a nominee, things quickly get very personal and very ugly.
It started in 1987 when Democrats savaged Robert Bork, eventually defeating his nomination. Then they chased Douglas Ginsburg out of the running because he had — get this — smoked marijuana. Four years later, they went after Clarence Thomas, who referred to his ordeal as a “high-tech lynching.” More recently it was Brett Kavanaugh.
There’s not a hint of scandal regarding Judge Barrett. But the opposition will make it personal. First they will attack her faith. A devout Catholic, she was told during her Court of Appeals confirmation that “the dogma lives loudly within you.”
Put aside for a moment the fact that any religious test is unconstitutional. Shouldn’t the left be embarrassed to attack Judge Barrett’s faith regardless? Apparently what they really are concerned about is her devotion. She lives and practices her faith, and for that she’ll be attacked when she should be lauded.
These purported “concerns” miss the mark for another reason: Judge Barrett does not see herself as a policymaker. She’s a textualist and originalist who will follow the law, not her personal faith.
The left won’t slow down as they move past attacks on the judge’s faith. Next it will be her family.
Judge Barrett and her husband, Jesse, have seven children. They live in a modest house in suburban South Bend, Ind. One of their children has special needs. Two are adopted from foreign countries. If you thought that kids were off limits, you thought wrong. Among the most despicable attacks on Judge Barrett involves her adoption of two Black children from Haiti.
Ibram X. Kendi of Boston University tweeted that, “White colonizers ‘adopted’ Black children. They ‘civilized’ these ‘savage’ children in the superior ways of White people while using them as props.”
John Lee Brougher, managing director of NextGen America, chimed in, “Transracial adoption is fraught with trauma and potential for harm and everything I see here is deeply concerning.” What in the hell is he looking at?
I cannot speak for the Barretts or their children. But I can speak from personal experience. My white parents built a family of little brown children, all but one of whom, myself included, were foreign adoptions. Neither I nor any of my siblings could even imagine the ridiculousness of those mean-spirited comments. I’ll bet the same is true for the Barrett kids.
The Democrats even have gone after her for being a working mom with younger children at home. Can you hear the screams from these same folks if someone on the right said that about a woman?
Judge Barrett’s own words should be the centerpiece of this discussion: “What greater thing can you do than raise children? That’s where you can have your greatest impact on the world.”
The simple fact is, there is no case against Judge Barrett. Senate Democrats know that. Because they don’t have the votes to stop her, they will talk — and talk.
But attempts to stall the constitutional process, besmirch her name, or gain some marginal advantage in the election are putting them between the dog and the political fire hydrant.
Attacks on her faith will backfire. Ugly shots at her family will be met with enormous contempt. Attempts to thwart the process will annoy voters.
Once the talking ends, there’s a good outcome to all of the potential ugliness of the next couple of weeks: confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
As has happened every election since the Republicans gained control of Georgia's election system, today was again plagued by computer breakdowns and massive lines. Some people waited eight hours to vote. People started giving up and going home, which is exactly what the Republicans want. Georgia is one of the worst states in America for how poorly it runs elections and discourages people from voting. They are Example #1 for why Congress needs to fully restore the Voting Rights Act.
The Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic has been a catastrophic failure, with researchers at Oxford University estimating that its mismanagement of the crisis resulted in nearly 60,000 preventable deaths.
And yet, despite the tumult of the past eight months, President Trump’s favorability numbers have barely budged: His approval rating hovers in the low 40s, just as it has most of his presidency. As the economy cratered and covid-19 mortality skyrocketed, the Trump faithful stuck with him, lending credence to his infamous 2016 campaign boast that he “could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody” and not lose any support.
Why is that?
A new book by a psychology professor and a former lawyer in the Nixon White House argues that Trump has tapped into a current of authoritarianism in the American electorate, one that’s bubbled just below the surface for years. In “Authoritarian Nightmare,” Bob Altemeyer and John W. Dean marshal data from a previously unpublished nationwide survey showing a striking desire for strong authoritarian leadership among Republican voters.
The U.S. is backsliding into autocracy under Trump, scholars warn
They also find shockingly high levels of anti-democratic beliefs and prejudicial attitudes among Trump backers, especially those who support the president strongly.
Altemeyer and Dean define authoritarianism as what happens “when followers submit too much to the authorities in their lives.” They measure it using a tool Altemeyer developed in the early 1980s, called the right-wing authoritarian (RWA) scale.
Altemeyer’s scale measures respondents’ agreement or disagreement with 20 statements, such as: “Our country desperately needs a mighty leader who will do what has to be done to destroy the radical new ways and sinfulness that are ruining us” and “It is always better to trust the judgment of the proper authorities in government and religion than to listen to the noisy rabble-rousers in our society who are trying to create doubt in people’s minds.”
They found a striking linear relationship between support for Trump and an authoritarian mind-set: The stronger a person supported Trump, the higher he or she scored on the RWA scale. People saying they strongly disapproved of Trump, for instance, had an average RWA score of 54. Those indicating complete support of the president, on the other hand, had an average score of 119, more than twice as authoritarian as Trump opponents.
Many fervent Trump supporters, Altemeyer and Dean write, “are submissive, fearful, and longing for a mighty leader who will protect them from life’s threats. They divide the world into friend and foe, with the latter greatly outnumbering the former.”
Trump’s personal authoritarian bona fides are well-established, with experts across numerous academic fields warning that his attacks on basic democratic principles present a clear danger to the American political system. But his beliefs and actions are toothless without the support of millions of followers.
“Donald Trump only has the power to flaunt American institutions, treaties, and laws because he has a large, dedicated base who will believe whatever he says and do whatever he wants,” Altemeyer and Dean explain.
Other researchers have reached similar conclusions using very different methods. Vanderbilt political scientist Larry Bartels, for instance, recently used YouGov survey data to find that many Republican voters hold strong authoritarian and anti-democratic beliefs, with racism being a key driver of those attitudes. Researchers have also consistently found that separate measures of authoritarian belief, such as a short survey of attitudes toward child-rearing, are reliable predictors of Trump support.
Many, however, express extremely authoritarian viewpoints. Roughly half of Trump supporters, for instance, agreed with the statement: “Once our government leaders and the authorities condemn the dangerous elements in our society, it will be the duty of every patriotic citizen to help stomp out the rot that is poisoning our country from within,” which Altemeyer and Dean characterize as “practically a Nazi cheer.”
Among people who disapproved of Trump, just 12 percent agreed with that statement.
“Trump’s supporters are much more inclined to stomp out the people they dislike than Trump’s opponents are,” Altemeyer said in an email. “This reflects the authoritarian aggression that is a central part of the RWA personality.”
As Trump refuses to say he’ll accept election results, Republicans press to make voting harder
Admit it Wyatt/Regina: There is nothing Trump could do to cause you two to withdraw your support. And if Amy Barrett rules christians can kill gays as their bible commands them to do you two will be delighted by that.
Conservatives more so than liberals have a tendency to want to wage war on other tribes. I hope they can overcome their evolutionary psychology to make things better for all of us. This conservative christian war on harmless lgbt people doesn't benefit conservative christians in any way. In fact it takes resources they could use to actually make their lives better and wastes them.
To have the best possible world everyone's highest priority has to be maximizing the happiness for all in an equal and fair way.
Trump's supreme court nominee has said that for her being a judge is a means to an end, bringing about the kingdom of god. This is in direct contradiction to the First Amendment's requirement that the government not favour one religion over another or non-religion.
Amy Barrett has disqualified herself by stating she puts her religion above all else. Any denials she might make now that she won't do that are completely worthless. ">History has shown conservative justices will not rule based on any accepted legal reasoning but rather make rulings based on their preferred policy positions.
Republicans promised they wouldn't fill a vacant supreme court seat in the last year of Trump's presidency. This corruption is destroying America and will make everyone's lives worse.
One of the drug treatments Trump took was derived from the cells of an aborted fetus. Conservative christians have been unconditionally and adamantly opposed to using tissues from aborted fetuses for any humanitarian purpose. Or at least they were until Trump did so, now being they hypocrites they are they're fine with Trump using tissue from an aborted fetus.
There is no principle conservatives claim to hold dear that they won't violate for their personal benefit. One set of rules for liberals and no rules for conservatives.
And then they claim to be morally superior to harmless lgbt people. So shameful.
"To have the best possible world everyone's highest priority has to be maximizing the happiness for all in an equal and fair way."
after you've gone to re-education camp and received a round of electro-shock therapy, you'll be very happy
you'll be glad to wear your new MAGA hat!
"Trump's supreme court nominee has said that for her being a judge is a means to an end, bringing about the kingdom of god. This is in direct contradiction to the First Amendment's requirement that the government not favour one religion over another or non-religion."
we talked about this
it says CONGRESS not GOVERNMENT
one strike of lightning is all that you need
a blast of electricity that runs at top speed
"Amy Barrett has disqualified herself by stating she puts her religion above all else."
all religions feel that way
it's unconstitutional to be biased against them!!!!!!!!!
"Any denials she might make now that she won't do that are completely worthless."
why would she deny anything?
she has all the votes she needs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
">History has shown conservative justices will not rule based on any accepted legal reasoning but rather make rulings based on their preferred policy positions."
that's a good idea!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"Republicans promised they wouldn't fill a vacant supreme court seat in the last year of Trump's presidency. This corruption is destroying America and will make everyone's lives worse."
corruption?
the American people elected them and the SCOTUS was a big issue in their campaigns
Once the ABA rules on a judge for the SCOTUS, Congress generally rubber-stamps its approval.
The American Bar Association on Sunday rated Judge Amy Coney Barrett as "well qualified," its highest rating, an important endorsement ahead of confirmation hearings on her Supreme Court appointment this week.
"A substantial majority of the Standing Committee determined that Judge Barrett is 'Well Qualified,' to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States," Randall D. Noel, chair of the ABA's Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary, wrote in a letter.
Game over!
For nearly 50 years now, Democrats have plotted to annihilate the Supreme Court.
Unable to sell their dangerous, destructive — even murderous — legislative agenda to voters, Democrats instead sought to strip the judicial branch of its independence by infecting it with their own twisted partisanship.
The reigning euphemism of the day is “court packing,” which former Vice President Joseph R. Biden openly refuses to discuss with voters until after the election. A more accurate term is “expanding” the Supreme Court by adding seats to dilute the currently sitting justices. Or “exploding” the federal judiciary. Or “annihilating” the independence of an entire branch of the federal government.
They do this by installing puppet “jurists” who no longer believe that the Constitution actually means what it says. It’s a “living document,” according to this death squad.
The judiciary, to these people, is actually just a super-legislature that is unelected and holds office for life.
This kind of constitutional thuggery is the hallmark of socialist dictatorships and banana republics — dress up the institution designed to protect democracy and individual liberty with unelected authoritarians specifically designed to make a mockery of both.
Ever since the Supreme Court first hallucinated about some unwritten constitutional right to abortion back in 1973, Democrats have pushed the federal judiciary further and further into doing the dirty work they could not get done in the legislature.
When they are playing offense, Democrats are ruthlessly efficient and — literally — have never installed a Supreme Court justice who did not operate on the court precisely as instructed.
Republicans — loath to even play the wicked game — unsurprisingly have a terrible record on this account.
When playing defense, Democrats prove just as dastardly in their search-and-destroy mission against any Republican-nominated jurists who pledge fealty to the Constitution.
Their first scalp was Robert Bork. Their latest scalp was supposed to be Brett M. Kavanaugh — now better known as sitting Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh.
The difference between today and the last 50 years of Democrat perversions of the Supreme Court can be summed up in one simple factor: President Trump.
Before Mr. Trump got elected in 2016, conservatives were extremely wary of Mr. Trump’s lack of experience or record pertaining to the federal judiciary. But, in truth, he turned out to be the single greatest Republican in a half-century on this vital issue.
First — and perhaps most importantly — the guy doesn’t mind a fight. If Democrats are going to go to the mattresses over it, then so will Mr. Trump.
If Democrats are going to invent sick and hysterically unfounded accusations against one of his judicial nominees, then Mr. Trump is going to fight them to the death.
And win. (Again, see “sitting Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh.” Ha ha ha ha ha!)
Second has to do with the very lack of experience or record that made conservatives so wary about Mr. Trump in the first place. The guy comes to this issue with absolutely no preconceived notions. He offers a fresh set of eyes. He is boldly willing to reinvent the wheel.
So the question of whether federal judges should adhere to the Constitution or just make it up as they go along is so blatantly obvious to Mr. Trump that it barely even deserves consideration.
Of course an unvarnished political activist such as Ruth Bader Ginsburg did not belong on the Supreme Court!
Now comes Justice Ginsburg’s replacement, Judge Amy Coney Barrett.
It is a remarkable testament to the success of Mr. Trump that Democrats now appear so deeply stymied over how precisely to attack Judge Barrett in the midst of a presidential election.
I predict that they have already surrendered the fight over her character, judicial temperament and qualifications. Instead, Democrats in the Senate will do everything in their power to discredit Judge Barrett’s impartiality in hopes of rendering her at least neutral if the 2020 presidential election winds up in the federal courts.
And if they win, they will stop at nothing to blow up the entire judicial branch.
An otherwise healthy 25-year-old Nevada man is the first American confirmed to have caught COVID-19 twice, with the second infection worse than the first.
He has recovered, but his case raises questions about how long people are protected after being infected with the coronavirus that causes the disease, and potentially how protective a vaccine might be.
"It's a yellow caution light," said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, Tennessee, who was not involved in the research.
Respiratory infections like COVID-19 don't provide lifelong immunity like a measles infection. So, Dr. Paul Offit, an infectious disease expert at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, said he's not at all surprised people could get infected twice with the coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2.
It's too soon to know whether the man from Washoe County, Nevada, who had no known health problems other than his double infection, was highly unusual or if many people could easily get infected more than once with SARS-CoV-2, Schaffner said.
"There's hardly an infectious disease doctor in the country who hasn't encountered a patient who thinks they've had a second infection," he said. "Whether that's true or not, we don't know. There are lots of respiratory infections out there."
How rare is he?
There have been at least 22 documented cases of reinfection worldwide since the start of the pandemic, but it's unclear how many cases there have actually been, and how common it may be among people who don't even know they're infected.
"It could be a one in a million event, we don't know," said Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at Yale University and an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, who wrote a commentary with the study.
With millions of people infected, it's hard to know if case studies like the new one represent very rare events or the tip of an iceberg, she said. "It's possible that the vast majority of people are completely protected from reinfection, but we're not measuring them, because they're not coming to the hospital."
Also, many people don't know they are infected the first time, so it's hard to say whether they're getting re-infected.
In one of the recent cases, a Hong Kong man only knew he was reinfected because it was caught during a routine screening when he returned from outside the country, months after he had cleared an infection and tested negative.
Trump claims he's immune to COVID-19 and can't spread it, but Twitter says not so fast
And of course he doubles down, just like his "it'll be like a miracle" claim.
Trump Repeats Claim He Is ‘Immune’ To Covid As He Proposes Kissing Audience Members At Packed Florida Airport Rally
Post a Comment
<< Home