Like many of you, just trying to keep from slipping into a full scale panic with the death of RBG. Just try to keep it together and be kind to each other. There is literally nothing we can do but keep working to win the elections in November.
Saturday Morning Open Thread: Now, More Than Ever
Biden: "In the coming days, we should focus on the loss of [RBG] & her enduring legacy. But there is no doubt – let me be clear – that the voters should pick the POTUS & the POTUS should pick the Justice for the Senate to consider. This was the position the GOP Senate took in 16" pic.twitter.com/QwxsmrmolA
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 19, 2020
There are 100s of frightening possibilities that flow from the #RuthBaderGinsbergDeath including that a contested election in Nov will now rule in #Trump favor, almost assuredly.
— Laurie Garrett (@Laurie_Garrett) September 18, 2020
… Ergo, we need to make sure that the election cannot be (successfully) contested, by getting every single gettable vote for the Biden/Harris ticket and the rest of the Democratic slate.
Stay strong!
Massive line of voters in Fairfax, Virginia, on the FIRST DAY of in-person early voting. Some voters say they showed up because they lost faith in USPS to deliver ballots. Officials tell CNN they've never seen anything like this on Day One. pic.twitter.com/uFDSfMINWX
— Marshall Cohen (@MarshallCohen) September 18, 2020
Voters in Minnesota, Virginia, South Dakota and Wyoming began casting in-person ballots. In Virginia, officials in Fairfax and Arlington counties reported heavy turnout https://t.co/nfibW1zz2U pic.twitter.com/2zN1JKisFA
— Reuters (@Reuters) September 19, 2020
America doesn’t just need a president our children can look up to, it needs a president who has the heart to get on their level. pic.twitter.com/OF8NAEfZMV
— Matt Hill (@thematthill) September 18, 2020
Saturday Morning Open Thread: Now, More Than EverPost + Comments (177)
Late Night Mourning / Resolve Open Thread: May RBG’s Example Be Our Guiding Light
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Second woman to sit on the Court.
Fighter for justice and equality.
Defender of our democracy, our freedoms, and our country.It is our duty — moral responsibility — to continue her legacy. Rest in Power. pic.twitter.com/EuVFsvvxrB
— When We All Vote (@WhenWeAllVote) September 19, 2020
Per @NPR Justice Ginsburg’s deathbed statement is this: “My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new President is installed.”
— Anne Rumsey Gearan (@agearan) September 18, 2020
Three little words
Don’t mourn, organize.
I know the posts are coming fast and furious tonight, but please use this thread to share any ideas and experiences about how to get involved this fall (and after that too). I know it’s funky with COVID so any and all ideas are welcome.
UPDATE 1 from Dave Anderson:
Be strategic in your donations. I just sent Cal Cunningham (D-NC) a good bit of cash. Target Democratic challengers against Republican incumbents who really want a golden ticket to vote no and hope yes. This will have more impact in the short term (this week) and medium term (next 45 days) then sending money to candidates who are down 15 even after spending millions.
Organize for 13
The play is simple.
McConnell is likely betting that he can get 50+Pence for a reactionary.
He can lose no more than three votes. Murkowski (R-AK) already seems to be saying no.
7. Update on Murkowski from @lruskin pic.twitter.com/pp4nGzVIui
— Yashar Ali ? (@yashar) September 19, 2020
He can afford to lose two more. His marginals are in bad shape especially if someone, like Romney who has no reason to be loyal to Trump, decides to be an institutionalist as there are a lot of marignals who need a golden ticket.
- Collins (R-ME) is down in recent polling.
- Gardner (R-CO) is down in recent polling.
- McSally (R-AZ) is down in recent polling.
- Tillis (R-NC) is down in recent polling.
- Graham (R-SC) is tied in recent polling
- Ernst (R-IA) is in a toss-up
- Daines (R-MT) is in a toss-up
McConnell is betting that somehow a deeply divisive nomination fight that highlights reproductive rights and the ACA will mobilize more Republican voters than Democratic voters.
I think he will be wrong.
And if he is, he is making a lot of very vulnerable GOP Senators walk the plank for an action that is quickly reversible.
Democrats have a very simple counter-power threat that they can credibly wield against the vulnerable Republican incumbents.
If there is a confirmation before 1/21/21, then 8 + 1 will equal 13.
If there is a confirmation after 1/21/21 then 8+1 will equal 9.
Organize for 13 while making every single Republican incumbent shit a brick when they see the polling on Tuesday morning and read about surge fundraising for Democrats over the weekend.
Senator McConnell Moves To Contact: The President’s Nominee “Will Receive a Vote On the Floor of the Senate”
Senator McConnell has placed his marker on the table.
ABC news is reporting that the President will announce his nominee shortly.
BREAKING: Pres. Trump is expected to put forth a nominee to fill Ruth Bader Ginsburg's seat in the coming days, multiple sources close to the president and with direct knowledge of the situation tell @ABC News. https://t.co/NpSSjiSOLo
— ABC News (@ABC) September 19, 2020
I expect that the President will announce his nominee no later than Wednesday and that Senator McConnell will have that nominee up for a vote before the full Senate no later than the Wednesday after that so that the new justice can be seated before the Supreme Court starts its new term in October. And to try to do sort of a judicial nomination shock and awe campaign by moving so quickly that no one can respond to what McConnell is doing.
I’ve seen Senator Murkowski’s statement, and it was nice to read, but the simple reality is that for Senators Collins, McSally, Gardner, Tillis, and Graham it is ride or die. They cannot let go of the tiger that is the President and his base at this point because it will not get them the Democratic votes to either save them in the case of Collins, McSally, and Gardner, nor to open up their reelection campaigns from the statistical ties that Tillis and Graham are in. Abandoning the President and his base of supporters on this will cost them more support and votes, then trying to look like they’re standing on principle.
The question is not what can be done to stop it, though I definitely believe as much hell as possible should be raised over what Senator McConnell is going to do. The question is what you are willing to do after Senator McConnell does what he is going to do to install a sixth conservative associate justice on the Supreme Court.
I expect there will be violence over this. Violence between senators. Violence directed at senators. And violence between Americans. I’m not calling for it, but as a nat-sec professional who works on low intensity warfare, this is what I expect.
Updated at 10:30 PM EDT
I just want to clarify and elaborate a bit on what I think is likely to happen. I expect that the violence directed at senators will come from the hard core and extreme right. It will be directed at the Republican senators who are being reported as potentially not supporting the President and Senator McConnell on confirming a new justice before the election and the inauguration; Gardner, McSally, Collins, Murkowski, Romney, Graham, Grassley, and Alexander. It will start with threatening emails, voicemails, and direct messages. And it may escalate to actual attempts at physical intimidation to send a message: get or stay in line or else… Similarly, I expect that violence between Americans will originate from the same direction. Some MAGA asshole will decide to gun his car through a vigil being held in memory of RBG or a demonstration and rally to demonstrate to Senator McConnell and his GOP majority that they have to abide by the rules McConnell established in 2016. Or that, as we’ve seen with the MAGA truck/vehicle rallies in Portland, that those supporting the President will show up and pepper spray and paintball those standing vigil for RBG or rallying to pressure McConnell and his GOP majority to not be hypocrites. This violence will be stochastic terrorism, but if it happens, I expect it will originate on the hard core and extreme right.
Open thread.
Breaking News: Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Has Died at Age 87
From NPR:
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the demure firebrand who in her 80s became a legal, cultural, and feminist icon has died. The Supreme Court announced her death, saying the cause was complications from cancer.
Architect of the legal fight for women’s rights in the 1970s, Ginsburg subsequently served 27 years on the nation’s highest court, becoming its most prominent member. Her death will inevitably set in motion what promises to be a nasty and tumultuous political battle over who will succeed her, and it thrusts the Supreme Court vacancy into the spotlight of the presidential campaign.
Just days before her death, as her strength waned, Ginsburg dictated this statement to her granddaughter Clara Spera: “My most fervent wish is that i I will not be replaced until a new president is installed.”
She knew what was to come. Ginsburg’s death will have profound consequences for the court and the country. Inside the court, not only is the leader of the liberal wing gone, but with the Court about to open a new term, Chief Justice John Roberts no longer holds the controlling vote in closely contested cases.
Though he has a consistently conservative record in most cases, he has split from fellow conservatives in a few important ones, this year casting his vote with liberals, for instance, to at least temporarily protect the so-called Dreamers from deportation by the Trump administration, to uphold a major abortion precedent, and to uphold bans on large church gatherings during the coronavirus pandemic. But with Ginsburg gone, there is no clear court majority for those outcomes.
Senator McConnell will now get his career long wish: to establish a permanent conservative majority on the Supreme Court. In January 2019, I wrote this as part of a post about Senator McConnell:
And he telegraphed during the hearings for Brett Kavanaugh that he’s gearing up to leverage another potential Supreme Court vacancy* in 2019 or 2020 as a political weapon in the 2020 presidential and senatorial elections.
* I’m expecting, provided Justice Ginsburg completes her recovery as expected and remains healthy, that the administration in conjunction with Leonard Leo from The Federalist Society and Senator McConnell will try to replicate with Justice Thomas what they did in the summer of 2018 with Justice Kennedy. Specifically, they’ll create a retirement and subsequent Supreme Court vacancy during the late summer to early fall of 2020 that the President and Republican senators can campaign for reelection on. Thereby replicating the dynamic that Senator McConnell created and the President leveraged in his campaign that it was necessary to elect him, in this case reelect him, and to reelect the GOP majority in the Senate to ensure that the Democrats don’t appoint the next Supreme Court justice, change the balance of the Supreme Court, and destroy the Constitution and thereby the United States.
The above analysis was based on an assessment I did for someone as the Kavanaugh hearings was coming to an end. That assessment is attached here:
McConnell_Rule_Pattern_Analysis
Now we wait to see what Senator McConnell decides to do, as well as the effects of RBG’s passing on the 2020 elections.
May her memory be for a blessing.
Open thread!
Breaking News: Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Has Died at Age 87Post + Comments (181)