Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh has said this election will end up like 2016, with conventional wisdom about who will win proved massively wrong.
Limbaugh: “It’s Always Wrong And It Is Groupthink”
Speaking to Fox and Friends on Tuesday, Limbaugh said this election was especially important, as it will “determine what kind of country we have going forward.”
He slammed the narrative that the media was pushing, that the election was some sort of guaranteed, landslide Biden victory.
“I look at the conventional wisdom and I make it a point never to follow it,” Limbaugh said.
“It’s always wrong and it is groupthink. Why you want to go along with what everybody else thinks?” he added.
“Everybody thinks it is a bunch of Democrats that hate Trump showing up because they hate the guy and they can’t wait to vote against this and that’s what the media has been telling us,” Limbaugh continued.
What a day! Let’s go red wave. Be sure to tune in to the show today, Donald Trump Jr. and Governor DeSantis will be joining me, your Real Anchorman. Oh, and VOTE! @DonaldJTrumpJr@GovRonDeSantis
“They are fed up with the way he has been lied about, they are fed up with this Russian conspiracy hoax and this impeachment hoax, they are fed up with the attempts to destroy this country via Antifa and Black Lives Matter and they are tired of watching the cities burn,” he argued.
“They’re tired of watching Democratic governors and mayors shut down their cities and states. What’s to say this early voting isn’t a bunch of Republicans and Trump supporters showing up to get it out of their system?” he asked.
“I think there is a whole different way of looking at this. It is my way of looking at it and I welcome everybody to join me in my way of looking at this because my way is victory, my way is Trump winning and preserving the American way of life,” he concluded.
Limbaugh, who is currently dying of cancer, has been urging his millions of loyal radio listeners to re-elect President Trump today.
“This is not the old ‘Republicans versus Democrats,’ where we all have the same objectives, just different philosophies on how to get there,” he said in October.
“They do not have those objectives any more. Their purpose is to erase the Constitution, start over rewriting it, eliminating the concept of ‘The citizen has rights which prevail over government,'” he added.
“It’s serious, and it’s scary, and we don’t have a choice,” he argued. “You have to get out there and vote Trump.”
Today’s Democrat party is not the caring party or the party of JFK. Break that myth, don’t follow just because there is a D beside Buy-den's name. Look at Trump’s results not just talk. https://t.co/KuIQ2MdAze
These polls are not the only evidence in favor of his hypothesis.
The Trump campaign massively outweighed the Biden campaign in gaining newly registered voters in key battleground states, like Pennsylvania, Florida, North Carolina, and Arizona.
And in Florida today, a state that pundits predict will go blue, Republican turnout could very well flip the script.
Rather than any legitimate interpretation of constitutional law, all of the outcomes you can expect from the Supreme Court will now be solely based on how the decision will affect Republicans getting elected. It’s disturbing, because as I read and watch media figures discuss Biden’s lead, they bring up the Republican's lock on the judiciary as if overturning votes is just established precedent now. The federal courts, and especially the Supreme Court, have essentially been turned into an arm of the GOP. For the sake of the rule of law and its integrity, Democrats cannot allow this to stand.
This disaster was in the making for many years before Mitch McConnell made up a rule in order to prevent the first African American president from appointing a Supreme Court nominee in the final year of his two-term presidency. McConnell blocked every single judicial appointment for the two years he had control of the Senate. This allowed him to turn 200 right-wing ideologues into federal judges during Donald Trump’s only presidential term. Trump named one-quarter of the appointments to the federal bench, including 53 Appellate Court appointees and now, a whopping three Supreme Court Justices.
Besides many of these appointees being rated “unqualified” by the American Bar Association, some picks were outright bizarre. Even Republican senators, like John Cornyn and John Kennedy, expressed Susan Collins-like concern. (Didn’t stop them from voting to confirm, though.) Yet Democrats, assuming they have the spine the American people are demanding, can use several mechanisms available to rebalance the courts this upcoming January. The next two years will likely be our only window. There has been a lot of talk about expanding the courts, which we should absolutely do in order to negate McConnell’s illegitimate court packing scheme. But there are other options to consider.
Judges are supposed to rule fairly and impartially on the laws before them. Before I get into Amy Coney Barrett, let’s review the batch of judges you don’t hear about. Trump and McConnell used over 200 of them to flood our judiciary; let’s see if they seem likely to rule fairly or impartially.
Fourth Circuit Judge Allison Rushing has ties to a right-wing hate group. Lawrence VanDyke received a stunning rebuke from the ABA, saying he was “lacking in knowledge,” and didn’t have “a commitment to being truthful.” He now sits on the Ninth Circuit.
Jeff Mateer said transgender children were part of “Satan’s plan.” Ryan Bounds wrote that there was nothing “inherently wrong with the University failing to punish an alleged rapist—regardless of his guilt—in the absence of adequate certainty.” McConnell pushed his 37-year old former intern, Justin Walker, to the DC Court of Appeals despite his utter lack of experience and unqualified rating by the American Bar Association. Nonetheless, he was rushed through. His predecessor, Judge Thomas Griffith, retired so suddenly and unexpectedly that an advocacy group filed a complaint to see if McConnell pushed him out. In the meantime, Walker’s decisions have been so bad that they’ve been compared to Breitbart screeds.
And then there’s the newest Justice, Amy Coney Barrett. She’s never tried a case, never argued an appeal, and only became a judge in 2017 thanks to Trump. She is so far to the right that she criticized former Justice William Brennan for saying his oath to uphold the law trumped any obligation to his Roman Catholic faith. She stated that judges don’t need to listen to precedent if they don’t like the ruling. She wrote that calling someone the n-word at work doesn’t make it a hostile work environment. She reversed a rape lawsuit because the rape of a teenager by a prison guard fell outside “the scope of his employment.”
Sounds like she’ll feel right at home with the two sexual predators the GOP has already put on the Supreme Court.
Facing far less scrutiny, Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham just broke committee rules again and advanced five more lower court nominees. One is Trumpist Kathryn Mizelle, a 33-year old who graduated law school just a few years ago. She doesn’t even meet the fundamental standard for consideration as a district judge, which requires practicing law for 12 years. Yet McConnell is running out of ideologues and time, so she’ll likely be confirmed as well, rules be damned.
There are many others, but suffice it to say, we need to do something. I’ve compiled a list of options from legal scholars that Democrats need to consider—the sooner the better.
Investigate and remove the judges who committed perjury
In McConnell’s rush to ram through judges, investigations were pushed aside. Investigations that need to happen. Further, legal analyst Glenn Kirschner is convinced that several unqualified judges lied under oath, including Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
The FBI was expressly forbidden to complete its investigation of Kavanaugh, including multiple allegations of sexual misconduct. But Kavanaugh exposed clear discrepancies in his testimony when he first learned of the sexual assault allegations brought against him. He claimed that he had only learned of one of his accuser’s allegations after it was published in The New Yorker, butthat changed after NBC News published text messages he sent apparently discussing the accusations. He was also criticized for giving clearly inaccurate definitions to slang terms in his yearbook, and inaccurate details about his tenure in the George W. Bush White House.
There is absolutely no reason for Democrats to excuse perjury with Kavanaugh—or with any other judge—just because Republicans excused it. There’s also no excuse for ignoring the blatant corruption of Clarence Thomas either. Some might worry that Republicans will try to launch impeachment proceedings against Democratic-appointed judges as retaliation when they reclaim majorities.
Go for it, GOP.
Democrats nominate the most qualified, vetted judges possible. Obama refused to even consider a judge who received an “unqualified” rating from the ABA. The Republicans, on the other hand, will nominate clueless monsters, because the right ideology trumps actual qualifications. And so Democrats need not be timid about the mandate they are going to be handed. They need not be afraid to investigate, impeach, and have bad apples removed. That’s not punishment, it’s justice.
Citizens’ Brigade
Another idea from Kirschner: As mentioned, several of the judges picked weren’t just unqualified, but like Trump, are really bad and just can’t help stop themselves from doing bad things. A citizens’ brigade could be put together that would observe all of these judges in action. When one of these judges engages in misconduct, such as displays open hostility or enjoys "making inappropriately partisan statements,” they can be referred for discipline and even removal.
Filing a complaint for judicial misconduct is as simple as filling out a form that anyone can use. If anything, this brigade could serve as a watchdog to curb egregious abuses.
Require supermajority for cases involving federal statutes
Yale Law School professor Samuel Moyn and University of Chicago law professor Ryan Doerfler suggested a powerful optionfor Congress: Pass a law that requires a Supreme Court supermajority for certain cases. There shouldn’t ever be a partisan split on federal statutes. The all-too common 5-4 rulings that we have grown used to with all conservative Justices voting against the liberal bloc made it clear that politics was influencing the decision. (Now it will be 6-3.) Congress can require federal statutes to have unanimous or nearly unanimous decisions from the Justices involved. Moyn and Doerfler’s paper outlines the reasoning.
Proposals to require a supermajority to declare federal legislation invalid would, for instance, preserve but severely constrain the Supreme Court’s ability to intervene in federal policymaking. Barring an unusually lopsided bench, the Supreme Court would remain able to step in in cases of uncontroversial constitutional violation. In more closely contested cases, though, it would fall upon members of Congress and the president to decide what the Constitution permits. In this way, a supermajority rule for judicial review would effectively implement a Thayerian “clear error” standard for judicial review.
Jurisdiction Stripping
Congress has the power to specify that certain legislation is exempt from judicial review. It’s called "jurisdiction stripping." Under two articles of the Constitution—the congressional powers clause and the judicial vesting clause—Congress can create and place limits upon federal courts. Congress also has the power to limit certain appeals to the Supreme Court under the Exceptions Clause.
Congress has no power to limit original jurisdiction, but it can explicitly limit appellate jurisdiction. In English, this means that Congress can essentially eliminate judicial review of certain federal legislative actions. Congress can also require that such review goes through the state courts as opposed to the federal courts. Congress has the power, if it chooses to use it.
Defying the court
When Antonin Scalia died, McConnell made up a rule that no justice could be appointed in a presidential election year … a rule he enforced right up until Ruth Bader Ginsburg died. When the Trump administration was ordered to continue the census until the end of October, it decided it wouldn’t. The administration ignored any and all rulings against them on returning migrant children it had kept in cages. The administration ignored Congress’ role in determining the budget and announced it would allocate the money however it damn well pleased. The administration violated the Hatch Act with impunity. No one was punished. Democrats need to take note: There isn’t a game if only one side plays by the rules.
Here’s the deal: the Supreme Court derives its authority from people’s belief in its impartiality. It has no armed forces and no enforcement mechanism. Yet if the justices are seen as an extension of a political party, there is no moral reason and no legal consequence for ignoring hyper-partisan rulings. If statehood is granted to Washington, D.C. under the laws set by the Constitution, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas don’t get to take it away. Ignore them. If Amy Coney Barrett strikes down the ACA, ignore her. A President Joe Biden could use the Treasury to continue making subsidies. After all, that’s what Republicans would do. Biden could pardon anyone he wants with impunity. That’s what Trump is going to do.
There’s even a name for ignoring the Supreme Court: Departmentalism. This is defined as the theory that each branch of government has an equal and independent authority to interpret the Constitution for purposes of guiding its own actions. We’ve all ceded to the Supreme Court that five unelected Justices will be the final say in the land—but these five? Hell no.
Will this cause a constitutional crisis? Maybe, but it’s better than the alternative, and it also might finally motivate some real reform. Like the next proposal.
Establishment of Inter-Branch Disputes Court
Reality check: Our government is dysfunctional. The fact that I’m even writing this article proves it. Congressional dysfunction prevents the legislative branch from legislating, unless one party dominates both houses of Congress. As a result, we’ve seen lawmaking authority slowly being ceded to the executive branch, which undermines our Founding Fathers’ intentions. McConnell and Trump have wheeled out a huge spotlight and shone it upon the Founders’ shortsightedness on the Judiciary, which has been manipulated by a determined executive and complicit legislative branch. As a result, we now have a hopelessly partisan Supreme Court, which will primarily side with the party who put them there.
To restore the integrity of the court and faith in our government, Congress should create a completely nonpartisan Inter-Branch Disputes Court (IBDC) to handle the conflicts between the legislative and executive branches. A panel of judges could be selected by both major parties and require a supermajority confirmation. There have been so many lawsuits, for example, between President Trump and the Democratic House of Representatives; an IBDC could have quickly resolved all of them.
Moreover, next year, we are headed for clashes with a Democratic Congress and White House against a very right-wing Supreme Court. We will be facing many real scenarios where the Supreme Court, in a 6-3 partisan ruling, will be attempting to undo major Democratically passed legislation and block attempts to expand rights.
For example, SCOTUS will likely rule that no votes may be counted after Election Day. In Pennsylvania, the GOP made the ridiculous argument that counting votes after Election Day was somehow akin to giving people extra time to vote. If Barrett had been on the court, that decision would have likely ended differently.
Imagine if SCOTUS starts making decisions that ban all states from counting votes early but also bans them counting votes after Election Day. Imagine if the next Congress made a law that banned partisan-gerrymandering only to have SCOTUS throw it out. Heck, imagine a Supreme Court that bans early voting—or just curbs early voting for young people, like Florida did. Right-wing partisans cannot be the final arbiters of our democracy. An arbiter can only be effective if both sides believe they will be given a fair hearing. With an IBDC, the panel would always be balanced.
Expanding the courts
This is the money shot. For the counter-argument that this would allow Republicans to do the same, Aaron Belkin, a political science professor, put forward the best case for Democrats.
“If your wallet is stolen, you don’t forgo efforts to recover it just because it might be stolen again.”
For each of the three justices Trump illegitimately appointed, you need two to nullify. This expands the Supreme Court to 15. But we really should start by fixing the lower courts. We need to add seats to the district courts and the 13 appellate courts. At the very least, Democrats need to add one seat for every unqualified judge pushed through.
Democrats need to get serious about the courts. If Democrats choose to do nothing next year, we will never be allowed to govern, no matter how much we win at the ballot box. We must take action over these stolen court seats. It may be another decade or two before we have a Democratic trifecta, and let’s face it, if we are ruled by the hundreds of unqualified disasters who Trump placed on the courts—who will obstruct us and make it their mission to limit Democratic victories—it may be decades more. Considering the fragile state of democracy in our country, not to mention the sad state of our planet, we do NOT have that kind of time.
Despite winning the legislative and executive branches, we will never get laws enacted on voting rights, gerrymandering, campaign finance, health care, or police reform. We won’t ever get representation for the disenfranchised citizens of Washington, D.C. or the right of self-determination for Puerto Rico. We won’t ever get any action on climate change. Meanwhile, we will lose rights that generations have fought so hard to achieve. The new conservative bloc is determined to revisit and overturn all kinds of precedent, involving everything from reproductive rights to same-sex marriage.
These solutions are fair and necessary. Naturally, all of these solutions are opposed by the right-wing, because they have the advantage on the courts. The hypocritical flip-flop on Amy Coney Barrett shows they are not above changing rules to suit them. They decry any solution that promotes balance on the courts, such as letting an even number of judges be selected by party, as promoting “partisanship.” No, best we keep the status quo of allowing conservative partisans to strike down laws they don’t like.
Any of the actions I’ve outlined need to be taken soon: if we wait until the GOP recaptures the Senate, it will be too late. The liberal justices can help by forcing votes on major issues early next year to spark action. It only takes four justices to agree to hear a case. Feinstein and Manchin won’t go for expansion unless there is an outcry, which won’t happen if the liberal bloc allows Roberts to only hear softballs for two years. After that, it will be too late.
Naturally, Republicans are opposed to doing anything to ensure fairness in our judicial system. Fixing the courts is the top issue facing the Biden administration we’re all working to install, and should be its top priority. If Democrats ever needed to fight for something, this is it. If we lose, we will need ever-increasing supermajorities just to be able to win elections. Even then, it will be at least a generation before we are allowed to govern again.
Yet another indication that Team Trump is nervous about next Tuesday’s elections: Melania Trump emerged for a rare campaign event—her first solo event of 2020—on Tuesday and took a much more partisan tone than usual. In her remarks in Pennsylvania, Melania directly attacked Joe Biden (using official campaign talking points, nothing new to see) and attacked Democrats for … being divisive and not leading on COVID-19. She even tried to link her husband’s disastrous coronavirus response to impeachment.
“No one should be promoting fear of real solutions for purely political ends,” Melania said. Which, fair in a vacuum, but context matters. “The Democrats have chosen to put their own agendas over the American people's well-being. Instead, they attempt to create a divide. A divide in something that should be non-partisan and non-controversial. A divide that causes confusion and fear instead of hope and security. That is not the leadership,” she said, in as pure an example of Republican projection as you can probably find.
Oh, my. Putting a partisan agenda above the American people’s well-being and instead trying to divide and govern through confusion and fear … gosh, how dare those dastardly Democrats do such a thing!
"Let us also not forget what the Democrats chose to focus on when COVID-19 first came into our country,” Melania offered. “While the President was taking decisive action to keep the American people safe, the Democrats were wasting American taxpayer dollars in a sham impeachment.”
The Senate’s vote on Trump’s impeachment trial was on February 5, three days after Trump restricted travel from China, a restriction that came later than other nations and was incomplete, rather than “decisive action.” At the time, Trump said, “Well, we pretty much shut it down coming in from China. … We can’t have thousands of people coming in who may have this problem, the coronavirus. So we’re going to see what happens, but we did shut it down, yes.”
Trump continued downplaying the threat of the virus—intentionally, as it turned out, with full knowledge that it was a serious danger—for more than a month. For example, February 12, a week after Senate Republicans acquitted him: “We have a very small number of people in the country, right now, with it. It’s like around 12. Many of them are getting better. Some are fully recovered already. So we’re in very good shape.”
February 25: “I think that’s a problem that’s going to go away.”
February 27: “It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.”
February 28: “Now the Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus. … And this is their new hoax.”
March 5, one month after the Senate vote: “With approximately 100,000 CoronaVirus cases worldwide, and 3,280 deaths, the United States, because of quick action on closing our borders, has, as of now, only 129 cases (40 Americans brought in) and 11 deaths.”
March 7: “We’re doing very well and we’ve done a fantastic job.”
By contrast, Joe Biden warned, “We are not prepared for a pandemic. Trump has rolled back progress President Obama and I made to strengthen global health security. We need leadership that builds public trust, focuses on real threats, and mobilizes the world to stop outbreaks before they reach our shores”—before the coronavirus emerged in China.
On January 27, he responded to the news of the emerging outbreak, writing “The outbreak of a new coronavirus, which has already infected more than 2,700 people and killed over 80 in China, will get worse before it gets better. Cases have been confirmed in a dozen countries, with at least five in the United States. There will likely be more,” and detailing preparedness measures that should have been taken.
Senate Minority Leader Schumer called on Trump to declare a national emergency on January 26. Sen. Elizabeth Warren released a plan for combating the outbreak on January 28.
Democrats were responding early—yes, even during the impeachment process, walking and chewing gum at the same time—while Trump continued downplaying the threat for weeks and bragging that his too-little-too-late China travel restrictions had done all that needed to be done. That’s what Melania continues to brag about, despite the facts. Because otherwise, they have to admit they have nothing.
During a campaign rally in Gastonia, North Carolina on Wednesday, President Donald Trump called Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff a “watermelon head” for returning to his “Russia, Russia, Russia” talking points to attack him in this election.
Trump mocked the House Intelligence Chairman for believing that Hunter Biden’s recovered “laptop from hell” could be part of a Russian disinformation campaign.
Trump On Alleged Hunter Biden Laptop: ‘This Laptop Is A Disaster’
President Trump said that Schiff probably did not even believe what he was saying, noting that the Democrat was “no dummy.”
On Hunter Biden, Trump alleged, “Explosive emails from Hunter Biden also show that Hunter was negotiating with a Chinese are tied to the Communist China party to receive $10 million a year for introductions well that sounds reasonable I think you do that. I think I’d even do it.”
“This laptop is a disaster,” Trump added.
“How the hell do he ever let go of this sucker. He got to have it fixed I guess he forgot to pick it up. What the hell?”
It’s the LAPTOP FROM HELL
— Trump War Room – Text TRUMP to 88022 (@TrumpWarRoom) October 21, 2020
Adam Schiff Is A Habitual Anti-Trump Conspiracy Theorist
After that, the rally crowd began chanting, “Lock him up, lock him up, lock him up.”
Trump replied, “He should be. Honestly that guy should be locked up.”
Between the Democrats’ impeachment embarrassment and the latest controversy involving Hunter Biden, Rep. Schiff has been an unrelenting foe of this president.
Schiff was a leading proponent of the “Russian collusion” hoax, and so it should be no surprise he continues to do anything he can to undermine the Trump administration.
Schiff has already claimed that the Hunter Biden laptop scandal is a “Russian disinformation” smear – though Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe says that is false.
Ratcliffe has said that not only does the intelligence community not believe that, but they have not shared any intelligence on the matter with Congress.
Trump refers to Rep. Adam Schiff as "the watermelonhead."
President Trump continues to campaign incessantly, per his Wednesday appearance in North Carolina, while his Democratic opponent continues to hide out in his basement.
How much will voters get that Donald Trump is out there working hard to earn their votes?
How much will they understand that Joe Biden is hiding out, because the less seen and heard he is, the better?
Time will tell.
In the meantime, “watermelon head” Adam Schiff will no doubt continue to do his worst and see Russian agents behind every bush and under every bed.
Anyone that thinks Joe Biden is going to bring back the economy or do better than the Trump economy is smoking that magical Latin lettuce.
First, Democrats do not build economies, they tear them down.
Second, Trump has been a businessman his entire adult life, while Biden has been a career politician with zero business sense for nearly half a century.
Asking Biden to manage anything above and beyond his personal bank account is already exceeding his limits.
For 47 years, lawmaker Biden stood by, did nothing, and watched as America’s wealth, business, technology, manufacturing, industry, intellectual property, and millions of jobs left the country in favor of the likes of countries like Mexico, China, and India.
I did more in 47 months than Biden did in 47 years. Now, he is pushing the most far-left agenda ever put forward by a presidential nominee…pic.twitter.com/ON0iRBfFS2
Suddenly he has a “plan” to reverse Trump’s tax cuts for the middle class, raise taxes on businesses again, and give foreign governments the advantage in every trade agreement once again.
Right, that will “fix” things.
It’s All About The Economy, Stupid
Businesses in the US are very vocal about why they began to expand and hire like wildfire when Trump was elected.
He cut regulations and cut taxes — the two most important factors a business looks at when planning an expansion.
I recall an interview I saw with the owner of a small factory (~100 employees).
In the last year alone of Obama’s reign, he said his business was hit with 300+ new regulations. How can anyone do business like that?
Trump has so far removed over 25,000 PAGES of federal regulations. That, along with the tax reform he passed, turbocharged the economy.
Obama’s policies interminably drew it out by influencing companies to offshore work and split full-time jobs into multiple no-benefit part-time jobs through over-taxation, over-regulation, and Obamacare.
This was not his intent, of course. It’s just the natural effect of Democrat policies.
The economy roared to life when Trump was elected because he reversed the crippling Democrat policies that had slowed the recovery to a crawl.
I Am Still Not Over This Yet
Call me a child if you like, but I never thought I would see what I see in my country.
Politicized branches of our government going after their political opponents.
One political party purchasing Russian misinformation from a former foreign spy to initiate impeachment proceedings against a duly elected POTUS.
The former Vice President bragging on video about getting a foreign prosecutor fired by threatening to withhold $1,000,000,000 in aid.
A corporation that his son happens to be on the board of, with no qualifications outside of the V.P. being his father!
It’s on video, and the “corrupt media” tells us it’s not a story worthy of being investigated.
The media tells you this never happened:
Who Really Supports Biden?
Nobody actually supports Biden. Biden himself is nothing more than a figurehead.
His supporters are not his supporters, but instead victims of the weaponization of psychology, mass propaganda, and gaslighting perpetrated most especially for the past 4 years – but it’s been a work of decades (Losing your job is good for us as a whole! Sending manufacturing abroad, which strengthens communist China, will benefit everyone!).
Globalization weakened the average person’s relevance and self-confidence within his own country.
Trump, the counter to Globalism, has been relentlessly attacked by formerly authoritative institutions, including the media, intelligence, and other government agencies.
This has divided the populace into those who see through the manipulation and those who have, due to internal weakness, been susceptible to it.
They have been driven insane through a combination of Social Media (designed to be addictive) and the MSM (who transitioned to outrage addiction as their profit model in the Internet age).
An Axios piece this week painting a rather dim picture of the final days of the Trump campaign also included this upbeat quote from a senior campaign official: "But the cool thing about the president is he's going to be everywhere in the last two weeks."
Bring it. Trump has very little time left to reverse the direction of this race, and everywhere he goes, he's a vision of repulsion. In Johnstown, PA, Trump begged suburban women to like him while barking, “I saved your damn neighborhood, okay?" In Greenville, NC, Trump bragged about the cold-blooded execution by U.S. Marshals of an antifa activist suspected of killing a right-wing Trump supporter. During his NBC town hall event Thursday, Trump explained to moderator Savannah Guthrie that he retweeted insane conspiracy theories to just "put it out there" and let the people decide. Guthrie responded by channeling what every relatively sane voter (including some Trump voters) have thought for four years. “I don’t get that," she said, dismayed. "You’re the president. You’re not like someone’s crazy uncle who can just retweet whatever.”
"Actually..." tweeted Trump's niece Mary, reminding us all that he is indeed exactly that—someone's crazy uncle.
At the risk of repetition, a couple days ago I took a look at Trump's numbers with key voting blocs in the gold-standard NBC/Wall Street Journal poll—he is underperforming his 2016 levels in every single one of them.
First, Biden's advantage over Trump among key groups in the survey compared to 2016 exit polls:
Black voters: Biden +87 (91% to 4%); Clinton +81
Women: Biden +26 (60% to 34%); Clinton +13
Whites with college degrees: Biden +19 (57% to 38%); Trump +3
Seniors: Biden +10 (54% to 44%); Trump +7
Independents: Biden +7 (46% to 39%); Trump +4
Then Trump's advantage over Biden in certain blocs compared to 2016:
Men: Trump +5 (50% to 45%); Trump +11
White voters: Trump +4 (50% to 46%); Trump +20
Whites without college degrees: Trump +21 (59% to 38%); Trump +37
Overall, the NBC/WSJ poll had Joe Biden up by 11 points, and multiple aggregates have him at +10. The Economist has one of the most conservative polling composites with Biden up +8.6. But Biden's campaign went to great lengths this week to discourage Democratic voters from thinking he has a double-digit advantage. In a virtual grassroots summit, campaign manager Jen O'Malley Dillon called the national public polling "inflated" and added, "We are not ahead by double digits." What she didn't say was exactly how not double-digity the Biden lead is.
Whatever Biden's advantage, the campaign's effort is clearly aimed at stamping out any complacency that Democratic strategists are certain became the death knell for Hillary Clinton in 2016. But I must tell you, I think they're reading the room wrong. As I wrote this week, a historic number of early Democratic voters are turning out at the polls and they are absolutely reveling in the chance to finally cast their vote against Trump. Although running up the score in early voting doesn't necessarily translate to a win on Election Day, it certainly does suggest high levels of enthusiasm among Democratic voters.
What we can also gather without knowing the exact internal data is that Republicans are acting like losers. GOP Leader Mitch McConnell is all but ignoring Trump on the stimulus deal. Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse, who didn't have the guts or integrity to even hear witness testimony during Trump's impeachment trial, suddenly wants to be on record making it crystal clear he thinks Trump is 100% unfit for office. Sounds like someone is burnishing his future presidential cred for a post-Trump GOP. Georgia Sen. David Perdue—who's in a dogfight to save his seat—made the utterly desperate decision to not only introduce Trump at his Friday night rally in Macon, Georgia, but also to butcher the name of Sen. Kamala Harris, with whom he has served fully three years in the U.S. Senate.
— American Bridge 21st Century (@American_Bridge) October 16, 2020
Make no mistake, that's a racist dogwhistle from the same candidate who ran an ad this summer lengthening the nose of his Jewish Democratic opponent, Jon Ossoff. Perdue's communications director tried to pass off the slight as a simple mistake, but that's the work of a Republican senator clinging to his seat and concluding his best play is to make racist appeals to white voters.
And then there's Trump himself, who devoted the bulk of his travel schedule this week to places he should have locked up by now, including Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, and Iowa. If you want a window into how desperate Trump is, during his Florida pitch to seniors in Fort Myers on Friday, Trump expressed actual empathy.
"My heart breaks for every grieving family that has lost a precious loved one. I feel their anguish and I mourn their loss. I feel their pain," Trump said. "There's nothing to describe it."
Naturally, that was on script. Trump read it, and it was very clearly modeled after Joe Biden's empathic appeal to seniors in southern Florida earlier this week—ya know the one, where Trump later tweeted out a picture of a bunch of seniors in wheelchairs with the tagline, "Biden for Resident."
In the Axios article, senior aides said Stepien's path to victory counts on using Ohio, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, and Maine's second district as Trump's foundation. Stepien tells them winning those states is the "easy part.” Really? Not a single one of those states is a gimme in public polling and, in fact, Trump is polling roughly 4 points behind Biden in Florida—the biggest catch of them all with 29 electoral votes.
Just to give you an idea of how rocky that electoral road is, consider this: Biden's path to 270 starts with California and New York as its building blocks. And those states truly are "easy" ones.
In fact, taking Stepien's calculus a step further, the five biggest red states from 2016 by electoral votes are all battlegrounds this year, even if they didn't start off that way: Texas (38), Florida (29), Ohio (18), Georgia (16), North Carolina (15).
Ohio: Biden +<1 (i.e. Biden's winning by less than one point)
Texas: Trump +2
None of this is to say Trump couldn't win, it's just a reality check on how unlikely he is to be victorious. And tons of voting is happening right now, while the polls continue to look very good for Biden. Conversely, if you're Trump, the days are just slipping away. But the emphasis on early voting this year significantly lessens the chances that, for instance, the sitting FBI director could open a last-minute investigation into Biden that causes the bottom to fall out on his campaign.
So even as a haunting déjà vu feeling hangs over my excitement this year, I just keep looking at the fundamentals, how the campaigns are acting, and the actions of congressional lawmakers who are up for reelection or sharpening their knives for a post-Trump era. The outlook is good, much better in fact than it appeared in 2016.
And if anxiety is keeping you up at night, the very best antidote to that is taking action—doing has the medicinal benefit of occupying the mind so the hobgoblins of doubt can't hijack it. Together, we can all bring this election home, and then get back to the work of trying to build a more perfect union.
It is hard to imagine a serious candidate for President refusing to tell you where he stands on the future of the Supreme Court of the United States, but here we are.
On Thursday, former Vice President Joe Biden was – once again – asked whether or not he would support legislation to pack the Supreme Court with additional Justices.
Biden’s response was, “You’ll know my position on court-packing the day after the election.”
Joe Biden Says You Have To Elect Him BEFORE He Will Admit He’ll Pack The Supreme Court pic.twitter.com/KdS0cp0dJa
Biden Is Trying To Hide His Views On Court Packing
Biden’s justification for refusing to tell voters where he stands on the future of the Supreme Court until after he is elected is, in his own words, “The moment I answer that question, the headline in every one of your papers will be about that rather than focusing on what’s happening now.”
In 1937, President Franklin Roosevelt proposed expanding the Supreme Court to include as many as 15 justices in response to a series of rulings finding that certain parts of Roosevelt’s New Deal program were unconstitutional.
During the previous two years, the high court had struck down several key pieces of New Deal legislation on the grounds that the laws delegated an unconstitutional amount of authority to the executive branch and the federal government.
Flushed with his landslide reelection in 1936, President Roosevelt issued a proposal in February 1937 to provide retirement at full pay for all members of the court over 70.
If a justice refused to retire, an “assistant” with full voting rights was to be appointed, thus ensuring Roosevelt a liberal majority.
Most Republicans and many Democrats in Congress opposed the so-called “court-packing” plan.
Until very recently, Roosevelt’s court-packing effort was viewed as one of FDR’s most high-profile missteps and almost universally dismissed by historians and legal scholars as a terrible idea.
With her pack-the-court dodge tonight, Kamala and Joe have dodged the question 10 times: pic.twitter.com/CkOCT5MZMv
Why Support Court Packing Now? The Reason Is Simple
What was institutionally corrosive has suddenly become a cause celebre on the left for one reason: conservatives are poised to take control of the Court for a generation.
The death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to replace her poses an existential threat to liberals’ control over their favorite and most reliable weapon: the Supreme Court.
With prominent liberals pushing for court-packing and with polling showing that 60% of Democrats support the court-packing scheme, you would think that the Democratic nominee for President would take a position, one way or the other, on the issue.
Alas, Joe Biden refuses to.
Biden’s refusal, and the refusal of his running mate Kamala Harris, to take a position on the future of the Supreme Court is not simply unacceptable.
Democrats are telling voters that the future of same-sex marriage, healthcare, abortion, and the environment all hang in the balance as a result of the vacancy on the Supreme Court.
“You Have To Vote For Joe Biden So You Can Find Out What’s In Him”
They are doing this while their own nominee refuses to even answer the question about whether or not he would support efforts to pack the Supreme Court.
Biden’s outrageous response recalls Nancy Pelosi’s now infamous line about Obamacare:
“We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.”
It’s absolutely preposterous. The American people deserve to know where a Presidential candidate stands on the future of the Supreme Court.
Republican legislators in key swing states still aren’t ruling out elector-related shenanigans designed to steal the election for Donald Trump, but there’s still a pandemic on, and a bunch of domestic terrorists just got arrested for plotting to overthrow Michigan’s government, so I’m going to shift focus a little this week.
To me, my statehouse action!
(But for real, the guy who wrote the law review article that inspired all of this and helped establish Pennsylvania as a potential Ground Zero for legislator-instigated elector-related constitutional crisis still thinks that this scenario is very much in play. And given what I’ve learned from working in and writing about state legislative politics for the past decade or so, I do, too.)
House of M: Michigan is hands-down the most action-packed state that hasn’t or isn’t about to play host to a vice/presidential debate.
First, late last week, the state Supreme Court struck down Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s executive authority to issue emergency orders, which she’s of course been doing to help her state fight the COVID-19 pandemic.
Democrats have a lot of balls in the air right now for sure, but Republicans have a history of not sleeping on court elections.
Dems, on the other hand … have yet to really get their act together when it comes to investing in these incredibly important, high-stakes, and infrequent (state supreme court terms are at least six years; in Michigan, justices serve eight-year terms) races.
Daily Kos has endorsed progressive Michigan Supreme Court candidate Elizabeth Welch in this race, but it’s not clear that the Democratic establishment outside of the state is paying any attention at all.
le sigh
So, the state Supreme Court’s ruling against Whitmer’s emergency executive powers last Friday threw her coronavirus-related orders into legal limbo.
The GOP-controlled legislature is meeting this week and next to take actions “to keep Michigan families safe from COVID-19.”
Good, right?
But given that the Senate majority leader is opposed to a statewide mask requirement, and
GOP House members are feigning outrage because the governor is working to help elect a Democratic majority to the state House (and never mind that Republican lawmakers have been fighting Whitmer on her coronavirus-related executive orders for many months already),
… the outlook for real progress on protecting the state from the pandemic looks less than rosy.
And this all brings us to Thursday, when 13 white guys (well …. probably white. I haven’t found an article yet that describes them as anything but, and in my experience, news outlets tend to not mention someone’s race unless they’re NOT white, in which case, they ALWAYS mention it. Please feel free to hit me up with any examples you find that contradict this) were charged for participating in an alleged domestic terrorism plot that involved kidnapping Michigan’s governor and possibly murdering her or other state leaders they perceived as “violating the U.S. Constitution.”
And these weren’t just a bunch of disgruntled assholes.
So, yeah, the Wolverine State is having a super normal one.
The Dark Keystone Saga: But just because Pennsylvania GOP legislative leaders aren’t currently, right at this moment, actively working to steal the state’s electors for Donald Trump, don’t think for a second there aren’t shenanigans afoot there.
A shady resolution (read: Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf can’t veto it) establishing a “Select Committee on Election Integrity” charged with investigating and reviewing “the regulation and conduct of the 2020 general election” still awaits a full House floor vote, which it may get as soon as Oct. 19, when the legislature reconvenes.
This committee will be made up of three Republicans and two Democrats, has subpoena power, and is authorized to “prepare and file pleadings and other legal documents” (emphasis mine).
… like, say, a certificate of ascertainment for Trump’s electors ..?
The subpoena and investigatory power the resolution endows this “Select Committee” with with the power to find supposed “facts” designed to demonstrate that the election was not run properly or fairly.
The resolution appeared “out of nowhere” on last week—literally a day after Trump claimed during the presidential debate (somehow that was JUST LAST WEEK) that “bad things happen in Philadelphia” (he also encouraged his supporters to intimidate voters at polls there, but that’s a whole other matter).
This resolution is also likely a response to a recent Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision that extended the deadline for receipt of ballots postmarked by Nov. 3 to three days after the election.
One Keystone State GOPer is returning to a familiar Republican well when it comes to judicial rulings they don’t like: impeaching members of the court.
GOP state Rep. Frank Ryan introduced a resolution this week to impeach a member of the Democratic majority on the state Supreme court.
While the measure had 35 co-sponsors, it’s honestly unlikely to get traction before the end of this year’s session.
But it’s a helpful reminder of the lengths to which Pennsylvania Republicans will go in response to judicial decisions that don’t go their way.
This proposal that would allow lawmakers to gerrymander the state’s highest court then went to the Senate, where it passed in mid-July.
Now it must pass both chambers again during the 2021-2022 legislative session.
… and then it will go before voters to be approved as a referendum.
But!
If Democrats can flip one of Pennsylvania’s legislative chambers (28 R/21 D Senate, 109 R/92 D House [2 vacancies]) next month, this GOP power-grab will die a delicious and deserved death.
Age of Coronapocalypse: In Virginia, where lawmakers are still meeting in special session to deal with racial justice, police reform, and coronavirus-related budget issues, one Republican may have put her legislative colleagues in grave danger.
Just a couple of days after attending the gathering, at which photos reveal social distancing and mask-wearing guidelines were most definitely NOT followed, Vogel returned to Richmond for two days of in-person session with many of her Senate colleagues.
Vogel reports that she has since tested negative for COVID-19, but it’s not clear that those results came back before session last week—or that she even got tested before other Rose Garden event attendees’ coronavirus diagnoses came to light.
Vogel’s not alone in placing her colleagues in unnecessary danger when it comes to the coronavirus.
In September, another Republican member of the Virginia General Assembly came under fire when news emerged that he’d informed his local church of his late-August COVID-19 diagnosis but had not warned his fellow lawmakers, despite the fact that he’d joined session in person during the period during which he may have been contagious.
… just something to bear in mind the next time Republicans rail about “transparency” and “good faith.”
Welp, that’s a wrap for this week. (Better than a rap, because my rhymes would be almost as bad as my puns, and better than a rap sheet, because we’re not white domestic terrorists who’ve been arrested for plotting to overthrow state governments, hm?)
Hang in there. We have a few laps yet to put behind us before we cross anything resembling a finish line in this election.
Maybe you’re tired.
Stressed.
Sick.
Sad.
Something else entirely.
Some unfortunate combination of any of those things.
I see you. And I hope you’ll do something to take care of yourself this week.
One aspect of Vice President Mike Pence’s debate performance that won’t necessarily be caught by traditional fact-checking is how he constantly dodged hard questions. Although Pence is happy to lie, in many cases he instead just … didn’t answer, not even bothering with a politician’s traditional acknowledge-and-pivot.
The New York Times describes Pence’s answer to a question on preexisting conditions as “a master class in evasive rhetorical jujitsu.” In that one, he “ignored the question (the White House has not, in fact, come up with a plan), then launched into a long defense of his anti-abortion views and, for his dismount, demanded that Sen. Kamala Harris say if she supported a plan to ‘pack’ the Supreme Court.” But that wasn’t the only time Pence completely evaded an inconvenient question by any stretch.
He didn’t acknowledge the content of a question about whether voters deserve to know more about Donald Trump’s health, treating it instead as if he’d been offered well wishes to pass along to Trump. When asked: “Why is the U.S. death toll, as a percentage of our population, higher than that of almost every other wealthy country?” He lied about Trump having “suspended all travel from China” and attacked former Vice President Joe Biden for having opposed that move. He bragged about “the greatest national mobilization since World War II.” He promised “literally 10s of millions of doses of a vaccine before the end of this year.” He accused Biden of plagiarism for a coronavirus response plan that, Pence claimed, looks like Trump’s. (This, too, is false.) At no point did he admit that yes, the U.S. death toll is extremely high by global standards, or try to account for this failure.
Again and again, Pence followed this pattern.
When ineffectual moderator Susan Page asked: “Vice President Pence, you're the former governor of Indiana. If Roe v Wade is overturned, what would you want Indiana to do? Would you want your home state to ban all abortions?”
Pence began responding with “Thank you for the question, but I'll use a little bit of my time to respond to that very important key before.” He then offered 124 words on Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani, before acting like he had been asked about whether he wanted to see Amy Coney Barrett confirmed to the Supreme Court: “Now with regard to the Supreme Court of the United States. Let me say, President Trump and I could not be more enthusiastic about the opportunity to see Amy Coney Barrett become Justice Amy Coney Barrett,” Pence said, and pivoted to attack Democrats for supposedly being opposed to Barrett because of her faith. At no point did he in any way approach the question of Roe v. Wade or whether his home state should or would ban all abortions. This is a man whose career has been defined in large part by his opposition to abortion under any circumstances, but when asked about it on his largest stage, he talked about everything but.
Pence also echoed Trump’s refusal to answer one extremely important question: “If Vice President Biden is declared the winner and President Trump refuses to accept a peaceful transfer of power, what would be your role and responsibility as Vice President? What would you personally do?”
Pence began with his confidence that he and Trump would win. That’s standard politician stuff—of course he wouldn’t start by accepting the premise that he’s going to lose. So, too, with his litany of supposed accomplishments of Team Trump. But. Pence then moved to attacking Democrats for supposedly undermining democracy first, through investigations of the 2016 Trump campaign’s ties to Russia and through impeachment, a constitutional process that did, let’s not forget, draw a conviction vote from Republican Sen. Mitt Romney. This is Pence setting up a rationale for Trump to attack the results of the 2020 elections. When he attacked mail-in voting as creating a “massive opportunity for voter fraud,” he was echoing Trump’s efforts to delegitimize the results of the 2020 elections. And crucially, at no point did Pence say yes, he would accept a loss in this election. At no point did he answer the question about taking responsibility if Trump refuses to accept a peaceful transfer of power.
In one sense, Pence was just doing the thing he’d done throughout the debate: dodging. But on this question, a dodge is an answer. Pence’s answer is that if Trump refuses to accept a peaceful transfer of power, he is along for the ride, kissing ass as he's been doing for the past four years.
On Thursday, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi implied that she is looking at removing President Donald Trump from power using the U.S. Constitution’s 25th Amendment.
Pelosi said to reporters during a press briefing, “Tomorrow, by the way, tomorrow — come here tomorrow. We’re going to be talking about the 25th Amendment.”
Pelosi says at her weekly press conference: “By the way, tomorrow — come here tomorrow. We’re going to be talking about the 25th Amendment.”
The Purpose Of The 25th Amendment To The U.S. Constitution
Using the 25th Amendment to essentially undo the 2016 presidential election has been a topic of discussion among Democrats and Never Trump Republicans since Trump first stepped into the White House.
Max Boot is right about how dangerous Trump’s attacks on the media are. 25th Amendment, anyone in Congress?https://t.co/I6rVqyBsk8
Enacted in 1967, the purpose of the 25th Amendment was two fold:
To ensure that the United States has an Acting President in times when the duly-elected president can no longer lead, due to death, illness, or some other factors.
To set in stone the line of succession.
For example, when President Ronald Reagan underwent surgery in 1985 and Vice President George H.W. Bush was Acting President for that time.
George W. Bush also transferred power to Vice President Dick Cheney while Bush underwent surgery.
Section 4 of the 25th Amendment allows for Congress and the Vice President to remove the President from power. From History.com:
Section 4 stipulates that when the vice president and a majority of a body of Congress declare in writing to the president pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House that the president is unable to perform the duties of the office, the vice president immediately becomes acting president.
Pelosi appears to be looking at this section of the 25th Amendment.
Speaker Pelosi’s mention of the 25th Amendment comes not just after impeachment, but also amid speculation that Pelosi herself could become Acting President in the event of election chaos.
It is unlikely, but possible, that if the issues with the election leave no clear winner, and if the House is unable to reach a conclusion before January 20, 2021, Pelosi could become Acting President.
25th Amendment Interest Rose After First Couple’s COVID-19 Diagnosis
After it was announced that President Trump and First Lady Melania were diagnosed with COVID-19 last week, interest in the 25th Amendment rose online.
CBS News reported, “(T)he news of his positive coronavirus test drove an immediate surge in Google searches for the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which lays out the succession for the executive branch should the president be incapacitated or deemed unable to carry out the duties of the presidency. ”
When White House communications director Alyssa Farah was asked if Vice President Mike Pence might have to become Acting President while Trump was at Walter Reed, she replied, “The president is in charge.”
Still, the pattern of trying to remove Trump from office and defy the results of the 2016 election are clear.
The Democrats spent most of Trump’s first term impeaching him.