;)
The Commentariat -- July 31, 2020
Afternoon Update:
Alanna Richer of the AP: “A federal appeals court Friday threw out Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's death sentence in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, saying the judge who oversaw the case did not adequately screen jurors for potential biases. A three-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a new penalty-phase trial on whether the 27-year-old Tsarnaev should be executed for the attack that killed three people and wounded more than 260 others. 'But make no mistake: Dzhokhar will spend his remaining days locked up in prison, with the only matter remaining being whether he will die by execution,' the judges said, more than six month after arguments were heard in the case." Donald Trump called the ruling ridiculous.
Casey Smith of the AP: "U.S. Rep. Greg Pence [R-Ind.] is coming under criticism for allowing the sale of objects with racist depictions of African Americans at a sprawling antiques mall he co-owns -- and the issue has taken on particular significance as the Republican defends his congressional seat in Indiana amid a national reckoning on race. The Exit 76 Antique Mall in Edinburgh, Indiana, has more than 4 million items for sale by the merchants who rent booths from Pence, the vice president's older brother, and his wife.... Jeannine Lee Lake, Pence's Democratic challenger, drew attention to the objects recently on social media, but customers say they have complained to management at the mall about the items as far back as 2008.... Lake, who is one of three Black candidates for federal office in Indiana this fall, said the issue was brought to her attention by a woman who used to live near the mall who sent photos of 'awful objects degrading and dehumanizing Black people' for sale."
Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar & Matthew Perrone of the AP: "Dr. Anthony Fauci said Friday that he remains confident that a coronavirus vaccine will be ready by early next year, telling lawmakers that a quarter-million Americans already have volunteered to take part in clinical trials.... Don't look for a mass nationwide vaccination right away, Fauci told lawmakers. There will be a priority list based on recommendations from scientific advisers. Topping the list could be critical workers, such as as medical personnel, or vulnerable groups of people such as older adults with other underlying health problems.... Officials testifying with Fauci at a contentious House hearing acknowledged that the U.S. remains unable to deliver all COVID-19 test results within two or three days, and they jointly pleaded with Americans to comply with basic precautions such as wearing masks, avoiding crowds, and washing their hands frequently."
Michael Shear, et al., of the New York Times: "President Trump's yearslong assault on the Postal Service and his increasingly dire warnings about the dangers of voting by mail are colliding as the presidential campaign enters its final months. The result has been to generate new concerns about how he could influence an election conducted during a pandemic in which greater-than-ever numbers of voters will submit their ballots by mail.... Members of Congress and state officials ... are warning that a huge wave of ballots could overwhelm mail carriers unless the Postal Service, in financial difficulty for years, receives emergency funding that Republicans are blocking during negotiations over another pandemic relief bill. At the same time, the mail system is being undercut in ways set in motion by Mr. Trump.... In recent weeks, at the direction of a Trump campaign megadonor who was recently named the postmaster general, the service has stopped paying mail carriers and clerks the overtime necessary to ensure that deliveries can be completed each day. That and other changes have led to reports of letters and packages being delayed by as many as several days."
David Siders of Politico: "... Democrats are already bracing for Republican challenges to absentee ballots and at vote counting on Election Day. They have good cause to be prepared: the president has repeatedly raised the prospect of a 'rigged election' and recently declined to say if he'll accept the results. Trump's rhetoric points increasingly to the possibility that he will dispute the outcome in a year marked by primary election administration meltdowns -- a prospect that is heightened by his absolute control of state and national party machinery and an attorney general who has amplified Trump's unsubstantiated claims about mail-in voting fraud.... [Joe] Biden and the Democratic National Committee, in coordination with state parties and advocacy groups, have lawyers and political operatives working across the battleground map and have hired voter protection directors in 20 states." ~~~
~~~ The Trump Plot to Toss Your Vote. Greg Sargent of the Washington Post: "According to the Brennan Center for Justice and the Democratic-run Democracy Docket, swing states that currently do not accept ballots that are postmarked before but arrive after Election Day include: Arizona, Florida, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio and Georgia. Those states will decide the election.... Democrats will use vote-by-mail in far higher numbers than Republicans -- due to Trump's nonstop attacks on it -- yet absentee ballots get rejected at disproportionate rates, due to procedural complexities.... In very close races, the impact could be serious.... Top Democratic lawyer Marc Elias tells me Democrats are litigating against these laws in every swing state, with an eye toward getting ballots counted that are postmarked before but arrive after Election Day."
~~~ "Access Hollywood" Keeps on Giving. Paul LeBlanc of CNN: "Video of then-businessman Donald Trump struggling to vote in-person before declaring he would fill out an absentee ballot in 2004 has resurfaced this week amid a new round of unfounded attacks on mail-in voting from the President. The 'Access Hollywood' segment, filmed as Trump was attempting to vote in the 2004 election, shows Trump alongside TV host Billy Bush visiting multiple New York City polling locations. Trump, however, is blocked from voting at each location because he is not on any of the voter rolls at each stop. Trump can be seen becoming increasingly frustrated before declaring, 'I'm going to fill out the absentee ballot.' The segment ends with Trump filling out what Bush describes as a provisional ballot in his car." ~~~
Trump Brought Violence to Portland. Adam Taylor of the Washington Post: "After President Trump ordered federal law enforcement officers into Portland, Ore., earlier this month, the protests largely ended the same way for days: with tear gas, rubber bullets and arrests. On Thursday, the first protest held since the federal agencies agreed to pull back their officers was a markedly more peaceful affair. As the Black Lives Matter-inspired vigil wound down early Friday morning, there was virtually no sign of the Oregon State Police officers who had taken over protection of the federal buildings at the center of the protests. Instead of being forcibly removed from downtown's Lownsdale Square and the adjacent Chapman Square, which lie opposite the barricaded Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse, the crowd thinned out on its own, with many protesters heading home of their own accord."
Rosalind Helderman & Marc Fisher of the Washington Post: "For at least 15 years ... [beginning in 1989 when they met], Ghislaine Maxwell and [Donald] Trump continued to mingle in the same gilded circles, attending the same parties in Florida and New York, sharing meals and flying together at least once on [Jeffrey] Epstein's private plane, according to documents, interviews and media accounts. They were captured together in photographs and videos several times in that period, and Maxwell got to know two of Trump's wives.... When asked last week if he thought Maxwell would give prosecutors information about powerful men who may have been involved in the exploitation of minors, the president simply said, 'I wish her well, frankly.'... Trump's kind words toward Maxwell are a reminder of his long-standing tendency to extend sympathy to friends or social peers who have been accused of serious wrongdoing -- a sharp contrast to the rhetoric he often deploys against political enemies he accuses of 'treason' and 'corruption.'"
Jacob Bogage & Eugene Scott of the Washington Post: "Avowed white supremacist David Duke was permanently banned from Twitter for repeated violations of the social media platform's rules on hate speech. The former Ku Klux Klan leader and one-time Louisiana legislator's most recent tweets included a link to an interview he conducted with Holocaust denier Germar Rudolf. Other posts promised to expose the 'systemic racism lie,' as well as the 'incitement of violence against white people' by Jewish-owned media. He also shared misinformation about the danger and spread of the."
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The Trumpidemic, Ctd.
"Re-open the Country" -- the Gigantic Trump Fuck-up. Ben Casselman of the New York Times: "The coronavirus pandemic's toll on the nation's economy became emphatically clearer Thursday as the government detailed the most devastating three-month collapse on record, which wiped away nearly five years of growth. Gross domestic product, the broadest measure of goods and services produced, fell 9.5 percent in the second quarter.... The drop -- the equivalent of a 32.9 percent annual rate of decline -- would have been even more severe without trillions of dollars in government aid to households and businesses. But there is mounting evidence that the attempt to freeze the economy and defeat the virus has not produced the rapid rebound that many envisioned. A surge in coronavirus cases and deaths across the country has led to a renewed pullback in economic activity.... Data from Europe shows what might have been. Germany on Thursday reported a drop in second-quarter G.D.P. that was even steeper than the U.S. decline. But in Germany, coronavirus cases fell sharply and remain low, which has allowed a much stronger economic rebound in recent weeks. In the United States, the rebound appears to have stalled." ~~~
~~~ Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: I've been sort of trying not to use the word "fuck" in the body of the Commentariat, but sometimes I cannot avoid it. Trump's insistence on "re-opening the country" -- and his followers' willingness to play along (here's looking at you, Ron DeSantis) -- is far more consequential than even some of his crazier suggestions and advice. You could argue that his refusal to wear a mask was worse, but he did not -- as apparently some Members of Congress did -- tell us not to wear masks. Or his refusal to lead a national response to the pandemic was worse, but if every state had followed sound practices we might have come out okay. But his demand that we get back to "business as usual," and his pressure on state governors to follow his lead, has tanked the economy, and it is improving far more slowly than necessary.
Young people are almost immune to this disease. The younger, the better, I guess. They're stronger. They're stronger. They have a stronger immune system. It's an incredible thing. Nobody has ever seen this before.... But young people are almost immune. If you look at the percentage, it's a tiny percent of 1 percent. It's a tiny percent of 1 percent. So we have to have our schools open. -- Donald Trump, telling another dangerous lie, Thursday ~~~
~~~ Apoorva Mandavilli of the New York Times: Results from a new peer-reviewed study show that "infected children have at least as much of the coronavirus in their noses and throats as infected adults, according to the research. Indeed, children younger than age 5 may host up to 100 times as much of the virus in the upper respiratory tract as adults, the authors found. That measurement does not necessarily prove children are passing the virus to others. Still, the findings should influence the debate over reopening schools, several experts said."
Zachary Basu of Axios: "The Senate has adjourned until 3pm on Monday, as Congress failed to reach an agreement on extending extra unemployment benefits that are set to expire on Friday.... Tens of millions of Americans are out of work and have been receiving $600 per week on top of their regular unemployment payments. That money has been used both to pay expenses and to prop up the broader economy via consumer spending.... Congress and the Trump administration are still painfully deadlocked over the next stimulus bill, with at least 20 Senate Republicans pledging to vote 'no' on another massive relief package no matter what."
The Peasants Revolt. Sort of. Anna Palmer of Politico: "The revelation Wednesday that Texas Republican Louie Gohmert, a renegade lawmaker known for stalking the halls of Congress without a mask, tested positive for Covid-19 has unleashed a fusillade of anger on Capitol Hill -- a sudden release of built-up tension over how the institution has dealt with the coronavirus pandemic within the confines of its own workplace. For months, the leaders of Congress have allowed lawmakers to enter the Capitol without being screened for the deadly virus, rejecting an offer from the White House to provide rapid testing while trusting that the thousands who work across the massive complex of offices, meeting rooms and hallways will behave responsibly. Now, legislative aides, chiefs of staff, press assistants, members of Congress, career workers and maintenance men and women are venting their fury with an institution that does not have uniform rules or masking requirements, does not mandate testing, is run with minimal oversight and must contend with a gaggle of lawmakers who doubt scientists and hold themselves out as experts on everything from disease hygiene to pharmacology."
Adam Edelman of ABC News: "Herman Cain, a successful businessman who ran for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination and later became a backer of ... Donald Trump, has died from complications from COVID-19, according to a statement posted Thursday on his personal website. He was 74.... Last month, Cain had tested positive for COVID-19, just a little over a week after he had attended a Trump campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma on June 20." (Also linked yesterday.)
Benjamin Weiser of the New York Times: "Michael D. Cohen now will be allowed to finish his tell-all book about President Trump after the government said on Thursday that it had given up a legal battle to prevent him from expressing himself on television, on social media or in books while he serves a prison sentence at home. The government, writing to a federal judge in Manhattan, said it would not challenge a ruling last week that cleared the way for Mr. Cohen, who once was Mr. Trump's lawyer and fixer, to publish a memoir about his former boss before the election. The government said it had agreed to omit a condition in Mr. Cohen's home-confinement agreement that would have banned him from any contact with the media, including making posts on social media, appearing on television or publishing a book."
Ann Marimow of the Washington Post: "A federal appeals court in Washington will take a second look at a judge's effort to scrutinize the Justice Department's decision to drop its case against President Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn. The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit agreed Thursday to revisit U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan's plan to examine the politically charged matter, reviving the unusual case testing the limits of the judiciary's power to check the executive branch. The court's brief order set oral arguments for Aug. 11. The decision to rehear the case before a full complement of judges wipes out the June ruling from a three-judge panel that ordered Sullivan to immediately dismiss the case and said Sullivan was wrong to appoint a retired federal judge to argue against the government's move to undo Flynn's guilty plea." A Reuters story is here. (Also linked yesterday.)
CNN is republishing adapted portions of Jeff Toobin's new book, True Crimes & Misdemeanors, an examination of the Mueller investigation. One revelation: Andrew McCabe secreted copies of key documents, including memos by Jim Comey, in the FBI's secure case management system and "in remote locations around the Bureau. This was to make sure that in the event Trump directed an end to these inquiries, the documents could always be preserved, located, and shared."
Trump, Spies, Cops & Sundry Bigots
Shane Harris of the Washington Post: "The Department of Homeland Security has compiled 'intelligence reports' about the work of American journalists covering protests in Portland, Ore., in what current and former officials called an alarming use of a government system meant to share information about suspected terrorists and violent actors. Over the past week, the department's Office of Intelligence and Analysis has disseminated three Open Source Intelligence Reports to federal law enforcement agencies and others, summarizing tweets written by two journalists -- a reporter for the New York Times [Mike Baker] and the editor in chief of the blog Lawfare [Ben Wittes] -- and noting they had published leaked, unclassified documents about DHS operations in Portland." The Raw Story has a summary report here.
"I Can't Breathe." Timothy Bella of the Washington Post: For 6½ minutes, Lionel Morris "begged police to stop using a Taser on him on a supermarket's floor ... in Conway, Ark.... Morris had run from officers on Feb. 4 and then placed one officer in a chokehold and tried to [pull] out a knife, according to police, after the supermarket had reported him for removing a drone from its packaging. But as an officer had his knee on the 39-year-old's back inside Harps Food Store, Morris, handcuffed and lying face down, repeatedly offered a succinct and familiar plea: 'I can't breathe.' 'If you can talk, you can breathe. Chill out,' replied the officer, according to body-cam footage released by the Conway Police Department on Wednesday.... Minutes later, Morris was 'pulseless and unresponsive' when medical personnel arrived. He was pronounced dead while being transported to the hospital. On Wednesday, the officers involved in Morris's death were cleared of criminal wrongdoing by the Arkansas State Police and prosecutors. That decision came the same day that police released edited body-cam and security footage that illustrated a chaotic incident in which Morris seemingly made clear repeatedly that he was in medical distress." ~~~
~~~ The Disappeared? Spencer Ackerman of the Daily Beast: "An Immigration and Customs Enforcement guard at an immigration jail in Virginia knelt dangerously on the upper back of a man already bleeding from his head, two detained men who said they saw the disturbing incident told The Daily Beast. 'It was like seeing George Floyd all over again,' said one detainee.... Since the incident on Monday, July 13, the detained men said that they have not seen the beaten man, identified as 31-year old Carlos Rivas Monsano. 'Right now, we don't know where he is,' a second detainee ... said on Monday. A third detainee gave a similar account. In a statement to The Daily Beast, ICE said it was investigating what is said to have happened to Rivas."
~~~ Jaclyn Peiser of the Washington Post: "Over the three days Rob Bliss held the sign in the sweltering July heat in Harrison, a town known as a haven for white supremacists and home to the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, similar interactions happened again and again.... Bliss is a director and producer based in Los Angeles and is known for making viral stunts aimed at socially conscious messages.... Bliss's video swiftly went viral after he uploaded it Monday...." (Also linked yesterday.)
Elections 2020
~~~ For those who don't subscribe to the New York Times, digby has republished John Lewis' NYT op-ed. I don't know whether or not she violated copyright law, and here is an instance where I don't care. (The Times should have made the essay free for nonsubscribers, IMO.) Many thanks to Keith H. for the link. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ digby appends this to the end of the essay: "Meanwhile, Trump, who couldn't be bothered to pay tribute or even have the decency to STFU, has spent this week pushing racist housing policies and trying to manipulate, suppress and now, delay the vote. If there's a more graceless barbarian on earth I don't know who it might be." Amen, Sister. ~~~
~~~ Ari Berman of Mother Jones: "... Lewis was right to be concerned about the threat to voting rights. Since the 2010 election, half the states in the country have passed new restrictions on voting, such as voter ID laws, cutbacks to early voting, and closing polling places. In 2013, the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act, unleashing a wave of new voter suppression in states with a long history of discrimination like Georgia and Texas. (Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has been blocking a vote on bipartisan legislation to restore the VRA for most of a year.) More recently, the Trump administration has waged an unrelenting campaign against vote-by-mail, lying about mail ballot fraud and filing a series of lawsuits opposing efforts to make it easier to vote by mail. He has also politicized the United States Postal Service by appointing the former top fundraiser for the Republican National Committee as postmaster general, cutting overtime for postal workers, and slowing down mail delivery at a time when the agency faces a major budget crisis, which could lead to mail ballots not arriving in time to be counted."
~~~ Richard Fausset & Rick Rojas of the New York Times: "Three former presidents and dozens of other dignitaries were drawn to Ebenezer Baptist Church on Thursday to bid farewell to John Lewis, a giant of Congress and the civil rights era whose courageous protests guaranteed him a place in American history. But even as the funeral looked back over Mr. Lewis's long life, it also focused very much on the tumultuous state of affairs in the country today. The most pointed eulogy came from former President Barack Obama, who issued a blistering critique of the Trump administration, the brutality of police officers toward Black people and efforts to limit the right to vote that Mr. Lewis had shed his blood to secure." ~~~
Nolan McCaskill of Politico: "President Barack Obama hailed the late Rep. John Lewis as a modern-day founding father of a more perfect union that has not yet come to fruition -- and challenged Americans to carry on Lewis' legacy. In a 40-minute eulogy that was part a celebration of Lewis and part a call to action, Obama chronicled Lewis' journey as a young civil rights activist to an elderly congressman who led a sit-in inside the U.S. Capitol, evidence that Lewis never stopped fighting for what was right. Former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi paid tribute to the late Democratic congressman before Obama spoke. Former President Jimmy Carter sent his condolences in a letter that was read aloud during the service." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
Bull Connor may be gone. But today we witness with our own eyes police officers kneeling on the necks of Black Americans. George Wallace may be gone, but we can witness our federal government sending agents to use tear gas and batons against peaceful demonstrators. -- President Barack Obama, eulogy for John Lewis
~~~ At about 22 min. in, President Obama begins speaking about how civil rights are being curbed today. At 27:55, he speaks about expanding the Voting Rights Act. The full transcript of his eulogy, via the New York Times, is here. ~~~
~~~ Paul Kane & John Wagner of the Washington Post: "Former president Barack Obama delivered a call to action in his eulogy Thursday of late congressman John Lewis, urging Congress to pass new voting rights laws and likening tactics by President Trump and his administration to those used by racist Southern leaders who fought the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Obama, speaking for 40 minutes at the pulpit where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. once preached, tied Lewis's early life as a Freedom Rider to the nationwide protests that followed the killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police. He compared today's federal agents using tear gas against peaceful protesters, an action that Trump has cheered on, to the same attacks Lewis faced on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., in 1965."
Marc Fisher of the Washington Post: "Three presidents spoke in poetry, paying tribute to a fallen hero who believed -- often against evidence to the contrary, including the cracking of his skull by state troopers -- that America was good, its people driven by love to do right by one another. One president, the current commander in chief, did not attend the funeral of Rep. John Lewis but instead spoke of dark forces in the country and suggested that the United States not hold its next presidential election on time."
** Maggie Haberman, et al., of the New York Times: "Facing disastrous economic news and rising coronavirus deaths, President Trump on Thursday floated delaying the Nov. 3 election, a suggestion that lacks legal authority and could undermine confidence in an election that polls show him on course to lose. Republican leaders in Congress, who often claim not to have seen Mr. Trump's outlandish statements and tweets and who infrequently challenge him in public, promptly and vocally condemned any notion that the election would be moved. It was a moment of striking political isolation for the president, as Republicans felt no need to defend him, Democrats condemned him, and three former presidents gathered in a rare moment together, paying tribute at the funeral of Representative John Lewis of Georgia.... 'With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history, Mr. Trump wrote. 'It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???'... Mr. Trump said in a separate tweet, 'Must know Election results on the night of the Election, not days, months or even years later!' That second statement reflects a concern that Democrats have given voice to -- that Mr. Trump will try to focus on the same-day voting tallies to claim victory, even when the full results may be unknown for days."~~~
~~~ Politico's story is here. ~~~
Never in the history of the country, through wars, depressions, and the Civil War have we ever not had a federally scheduled election on time, and we'll find a way to do that again this Nov. 3. -- Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, shortly after Donald Trump suggested the election be delayed
So many dead and the economy in free fall -- and what's his reaction? Delay the election. It's a sign of a mind that's having a great deal of difficulty coming to terms with reality. -- Former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld (R) ~~~
~~~ Alexander Burns of the New York Times: "... with Mr. Trump suggesting for the first time that the election could be delayed, his proposal appeared as impotent as it was predictable.... Far from a strongman, Mr. Trump has lately become a heckler in his own government, promoting medical conspiracy theories on social media, playing no constructive role in either the management of the coronavirus pandemic or the negotiation of an economic rescue plan in Congress -- and complaining endlessly about the unfairness of it all." ~~~
~~~ Cory Bennett, et al., of Politico: "For months, faced with the dual crises of a life-altering pandemic and a nationwide protest movement against racism, Trump has been laying the groundwork to contest the election results -- refusing to commit to accepting the results, leveling baseless allegations that mail-in balloting will create the 'the greatest Rigged Election in history.' Jared Kushner ... told Time magazine that he could not 'commit one way or the other' to holding the election on Nov. 3, the date that is set by law. 'Right now that's the plan,' he said...." ~~~
~~~ ** Steve M.: "We're being assured that Trump can't postpone the election." But the 1845 law that sets the date of the election of the president & veep also provides that "When any State shall have held an election for the purpose of choosing electors, and shall fail to make a choice on the day aforesaid, then the electors may be appointed on a subsequent day in such manner as the State shall by law provide." That suggests to Steve "that states can alter their procedures for choosing presidential electors. And this, from the National Constitution Center, is ominous: 'Three opinions from the Congressional Research Service explain scenarios about the possible delays in the presidential election process. One report, released [in March], indicates a state under its own laws could postpone the general election date that results in the selection of electors; in the election this year that date is Tuesday, November 3, 2020. At least 45 states have statutes that deal with election day emergencies, the CRS says.' There are several states in which Republicans fully control the government but voters might prefer Joe Biden to Donald Trump -- Florida, Arizona, and possibly Georgia and Texas." Read the whole post. ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: So it appears reporters have asked the wrong people how they feel about changing the election date: Congressional leaders like McConnell & McCarthy, Cruz & Rubio naturally want to preserve their own prerogative to set the date. Rather, reporters should be asking those reprobates like Ron DeSantis, Doug Ducey, Brian Kemp, etc. Oh, and the biggest reprobate of all, Bill Barr. My bet is if the election once again came down to "Florida, Florida Florida," Mitch would suddenly find he just had to defer to DeSantis.
~~~ Impeach & Remove Trump! Steven Calabresi, co-founder of the far-right Federalist Society, in a New York Times op-ed: "I have voted Republican in every presidential election since 1980, including voting for Donald Trump in 2016. I wrote op-eds and a law review article protesting what I believe was an unconstitutional investigation by Robert Mueller. I also wrote an op-ed opposing President Trump's impeachment. But I am frankly appalled by the president's recent tweet seeking to postpone the November election. Until recently, I had taken as political hyperbole the Democrats' assertion that President Trump is a fascist. But this latest tweet is fascistic and is itself grounds for the president's immediate impeachment again by the House of Representatives and his removal from office by the Senate." ~~~
~~~ Calabresi Spies a Loser. Paul Campos in LG&$: "Guys like Calabresi are political hacks who are also deeply invested in the belief that they are devoted to The Rule of Law. The way this works is that when a politician starts looking like a bad bet, they suddenly become all principled and stuff, without noticing the practical convenience of their conversion." ~~~
~~~ Ken Meyer of Mediaite remembers way back in late April when Joe Biden said, "Mark my words, I think he is going to try to kick back the election somehow, come up with some rationale why it can't be held. Imagine threatening not to fund the post office. Now, what in God's name is that about?" Trumpophiles came out en masse to accuse Biden of pushing a nutty conspiracy theory. As Bennett, et al., note in the Politico story linked above, "Trump himself explicitly shot down the prospect: 'I never even thought of changing the date of the election. Why would I do that?'" Mrs. McC: Sometimes a conspiracy theory is just a conspiracy. Unfortunately for Trump, in this case, most of his designated co-conspirators are having none of it -- although the postmaster is definitely doing his part. ~~~
~~~ Trump Flunky Engineers USPS Havoc. Michelle Lee & Jacob Bogage of the Washington Post: "The U.S. Postal Service is experiencing days-long backlogs of mail across the country after a top Trump donor running the agency put in place new procedures described as cost-cutting efforts, alarming postal workers who warn that the policies could undermine their ability to deliver ballots on time for the November election. As President Trump ramps up his unfounded attacks on mail balloting as being susceptible to widespread fraud, postal employees and union officials say the changes implemented by Trump fundraiser-turned-postmaster general Louis DeJoy are contributing to a growing perception that mail delays are the result of a political effort to undermine absentee voting. The backlog comes as the president, who is trailing presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in the polls, has escalated his efforts to cast doubt about the integrity of the November vote, which is expected to yield record numbers of mail ballots because of the coronavirus pandemic." ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Here's how it works: Trump predicts mail-in ballots will be slow to arrives. Trump appoints postmaster general who makes sure mail-in ballots will be slow to arrive. This is not a magic trick. It's a Trump trick, so no sleight-of-hand is involved. How it's done is damned obvious.
Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Rep. Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, this week declined to answer a colleague's question about whether he had received derogatory information about Vice President Joe Biden from Andrii Derkach, a Kremlin-linked Ukrainian lawmaker who has worked to foment allegations of corruption by Biden and his son Hunter. During a closed-door business meeting of the panel on Wednesday -- a transcript of which was made publicly available Thursday -- Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.) pressed Nunes about news reports indicating that he was one of several GOP lawmakers to whom packets of information were delivered from Derkach in December 2019 that contained allegations about Joe Biden. Derkach has confirmed he sent the packages to Nunes, as well as GOP Sens. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina." Mrs. McC: So Nunes, et al., are likely sitting on (fake) oppo research against Biden, which they intend to spring as an October surprise. AG Bill Barr is probably doing the same with his so-called "investigations" of the Russia & Ukraine matters.
Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "The Supreme Court on Thursday shut down a lower court's decision that cited the coronavirus pandemic as reason to ease the rules on gathering signatures for a citizens ballot initiative. The case from Idaho was the latest example of the high court deferring to state officials, rather than lower-court judges, in how to deal with election-related issues caused by the outbreak of covid-19.... It is unclear exactly how the court's vote broke down, although at least five of the nine justices had to agree with the action. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented. Three justices joined Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. in explaining the action. But the order did not state how the other three justices -- Clarence Thomas, Stephen G. Breyer and Elena Kagan -- voted, which sometimes happens when the court settles an emergency request."
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