Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

After roe, women are no longer free.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

This fight is for everything.

No one could have predicted…

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

White supremacy is terrorism.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

The willow is too close to the house.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / 2020 Elections / Ready for November

Reader Interactions

122Comments

  5. 5.

    MisterForkbeard

    I think I moved on from panic in the first few minutes to just huge amounts of anger – and which somehow intensified when Mitch didn’t even wait until the body was cold before self-righteously declaring that of course Trump’s pick would definitely get a vote, etc.

    So that’s where I’m at. White hot rage. I’ll take it.

  6. 6.

    donnah

    @Kathleen: 
    We got our ballot applications and mailed them immediately (we’re in Ohio, too) and made sure our senior moms got theirs filled out and sent in as well. Once we get the ballots, we’ll fill them out and return them to the local board of elections, right across from where my husband works.

  7. 7.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    Susan Collins tweeted a statement saying the next president should fill the vacancy, though she had no objection to beginning the review of someone’s nomination.

    For what that’s worth.

  8. 8.

    Heidi Mom

    I just received voting materials to hang on doors and a list of 100 addresses to hang them on.  All of the addresses are in our development, so this shouldn’t be too difficult.  Not to mention–good exercise.

  12. 12.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @Kathleen: @donnah:  can you guys take them into the recorder’s office? I know you guys are talking about the application and I am talking about the ballot. Right now I don’t trust the USPS to get my ballot in so I am going to take the ballot physically into the recorders office. I realize it kind of defeats the purpose of mail in but I figure its safer. My whole family is planning on doing the same.

    My anger is aimed squarely at the lazy assholes who couldn’t get their asses to spend the <60 mins to vote, the purity ponies like Susan fucking Sarandon and the GOP who have broken every fucking norm for power. They aren’t even looking at the very possible negative consequences for them.

  14. 14.

    The Golux

    I don’t know if anyone else has mentioned this, but I found it odd several days ago when the Gibbon of Shit suddenly brought up Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton as potential Supreme Court justices.  Now it seems obvious that he knew that RBG’s time was short.

    What a ghoul.

  15. 15.

    JanieM

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    Susan Collins tweeted a statement saying the next president should fill the vacancy, though she had no objection to beginning the review of someone’s nomination.

    For what that’s worth.

    If history is any indication, I wouldn’t expect it to be worth much.

    But if she does stick to it for as long as it matters, kudos to her.

  16. 16.

    Rina99

    I had many emotions when I learned of RBG’s death, so I decided to stay offline until they settled. At the end of the day, we lost the fight for the current Supreme Court back in 2016. I’m not hanging my hat on four Republican senators, so I’m all about winning as many Senate seats as possible while making the argument for expanding the court. What good is it to pass laws expanding healthcare, voting rights, and curbing campaign spending if conservatives can get a challenge before the court and have it all overturned? That should be the core argument.

  17. 17.

    JPL

    @JanieM: Mitch can afford to lose a few so he probably already called her and said it was fine.   I’m sure he has a noose around Cory Gardner’s neck though.

  18. 18.

    Thaddeu

    Win the Senate

    Win the Presidency.

    Trump will stack the court.

    If Trump packs this seat,   the Court loses it’s cover  as a high-bow impartial body.  That is GOOD!!!!

    It is a political body, and any and all path for liberals recognizing it as political is a win

    Fight the battle, but don’t forget the war. The right wing has been using Court as a political entity and playing accordingly.  It’s high time the rest of the country did so

    Thirteen on the Court

    Thirteen on the Court

    Thirteen on the Court  to make Racist-in-Chief John Roberts toothless

  19. 19.

    JPL

    My guess on the next nominee is the Honorable Barbara Lagoa.  She’s a latino from Miami, Fl, so all the boxes are checked.    trump always mentions Amy Coney Barrett, but last time sometime leaked that she didn’t vote for trump.

  20. 20.

    mali muso

    I moved pretty quickly from despair to cold fury and determination. My actions since last night:

    donated to many senate campaigns

    attended a BLM march this morning

    signed up to do texting for the Dems

    going to vote early next week (VA)

  21. 21.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @JanieM: note she says  she doesn’t want to vote before election day, not inauguration day. I suspect trump, and maybe McConnell, would prefer to draw this out. trump because he loves the drama and the howler monkeys at the super-spreader events will love it, McConnell because Gardner and Collins can play the “I don’t know how I’ll vote” bullshit as candidates. I’d say odds are we’re gonna see a lame-duck vote.

  22. 22.

    MobiusKlein

    For any action prior to the election for the Republicans, we should make it a trap.

    Why is “so and so” rushing thru this nomination, while sitting on their ass for COVID / etc.

  23. 23.

    Kent

    I was out volunteering this morning and missed all the RBG threads.

    But I was thinking that the most “Boss” move by Murkowski, Romney, Collins and the other so-called moderates in the Senate would be to announce that they will support a SCOTUS nominee if it is a bipartisan nominee that gets 60 votes.  Encourage Trump to negotiate with Democrats to find a candidate that at least 6 of them can support as was the pre-2016 tradition of needing 60 votes for a SCOTUS confirmation.

    Not only would this take them out of the position of saying “no” and make them sound like reasonable bipartisans to the thrill of the David Brooks crowd, but it would set them up to be kingmakers in a future Dem-held Senate because if they manage to put back the filibuster for Scotus then they take away a lot of the steam from the Dems to abandon it for legislation in 2021.

    In other words, this isn’t necessarily a binary decision between a party line confirmation or not.  There is nothing stopping 4 GOP senators from deciding on their own to go back to a 60 vote SCOTUS confirmation as an argument (or even a “gentleman’s agreement”) not to abandon the legislative filibuster in 2021.

  25. 25.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @JPL:  My guess on the next nominee is the Honorable Barbara Lagoa.  She’s a latino from Miami, Fl, so all the boxes are checked. 

    Oy, looks like a good bet.

    as a non-lawyer, I’m struck that she gave up a state supreme court seat to move to the federal appeals court. Would that typically be seen as a promotion, or does it look like grooming for her to be a USSC nominee?

  26. 26.

    MisterForkbeard

    @WaterGirl: Mostly better!

    I suspect I’m going to tell a couple of leftier-than-thou friends that they need to go fuck themselves. Already done it with a few of their friends – completely delusional nutcases, and I dont’ have time or patience for them anymore.

    If someone wants to take this moment to drag Harris for letting previous AG policies stand and declare that she loves slavery, I’m just fucking done with you.

  27. 27.

    MomSense

    I normally phone bank, but this year I am text banking.  Right now it is mostly following up with people about requesting their absentee ballots.

  28. 28.

    Morzer

    I’ve thought for a long time that Democrats were going to have to pack SCOTUS and, at the same time, expand the other courts to at least match the number of degenerate racists that Trump has installed.  I’d like to see statehood for DC and Puerto Rico, plus a 17 person SCOTUS “to better reflect the increased population and wonderful diversity of our great country”.  If Biden isn’t going to take the radical measures that this moment demands, we might as well say goodbye to anything resembling democracy or decency in America.

  29. 29.

    Anonymous At Work

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: That used to work for her in the past: make public statements about having it both ways, and then be an extra vote for McConnell if needed.  However, Gideon and Maine Dems have done a great job in calling her out on that shit.

  31. 31.

    Anonymous At Work

    @WaterGirl: Just about to add that it could be panic, uncontrolled anger, or depression.  Take a moment for the first, get help for the latter.  All three, once back (somewhat, as 2020 will allow) together, get to helping.

  33. 33.

    Sab

    Here’s my guess: Trump is going to throw out all these names of potential women nominees, they will get all kinds of attention ( good and bad), white women suburban women will be wooed, and then he will nominate  a white man from the Federalist Society list in the lame duck period after the election.

  35. 35.

    Ohio Mom

    Kathleen @1

    Thanks for that link. I keep thinking I should subscribe to the Business Courier, they seem much more on top of things than The Enquirer (I know, low bar).

    Maybe we shouldn’t be too surprised that Hamilton County is turning blue, all the Republicans moved to Butler and Warren counties as those places sprawled out. They can have the exurbs.

  36. 36.

    debbie

    Forty-one Biden signs on a 24-minute walk! I’m pretty sure it should have been 41 since there was a signless yard where a sign had been standing for weeks.

  37. 37.

    Geminid

    @Kathleen: That is good news from the OH1st. Chabot needs to go.     It’s a very beautiful fall day in central Virginia. This afternoon I went a few miles up the road to Stanardsville, Greene County, and caught a speech by Dr. Cameron Webb, Democratic VA5th district candidate. He sounded like he’s spent a lot of Sundays in African American churches, which I believe he has. A good speaker. The event was sponsored by Greene County R.I.S.E (Resist Injustice, Stand and Educate). Over 200 people attended, which isn’t bad for a county of 19,000 people. Like the OH1st, the VA5th has been moved from Lean Republican to Toss Up by Cooks Political Report. Good luck over there.

  38. 38.

    Kent

    @Sab: Yep.   Trump HATES strong women.  His only two female Cabinet members are both nepotism hires to minor cabinet positions.  Janet Yellin scared him so he essentially dumped her and nominated a male clone of her, Jay Powell, to the Federal Reserve (probably his only half-way decent appointee in the entire government and it was to replace a scary woman.

    The only women he ever has around him are courtier types like Hope Hicks and Kayleigh McEnany who don’t hold any actual power or responsibilities, they just spend their days blowing him so to speak.

    They will dangle various female and minority candidates and then actually nominate some white man out of central casting just because they fucking can and no one can stop them.  If we were still in the old world of needing 60 votes and needing to peel off some Dem Senators then yes, make it hard for them to vote down a woman or Hispanic or Asian candidate.  But we aren’t in that world.

  39. 39.

    Poptartacus

    Make dc and pr states

    add 10 justices to the sc

    any repub snivel and whine

    spit in their face and laugh

  42. 42.

    Goku (Amerikan Baka)

    @Sab:

    they will get all kinds of attention ( good and bad), white women suburban women will be wooed,

    I highly doubt that will happen. Too much has happened; I don’t think white suburban women are going to go flocking to Trump just because he puts a woman’s name forward

  43. 43.

    Kathleen

    @Mai Naem mobile: In Ohio we can only drop them off at our Boards of Elections. Ohio Dem Party sued to get more drop off locations and judge agreed. Now Rethugs are challenging the ruling.

  47. 47.

    Baud

    @Morzer:

    If Biden isn’t going to take the radical measures that this moment demands, we might as well say goodbye to anything resembling democracy or decency in America.

    My new rule is no novel litmus tests for our leadership.

  48. 48.

    hedgehog mobile

    Checked my voter registration.  I’m good.  Ballots will drop in Colorado October 9.  There is a ballot drop box five minutes from my house.  Get ballot, vote, drop off.  Donated (twice) go the Get Mitch or Die Trying fund.  Writing letters to voters in Iowa.

    RIP RBG.  Let’s go.

  52. 52.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @JPL: too milquetoast, Meet The Press concern troll, the Kennedy School, and a couple of dozen (?) corporate boards

  53. 53.

    Morzer

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/09/19/ruth-bader-ginsburg-death-mcconnell-replacement-rush-column/5837974002/

    Will Democrats recognize the depth of the threat facing them and the country? Would a President Joe Biden see his former colleagues across the aisle as they truly are? Would he realize, as Obama never seemed to, that this asymmetry is not healthy? That it’s destructive to the American political system to have one party that’s passive and rule-abiding, and another that’s cold-blooded, power-hungry and fine with ghastly hypocrisy?

  55. 55.

    Kent

    @Baud:

    @JPL:

    I think it’ll depend on whether and how she wants to spend her retirement years in Maine.

    I doubt she’s actually lived in Maine for decades.  She just pretends to.  If she is dumped she’ll ensconce to some upscale DC suburb like Chevy Chase or Arlington and spend the rest of her life on various boards and going to the right parties and galas where people still suck up to her.

  57. 57.

    Kathleen

    @Ohio Mom: I love the Business Courier. The writing is outstanding, their topics are eclectic, and the reporters are a fascinating group of people. My only complaint is they don’t have any African American reporters.

  60. 60.

    Kathleen

    @debbie: I see very few lawn signs in my neighborhood where I do my runs. I’ve seen a few Trump signs and a few Biden/Harris signs. I’m in the city and we’re considered “blue”. But very few signs overall.

  61. 61.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Morzer: Not ghastly hypocrisy! Mitch McConnell probably keeps a scrapbook of liberals and establishment types talking about his ghastly hypocrisy and has Elaine read it aloud to him to get him revved up on the third Friday of every month.

    I read that piece. She calls on Democrats to do Something. Blames Obama for not having done Something. Doesn’t define Something.

    Where was the Democratic money, where was the Democratic president, where was MSNBC and “Merrick Garland Held Hostage, Night 237” when Mitch McConnell’s Senate refused to consider his nomination throughout the final 10 months of Barack Obama’s term? Where were the Democratic strategists who could and would play hardball at the same level as McConnell?

    There is no “hardball” that could now or would have then changed the fact Mitch McConnell decides what the Senate vote on and then. Why is this so hard for people to accept?

    During ten months of Merrick Garland held hostage, Ms Lawrence’s green-room fellow-travelers were more interested Her Emails, and Bernie Sanders was getting a bunch of excitable children outraged about WALL STREET SPEECHES! and something called TPP.

  62. 62.

    opiejeanne

    @MisterForkbeard: There’s a lot of rage donating being announced on Twitter. I rage donated and rage volunteered this morning.

    So, last night ActBlue said donations were breaking hourly records and then breaking those, again and again. I lost track of the numbers but this morning I saw someone post that it was over $50k  a minute being donated. Amazing what a bit of partisan-induced rage will do because of Mitch not letting the body get cold will.

  63. 63.

    Sab

    @Morzer: USA Today. Isn’t Susan Page their DC editor?  Who paid $5000 to sponsor the execrable head of CMMS for some speech 0r award.

    ETA Seema Verma who got her Ivanka jewelry stolen while on government travel business.

  66. 66.

    Mike in NC

    We live in a community of some 300 or so homes. Mostly retirees from NJ and NY. The wingnuts here just staged a mini-Trump rally, honking horns and flying their flags. Looks like they were able to field about half a dozen cars and golf carts. Sad!

  69. 69.

    Geminid

    @Baud: I find a lot of good reporting out there, but 95% of the analysts and commentators are just full of crap. As Truman put it, “I wouldn’t hire them to pound sand into ratholes.”

  70. 70.

    Morzer

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I think she’s got a point. Democrats do give up far too easily. Their leadership often seem to exist for the purpose of weeping and wailing after the fact. They haven’t played hardball and often seem to preemptively give up on the idea in advance. Politics is not a game for those who wait until victory is guaranteed.

  78. 78.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Morzer: her, and your, “hardball” sounds to me more like fantasy-league Calvinball, a nostalgia for apocryphal, or at least exaggerated, stories about how LBJ passed all the legislation by whipping his dick out in front of legislators, but I’m willing to listen if you want to game out for me what Obama should have done then and/or what Schumer is supposed to do now.

  80. 80.

    PsiFighter37

    Interesting that the Jennifer Rubin types and the other Never Trump GOPers have been so silent. Must be hard for them when their ultimate goal is within their sight – but it would require un-burning the bridges they have burnt and sacrificing the integrity they have regained.

  81. 81.

    opiejeanne

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Wow! That’s heartening. I was hesitating about donating to Amy McGrath because someone who seems to know says that her campaign is a lost cause, but the Get Mitch fund says it divvies up the money and sends it to several candidates who have a good chance to win their Senate races.

  82. 82.

    JoyceH

    I just recently received the payment for my sister’s house, so today for the first time I was able to give a campaign (in this instance, Biden/Harris) the maximum donation. I feel like such a fat cat!

  83. 83.

    Elizabelle

    @Sister Golden Bear:   And that was from a weekend!

    Politico from 2016.
    McConnell throws down the gauntlet: No Scalia replacement under Obama
    The Senate majority leader’s challenge to the president’s nominating authority appears to be unprecedented.

    Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the Senate should not confirm a replacement for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia until after the 2016 election — an historic rebuke of President Obama’s authority and an extraordinary challenge to the practice of considering each nominee on his or her individual merits.

    The swiftness of McConnell’s statement — coming about an hour after Scalia’s death in Texas had been confirmed — stunned White House officials who had expected the Kentucky Republican to block their nominee with every tool at his disposal, but didn’t imagine the combative GOP leader would issue an instant, categorical rejection of anyone Obama chose to nominate.

    “The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president,” McConnell said, at a time when other elected officials, from Sen. Bernie Sanders to future Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer, were releasing statements offering condolences to the justice’s family, which includes 26 grandchildren.

    “It was a real shocker,” said a senior White House official, speaking to POLITICO shortly before Obama, on a trip to California, announced his intention to send the Senate a nominee, citing Scalia’s own wishes for him to do so.

    Many Republicans in Congress and in the 2016 presidential field unified behind McConnell, arguing that the timing of Scalia’s death — it would be the first confirmation vote since Anthony Kennedy to be held this close to an election — made it necessary to leave the appointment to the next elected president. [Who, who??] Despite McConnell’s claim, no Senate leader has ever asserted a right — and there is no precedent for a sitting president to hand over his power of high-court appointment at the request of any member of the legislative branch.

    ===

    Of course, Hillary Clinton and Harry Reid and many other Senate Democrats were out immediately with statements saying of course there should be a nomination.

    February 13.  September 18.  Uh huh

    [FYI:  the now dubious Anthony Kennedy was sworn in on February 18, 1988 — last year of Reagan’s term — after being nominated in November 1987.  He was replacing Lewis Powell, who retired.  Bork was nominated in July 1987, failed in September, and then there was Douglas Ginsburg, who withdrew in November.]

  86. 86.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I’ve made myself curious: Anybody in Indiana, Wisconsin, PA or FL? Any other close Senate races that Rs won in ’16? Did the Dems campaign on Garland and the USSC?

  87. 87.

    Quiltingfool

    I think Republicans should be very, very careful what they wish for.   I remind myself of that when I wish for certain people in charge to leave this world post haste.  The reason why is the Law of Unintended Consequences.  How any event plays out we can guess at, but we can’t be sure until it does play out.  We do what we can, stay strong and fight the good fight.

  88. 88.

    Percysowner

    @JPL: I think Trump will go with Bill Barr. McConnell will have a fit about Barr’s age, but all Trump cares about is himself and he knows Barr will protect him from EVERYTHING.  Barr ticks all of Trumps boxes, loyal and doesn’t care about the constitution or the country, plus he’s been “vetted” already when he got the AG appointment and he’s in charge of the DOJ, which can lean on the FBI for any subsequent “vetting”. He’s Trump’s dream guy.

  89. 89.

    CarolPW

    @PsiFighter37: rubin announced before Guinsberg’s death that she was taking rosh Hashanah off (for some reason I am unable to type an upper case r at the moment, sorry). I believe rubin is solid, but have no idea about the rest of the never Trump bunch.

  90. 90.

    Sab

    @Sister Golden Bear: Me too. But she and Scalia were friends and fellow opera buffs. That was one of her strengths. Could be friends with people whose politics appalled her. So they had to at least address her legal arguments in good faith.

    That is what we are risking. Intelligent jurists will find some common ground. Unintelligent hacks can’t.

  91. 91.

    Citizen Alan

    Oddly, while I am saddened by the loss of RBG (I was horribly depressed last night, to the point of devouring a pizza and three candy bars and sending my blood sugar into the mid-300’s), I’m not full of either terror or rage. This is because I’ve known for months that if the Democrats took the White House and the Senate and then she died the day after the election, the bastards would ram through another Federalist Society Rapist before the end of the year. So to me, this is just one less thing to feel helplessly anxious about.

  95. 95.

    zhena gogolia

    @PsiFighter37:

    Nichols hasn’t been silent. He’s pounding away at Graham’s hypocrisy. But you’re right about Wilson (last time I looked), Conway (last time I looked), and Rubin (I looked just now and was struck by her silence on this matter).

  97. 97.

    Zelma

    @CarolPW:

    I’ve started reading the Bulwark, and this morning they were pretty solid about opposing forcing a vote a la Mitch.  So that’s one set of anti-trumpets that’s holding.

  98. 98.

    Geminid

    @The Lodger: Burr retires in 2022, so that is another possible NC Senate pickup. Johnson and and 20 other senate republicans face reelection in 2022. Democratic voting historically historically decreased in the off years, but that changed in 2018, and I think 2018 will be the new normal. I’ve never seen Democrats as organized and concentrated on races from state legislator on up as they are now. I don’t see that changing when trump is gone. For Wisconsin Democrats, it will be Trump now, Johnson next.             Virginia Republicans used to benefit from Democratic drop off in our odd year state elections. Not any more.

  100. 100.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    looks like Jennifer Rubin is still not on Team trump

    Jennifer ‘Vote Early’ Rubin
    @JRubinBlogger ·10m
    Anyone who would assert this helps the GOP should go talk to women. They will decide the election. McConnell’s dancing on her grave an hour of her death will not be forgotten. Women have lost an icon. The left will not lose the court, even if they must expand it. More tomorrow

    ETA: the optimism has been all but beaten out of me, but I do hopefully agree that RBG’s icon status, combined with The Beast’s general ham-fisted and clueless misogyny (‘suburban housewives’) might just skew the CW

  102. 102.

    Sasha

    Point of Fact: The GOP is not trying to install a new Supreme Court justice before an election — they are trying to install a new Supreme Court justice DURING an election. (Early voting has already begun.)

  104. 104.

    zhena gogolia

    Mitch making that announcement before RBG’s toes had even cooled was something I will never forget. I don’t think I’m alone.

    Last night it inspired me with nothing but despair. Today’s it’s rage.

  105. 105.

    Geminid

    @zhena gogolia: When I saw  McConnel’s quick announcement I had to wonder, is he doing this now because he has the votes and just wants to get the show on the road, or is he doing this because he’s not sure he has the votes and is hoping to steamroll the waverers. Most Senate republicans don’t  seem to be saying much publically, but I bet they are on the phone with each other. A lot. Trump wants a new justice because he’s drowning and thinks it will be a life  preserver. But for some Republican senators- close to a dozen this year, 22 less retirees in 2022- this judicial nomination could be an anchor. I don’t think it’s a done deal yet.

  106. 106.

    Medicine Man

    I think Jennifer Rubin is right in that RGB’s cruel and untimely demise doesn’t change much of the underlying aspects of the election; more subtext made text.

  111. 111.

    topclimber

    If it hasn’t already been mentioned,  it is not only the endangered 2020 GOP senators who can be pressured.

    In 2022, we have a good shot at 5 seats, at least by the numbers:

    Pat Toomey (PA) last won by 1.5%.

    Ron Jackass (er, Johnson)  3.4%.

    Roy Blunt (MO) 2.8%

    Marco Rubio  7.7%

    Richard Burr is retiring, so an open seat.

    Perhaps if the incumbents start hearing about organized pushback two years ahead of the election, they might sweat Mitch’s bullshit tactics.

    “We won’t forget what you do today in 2022.”

  114. 114.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Percysowner: Trump can always nominate himself. That was old geography/history blogger Matt White’s speculative path to the US legally becoming a dictatorship–step 1 was that the sitting President appoints himself as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, serving concurrently.

  115. 115.

    Terraformer

    We went kayaking today enjoying a beautiful, sunny, and cool fall day here in southern Wisconsin. Of course, to get to the lake, our drive was mostly rural – I don’t know, but damn there are a lot of trump signs. I mean, I get that most rural areas favor the orange vulgarian – it’s just, well, sad.  All these people value being able to say the quiet parts out loud above most else, with no care or recognition that they’re only useful pawns. It’s still hard to see, though.

    Thankfully, we did see a few Biden signs, even a couple along the lakeside. That in itself is cause for hope, and I’m seeing more Biden signs in deep red suburban Waukesha. Maybe we can pull this out here in Wisconsin after all.

  116. 116.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @PsiFighter37: It’s Rosh Hashanah. Jen Rubin announced she wouldn’t be writing for a few days due to the holiday.

    ETA: Which Kathleen said in #85. And CarolPW in #89.

  117. 117.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Terraformer: Were you in the Lake Geneva area?  That is going to be Trump country so don’t let it worry you.  My family has a cabin in Oneida County (much further north) and there are Trumpers everywhere.  Those aren’t the parts of the state we can contest, so I don’t worry about them.  Dems are coming for their guns.  And those rich bastards who come up in the summer from Madison and Milwaukee are Dems too.  Plus racism.

  118. 118.

    dww44

    @Terraformer: I hope you will keep taking the political temp in your part of Wisconsin and pass it along. Down here in my very red state I know, to my sorrow, that every time it looks as though we Dems have a chance to get back in power there’ s something to incentivize the Republican voters. Now it’s the prospect of a solid conservative majority on the SC. They’ll vote for the devil himself to get that. 

  121. 121.

    206inKY

    @topclimber: I don’t think Toomey will slow this down before the election, but his tune might change if Biden crushes it in Pennsylvania. I do think Collins, Murkowski, and Romney are good bets for getting us to 50 both before and after the election. But I have no real confidence in anyone beyond them. Graham rolled the dice on no openings this year with all that footage pretending to have principles; he will vote with Trump regardless but will bleed a little for it in the race with Harrison because that video is just so damning. Grassley and Alexander are possible but unlikely.

    If by some miracle we reach 51, I will not be surprised if it’s Richard Burr who gets us there. He hates Trump, has been relentlessly attacked for leading a reasonably legit Senate Intelligence probe, and has one shot at respectability after selling stocks before the crash. They clearly went after Burr and not Loeffler (who did the same thing) as revenge for the probe. Now it is Burr’s turn. I don’t think Mitch counted his votes.

  122. 122.

    bjacques

    O Mighty Balloon Juice Legal Oracle:

    There’s an idea I haven’t seen yet (busy weekend, skipped the Thread Of Doom), but a couple of commenters have come close to it.

    It depends on retaking the Senate (and keeping the House) and would thus be entirely out of President Biden’s hands, so he wouldn’t be obliged to comment on it.

    Kavanaugh almost certainly perjured himself in his nomination hearing and behavior that comes to light in a proper investigation may show evidence of bad character, so why not simply impeach and remove him in January? Likewise, Trump’s nominee will almost certainly lie or omit evidence of wrongdoing in his or her hastily conducted hearing, so pick them off too? 6-3 GOP majority becomes 4-3. If Biden wins, he gets two nominees and, vee-ola, get a 5-4 Democratic majority, and Senator Minority Leader or Private Citizen McConnell can lump it. If Trump wins, revisit the hearings testimonies of Roberts, Alito, Thomas, even Gorsuch, though he seems to have taken the job seriously despite getting Garland’s seat, maybe pick off one or two more. We’re down to a 3-3 deadlock or 3-2 Democratic majority, and a non-negotiable demand for quality, honorable and at least impartial nominees to refill the bench. One of them has to be Garland, if he still wants the job.

    No court-packing necessary.

     

    Could that work?

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