In Case You Missed It (v55)

Time for your recap of last week's posts. Grab your cuppa and dive in!

We started the week in the Sunday School classrooms,  in which we heard Senators Cory Booker and Amy Klobuchar speak about the importance of voting as the antidote to any Trump SCOTUS pick, recognizing as they did the (at that point) limited opportunity the Ds in the Senate had of stopping the nomination. That opportunity is now zero, as only Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins have said they believe going forward before the American people have their say is wrong.   

And we heard from Wyoming Senator John Barrasso, who doesn't know the difference between a Senate rule and a mouthful of hypothetical bluster. Barrasso in 2016 said "I want to give the American people a voice in this."  This time around, he doesn't want to do that because, he says without evidence,

If the shoe were on the other foot and the Democrats had the White House and the Senate, they would right now be trying to confirm another member of the Supreme Court. What we're proposing is completely consistent, completely consistent with the precedent. What happened in 2016, and let's go back, we were following the Joe Biden rule.

The "Biden Rule" is something the Democratic nominee said back in 1992, when addressing a hypothetical vacancy on the court. It is not a rule, and it did not have any practical application when he said it.  

It got worse, though, as we heard Texas Senator Ted Cruz explain that he doesn't know the difference between Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, which I think is downright scary. 

Back to the question at hand, he doesn't know if they have the votes, but it's important because Joe Biden "has been explicit. He has said, if he doesn't win, he's going to challenge this election." George pointed out it's actually "president Trump who has been the one talking about rigged elections" and that Biden "has not explicitly said" he'd challenge it, and of course the candidates have legal teams. Cruz said that Hillary Clinton said Biden shouldn't concede, and apparently we're supposed to believe that she and he are one and the same, or something. 

To earn your Sunday School Extra Credit last week, you needed to pay attention to the interview with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The part that got all of the attention was her refusal to say the House wouldn't consider impeaching the #IMPOTUS again - the whole thing about "arrows in her quiver"- but that was not her main point, even though it seemed like it was George Stephanopoulos' main point. 

George asked how Dems can slow or block the nomination. Pelosi focused on voting, noting that 10 states have already started early voting

We just want everyone across the country who cares about health care for all Americans, who cares about crushing the coronavirus, who cares about a woman's right to choose, who cares about LGBTQ rights -- the list goes on and on -- to vote. The election is very important.

Pelosi also pointed out that Congress does have the ability to make good law from bad SCOTUS decisions, and referenced RBG's dissent in the Lilly Ledbetter case which became the first law that Barack Obama signed as president, and that's another reason why people need to vote, "why we have to have a big turnout" in the election. 

She reiterated that point when he pushed her on whether anything was being ruled out. 

This president has threatened to not even accept the results of the election with statements that he and his henchmen have made. So right now, our main goal and I think Ruth Bader Ginsburg would want that to be, would be to protect the integrity of the election as we protect the American people from the coronavirus... 

So again, when people say, "what can I do?" You can vote. You can get out that vote, and you can do so as soon as possible... 

The soundbite about arrows made the news -- the comments about voting did not, of course.

Last week's Wondering on Wednesday included an update on the taxpayer-funded witch hunt into the well-publicized foibles of Hunter Biden, whose money-making efforts had nothing to do with any actions or policies of the United States. 

They did, of course, have to do with Trump trying to get the Ukrainians to investigate Joe Biden, and to the president getting impeached. And dammit, Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson didn't like that, or the audacity of Joe Biden running against the Dear Leader. 

And, since we were on the topic fitness for office, I outlined several examples of the president's many conflicts of interest and the ways he and his family have been profiting from him being in office. 

But the Biden report wasn't the only election interference issue discussed in the post. There were examples from both the elephants and the donkeys. 

What else is going on today?  Well, both the Republicans and the Democrats are actively engaged in sticking their noses in the election.  Let's take the Rs first: according to an article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, 

The Republican National Committee is getting involved in an appeal over absentee ballot deadlines in Georgia, making it the 20th state where the Republican Party is fighting election lawsuits. 

And the Dems? I don't think we need to wonder why they're fighting to keep Syracuse's own Howie Hawkins, the Green Party's presidential candidate, off the ballot in swing states, including Pennsylvania and Wisconsin... After all, we know that any vote for a candidate other than Joe Biden is a vote for Trump, right? Particularly a vote for a more progressive candidate than Biden.  

I can't wait for this election to be over, in SO many ways. Pretty sure I'm not alone in that.  

In a #tbt post from three years ago, I was looking at what to do with the Trump in Transition theme I started before the president was inaugurated. Seems back then I thought I might be able to retire the theme, now that Trump had been president for several months and should have started to grow into the role. 

Instead, he was going off on the NFL owners for allowing displays of patriotism during the national anthem. And me? 

Do I feel threatened, as our still-transitioning president appears to, by people who are willing to take a stand on a very public stage? 

Hardly. Truth be told, I'm encouraged by their actions, and by their patriotism...

It's significantly more patriotic to do that, than to have an American flag waving between your cab and the trailer you're hauling, like the guy I saw on the NYS Thruway last week. The flag was in despicable condition - filthy dirty, gray with soot and road dirt, stained, the colors barely discernible. The ends were shredded; perhaps as much as a third of it had gone into the wind, and it was torn in several spots where the stripes were sewn together. It looked like something you'd find in a dumpster, to be honest. But the truck driver sure is patriotic - he's displaying the FLAG!

I've not yet retired the theme... 

Ending the week, the TGIF entry meandered along a theme of vote-buying, and I'm sure you are shocked - SHOCKED! - at the prospects that anyone would even consider doing anything like that in this day and age, right?  

The post  had a few examples for you to consider: the potential nomination of Judge Barbara Lagoa, a Cuban-American Floridian, which followed the $13B bribe to Puerto Rican voters, many of whom fled to Florida after Hurricane Maria, to Michael Bloomberg's fundraising to help pay off the fines and fees for former Sunshine State felons, to the tweet from the press secretary, announcing a $200 bribe being sent to senior citizens across the land. 

Now, I don't want you to think that I'm just attacking the president for this type of behavior - I've long not been a fan of political handouts during the weeks before an election,  as I noted in this post from 2014 referencing similar behavior by Albany pols.

That these payments are being made to encourage voters to re-elect those in office is virtually irrefutable. One, the checks just happen to be sent out right before the Nov. 4 elections, when they could have been sent most anytime during the year, and two, delivering checks through the Post Office and not by direct deposit is costing taxpayers over $1.6 million in postage just so the legislators can have you manually open an envelope and remove a check hoping you imagine their photo on the face -- much more effective than campaign literature.

And, yes, if you're wondering, I'll say the exactly the same thing if another stimulus payment gets deposited in our account before November 3rd.  And I hope you'll say the same thing, too. 

So, there you have it - the full and veritable pastiche from last week. I'll be back later with Sunday School, if I can stand what will be a contentious bunch of classroom visits.