Sanders Stumps

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has hit the hustings “to make his closing midterm pitch,” Rolling Stone reports. He plans to visit key battlegrounds “where we think we could have the most impact,” Sanders says, including Pennsylvania, Nevada and Wisconsin where Democratic candidates for the Senate are in tight races with MAGA-hatted Republicans. Sanders also will visit Congressional districts where the Democratic Party has given up hope, such as South Texas.

“He’ll campaign on behalf of Senate candidates who aren’t planning on appearing alongside him,” Rolling Stone says.

Upshot: In other words, the self-described democratic-socialist will try to boost Democratic Senate candidates who are fighting off Republican challengers’ attacking them as too far left, a gambit that appears to be working for the MAGA candidates.

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Same as the Old Boss — Obama

By Andrew Boyd

President Biden’s slew of executive orders and proclamations are less practical and effective than they are an apparent attempt to enhance the Democratic Party’s image. Biden is particularly bent on reversing former President Trump’s immigration policy without proposing the sort of permanent policy that has evaded both parties for decades.

Counting non-citizens in U.S. Census is a nakedly political effort to disenfranchise American citizens through reapportionment leveraged against illegals (sorry, non-citizens) by executive fiat. DACA part deux. Halftime show brought to you by SCOTUS and their denial of Trump’s authority to overturn part one. Farcical.

There is one executive order I can support, to stop building The Wall. I’ve always been dubious on the efficacy of The Wall. On that basis, I’m good. As to walls being immoral, which was the rallying cry like 20 minutes ago, I’d call that complete trash thinking. Look no further than Wednesday’s inauguration ceremony. I await some reasoned argument from anyone on how to effectively manage and monitor inflows and outflows of peeps as do all other sovereign nations. See beloved progressive Canada.

***

My take on the other major executive orders …

•Masking challenge and creation of a directorate for global health security and biodefense. What the hell is a directorate? Sound like something we can neither afford nor effectively contain. Watch to see the swell of SJW agenda items that get smuggled in through this baby. A ministry of funny walks would be more to my liking. It’s at least good for a laugh. [Note: SWJ is “social justice warrior” –Ed.]

•Rejoin the World Health Organization. The WHO proved itself utterly unreliable as an honest broker of information in this pandemic, which is putting it kindly. Lapdogs of the Chinese communist party is more on the nose. You can pretend this is a nod to the primacy of science and the critical importance of global coordination, but I suspect it’s more about the Dems unrelenting desire to be loved by their EU counterparts, which is most easily achieved by kneeling to a global bureaucratic hegemony that has anything but the best interests of the American people in mind.

•Extend eviction and foreclosure moratoriums. It’s easy to be humane when you’re doing it with other people’s money. It’s also, inconveniently, immoral. In principle, no different than “stimulus” via the accumulation of public debt, a.k.a. stealing from the future, only this one is on a shorter time frame and more directly tied to a specific group of people in the present, a.k.a. property holders. It’s all theft.

•Pause student loan payments through Sept 30. Why are we so focused on the particular slice of consumer debt that applies to college? It’s regressive in many respects, and again, stealing. Then, of course, there’s the moral hazard behind the notion that the government should have the power to step in and abrogate a legally constructed agreement between two private parties. But that’s just a matter of principle, so whatever.

•Rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement. An agreement without teeth, and mostly another means of smuggling in global economic wealth transfers. Among first world nations, who reduced their total CO2 emissions the most, on an absolute basis, in 2019?. That would be the U.S., courtesy of technological innovation driven by the big, bad free market. Meanwhile, 80% of increases in global CO2 emissions in the same time period came from China, Asia and India, and future forecasts see the U.S. remaining relative stable while China, India and other developing economies will fuel their growth with ongoing increases in greenhouse gas emissions.

•End Keystone XL Pipeline. The environmental impacts of a pipeline are minimal and, to my mind, substantially outweighed by the economic and national security benefits of America’s energy independence. I know, I hate polar bears and seals and life in general. Shame on me. Oh, and Canada is not so pleased either.

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Now is the Time for Trump to Go

By Chase Wheaton

Everybody watching the news Wednesday, or was following along with events on social media, were quite literally watching history unfold before their eyes. For the first time in our nation’s history, a sitting United States President incited a mob of his supporters to rioting and insurrection at the United States Capitol, as an attempt to overthrow our democracy and the will of the voters, because he is a privileged and egotistical narcissist that refuses to accept the reality that he lost his bid for reelection. Sound dramatic? It’s meant to. There can absolutely be no underplaying what occurred yesterday. These events were the result of years and years of Trump’s hateful, dangerous, and violent rhetoric, dating all the way back to 2011 (when Trump began perpetuating the racist ‘Birther Movement’ conspiracy theories about President Obama), as well as the byproduct of the tens of millions of people that have continued to support him as he has degraded and demeaned the humanity of millions of others, and of our American democracy.

Unfortunately, this exact incident is what many of us have been trying to warn Trump supporters and Republicans about since he first ran for office in 2016. While the specific details of the tragedy that unfolded yesterday, and the general realization that our democracy could have been overthrown, should certainly come as a shock to many, the simple fact that Trump incited his supporters to insurrection, and the fact that they listened to their leader and did what they were told, should not come as a surprise at all. Maya Angelou said, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” Sadly, Trump showed the nation who he truly is back on October 19^th, 2016 when he refused to commit to accepting the results of his presidential election against Hillary Clinton, who accurately described his response as “horrifying.” Since that night, and because his cult-like following of supporters have made it clear that they approve of such behavior, Trump has continued to spout his trademark hateful language and has blatantly given his own self-serving interests priority over the needs of the American people and our democratic government. Words have power, especially when those words are deluded conspiracy theories from the depths of the Internet that are, in turn, repeated by the President and a number of U.S. Senators and Representatives, and we unfortunately saw the effects of those lies come to fruition yesterday on the steps of the United States Capitol. Make no mistake: Donald Trump and his supporters are as much to blame for the domestic terrorism that occurred yesterday as are the insurrectionists themselves.

Now that we’ve all witnessed one of the darkest days in American history (again, not an exaggeration), it’s time for Trump’s supporters and the Republican Party to accept what Democrats, progressives, people of color, LGBTQ folks, and so many others have said all along – that Donald Trump is a dangerous man who inspires hatred and violence in all who listen to him, who is unfit to serve as President of the United States, and who cannot be allowed to finish his term. Trump’s behaviors, actions, and statements make it crystal clear that he poses a threat to our democracy and that, per his own statement, yesterday’s events are “only the beginning of our fight to Make America Great Again”. With that mindset, Mr. Trump doesn’t deserve to spend another 13 minutes in the Oval Office, much less another 13 days, and so, while several Democratic officials and a few Republican ones have begun calling for Trump’s removal from office, it’s high time that all Republicans put the sanctity of their oath to the United States Constitution above their loyalty to this demagogue and use any legal means possible to remove Trump from office. I mean, if he cannot be trusted to post on social media sites without spreading blatant and violent misinformation, how can he be trusted to oversee our executive branch of government?

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Georgia and the GOP Need Trump’s Support

By Bryan Williams

During our four years with President Trump, I had a rule of thumb: Pay attention to what he does, not what he says (or tweets).

I would check his twitter feed every once in a while for a laugh, but I would pay close attention to his official actions from the (supposedly) unbiased media reports, or from news broadcasts of his impromptu Q&A time with the media on his way to Marine One.

Since the election last month things have gotten weird. During my time in politics, we knew there was some shenanigans going on, but it was always so difficult to prove, and the local district attorney could not prove any fraud. So, I believe there may have been some election fraud last month in all the battleground states, but even I don’t buy the Trump campaign argument that it’s on the scale of thousands of votes, or part of some strange international conspiracy.

Now the Trump camp is telling Republicans in Georgia to not vote because of the rigged nature of the election as a way to boycott the "corrupt" system down there.

Say what? I'm sorry but if I was registered to vote in Georgia, no one would tell me not to return to the polls. Corrupt or not, fraud or not, you need to show up and vote. Elections are a numbers game. If you don't vote, you will only hurt your candidates, ideals, and party. It's not like a business that will lose profits from a well-organized boycott.

If any Republican in Georgia is reading this, please vote. Do you really want the Democratic Party to control both houses of Congress and the White House? And to President Trump: Use your popularity to rally folks to vote. People love you, and the GOP needs your energy one more time.

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Georgia Republican Party needs you to vote.

The Democratic Party Will Not Be a United Dinner Party

By Michelle Naranjo

My grandmother would always make Sunday dinner for my extended family, and she always made sure to cook specific dishes for every member of the family. Fried chicken for me, chicken fried steak for my brother, glazed green beans for my mother, and so on. Weekly, she spent hours in the kitchen, making all of these dishes, and in the end, we all ate together.

The Democratic Party, for the most part, appeared to unify behind Joe Biden for president. But in the days following Nov. 3, 2020, the cracks began to show. It would seem that the party was holding a collective breath to keep up appearances before exhaling the deep-seated division that has been grumbling under the seams for years.

While former Democratic presidential candidates Michael Bloomberg, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Andrew Yang threw their weight behind the Biden/Harris ticket, hitting campaign rallies (many of which were on Zoom because of concerns about COVID-19), their supporters mostly followed along. They decided that unification mattered, and a career moderate politician was the direction that the Left needed to go to defeat President Trump.

But there are still echoes of “Me! Me! Me! Pick me!”, resounding among the diverse voters.

During an era when people choose to support by how a candidate’s platform appeals to the individual themselves as a voter -- which insinuates more of an emotional commitment to a candidate than one that is pragmatic for the greater good -- it is no surprise that “true feelings” built up to an almost explosive level post-election.

Add to that equation the Republicans who came into the Biden fold through The Lincoln Project, and the fire gets even more fuel.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of the Squad immediately began to criticize the former Republican operatives that founded The Lincoln Project for collecting funds that supported their anti-Trump state-targeted advertising campaigns instead of funding their own Democratic campaigns. Many of The Lincoln Project supporters -- some of whom do not qualify as Republicans but tend to be voters who don’t vote party lines every election -- fought back that The Squad is anti-Semitic because of their human rights for Palestine stance.

Black allies don’t like Pete Buttigieg because of his hiring record. Progressives complained that there wasn’t enough recognition given to women, Black people, the Latinx, and Native American voters in Biden’s success. Moderates Democrats thought that the “abolish the police” slogan lost support for state and local candidates. And progressive parties like the Working Families Party are beginning to run their own candidates, sometimes as Democrats, and increasingly under their own party name.

As Chuck Rocha, a Texas-raised Democratic strategist who runs Nuestro PAC, a super PAC focused on Latino outreach, stated to NBC, “Biden won, and that’s great, but everything underneath Biden was a huge catastrophe.” [https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/huge-catastrophe-democrats-grapple-congressional-state-election-losses-n1248529]

Will Joe Biden be able to pull together all of the disparity, especially when the Democratic party performed so poorly down-ballot? With so many trying to raise their individualized voices, it appears that Biden will have an ongoing struggle with pleasing all of the people all of the time. Is this going to be a family-style dinner with a seat for everyone?

Beyond a strategy to combat the coronavirus and affected economy, Biden’s top initiative is climate change. Despite the currently divided rhetoric about the yet to be announced presidential cabinet, issues like this will be the grounding displays that will surely win some unity.

Boston Consulting Group (BCG), one of the three largest strategy consulting firms globally, sees Biden as capable of making headway in leading the shift required to address climate change. BCG states, “President-elect Biden campaigned on the most ambitious climate platform of any presidential candidate in history—and he has indicated that his administration will move quickly to pursue that policy. A transition to a low-carbon economy can have enormous benefits for U.S. businesses, creating thousands of jobs across the country while positioning the U.S. to be a driving force and innovation leader both domestically and abroad. Companies that are prepared to participate in the green recovery can reap substantial rewards.” [https://www.bcg.com/publications/2020/new-course-for-climate-in-united-states]

That’s possible only if Biden can successfully and positively affect special interest groups, even those across the aisle, with initiatives that address the plethora of issues at hand.

Will this stop splinter groups from trying to build a new third party? Or even a fourth and fifth? Unlikely.

But as a collective restaurant under a President Biden, multiple dinners for the many “party of one” at least gets everyone in the same room.

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Can Biden Work with The Squad and Centrist Republicans?

By Todd Lassa

As moderates and traditionalists continue to wrestle the Republican Party from the hands of President Trump and his most faithful populist followers, the Democratic Party is mirroring its cross-aisle rivals with a similar struggle. President-elect Joe Biden and his transition team, though hobbled by Trump’s aversion to conceding the election, are working hard to take the middle road and avoid concessions to The Squad led by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., as well as voters who would rather have voted for Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., as the Democratic Party’s nominee.

Democrats this election season have been uncharacteristically low-key compared with the GOP about infighting between centrists and their respective hardline wings. Biden’s record 79-million-plus votes Nov. 3 certainly includes both an unknown number of centrist Republicans who never would have voted for Sanders, or for Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), for that matter, as well as young Democrats who would have preferred Sanders.

But the 2020 “Blue Wave” never happened. Biden must govern from the White House with Republicans increasing their minority in the House of Representatives by at least six seats and with Senate leadership depending on Georgia’s special January runoff elections for both of its seats. Democratic candidates must win both runoffs for a 50-50 count in the Senate, with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris to serve as the tie-breaker. Even if that long-shot happens, Biden will face a recalcitrant Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who infamously vowed 12 years ago to make Barack Obama a one-term president and will undoubtedly lead his fellow Republican senators in key filibusters.

Already, Capitol Hills pundits are talking about how Biden will have to rule by executive order, where he can, to reverse some of the policies that Trump is rushing to implement in his waning time as president, including efforts to begin the final process of leasing parts of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil companies.

The future of the fossil fuel industry and potential for alternatives to gain prominence is central to both sides, of course, including traditional pro-business Republicans and Democrats like Ocasio-Cortez, who with Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., unveiled the Green New Deal shortly after she took office in early 2019.

At presstime, President-elect Biden’s cabinet picks were beginning to emerge and they are largely considered centrists. Anthony Blinken will be nominated for secretary of state according to Bloomberg, Linda Greenfield-Thomas will be tapped for United Nations ambassador and Jake Sullivan, former aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, will be national security advisor. The Biden transition team already has confirmed that longtime advisor Ron Klain will be the 46^th president’s chief of staff.

Please address comments to editors@thehustings.news

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Whither the Democrats? The Answer Doesn’t Matter

By Stephen Macaulay

The question of what does the Democratic Party do now is a rather premature one, I think, as Trump has yet (as of this writing) to admit that he didn’t win another landslide.

But let’s face it: Pundits have to write about something political because we like to think that nature abhors a vacuum of pithy observations.

The question is one that breaks down this way: Who runs the show? It would seem that the obvious answer to that is Joe Biden, based on his proclamation during the first debate with Trump: “I am the Democratic Party right now.” A centrist. An institutionalist. A regular Joe.

But then there is the counter to that, one that has it that the more progressive wing of the Party ought to take flight and lead efforts to create what they presume is a more equitable society, not one that gives, as the slogan has it with surprising accuracy, “tax breaks to the rich.”

This would include the likes of Bernie Sanders, an avowed socialist, and the members of The Squad—Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (Minn.), Ayanna Pressley (Mass.), and Rashida Tlaib (Mich.) —who aren’t going to take any guff from anyone. Biden, presumably, included.

That there was no “Blue Wave” is generally attributed to the idea that “Defund the Police” and the word socialism played so broadly in the campaign runup.

What I find to be rather remarkable is that for presumably being the party of smart, pointy-headed people (or so it is widely presumed in many places across the country, both rural and otherwise), a party where there are top-notch marketers and professorial linguists, the Democrats surely do a—dare I say?—crappy job when it comes to language. (Trump has used more extreme language, so I am hopeful this passes muster at The Hustings.)

Consider “Defund the Police.” That is a scary thought for many urbanites and suburbanites, especially the latter, who are afraid that there are going to be marauders coming into their cul de sacs.

The term is the audible version of “bad optics.”

Why isn’t there some clever Democrat who comes up with an explanation that people might be able to understand? Like the Nathan Fillion TV show “Castle”, where a mystery writer partners with an NYPD detective and manages to solve cases. In the case of “Defund the Police,” it could be on calls where there are undoubtedly mental health issues, joining the police might be a mental health professional. The funding is shifted.

Seem like a stupid example? Maybe. But it is something that regular people can understand. Regardless of party affiliation. (“Hey, Dot, did you hear they’re pulling a ‘Castle’ at the police department? Now they’re getting somewhere.”)

As for the socialist* charge: Let’s face it, there are a whole lot of Boomers who might fondly remember their days in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s when they knew of people in the SDS but who have now 401Ks that they’re concerned with and the notion of wealth distribution is something that is now anathema to them. Given that there are Democrats who openly self-define as socialist, this is going to be a tough one to shift.

But here’s the thing: none of this may matter. If McConnell maintains control of the Senate, there is going to be very little happening that isn’t caused by executive order.

After all, as Biden might say (though in English): l'état c'est moi.

*One of the missed opportunities that the Democrats had was to brand Trump a “Stalinist.” Seriously. Stalin created a cult of personality. Check. Stalin wanted to concentrate power within the state, including the separation from other countries. Check.Stalin called those who weren’t with him “enemies of the people.” Check. Stalin purged high-ranking officials who didn’t hew to his line. Check. And there are several more examples. This is not to say that the real Donald Trump is a murderous thug who was responsible for the deaths of millions as Stalin was (although when history is written, there are going to be numbers of deaths from COVID-19 that will be ascribed to Trump’s behavior). It is to say that in a world that seems to be defined by unreality (“The election was rigged!”), simple labels can have consequences.

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Campaign Finance Reform, Then Third-Party Success

By Chase Wheaton

Sentiment that the current political system in the United States is extremely flawed and broken is not new to true progressives. Progressive Democrats have been advocating for serious campaign reform for many years, saying our current political system does not benefit the majority of people in our country in the way that it was meant to, but instead favors wealthy elites and upper-class folks who can use their wealth to influence the platforms and positions of the candidates that run for office and get elected.

Often, political candidates who lose elections can’t blame their party affiliation or their policy positions, but instead lost because they lack the finances and fundraising required to run a legitimately successful campaign in this country’s political system. Perfect examples are the third-party candidates who run for president every four years. Millions of Americans probably identify more closely with such candidates than with either of the two major party candidates, but sadly these third parties do not have the cross-country fundraising efforts necessary to promote their platforms, positions, and ideas, and therefore they struggle to recruit voters to support their candidacy.

I believe that a multi-party system could improve voter turnout and overall engagement within our democratic process and create much more significant and tangible change in our country than we’ve seen from any previous major party candidate. However, I also believe we need to reform our political process before we can have a successful multi-party system that doesn’t simply reward the wealthiest candidates who outspend their opponents on the way to victory. Unfortunately, the Democratic and Republican party establishments are powerful entities that benefit from this current system, which is why it should be no surprise that the only major candidate in the last two presidential primaries who has fought for serious campaign finance reform is Bernie Sanders, a registered independent.

Serious political reform will only happen when a substantial number of our officials are elected after spending grassroots donations, and not massive donations from millionaires and billionaires, as these are the only politicians that will be willing to push and vote for campaign finance reform. Once campaign finance laws are changed, I don’t think it’ll be long before we see other major changes to our political process, including allowing for a multi-party system. Sadly, until that happens, some of the fiercest advocates for a multi-party system that I personally know are in the greatest peril of having their human rights stripped away under another Trump or GOP presidency.

While some voted for third party candidates in 2016 when they were more confident Trump would lose, this year, the need to vote for a viable presidential candidate who doesn’t disregard basic human rights was more important than the desire to make their vote a statement about the country’s political process.

Wheaton is a higher education professional working in university housing, based in Greenville, N.C.

-30-

Why Just Two?

By Stephen Macaulay

A friend of mine said to me yesterday that he’d cast his ballot some weeks earlier. He said, “I didn’t vote for either of those two. As the father of a daughter I couldn’t vote for Trump. As the owner of a small business I couldn’t vote for Biden.”

He voted for Jo Jorgensen, Libertarian candidate for president. Not that he had any illusion that she would win. He just wanted to participate in our democracy.

He told me that this is the second presidential cycle he’s done that.

Mind you he is a well-educated owner of a profitable, family-owned business. Twenty years ago he might have been a Democrat. Now that he is in his 50s, I would have guessed Republican.

His position isn’t exactly “a pox on both of your houses.”

It is more of “I can’t see how either of these people is going to help me.”

As we wait for the results, there is undoubted feeling of rancor among both sides.

Many Trump supporters undoubtedly think that Biden supporters are a bunch of latte-sipping snowflakes who don’t understand the meaning of the word freedom.

And on the Biden side they’re seeing a gang of overweight patrons of outlet malls.

Neither is correct.

Both sides are Americans. Both sides are participating in the electoral process. Both sides think their guy is the right one for the country.

One side is going to be pissed when the last ballot has been counted. Or the last lawsuit settled.

If one wins with the majority of the popular vote but loses the Electoral College, there will be an outcry to abolish that mechanism. Undoubtedly there will be some action.

But is that enough?

Why is it that people like Jo Jorgensen don’t have a snowball’s chance?

Why is it that there are just two parties that seem to matter?

Maybe instead of just going for direct voting there should be more adjustments made to the system as it exists.

Perhaps we should take a page from the British system, which has campaigns running for four weeks. People and parties that are less well-funded than the Republicans and Democrats would not be at the huge disadvantage that they are now. While some would say that the wealthy candidate would just pour it on for those 30 or so days, let’s look at it this way: If you have a glass that you fill with water, at some point it is full and no matter how much more you put in it there won’t be more. Arguably the same could be said for political ads.

You won’t be happy today.

I won’t be happy today.

But do you know who won’t be unhappy?

My friend who voted Libertarian.

Macaulay is The Hustings’ pundit-at-large.

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Watching for Republican Upsets in House Races

By Andrew Boyd

Today’s the day, and all eyes including my own will be on top of the ticket, but I will also be watching numerous congressional contests. Democrats have a 233 to 196 majority in the 116^th Congress, with five empty seats to be filled and one held by a Libertarian, Justin Amash of Michigan.

So Republicans must flip 22 seats to regain the House majority they lost in the 2018 mid-terms in order to grab the majority for the 117th Congress.

I have my eye on four House races, specifically. In Minnesota’s 7^th District, Michelle Fischbach is challenging career politician Collin Peterson, who has held the seat covering most of the state’s west, bordering North Dakota and South Dakota. Peterson is one of 30 House Democrats whose districts voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump in 2016, and in the 2018 mid-terms, he defeated Republican candidate Dave Hughes by a relatively slim 52 percent to 48 percent margin.

Fischbach, his challenger this year, was lieutenant governor of Minnesota from 2018-19. There’s also a potential spoiler in a third candidate, Slater Johnson of the Legal Marijuana Now Party. Politico lists this race as a tossup between Fischbach and Peterson.

Next is Utah’s 4^th District, where Burgess Owens is challenging freshman Democratic Rep. Ben McAdams. Owens is a former NFL player who won a Super Bowl ring with the Oakland Raiders in 1980, and he joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints toward the end of his pro-ball career. Democrats have held Utah’s 4^th, which covers the area around Salt Lake City since it was added to the overwhelmingly red state’s House delegation in 2010.

Republican Ashley Hinson is challenging Democrat freshman Abby Finkenauer in Iowa’s 4^th, a district covering Dubuque, Cedar Rapids and Waterloo and identified by the GOP as “vulnerable.” Hinson was elected to the Iowa House of Representatives in 2017. Politico also lists this race as a “toss up.”

Last, but not least, is Jim Bognet, challenging freshman Democrat Matt Cartwright for Pennsylvania’s 8^th District in the state’s Northeastern corner, including Hazelton. Though the race is leaning Democratic, the 8^th was one of the districts to put Trump over the top in Pennsylvania four years ago, for the incumbent president’s upset win.

I’m not optimistic for the GOP taking back the House, but I’m hoping Trump’s momentum can carry the GOP to something more than 200 seats.

Boyd is a public relations and communications professional with 30-years experience. He lives with his wife and three daughters in Charlotte, N.C.

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ACB on the Court Means the End of Gay Rights, Roe vs. Wade

By Chase Wheaton

Before Monday evening’s confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, Mitch McConnell spoke to the Senate and painted a vivid picture of the GOP’s mindset regarding its role in the current political landscape, saying “A lot of what we've done over the last four years will be undone sooner or later by the next election. They won't be able to do much about this for a long time to come.”

It seems to me that Senator McConnell has seen the proverbial writing on the wall, and that he knows that the American electorate is turning out in record numbers to demand change, which is why he capitalized on the Supreme Court vacancy before his power as Senate majority leader comes to a close. Whether McConnell believes that Biden will win, that Democrats will regain control of the Senate, or that both will occur, he knows that he will never again be able to influence the country in the name of conservative politics like he can now, and so, similar to a child flipping over a board game just before he or she loses, Donald Trump and the entire GOP knowingly went against the will of the majority of Americans to shape the legal and political landscape of this country in their image for decades to come.

This means that McConnell and Trump have successfully created a Supreme Court that’s more conservative than it has been in almost 70 years, and that represents their own interests, ideals, and beliefs rather than those of the American people.

Given President Trump’s legislative record, and compared with the number of Supreme Court appointments by previous presidents, this is by far Trump’s greatest accomplishment. For perspective, President Trump, in his one term, has appointed more Supreme Court justices than any other one-term Republican president since Herbert Hoover in 1929. In fact, in recent history, while the Republican party has lost six of the last seven popular votes, they have appointed five of the last nine Supreme Court justices.

If the Democratic Party has any hope of passing meaningful legislation or creating significant change in the next 10 to 20 years, they must seriously consider expanding the court and adding justices that reflect the values of the American people, and not those of a one-term, impeached president and a power-hungry white man from Kentucky. Otherwise, in a few years, as a gay man, I will be waving goodbye to my right to get married, and millions of women will be waving goodbye to their right to an abortion.

Wheaton is a higher education professional working in university housing, based in Greenville, N.C.

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Will Barrett Matter to the Election?

By Todd Lassa

Precisely one week before Election Day, Chief Justice John Roberts administered the judicial oath to Amy Coney Barrett allowing her to take her seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. Late Monday, Justice Clarence Thomas administered the Constitutional oath to his new colleague shortly after the Senate confirmed Barrett by a vote of 52-48, Republicans in favor and Democrats opposed, One Republican, Susan Collins of Maine, who is fighting for her political life in her re-election bid, voted against Barrett.

Justice Barrett starts work at the Supreme Court immediately, not a moment too soon for Republicans. The court, with Barrett now the sixth justice nominated by a Republican president and part of a potential five-justice majority with Chief Justice Roberts the swing vote, may soon decide challenges to the Obama administration’s Affordable Care Act, Trump administration executive orders on immigration policy, same-sex couples’ rights and the U.S. Census. The court is also expected to soon decide an effort by Trump’s lawyers to block the release of the president’s financial records to a Manhattan grand jury.

There is also the likelihood the Trump re-election campaign will challenge Nov. 3’s results if Democratic candidate Joe Biden wins the electoral college.

There is already election-related roiling in the courts, Pennsylvania Republicans wanted to block an extension to counting mail-in votes. The court rejected it without comment, so it may be refiled within the next few days.

The court also rejected a case brought by Wisconsin Democrats who wanted to extend the deadline to count mail-in ballots.

The counterpoint to such apparent setbacks to the Democratic Party’s efforts to increase voter turnout and potentially win a majority of the Senate, as well as take back the White House, is that anti-abortion voters who are moderate or liberal on other issues may consider their goal achieved, and therefore may choose to not vote for President Trump next Tuesday.

As if to counter that irony, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Tuesday called on Biden to expand the court beyond nine justices if he wins the presidency. Biden so far has refused to commit to “packing the court” as an obvious effort to keep the issue off the Nov. 3 ballot. The former vice president said in the Oct. 22 presidential debate that he would establish a commission to consider the option.

Please address comments to editors@thehustings.news

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Pundits on the Left Are Split on the Need for Another Debate

Liberal pundits’ comments …

Record numbers of early voters have already placed ballots. Minds are not being changed. Heels are dug. Further debate evenings are fodder for more reality TV: people have had enough of supporting the networks in the last four years. Advertising stands to lose the most by canceling all debates going forward. Late-to-work election teams are all focused on ballot education, and bracing voters for a probable drawn out result season -- an entirely new version of reality TV.

--Michelle Naranjo

If the Commission on Presidential Debates cancelled the remaining two presidential debates, the majority of Americans would not be phased out and it would do nothing to change the Nov. 3 result. America is a country in crisis right now and most voters are focused on one thing: surviving the crisis. Not just the public health crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, but also the crisis surrounding racial justice that is facing the millions of members of the Black community, the climate change crisis that’s facing the planet and is currently causing disaster-level weather events around the nation, and the economic crisis facing the millions of unemployed Americans that are struggling to pay rent and are facing eviction. Donald J. Trump and Mike Pence showed us everything we needed to see in the first two debates. They offered no substantive or meaningful answers to any of the questions, no specific plans or proposals for addressing these crises, constant lies and misinformation, a refusal to condemn white supremacy, and a refusal to show any serious remorse, or take any personal accountability or ownership, for the administration’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Unless Donald Trump intends to correct these blunders and outright failures in a future debate, they aren’t worth being had.

--Chase Wheaton

Do we need another debate? That very question presupposes that we had one. We didn’t. What we did was have an embarrassing spectacle of the President of the United States behaving like a petulant, churlish, loud individual and his opponent, a former Vice President of the United States trying to talk over the President and calling him a “clown.” Neither individual would make it out of a high school debate without being removed. Biden was ready to do it again, virtually. Trump wanted no part of it. A claim is that Biden would be “fed” the answers. If you look at the transcripts of the last “debate” you’d see that Trump needed an answer. Or many. His answers were logorrheic covfefe. Trump said he believes that the moderator would cut him off. And that would be bad, why? Forget the side show. It can do nothing but further make people—the world over—shake their head in sad disbelief that this is what the presidency has come to.

--Stephen Macaulay

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Coastal Elitist Harris Brings Democratic Party’s Radical Shift to the Veep Debate

By Henry Payne

In these strange times, the 2020 Vice Presidential Debate was fittingly strange theater.

There were ridiculous, plexiglass stage props. No questions from the moderator about riots that have toppled statues of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. There was a fly.

But study the script of Sen. Kamala Harris, and history will record a Democratic ticket representing the most radical Party shift in 50 years. Life-long government apparatchiks, Biden/Harris represent the Elite vs. Main Street divide at the heart of today’s politics.

Harris checks the demographic boxes for the Democratic coalition but, most importantly, she hails from California. The Democratic Party’s biggest electoral treasure, California is the epicenter of Democratic ideology and Hollywood fundraising. It betrays – with Biden’s Northeastern roots – a coastal Party with a continent of red states in between.

It was not always so. At the end of the 20th century, Democratic leadership was geographically diverse – Gephardt of Missouri, Michigan’s Dingell, Clinton from Arkansas, Bradley of New Jersey, Nebraska’s Bob Kerrey – and rooted in the working class.

The coastal Party of Sanders-Pelosi-Schumer-Harris-Biden is very different. It takes its policy prescriptions from Democratic-Socialist Europe – Paris Climate Accords, Medicare for All, Green New Deal.

Trump/Pence was a direct reaction to this elitist takeover.

For all of carnival barker Trump’s lack of decorum, he is a businessman who fundamentally gets Main Street – thus his populist base in working-class neighborhoods of Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin. He chose Pence, a heartland governor, as his running mate.

Harris’ (which GovTrack.us rates “the most liberal member of the Senate”) debate talking points, by contrast, put her a long drive from Main Street.

She echoed Black Lives Matter, a radical group that wants societal change as unpopular as the forced busing policies that tore America apart 50 years ago – policies Harris still cheers.

I covered the Black Lives Matter riots in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014, which did enormous harm to black lives. Protestors burned businesses and jobs to the ground. Six years later, Ferguson still hasn’t recovered.

Now Chicago, New York, Kenosha, Wisconsin and other cities have seen crime and violence skyrocket. Victims of homicide in Chicago, for example – mostly Black – are up 50 percent due to diminished policing and COVID shutdowns that Biden/Harris threaten to reinstate.

Solutions for vulnerable communities (including in my Detroit backyard) – charter schools, police protection – are under assault by Harris’s Party.

As are manufacturing jobs. Harris claimed global warming an “existential threat” despite all evidence to the contrary – most obviously healthy Great Lakes levels that Democrats just a decade ago were scared would dry up due to melting snow pack.

Shouldn’t she have been preparing for the existential threat of global viruses?

Harris supports a California-inspired national mandate forcing U.S. automakers to make only climate-fighting electric cars. Similar European mandates pushed Volkswagen to cut 7,000 jobs last year as it faced high EV costs.

That is tragic theater.

Henry Payne is The Detroit News auto columnist, radio host, nationally syndicated editorial cartoonist with Andrews McMeel, and National Review contributor. He was inside The Beltway for 13 years before escaping to Motown.

Please address your comments to editors@thehustings.news

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