Stuff to read about the Amy Barrett nomination hearings that I don’t have the stomach to watch:
Paul Waldman: Amy Coney Barrett’s hearing is a disgusting spectacle of GOP dishonesty
Josh Marshall, It’s Not ‘Court Packing.’ Don’t Be A Moron and Call It That.
Christopher Leonard, New York Times, Charles Koch’s Big Bet on Barrett
While much of the commentary about Judge Barrett’s nomination has focused on the real prospect that Roe v. Wade may be undermined or overturned, Mr. Koch has other concerns. Judge Barrett’s nomination is the latest battleground in his decades-long war to reshape American society in a way that ensures that corporations can operate with untrammeled freedom. It may be a pivotal one.
Daniel Politi, Slate, Cory Booker Finally States the Obvious at Barrett Hearing: “This Is Not Normal”
Ian Millhiser, Vox, The single biggest lie told in the first day of the Amy Coney Barrett hearing
Charles Pierce, Amy Coney Barrett’s Nomination Is the Culmination of Various Long-Term Right-Wing Projects
Stuff to read about Trump corruption:
The New York Times, The Swamp That Trump Built. Major exposé.
Charles Pierce, The President Is Engaged in Exactly the Kind of Pay-for-Play Scams That Forced Spiro Agnew Out of Office
Robert Shapiro, Washington Monthly, Exclusive: Trump’s Tax Wizardry is Even More Sophisticated Than You Thought
Washington Post, Trump’s children brought Secret Service money to the family business with their visits, records show
… when Trump’s adult children visited Trump properties, Trump’s company charged the Secret Service for agents to come along. The president’s company billed the U.S. government hundreds, or thousands, of dollars for rooms agents used on each trip, as the agency sometimes booked multiple rooms or a multiroom rental cottage on the property.
In this way, Trump’s adult children and their families have caused the U.S. government to spend at least $238,000 at Trump properties so far, according to Secret Service records obtained by The Washington Post.
Sean Wilentz, Rolling Stone, The Sedition of Donald Trump
David Atkins, Washington Monthly, Trump Is The Most Crooked President in American History. That Should Matter.
Other Stuff to Read
Greg Sargent, Fauci’s anger at Trump is more damning than it first appeared
Timothy Noah, How Can You Tell a Senate Republican Wants a Coronavirus Deal?
Clay Jones
Copyright 2020 Claytoonz.com
Not just due to the tRUMP Plague, but all of the Senators attending today's hearing for Amy "Coat Hanger" Barrett should have been wearing masks because the hypocrisy coming from the RepubliKKKLAN side was as thick as the killer pea-soup fogs they get in London!
And that fog had the miasmatic stench of pure political bullshit!
The RepubliKKKLAN'S blatant hypocrisy is killing this nation.
And that latest hypocrisy was just the cherry on top of the sundae made up out of the myriad other things they've been doing to tear America apart for decades
Treasonous, traitorous, evil MFers, each and every one of them!!!
You get the Golden Cobra award for "miasmatic" as that one would make Maureen Dowd proud.
There is some good news. FWIW,Daily Kos is forecasting a net gain of five Senate seats.
In CA, Republicans have installed fake ballot drop boxes, that’s how desperate/disgusting they are.
I can't watch the hearings either. This is a sham. Nobody should have been considered before the election if you only look at the direct quotes of Mitch and Miss Lindsey from 2016. The candidate probably is not qualified according to judicial standards but there's no intention to screen the qualifications. This is going to be shoved down our throats and frankly – we can't stop it. (Which is why I'm not watching.)
There's a silver lining to this cloud. Over 50% think the Senate should have waited. That's number one. Next month, the USSC will consider Obamacare – and probably rule it unconstitutional. That's two. According to Kaiser Health Care, there are 7% more people who approve of Obamacare than disapprove. Millions will lose health care as early as next year and the insurance companies WILL install pre-existing conditions in billing practices. That will disqualify millions more in the area of health care they are most vulnerable. A number of cases related to a woman's right to choose could make it to the USSC docket early next year. So Roe v Wade will go down in flames, as early as 2021. How is this a silver lining?
Regardless of what you call it, adding seats to the USSC will cause nervous Democrats to shake at the knees. The only source of courage for the wimps is a strong mandate from the public that they want universal health care and they want a woman's right to control over her own body. My prediction, if Obamacare and Roe go down in quick succession is a 70% approval from voters to normalize the court. Republicans are in denial about what insurance companies will do, about the reaction of the public to a frontal assault on women, and the open talk from some USSC justices that same-sex marriage should be struck down.
The momentum usually shifts immediately after one party gets control over both sides of the Captiol Building and the White House. Democrats had a full majority for only two years after Obama was elected. Striking down the filibuster in the Senate would normally create momentum against the party in power in the Senate. Give the Supremes enough rope and they will recruit for progressives in a way we haven't been able to recruit for ourselves. (Put together a new "Onnamacare" to undo the damage done by the USSC and let the GOP block with the filibuster. (Timing is everything here, folks,) Then change to rules to restore some order to health care (but not until AFTER people feel the pain of what the court took away. The suits to prevent a new comprehensive health care plan will be filed the day the act passes. Good. If the prospect of the new system is popular (compared to being raped by insurance companies) the impetus is there to moderate the courts BEFORE the case makes it to the Supreme Court.
This sets up a mood in the country by 2022 to prevent Republicans from getting enough power to prevent a restoration of women's rights, equal rights for same-sex marriage, (supported by 63% in recent polls) and universal health care (something less clunky than Obamacare, please.)
One more though for those I have not put to sleep – some Trumpies will try domestic terrorism after the election. This won't sit well with Independents and a lot of Republicans. (Yeah, there's a poll that supports that statement.) The GOP establishment will try to move to a post-Trump era and the Trumpies will revolt against the GOP – I predict a tear down the middle, two conservative parties, neither with enough power to take control from Democrats. (IMO, the Trumpies won't talk to establishment Republicans for years, sealing Democratic control in Congress unless we screw it up.
FDR was president for 12 years – keeping the political momentum for that long was crucial to the progress the country made. We will have control in three months. Keeping control is useless if we don't exert the power for fundamental change. Usually, drastic action (Obamacare) generates a backlash which cuts short your tenure in power. The Barrett confirmation may create the exception – the opportunity for a sustained and progressive majority in Congress and the WH.
Democrats need to find some balls, but they also need to find some smarts, too.
Josh Marshall:
I wrote this tweet because I thought I would become apoplectic when I saw that some Democrats were referring to expanding the Supreme Court as “court packing” or tacitly accepting the use of the phrase when asked about it by reporters. Any Democrat who uses this phrase should be, metaphorically at least, hit over the head with a stick.
The simple fact is that “court packing” is a pejorative phrase. It is nonsensical to use it as a description of something you’re considering supporting or actively supporting. If you decide to support a certain politician you don’t refer to deciding to ‘carry their water.’ Someone who supports expanding the estate tax doesn’t call it the ‘death tax’. This is obvious. Doing so is an act of comical political negligence. But of course the error is far more than semantic. No one should be using this phrase because it is false and turns the entire reality of the situation on its head.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/its-not-court-packing-dont-be-a-moron-and-call-it-that
You know "court reform" to address the court packing the GOP has been engaged in, over the last ten years is what the democrats should undertake, when the media is basically daring the Biden campaign and every democrat they can put a mic in front of to answer the question of "court packing" ands republicans are whining that the voters will punish them for it.
To say, as Biden and other democrats have, that its not an option to restore balance as part of reform by adding seats to the court is to accept not only the republicans court packing as "normal" but also to accept that any democratic legislation to remedy the destruction of the ACA, for example, will be at the mercy of a thoroughly politically corrupted supreme court, for generations to come.
<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/10/13/republicans-have-seen-enemy-democracy/">Paul Waldman hits it out of the park</a>
Also: <a href="https://ritholtz.com/2020/10/60-minutes-on-the-the-lincoln-project/">"60 Minutes" interviews The Lincoln Project</a>
Lindsey Graham signaled, before Ginsburg's body was cold, that the GOP would confirm whoever Trump nominated and would do so before the election; a clue to what this was really about. And the democrats are powerless to stop it. So the hearings are really nothing more than a forum for the GOP to try to justify their rush to get, not so much a qualified judicial candidate but a certified wingnut who happens to be Barrett, onto the court. And this over the objections of a solid majority of the voters, as even they apparently see it for the power grab it is.
I couldn't bring myself to watch because of the hypocrisy of it all. Based on what I've read, Barrett thus far appears to be yet another typical, intellectually underwhelming, dogmatic, ideologically far right conservative judicial functionary of the kind McConnell's been assembly-lining onto the federal courts.
To deal with that, apparently, Sen. Cornyn started off his time with this:
Most of us have multiple notebooks and notes and books, things like that in front of us,” said Sen. Cornyn (video below). “Can you hold up what you’ve been referring to in answering our questions?”
Barrett held up a blank notepad.
“Is there anything on it?” asked Cornyn.
“The letterhead that says United States Senate,” the judge replied.
“That’s impressive,” said the senator.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1316031203439513600
I guess they felt they needed to do something to make her appear the fair minded intellectual since she hadn't displayed anything to that effect to that point. Besides, what notes do you need to have when your agenda is to deny and deflect?