As Trump Prepares for NC Rally, Tillis Backs Call To Fill Ginsburg Seat

Posted on by Zoe Richards

While President Donald Trump prepares for a campaign rally in North Carolina on Saturday, Republican Thom Tillis, a junior senator for the state, is making his position clear that he believes the President is justified in nominating a successor for the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg who died Friday ahead of the election.

Tillis, who faces a challenge from attorney and Democrat Cal Cunningham in November, tried to justify President Trump’s effort to nominate a replacement for Ginsburg’s seat before the election by saying that voters in his state would “ultimately render their judgment” about a second-term for Trump at least in part based on how the President chooses to fill the court’s vacancy. 

“President Trump is again facing voters at the ballot box and North Carolinians will ultimately render their judgment on his presidency and how he chooses to fill the vacancy,” Tillis said in a statement Saturday.

“There is a clear choice on the future of the Supreme Court between the well-qualified and conservative jurist President Trump will nominate and I will support, and the liberal activist Joe Biden will nominate and Cal Cunningham will support, who will legislate radical, left-wing policies from the bench,” he added.

But voting is already underway in battleground North Carolina, and with some early ballots cast and Election Day less than seven weeks away, some Democratic lawmakers are contesting that a Trump nominee to the court would be inconsistent with the stance taken by many Republicans in 2016 when the late Justice Antonin Scalia died nine months before the presidential election.

That was the same argument made by leading Republicans and shared by Tillis in 2016.

“The campaign is already underway. It is essential to the institution of the Senate and to the very health of our republic to not launch our nation into a partisan, divisive confirmation battle during the very same time the American people are casting their ballots to elect our next president,” Tillis said during a Senate floor speech at the time.

Top Republicans, including Senate Majority Mitch McConnell (R-KY) who are now in a race to quickly fill Ginsburg’s seat had fiercely opposed former President Barack Obama’s nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the bench.

“The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said at the time in refusal of a hearing. “Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.”

Walmart, Amazon Made Donations To QAnon-Promoting GOP Lawmaker

Posted on by Zoe Richards

Walmart, Amazon and other corporate giants donated money to the reelection campaign of a Tennessee state lawmaker who had used social media to amplify and promote the QAnon conspiracy theory, according to an Associated Press review of campaign finance records and the candidate’s posts.

The corporate support for a QAnon-promoting politician is another example of how the conspiracy theory has penetrated mainstream politics, spreading beyond its origins on internet message boards popular with right-wing extremists.

Dozens of QAnon-promoting candidates have run for federal or state offices during this election cycle. Collectively, they have raised millions of dollars from thousands of donors. Individually, however, most of them have run poorly financed campaigns with little or no corporate or party backing. Unlike state Rep. Susan Lynn, who chairs the Tennessee House finance committee, few are incumbents who can attract corporate PAC money.

Though she repeatedly posted a well-known QAnon slogan on her Twitter and Facebook accounts, Lynn told the AP in an interview Friday that she does not support the conspiracy theory.

Walmart did not respond to repeated requests for comment made by email and through its website. An Amazon spokeswoman declined to comment. A spokeswoman for another donor to Lynn’s campaign, Kentucky-based distillery company Brown-Forman, which has a facility in Tennessee, said the company didn’t know about Lynn’s QAnon posts and wouldn’t have donated to her campaign through its Jack Daniel’s PAC if it had.

“Now that our awareness is raised, we will reevaluate our criteria for giving to help identify affiliations like this in the future,” Elizabeth Conway said in a statement.

Corporate PAC managers typically decide which candidates to support on the basis of narrow, pragmatic policy issues rather than broader political concerns, said Anthony Corrado, a Colby College government professor and campaign finance expert.

“In many instances, you don’t have any kind of corporate board oversight or any kind of accountability in terms of review of contributions before they’re made,” Corrado said. “Some corporations now have adopted policies about the supervision of PAC contributions because of the reputational risks involved in this.”

At least 81 current or former congressional candidates have supported the conspiracy theory or promoted QAnon content, with at least 24 qualifying for November’s general election ballot, according to the liberal watchdog Media Matters for America.

As of Friday, the candidates collectively had raised nearly $5 million in contributions for this election cycle, but only eight had raised over $100,000 individually, according to the AP’s review of Federal Election Commission data. The FEC’s online database doesn’t have any fundraising reports for 30 of the candidates, the vast majority of whom are running as Republicans.

Congress is virtually certain to have at least one QAnon-supporting member next year. Marjorie Taylor Greene, whose campaign has raised over $1 million, appeared to be coasting to victory in a deep-red congressional district in Georgia even before her Democratic opponent dropped out of the race.

At the state level, the AP and Media Matters have identified more than two dozen legislative candidates who have expressed some support or interest in QAnon.
QAnon centers on the baseless belief that President Donald Trump is waging a secret campaign against enemies in the “deep state” and a child sex trafficking ring run by satanic pedophiles and cannibals. Trump has praised QAnon supporters and often retweets accounts that promote the conspiracy theory.

QAnon has been linked to killings, attempted kidnappings and other crimes. In May 2019, an FBI bulletin mentioning QAnon warned that conspiracy theory-driven extremists have become a domestic terrorism threat.

Lynn said her social media posts do not indicate any support for the conspiracy theory.
“This is the United States of America, and I am absolutely free to tweet or retweet anything I want,” she said. “I don’t understand why this is even an issue. Believe me, I am not in the inside of some QAnon movement.”

But in October 2019, Lynn retweeted posts by QAnon-promoting accounts with tens of thousands of followers. One of the posts she retweeted praised Trump and included the hashtag #TheGreatAwakening, a phrase commonly invoked by QAnon followers.

Between Oct. 31, 2019, and Jan. 9, 2020, her campaign received $4,750 in donations from Amazon.com Services LLC, BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee’s PAC, health insurer Humana, the Southwest Airlines Co. Freedom Fund and Walmart Inc.

“Like many other companies, our PAC periodically contributes to elected officials in Tennessee, including those serving in leadership like Rep. Lynn,” BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee spokeswoman Dalya Qualls said in a statement.

In April, Lynn updated her Facebook page with a cover photo that included a flag with stars forming a “Q” above the abbreviation “WWG1WGA,” which stands for the QAnon slogan “Where we go one, we go all.” In May and June, Lynn punctuated several tweets with the same abbreviation.

And when a leading QAnon supporter nicknamed “Praying Medic” tweeted the message, “Is it time to Q the Trump rallies?” Lynn responded, “It is time!” in a May 31 tweet of her own.

Lynn said she viewed “Where we go one, we go all” as a “very unifying slogan” and didn’t know it was a QAnon motto. However, a handful of Facebook users who replied to her updated cover photo in April commented on the QAnon connection. The flag is no longer her cover photo but could still be seen in the feed on her page on Friday.
In July, AT&T Tennessee PAC, Cigna Corporation PAC and Jack Daniel’s PAC contributed a total of $4,000 to Lynn’s campaign.

The PACs linked to BlueCross BlueShield, AT&T Tennessee, Cigna, Southwest Airlines and Jack Daniel’s had also previously donated to Lynn’s campaign before she amplified QAnon-promoting Twitter accounts last year.

AP contacted all of the companies mentioned in this story. Some did not respond to requests for comment and others declined to comment.
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Associated Press data journalist Andrew Milligan in New Haven, Connecticut; and Adrian Sainz in Memphis, Tennessee, contributed to this report.

Trump Suggests He Will Move On Supreme Court Nomination ‘Without Delay’

Posted on by Zoe Richards

President Donald Trump indicated early Saturday that he will quickly move to nominate a replacement to the Supreme Court bench, hours after the passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Friday.

“We were put in this position of power and importance to make decisions for the people who so proudly elected us,” Trump tweeted, adding that the most important of those decisions has long been the selection of Supreme Court justices.

The President urged GOP lawmakers to join him in fulfilling their obligation — “without delay” — even as prominent Democrats have pushed back on calls for a quick vote on the Senate floor to confirm an eventual Trump nominee when early voting in the November presidential election is already underway.

The President’s comments come after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Friday issued statement vowing that Trump’s nominee to the court would “receive a vote” on the Senate floor.

McConnell’s talk of a swift replacement is a staggering turnaround from his stance four years ago, when he refused a hearing on Merrick Garland — Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court — following the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. 

Former President Barack Obama was quick to remind McConnell and GOP lawmakers of the apparent reversal, urging the Senate in a statement to apply rules with “consistency” and not according to convenience.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany declined to weigh in during a Fox News interview on Saturday about the President’s timeline for nominating a new Supreme Court justice. She said more details about it could be expected during a campaign rally later in the day in North Carolina.

“I don’t want to get ahead of the president on that,” McEnany told Fox News. 

Per the Washington Post, the press secretary later told reporters at the White House that she was not aware of any recent conversations between Trump and McConnell about filling the vacancy.

Asked  about guiding criteria for Trump’s potential new nominee, McEnany  said that a nominee’s attitudes toward protecting life and the Second Amendment were among his considerations.

“This president has always been squarely focused on putting people on the court who are Constitution-abiding judges, who are textualists, who are originalists, who believe that the words on the pages of the Constitution are a statute, are the plain meaning of what they are,” she said. “Someone who protects the right to life, someone who protects the Second Amendment.”

Obama Calls Out McConnell’s Sudden Reversal Amid Talk Of Ginsburg Replacement

Posted on by Zoe Richards

Former President Barack Obama urged Senate Republicans late Friday following the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to wait to fill the late liberal justice’s seat until after inauguration day.

“Four and a half years ago, when Republicans refused to hold a hearing or an up-or-down vote on Merrick Garland, they invented the principle that the Senate shouldn’t fill an open seat on the Supreme Court before a new president was sworn in,” Obama wrote in a statement. 

“A basic principle of the law — and of everyday fairness — is that we apply rules with consistency, and not based on what’s convenient or advantageous in the moment,” he said, adding that the legitimacy of American courts and democracy depend on the equal application of this standard.

“As votes are already being cast in this election, Republican Senators are now called to apply that standard,” Obama said.

Remembering Ginsburg who died Friday, Obama praised the “warrior for gender equality” who he said battled to the end with cancer and demonstrated “unwavering faith in our democracy and its ideals.”

NPR reported that days before her death, Ginsburg dictated a statement to her granddaughter Clara Spera, saying, “My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed.” 

Obama, perhaps referring to the dictated statement, noted that Ginsburg had left clear “instructions” about how she “wanted her legacy to be honored.” 

The questions before the nation’s highest court now and in coming years “are too consequential to future generations for courts to be filled through anything less than an unimpeachable process,” the former president said.

Hours after news of Ginsburg’s death on Friday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said in a statement that Trump’s nominee to the court would “receive a vote” on the Senate floor.

“Americans re-elected our majority in 2016 and expanded it in 2018 because we pledged to work with President Trump and support his agenda, particularly his outstanding appointments to the federal judiciary,” McConnell said. “Once again, we will keep our promise. President Trump’s nominee will receive a vote on the floor of the United States Senate.”

The comments are a stark reversal from his position four years ago, when he refused a hearing on Garland — Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court — following the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. At that time, McConnell suggested that only the incoming President selected by the American people, should decide who would fill the vacant seat.

 Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden on Friday lauded Ginsburg as a hero and said that Ginsburg’s successor should be a choice nominated by whoever wins the presidential election in November.

“Let me be clear: The voters should pick a President, and that President should select a successor to Justice Ginsburg,” Biden tweeted.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, (D-NY) also tweeted McConnell’s own words from 2016 verbatim on Friday. 

 “The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president,” Schumer wrote. 

The biting repetition of McConnell’s earlier claim reflected what appeared to be an effort to press McConnell to hold true to the precedent of his own standard from years before. 

Evangelicals Fuel Trump’s Hopes For Pennsylvania Victory

Posted on by Zoe Richards

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — President Donald Trump’s homestretch push to repeat his razor thin victory in Pennsylvania four years ago won’t happen without white evangelicals, and there are signs that critical component of his coalition hasn’t lost the faith.

It’s a group that has often made the difference for Republicans on the Pennsylvania ballot. And while some born-again voters had misgivings about Trump in 2016, they helped him eke out a 44,000-vote margin of victory in the pivotal swing state. This time around, they sound eager to repay him for supporting their agenda.

Trump’s policies have helped keep in the fold evangelicals who otherwise might have been discomforted by his style. Their opinions on a range of political issues make them among the least likely voters to jump to former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democrat.

A recent NBC News/Marist poll in Pennsylvania found 79% of white evangelicals saying they will vote for Trump in this year’s presidential election.

But Biden’s campaign hopes to make some inroads, with plans to launch an “evangelicals for Biden” effort next week, according to Josh Dickson, the campaign’s national faith engagement director.

“In this moment, there is a stark moral contrast between the common good values of the Biden-Harris agenda, which deeply aligns with the values of people of faith, and the agenda of the current administration, which is based in divisiveness and fear,” Dickson said in a statement.

The Biden campaign frames “the real religious issue” at stake as systemic racism, while evangelical Trump voters point to his support for anti-abortion efforts, including like-minded judicial appointees, along with school choice, religious freedom and the movement of the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

“Many of us who support the president wish sometimes he didn’t say the things he did, wish he had a character more in line with scriptural teachings,” said Laszlo Pasztor, a retired military officer from Carlisle who organizes evangelicals politically. “Many of us say he’s a work in progress. However, his policies, nevertheless, have probably been more Christian than the policies of any president in my lifetime.”

Evangelicals, Christians who generally have had a “born again” personal religious conversion or awakening, form a significant slice of the electorate. They believe in the Bible as God’s literal word and embrace an activist aspect to their faith. Trump was raised as a Presbyterian, a mainline Protestant denomination, and Biden is a practicing Catholic.

White evangelical voters made up 17% of the 2018 midterm electorate in Pennsylvania, according to an AP VoteCast survey. And a Pew Research Center analysis found 20% of voters nationwide in the 2016 election were white evangelicals; 77% of them backed Trump. Black Protestant voters often share religious views with white evangelicals, but they largely vote Democratic.

While evangelical voters are scattered across Pennsylvania, they are most concentrated in the vast T-shaped swath of farm and forest land outside the greater Philadelphia and Pittsburgh regions.

“It’s a strong, quiet undercurrent that will sweep the T again in huge numbers,” said state Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati, a Republican who represents a sparsely populated district along the New York border.

Larry Denver, who helped found the Faith and Freedom Coalition state chapter, said his enthusiasm for Trump has grown since 2016. Like many other evangelicals, Trump was not his first choice four years ago — he favored U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas in the Republican primary.

“Throughout the scriptures, God has done most of his work through the most unlikely people,” said Denver, a retired veteran from the Philadelphia suburbs. “The people he picks are not normally the ones you’d think would be involved.”

Trump is “using white evangelicals, he’s playing on their anti-intellectualism,” said John Fea, an American history professor at Messiah University outside Harrisburg and an evangelical churchgoer who has written extensively about evangelicals in politics and public life.

“I feel that most white evangelicals who support Trump are often sacrificing the integrity of the office of the president,” Fea said. “They’re supporting a person — the list goes on — a liar, someone who has constantly played with racist language.”
Fea said Biden may be able to reach enough evangelicals to make a difference in a close race, particularly around Philadelphia, but he sees in evangelicals devotion to a political effort that has been entrenched for decades.

“Is the political playbook going to hold up even with a corrupt guy who doesn’t hold our values? The answer is yes, the political playbook is the most important thing,” Fea said.
Evangelicals often cite Trump’s vice presidential selection of Mike Pence, who championed evangelical issues while an Indiana congressman and governor, as a turning point in getting behind Trump. They’ve noticed when Trump and Pence have brought up faith and made other religious references in public remarks.

“We have a vice president that not only speaks our language but has shown day in and day out that he is a man of God,” said Justin Behrens, an evangelical Christian who chairs the Republican Party in Luzerne County, which Trump flipped in 2016 with a 25-point swing from President Barack Obama’s reelection.

Trump needs his appeal to evangelicals to pay off ahead of the Nov. 3 election with campaign help, donations and the type of energy that makes someone persuade fence-sitting friends and neighbors.

Pasztor has been volunteering with the Trump Victory Faith Coalition’s local organization and organizing voter registration drives, poll workers and neighborhood networks within the evangelical community, to reach those who did not turn out for Trump in 2016.

What remains to be seen is how the evangelical vote will play out at a time when the coronavirus pandemic is limiting the informal Sunday political talk at churches. Trump needs to energize that evangelical, churchgoing part of his base to claim Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes.

Evangelical voters “tend to be competitive, they tend to be out front, they tend to be more involved, they go to rallies,” said veteran Pennsylvania pollster Terry Madonna, a political science professor at Franklin & Marshall College. “They are critical.”
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Associated Press polling reporter Hannah Fingerhut in Washington contributed to this story.

Actions Not Words

Posted on by Josh Marshall

Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death is a grave, sorrowful and ill-timed calamity in the escalating crisis of American democracy, the crisis of the American state. The only relevant and timely thing I can think to add is this: You can’t work this kind of problem or operate in this kind of environment unless you’re ready to say what you’re going to do. You can’t start by saying McConnell has to follow his rule. You need to say what you’ll do when he doesn’t. Otherwise you’ve got one side with words and the other with the ability to act. And that’s a loser’s hand.

The thing to do, if Republicans take this course and the Democrats take the presidency and the Senate, to add either two or four new seats to the Supreme Court, for a total of 11 or 13.

Continue reading “Actions Not Words” →

3 Big Ways RBG’s Death Could Have An Immediate SCOTUS Impact

Posted on by Tierney Sneed

Even before it’s determined whether President Trump will get to fill the seat left vacant by the Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, her absence could have a big impact on disputes already before or likely headed to the Supreme Court.

Continue reading “3 Big Ways RBG’s Death Could Have An Immediate SCOTUS Impact” →

Where Key GOP Senators Stand On An Election Year SCOTUS Vacancy

Posted on by Matt Shuham

In the four years since they stole a Supreme Court pick from President Barack Obama, several Republican senators have spoken about what they might do if a similar situation arose again in a future election year. With the passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, that scenario is now upon us. Continue reading “Where Key GOP Senators Stand On An Election Year SCOTUS Vacancy” →

Biden: No New Supreme Court Nominee Until After The Election

Posted on by David Taintor

Former Vice President Joe Biden said late Friday that the winner of the November election should name a successor to fill the seat of the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died earlier Friday at home in Washington, D.C.

Continue reading “Biden: No New Supreme Court Nominee Until After The Election” →

Professional Conservatives Push Senate GOP To Hold The Line On Ginsburg Seat

Posted on by Josh Kovensky

Leading conservatives in advocacy and media immediately ramped up the pressure Friday night on Republican senators to support an immediate vote on a GOP replacement for deceased Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Continue reading “Professional Conservatives Push Senate GOP To Hold The Line On Ginsburg Seat” →