GOP brushes back charges of hypocrisy in Supreme Court fight

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Republicans are brushing back charges of hypocrisy as they march toward a possible vote ahead of the election that would confirm a nominee from President Trump to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court.

Democrats have howled that it would be the height of hypocrisy for Republicans to confirm a Trump nominee weeks before an election after they refused to hold even a hearing for Merrick Garland, President Obama’s nominee, after conservative Justice Antonin Scalia died on Feb. 13, 2016.

Two GOP senators, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, have said they do not think the Senate should vote on a nominee before the election, saying a standard was set when Garland was blocked by Republicans. Continue reading.

Trump’s falsehoods about Biden’s plan for prisons

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Democrats “want to get rid of the prison system. They want to — free federal housing for former inmates, so you get all of this free housing. They want to create housing for inmates; they want to do more for inmates than they do for you.” 

— President Trump, in remarks to a tele-rally in Nevada, Aug. 31

Joe Biden “wants prisons closed, and [to] provide free federal housing for former inmates.” 

— Trump, in remarks to a tele-rally in North Carolina, Aug. 11

This claim has been popping up in the president’s stump speech recently, but, once again, Trump is mischaracterizing Biden’s positions with wild exaggerations.

Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee and former vice president, says he would end the federal government’s use of private prisons and increase funding for halfway houses and transitional programs for former prisoners.

What Trump is describing — an emptying of prisons and free housing for all former inmates — is a flat-out false rendition of Biden’s plan, going far beyond the usual license politicians take on the campaign trail. Continue reading.

Mitt Romney says he’ll support moving forward with Supreme Court pick

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Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) announced Tuesday that he would support moving forward with a Senate vote on President Trump’s selection to replace the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Why it matters: Barring any big surprises, Democrats have virtually no shot at stopping the confirmation process for the president’s nominee before November’s election.

The big picture: Romney was one of the few Republican senators who were question marks amid Trump’s push to quickly nominate a replacement for Ginsburg. Earlier this year, Romney was the sole Republican who voted to convict Trump for abuse of power after the impeachment trial. Continue reading.

Newsmax: FBI Director Slated For Dismissal By Trump After Testifying On Russian Interference

The White House is preparing a list of names for President Donald Trump to use as it prepares to replace FBI Director Christopher Wray, just one day after he testified before Congress that Russia again is attacking the U.S. election.

“The White House is preparing a shortlist of candidates to replace Christopher Wray as FBI Director,” Newsmax White House Correspondent Emerald Robinson reported, which has not been confirmed by other reporters.

Wray would be the second FBI director Trump will have fired over Russia. Continue reading.

Trump’s ‘good genes’ comment at Bemidji rally draws condemnation

Bemidji remarks about “good genes” compared to “race science.” 

President Donald Trump’s praise of a nearly all white crowd’s “good genes” came during a Friday night rally in Bemidji where he also sharpened attacks on refugees.

He opened his speech by calling the group “hardworking American patriots” and raising alarms that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden would flood the state with Somali refugees. Trump said near the end of his wide-ranging, nearly two-hour speech that the state was pioneered by men and women who were tough and strong and braved the wilderness and winters to build a better life.

“You have good genes, you know that, right?” Trump said. “You have good genes. A lot of it is about the genes, isn’t it, don’t you believe? The racehorse theory. You think we’re so different? You have good genes in Minnesota.” Continue reading.

CDC reverses statement on airborne transmission of coronavirus, says draft accidentally published

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This article is being provided free of charge by The Washington Post.

On Monday morning, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention swiftly edited its Web page describing how the novel coronavirus spreads, removing recently added language saying it was “possible” that the virus spread via airborne transmission. The agency had posted information Friday suggesting the virus can transmit over a distance beyond six feet, suggesting that indoor ventilation is key to protection against its spread. Experts had been advancing that idea, and it had appeared that the agency had come around. But Monday, the CDC said an unreviewed draft had been published in error. View the post here.

ICYMI: Six GOP-endorsed Minnesota candidates back conspiracy theory

New reporting from the Star Tribune has revealed the extent to which the QAnon conspiracy theory has permeated the Republican Party of Minnesota. At least six Minnesota Republican Party-endorsed candidates have professed belief in the deranged conspiracy cult.

The Star Tribune: QAnon on the ballot: Six GOP-endorsed Minnesota candidates back conspiracy theory

By Stephen Montemayor

At least a half-dozen Minnesota Republicans running for state legislative seats in November have promoted the sprawling QAnon conspiracy theory that includes false claims that Satanists and pedophiles run the government and that COVID-19 is part of a plot to steal the election.

Once dismissed as a fringe movement, QAnon is quickly seeping into mainstream Republican politics as scores of GOP candidates across the country express support for its ideas. Among them are six candidates endorsed by the Minnesota Republican Party for state House and Senate seats from the Iron Range to the metro suburbs.

Continue reading “ICYMI: Six GOP-endorsed Minnesota candidates back conspiracy theory”

Supreme Court’s legitimacy at stake in wake of Ginsburg’s death

Justices’ actions could fuel calls to revamp the high court

For a Supreme Court that seeks to defend the legitimacy of its rulings as rooted in the law and not political ideology, what unfolds over the next few months is poised to be a historic test of its reputation.

The Senate will hold a contentious confirmation vote to fill the seat of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg with a reliably conservative President Donald Trump appointee.

The appointee, who Trump says will be a woman announced this week, would deepen the court’s conservative tilt potentially with immediate consequences for divisive areas such as abortion, gun control and more. Continue reading.

Jeff Zucker Helped Create Donald Trump. That Show May Be Ending.

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The coziness between the TV executive and Mr. Trump is a Frankenstein story for the cable news era. But then the monster got away.

In December 2015, after the demagoguery of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign became clear, I asked CNN’s president, Jeff Zucker, if he regretted his role in Mr. Trump’s rise.

First Mr. Zucker — who put “The Apprentice” on NBC in 2004 and made Mr. Trump a household name — laughed uproariously, if a bit nervously. Then he said, “I have no regrets about the part that I played in his career.”

I was thinking about that exchange when Tucker Carlson of Fox News recently gleefully aired recordings of conversations with Mr. Zucker that Mr. Trump’s fixer, Michael Cohen, had deviously taped in March 2016. Continue reading.

Trump brags to Woodward that he has ‘broken every record’ on appointing judges

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When President Trump sat down in the Oval Office with author Bob Woodward for the first of 18 eventual interviews, the president brought up judicial appointments four times and even had a list of judicial appointment orders displayed, prop-like, on the Resolute Desk — “kind of like he was cherishing it,” Woodward recounted.

Now, as Trump prepares to announce a nominee to replace Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died Friday night at age 87, those interviews reveal a president animated about remaking the courts and working with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to appoint conservative judges. Some of the conversations were chronicled in Woodward’s new book, “Rage,” while audio recordings of others were obtained by The Washington Post.

In a mid-December interview with Woodward, Trump boasted that he and McConnell “have broken every record” on judges, saying the issue is the majority leader’s top priority. Continue reading.