TGIF 9/25/20

Yippee -- it's Friday! Let's make our lists, OK? Good week folks over here, bad week folks over there. 

Starting with the president and his decision that will come tomorrow, unless it's today, but more likely tomorrow, but sometime before the day after tomorrow, we'll hear who will be the person on whom the onus of ensuring a Trump victory in a contested election will fall.  

Will it be Catholic mid-westerner Judge Amy Coney Barrett? She's said to be the front-runner, but it might be Cuban-American Floridian Judge Barbara Lagoa, about whom Trump has said,

"Well, she's excellent. She's Hispanic. She's a terrific woman, from everything I know. I don't know her. Florida; we love Florida. So, she's got a lot of things. Very smart. 

She's got a lot of things, including a Florida address, and we know how important that is to Trump. Heck, he'd nominate a ham sandwich if he thought that would get him votes...

Sticking with the election, and Florida, where we know the president has already promised to invest $13 billion of taxpayer money in Puerto Rico in order to encourage Puerto Rican transplants to vote for him help rebuild the island nation from the devastation he previously helped with paper towels, we learn that there are two kinds of vote-buying: the kind that don't get investigated, including blatant presidential actions, and the kind that do, including Michael Bloomberg's raising of $20 million or so in funds to pay the fines of released felons who would otherwise not be able to vote. Now, there are a few things that we should pay attention to here:

• An estimated 80 percent of felons in Florida are too poor to pay off their fees and fines, meaning they would be unable to vote. Most owe between $500 and $5,000.
• The Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, a non-partisan group, collects money to help felons pay off their court costs, fees, and fines - and it's legal to do that in Florida. court fees, fines or restitution.
• Florida has a law that says, "No person shall directly or indirectly give or promise anything of value to another intending thereby to buy that person’s or another’s vote.”

Now, is there any guarantee that any of these former felons are even going to register to vote, much less consider the payment of their fines as a bribe in order to coerce them into voting for Joe Biden and not Donald Trump? Nope.  That said, Bloomberg's focus on this particular voting bloc, along with his promise to invest $100 million to help Biden win Florida, are complicating the situation. 

And, it's also interesting to note that the aforementioned Judge Barbara Lagoa agreed with the decision that the repayment of fees and fines, added by the Republican legislature after the state overwhelmingly voted to allow former felons to vote, was legal.  I guess she does have a lot of things, as Trump said. 

Sticking with legal stuff, a federal judge has barred the administration from ending the 2020 Census next week, and has instead said they must continue counting through October 31st. The decision, which comes after the Administration has been all over the map in terms of extending or ending the count, who gets counted, and so on, was cheered by both local governments, who rely on a full and accurate count to get their fair share of federal funding, and by civil rights groups fearful that their constituents would be undercounted.  Here's Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League, on the decision:

The court’s decision affirms our contention that changes to the census schedule will irreparably harm the integrity of the 2020 Census and result in a devastating undercount of vulnerable communities. Career officials at the Census Bureau opposed the shortened schedule precisely for these reasons, and to avoid the perception of political manipulation, and we are confident that integrity and equity will win out over the partisan vandalism that threatens our democracy.”

"Partisan vandalism" is a great term for what's going on, isn't it? 

There was some good news out of Washington, though. The president, in one of his customary blowhard moments, refused to commit to a peaceful transition of power, saying we'd have to see what happens or some such nonsense. At the same time, he said

Get rid of the ballots and you'll have a very peaceful - there won't be a transfer, frankly. There will be a continuation. The ballots are out of control. You know it, and you know who else knows it better than anyone else? The Democrats know it better than anyone else. 

In response, the Senate passed a non-binding resolution - by unanimous consent - in which the Senate affirms "its commitment to the orderly and peaceful transfer of power called for in the Constitution of the United States" and supports the concept that "there should be no disruptions by the president or any person in power to overturn the will of the people of the United States. 

 Yay, them - but how sad that it's even necessary to consider the need for something like this...

And finally - back to partisan vandalism and vote buying -  I'll close with this tweet from Kayleigh McEnany, the president's press secretary.

I can only surmise that the millions of Medicare beneficiaries in Florida will not be receiving these payments, because it's illegal to buy votes there...

TGIF, everyone.