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You are here: Home / Absent Friends / Notorious RBG Honored at the Supreme Court

Notorious RBG Honored at the Supreme Court

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Justice Ginsburg arrived at the U.S. Supreme Court for the last time a little while ago.

On Friday, RBG will lie in state at the U.S. Capitol, the first female government official ever so honored.

Open thread.

ETA: Do any of the blog’s battalions of attorneys have an opinion on this proposal published in Slate? It’s not easy to sum up, but the author, Christopher Jon Sprigman, argues that Congress should use its Article III powers to limit courts’ jurisdiction, including the U.S. Supreme Court.

Reader Interactions

123Comments

  2. 2.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Thank you, BettyC. Per my comment in the Morning Thread, I was afraid I was the only jackal paying attention.

  8. 8.

    jonas

    Welp, according to Right Twitter, Johnson’s Senate intelligence report on Hunter Biden is bursting with ironclad evidence that the VP’s son was easily the most corrupt person in history who ran a sex trafficking and money laundering ring that stretched from Beijing to Moscow. Not bad for a guy who was supposedly so drugged up he could hardly get out of bed most days.

  11. 11.

    germy

    According to sources in the Republican Party at the state and national levels, the Trump campaign is discussing contingency plans to bypass election results and appoint loyal electors in battleground states where Republicans hold the legislative majority. With a justification based on claims of rampant fraud, Trump would ask state legislators to set aside the popular vote and exercise their power to choose a slate of electors directly. The longer Trump succeeds in keeping the vote count in doubt, the more pressure legislators will feel to act before the safe-harbor deadline expires

     

    When The Atlantic asked the Trump campaign about plans to circumvent the vote and appoint loyal electors, and about other strategies discussed in the article, the deputy national press secretary did not directly address the questions. “It’s outrageous that President Trump and his team are being villainized for upholding the rule of law and transparently fighting for a free and fair election,” Thea McDonald said in an email. “The mainstream media are giving the Democrats a free pass for their attempts to completely uproot the system and throw our election into chaos.” Trump is fighting for a trustworthy election, she wrote, “and any argument otherwise is a conspiracy theory intended to muddy the waters.”

    In Pennsylvania, three Republican leaders told me they had already discussed the direct appointment of electors among themselves, and one said he had discussed it with Trump’s national campaign.

  15. 15.

    Mezz

    @germy: 

    Ok thanks, now I won’t sleep for a week.
    I keep thinking that winning is the first step toward a return to sanity, and then things like this make me realize that won’t happen because they won’t accept or allow losing.

    F$&*K

  16. 16.

    Ruckus

    @germy:

    I can imagine just a few vets might be rather annoyed that after all the crap they’ve seen their votes are no longer supposed to matter. Along with just a few citizens might feel just the slightest twinge of, would it be anger that shitforbrains was assisted by vlad in getting elected and now that all of our fears were proven underestimates of how bad he really is he’s going to pull this crap. And the republicans in the senate will go along? This should end up with the Nuremberg Trials being a docile preamble.

  20. 20.

    germy

    WASHINGTON (AP) – House Democrats are proposing a sweeping bill to curb presidential abuses, a pitch to voters weeks ahead of Election Day as they try to defeat President Donald Trump, capture the Senate from Republicans and keep their House majority.

    The legislation, a wide-ranging package of new and revised bills, will be announced Wednesday morning by the heads of seven House committees. It would, among other measures, limit the president’s pardon power, strengthen laws to ban presidents from receiving gifts or payments from foreign governments, better protect independent agency watchdogs and whistleblowers from firing or retribution and require better reporting by campaigns of foreign election interference.

    Each of the bill’s provisions is a response to actions by Trump or his administration that Democrats saw as abuses of presidential power. It builds on an elections and ethics reform package from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that the House passed soon after Democrats assumed the majority in 2019.

    https://wnyt.com/politics/democrats-propose-sweeping-bill-to-curb-presidential-abuses/5871533/?cat=661

  25. 25.

    Kay

    @germy:

    I just think it’s practical at this point to prepare ourselves mentally for what will be overt actions by the Trump family and the low quality Trump hires to retain power regardless of election results. I don’t know how anyone can look at what they say and do and conclude otherwise. One has to be willfully blind at this point to believe they will obey any laws or norms.

    If it doesn’t happen, great, nothing lost. But it’s more likely than not at this point that it will. I had hoped some GOP Senators or House members would break from the Trumps after Labor Day and regain some kind of independent agency and thought, but I haven’t seen the slightest indication that is happening.

  27. 27.

    Kay

    @germy:

    It’s funny in a way. The Lincoln Project challenged “Donald Trump or your country!” thinking perhaps that wasn’t a real choice but it turns out it is, and they chose Trump. The worst case scenario is always the reality now.

  28. 28.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Kay:

    I had hoped some GOP Senators or House members would break from the Trumps after Labor Day and regain some kind of independent agency and thought, but I haven’t seen the slightest indication that is happening. 

    Nope.

    It’s flamethrower time – for democracy.

  29. 29.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    Why would any of them overtly break from Trump?  They have no integrity, and there’s no political gain for any of them to do so.

  31. 31.

    Hoodie

     

    Do any of the blog’s battalions of attorneys have an opinion on this proposal published in Slate? It’s not easy to sum up, but the author, Christopher Jon Sprigman, argues that Congress should use its Article III powers to limit courts’ jurisdiction, including the U.S. Supreme Court.

     

    Ultimately not a very good argument. His examples are cherry-picked (e.g., Korematsu, but not Brown or Roe) and his comparisons to other countries are superficial.  Judicial review has been ensconced since Marbury v. Madison, changing that would be difficult and could lead to bigger constitutional crises, e.g., what happens if the Court says it has jurisdiction? what does the Executive do?.  There are no such problems with expanding the Court, and the argument against expansion I’ve heard all rely on a tit-for-tat rationale that is weak, at best.  I would rather go up the escalation ladder on the size of the Court because that still retains the basic framework of judicial review, so it’s not completely uncharted territory.  You live with the possibility of escalation until the minority party realizes that trying to tailor the Court to counter a democratic majority is a losing proposition, and then, maybe, comity returns and the GOP becomes less ideological.  Back in the early post-Roe days, the GOP use to complain about “unelected judges” overruling Congress.  The difference then was that Dems did not have the functional equivalent of the Federalist Society specifically aiming to try to put judges that met some predetermined profile (including age) on the Court.   After they started losing the popular vote pretty consistently, the GOP suddenly found a love for the Court, to the point of obsession.  One thing to consider is that, if the Dems offer statehood to PR and DC and thus expand the Senate by 4 seats, the GOP may not get a chance to expand the Court for quite a while, especially if they continue to be a racist party. The GOP needs to be forced to figure out how to get more popular instead of relying on countermajoritarian means for retaining power.  Expanding the Senate and the Court is the easiest way to do that.

  36. 36.

    Quinerly

    @Crashman06: I took an hr on that article this AM. Normally I’m a fast reader but feel off my game. Lots to process. After finishing it I wanted to go back to bed, cover my head, and just stay there. Shouldn’t have started my day with it.

  37. 37.

    J R in WV

    @jonas: 

    Johnson’s Senate intelligence report on Hunter Biden is bursting with ironclad evidence that the VP’s son was easily the most corrupt person in history who ran a sex trafficking and money laundering ring that stretched from Beijing to Moscow.

    Remind me again — what office is Hunter Biden seeking, this time???!?

  39. 39.

    Quinerly

    Fauci et al testifying. Probably last time before the election.

    Grand jury decision in Frankfort KY to be presented within 2 hrs… Breona Taylor

  41. 41.

    Formica

    As this is an open thread, what is the best way to ask for a front pager’s attention? I’m just an occasional commenter at this here almost top ten thousand blog, but I would very much like to ask Adam if he will be analyzing the possible Russian intelligence operation in Portland. Hopefully that is not out of line.

    For those who have not seen it, WaPo reporting strongly suggests that the MAGA parade in late August which featured the Portland Police escorting white supremacists through downtown may have been a Russian intelligence operation: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/idaho-family-portland-trump-rally/2020/09/21/246ef878-f2e5-11ea-b796-2dd09962649c_story.html

  42. 42.

    Shakti

    @oatler.:

    Ted Cruz is a petty bloated turd, hiding behind bipartisanship when Trump tossed his name out there as a potential nominee. This resolution has no legal effect; he just wishes she received no honors. GSLiC thinks saying her family members made up her words… means something outside of his shittiness?

    They both know, deep down, that nobody outside of their immediate family, wants to honor them that way when they die.  Hours after she died, people showed up with flowers and to sing tribute.

     

     

     

    From the article:

    WASHINGTON — A ceremonial resolution honoring the life of the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg failed in the Senate on Tuesday after U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz objected to language his Democratic counterparts added noting her dying wish that a successor not be chosen until after the presidential inauguration early next year….

    Unfortunately, the Democratic leader has put forth an amendment to turn that bipartisan resolution into a partisan resolution,” Cruz said in his floor remarks, referring to U.S. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer.
    “Specifically, the Democratic leader wants to add a statement that Justice Ginsburg’s position should not be filled until a new president is installed, purportedly based on a comment Justice Ginsburg made to family members shortly before she passed.
    “That, of course, is not the standard,” he added. “Under the Constitution, members of the judiciary do not appoint their own successors.”
    Schumer took to the floor immediately after Cruz spoke, stating that he believed “Justice Ginsburg would easily see through the legal sophistry” of Cruz’s argument. He said Cruz turned the late justice’s “dying words” against her, which Schumer said is “so, so beneath the dignity of this body. I do not modify.”

  43. 43.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: Krugman agrees:

    I wonder how many people are ready for just how bad the next six weeks plus are going to be. This is going to be the most dangerous election since 1860, with substantial odds that America as we know it will be damaged or even destroyed 1/

    Trump’s campaign strategy is to brazen it out with obvious lies: the virus isn’t a threat, we have a vaccine, the economy is booming, violent mobs are roaming the streets of New York. Many people will believe him 2/

    Even so, it probably — probably — won’t be enough. He’s behind in the polls, and the two most cited models give him a 15-23 percent chance of winning 3/

    There is, however, a near-zero percent chance that he’ll accept the result if he loses. He’ll try to stop counting of absentee ballots, claim massive fraud, and probably try to get the Supreme Court to overturn the result 4/

    Expect violence from Trump supporters, maybe lots of it, both to disrupt voting on Election Day and in the days that follow. Is this overheated? So far Trump and his party have borne out every prediction by pessimists and made fools of optimists 5/

    If you aren’t terrified, you aren’t paying attention. But terror isn’t productive; you should be asking what you personally can do to save democracy, which is very much under threat

    I’m still hanging on to optimism but am also ready to drive to DC if that’s what we have to do.

  44. 44.

    sdhays

    @Hoodie: One thing to consider is that, if the Dems offer statehood to PR and DC and thus expand the Senate by 4 seats, the GOP may not get a chance to expand the Court for quite a while, especially if they continue to be a racist party.

    This is an underappreciated point. If the Democrats take the Senate and Presidency, do away with the filibuster, and admit DC and PR – all very possible, particularly if the Republicans go ahead with this court jamming action right before or after the election – they may be in a position to let the Republicans throw their fit for the next decade or more and be completely unable to do anything about it.

    I’d also add that another possible result of expanding the court (in the long term) is maybe getting to the point of having both sides agree to some judicial reform (fixed terms, regular refreshes of justices) that requires a Constitutional amendment. If neither side feels that it’s “winning”, a better course may become possible.

  46. 46.

    Baud

    @Betty Cracker:

    So far Trump and his party have borne out every prediction by pessimists and made fools of optimists

    This is an exaggeration, given that the pessimists have said Trump would deploy the U.S. army throughout the country or cancel the election altogether.

    But the rest of it is accurate.

  48. 48.

    Hoodie

    @Quinerly: I think a lot of that is just another act in Trump dominance theater, i.e., it’s intended to intimidate and demoralize more than to actually work as stated.  It is also used to further a narrative that Trump is some kind of evil genius who will inevitably find someway to win.  It’s all of a piece with stalking HRC around the stage.  I sometimes think the first thing Joe should do is walk over and kick the asshole in the nuts the first time he tries something like that but, seeing as the Secret Service might not like that, Joe will probably will do something along the malarkey!/come on, man! vein.  Or maybe bring along a 6ft chain and re-enact the CornPop scene.

  50. 50.

    geg6

    Dang, the sight of those clerks has me weeping in my office.  I’m only here two days a week and now I have mascara melting all over me.  I’m going to frighten the students.

  51. 51.

    Betty Cracker

    @SiubhanDuinne: IMO, Rand Paul is the WORST, at least in one sense. There are senators whose vile, amoral and evil natures cause more harm on balance, e.g., Mitch McConnell.

    But for my money, Baby Doc is the most insufferable, smarmy, arrogant shithead in the chamber, narrowly edging out Ted Cruz. I remain keenly disappointed that no security footage leaked of the neighbor beating the shit out of Paul.

  54. 54.

    A Ghost to Most

    @Betty Cracker:

    I’m still hanging on to optimism but am also ready to drive to DC if that’s what we have to do.

    Let’s hope that’s all it takes. Hope is not a viable plan.

  58. 58.

    Hoodie

    @sdhays: I kind of look at it like confronting an expansionist Soviet Union or Maoist China – deterrence and proportional response.  If they jam the RBG seat in violation of their previously stated “principle” invoked in the Garland nomination, then add two seats to the Court and expand the Senate.   All very predictable.  Hopefully, they’ll get frustrated with stalemate and realize that it sucks to be unpopular.  The Constitution has several countermajoritarian features, but it has at least an equal number of majoritarian features, e.g., the ability to add states, to expand the size of the courts, etc.  What Dems have to overcome is the reluctance to use them.

    However, if you do use them, use them in a proportionate manner supported by reasons other than pure naked exercise in power.  For example,  DC should have been made a state years ago, irrespective how their representatives would vote.  So should PR, if they want that.  The Court really is too small to make important decisions for a nation with over 300 million people.  Hell, half the damn members are from the same religious sect, there are no black female members, and no members representing ethnicities other than whites, latinx, African Americans and Jews (e.g., no Asians, no Native Americans).   A bigger Court might be more likely to search for consensus because it’s harder to maintain rigid ideological conformity (right or left) in a larger number of people, especially people who have lifetime appointments.  Those are all nonpartisan reasons to expand the Court.

  61. 61.

    VeniceRiley

    Ultimately not a very good argument. His examples are cherry-picked (e.g., Korematsu, but not Brown or Roe) and his comparisons to other countries are superficial.  Judicial review has been ensconced since Marbury v. Madison, changing that would be difficult and could lead to bigger constitutional crises, e.g., what happens if the Court says it has jurisdiction? what does the Executive do?.  There are no such problems with expanding the Court, and the argument against expansion I’ve heard all rely on a tit-for-tat rationale that is weak, at best.  I would rather go up the escalation ladder on the size of the Court because that still retains the basic framework of judicial review, so it’s not completely uncharted territory.  You live with the possibility of escalation until the minority party realizes that trying to tailor the Court to counter a democratic majority is a losing proposition, and then, maybe, comity returns and the GOP becomes less ideological.  Back in the early post-Roe days, the GOP use to complain about “unelected judges” overruling Congress.  The difference then was that Dems did not have the functional equivalent of the Federalist Society specifically aiming to try to put judges that met some predetermined profile (including age) on the Court.   After they started losing the popular vote pretty consistently, the GOP suddenly found a love for the Court, to the point of obsession.  One thing to consider is that, if the Dems offer statehood to PR and DC and thus expand the Senate by 4 seats, the GOP may not get a chance to expand the Court for quite a while, especially if they continue to be a racist party. The GOP needs to be forced to figure out how to get more popular instead of relying on countermajoritarian means for retaining power.  Expanding the Senate and the Court is the easiest way to do that.

     

    @Hoodie: Hoodie for front page 2020! That’s my yard sign!

  62. 62.

    geg6

    @germy:

    Mother fuckers better have their names leaked.  I will head to Harrisburg and fuck them up if they try to pull that shit.  It’s not only their side that owns guns.

  63. 63.

    Another Scott

    @Betty Cracker: Krugman’s great at explaining economics in understandable language, but his political skills are not especially sharp.

    Donnie says all kinds of crap, but rarely follows through.  For weeks he talked about all the voter fraud in California, but did nothing about it.  (Of course, as the “winner” he didn’t need to in that case.  But if he were really worried about it for 2020 he could have.)  He expects others to do so while he keeps his tiny hands clean for tweeting and playing golf.

    With a big enough win, Donnie’s yelling will have no effect.  We have to make sure we do what we can to make that happen.

    Similarly with germy’s article about red states seating their own electors independent of the vote.  It won’t happen unless it’s close enough to steal (like FL in 2000).

    My $0.02.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  67. 67.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    Expect violence from Trump supporters, maybe lots of it, both to disrupt voting on Election Day and in the days that follow.

    I don’t agree with that and I don’t see them as a threat. Honestly, I think it’s weird how many liberals list them as if “violence from Trump supporters” is a threat equal to what Donald Trump will use, which is state power. What Trump has that is dangerous is the entire GOP Congress, probably about 10 governors, and lots and lots of law enforcement who are either his absolute followers or ideologically loyal to his cause. Trump doesn’t need armed Trump supporters. He has a big chunk of the federal government. That’s the threat. He’s captured big chunks of the state apparatus and they’ll act on his behalf.

  68. 68.

    Lavocat

    @Hoodie: I am an attorney and I agree with every word you wrote. I would add that the Dems need to accomplish a list of about 10 things, in no particular order, but all of which are damned important: 1) admit DC, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Samoa, and Guam as 5 new states (getting rid of all of our habitable territories) and thereby getting 10 new (& likely) Democratic senators. Also, consider granting statehood to at least 5 major metropolitan cities, such as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston, and Miami-Dade, that also happen to be major Democratic havens; 2) Pack the courts – ALL of them; add 9 new members to the USSC for a total of 15, then do the same for the DC Circuit and all the rest; and make most of those judges WOMEN, thereby ensuring the protections currently afforded to women’s reproductive health; 3) Enact new individual and corporate taxation comparable to the rates under that Republican seer, Eisenhower; 4) Actually and aggressively use the antitrust laws that have remained dormant since the Reagan era; 5) Get real about climate change and create a cabinet level department to tackle it; 6) Return to the Kyoto Protocols and the Iranian agreement, among many others; basically, nullify the last 4 years of Traitor Trump; 7) Remove American troops across the globe from all the illegal wars in which this country continues to remain engaged; 8) Pass an Equal Rights Amendment already for fuck’s sake; 9) Get real about racial and gender inequality and create a cabinet level department to tackle it; & 10) Universal health care for all. And that’s just off the top of my head. In other words: burn it the fuck down and rebuild it. Now.

    Put Trumpsters in Dumpsters and take out the fucking trash.

  70. 70.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    I want Krugman to put “Trump supporters” in a separate and much less threatening category than the state actors who have state power and will execute Trump’s attempts to remain in power.

    They’re not the same thing. One is a possible problem. The other is catastrophic: nation-ending.

  72. 72.

    Hoodie

    @Lavocat: Well, I wouldn’t characterize that as burning it all down and let’s not throw everything into one basket so it looks like some kind of agenda.  The Constitution allows all of those things (except 9 + 9 cannot equal 15), assuming you can get the votes to make any of those individual things happen.  Some of them might be a bit of a lift (for example, there are differences among Dems about deployment of American forces and tax policy is always going to be a negotiation), but several are doable if the Dems are politically astute.  It’s up to the territories as to whether they want to be states,  I would welcome them if they do.

  74. 74.

    Kay

    Philip Klein
    @philipaklein
    I still can’t get over the fact that liberals are going with the “Amy Coney Barrett is part of a weird religious cult” line of attack when one of the few gettable Republicans on any final vote is Mitt Romney.

    This is a completely invented victimization narrative they rolled out as precisely as any campaign tactic. Portraying themselves as victims is now so central to conservatism that all their political campaigns include this element. It’s a way to shut down any debate about their politicians.

  75. 75.

    MJS

    It can’t be Biden or Harris (lest our stellar media accuse them of hypocrisy for engaging in “lock him up” rhetoric) , but some surrogates, and PACs, need to be making the point over and over again that the reason Trump is willing to destroy the constitution in order to hold onto power is that he is absolutely terrified of going to prison if he loses the election. Once he is no longer president, he knows his criminality, as well as his illusory wealth, will be exposed. Worse, he’ll have to find attorneys that will expect to be paid to defend him, because he won’t be able to rely on the AG.

  76. 76.

    sdhays

    @zhena gogolia: Has Rand contracted COVID-19? I can’t remember. No one has a right to even consider advocating “herd immunity” if they haven’t gotten it themselves first.

  77. 77.

    Hoodie

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: They CJs are referring to the federal courts in general, which are overburdened, particularly at the district court level.   The SC has discretionary jurisdiction, and it’s docket is actually smaller now than it was.  Expanding the Court would allow it to take more appeals.

  78. 78.

    Lavocat

    @CaseyL: Once the dust settles, I think we will discover that Putin has been blackmailing Trump because Trump was compromised on his shady real estate deals with Russian banks and mobsters. I do not believe there is any pee tape. What I imagine exists is massive global fraud on banks and governments (taxes). Putin has Trump by the balls and the quid quo pro is simple: create domestic chaos. Putin knows he cannot beat us unless we are busy beating up on ourselves. When you cannot best your adversary, sow chaos in his ranks, a diktat right out of Sun Tzu. Also, Biden will win the Electoral College by at least 350 points. So, relax.

  79. 79.

    Kay

    Yet another book where the author withheld timely information from the public in order to put it into book form and make more money:

    Sept. 23, 2020, 4:32 AM EDT
    By Michael S. Schmidt, author and Washington correspondent for The New York Times
    This piece has been adapted from “Donald Trump v. The United States: Inside the Struggle to Stop a President” by Michael S. Schmidt.
    Counterintelligence officials had concerns about the attempts by foreign countries to buy influence with President Donald Trump’s children dating back to his transition.

    These books are a problem. The information gathered is being used not as “news” but as an asset that can and should be deployed only when and if it most benefits the author financially. Media companies have an ethical problem here. If their reporters are going to have whole separate careers as individual “brands” yet are peddling the same goods they’re supposed to be revealing to the public as they get it, there’s a problem. They have to choose. They cannot be sifting thru information and deciding which parts they can sell at a higher price later.

  83. 83.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: I think you’re right about where the real threat lies. It wouldn’t surprise me if there’s some localized violence from militia groups, Q-loons, etc., if Trump loses, but if the election is close enough to steal, state actors could swing into action. We’ve seen it before.

    I was sort of thinking FL Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is a sociopath but not completely stupid, might distance himself from Trump somewhat as he does occasionally since DeSantis has towering ambitions himself. That would possibly foreclose one avenue for shenanigans with the election here.

    But this week, DeSantis held an absurd event proposing “law and order” legislation that virtually criminalizes protests, empowers motorists to run over protesters and threatens to defund cities that reduce police budgets, so he’s still on the train.

  84. 84.

    Lavocat

    @Hoodie: Yes, I get that, but it’s not enough to be “anti-Trump”. It’s long past time to be neo-progressive, as in a new FDR party, if only to rejuvenate an increasingly out-of-touch Establishment party that is all too satisfied being Republican-Light. All of the things I listed should be up for discussion. All of them. Achieving any one of them would be a huge accomplishment and an improvement over our current state of chaos. I focus on increased statehood to accentuate the need to wrest control of the Senate (permanently) from its current Republican deathgrip while simultaneously doing an end-run around the Electoral College. You want to throw the Electoral College on the dustbin of history? Well, it ain’t gonna be done via Constitutional Amendment. It will be done by admitting more states, especially more smaller, densely-populated states, that trend Democratic (like large cities). Once you change the Senate and Electoral College, everything else gets easier and MORE democratic. Everything.

  85. 85.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Another Scott:

    With a big enough win, Donnie’s yelling will have no effect.

    I don’t believe that any more.

    The sheer size of the win can’t make this go away because they’ll simply say there were 10 million, 20 million, 30 million fake ballots and voting “illegals”. The more absurd it is, the stronger a loyalty test it becomes for Republicans and the more strongly they will believe it.

    What a big win does do is mobilize us if Trump steals it. But that’s only the first step. We may be called upon to die, in large numbers. But we’re dying in large numbers already, so that’s OK.

  86. 86.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @sdhays: Yes, he had it way back in late February or March sometime. He was lucky enough to have gotten either an asymptomatic or mild case…the day he got his positive test results back he’d been galavanting around the Senate gym and pool and said he felt fine. It was widely reported at the time.

  87. 87.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Lavocat: I would be fine with about half of those things right now.  The more GOP fuckery there actual is, the more willing I will be to consider the rest.
    It is odd.  My political wish list has always been well to the left of what I think is possible in the US.  And because I am an institutionalist, I have been willing to accept this.  But as the GOP burns things down, I find myself more inclined to say “fuck it.”

  88. 88.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Lavocat: They think they can win a civil war, because liberals are wimps and they’ll have all the guns, the cops and the military on their side.

    Are they right? I don’t know.

  89. 89.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Lavocat: There’s no guarantee that making large cities into states would increase the numbers of Democrats.  If you took LA out of California(and ignoring the other problems that would cause), there might be two Democrats from LA, but two Republicans from California.

  90. 90.

    Ohio Mom

    Formica

    If you click on the three-horizontal-lines menu bar at the top right of the page, you will see a list of options, with “Contact Us” toward the bottom. Click on that and all the front pager email adresses will appear.

    Please keep commenting!

  91. 91.

    Cermet

    @germy: If that occured, the issue of civil war would raise its terrible head. If they attempt that, then turely our democracy is fucked.

  92. 92.

    StringOnAStick

    @Formica: Thanks for posting this again, I read the first time a a it needs more attention.

    The article does every dance it can to say “look, Russian spy action!” without actually saying it.  These spies show how Putin thinks we are pushovers because the tradecraft is really poor, but our Hollywood idea of what a spy is has more to do with Mr. Bond than guys like these who’ve been living here and looking like average people until they were activated for this one op.

  93. 93.

    Hoodie

    @Lavocat: Respectfully, you’re missing the point.  It’s not anti-Trump to expand the Senate or offer statehood to DC or PR.  It’s pro-democracy.   The agenda you’re outlining borders on being purely ideological.  I may or may not agree with all of it, and that’s part of the problem.  There are a lot of other Democrats who don’t want exactly what you want.  You have to stick to things that are essential, that have the greatest potential for broad consensus.  Democracy is one of those things.

  96. 96.

    Lavocat

    @sdhays: Excellent point. The filibuster needs to be removed once and for all as the racist, anti-democratic, Jim Crow relic it has always been. There is no room in a democracy for the filibuster.

  98. 98.

    Kristine

    Okay, if Trump does all the things discussed in @germy’s post, will that affect House and Senate races as well? Could he steal the presidency but get stuck with a Dem House and Senate?

  99. 99.

    John S.

    @Betty Cracker:  Considering that Deathsantis ran ads to get elected with his young child building “the wall”, I think it’s safe to say he never got off the train in the first place.

  101. 101.

    Lavocat

    @Hoodie: It’s a travesty that a democracy even has territories. Only empires have territories. Make DC, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Samoa, and Guam states or cut them loose as independent countries (except for DC). As for the courts: Pack. Them. All. Our world is on fire, and our democracy is on life support and we are debating the etiquette of our future like we’re abiding by the Marquess of Queensberry Rules. Fuck that. Every fight is inherently unfair (see current USSC seat vacancy fight). Let’s cut to the fucking chase here. This is all about what it has ALWAYS been about: white power, in the form of rich, white males from rural white America, dictating to the rest of us what is good for us. Period. Full stop. That needs to be changed NOW, as quickly and as irreversibly as possible. I am so fucking tired of watching State of the Union addresses and looking at the Republican side and seeing a sea of pasty white male faces. That is not America. That is rich white male entitlement.

  102. 102.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Kristine: If it’s alternate slates of electors he’s going for, that would just affect the Presidential election, not the others.

    Of course, if the whole country devolves into civil war, any number of things could happen.

  103. 103.

    Miss Bianca

    @Kay: Well, one way to separate the wheat from the chaff – as in, who’s willing to stay on as a hired hand reporter versus trying to maintain their individual brand – would be for publishers to have their own version of an NDA, closer to tech companies and other companies’ approach to intellectual property: Anything you discover/make/report on our dime and our time belongs to us.

    The flip side of that blade is what happens if a publisher decides to spike a controversial story, and you have no other means of getting it out there without running afoul of that agreement. But right now, that would be a lesser concern for me, as both a journalist and a citizen.

  104. 104.

    artem1s

    @Lavocat:
    Agree with all, except – job #1- rescind Citizen’s United and enact real election finance reform.  Reduce the media’s reliance on ad buys and creating a horse race for the sake of increasing revenue.  The media should be ignoring the more mundane legislative issues as too boring to give column inches to.  If we can get back to a time when politics wasn’t a reality show, we might have a hope that qualified, knowledgeable people can do their jobs again.

  105. 105.

    Kay

    Amy Coney Barrett, when asked in 2016 whether a Obama should be able to appoint a Supreme Court justice in a presidential year, said it’s inappropriate to replace a conservative justice with one who would “dramatically flip the balance of power.”

    It’s bad because she’s a hypocrite but it’s also bad because this is a completely invented reason – she pulled this out of her ass. She’s inventing rules. Never a good thing for a judge.

  108. 108.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: Is it no longer customary for prospective SCOTUS nominees to pretend they aren’t political actors? I guess we’ve left that era of polite fiction behind.

  109. 109.

    Kay

    @Miss Bianca:

    The problem for me is the timing. If they don’t release it after they receive it then they are determining when it’s released, and that puts them right at the center of political events- actual players in those events. It means they can attempt to shape events. The randomness of news is one of the ways it retains credibility – literally “bad” or “good” timing for the people involved. That can’t be planned or it can be manipulated.  Once you have something and hold onto it you’re involved in timing when the public receives it, which makes you an actor influencing public reaction, not an observer.

  110. 110.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    I think it’s an old clip. But she shouldn’t have weighed in on it at any time, because, again, she’s pulling rules out of her ass and lending them authority they don’t have. It’s out of bounds.

  111. 111.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    Compare/contrast. RBG “it is my wish that….”

    She’s speaking as a person. She’s not inventing a rule. MY. Not some invisible tribunal of “appropriate” that she invented.

    Doesn’t bode well.

  112. 112.

    Miss Bianca

    @Kay: 

    btw, I think all the points you’ve been making about the dangers of “reporter/actors” are spot on. And sometimes I think the worst legacy of Watergate is that Woodward and Bernstein ended up writing a book. That cast them as stars in their own espionage movie – or at least, the movie version did.

    But at least they actually *broke* that story in timely fashion. In the Washington Post, not on the NYT Bestseller List.

  113. 113.

    OldDave

    @Lavocat:  … admit DC, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Samoa, and Guam as 5 new states.

    Only the District and Puerto Rico have populations large enough to reasonably consider granting statehood, and DC would still rank in the bottom five.  Guam is the next most populous at a bit under 180,000, with last two less than that number combined.  In my opinion, anyway.

  115. 115.

    Lavocat

    @Matt McIrvin: If the Trumpsters dare to engage in any kind of coup, I’d put my money on the military intervening. Many of the people I know who serve would never tolerate such a thing happening. They take their oaths of office deadly seriously. And they would no doubt protect their cherished nation from “threats both foreign and domestic”. This would all end with Trump’s head on a pike in the Rose Garden.

  117. 117.

    Lavocat

    @Hoodie: Agreed. The problem the Dems seem to have is that they don’t want to engage in spirited debate about the items on that list. Just because something may not be politically viable NOW does not mean it will remain so even 2 or 4 years later. Just look at the remarkable movement this summer for social justice. No one saw that coming, and it was long overdue. Dream big.

  119. 119.

    Lavocat

    @artem1s: Agreed. We debated this issue for an entire term in law school in a course entitled “Law and Public Policy”. Bottom line? No one could envision a viable way to keep money out of politics – hence the conundrum in which we remain. It all comes down to this question: Are we a democracy that happens to be capitalist, or are we a capitalist society that happens to be democratic? The history of the West has been wrestling with this question since Rome, with the answer usually coming up the latter. If so, good luck on trying to keep money out of politics.

  120. 120.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Lavocat: I think the military will do their damndest to try to sit it out. The leaders have got the notion of civilian Constitutional rule hammered into them almost from infancy, and loathe the idea of anything even resembling a military coup. But the accepted arbiter of the Constitution is SCOTUS. If the Supreme Court, no matter how absurd their reasoning, says Trump is the legitimate President, the military will accept that. Because for them, it’s actually more important to establish that THEY don’t rule.

    If Trump then orders them to attack protesters or be his personal domestic muscle… many won’t go along, some might. The same ones who are willing to be his political props in rallies and such.

  121. 121.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Kay: Money trumps ethics in this country.  That is a sad fact, and the fundamental flaw in everything that happens in DC.

  122. 122.

    Bill Arnold

    @jonas:

    Johnson’s Senate intelligence report on Hunter Biden is bursting with ironclad evidence that the VP’s son was easily the most corrupt person in history who ran a sex trafficking and money laundering ring that stretched from Beijing to Moscow.

    As always, Projection![1]. D.J. Trump has been a money laundering operation for a few decades. Sex trafficking, well now they’ve told us what to look for. :-)

    [1] To the tune of “Tradition”, Fiddler on the Roof ?

  123. 123.

    Bill Arnold

    @VeniceRiley: 

    Judicial review has been ensconced since Marbury v. Madison,

    It’s a norm. An old norm, but still a norm. Republicans have been pretty good at breaking norms lately.
    Mitch McConnell, for example, has two primary skills, breaking norms, and claiming he has the votes when he isn’t sure yet.

    They appear to think they’d win a Civil War. They are fucking wrong; they would lose, even if it meant everyone lost.

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