RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/10/12/dems-plan-to-pack-the-senate-and-the-electoral-college-as-well-as-the-supreme-court/

Joe Biden has so far refused to answer the question of whether he’d pack the Supreme Court with leftist justices. But he hasn’t even been asked about a more worrisome scheme he and his party are cooking up to ensure Democrats’ election victories well into the future.

So far, Biden has inartfully dodged the question of whether he would support adding justices to the Supreme Court. All he would say in the debate was “Whatever the position I take, that will be the issue” and in Arizona, he said, “You’ll know my opinion on court-packing when the election is over.”

Biden knows court-packing doesn’t poll well, and so with the help of the press, he is avoiding the topic. But Senate Democrats have already made it clear that they will take that route should President Donald Trump get Judge Amy Coney Barrett on the bench.

What hasn’t received nearly enough attention, however, is the other plan Democrats are hatching to take seize control of the Senate, and make winning the presidency easier, by granting statehood to Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico.

As the Washington Examiner reported: “Key Democratic leaders, already mulling adding more justices to the Supreme Court if they take the White House and Senate, are also eager to add two more states, a move that could shift the Electoral College permanently to liberals.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said recently that: “Believe me. On D.C. and Puerto Rico, particularly if Puerto Rico votes for it — D.C. already has voted for it and wants it — I’d love to make them states.”

Biden has long supported D.C. statehood, and during remarks at a Hispanic Heritage Month kickoff event in Kissimmee, Florida, he said that Puerto Rican statehood “would be the most effective means of ensuring that residents of Puerto Rico are treated equally.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/10/if-biden-were-a-republican/

Here’s what the press would be asking the former veep.

Mr. Biden, you have a history of cultivating disturbingly close relationships with white supremacists.

As segregationists were dying off in the 1970s, you went out of your way to be pals with them, then bragged about it. You once called notorious segregationist Senator Strom Thurmond “one of my closest friends.” In 1988, when you were mounting a run for president that collapsed when your multiple acts of plagiarism came to light, you deployed a dog whistle when you bragged that the arch-racist former Alabama governor George Wallace had given you a leadership award in 1973. Also in 1988 you noted approvingly that the press would refer to you and Thurmond as the “marvelous marriage” and “the odd couple.” You later delivered a eulogy at Thurmond’s funeral in 2003

You once told Mississippi senator John Stennis, a racist opponent of school desegregation, that you viewed him as a “hero” and were honored to take over his office after he retired. In 2010 you gave a eulogy at the funeral of Senator Robert Byrd, a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan whom you called “a dear friend.” As recently as 2008 you were still bragging that you had “deep personal relationships” with segregationist senators James Eastland, Stennis, and Thurmond, and said, “All these men became my friends.” As recently as 2016 you fondly recalled that you welcomed the assistance of Stennis in one of your Senate reelection campaigns even though Stennis once said, “Those who would mix little children of both races in our schools are following an illegal, immoral, and sinful doctrine.” Isn’t your record of supporting these avowed white supremacists disturbing, disgusting, and disqualifying?

Mr. Biden, President Obama said of you, “Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to f*** things up.” If the person you worked most closely with considers you a foul-up, why should the American people entrust you with the highest position in the republic?

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2020-10-10-the-difference-that-a-packed-supreme-court-would-make

The impending confirmation of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court promises to bring us a Court with a 6-3 “conservative” majority. As a result, Democrats could be facing decades in the Supreme Court wilderness. Even if Biden wins the election for President, the only member of the Court likely to retire in the next few years is Justice Breyer, who recently turned 82; but since Breyer is one of the Court’s “liberals,” Biden’s replacing of Breyer would not change the Court’s ideological balance. The next oldest Justice is Clarence Thomas, currently 72, which is youthful by today’s Supreme Court standards.

But there’s another possibility. Congress could potentially increase the number of Justices, giving Biden as President the ability theoretically to add four, or six, or even more Justices in an attempt to cement a permanent Democratic majority. In fact, Congress has changed the number of Justices multiple times in the past, although the last time was in 1869. In recent days, prominent Democrats — including Senator Edward Markey of Massachusetts, Congressman Jerrold Nadler of New York (my Congressman!), and former Attorney General Eric Holder — have advocated that if Barrett is confirmed, Democrats should retaliate by expanding the number of Justices to regain the majority of the Court.

The last President to float the idea of adding Justices to shift the Court’s ideology was Franklin Roosevelt. The effort occurred in 1937, just after Roosevelt had been re-elected in a landslide in 1936, and had swept in with him super-majorities in both the House and Senate. Roosevelt had become frustrated with a Court that had struck down some of his most significant initiatives, the most famous being the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933, which was struck down in the Schechter Poultry case of 1935. Roosevelt sought to seize the opportunity of his big new Congressional majorities, proposing to add six more Justices, to make a Court of 15. On the assumption that the new Justices would be loyal political allies, the six new Justices would be sufficient to give Roosevelt a majority to uphold any new legislation he could get enacted. The initiative immediately earned the nickname of “court packing.”

https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/investigations/2020/10/08/rejected-mail-ballots-projected-major-factor-2020-election/3576714001/

Rejected ballots in the 2020 election battle between President Donald Trump and Joe Biden could become the post-election focus.

In a normal election year in any given state, hundreds or even thousands of absentee ballots get tossed for everything from late postmarks to open envelopes. 

North Carolina rejected 546 ballots for missing witness signatures in the 2012 presidential race. Virginia tossed 216 ballots in the 2018 midterms because they arrived in an unofficial envelope. Arizona discarded 1,516 ballots for nonmatching signatures the same year.

The 2020 presidential election will not be normal.

Absentee ballot rejections this November are projected to reach historic levels, risking widespread disenfranchisement of minority voters and the credibility of election results, a USA TODAY, Columbia Journalism Investigations and PBS series FRONTLINE investigation found.

At least 1.03 million absentee ballots could be tossed if half of the nation votes by mail. Discarded votes jump to 1.55 million if 75% of the country votes absentee. In the latter scenario, more than 185,000 votes could be lost in Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin – states considered key to capturing the White House.