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babylonsister
babylonsister's Journal
babylonsister's Journal
June 23, 2020
The Biden whisperer in the Senate
Sen. Chris Coons is poised to play a critical role in advancing Biden's agenda if Trump is defeated.
By MARIANNE LEVINE
06/23/2020 04:30 AM EDT
If Joe Biden wins in November, much of his agenda will hinge on a potentially surprising power-player: Chris Coons.
Facing a pandemic, struggling economy and perhaps myriad other crises, the gridlock that has long gripped the Senate will instantly threaten Biden’s presidency — and Coons is uniquely positioned to step in.
The Delaware Democrat maintains almost familial ties with Biden, while also enjoying close relationships with GOP senators, with whom he’s starting to have conversations about what the Senate could look like if Biden is elected president.
With Democrats’ odds growing to win the White House and potentially the Senate, lawmakers are beginning to envision life under a Biden administration. And Coons would play a critical role in shepherding the former vice president’s legislative priorities.
more...
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/23/chris-coons-biden-senate-334270
The Biden whisperer in the Senate
The Biden whisperer in the Senate
Sen. Chris Coons is poised to play a critical role in advancing Biden's agenda if Trump is defeated.
By MARIANNE LEVINE
06/23/2020 04:30 AM EDT
If Joe Biden wins in November, much of his agenda will hinge on a potentially surprising power-player: Chris Coons.
Facing a pandemic, struggling economy and perhaps myriad other crises, the gridlock that has long gripped the Senate will instantly threaten Biden’s presidency — and Coons is uniquely positioned to step in.
The Delaware Democrat maintains almost familial ties with Biden, while also enjoying close relationships with GOP senators, with whom he’s starting to have conversations about what the Senate could look like if Biden is elected president.
With Democrats’ odds growing to win the White House and potentially the Senate, lawmakers are beginning to envision life under a Biden administration. And Coons would play a critical role in shepherding the former vice president’s legislative priorities.
“We're going to have a real challenge being able to legislate,” Coons warned in an hourlong interview. “If we're going to legislate durable solutions … we have to be having conversations now about what's the path forward towards a healthier, more functional Senate.”
more...
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/23/chris-coons-biden-senate-334270
June 23, 2020
The Supreme Court May Be Tired of Bill Barr
The attorney general seems unstoppable in all but one important venue.
By Dahlia Lithwick
June 22, 20206:25 PM
How much further can Bill Barr push it? Having repurposed the august Department of Justice to serve as Donald Trump’s personal sanitation staff and all-out vengeance machine, the attorney general has fallen so low that his single overriding purpose now seems to be to protect the president’s friends and persecute his enemies. He has yet to face any consequences for his actions, though they are more appalling by the day. Rep. Jerry Nadler on Sunday dismissed impeachment of Barr as “a waste of time.” But there are at least tentative signs that the disgrace that Barr has brought upon himself and his Justice Department is starting to wear on the one institution that can hold him to account: the U.S. Supreme Court, or more precisely, on Chief Justice John Roberts, whose fifth vote is essential to most of Barr’s dreams.
snip//
Still, the disgust Bill Barr has amassed is widespread and bipartisan. Lindsey Graham expressed dismay at the way the Berman firing was handled. This Tuesday, over 80 percent of the George Washington University law faculty signed a letter condemning Barr, a GWU alum and member of the law school’s Board of Advisors, for a long series of lawless actions, from distorting the Mueller findings to the clearing of Lafayette Square. “Since 2019 Attorney General Barr has made the Department of Justice unrecognizable to those of us who prize its independence from politics and its commitment to the highest standards of the legal profession,” these signatories note in the letter. “We cannot remain silent in the wake of the damage he has done to the integrity of the Department, the rule of law, and the constitutional order.” This letter, on top of the previous letters from DOJ alums, reveals the extent to which the famously reserved legal profession has recoiled in horror at Barr’s complete contempt for the legal and institutional values that the department traditionally privileged above partisanship.
The Supreme Court may also be paying attention to the legal profession’s rejection of the attorney general. After all, the signatories to the letters are educators and lawyers with handprints all over the federal court system. The Berman firing and ensuing GWU letter come just as Barr’s DOJ is reeling from one of its worst weeks at the U.S. Supreme Court. Landmark defeats in both the Title VII and DACA rescission cases were not merely body blows for Donald Trump, and on his signature issues of religious freedom to discriminate and immigration enforcement, but also blows for the Justice Department, even if they originated under former Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The DOJ has been relentless in seeking that the Supreme Court clean up its spills, running cases directly to John Roberts’ door. The court has gone along with these demands in many cases, frequently lifting lower court stays to allow Trump administration policies to go into effect even as they are challenged in court. But the charms of doing Trump’s bidding—particularly in cases with sloppy lawyering and quitting DOJ attorneys—may be wearing thin. Last week’s losses, plus the refusal of the court to take up the Justice Department’s attack on California’s sanctuary city laws, may signal that Barr, as much as Trump himself, has worn out his welcome at the Supreme Court.
In short, one has to begin to wonder whether Barr, a textbook zealot who cares not at all for preserving the appearance of propriety or independence, may have finally met his match in Chief Justice John Roberts, who prizes those things even above partisan outcomes. As Preet Bharara pointed out this past weekend, the slow decay of the integrity of the DOJ is not something that can be checked by laws, statutes, or rules. The Justice Department and its prized independence are the result of decadeslong norms and a post-Watergate battle for public trust. Bill Barr doesn’t give a damn about norms or public trust, but John Roberts cares about them a great deal, and he may prove to be the one man that could make a difference in their restoration.
The endless end of term will reveal the extent of Roberts’ disdain for a DOJ that wants the court to do the unpopular work of allowing LGBTQ discrimination, gutting DACA, and punishing sanctuary cities, all as DOJ lawyers turn in shoddy work and indefensible analysis. Roberts was already bored of such conduct in last year’s census cases. It remains to be seen whether he will sign off on the extreme work product behind the president’s financial records claims.
For those who were sorely disappointed by Roberts’ refusal to use the Senate impeachment trial to slap back at Trump and Trumpism, that ask was, at least in my view, always too public and too dramatic of a man who doesn’t want to be in the limelight any more than necessary. John Roberts was never one to go mano a mano against the president. But just as Barr seems to be happy to dismantle the rule of law brick by brick, in the dark of night, over years, the chief justice may be prepared to thwart him, case by case, brick by brick, in narrow opinions that draw little attention in the moment but land a body blow in the aggregate. Right now, Barr appears to be unstoppable simply because he is determined to use the power and prestige of the Justice Department to fight Trump’s most trivial and demeaning personal battles. But as lawyers inside the DOJ and throughout the country give voice to their concerns, they may have an ally on the inside who hates the corrosion of justice and law as much as they do. It’s easy to characterize Barr as unstoppable simply because no amount of public outrage seems to stop him. But at some point, Barr will possibly go too far for John Roberts, and that may be the beginning of the end—and it may have already begun.
Dahlia Lithwick: The Supreme Court May Be Tired of Bill Barr
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/06/supreme-court-bill-barr-unstoppable.htmlThe Supreme Court May Be Tired of Bill Barr
The attorney general seems unstoppable in all but one important venue.
By Dahlia Lithwick
June 22, 20206:25 PM
How much further can Bill Barr push it? Having repurposed the august Department of Justice to serve as Donald Trump’s personal sanitation staff and all-out vengeance machine, the attorney general has fallen so low that his single overriding purpose now seems to be to protect the president’s friends and persecute his enemies. He has yet to face any consequences for his actions, though they are more appalling by the day. Rep. Jerry Nadler on Sunday dismissed impeachment of Barr as “a waste of time.” But there are at least tentative signs that the disgrace that Barr has brought upon himself and his Justice Department is starting to wear on the one institution that can hold him to account: the U.S. Supreme Court, or more precisely, on Chief Justice John Roberts, whose fifth vote is essential to most of Barr’s dreams.
snip//
Still, the disgust Bill Barr has amassed is widespread and bipartisan. Lindsey Graham expressed dismay at the way the Berman firing was handled. This Tuesday, over 80 percent of the George Washington University law faculty signed a letter condemning Barr, a GWU alum and member of the law school’s Board of Advisors, for a long series of lawless actions, from distorting the Mueller findings to the clearing of Lafayette Square. “Since 2019 Attorney General Barr has made the Department of Justice unrecognizable to those of us who prize its independence from politics and its commitment to the highest standards of the legal profession,” these signatories note in the letter. “We cannot remain silent in the wake of the damage he has done to the integrity of the Department, the rule of law, and the constitutional order.” This letter, on top of the previous letters from DOJ alums, reveals the extent to which the famously reserved legal profession has recoiled in horror at Barr’s complete contempt for the legal and institutional values that the department traditionally privileged above partisanship.
The Supreme Court may also be paying attention to the legal profession’s rejection of the attorney general. After all, the signatories to the letters are educators and lawyers with handprints all over the federal court system. The Berman firing and ensuing GWU letter come just as Barr’s DOJ is reeling from one of its worst weeks at the U.S. Supreme Court. Landmark defeats in both the Title VII and DACA rescission cases were not merely body blows for Donald Trump, and on his signature issues of religious freedom to discriminate and immigration enforcement, but also blows for the Justice Department, even if they originated under former Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The DOJ has been relentless in seeking that the Supreme Court clean up its spills, running cases directly to John Roberts’ door. The court has gone along with these demands in many cases, frequently lifting lower court stays to allow Trump administration policies to go into effect even as they are challenged in court. But the charms of doing Trump’s bidding—particularly in cases with sloppy lawyering and quitting DOJ attorneys—may be wearing thin. Last week’s losses, plus the refusal of the court to take up the Justice Department’s attack on California’s sanctuary city laws, may signal that Barr, as much as Trump himself, has worn out his welcome at the Supreme Court.
In short, one has to begin to wonder whether Barr, a textbook zealot who cares not at all for preserving the appearance of propriety or independence, may have finally met his match in Chief Justice John Roberts, who prizes those things even above partisan outcomes. As Preet Bharara pointed out this past weekend, the slow decay of the integrity of the DOJ is not something that can be checked by laws, statutes, or rules. The Justice Department and its prized independence are the result of decadeslong norms and a post-Watergate battle for public trust. Bill Barr doesn’t give a damn about norms or public trust, but John Roberts cares about them a great deal, and he may prove to be the one man that could make a difference in their restoration.
The endless end of term will reveal the extent of Roberts’ disdain for a DOJ that wants the court to do the unpopular work of allowing LGBTQ discrimination, gutting DACA, and punishing sanctuary cities, all as DOJ lawyers turn in shoddy work and indefensible analysis. Roberts was already bored of such conduct in last year’s census cases. It remains to be seen whether he will sign off on the extreme work product behind the president’s financial records claims.
For those who were sorely disappointed by Roberts’ refusal to use the Senate impeachment trial to slap back at Trump and Trumpism, that ask was, at least in my view, always too public and too dramatic of a man who doesn’t want to be in the limelight any more than necessary. John Roberts was never one to go mano a mano against the president. But just as Barr seems to be happy to dismantle the rule of law brick by brick, in the dark of night, over years, the chief justice may be prepared to thwart him, case by case, brick by brick, in narrow opinions that draw little attention in the moment but land a body blow in the aggregate. Right now, Barr appears to be unstoppable simply because he is determined to use the power and prestige of the Justice Department to fight Trump’s most trivial and demeaning personal battles. But as lawyers inside the DOJ and throughout the country give voice to their concerns, they may have an ally on the inside who hates the corrosion of justice and law as much as they do. It’s easy to characterize Barr as unstoppable simply because no amount of public outrage seems to stop him. But at some point, Barr will possibly go too far for John Roberts, and that may be the beginning of the end—and it may have already begun.
June 23, 2020
Biden Vetting Karen Bass as Possible Running Mate
June 23, 2020 at 7:43 am EDT By Taegan Goddard
Biden Vetting Karen Bass as Possible Running Mate
https://politicalwire.com/2020/06/23/biden-vetting-karen-bass-as-possible-running-mate/Biden Vetting Karen Bass as Possible Running Mate
June 23, 2020 at 7:43 am EDT By Taegan Goddard
Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA), chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, is undergoing vetting as a candidate to be Joe Biden’s running mate, CBS News reports.
It is not immediately clear where Bass stands in the vetting process but her name has been floated for consideration by powerful Democrats like House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC).
It is not immediately clear where Bass stands in the vetting process but her name has been floated for consideration by powerful Democrats like House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC).
June 23, 2020
4 hours ago
Kentucky Votes Today. Here Are All the Ways Mitch McConnell Has Made That Harder.
The state’s senior senator has repeatedly refused to vote on bills to improve ballot access.
Ari Berman
Senior ReporterBio
It’s been a primary season full of polling-place disasters, and as Kentuckians vote on Tuesday, there’s reason to believe another one could be on the way. Amid coronavirus concerns, Kentucky has cut the number of polling places from its usual 3700 to just 200, with just one polling place each for the state’s two biggest cities, Louisville and Lexington. The likes of LeBron James have tweeted their dismay about the possibility of long lines and voter suppression.
The most-watched race in the state is the Democratic US Senate primary between Charles Booker and Amy McGrath to decide who will face off against Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in November. Primary elections throughout the country this year have been marred by long lines and confusion over mail-in ballots, and Kentucky’s may be no exception. But McConnell has been steadfast in blocking a series of bills passed by the Democratic-led House of Representatives that would make it easier to vote.
Here are the major bills McConnell is refusing to hold votes on:
McConnell’s opposition to these bills could have an outsize impact in Kentucky, where the Republican-controlled state legislature passed a new voter ID law for November that could make it more difficult to cast a ballot and is expected to disproportionately affect voters of color, who are less likely to possess the required photo IDs. The legislature also has yet to commit to expanding vote-by-mail for the general election. In 2016, Kentucky ranked 44th in MIT’s election performance index, which measures each state’s voter participation and ballot access. McConnell’s refusal to make it easier to vote amid an unprecedented public health crisis and widespread voting problems in the primaries will only increase the likelihood of an election meltdown in November.
Kentucky Votes Today. Here Are All the Ways Mitch McConnell Has Made That Harder.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/06/kentucky-votes-today-here-are-all-the-ways-mitch-mcconnell-has-made-that-harder/4 hours ago
Kentucky Votes Today. Here Are All the Ways Mitch McConnell Has Made That Harder.
The state’s senior senator has repeatedly refused to vote on bills to improve ballot access.
Ari Berman
Senior ReporterBio
It’s been a primary season full of polling-place disasters, and as Kentuckians vote on Tuesday, there’s reason to believe another one could be on the way. Amid coronavirus concerns, Kentucky has cut the number of polling places from its usual 3700 to just 200, with just one polling place each for the state’s two biggest cities, Louisville and Lexington. The likes of LeBron James have tweeted their dismay about the possibility of long lines and voter suppression.
The most-watched race in the state is the Democratic US Senate primary between Charles Booker and Amy McGrath to decide who will face off against Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in November. Primary elections throughout the country this year have been marred by long lines and confusion over mail-in ballots, and Kentucky’s may be no exception. But McConnell has been steadfast in blocking a series of bills passed by the Democratic-led House of Representatives that would make it easier to vote.
Here are the major bills McConnell is refusing to hold votes on:
In March 2019, the House passed the “For the People Act,” the most significant democracy reform bill in a generation. It would make it easier to vote through policies like nationwide automatic voter registration and two weeks of early voting in every state. McConnell strongly opposed the bill, dubbing it “the Democrat Politician Protection Act,” and called the idea of making Election Day a federal holiday a “power grab” by Democrats, seemingly admitting that Republicans lose when more people vote.
In December 2019, the House passed a bill to restore and modernize the Voting Rights Act after the Supreme Court ruled in 2013 that states with a long history of voting discrimination no longer needed to approve their election changes with the federal government. It would require states like Georgia and Texas—which have slashed hundreds of polling places in recent years, leading to six-hour lines at the polls—to seek federal approval for such potentially discriminatory election changes. McConnell has taken no action on the bill for 200 days and said in 2016 that he opposed reinstating the preclearance section of the VRA.
In May of this year, the House passed the “Heroes Act,” a coronavirus relief bill that would give $3.6 billion in election aid to help states run their elections in November. This would allow states to open more polling places, buy new voting equipment to handle a surge of mail-in ballots, and equip election workers with protective gear to shield them from coronavirus. It would also require states to expand vote-by-mail and have at least 15 days of early voting to guard against the spread of COVID-19 and would give the United States Postal Service $25 million to help with vote-by-mail. McConnell has yet to schedule a vote on it, saying only that the next round of coronavirus relief should be “narrowly crafted.” Republicans have also blocked consideration of the “VoteSafe Act” by Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), which includes many similar election reforms.
McConnell has blocked three bills passed by the House aimed at preventing election interference. They would require campaigns to notify the FBI and Federal Election Commission if contacted by foreign actors and require states to use voting machines with paper backups. McConnell has been sharply criticized by election officials in his home state for blocking funding for election security.
In December 2019, the House passed a bill to restore and modernize the Voting Rights Act after the Supreme Court ruled in 2013 that states with a long history of voting discrimination no longer needed to approve their election changes with the federal government. It would require states like Georgia and Texas—which have slashed hundreds of polling places in recent years, leading to six-hour lines at the polls—to seek federal approval for such potentially discriminatory election changes. McConnell has taken no action on the bill for 200 days and said in 2016 that he opposed reinstating the preclearance section of the VRA.
In May of this year, the House passed the “Heroes Act,” a coronavirus relief bill that would give $3.6 billion in election aid to help states run their elections in November. This would allow states to open more polling places, buy new voting equipment to handle a surge of mail-in ballots, and equip election workers with protective gear to shield them from coronavirus. It would also require states to expand vote-by-mail and have at least 15 days of early voting to guard against the spread of COVID-19 and would give the United States Postal Service $25 million to help with vote-by-mail. McConnell has yet to schedule a vote on it, saying only that the next round of coronavirus relief should be “narrowly crafted.” Republicans have also blocked consideration of the “VoteSafe Act” by Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), which includes many similar election reforms.
McConnell has blocked three bills passed by the House aimed at preventing election interference. They would require campaigns to notify the FBI and Federal Election Commission if contacted by foreign actors and require states to use voting machines with paper backups. McConnell has been sharply criticized by election officials in his home state for blocking funding for election security.
McConnell’s opposition to these bills could have an outsize impact in Kentucky, where the Republican-controlled state legislature passed a new voter ID law for November that could make it more difficult to cast a ballot and is expected to disproportionately affect voters of color, who are less likely to possess the required photo IDs. The legislature also has yet to commit to expanding vote-by-mail for the general election. In 2016, Kentucky ranked 44th in MIT’s election performance index, which measures each state’s voter participation and ballot access. McConnell’s refusal to make it easier to vote amid an unprecedented public health crisis and widespread voting problems in the primaries will only increase the likelihood of an election meltdown in November.
June 23, 2020
Posted on Mon, Jun 22nd, 2020 by Jason Easley
Biden Stops Trump’s Plan To Rig The Debates Dead In Its Tracks
Former Vice President Biden made it clear to the Commission On Presidential Debates that there will not be additional presidential debates with Trump chosen moderators.
CBS News reported:
The Trump campaign was trying to get more debates with Joe Biden on the condition that they got to pick the moderators. Biden was never going to agree to such a condition, and there is no need for him to do any additional debates. Candidates who are winning have nothing to gain by agreeing to additional debates.
Trump has been threatening to skip the 2020 debates for years because he fears the moderators.
Trump is losing, and he is going to have to debate Joe Biden in a neutral setting. The former vice president isn’t going to allow Trump to rig the debates.
Biden Stops Trump's Plan To Rig The Debates Dead In Its Tracks
https://www.politicususa.com/2020/06/22/biden-no-more-debates.htmlPosted on Mon, Jun 22nd, 2020 by Jason Easley
Biden Stops Trump’s Plan To Rig The Debates Dead In Its Tracks
Former Vice President Biden made it clear to the Commission On Presidential Debates that there will not be additional presidential debates with Trump chosen moderators.
CBS News reported:
The Biden campaign is also calling on the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates to explain how it plans to hold the in-person debates scheduled for September and October, despite the coronavirus pandemic.
“There is no reason why Vice President Biden and President Trump cannot meet for debates with appropriate safety and social distancing measures (set by public health authorities) on the three dates the CPD has identified. Nothing should prevent the conduct of debates between Joe Biden and Donald Trump on these dates; again, we do not want to provide President Trump with any excuses for not debating,” the Biden campaign wrote in a letter to the commission on Monday.
“There is no reason why Vice President Biden and President Trump cannot meet for debates with appropriate safety and social distancing measures (set by public health authorities) on the three dates the CPD has identified. Nothing should prevent the conduct of debates between Joe Biden and Donald Trump on these dates; again, we do not want to provide President Trump with any excuses for not debating,” the Biden campaign wrote in a letter to the commission on Monday.
The Trump campaign was trying to get more debates with Joe Biden on the condition that they got to pick the moderators. Biden was never going to agree to such a condition, and there is no need for him to do any additional debates. Candidates who are winning have nothing to gain by agreeing to additional debates.
Trump has been threatening to skip the 2020 debates for years because he fears the moderators.
Trump is losing, and he is going to have to debate Joe Biden in a neutral setting. The former vice president isn’t going to allow Trump to rig the debates.
June 23, 2020
Trump Tweets Multiple Videos of Random Black Men Attacking People
He needs a straitjacket. 
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-tweets-multiple-videos-of-random-black-men-attacking-people?ref=home
Trump Tweets Multiple Videos of Random Black Men Attacking People
‘SO TERRIBLE!’
Asawin Suebsaeng, White House Reporter
Published Jun. 23, 2020 12:05AM ET
Just after 10:30 p.m. ET on Monday night, President Donald Trump began tweeting out videos of random Black men attacking people in America.
“So terrible!” Trump posted to Twitter, sharing a video from late last year of a woman who was violently shoved by Black man into the side of a subway car in New York City. (The NYPD said in October that the man in question had been arrested.)
Less than two minutes after sending that tweet, the president shared another video clip, posting, “Looks [sic] what’s going on here. Where are the protesters? Was this man arrested?” This video went viral earlier this month and shows a Black man punching a white male inside a Macy’s in Michigan.
Shortly after that one, Trump tweeted about Monday arrests “in D.C. for the disgraceful vandalism, in Lafayette Park [near the White House], of the magnificent Statue of Andrew Jackson, in addition to the exterior defacing of St. John’s Church across the street. 10 years in prison under the Veteran’s Memorial Preservation Act. Beware!”
The White House did not immediately respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment.
“So terrible!” Trump posted to Twitter, sharing a video from late last year of a woman who was violently shoved by Black man into the side of a subway car in New York City. (The NYPD said in October that the man in question had been arrested.)
Less than two minutes after sending that tweet, the president shared another video clip, posting, “Looks [sic] what’s going on here. Where are the protesters? Was this man arrested?” This video went viral earlier this month and shows a Black man punching a white male inside a Macy’s in Michigan.
Shortly after that one, Trump tweeted about Monday arrests “in D.C. for the disgraceful vandalism, in Lafayette Park [near the White House], of the magnificent Statue of Andrew Jackson, in addition to the exterior defacing of St. John’s Church across the street. 10 years in prison under the Veteran’s Memorial Preservation Act. Beware!”
The White House did not immediately respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment.
June 23, 2020
June 23, 2020 6:00AM ET
Donald Trump’s Presidency Is a Saturday Night Massacre That Never Ends
The Trump administration’s assault on judges, watchdogs, and the ideal of impartial justice is ripped straight from the modern autocrat’s playbook, experts say
By Andy Kroll
snip//
“In a normal political environment, a week’s worth of Saturday Night Massacres would lead to [Trump’s] impeachment and probably removal,” Greenberg says. “But we have such dysfunctional polarization, primarily the unwillingness of Republicans to step up and see Trump for what he is, that we’re not in a normal political environment anymore.”
snip//
And the Trump administration’s attack on the justice system doesn’t end with the Barr-led Justice Department. In recent months, the administration removed multiple inspectors general in key oversight positions in what appeared to be retaliation for decisions that angered the president or his allies.
One of the ousted inspectors general was Steve Linick, the State Department’s top watchdog who had opened several probes focusing on Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and an arms deal with Saudi Arabia. Another was Michael Atkinson, the IG for the intelligence community who had vetted and alerted Congress to the whistleblower complaint that helped spark the Trump impeachment inquiry. A third was Glenn Fine, who before he was fired was oversee the spending of the Trump administration’s multitrillion-dollar coronavirus relief package, one of the largest of its kind in U.S. history.
After Trump’s election, as Ian Bassin, the former Obama White House lawyer, prepared to launch his new group Protect Democracy, he and his colleagues consulted with scholars who’ve studied autocracy in places such as Venezuela, Hungary, and Turkey and asked those scholars a question: What do modern autocrats have in common?
“It turns out the playbook is the same all over the world,” Bassin says. “There are basically six things all modern autocrats do and one of them is they politicize independent institutions like law enforcement.” In other words, they capture the referees.
“From the get go, you’ve seen Trump try to do that,” Bassin says.
Donald Trump's Presidency Is a Saturday Night Massacre That Never Ends
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/william-barr-donald-trump-justice-department-geoffrey-berman-roger-stone-michael-flynn-1018964/June 23, 2020 6:00AM ET
Donald Trump’s Presidency Is a Saturday Night Massacre That Never Ends
The Trump administration’s assault on judges, watchdogs, and the ideal of impartial justice is ripped straight from the modern autocrat’s playbook, experts say
By Andy Kroll
snip//
“In a normal political environment, a week’s worth of Saturday Night Massacres would lead to [Trump’s] impeachment and probably removal,” Greenberg says. “But we have such dysfunctional polarization, primarily the unwillingness of Republicans to step up and see Trump for what he is, that we’re not in a normal political environment anymore.”
snip//
And the Trump administration’s attack on the justice system doesn’t end with the Barr-led Justice Department. In recent months, the administration removed multiple inspectors general in key oversight positions in what appeared to be retaliation for decisions that angered the president or his allies.
One of the ousted inspectors general was Steve Linick, the State Department’s top watchdog who had opened several probes focusing on Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and an arms deal with Saudi Arabia. Another was Michael Atkinson, the IG for the intelligence community who had vetted and alerted Congress to the whistleblower complaint that helped spark the Trump impeachment inquiry. A third was Glenn Fine, who before he was fired was oversee the spending of the Trump administration’s multitrillion-dollar coronavirus relief package, one of the largest of its kind in U.S. history.
After Trump’s election, as Ian Bassin, the former Obama White House lawyer, prepared to launch his new group Protect Democracy, he and his colleagues consulted with scholars who’ve studied autocracy in places such as Venezuela, Hungary, and Turkey and asked those scholars a question: What do modern autocrats have in common?
“It turns out the playbook is the same all over the world,” Bassin says. “There are basically six things all modern autocrats do and one of them is they politicize independent institutions like law enforcement.” In other words, they capture the referees.
“From the get go, you’ve seen Trump try to do that,” Bassin says.
June 23, 2020
Trump team weighs a CDC scrubbing to deflect mounting criticism
With Trump under fire for his handling of the outbreak, his advisers are eyeing the federal bureaucracy for other culprits ahead of the election.
By NANCY COOK and ADAM CANCRYN
06/23/2020 04:30 AM EDT
White House officials are putting a target on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, positioning the agency as a coronavirus scapegoat as cases surge in many states and the U.S. falls behind other nations that are taming the pandemic.
Trump administration aides in recent weeks have seriously discussed launching an in-depth evaluation of the agency to chart what they view as its missteps in responding to the pandemic including an early failure to deploy working test kits, according to four senior administration officials. Part of that audit would include examining more closely the state-by-state death toll to tally only the Americans who died directly of Covid-19 rather than other factors. About 120,000 people in the U.S. have died of the coronavirus so far, according to the CDC’s official count.
Aides have also discussed narrowing the mission of the agency or trying to embed more political appointees within it, according to interviews with 10 current and former senior administration officials and Republicans close to the White House. One official said the overall goal would be to make the CDC nimble and more responsive.
more...
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/23/trump-cdc-overhaul-coronavirus-335039
Trump team weighs a CDC scrubbing to deflect mounting criticism
Trump team weighs a CDC scrubbing to deflect mounting criticism
With Trump under fire for his handling of the outbreak, his advisers are eyeing the federal bureaucracy for other culprits ahead of the election.
By NANCY COOK and ADAM CANCRYN
06/23/2020 04:30 AM EDT
White House officials are putting a target on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, positioning the agency as a coronavirus scapegoat as cases surge in many states and the U.S. falls behind other nations that are taming the pandemic.
Trump administration aides in recent weeks have seriously discussed launching an in-depth evaluation of the agency to chart what they view as its missteps in responding to the pandemic including an early failure to deploy working test kits, according to four senior administration officials. Part of that audit would include examining more closely the state-by-state death toll to tally only the Americans who died directly of Covid-19 rather than other factors. About 120,000 people in the U.S. have died of the coronavirus so far, according to the CDC’s official count.
Aides have also discussed narrowing the mission of the agency or trying to embed more political appointees within it, according to interviews with 10 current and former senior administration officials and Republicans close to the White House. One official said the overall goal would be to make the CDC nimble and more responsive.
more...
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/23/trump-cdc-overhaul-coronavirus-335039
June 22, 2020
‘It’s utter nonsense’: Florida Rep. Anthony Sabatini files lawsuit alleging Orange County mask ordinance is unconstitutional
By: Sarah Wilson, WFTV.com
Updated: June 22, 2020 - 5:24 PM
ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — A local lawmaker and Orange County businessman filed a lawsuit on Monday alleging that the executive order requiring Orange County residents to wear face masks to slow the spread of COVID-19 is unconstitutional and infringes on residents’ rights.
Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings put the mask order into effect as of Saturday. The order states that residents must wear masks in public, except in certain circumstances which are outlined here.
On Monday, COVID-19 cases in the county hit 5,000 with more than 100,000 positive cases reported in the state.
more...
https://www.wftv.com/news/local/its-utter-nonsense-florida-rep-anthony-sabatini-files-lawsuit-alleging-orange-county-mask-ordinance-is-unconstitutional/MC6KXPRYUVHMXNOMACKSHNUYMM/
'It's utter nonsense':FL Rep. Sabatini files lawsuit alleging...mask ordinance is unconstitutional
‘It’s utter nonsense’: Florida Rep. Anthony Sabatini files lawsuit alleging Orange County mask ordinance is unconstitutional
By: Sarah Wilson, WFTV.com
Updated: June 22, 2020 - 5:24 PM
ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — A local lawmaker and Orange County businessman filed a lawsuit on Monday alleging that the executive order requiring Orange County residents to wear face masks to slow the spread of COVID-19 is unconstitutional and infringes on residents’ rights.
Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings put the mask order into effect as of Saturday. The order states that residents must wear masks in public, except in certain circumstances which are outlined here.
On Monday, COVID-19 cases in the county hit 5,000 with more than 100,000 positive cases reported in the state.
“We have a loud and unapologetic message that we have to send to the elected officials of Orange County, and that is this: that you have to follow the law and follow the constitution and not invade the private rights of people,” Florida Rep. Anthony Sabatini said in a news conference Monday.
more...
https://www.wftv.com/news/local/its-utter-nonsense-florida-rep-anthony-sabatini-files-lawsuit-alleging-orange-county-mask-ordinance-is-unconstitutional/MC6KXPRYUVHMXNOMACKSHNUYMM/
June 22, 2020
“You Know What to Do”: Decoding the Grotesque Symbolism of Trump’s Tulsa Rally
Instead of unleashing his inner sulking toddler, the scant attendance in Tulsa inspired the president to deliver one of his most rhetorically violent performances, complete with a grim Election Day threat.
By Jeff Sharlet
June 22, 2020
snip//
Those who’ve never seen a Trump speech before remarked on what they took to be its incoherence. They didn’t understand that for his followers, that’s the appeal. It’s a dual signal: simultaneously the official story and the vicious undertow, “the economy” (read: boring) and “comedy,” racist or just mean, “kung flu” like the imitation of a CNN reporter with which, flagging a bit at 12 minutes in, he revved up the proceedings. From there on out he took what he wanted from the teleprompter, but he didn’t look back once at even his own authoritarian sense of decorum. Trump usually tiptoes up to the QAnon conspiracy theories undergirding his base’s faith in “the chosen one”; Saturday night he went romping through them.
snip//
Who is the enemy in this civil war? It’s a secret one, of course. Trump’s frequent claims Saturday night that Joe Biden is “controlled” by unnamed radical powers is straight out of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as filtered through QAnon. I’ve heard similar ideas from many of his supporters. Usually they say George Soros, sometimes the Rothschilds. Sometimes they make it plain: “Jews.”
And then there was this, Trump’s biggest Q “drop” of the night, an escalation that should concern us all: Biden, he said, will “subsidize late-term abortion and after-birth execution.” After-birth execution. This is Pizzagate rhetoric straight from the president’s mouth, a pillar conviction of QAnon, the remarkably widespread belief among his supporters that Democratic elites traffic children, ritually kill them (cue Protocols of the Elders of Zion again), and even eat them. The first time a Trumper told me Democratic elites practice cannibalism, I dismissed it as fringe. By perhaps the fourth or fifth time, I understood cannibalism to be part of the mythos, a minority belief within Trumpism but a potent one in that it validates as “moderate” the belief that the Clinton-Obama–Biden axis merely abuses children.
This obsession with what is done to the bodies of children by Democrats is, like the rape fantasies with which Trump has taken to lacing his rally speeches, grossly sexualized. It is the most violent pedophilia of all, projected onto Trump’s enemies. It allows his followers to wallow in the most grotesquely taboo thoughts and to relish the revenge they’ll take on those whom they imagine actually committing such horrors. And it’s an escalation of the any-means-necessary methods of abortion-clinic bombers. If you really believe abortion is murder, isn’t assassination justified? Take that view up (or down) a notch: If you really believe Democrats are raping and eating children, what punishment would not be merited? What rage would not be righteous? The Trump rally—the collective voicing of such fantasies, their sanctification by way of the flag and, implicitly, the cross—is the ritual by which Trump remakes the American dream into a fetish for revenge.
It’s meant to foment violence—but violence from which Trump can maintain a distance. “We have to go to the polls on November 3,” Trump said Saturday night in Tulsa, “and the rest”—what was “the rest”? He didn’t say. He let his people imagine: a tough hombre, climbing through your window; animals, carving up young women like turkeys; innocent little babies, executed. Imagine revenge, for our people. “And the rest,” Trump said Saturday night in Tulsa, “you know what to do. You know what to do.”
Jeff Sharlet is the author of The Family, recently made into a Netflix documentary series, and This Brilliant Darkness. He is the Frederick Sessions Beebe ’35 Professor in the Art of Writing at Dartmouth College.
"You Know What to Do": Decoding the Grotesque Symbolism of Trump's Tulsa Rally
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/06/decoding-the-grotesque-symbolism-of-trumps-tulsa-rally“You Know What to Do”: Decoding the Grotesque Symbolism of Trump’s Tulsa Rally
Instead of unleashing his inner sulking toddler, the scant attendance in Tulsa inspired the president to deliver one of his most rhetorically violent performances, complete with a grim Election Day threat.
By Jeff Sharlet
June 22, 2020
snip//
Those who’ve never seen a Trump speech before remarked on what they took to be its incoherence. They didn’t understand that for his followers, that’s the appeal. It’s a dual signal: simultaneously the official story and the vicious undertow, “the economy” (read: boring) and “comedy,” racist or just mean, “kung flu” like the imitation of a CNN reporter with which, flagging a bit at 12 minutes in, he revved up the proceedings. From there on out he took what he wanted from the teleprompter, but he didn’t look back once at even his own authoritarian sense of decorum. Trump usually tiptoes up to the QAnon conspiracy theories undergirding his base’s faith in “the chosen one”; Saturday night he went romping through them.
snip//
Who is the enemy in this civil war? It’s a secret one, of course. Trump’s frequent claims Saturday night that Joe Biden is “controlled” by unnamed radical powers is straight out of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as filtered through QAnon. I’ve heard similar ideas from many of his supporters. Usually they say George Soros, sometimes the Rothschilds. Sometimes they make it plain: “Jews.”
And then there was this, Trump’s biggest Q “drop” of the night, an escalation that should concern us all: Biden, he said, will “subsidize late-term abortion and after-birth execution.” After-birth execution. This is Pizzagate rhetoric straight from the president’s mouth, a pillar conviction of QAnon, the remarkably widespread belief among his supporters that Democratic elites traffic children, ritually kill them (cue Protocols of the Elders of Zion again), and even eat them. The first time a Trumper told me Democratic elites practice cannibalism, I dismissed it as fringe. By perhaps the fourth or fifth time, I understood cannibalism to be part of the mythos, a minority belief within Trumpism but a potent one in that it validates as “moderate” the belief that the Clinton-Obama–Biden axis merely abuses children.
This obsession with what is done to the bodies of children by Democrats is, like the rape fantasies with which Trump has taken to lacing his rally speeches, grossly sexualized. It is the most violent pedophilia of all, projected onto Trump’s enemies. It allows his followers to wallow in the most grotesquely taboo thoughts and to relish the revenge they’ll take on those whom they imagine actually committing such horrors. And it’s an escalation of the any-means-necessary methods of abortion-clinic bombers. If you really believe abortion is murder, isn’t assassination justified? Take that view up (or down) a notch: If you really believe Democrats are raping and eating children, what punishment would not be merited? What rage would not be righteous? The Trump rally—the collective voicing of such fantasies, their sanctification by way of the flag and, implicitly, the cross—is the ritual by which Trump remakes the American dream into a fetish for revenge.
It’s meant to foment violence—but violence from which Trump can maintain a distance. “We have to go to the polls on November 3,” Trump said Saturday night in Tulsa, “and the rest”—what was “the rest”? He didn’t say. He let his people imagine: a tough hombre, climbing through your window; animals, carving up young women like turkeys; innocent little babies, executed. Imagine revenge, for our people. “And the rest,” Trump said Saturday night in Tulsa, “you know what to do. You know what to do.”
Jeff Sharlet is the author of The Family, recently made into a Netflix documentary series, and This Brilliant Darkness. He is the Frederick Sessions Beebe ’35 Professor in the Art of Writing at Dartmouth College.
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