Crooked Media - What A Day: Flimflam at the Graham sham

The Senate Judiciary Committee has begun a week of Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Judge Amy Coney Barrett, in the midst of an ongoing coronavirus outbreak sparked by Barrett’s own nomination ceremony and an election in which more than nine million people have already voted. 
 

• Senators gathered for opening statements in Barrett’s confirmation less than two weeks after two committee members tested positive for coronavirus. One of the ill, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), attended the first hearing in person in order to breathe on an 87-year-old and make his opening statement without wearing a mask, on the strength of a doctor’s letter that did not say Lee had tested negative, but reassuringly noted that his symptoms had resolved yesterday. Get this healthy man some hugs!
   
• Republicans have shown no particular interest in preventing the four days of hearings from turning into a second coronavirus catastrophe. Chairman Lindsey Graham rejected Democrats’ demands to require coronavirus testing for all senators on the committee, after refusing to get tested himself last week, lest a positive test derail the confirmation process. White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who’s been in constant contact with our large, Covid-positive president, refused to talk to reporters outside the hearing after they insisted he keep his mask on. Fortunately for our collective blood pressure, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) made her opening statement from a safe virtual distance. 
   
• Within those utterly bonkers circumstances, Monday’s hearing unfolded as expected: Democrats focused on the implications of Barrett’s appointment for the future of the Affordable Care Act, sharing stories of their constituents who would be hurt if the Court sides with the Trump administration to strike it down. Republicans falsely accused Democrats of hating Barrett because she’s Catholic and a mom (?).  Barrett spoke about her family and praised the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) called on Barrett to recuse herself from any election-related cases, which she declined to commit to doing in her Senate paperwork.

Amy Coney Barrett’s potential participation in a post-election dispute is of course half the reason Republicans are risking lives (including their own) to get her seated before November 3.
 

• If she’s confirmed, Barrett would become the third Supreme Court justice, along with John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh, to have worked for Republicans during the 2000 Florida recount debacle. Not only did Barrett work on Bush v. Gore to prevent Democratic ballots from being counted, she was also involved in two other 2000 cases in which Republicans sought to count mail-in ballots that Democrats had disputed because of evidence that GOP operatives had altered flawed ballot request forms. 
   
• Trump is very publicly counting on her ruling in his favor should such a dispute arise in this election. Even if that scheme falls through, though, Barrett’s confirmation could have disastrous, far-reaching implications for voting rights: the Court is set to hear two combined cases that could destroy what’s left of the Voting Rights Act, and allow racist voter discrimination to run rampant for generations to come. 
   

Beyond phoning Lindsey Graham and calling him a sick little weasel (always recommended), and other forms of protest, there isn’t much we as citizens can do to stop the GOP Senate from dangerously and illegitimately confirming Amy Coney Barrett instead of, say, passing coronavirus relief. What we can do is help Joe Biden win by a landslide large enough to make Barrett’s election-meddling inclinations irrelevant, and elect a Senate that’s willing to undo the Republican theft of the Court. Shall we?

Election Day is 22 days away and as of today, Vote Save America officially has everything you need to be the most informed voter you can be on (or before!) November 3rd. Our brand new Build Your Own Ballot Tool will help you get smart about everything that will be on your ballot in your state. You can also fill out sample ballot, then save it so you can have a cheat sheet with you when you cast your real ballot. Come on over and BYOB →

California Republicans have been setting up fake ballot drop boxes and encouraging voters to use them, in a brilliant ploy to prove the existence of voter fraud by committing a bunch of voter fraud. The California GOP has advertised the locations of unofficial boxes around Southern California on social media, and justified their use by citing a 2016 law that allows campaign volunteers in the state to collect ballots on behalf of voters. The “volunteer” component is a crucial aspect of that law, which does not permit tricking voters into putting their ballot in an unattended metal box marked “Official ballot drop-off box.” Setting up and advertising unauthorized drop boxes, which the National Republican Congressional Committee has also defended on Twitter, could be a felony that carries a two-to-four-year prison sentence. Anyway, here’s where to find a real drop box in California. 

• President Trump held a campaign rally at the White House on Saturday, putting some of his most vulnerable supporters at risk for coronavirus exposure. Trump, who only today announced negative antigen tests and whose Saturday doctor’s memo implied a recent fever and other symptoms, plans to hold superspreading rallies in Florida, Pennsylvania, Iowa, and North Carolina this week, and is off to an incredibly normal start. 
   
• A new Trump campaign ad uses out-of-context comments from Dr. Anthony Fauci to create the impression that he’d lauded the administration’s pandemic response. After Fauci spoke up about not consenting to be featured and the manipulation of his words, the Trump campaign said it would continue running the ad anyway. Fauci has asked for it to be taken down, and the Biden campaign has made some hay to draw attention to this latest Trump lie. 
   
• New polls from the New York Times/Siena College find Joe Biden leading by a significant margin in Michigan and Wisconsin, as white voters peel away from Trump. That polling also found Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) leading by just one percentage point in Michigan, and we need his seat to take the Senate. All hands on deck!
   
• On Friday night, a federal judge overturned an order from Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) limiting ballot drop-off sites to just one per county. On Saturday, a panel of three Texas judges all appointed by Trump temporarily blocked that ruling from taking effect. 
   
• Facebook will now ban holocaust denial content, a bold cutting-edge policy reflecting the exciting new insights bestowed upon Mark Zuckerberg in the year 2020.
   
• Amy Jolene Thorn, a nurse and Upstanding RNC Speaker, was arrested after shooting a woman in the abdomen. 
   
• A Regeneron executive and one of its directors sold $1 million worth of stock after Trump announced he’d taken the company’s therapeutic. More like Regen-Enron, amirite?
   
• Trump reportedly wanted to pull a Willy Wonka on his way out of Walter Reed, at first appearing frail before ripping open his dress shirt to reveal a Superman t-shirt beneath. Between that and his clinching the coveted Taliban endorsement, we’re hard-pressed to think of anybody cooler.
   
• Mayor Lonnie Norman of Manchester, TN, the city that hosts Bonnaroo, has died of coronavirus. He was 79.
   
• This is slowly becoming a Mandy Patinkin newsletter, and you know what, so be it. 

The New York Times found over 200 companies, special interest groups, and foreign governments that patronized Trump’s businesses in exchange for favors and influence. After promising to drain the swamp in 2016, Trump used his family businesses to build a system of direct presidential-influence trade. In the first two years of his presidency, 60 patrons with interests at stake before the Trump administration brought Trump’s family business nearly $12 million, and all saw their interests served in some form. Trump personally kept an eye on the Trump Organization and Mar-a-Lago membership after pledging to step back; one Florida lobbyist who joined Mar-a-Lago midway through Trump’s term reportedly told associates that he did so in accordance with Trump’s wishes that he “ante up.” Biden 2020: Drain the brand new, infinitely grosser swamp?

Today, as cities contemplate reopening and rebuilding their local economies, Lyft has expanded its Jobs Access Program to provide access to rides and additional job search support through Goodwill and United Way in 20 major cities. A ride — whether it's on a Lyft bike, scooter, or rideshare — can go a long way towards supporting an individual’s economic mobility and recovery. In the first year of the Jobs Access Program, Lyft provided nearly 20,000 rides through its partners.

The program focuses on three key interventions in the employment pipeline that are critical to individual success, and where transportation can play a major role:

• Rides to/from job training programs
• Rides to/from job interviews
• Rides to/from the first three weeks of employment, until individuals receive their first paycheck and begin to pay for their own transportation

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) has signed “clean slate” legislation that will automatically expunge certain misdemeanor and felony records after a period of time. 

A Wisconsin judge has denied a GOP lawsuit against Gov. Tony Evers (R-WI), upholding the state’s mask mandate. 

A federal judge has upheld Minnesota’s seven-day deadline extension for counting mail-in ballots. 

Nearly 300,000 people registered to vote in Texas in the two-week period just before the registration deadline. Texas has now gained 1.8 million new voters since 2016.