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    Trump just gained the political attention-grabbing moment he so craves

    Terry H. Schwadron, DCReport @ RawStory
    September 24, 2020

    Thanks for your support!

    This article was paid for by reader donations to Raw Story Investigates.

    Photo: By Evan El-Amin/Shutterstock

    This article was paid for by Raw Story subscribers. Not a subscriber? Try us and go ad-free for $1. Prefer to give a one-time tip? Click here.

    Terry H. Schwadron, DCReport @ RawStory

    Is there a Trump win in the Supreme Court mess even if confirmation of a replacement for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg somehow is delayed?


    There is a good argument that Donald Trump already got what he wants from the situation: No one is talking about COVID-19, 200,000 dead Americans on Trump’s watch, millions still jobless or racial discord.

    They’re talking about whether Trump is going to pull off a nomination of a decades-long turn in national Supreme Court decision-making and state-sanctioned theft of the presidency in the November elections.

    They are talking about him, Donald Trump, not the problems he has brought about in four years.

    For Trump, whose sole concern seems politics and re-election, this death is a happy moment of peace from virus and discord.

    For a guy who measures victories in minutes won on television ratings, it sounds like Justice Ginsburg’s tragic death has delivered Trump a public relations bonanza.

    Others may worry about whether it is appropriate for a last-minute nomination to the court, or about the odds that just three or four Republican senators might recognize something like fairness or even about changing the court just as this election delivers a host of sticky, partisan, mechanical voting problems to the court.

    By this logic, Trump shouldn’t care. Of course, he’d undoubtedly like a third successful Supreme Court nomination to cap his four years before the election, but what he likely really wants is the attention on him as the kingmaker of the moment – free of any association with a contagious illness running out of control even as he leans on his own public health agencies to produce a string of positive, if scientifically incorrect, messages and crazy talk about the availability of 350 million coronavirus vaccines in the next 10 minutes.

    Substance or Politics?

    You and I might want to talk about the real effects of a solidly conservative Supreme Court on issues that only start with abortion and immigration, but will extend to worker and consumer rights, fair enforcement of environmental rules and the nation’s health systems. If this anticipated new court majority can reinterpret the thinking behind Roe v. Wade, as predicted, why not rethink same-sex marriage, the role of religion in the schools and workplace or about eliminating Congress’ role in oversight of executive branch powers.

    But for Trump, whose sole concern seems politics and re-election, this death is a happy moment of peace from virus and discord.

    Indeed, the louder the voices of Americans demanding a say in the direction of the Supreme Court makeup, the better for Trump.

    Why should Trump actually care whether the confirmation hearings and vote come before election day? His work is already about done: Trump just needs a name, and he’s got a fistful, regardless of background.

    Why should Trump care about whether Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has any trouble rounding up all the votes he needs at the tricky moment either before or after an election that may make McConnell the new Senate minority leader?  Even if a confirmation vote should fail, Trump will be the guy who tried to deliver a generational change. He will look great to his base and won’t be disliked any harder by opponents.

    In the meantime, importantly, he won’t be tagged with the multiple simultaneous contagions hitting our society. Trump just gained the political attention-grabbing moment he so craves.

    The Name, of Course

    There will be a lot of speculation until the name pops later this week at the White House.

    Trump already played political card one by saying he will name a woman.  Hmmm, where have we heard that promise before? Oh yes, it was opponent Joe Biden, who named Sen. Kamala Harris as vice president, the same Senator Harris who is on the Judiciary Committee who will now be questioning the candidate in confirmation hearings.

    Among the potential candidates is Barbara Lagoa, 52, a Cuban-American judge from Florida, the state that Trump needs to win.  She was named and confirmed in a rare bipartisan vote of 80-15 to the federal Court of Appeals 11th Circuit in 2019. Unlike some nominees from this administration, she has an extensive legal background and has been a judge in state and federal courts.

    Her background and positions aside, for Trump, Lagoa’s potential nomination would be a sure sign that this moment is about politics as much as about the direction of the Court. Among other things, Lagoa could become the second Latino justice, following current liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor, and a direct appeal to Latino voters.

    Trump wants Florida, and he sees possibilities among Latino voters. Picking her would assure this is about politics.

    It’s not the right way to look at a generational change in the Supreme Court, but it does seem the Trump way of making sure this is all about him and re-election – and not about thousands of avoidable American deaths from coronavirus.

    This article was paid for by Raw Story subscribers. Not a subscriber? Try us and go ad-free for $1. Prefer to give a one-time tip? Click here.

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    Raw Story is independent. You won’t find mainstream media bias here. Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Invest with us in the future. Make a one-time contribution to Raw Story Investigates, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you.


    Report typos and corrections to: corrections@rawstory.com.
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    Survey: Will Melania leave Trump now that he's out of office ?

    'You're out of order': Interview with Trump campaign official breaks down over insurrection excuses

    Sarah K. Burris
    January 24, 2021

    MSNBC's Ari Melber did a Sunday evening special on the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump. His final interview was with the former president's campaign staffer Boris Epshteyn who revealed the only excuse that Republicans will have to justify Trump's innocence.

    Melber spent the hour outlining the case against Trump, citing the funds the $2.7 million in campaign spent to hold the rally in Washington and the statements from those arrested that they followed what the president told them.

    The excuse Epshteyn used is that Trump told his supporters to be "stay peaceful." It's a comment that comes after months of telling his supporters to act and to fight for their votes.

    The argument many have made is that using incendiary rhetoric for months, urging a crowd to "fight," a "trial by combat," and "walk to the Capitol."

    "Now it is up to Congress to confront this egregious assault on our democracy," he said. "And after this, we're going to walk down — and I'll be there with you — we're going to walk down ... to the Capitol and we're going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women. We're probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them, because you'll never take back our country with weakness, you have to show strength.

    "We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated, lawfully slated. I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard. Today we will see whether Republicans stand strong for [the] integrity of our elections, but whether or not they stand strong for our country, our country. Our country has been under siege for a long time, far longer than this four-year period."

    Epshteyn's argument is that nothing else that Trump said matters, only the word "peacefully."

    Melber's guests including a slate of former prosecutors described Trump's excuses as like yelling "fire" in a crowded theater. In an earlier interview, Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-NY) described Trump as doing more than just yelling "fire" in the theater. She described the ex-president as bringing the matches and the gasoline, paying for the arsonists to meet at the Capitol, and telling them to burn it down with a brief comment that fire is bad.

    Epshteyn argued against Melber that he should "fire" the person who put together his clips reel because it didn't include Trump's comment about "peacefully and patriotically" attacking the capitol.

    "We're not here for your advice to do what we do," Melber said. "You're out of order."


    You're out of order www.youtube.com

    Impeachment officer details the case against Trump as the second trial begins

    Sarah K. Burris
    January 24, 2021

    Monday night, House impeachment officers will officially walk the Articles of Impeachment to the U.S. Senate and the process will officially begin as President Donald Trump is tried for a second time before the body.

    Speaking to MSNBCs Ari Melber on an impeachment special Sunday evening, a solemn Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-NY) explained that this is not something the House members do lightly.

    "And then we'll begin the trial of our president, of former President Donald Trump in the Senate, for what we believe to be one of the most heinous crimes against our country in its existence," she said. "Something that the founders anticipated and put in guardrails against. That being a despot, drunk with power, trying to keep his grip on power and using the people of this country to try and stage an insurrection."

    She didn't intend to reveal the strategy for impeachment but explained that the attack on the Capitol Jan. 6 wasn't the beginning of Trump's efforts to incite violence against the legislature.

    "President Trump has engaged in a prolonged effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election and spent months spreading disinformation and the results falsely claiming that he had won by a landslide," she explained. "He stated it would be illegitimate to accept those results, and then he brought individuals to Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6. Make no mistake that that was an extremely important date in his mind and in our Constitution's time, because there was a time where the entire body of Congress along with the vice president would be present at the Capitol to fulfill our duties, that being to certificate five the election. And with that, he knew who the individuals were, who would be coming, what they would do and what hold he had over them."

    She described what happened as "foreseeable," in fact, Georgia elections official Gabriel Sterling warned that what Trump was doing would "get people killed." Indeed, five people were killed as a result of what happened on Jan. 6.

    "It's bad enough that we have a president who wanted to obstruct justice, who wanted to obstruct a free and fair election, who did not want the fulfillment of Constitution, but the worst part that he did it through the attack, assault, mayhem, vandalism, the attempted assassination of the vice president and the speaker of the House, potential attempt to kidnap members of congress and the fulfillment of felony murder as well. All for his own self-aggrandizement. Absolutely shameful," Plaskett said.

    See the full interview below:


    Presenting the articles of impeachment...... again www.youtube.com

    Will cops caught in Capitol attack finally motivate police chiefs to purge their ranks: Watchdog asks

    Sarah K. Burris
    January 24, 2021

    A former FBI special agent detailed in an Aug. 2020 report that white supremacists and militia members have infiltrated law enforcement ranks across the country. The abstract information didn't lead to a call from law enforcement leadership to look through their teams to purge possible problems. Now that off-duty law enforcement members were part of the Capitol insurrection, the Washington Post reported police chiefs are finally starting to act.

    "National Sheriffs' Association President David Mahoney said many police leaders have treated officers with extremist beliefs as outliers and have underestimated the damage they can inflict on the profession and the nation," the Post reported.

    "We saw the anti-government, anti-equality and racist comments coming out during the Obama administration. Shame on us for representing it as freedom of speech and for not recognizing it was chiseling away at our democracy," Mahoney said in an interview. "As we move forward, we need to make sure we are teaching our current staff members that they must have the courage to speak out when they know about another deputy's or officer's involvement. There should be no reference to the thin blue line."

    At least 12 Capitol Police are under investigation for their behavior during the attack on the building, including one officer seen taking selfies with insurrectionists. At least 14 off-duty officers didn't go inside the building, but they were there on Jan. 6.

    "They know who these bad apples are,'' said former FBI agent Michael German. "They learn about them when they are investigating white supremacists and militia groups."

    But legal experts and police watchdog groups have little hope of change. They've heard law enforcement commitments after police killed unarmed Black Americans like Michael Brown and Tamir Rice, young boys shot and killed by police in 2014.

    Georgetown Law professor Vida Johnson explained that "these officers are hiding in plain sight." Still, nothing has changed.

    "Until they're willing to . . . discipline officers, this is going to continue to be a problem, and it's one that's completely destabilizing the country and putting us at risk," she said.

    Read the full piece at the Washington Post. Washington Post.

     
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