Passages in bold in the body of the texts below are usually my emphasis, though not always. This is an ongoing project, and I update the site frequently during the day. Because I try to stay focused on what has actually happened, I usually let the news ‘settle’ for a day or so before posting. I hope readers will peruse the articles in full for a better understanding of the issues and their context; our democracy and our future depend on citizens who can distinguish between facts and falsehoods and who are engaged in the political process.

For independent global news, visit Democracy Now!

For a newsletter about the history behind today’s politics, subscribe to Heather Cox Richardson’s newsletter, Letters from an American.

Friday, 30 October 2020, Day 1,379:

Some Global Coronavirus Updates for Friday, 30 October 2020: U.S. Breaks Daily Record With Over 99,000 New Cases as Coronavirus Surge Quickens. Nearly two dozen states are reporting their worst weeks ever for new cases. The S&P 500 had its worst week since March. The New York Times, Friday, 30 October 2020:

• New C.D.C. report shows how quickly the virus can spread within households, even when the first case is a child.

• Big Tech meltdown and rising virus cases lead S&P 500 to worst week since March.

• Regeneron says it will stop enrolling seriously ill Covid-19 patients in its antibody trials.

• C.D.C. advisers consider measures that would provide early vaccine access to many people of color.

• New York has a plan to allow schools in hardest-hit areas to reopen.

• Belgium locks down in a ‘last chance’ bid to keep its hospitals from collapse, and other news from around the world.

• College health officers are putting plans into place ahead of Thanksgiving break.

• Outbreaks in swing states could have election consequences.

Many other significant developments are included in this article.

Some significant developments in the coronavirus pandemic on Friday, 30 October 2020: U.S. reports nearly 100,000 new cases in one day as infections surge in battleground states, The Washington Post, Antonia Noori Farzan, Rick Noack, Kim Bellware, Paulina Villegas, Miriam Berger, Taylor Telford, Hannah Knowles, and Darren Sands, Friday, 30 October 2020: “The United States reported nearly 100,000 new coronavirus cases in a day on Friday, setting a record as a fall wave of infections surge in every swing state that will be crucial to next week’s presidential election. The number of infections nationwide surpassed 9 million reported infections on Friday, just 15 days after the tally hit 8 million. At least 229,000 deaths have been linked to the coronavirus.

Here are a few of the significant developments included in this article.

• Belgian authorities on Friday announced a six-week closure of nonessential businesses and tight limits on social contacts as the country tries to stave off caseloads that could fill hospitals to capacity within a week.
• A growing number of government scientists and physicians are pushing back against the president’s political agenda when it comes to the pandemic.
• State health officials say they do not have enough money to distribute a coronavirus vaccine once it is approved.
• U.S. household spending, the primary engine of the economy, soared in September before coronavirus infections started increasing across the country, fresh economic data shows.

Trump rolled back more than 125 environmental safeguards. Here’s how. The Washington Post, Juliet Eilperin, Brady Dennis, and John Muyskens, Friday, 30 October 2020: “[O]ver the course of nearly four years, [the Trump] administration has steadily loosened oversight of polluting industries, eroded protections for endangered wildlife and stymied Obama-era efforts to address the globe’s most daunting environmental threat: climate change. A Washington Post analysis has found that as Trump’s first term winds to a close, he has weakened or wiped out more than 125 rules and policies aimed at protecting the nation’s air, water and land, with 40 more rollbacks underway. The administration has accelerated its push to deregulate in the weeks before the election, to ease requirements on power plants that leak waste into waterways, weaken efficiency standards for dishwashers, scale back oversight of mine safety and approve seismic drilling in an Alaska wildlife refuge.”

Continue reading Week 198, Friday, 30 October  – Thursday, 5 November 2020 (Days 1,379-1,385)

Passages in bold in the body of the texts below are usually my emphasis, though not always. This is an ongoing project, and I update the site frequently during the day. Because I try to stay focused on what has actually happened, I usually let the news ‘settle’ for a day or so before posting. I hope readers will peruse the articles in full for a better understanding of the issues and their context; our democracy and our future depend on citizens who can distinguish between facts and falsehoods and who are engaged in the political process.

For independent global news, visit Democracy Now!

For a newsletter about the history behind today’s politics, subscribe to Heather Cox Richardson’s newsletter, Letters from an American.

Friday, 16 October 2020, Day 1,365:

Some Global Coronavirus Updates for Friday, 16 October 2020: White House Coronavirus Adviser Scott Atlas Prefers ‘Herd Immunity’ Over Testing, The New York Times, Friday, 16 October 2020:

• False positive rapid tests briefly threw the N.F.L.’s Colts into disarray.

• A top White House coronavirus adviser has resisted widespread testing, pushing for a form of herd immunity instead.

• The spread through rural America has created problems in small towns that lack key resources.

• The first U.S. distribution plan for vaccines uses CVS and Walgreens to get any approved to those in long-term care.

• Latino and Black Americans are still dying in disproportionately high numbers, the C.D.C. says.

• Belgium shuts bars and restaurants and imposes a curfew to halt a spike in cases.

• ‘We are headed in the wrong direction’: The U.S. records its highest tallies since July.

• Judge upholds Cuomo’s restrictions on religious services in hot spots.

Many other significant developments are included in this article.

Some significant developments in the coronavirus pandemic on Friday, 16 October 2020: U.S. surpasses 64,000 new coronavirus infections two days in a row for first time since late July, The Washington Post, Antinia Noori Farzan, Jennifer Hassan, Rick Noack, Marisa Iati, Adam Taylor, Paulina Villegas, Kim Bellware, Hannah Denham, Darren Sands, and Meryl Kornfield, Friday, 16 October 2020: “For the first time since late July, the tally of newly reported coronavirus cases in the United States surpassed 64,000 on Thursday and Friday. In 44 states and the District of Columbia, caseloads are higher than they were one month ago, and many of the new infections are being reported in rural areas with limited hospital capacity. More than 8,000,000 cases have been reported nationwide since February, and at least 216,000 people in the United States have died of covid-19, the disease caused by the virus.

Here are a few of the significant developments included in this article.

• Pfizer will not apply for emergency use authorization for a coronavirus vaccine until late November, backtracking on earlier assertions that the pharmaceutical company would have it ready this month.
• A person would need to sit next to an infectious passenger in a commercial flight for at least 54 hours to get infected, a Defense Department study found.
• Health-workers across the Midwest are issuing dire warnings that hospitals and health-care facilities are ‘bursting at the seams’ amid a surge in coronavirus cases. Eight hospitals in the Kansas City area in Missouri had to temporarily stop accepting ambulances Wednesday night.
• After President Trump announced he would send $200 each to older Americans to help pay for medicine, aides and Medicare officials scrambled to draft a plan. But the president’s promise has raised questions over whether such discount cards are legal, or even possible.
• Europe set a record this week for new coronavirus infections, overtaking the United States in cases per capita, and a top World Health Organization official warned Thursday that death rates on the continent this winter could be five times worse than the April peak if people are not strict about masks and social distancing.

Election 2020 Updates: Trump Holds Rallies in the South as Republicans Begin to Edge Away From Him, The New York Times, Friday, 16 October 2020:

• Senate Republicans are beginning to publicly put distance between themselves and the president.

• If he loses the election, Trump mused Friday, ‘Maybe I’ll have to leave the country.’

• Biden beat Trump in the ratings battle after the two appeared on rival network town halls.

• Senator David Perdue mockingly mispronounces Kamala Harris’s name at a rally.

• She might like Trump’s smile, but he doesn’t have her vote.

• Biden, in Michigan, vows: ‘I’ll take care of your health coverage.’

• At a rally in Florida, Trump appears to confuse a G.O.P. congressman with a former aide.

• 80 percent of election rulings by G.O.P.-appointed judges this year made voting harder, study says.

• Republicans still lead in Alaska, but it’s getting more competitive, a Times/Siena poll finds.

Many other significant developments are included in this article.

Passages in bold in the body of the texts below are usually my emphasis, though not always. This is an ongoing project, and I update the site frequently during the day. Because I try to stay focused on what has actually happened, I usually let the news ‘settle’ for a day or so before posting. I hope readers will peruse the articles in full for a better understanding of the issues and their context; our democracy and our future depend on citizens who can distinguish between facts and falsehoods and who are engaged in the political process.

For independent global news, visit Democracy Now!

For a newsletter about the history behind today’s politics, subscribe to Heather Cox Richardson’s newsletter, Letters from an American.

Friday, 2 October 2020, Day 1,351:

Trump Tests Positive for the Coronavirus, The New York Times, Peter Baker and Maggie Haberman, Friday, 2 October 2020: “President Trump revealed early Friday morning that he and the first lady, Melania Trump, had tested positive for the coronavirus, throwing the nation’s leadership into uncertainty and escalating the crisis posed by a pandemic that has already killed more than 207,000 Americans and devastated the economy. Mr. Trump, who for months has played down the seriousness of the virus and hours earlier on Thursday night told an audience that ‘the end of the pandemic is in sight,’ will quarantine in the White House for an unspecified period of time, forcing him to withdraw at least temporarily from the campaign trail only 32 days before the election on Nov. 3. The dramatic disclosure came in a Twitter message just before 1 a.m. after a suspenseful evening following reports that Mr. Trump’s close adviser Hope Hicks had tested positive. In her own tweet about 30 minutes later, Mrs. Trump wrote that the first couple were ‘feeling good,’ but the White House did not say whether they were experiencing symptoms. The president’s physician said he could carry out his duties ‘without disruption’ from the Executive Mansion. ‘Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19,’ Mr. Trump tweeted. ‘We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!’ Mr. Trump’s positive test result posed immediate challenges for the future of his campaign against former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic nominee, with barely a month until Election Day. Even if Mr. Trump, 74, remains asymptomatic, he will lose much of his remaining time on the campaign trail. If he becomes sick, it could raise questions about whether he should remain on the ballot at all…. During late-night conversations, aides to Mr. Trump were discussing whether he should give an address to the nation on Friday from the White House or find some other way for him to reassure the public. But the aides were still in a state of shock as they absorbed the news, and there was no immediate word on how far the infection may have spread among senior White House officials, who generally do not wear masks in deference to the president’s disdain for them.” See also, Invincibility punctured by infection: How the coronavirus spread in Trump’s White House, The Washington Post, Philip Rucker, Josh Dawsey, Ashley Parker, and Robert Costa, Friday, 2 October 2020: “The ceremony in the White House Rose Garden last Saturday was a triumphal flashback to the Before Times — before public health guidelines restricted mass gatherings, before people were urged to wear masks and socially distance. President Trump and first lady Melania Trump welcomed more than 150 guests as the president formally introduced Judge Amy Coney Barrett, his nominee for the Supreme Court. A handful of Republican senators were there, including Mike Lee of Utah, who hugged and mingled with guests. So was Kellyanne Conway, the recently departed senior counselor to the president, as well as the Rev. John I. Jenkins, the president of the University of Notre Dame, who left his Indiana campus where a coronavirus outbreak had recently occurred to celebrate an alumna’s nomination. Spirits were high. Finally, Trump was steering the national discussion away from the coronavirus pandemic — which had already killed more than 200,000 people in the United States and was still raging — to more favorable terrain, a possible conservative realignment of the Supreme Court. Attendees were so confident that the contagion would not invade their seemingly safe space at the White House that, according to Jenkins, after guests tested negative that day they were instructed they no longer needed to cover their faces. The no-mask mantra applied indoors as well. Cabinet members, senators, Barrett family members and others mixed unencumbered at tightly packed, indoor receptions in the White House’s Diplomatic Room and Cabinet Room. Five days later, that feeling of invincibility was cruelly punctured. On Thursday, counselor to the president Hope Hicks, who reported feeling symptoms during a trip with the president to Minnesota on Wednesday, tested positive for the virus. Early Friday morning, Trump announced that he and the first lady also had tested positive and had begun isolating inside the White House residence. On Friday, Lee, Conway and Jenkins announced that they, too, had tested positive, as did Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who was at the ceremony, and Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, who had recently spent time with the president, including at an indoor fundraiser last week. At least three journalists who had been at White House events in the past week also reported testing positive on Friday. And White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said he was bracing for additional infections among administration officials.” See also, Trump goes to Walter Reed hospital for coronavirus treatment, The Washington Post, Josh Dawsey, Ashley Parker, Colby Itkowitz, and Toluse Olorunnipa, published on Saturday, 3 October 2020: “President Trump was taken to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Friday for a stay that was expected to last several days, a move the White House said was made out of an abundance of caution after he tested positive for the deadly coronavirus and experienced symptoms…. Trump, who is 74, began taking a cocktail of drugs as a ‘precautionary measure,’ according to doctor Sean Conley, who provided only limited information about Trump’s condition or the reasons for his extended stay at Walter Reed. ‘In addition to the polyclonal antibodies, the President has been taking zinc, vitamin D, famotidine, melatonin and a daily aspirin,’ Conley said in a White House memo Friday afternoon, describing Trump as ‘fatigued but in good spirits.’ Conley said Trump received an 8-gram dose of Regeneron’s polyclonal antibody cocktail via ‘infusion without incident.’ A few hours later, Trump walked to Marine One wearing a mask, then was transported to Walter Reed.” See also, Trump Tests Positive for Covid, Roiling Campaign and White House, Bloomberg, Jordan Fabian and Jennifer Jacobs, Friday, 2 October 2020: “U.S. President Donald Trump said early Friday that he has tested positive for coronavirus along with his wife and one of his closest aides, throwing an already volatile campaign into deeper disarray just one month before the election. Vice President Mike Pence and his wife, Karen, underwent their routine daily Covid-19 check and tested negative, his press secretary Devin O’Malley tweeted early Friday. The election campaign of Democrat Joe Biden has focused heavily on Trump’s handling of the coronavirus, which has already killed more than 200,000 Americans and deepened inequalities. Biden and others have criticized Trump’s response as slow and ineffective.” See also, Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump test positive for Covid-19, CNN Politics, Kevin Liptak, Kaitlan Collins, Betsy Klein, Jim Acosta, and Paul LeBlanc, Friday, 2 October 2020: “Donald Trump announced early Friday that he and his wife both tested positive for the coronavirus, an extraordinary development coming months into a global pandemic and in the final stretch of his reelection campaign in which he has flouted experts’ guidance on preventing the disease’s spread.” See also, Trump and first lady Melania test positive for coronavirus, The Guardian, Maanvi Singh and Peter Beaumont, Friday, 2 October 2020: “The US presidential election has been plunged into disarray after Donald Trump and his wife, Melania, tested positive for coronavirus following weeks in which the US president sought to suggest that the worst of the pandemic was over.” See also, Trump Tests Positive for the Coronavirus, and a Nation Anticipates Chaos, The New Yorker, David Remnick, Friday, 2 October 2020:  “Donald Trump and his wife, Melania, have tested positive for the coronavirus, an announcement which is bound to throw the Presidential race into a state of grave uncertainty, if not chaos. The novel coronavirus pandemic has killed more than two hundred thousand Americans and more than a million people worldwide. From the very beginning of the pandemic, Trump has denied or diminished the seriousness of covid-19, from its initial outbreak in China to its spread to Europe and beyond. In interviews with Bob Woodward, for the journalist’s book ‘Rage,’ Trump admitted that he well understood from advisers how lethal and fast-spreading the disease could be, but in public statements he downplayed the danger, saying repeatedly that the virus would disappear with the summer’s warm weather and that there was little to worry about. To the despair of the scientific and medical communities, which have uniformly said that the disease can be best contained if people wear protective masks and maintain a social distance, Trump has repeatedly flouted their advice and touted disreputable treatments. As recently as Tuesday’s Presidential debate, in Cleveland, Trump mocked his opponent, Joe Biden, for wearing masks and practicing social distancing. ” See also, ‘This was avoidable’: Trump had been downplaying the virus from the start. In recent weeks, Trump has put himself and others at risk by holding mass gatherings, some indoors, and shunning mask use while claiming the end of the virus was just around the corner. NBC News, Shannon Pettypiece, Friday, 2 October 2020: “After months of publicly rejecting the advice of his own medical experts, President Donald Trump has fallen victim to his own false narrative around the risks of the coronavirus and how to avoid getting infected. The news early Friday that the president and first lady Melania Trump had tested positive for Covid-19 came as a jolt — but medical experts said it shouldn’t have. In recent weeks, Trump, 74, has put his health and the health of his staff at risk by holding mass gatherings, some indoors, and shunning mask use while claiming that the end of the virus was just around the corner. In turn, his staff, his family members and his supporters have followed his lead. He may have been infected by one of his top aides, Hope Hicks, who works in a White House that has disregarded every workplace recommendation for social distancing, with few people wearing masks, no efforts made to spread out desks and staff members’ cramming into meeting rooms. His campaign has routinely packed thousands of supporters into rallies where masks are booed by the crowd. ‘This was avoidable. This did not have to happen if they were practicing the proper procedures and not going to these rallies and having these chaotic events, where, of course, airborne exposure was going to happen despite it being in an outdoor setting,’ said NBC News contributor Dr. Vin Gupta, a lung specialist at the University of Washington. ‘No masking, no distancing — what did they expect was going to happen?'” See also, The Busy Week When Trump Met the Coronavirus. He disparaged masks, encouraged big campaign crowds and employed an often-unreliable test to keep him safe. All the while it turned out the virus was nearby. The New York Times, Michael D. Shear, Maggie Haberman, and Kenneth P. Vogel, Friday, 2 October 2020.

Trump Kept Regular Schedule After Learning Close Aide Hope Hicks Had Covid-19, Bloomberg, Jennifer Jacobs and Josh Wingrove, Friday, 2 October 2020: “President Donald Trump learned on Thursday morning that his aide Hope Hicks tested positive for coronavirus, yet continued on with a full schedule of events, including a fundraiser at his New Jersey resort that raised $5 million, according to people familiar with the situation. Trump’s movements are being closely scrutinized since he later tested positive for coronavirus, announcing the news shortly before 1 a.m. Friday, Washington time. The White House has not said when Trump first tested positive for the virus, but Trump said late Thursday he was awaiting results. In between learning the news of Hicks’ infection Thursday morning and announcing his own early Friday, Trump stuck to his prepared schedule. That decision would appear to contradict the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidance on COVID, which reads: ‘Even if you test negative for COVID-19 or feel healthy, you should stay home (quarantine) since symptoms may appear 2 to 14 days after exposure to the virus.'”

Joe Biden calls Trump’s positive test a ‘bracing reminder’ of the seriousness of the coronavirus pandemic, CNN Politics, Eric Bradner, Sarah Mucha, and Kate Sullivan, Friday, 2 October 2020: “Joe Biden said President Donald Trump‘s positive test for coronavirus is a ‘bracing reminder’ of the seriousness of the pandemic. ‘We have to take this virus seriously. It’s not going away automatically,’ the former vice president said Friday in a speech during a pared-back trip to Michigan that followed Biden testing negative for the virus in the morning. ‘We have to do our part to be responsible. It means following the science, listening to the experts, washing our hands, social distancing. It means wearing a mask in public. It means encouraging others to do so as well.’ Wearing a mask and standing in front of an American flag in the parking lot of a union hall in Grand Rapids, the Democratic nominee said he and his wife, Jill Biden, send their ‘prayers for the health and safety’ of Trump and first lady Melania Trump, who also tested positive. He also implored Americans to wear masks — a message he has delivered for months, but with political implications that were difficult to miss after Trump’s entourage had ignored the Cleveland Clinic’s rules requiring masks at Tuesday night’s debate, while Biden’s guests wore masks. ‘Be patriotic,’ Biden said. ‘It’s not about being a tough guy. It’s about doing your part. Wearing a mask is not only going to protect you, but it also protects those around you. Your mom, your dad, your brother, your sister, husband, wife, neighbor, co-worker. Don’t just do it for yourself. Do it for the people you love, the people you work with.'”

Continue reading Week 194, Friday, 2 October – Thursday, 8 October 2020 (Days 1,351-1,357)

Passages in bold in the body of the texts below are usually my emphasis, though not always. This is an ongoing project, and I update the site frequently during the day. Because I try to stay focused on what has actually happened, I usually let the news ‘settle’ for a day or so before posting. I hope readers will peruse the articles in full for a better understanding of the issues and their context; our democracy and our future depend on citizens who can distinguish between facts and falsehoods and who are engaged in the political process.

For independent global news, visit Democracy Now!

For a newsletter about the history behind today’s politics, subscribe to Heather Cox Richardson’s newsletter, Letters from an American.

Friday, 18 September 2020, Day 1,337:

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Champion of Gender Equality, Dies at 87, NPR, Nina Totenberg, Friday, 18 September 2020: “Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the demure firebrand who in her 80s became a legal, cultural and feminist icon, died Friday. The Supreme Court announced her death, saying the cause was complications from metastatic cancer of the pancreas. The court, in a statement, said Ginsburg died at her home in Washington, D.C., surrounded by family. She was 87. ‘Our nation has lost a justice of historic stature,’ Chief Justice John Roberts said. ‘We at the Supreme Court have lost a cherished colleague. Today we mourn but with confidence that future generations will remember Ruth Bader Ginsburg as we knew her, a tireless and resolute champion of justice.’ Architect of the legal fight for women’s rights in the 1970s, Ginsburg subsequently served 27 years on the nation’s highest court, becoming its most prominent member. Her death will inevitably set in motion what promises to be a nasty and tumultuous political battle over who will succeed her, and it thrusts the Supreme Court vacancy into the spotlight of the presidential campaign. Just days before her death, as her strength waned, Ginsburg dictated this statement to her granddaughter Clara Spera: ‘My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed.'” See also, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Supreme Court’s Feminist Icon, Is Dead at 87, The New York Times, Linda Greenhouse, Friday, 18 September 2020: “Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the second woman to serve on the Supreme Court and a pioneering advocate for women’s rights, who in her ninth decade became a much younger generation’s unlikely cultural icon, died on Friday at her home in Washington. She was 87. The cause was complications of metastatic pancreatic cancer, the Supreme Court said. By the time two small tumors were found in one of her lungs in December 2018, during a follow-up scan for broken ribs suffered in a recent fall, Justice Ginsburg had beaten colon cancer in 1999 and early-stage pancreatic cancer 10 years later. She received a coronary stent to clear a blocked artery in 2014.” See also, Justice Ginsburg’s Judicial Legacy of Striking Dissents. She was part of the Supreme Court’s 4-member liberal wing throughout her 27-year tenure and led it in her last decade. The New York Times, Adam Liptak, Friday, 18 September 2020: “There was a framed copy of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 on the wall of the chambers of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died on Friday. She counted the law among her proudest achievements, even as it illustrated her limited power. As part of the Supreme Court’s four-member liberal wing, she did her most memorable work in dissent. The law was a reaction to her minority opinion in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, the 2007 ruling that said Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 imposed strict time limits for bringing workplace discrimination suits. She called on Congress to overturn the decision, and it did. On the court, however, her notable victories were few. As she put it in a 2013 interview in her chambers, she was fully engaged in her work as the leader of the liberal opposition on what she called ‘one of the most activist courts in history.’ There were exceptions, of course. One of her favorite majority opinions, she often said, ruled that the Virginia Military Institute’s male-only admissions policy violated the Equal Protection clause.” See also, ‘A Titan of Justice’: Leaders React to Justice Ginsburg’s Death, The New York Times, Christopher Mele, Friday, 18 September 2020: Political leaders from both sides of the aisle and the chief justice of the United States offered tributes to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died on Friday, remembering her as a trailblazer and a warrior for justice. But their comments also reflected what is expected to be a bruising fight over her replacement.” See also, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Supreme Court justice and legal pioneer for gender equality, dies at 87, The Washington Post, Robert Barnes and Michael A. Fletcher, Friday, 18 September 2020: “Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the second woman to serve on the high court and a legal pioneer for gender equality whose fierce opinions as a justice made her a hero to the left, died Sept. 18 at her home in Washington. She was 87. The death was announced in a statement by the U.S. Supreme Court. She had recently been treated for pancreatic cancer. Born in Depression-era Brooklyn, Justice Ginsburg excelled academically and went to the top of her law school class at a time when women were still called upon to justify taking a man’s place. She earned a reputation as the legal embodiment of the women’s liberation movement and as a widely admired role model for generations of female lawyers. Working in the 1970s with the American Civil Liberties Union, Justice Ginsburg successfully argued a series of cases before the high court that strategically chipped away at the legal wall of gender discrimination, eventually causing it to topple. Later, as a member of the court’s liberal bloc, she was a reliable vote to enhance the rights of women, protect affirmative action and minority voting rights and defend a woman’s right to choose an abortion.” See also, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Great Equalizer. How a scholar, advocate, and judge upended the entirety of U.S. political thought. The New Yorker, Jill Lepore, Friday, 18 September 2020: ” See also, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Vows Vote on Ginsburg Replacement as Her Death Upends the 2020 Race, The New York Times, Peter Baker and Maggie Haberman, Friday, 18 September 2020: “The death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Friday instantly upended the nation’s politics in the middle of an already bitter campaign, giving President Trump an opportunity to try to install a third member of the Supreme Court with just weeks before an election that polls show he is currently losing. The White House had already made quiet preparations in the days before Justice Ginsburg’s death to advance a nominee without waiting for voters to decide whether to give Mr. Trump another four years. Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, vowed Friday night to hold a vote on a Trump nominee but would not say whether he would try to rush it through before the vote on Nov. 3 in what would surely be a titanic partisan battle. The sudden vacancy on the court abruptly transformed the presidential campaign and underscored the stakes of the contest between Mr. Trump and former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., his Democratic challenger. It also bolstered Mr. Trump’s effort to shift the subject away from his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and remind Republicans why it matters whether he wins or not, while also potentially galvanizing Democrats who fear a change in the balance of power on the Supreme Court.” See also, McConnell vows Trump’s Supreme Court Nominee will get a Senate vote, The Washington Post, Seung Min Kim, Friday, 18 September 2020: “Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has made judicial confirmations a hallmark of his legacy, is now confronting an extremely fraught Supreme Court fight that will challenge his pledge to leave no vacancy behind amid charges of hypocrisy and as his party’s control of the Senate hangs in the balance. McConnell (R-Ky.), who blocked President Barack Obama’s final nominee to the Supreme Court for the near entirety of 2016, said Friday that President Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court will get a vote on the floor of the Senate, although he did not say when that vote would be held.” See also, Ginsburg’s death jolts chaotic presidential race as both sides prepare for Supreme Court battle, The Washington Post, Philip Rucker, Matt Viser, Sean Sullivan, and Robert Costa, Friday, 18 September 2020: “An already chaotic and corrosive presidential campaign was jolted anew Friday night by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, as a sudden vacancy on the Supreme Court just 46 days before the election immediately galvanized both political parties. The impending fight for the Supreme Court thrusts issues of civil rights, abortion rights and health care to the forefront of a campaign that had been centered on the coronavirus pandemic, the economy and race relations, and it could boost voter enthusiasm and turnout numbers. Democratic and Republican leaders assembled for all-out political war. Despite Ginsburg’s dying wish that her successor not be determined until after the election, White House officials said President Trump is preparing to nominate a replacement in the coming days. And Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said that nominee would receive a vote in the Republican-controlled Senate — a departure from McConnell’s refusal to consider a nominee chosen by President Barack Obama before the 2016 election. ‘President Trump’s nominee will receive a vote on the floor of the United States Senate,’ McConnell said in a statement. Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden warned the Senate not to hold an election-year confirmation vote to fill Ginsburg’s seat. ‘Tonight and in the coming days we should focus on the loss of the justice and her enduring legacy. But there is no doubt — let me be clear — that the voters should pick the president and the president should pick the justice for the Senate to consider,’ he told reporters in a hastily arranged appearance late Friday. Previewing the path ahead, Democratic vice-presidential nominee Kamala D. Harris said in a statement Friday: ‘Tonight we mourn, we honor, and we pray for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her family. Tomorrow we fight for her legacy.'”

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Great Equalizer. How a scholar, advocate, and judge upended the entirety of U.S. political thought. The New Yorker, Jill Lepore, Friday, 18 September 2020: “The change [Ruth Bader] Ginsburg ushered into American politics began a half century ago, and reckoning with its magnitude requires measuring the distance between now and then. At the time, only three in a hundred legal professionals and fewer than two hundred of the nation’s ten thousand judges were women. In 1971, as Richard Nixon prepared to make two appointments to the Supreme Court, he faced a dilemma. Yet another Southerner he’d tapped had been nixed for an opposition to desegregation, so Nixon decided to look for someone who was, preferably, not a racist. He considered naming a woman. ‘I’m not for women, frankly, in any job,’ he told his aides, in a little fit of hysterics. ‘Thank God we don’t have any in the Cabinet.’ He didn’t think women should be educated, or ‘ever be allowed to vote, even.’ But, given the momentum of the women’s-rights movement, he conceded the political necessity of naming a woman to the bench: it might gain him a small but crucial number of votes in the upcoming election. ‘It’s like the Negro vote,’ he said. ‘It’s a hell of a thing.’ Then Chief Justice Warren Burger, in a similar huff, told Nixon that, if he were to nominate a woman, he’d resign. In the end, Nixon named Lewis Powell. While all these men were dithering, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was working for the A.C.L.U., writing the brief for a case set to go before the Court, Reed v. Reed. Decided on November 22, 1971, weeks after Powell’s confirmation hearings, Reed v. Reed upended a century of American jurisprudence and the entirety of political thought going back to the beginning of the Republic. Before 1971, as Ginsburg would later write, ‘Neither legislators nor judges regarded gender lines as “back of the bus” regulations. Rather, these rules were said to place women on a pedestal.’ Thomas Jefferson had taken the trouble to explain that women had no part in the Framers’ understanding of the government devised by the Constitution. ‘Were our state a pure democracy,’ he wrote, ‘there would yet be excluded from their deliberations . . . women; who, to prevent deprivation of morals, and ambiguity of issues, could not mix promiscuously in the public gatherings of men.’ Women were to be excluded for their own protection. The early women’s-rights movement, in the middle decades of the nineteenth century, had not defeated that argument, and the Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868, did not explicitly—or implicitly, according to the Court—bar discrimination on the basis of sex. In 1873, ruling on a case in which Myra Bradwell had sued the state of Illinois for denying her the right to practice law, one Supreme Court Justice explained his logic this way: ‘The natural and proper timidity and delicacy which belongs to the female sex evidently unfits it for many of the occupations of civil life.’ That, as Ginsburg liked to say, was a cage, pretending to be a pedestal. Reed v. Reed, in 1971, involved an Idaho statute that gave preference to men—’males must be preferred to females’—in executing estates. The Court, following Ginsburg’s brief, ruled for the first time that discrimination on the basis of sex violated the equal-protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Writing for the majority, Burger used language that had been introduced by Ginsburg: ‘To give a mandatory preference to members of either sex over members of the other, merely to accomplish the elimination of hearings on the merits, is to make the very kind of arbitrary legislative choice forbidden by the equal-protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment; and whatever may be said as to the positive values of avoiding intrafamily controversy, the choice in this context may not lawfully be mandated solely on the basis of sex.’ Just a few years later, Ginsburg was arguing her own cases before the Court, and the Chief Justice was stumbling over how to address her. ‘Mrs. Bader? Mrs. Ginsburg?'”

Some Global Coronavirus Updates for Friday, 18 September 2020: After Criticism, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Reverses Covid-19 Guidelines on Testing People Who Were Exposed, The New York Times, Friday, 18 September 2020:

• The C.D.C. reverses its guidance on testing for people who were exposed to the virus and aren’t showing symptoms.
• Emails by a former top Trump health official and his science adviser show efforts to silence the C.D.C.
• Trump acknowledged that distribution of an authorized vaccine for ‘every American’ may not be until next year.
• Iran is a virus ‘red zone,’ a health minister says.
• Boris Johnson, confirming that Britain is in its second wave, raises the possibility of a new lockdown.
• Early voting kicks off in four U.S. states.
• After weeks with little data, more U.S. states begin to share information on cases in schools.

Other significant developments are included in this article.

Continue reading Week 192, Friday, 18 September – Thursday, 24 September 2020 (Days 1,337-1,343)