newyorker--2020-09-19--Moving Back Out of Your Parents’ Home: Orientation Materials

Hello !
We are thrilled to welcome you back to your apartment , now that your two-week-turned-six-month stay with your parents has—unlike the pandemic that prompted you to move home in the first place—come to an end .
Many of you may find this re-re-readjustment to independent living jarring and difficult , especially those of you who somehow haven ’ t had to make such an adjustment since the 2008-09 economic collapse .
We have , therefore , prepared a helpful list of things to keep in mind , to make this transition as smooth as possible .
Enjoy !
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ you will notice is that your apartment is much smaller than your parents ’ home and that , unlike them with their house , you do not technically “ own ” it and probably never will .
If this starts to bother you too much , reassure yourself that it is only because your parents came of age during the greatest economic expansion in our country ’ s history , whereas you came of age during two of the worst economic crises in our country ’ s history—and not because both of your @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you decided to major in art history .
This should help put you and your four roommates more at ease .
Entertainment : You can safely resume watching movies and television shows with explicit sex scenes without having to worry about explaining to your parents why this is art and not porn .
Transportation : The bad news is that you no longer have access to your parents ’ car , but the good news is that your city has a robust mass-transit system , but the bad news is that everyone is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ because of the pandemic , but the good news is that most things in your city are still closed , so it ’ s not like you would have anywhere to go on the mass-transit system , anyway .
So , we don ’ t know , maybe buy some Rollerblades ?
Rent : Actually , even though you haven ’ t been living in your apartment for the past six months , you were still required to pay your rent in full that whole time , so this shouldn ’ t be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all !
Isn ’ t that great ?
Food : Yeah , you ’ re going to have to buy groceries and cook for yourself again , which kind of sucks .
Mom ’ s meatballs are still so good after all these years .
At least there ’ s always takeout .
Socializing : The biggest adjustment many of you will face is the realization that , when you leave your apartment , you will no longer need to tell anyone where you are going , when you are coming back , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are seeing , and why it is totally safe for you to see them , despite the ongoing pandemic , because they ’ ve been really careful—plus , you guys just had all your friends over for a badminton tournament last week , so who are you to judge , anyway ?
This may initially feel amazing , but it could also eventually leave you starved for attention .
To combat this , we recommend striking up a relationship with an older person in your building and describing your plans to him or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ re about to leave .
If your new friend resists commenting on your plans at first , make them seem riskier and riskier , until your neighbor casually mentions that it is maybe not the smartest idea to go to a warehouse rave in the middle of a pandemic .
At that point , you are free to scream that just because you ’ re living in the same place again doesn ’ t mean you ’ re all of a sudden not an adult anymore , and storm out .
Welcome @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sincerely hope that you enjoy your time here .
Please keep these orientation materials handy for when you have to make this same transition following the Great Floods of 2023-25 .

Dear Millennial,
Hello! We are thrilled to welcome you back to your apartment, now that your two-week-turned-six-month stay with your parents has—unlike the pandemic that prompted you to move home in the first place—come to an end. Many of you may find this re-re-readjustment to independent living jarring and difficult, especially those of you who somehow haven’t had to make such an adjustment since the 2008-09 economic collapse. We have, therefore, prepared a helpful list of things to keep in mind, to make this transition as smooth as possible. Enjoy!
Size: The first thing most of you will notice is that your apartment is much smaller than your parents’ home and that, unlike them with their house, you do not technically “own” it and probably never will. If this starts to bother you too much, reassure yourself that it is only because your parents came of age during the greatest economic expansion in our country’s history, whereas you came of age during two of the worst economic crises in our country’s history—and not because both of your parents decided to major in finance and you decided to major in art history. This should help put you and your four roommates more at ease.
Entertainment: You can safely resume watching movies and television shows with explicit sex scenes without having to worry about explaining to your parents why this is art and not porn.
Transportation: The bad news is that you no longer have access to your parents’ car, but the good news is that your city has a robust mass-transit system, but the bad news is that everyone is still afraid to use this mass-transit system because of the pandemic, but the good news is that most things in your city are still closed, so it’s not like you would have anywhere to go on the mass-transit system, anyway. So, we don’t know, maybe buy some Rollerblades?
Rent: Actually, even though you haven’t been living in your apartment for the past six months, you were still required to pay your rent in full that whole time, so this shouldn’t be much of an adjustment for you at all! Isn’t that great?
Food: Yeah, you’re going to have to buy groceries and cook for yourself again, which kind of sucks. Mom’s meatballs are still so good after all these years. At least there’s always takeout.
Socializing: The biggest adjustment many of you will face is the realization that, when you leave your apartment, you will no longer need to tell anyone where you are going, when you are coming back, what you are doing, whom you are seeing, and why it is totally safe for you to see them, despite the ongoing pandemic, because they’ve been really careful—plus, you guys just had all your friends over for a badminton tournament last week, so who are you to judge, anyway? This may initially feel amazing, but it could also eventually leave you starved for attention. To combat this, we recommend striking up a relationship with an older person in your building and describing your plans to him or her in extreme detail every time you’re about to leave. If your new friend resists commenting on your plans at first, make them seem riskier and riskier, until your neighbor casually mentions that it is maybe not the smartest idea to go to a warehouse rave in the middle of a pandemic. At that point, you are free to scream that just because you’re living in the same place again doesn’t mean you’re all of a sudden not an adult anymore, and storm out.
Welcome back, once again, and we sincerely hope that you enjoy your time here. Please keep these orientation materials handy for when you have to make this same transition following the Great Floods of 2023-25.
Sincerely,
A.A.R.P.


newyorker--2020-09-19--The Clear Night Sky Over India and China’s Hostile Border

In June , when India and China had their deadliest military encounter in fifty years , the only weapons used were blades , rocks , and spiked clubs .
The troops , who were forbidden from using firearms , were making an attempt at “ mutual disengagement ” in the Galwan Valley , a remote outpost in the region of Ladakh , the northernmost part of India .
Twenty Indian soldiers were killed in the Stone Age melee , with an unknown number of Chinese casualties .
Most of the Indian casualties had been pushed down a river gorge into @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Ladakh is one of the most elevated areas on Earth , part of a region often called “ the roof of the world.
” Despite the perils that one might face there—altitude sickness , bitter cold outside of summer , and narrow roads prone to landslides—it is a place to behold .
The slopes , a tie-dye of mineral hues , enclose iridescent , glacier-fed lakes .
Overhead are some of the world ’ s clearest skies , spotless by day and crowded with stars by night .
For centuries , the region @ @ @ @ @ @ @ travellers from across Asia .
Today , the area is divided between India and its rival nuclear powers , China and Pakistan , each of which is accused of annexing territories there : Kashmir , Aksai Chin , Gilgit-Baltistan , and Tibet .
Even in less tense times , Indian and Chinese troops stare each other down across the disputed border , known as the Line of Actual Control , or L.A.C.
, in carefully choreographed encounters .
In May , before the battle at Galwan , rival patrols came to blows on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the largest of Ladakh ’ s glacial lakes ; a video of the incident went viral , showing men brawling against stark inclines .
By the end of August , the skirmishes had moved to the lake ’ s southern shore .
These landscapes , rendered digitally on Indian news coverage , seemed bare of natural or human life , and void of any purpose but as border , buffer , or battlefield .
On the southern shore of Pangong Tso , however , lies a group of pale structures that are focussed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
At their center is an aluminum shed built over a modest solar telescope .
Throughout the recent skirmishes and during India ’ s months-long COVID-19 lockdown , this telescope has remained busy tracking solar flares .
The observatory , which sits near the village of Merak , is one of two in Ladakh , both of which are situated on the Changtang plateau , just a few dozen miles from the L.A.C .
The other , near a village called Hanle , was the highest observatory in the Eastern Hemisphere until a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one higher , just across the border .
During the summer , Merak is thick with fields of barley .
On any clear morning , Stanzin Tundup , a thirty-one-year-old with a face weathered by sun and dry wind , makes the short drive from his village to the telescope , where he parts the shutters and points the instrument ’ s lens at the sun .
The telescope filters the light and isolates a wavelength known as H-alpha , a narrow band on which gargantuan movements of gas and energy , surging @ @ @ @ @ @ @ come into view .
On a recent visit , Tundup clicked open a file on a computer and pointed around a red stubbled image of the sun ’ s chromosphere .
“ We have this active region , so if we focus here , we have chances of solar flares and jets , ” he said .
Until a generation ago , Tundup ’ s family , like many on the Changtang plateau , were pastoralists .
“ Everyone had their flocks , and they were nomadic , basically , ” he said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ yaks , but we had sheep and goats , and , especially during holidays , I would go with my grandfather to take them into the high mountains.
” The herds stayed for the summer , until his grandfather drove them down to warmer pastures .
Tundup spent the winter skating on the frozen surface of Pangong Tso .
In 2006 , when Tundup was seventeen , a team from the Indian Institute of Astrophysics ( I.I.A . )
arrived in Merak with a strange and lofty purpose .
They wanted to build @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there , in a village with no power and no phones , and which was reachable only by some of the highest motorable mountain passes in the world .
To start , they installed the smaller pilot instrument that Tundup helps manage .
The telescope was fabricated and tested in Nanjing , with the aid of the I.I.A.
’ s Chinese colleagues , before arriving at its home just outside the western limits of Tibet .
Today , the telescope ’ s readings are decoded by researchers in South India , but the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and women from Merak .
“ This has been our philosophy , ” G. C. Anupama , the dean of the I.I.A.
, which has its headquarters in Bangalore , said .
“ And it has a twofold advantage .
Local people have pride in being involved in scientific activity—we ’ re not leaving them isolated—and then , in situations like today , they keep the observatories running .
The data is still coming in .
The science is not affected.
” In May , just days before the skirmishes around the lake @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Science and Technology reaffirmed its plans to build the bigger , two-metre National Large Solar Telescope .
At the Merak site , Tundup keeps an architect ’ s drawing of what will be a six-story structure as his screensaver .
He expects “ the two-metre ” to change his community without spoiling it , as mass tourism has done farther down the lakeshore .
“ In the coming years , I think this village will grow more curious , gain interest in scientific things , ” he said .
His hopes suggest a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the region is defined not by war but by collaboration , scientific discovery , and inclusive development .
“ Once the two-metre comes , there will be lots of new jobs , ” he said .
“ Merak will be famous , I think , like Hanle.
” In 1994 , when teams from the I.I.A .
surveyed Ladakh , looking for India ’ s clearest sky , they found a pristine site in Hanle .
At the end of the Changtang plateau , an arid expanse turned into a sudden , flourishing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its center .
The locals called the ridge Digpa Ratsa Ri .
From its top , the encircling ranges lay low on the horizon , spanned by a perfect blue void .
The altitude and the surrounding plain meant that the Hanle sky excelled in two qualities : transparency and what astronomers call seeing .
A sky is transparent when there is little to obstruct light .
In Hanle , a girdle of mountains shuts out clouds and rain , and no town , industry , or highway exists to taint the air @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there looks closer than it really is , ” Dorje Angchuk , the chief engineer of the Indian Astronomical Observatory , in Ladakh , said .
You could drive toward an object , he noted , and never seem to be gaining ground .
The second quality , “ seeing , ” is good when light is minimally refracted by turbulence in the atmosphere .
Usually , shifting bands of gases and aerosols cause light from the stars to zigzag .
It is this effect that makes stars twinkle and that , for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ image .
For the best transparency and seeing , you have to be outside the atmosphere altogether .
This is why , in 2001 , Frontline magazine called Hanle “ the closest that India can get to possessing a space telescope , for now .
”

In June, when India and China had their deadliest military encounter in fifty years, the only weapons used were blades, rocks, and spiked clubs. The troops, who were forbidden from using firearms, were making an attempt at “mutual disengagement” in the Galwan Valley, a remote outpost in the region of Ladakh, the northernmost part of India. Twenty Indian soldiers were killed in the Stone Age melee, with an unknown number of Chinese casualties. Most of the Indian casualties had been pushed down a river gorge into icy water and died awaiting evacuation.
Ladakh is one of the most elevated areas on Earth, part of a region often called “the roof of the world.” Despite the perils that one might face there—altitude sickness, bitter cold outside of summer, and narrow roads prone to landslides—it is a place to behold. The slopes, a tie-dye of mineral hues, enclose iridescent, glacier-fed lakes. Overhead are some of the world’s clearest skies, spotless by day and crowded with stars by night. For centuries, the region was a crossroads for trading caravans and travellers from across Asia.
Today, the area is divided between India and its rival nuclear powers, China and Pakistan, each of which is accused of annexing territories there: Kashmir, Aksai Chin, Gilgit-Baltistan, and Tibet. Even in less tense times, Indian and Chinese troops stare each other down across the disputed border, known as the Line of Actual Control, or L.A.C., in carefully choreographed encounters. In May, before the battle at Galwan, rival patrols came to blows on the northern shores of Pangong Tso, the largest of Ladakh’s glacial lakes; a video of the incident went viral, showing men brawling against stark inclines. By the end of August, the skirmishes had moved to the lake’s southern shore. These landscapes, rendered digitally on Indian news coverage, seemed bare of natural or human life, and void of any purpose but as border, buffer, or battlefield.
This pilot telescope, in Merak, is a test run for India’s quest to build one of the world’s largest solar telescopes. This instrument was built in Nanjing with the help of Chinese scientists. Photograph by Anmol Tikoo
On the southern shore of Pangong Tso, however, lies a group of pale structures that are focussed not on the ground but the sky. At their center is an aluminum shed built over a modest solar telescope. Throughout the recent skirmishes and during India’s months-long COVID-19 lockdown, this telescope has remained busy tracking solar flares. The observatory, which sits near the village of Merak, is one of two in Ladakh, both of which are situated on the Changtang plateau, just a few dozen miles from the L.A.C. The other, near a village called Hanle, was the highest observatory in the Eastern Hemisphere until a few years ago, when China built one higher, just across the border.
During the summer, Merak is thick with fields of barley. On any clear morning, Stanzin Tundup, a thirty-one-year-old with a face weathered by sun and dry wind, makes the short drive from his village to the telescope, where he parts the shutters and points the instrument’s lens at the sun. The telescope filters the light and isolates a wavelength known as H-alpha, a narrow band on which gargantuan movements of gas and energy, surging below the sun’s surface, come into view. On a recent visit, Tundup clicked open a file on a computer and pointed around a red stubbled image of the sun’s chromosphere. “We have this active region, so if we focus here, we have chances of solar flares and jets,” he said.
Until a generation ago, Tundup’s family, like many on the Changtang plateau, were pastoralists. “Everyone had their flocks, and they were nomadic, basically,” he said. “We didn’t have yaks, but we had sheep and goats, and, especially during holidays, I would go with my grandfather to take them into the high mountains.” The herds stayed for the summer, until his grandfather drove them down to warmer pastures. Tundup spent the winter skating on the frozen surface of Pangong Tso.
In 2006, when Tundup was seventeen, a team from the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (I.I.A.) arrived in Merak with a strange and lofty purpose. They wanted to build the world’s largest solar telescope there, in a village with no power and no phones, and which was reachable only by some of the highest motorable mountain passes in the world. To start, they installed the smaller pilot instrument that Tundup helps manage. The telescope was fabricated and tested in Nanjing, with the aid of the I.I.A.’s Chinese colleagues, before arriving at its home just outside the western limits of Tibet.
Today, the telescope’s readings are decoded by researchers in South India, but the device itself is supervised by young men and women from Merak. “This has been our philosophy,” G. C. Anupama, the dean of the I.I.A., which has its headquarters in Bangalore, said. “And it has a twofold advantage. Local people have pride in being involved in scientific activity—we’re not leaving them isolated—and then, in situations like today, they keep the observatories running. The data is still coming in. The science is not affected.”
In May, just days before the skirmishes around the lake began, India’s Ministry of Science and Technology reaffirmed its plans to build the bigger, two-metre National Large Solar Telescope. At the Merak site, Tundup keeps an architect’s drawing of what will be a six-story structure as his screensaver. He expects “the two-metre” to change his community without spoiling it, as mass tourism has done farther down the lakeshore. “In the coming years, I think this village will grow more curious, gain interest in scientific things,” he said. His hopes suggest a new vision for Ladakh, in which the region is defined not by war but by collaboration, scientific discovery, and inclusive development. “Once the two-metre comes, there will be lots of new jobs,” he said. “Merak will be famous, I think, like Hanle.”
Some of the Changpa, the indigenous people of the Changtang plateau, remain pastoralists, herding yaks, sheep, and prized pashmina goats, which produce some of the finest wool in the world. Photograph by Dorje Angchuk
In 1994, when teams from the I.I.A. surveyed Ladakh, looking for India’s clearest sky, they found a pristine site in Hanle. At the end of the Changtang plateau, an arid expanse turned into a sudden, flourishing wetland, with an elevated ridge at its center. The locals called the ridge Digpa Ratsa Ri. From its top, the encircling ranges lay low on the horizon, spanned by a perfect blue void.
The altitude and the surrounding plain meant that the Hanle sky excelled in two qualities: transparency and what astronomers call seeing. A sky is transparent when there is little to obstruct light. In Hanle, a girdle of mountains shuts out clouds and rain, and no town, industry, or highway exists to taint the air or brighten the sky. “Everything there looks closer than it really is,” Dorje Angchuk, the chief engineer of the Indian Astronomical Observatory, in Ladakh, said. You could drive toward an object, he noted, and never seem to be gaining ground.
The second quality, “seeing,” is good when light is minimally refracted by turbulence in the atmosphere. Usually, shifting bands of gases and aerosols cause light from the stars to zigzag. It is this effect that makes stars twinkle and that, for astronomers, tends to produce a blurred image. For the best transparency and seeing, you have to be outside the atmosphere altogether. This is why, in 2001, Frontline magazine called Hanle “the closest that India can get to possessing a space telescope, for now.”
The Hanle telescope was named the Himalayan Chandra, after the astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, who won a Nobel Prize in 1983. Besides having access to clear skies, the telescope is valuably positioned on the other side of the planet from the major observatories in the West, like those in Hawaii and Chile’s Atacama Desert. As the Earth turns, objects set in the Western sky and rise into view in Asia. “Take a supernova,” Anupama, of the I.I.A., said. “It has had an explosion and it’s fading. It’s a temporal evolution.” These events, called transients, need to be tracked by telescopes situated around the world. According to Anupama, the Chandra telescope “bridged the gap between telescopes in Australia and in the Canary Islands.”
Since the Himalayan Chandra opened, in 2000, other telescopes have come to crowd around Digpa Ratsa Ri, constructed, in stages, in the brief thaw between Ladakh’s long winters, when temperatures can fall to minus twenty degrees Celsius. The Major Atmospheric Cherenkov Experiment, or MACE, Telescope, built by India’s premier nuclear-research center, is to be the second-largest gamma-ray telescope in the world. And the Indian Space Research Organisation—the country’s NASA-equivalent—plans to add a telescope to monitor space debris and safeguard India’s ambitious satellite program. As the Hanle complex expands, it will study most every part of the sky, from orbital space, just above the Earth, to supernovas and blazars in other galaxies.
For centuries, the Hanle monastery dominated the local landscape. The monastery was built in the seventeenth century along the Ladakh-Tibet trade route, which has been closed since the war in 1962 between India and China. Photograph by Dorje Angchuk
Since 2012, the Hanle observatory has also had company across the border. That year, the Chinese Academy of Sciences established its own observatory in the district of Ali, barely seventy miles away—and nearly two thousand feet higher than Digpa Ratsa Ri. The news caused a brief flap in the Indian media, which claimed that Ali was in Aksai Chin, a region that India considers sovereign territory. When it turned out that Ali was in Tibet, the issue was forgotten, though not by Hanle’s astronomers.
The Ali observatory’s most sophisticated project, the C.M.B. Polarization Telescope, is set to open this year. The telescope, which cost tens of millions of dollars, will search for primordial gravitational waves to advance our understanding of the very early universe—the moments just after the Big Bang. The project exemplifies China’s ambition to turn the vast Tibetan plateau into “Asia’s Atacama” and to move to the fore of global astronomical research. That vision will be difficult for India to match. “We can’t really project Hanle that way, because of our current infrastructure here,” Anupama said. “But I hope that in the years to come, Hanle will be competitive—and be seen as a better site.”
And yet, when it comes to the sky, the two countries enjoy a warmer relationship than their strategic rivalry might suggest. For the past decade, both China and India have leveraged “astro-diplomacy” to forge international ties and boost their scientific standing. In 2014, the nations deemed astronomy an area of collaboration, committing mutual support to projects like Merak’s solar telescope. Many I.I.A. graduates now accept postdoc appointments at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and senior faculty from both institutions co-author papers. India and China are also partners in a five-nation effort to build a Thirty-Metre Telescope (T.M.T.)—an instrument three times bigger than any telescope in existence—in Hawaii. Every few weeks, astronomers in Bangalore and Beijing video-conference with colleagues in the United States, Japan, and Canada to grapple with the T.M.T.’s challenges. If completed, the telescope will enable the most powerful observations ever made of the northern sky.
Young monks look toward the Indian Astronomical Observatory, on the Digpa Ratsa Ri ridge. Locals are generally supportive of the telescopes, which create jobs and ecotourism. Photograph by Anmol Tikoo
In January of 2019, the administration of Prime Minister Narendra Modi surprised Indian astronomers by announcing a plan to build the world’s largest solar-power plant in the Hanle plain. A plant of that size would mean lights, construction, and a transformation of the local climate—in short, the blinding of Hanle’s telescopes. A professional telescope is, by necessity, an introvert. To function well, it has to either retreat from society or ask nearby humans to tone it down.
In Hanle, the only nearby humans reside in a few hamlets and in the storied Hanle Gompa, a seventeenth-century Tibetan Buddhist monastery. Early on, Hanle’s head monk granted permission to shift a stupa from the highest point of Digpa Ratsa Ri, and the Dalai Lama later performed the Himalayan Chandra’s consecration ceremony. Since then, the locals and astronomers have found a quiet equilibrium. The telescopes have brought a road, good jobs, and a discreet brand of tourist to the area. Like Stanzin Tundup, in Merak, Hanle residents want to see astronomy prosper. The field promises high-value employment that depends on sustaining older life styles, rather than displacing them.
Since the government’s announcement, Hanle locals, astronomers, and wildlife officials have been lobbying to relocate the solar plant. “We are still grappling with it,” Angchuk said. “What we are watching is so far away that even a small light thrown at the sky will degrade conditions.” The plant threatens not just India’s clearest sky but the pastoral communities and wildlife below it. Newly alert to the threat of development, the I.I.A. and the district council proposed to do what India had never done: create a sanctuary for darkness.
The idea that a clear night sky might represent a natural heritage, and one worth defending, is relatively new—and not just in Ladakh. In the past few decades, an international movement has begun advocating for protected areas, free of light pollution. In 2007, the UNESCO-sponsored La Palma declaration asserted humanity’s “right to starlight,” and, that year, the first international dark-sky reserve was recognized, in Quebec. Most dark-sky areas are meant to protect telescopes, including the Ngari Dark Sky reserve, around China’s Ali observatory. At nearly a thousand square miles, the reserve is one of the largest of its kind; within its borders, all artificial light is carefully regulated. The proposed Hanle sanctuary would have a thirty-mile radius—three times larger than its Chinese counterpart. “The Ngari Dark Sky reserve and the Hanle Sanctuary, combined, could give our astronomy a big boost,” Angchuk said. Together, he believes, the sanctuaries would even protect an ecological and cultural heritage on the ground.
The symmetry is moving: two reserves for the stars, established on opposing sides of a hostile border. In both India and China, any advocacy for dark skies comes up against the logic of industrial development. Astronomers on either side of the L.A.C. could use each other as leverage to make that advocacy stick. And they could advance the idea, already present in Ladakh, of a gentler rivalry, one driven by science, local partnerships, and the impulse to widen our window onto the cosmos. “The universe is too large,” Angchuk said. “We can both go together.”


newyorker--2020-09-19--The Private Georgia Immigration-Detention Facility at the Center of a Whistle-Blower’s Complaint

In mid-April , a grainy cell-phone video was uploaded to YouTube from a small town in Georgia called Ocilla .
It opens with a woman in a red shirt holding a strip of white cloth over her face as a makeshift mask .
“ We are the detainees of Irwin County Detention Center , ” she says , in Spanish .
“ We are raising our voices , so that you ’ ll hear our pleas.
” Next to her is another woman , who with one hand pulls up the collar of her shirt to cover her nose and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a sign that reads “ Hay personas enfermas ” ( “ There are sick people here ” ) .
During the next four and a half minutes , a dozen women enter and exit the frame , delivering short testimonials .
The conditions in the detention center are squalid , they say , the medical care hideously subpar ; they worry that , unless prison authorities do something to shield them from the coronavirus , they ’ ll die .
“ We do not have protection , ” another woman , who claims @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for more than nine months , says .
“ All we want is for people to listen to their conscience .
.
.
.
We ’ re scared , my God .
.
.
.
We want to get out of here alive !
” The Irwin County Detention Center falls under the authority of Immigration and Customs Enforcement , but its daily operations are run by a private corporation called LaSalle Corrections .
The company operates seven immigration-detention facilities in four states , and its facility in Ocilla , which typically houses @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and women , has long been notorious for inadequate medical care .
( A cursory review of the center that ICE itself conducted , in 2017 , found that “ floors and patient examination tables were dirty.
” ) The coronavirus pandemic has made the situation worse .
The video of the female detainees had been viewed twenty-seven hundred times by the start of this week , when four advocacy groups , led by Project South , filed a formal complaint about the facility to the inspector general of the Department of Homeland @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Dawn Wooten , a nurse at the facility , who ’ d become a whistle-blower .
The groups catalogued instances of systematic medical neglect and malpractice , harsh punishments of detainees for speaking out , and the warden and the prison staff ’ s refusal to take measures to deal with the coronavirus .
Most shocking was a string of allegations , made by several female detainees and reiterated by Wooten , that a doctor who contracted privately with the facility had been performing hysterectomies on immigrant patients without their consent .
( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are many unanswered questions about what may have happened ; the doctor who is alleged to have performed these surgeries has , through his lawyer , forcefully denied any wrongdoing . )
ICE disputes the claims of forced hysterectomies at the facility and has promised to investigate , but , given the agency ’ s poor track record , both on administering detention centers and on being transparent about its practices , the outcry was swift .
On Tuesday , Wooten appeared on MSNBC .
“ You just don ’ t know what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ host Chris Hayes .
So far , according to the Times , more than a hundred and seventy members of Congress have demanded a thorough and immediate inquiry .
To immigrant-rights advocates , journalists , and public-health officials who have raised concerns about detention conditions for decades , the shocking details of Wooten ’ s complaint are a reminder of why long-standing calls for accountability have done little to change systematic patterns of abuse .
Roughly seventy per cent of all immigration jails in this country are run by private corporations .
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ individual county to house detainees , and hires a private company to run the facility .
That company , in turn , often farms out services , including medical care , to another private provider .
Not only are these private facilities much harder to regulate or monitor than government-run facilities but the principle of their operation calls on them to maximize profits , usually at the expense of the people they ’ re detaining .
LaSalle Corrections , for example , receives sixty dollars a day from the federal government for every @ @ @ @ @ @ @ facility , according to a 2016 study by the Southern Poverty Law Center .
The money covers the cost of food , housing , and on-site medical care .
Of all the immigrants who pass through the facility , seventy-five per cent are deported upon release .
So the incentives to provide good medical care are virtually nonexistent .
The new Project South complaint is organized into two broad sections : the first describes the failures of the facility ’ s staff to respond to COVID-19 ; the second exposes broader patterns of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ earlier this year , an obvious concern at prisons and jails across the country was to minimize the spread of the disease .
Yet , at the Irwin County center , according to the complaint , staff refused to make even minimal preparations .
Authorities kept the detainees packed into tight quarters without masks , sanitizer , or basic cleaning supplies .
Detainees with symptoms were ignored , despite requests for medical attention .
They were denied tests and left to mingle with the general population .
In August , ICE acknowledged forty-one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Wooten maintains that the number was much higher .
In her account , authorities limited tests in order to minimize the appearance of a problem , and to allow the government to continue deportations .
When they did conduct tests , they underreported the results to ICE and the State Department .
Meanwhile , other detainees with preëxisting conditions , such as asthma and hypertension , which made them especially vulnerable to the disease , were not protected .
When the detainees launched hunger strikes in protest , according to the complaint , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ point , the warden shut off the water in a wing of the facility , forcing at least one detainee to drink from the toilet .
After a woman complained about the arrival of new detainees who ’ d been transferred into Irwin from other centers across the country without first being tested for the coronavirus , a guard told her , “ This isn ’ t her house .
She ’ s not paying the bills .
She doesn ’ t have a say.
” When detainees with flu-like symptoms begged to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said , “ All they want is attention.
” If the second half of the report is to be believed , the facility ’ s response to the pandemic is merely the latest in a pattern of neglect that borders on actual malice .
“ Hispanics are treated the worst , ” Wooten said , especially those who don ’ t speak English .
The facility has a phone line set up so that translators can assist detainees in communicating with medical personnel , but it ’ s rarely used .
According to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they ’ re trying to get understanding of their health , it ’ s like , ‘ Take these pills and get the hell out of here.
’ ” Patients requesting medical attention are simply put off .
Routine but necessary tests aren ’ t conducted .
Medications aren ’ t delivered .
It is a common practice for nurses simply to shred request forms that patients are required to fill out for medical attention , and then fabricate medical charts without ever bothering to see the patients .
Wooten said , “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they play that game with them until they ’ re literally going to kill somebody out there .
.
.
.
If they send it in paper , the girl shreds them .
.
.
.
If they put [ the requests ] in the computer , she answers them , falsifies the vital signs and never sees them.
” ( Neither LaSalle nor ICE has responded to the particular allegations in the complaint , though an ICE spokesperson issued a statement saying that the agency is “ firmly committed to the safety @ @ @ @ @ @ @ custody .
” )

In mid-April, a grainy cell-phone video was uploaded to YouTube from a small town in Georgia called Ocilla. It opens with a woman in a red shirt holding a strip of white cloth over her face as a makeshift mask. “We are the detainees of Irwin County Detention Center,” she says, in Spanish. “We are raising our voices, so that you’ll hear our pleas.” Next to her is another woman, who with one hand pulls up the collar of her shirt to cover her nose and mouth, and with the other holds a sign that reads “Hay personas enfermas” (“There are sick people here”). During the next four and a half minutes, a dozen women enter and exit the frame, delivering short testimonials. The conditions in the detention center are squalid, they say, the medical care hideously subpar; they worry that, unless prison authorities do something to shield them from the coronavirus, they’ll die. “We do not have protection,” another woman, who claims to have been held in the facility for more than nine months, says. “All we want is for people to listen to their conscience. . . . We’re scared, my God. . . . We want to get out of here alive!”
The Irwin County Detention Center falls under the authority of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but its daily operations are run by a private corporation called LaSalle Corrections. The company operates seven immigration-detention facilities in four states, and its facility in Ocilla, which typically houses some eight hundred immigrants, both men and women, has long been notorious for inadequate medical care. (A cursory review of the center that ICE itself conducted, in 2017, found that “floors and patient examination tables were dirty.”) The coronavirus pandemic has made the situation worse.
The video of the female detainees had been viewed twenty-seven hundred times by the start of this week, when four advocacy groups, led by Project South, filed a formal complaint about the facility to the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security on behalf of the detainees and Dawn Wooten, a nurse at the facility, who’d become a whistle-blower. The groups catalogued instances of systematic medical neglect and malpractice, harsh punishments of detainees for speaking out, and the warden and the prison staff’s refusal to take measures to deal with the coronavirus. Most shocking was a string of allegations, made by several female detainees and reiterated by Wooten, that a doctor who contracted privately with the facility had been performing hysterectomies on immigrant patients without their consent. (The circumstances remain mysterious, and there are many unanswered questions about what may have happened; the doctor who is alleged to have performed these surgeries has, through his lawyer, forcefully denied any wrongdoing.) ICE disputes the claims of forced hysterectomies at the facility and has promised to investigate, but, given the agency’s poor track record, both on administering detention centers and on being transparent about its practices, the outcry was swift. On Tuesday, Wooten appeared on MSNBC. “You just don’t know what to say,” she told the host Chris Hayes. So far, according to the Times, more than a hundred and seventy members of Congress have demanded a thorough and immediate inquiry.
To immigrant-rights advocates, journalists, and public-health officials who have raised concerns about detention conditions for decades, the shocking details of Wooten’s complaint are a reminder of why long-standing calls for accountability have done little to change systematic patterns of abuse. Roughly seventy per cent of all immigration jails in this country are run by private corporations. In these instances, ICE contracts with an individual county to house detainees, and hires a private company to run the facility. That company, in turn, often farms out services, including medical care, to another private provider. Not only are these private facilities much harder to regulate or monitor than government-run facilities but the principle of their operation calls on them to maximize profits, usually at the expense of the people they’re detaining. LaSalle Corrections, for example, receives sixty dollars a day from the federal government for every immigrant it holds at the Irwin County facility, according to a 2016 study by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The money covers the cost of food, housing, and on-site medical care. Of all the immigrants who pass through the facility, seventy-five per cent are deported upon release. So the incentives to provide good medical care are virtually nonexistent.
The new Project South complaint is organized into two broad sections: the first describes the failures of the facility’s staff to respond to COVID-19; the second exposes broader patterns of malpractice. When the pandemic exploded, earlier this year, an obvious concern at prisons and jails across the country was to minimize the spread of the disease. Yet, at the Irwin County center, according to the complaint, staff refused to make even minimal preparations. Authorities kept the detainees packed into tight quarters without masks, sanitizer, or basic cleaning supplies. Detainees with symptoms were ignored, despite requests for medical attention. They were denied tests and left to mingle with the general population. In August, ICE acknowledged forty-one positive COVID-19 cases at the center. Wooten maintains that the number was much higher. In her account, authorities limited tests in order to minimize the appearance of a problem, and to allow the government to continue deportations. When they did conduct tests, they underreported the results to ICE and the State Department. Meanwhile, other detainees with preëxisting conditions, such as asthma and hypertension, which made them especially vulnerable to the disease, were not protected.
When the detainees launched hunger strikes in protest, according to the complaint, they faced reprisals. At a certain point, the warden shut off the water in a wing of the facility, forcing at least one detainee to drink from the toilet. After a woman complained about the arrival of new detainees who’d been transferred into Irwin from other centers across the country without first being tested for the coronavirus, a guard told her, “This isn’t her house. She’s not paying the bills. She doesn’t have a say.” When detainees with flu-like symptoms begged to be tested, a prison health administrator said, “All they want is attention.”
If the second half of the report is to be believed, the facility’s response to the pandemic is merely the latest in a pattern of neglect that borders on actual malice. “Hispanics are treated the worst,” Wooten said, especially those who don’t speak English. The facility has a phone line set up so that translators can assist detainees in communicating with medical personnel, but it’s rarely used. According to Wooten’s account, “If they’re trying to get understanding of their health, it’s like, ‘Take these pills and get the hell out of here.’ ” Patients requesting medical attention are simply put off. Routine but necessary tests aren’t conducted. Medications aren’t delivered. It is a common practice for nurses simply to shred request forms that patients are required to fill out for medical attention, and then fabricate medical charts without ever bothering to see the patients. Wooten said, “They’re wishy-washy with them and they play that game with them until they’re literally going to kill somebody out there. . . . If they send it in paper, the girl shreds them. . . . If they put [the requests] in the computer, she answers them, falsifies the vital signs and never sees them.” (Neither LaSalle nor ICE has responded to the particular allegations in the complaint, though an ICE spokesperson issued a statement saying that the agency is “firmly committed to the safety and welfare of all those in its custody.”)
Earlier this week, I spoke to Margo Schlanger, a law professor at the University of Michigan, who served as the top civil-rights officer at the Department of Homeland Security under President Barack Obama. When ICE performs oversight of medical conditions at detention centers, she said, it’s “done very quickly, without much substantive inquiry.” On a good day, the sorts of things that come under review are like items on a basic checklist: Does a facility have exam rooms? Are detainees able to submit sick-call requests on a daily basis? Schlanger told me, “The oversight as it exists doesn’t even purport to look at the substance of the actual care. Are people with asthma getting the right treatments? Are people with high blood pressure getting the right evaluation and treatments? No one is doing that kind of review.”
A major concern, at every point in the detention process, is language access, which can prevent immigrant detainees from meaningfully consenting to various medical treatments and procedures. “There’s always a risk with incarcerated folks with consent,” Schlanger said. “You’re talking about someone who doesn’t have access to choices about his or her medical care. And, if someone doesn’t have an interpreter, then it could be the case that almost everything a doctor is doing is nonconsensual. Even beside consent issues, without an interpreter, you can’t provide appropriate medical care. How do you even take a medical history?”


newyorker--2020-09-19--For Mitch McConnell, Keeping His Senate Majority Matters More Than the Supreme Court

As the Democrats weigh their options about how to stop Mitch McConnell from filling Ruth Bader Ginsburg ’ s Supreme Court seat , one tactic that they should forget about immediately is arguing that it would be hypocritical of McConnell to jam in a new Justice so close to an election .
Obviously , it nakedly is , given that Ginsburg died forty-five days before the 2020 election , and this was McConnell ’ s rationale for blocking Barack Obama ’ s nominee two hundred and sixty-nine days before the 2016 election .
But anyone familiar with the Republican senator @ @ @ @ @ @ @ knows he couldn ’ t care less about hypocrisy ; like President Trump , he is immune to shame .
“ McConnell will do anything that serves his interests .
We know that , ” Norman Ornstein told me , shortly after learning of Ginsburg ’ s death .
Ornstein , a political scientist and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute whose expertise is Congress , has known every Senate Majority Leader during the past fifty years—including McConnell , quite well .
The question now , though , is how McConnell will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in April , behind closed doors McConnell has been raising money from big conservative donors for months by promising that no matter how close it might be to the election , he would install Trump ’ s Supreme Court pick .
As a former Trump White House official told me , “ McConnell ’ s been telling our donors that when R.B.G .
meets her reward , even if it ’ s October , we ’ re getting our judge .
He ’ s saying it ’ s our October surprise.
” But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the calculation isn ’ t quite so simple .
On Friday night , McConnell released a statement vowing that a Trump nominee “ will receive a vote on the floor of the United States Senate.
” While McConnell ’ s obstruction of Obama ’ s nominee , Merrick Garland , made him the bane of liberals , he has regarded it with pride as the single “ most important decision I ’ ve made in my political career.
” He and many others believe it handed Trump his victory by motivating the politically @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , despite their doubts about him , because he promised to fill the Court vacancy with a social conservative .
It ’ s entirely possible that the same scenario will play out again this November , with Trump and McConnell offering another enticing gift to evangelicals .
But McConnell is also what Ornstein calls “ a ruthless pragmatist , ” whose No .
1 goal has always been to remain Majority Leader of the Senate .
He ’ s made the conservative makeover of the federal court system his pet project , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ right-wing Justice and losing his control of the Senate , no one who knows him well thinks he ’ d hesitate for a moment to do whatever is necessary to stay in power .
In fact , back in the summer of 2016 , when it looked like Trump would lose to Hillary Clinton , far from being distressed at his party ’ s dim prospects , McConnell was savoring the probability of being the single most powerful Republican in the country , according to a confidant who spoke with him then .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ it may be impossible for him to both confirm a new Justice and hold onto his personal power as Majority Leader .
A power grab for the Court that is too brutish may provoke so much outrage among Democrats and independents that it could undermine Republican Senate candidates in November .
As he knows better than anyone , polls show that Republican hopes of holding the Senate are very much in doubt .
If Joe Biden is elected , enabling a Democratic Vice-President to cast the deciding vote in the Senate , Democrats @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to win a majority .
And , at the moment , according to recent polls , Democratic challengers stand good chances against Republican incumbents in Maine , Arizona , and Colorado .
Democrats also have shots at capturing seats in South Carolina and Iowa .
No one knows for sure how the politics of the Ginsburg seat will play out in close Senate races .
But the issue likely puts some of the most endangered Republican candidates in very tough spots .
In Maine , for instance , Susan Collins can ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by voting against a conservative Court pick or to alienate moderate Republican women , who don ’ t want a radically right-wing judiciary .
Late on Saturday afternoon , Collins contradicted McConnell ’ s line , saying in a statement , “ In fairness to the American people , who will either be re-electing the president or selecting a new one , the decision on a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court should be made by the president who is elected on November 3rd.
” Hours before the news of Ginsburg ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an independent-minded Republican senator from Alaska , said that she thought it was too late for a confirmation vote , telling a public-radio interviewer that “ I would not vote to confirm a Supreme Court nominee.
” Given those complications , Ornstein predicts , McConnell may “ use some elements of delay.
” McConnell conspicuously laid out no timetable when promising a Senate vote for Trump ’ s nominee .
Ornstein speculates that he may hold off on a vote until after the election to provide cover for his members but , meanwhile @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them .
It would mean he ’ d have the votes to ram a confirmation through the Senate during the lame-duck period after the election , regardless of who has won the White House .
Senate watchers suggest that the first thing that McConnell probably did after learning of Ginsburg ’ s death was to call every member of his caucus , in order to make an assessment about whether it would help or hurt his members to force a Supreme Court confirmation vote .
On Friday night , he also issued a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to shut up , or , as he put it , “ be cautious and keep your powder dry.
” According to the Washington Post , which obtained a copy of the McConnell letter , he warned , “ For those of you who are unsure how to answer , or for those inclined to oppose giving a nominee a vote .
.
.
this is not the time to prematurely lock yourselves into a position you may later regret.
” Keeping the Republican senators in line was also among the top concerns @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , in February , 2016 .
McConnell immediately coördinated with Leonard Leo , then the executive vice-president of the powerful conservative legal group the Federalist Society , to plot a path forward that would avoid what Leo reportedly called “ a cacophony of voices.
” To keep control , they came up with a plan .
Although eleven months remained in the President ’ s second term , McConnell immediately announced he would block a vote for any Obama nominee because it was an election year , and so he argued , “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice .
Therefore , this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new President.
” The speciousness was breathtaking .
Since the nation ’ s founding , the Senate had confirmed seventeen Supreme Court nominees in election years .
Moreover , the “ American people ” had made a choice—they had elected Obama .
But , despite declaring themselves as conservatives who respect precedent , McConnell , in consultation with Leo , simply invented a new rule to cover their radical defiance of @ @ @ @ @ @

As the Democrats weigh their options about how to stop Mitch McConnell from filling Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Supreme Court seat, one tactic that they should forget about immediately is arguing that it would be hypocritical of McConnell to jam in a new Justice so close to an election. Obviously, it nakedly is, given that Ginsburg died forty-five days before the 2020 election, and this was McConnell’s rationale for blocking Barack Obama’s nominee two hundred and sixty-nine days before the 2016 election. But anyone familiar with the Republican senator from Kentucky’s long political career knows he couldn’t care less about hypocrisy; like President Trump, he is immune to shame.
“McConnell will do anything that serves his interests. We know that,” Norman Ornstein told me, shortly after learning of Ginsburg’s death. Ornstein, a political scientist and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute whose expertise is Congress, has known every Senate Majority Leader during the past fifty years—including McConnell, quite well. The question now, though, is how McConnell will define his self-interest.
As I reported in April, behind closed doors McConnell has been raising money from big conservative donors for months by promising that no matter how close it might be to the election, he would install Trump’s Supreme Court pick. As a former Trump White House official told me, “McConnell’s been telling our donors that when R.B.G. meets her reward, even if it’s October, we’re getting our judge. He’s saying it’s our October surprise.”
But now that the moment is here, the calculation isn’t quite so simple. On Friday night, McConnell released a statement vowing that a Trump nominee “will receive a vote on the floor of the United States Senate.” While McConnell’s obstruction of Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, made him the bane of liberals, he has regarded it with pride as the single “most important decision I’ve made in my political career.” He and many others believe it handed Trump his victory by motivating the politically powerful evangelical bloc to vote for Trump, despite their doubts about him, because he promised to fill the Court vacancy with a social conservative. It’s entirely possible that the same scenario will play out again this November, with Trump and McConnell offering another enticing gift to evangelicals.
But McConnell is also what Ornstein calls “a ruthless pragmatist,” whose No. 1 goal has always been to remain Majority Leader of the Senate. He’s made the conservative makeover of the federal court system his pet project, but if he faces a choice between another right-wing Justice or keeping his control of the Senate, no one who knows him well thinks he’d hesitate for a moment to do whatever is necessary to stay in power. In fact, back in the summer of 2016, when it looked like Trump would lose to Hillary Clinton, far from being distressed at his party’s dim prospects, McConnell was savoring the probability of being the single most powerful Republican in the country, according to a confidant who spoke with him then.
The problem for McConnell now is that it may be impossible for him to both confirm a new Justice and hold on to his personal power as Majority Leader. A power grab for the Court that is too brutish may provoke so much outrage among Democrats and independents that it could undermine Republican Senate candidates in November. As he knows better than anyone, polls show that Republican hopes of holding the Senate are very much in doubt. If Joe Biden is elected, enabling a Democratic Vice-President to cast the deciding vote in the Senate, Democrats need only to pick up three seats to win a majority. And, at the moment, according to recent polls, Democratic challengers stand good chances against Republican incumbents in Maine, Arizona, and Colorado. Democrats also have shots at capturing seats in South Carolina and Iowa.
No one knows for sure how the politics of the Ginsburg seat will play out in close Senate races. But the issue likely puts some of the most endangered Republican candidates in very tough spots. In Maine, for instance, Susan Collins can’t afford to either alienate the Trump base by voting against a conservative Court pick or to alienate moderate Republican women, who don’t want a radically right-wing judiciary. Late on Saturday afternoon, Collins contradicted McConnell’s line, saying in a statement, “In fairness to the American people, who will either be re-electing the president or selecting a new one, the decision on a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court should be made by the president who is elected on November 3rd.” Hours before the news of Ginsburg’s death on Friday, Lisa Murkowski, an independent-minded Republican senator from Alaska, said that she thought it was too late for a confirmation vote, telling a public-radio interviewer that “I would not vote to confirm a Supreme Court nominee.”
Given those complications, Ornstein predicts, McConnell may “use some elements of delay.” McConnell conspicuously laid out no timetable when promising a Senate vote for Trump’s nominee. Ornstein speculates that he may hold off on a vote until after the election to provide cover for his members but, meanwhile, obtain private pledges of support from them. It would mean he’d have the votes to ram a confirmation through the Senate during the lame-duck period after the election, regardless of who has won the White House.
Senate watchers suggest that the first thing that McConnell probably did after learning of Ginsburg’s death was to call every member of his caucus, in order to make an assessment about whether it would help or hurt his members to force a Supreme Court confirmation vote. On Friday night, he also issued a thinly veiled warning to his caucus members to shut up, or, as he put it, “be cautious and keep your powder dry.” According to the Washington Post, which obtained a copy of the McConnell letter, he warned, “For those of you who are unsure how to answer, or for those inclined to oppose giving a nominee a vote . . . this is not the time to prematurely lock yourselves into a position you may later regret.”
Keeping the Republican senators in line was also among the top concerns McConnell had when Antonin Scalia unexpectedly died, in February, 2016. McConnell immediately coördinated with Leonard Leo, then the executive vice-president of the powerful conservative legal group the Federalist Society, to plot a path forward that would avoid what Leo reportedly called “a cacophony of voices.” To keep control, they came up with a plan. Although eleven months remained in the President’s second term, McConnell immediately announced he would block a vote for any Obama nominee because it was an election year, and so he argued, “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.” The speciousness was breathtaking. Since the nation’s founding, the Senate had confirmed seventeen Supreme Court nominees in election years. Moreover, the “American people” had made a choice—they had elected Obama. But, despite declaring themselves as conservatives who respect precedent, McConnell, in consultation with Leo, simply invented a new rule to cover their radical defiance of past precedents and accepted norms.
Facing the same kind of unconstrained power play by McConnell again, the Democrats have few procedural weapons at their disposal other than taking radical measures themselves. For more leverage, Brian Fallon, the executive director of Demand Justice, a liberal group, says that if McConnell forces a confirmation vote before the election, Democrats need to threaten to expand the size of the Supreme Court if they win control of the White House and Senate in November. He believes there may be support for this even from unlikely moderate Democrats, if McConnell tries to strong-arm a vote. Senator Tim Kaine, of Virginia, who is ordinarily a mainstream Democrat, has said he could support enlarging the court as a tactic, if the Republicans force a confirmation vote. The Democratic senator Ed Markey, of Massachusetts, and Congressman Jerry Nadler, of New York, have also embraced the idea. Fallon also suggested that if a Trump nominee has yet to be confirmed after the election, and if Biden wins the White House, he, as President-elect, should name his own nominee, creating a scenario in which there are two nominees backed by opposing parties simultaneously duelling for confirmation. The Democratic members of the Senate, he argues, should decline to attend any courtesy calls, or confirmation hearings meanwhile, for any lame-duck Trump nominee.


newyorker--2020-09-19--“Ratched,” Reviewed: A Confused, Caricaturish Origin Story for the “Cuckoo’s Nest” Villainess

The novelist Ken Kesey based the character of Nurse Ratched , the villain of his 1962 novel “ One Flew Over the Cuckoo ’ s Nest , ” on a real person—a nurse whom he once met while working the night shift in a psychiatric facility in Oregon .
But , as Kesey later admitted , he greatly exaggerated the woman ’ s cruelty in his story for theatrical effect , twisting her into a symbol of autocratic control and blithe barbarism , who takes quiet pleasure in torturing her patients through a combination of medicinal control and psychological manipulation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ casting his 1975 film adaptation of the book , he initially struggled to find an actress to take on Ratched—Anne Bancroft , Angela Lansbury , Geraldine Page , Colleen Dewhurst , and Ellen Burstyn turned the role down , considering the character to be too maniacal and unfeeling .
The role ultimately went to Louise Fletcher , a lesser-known actress whose most prominent work was in television Westerns a decade before .
Fletcher , for her part , said she found the role of Ratched ( which earned her an Oscar for Best @ @ @ @ @ @ @ difficult to play .
“ I envied the other actors tremendously .
They were so free , and I had to be so controlled , ” she told the Times in a 1975 interview .
“ The still photographer kept taking pictures of all the crazies and putting them up in the hospital dining room .
I asked why he didn ’ t take pictures of me and he said , ‘ You ’ re so boring , always in that white uniform.
’ ” In retrospect , both Kesey and Forman ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ embodiment of an institutional femininity that serves to both neuter and negate men ’ s wily impulses—were shaped by the snickering machismo of their times .
Ratched , whom Kesey described in one interview as a “ big castrator of a nurse , ” is seen as the mean mommy to Jack Nicholson ’ s merry prankster Randle McMurphy , the block of ice standing between him and a good time .
But did a caricature as crude as Mildred Ratched need to be reclaimed ?
And to what purpose ?
These are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I sat through eight hour-long episodes of “ Ratched , ” a new Netflix drama created by Evan Romansky and produced by Ian Brennan and Ryan Murphy as part of Murphy ’ s gargantuan Netflix development deal .
“ Ratched , ” starring Murphy ’ s frequent collaborator Sarah Paulson in the titular role , is an origin story , the making of a villainess .
The series , which Netflix ordered for two seasons upfront , intends to follow Mildred over the course of two decades , beginning in the nineteen-forties ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as a few months ; according to Paulson , Randle McMurphy might not surface until Season 4 ) .
The rise-of-the-antihero genre is an old trope , going back to special editions of comic books that would explain Lex Luthor ’ s bloodlust or the childhood neglect at the heart of the Joker ’ s nihilism .
But only recently has the genre expanded to include reviled female characters ; Disney ’ s “ Maleficent ” franchise , for example , or the upcoming “ Cruella de Vil ” film , starring Emma @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tends to follow a formula : this woman wasn ’ t always a monster , a harpy , a shrew .
She , too , was young and beautiful once .
There was not always a worm inside the apple .
“ Ratched ” is not subtle about what caused the rot at the core of its protagonist .
In fact , it hits you over the head with the inciting incident : first in multiple flashbacks , then in the form of a marionette show , and then , finally , in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her deepest trauma , lest the viewer remain confused .
What you learn , through these several retellings , is that Ratched was an orphan who bounced around the foster system , alongside another boy whom she considered to be her brother , until the pair landed in a particularly twisted family .
What she confesses about her childhood , without giving too much away , is classic Murphy , a grisly story of sexual abuse and violence that could have been pulled directly from the shock-and-saw playbook of his macabre “ American @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Horror Story ” consistently tried to push the boundaries of what a show could present on cable television .
At its best , as in “ American Horror Story : Asylum , ” a season that closely resembles “ Ratched ” ’ s subject matter and in which Paulson played a plucky journalist , the formula was an intriguing carnival sideshow of gross and garish delights , depending on your tolerance for masturbation and mutilation .
At its worst , it was an aggressive bombardment of off-putting funk , too slick and self-satisfied @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as many people as possible .
“ Ratched ” is not just an extension of the “ A.H.S.
” ethos but a bubbling cauldron of all of Murphy ’ s well-established obsessions .
It has the snappy , acid-tinged dialogue of his misanthropic comedies like “ Glee ” and “ The Politician , ” with every character classically trained in the art of the wicked one-liner .
It features the body horror and operating-room theatrics of his plastic surgery drama “ Nip/Tuck.
” ( In an early scene of “ Ratched , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lobotomy , performed with an ice pick through an eye socket . )
And it is a splashy , mid-century period piece , much like Murphy ’ s shows “ Feud ” and “ Hollywood , ” that waggles its opulent set dressings and generous costuming budget in the viewer ’ s face like a fan dancer working overtime .
When the show begins ( after a brief , bloody cold-open murder spree that I will not spoil ) we meet a pristinely dressed Mildred Ratched as she drives along the central California @ @ @ @ @ @ @ A wide panoramic shot pulls back to reveal the grandeur of the ocean , waves crashing against the rocks .
Paulson ’ s costumes , as an extension of this visual feast , are sumptuous and cinched ; she seems to have an endless supply of fashionable jewel-toned wool garments with prim little fascinator hats to match .
Romansky and Murphy seem to have pulled much of the show ’ s soundtrack directly from Bernard Herrmann ’ s orchestral pieces for “ Vertigo.
” We know immediately , however , that Mildred Ratched @ @ @ @ @ @ @ opaque woman who populated Hitchcock ’ s work .
Her first lines are directed at a gas-station attendant , telling him he reeks and needs to bathe .
She checks into a roadside motel alone—another self-conscious Hitchcock reference , this time to “ Psycho ” —and then continues on to her destination , a gleaming psychiatric facility run by Dr. Richard Hanover ( Jon Jon Briones ) , a lobotomy enthusiast who is addicted to self-administered anesthesia , and his sidekick Betsy Bucket ( Judy Davis ) , the long-suffering head nurse with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ superiority .
Nurse Ratched asks Dr. Hanover for employment , and , when denied , devises a devious plot to finagle her way into a job .
By the end of the pilot , having secured her position , she descends to the basement to visit the hospital ’ s newest inmate , a psychopath named Edmund Tolleson , who brutally murdered four priests .
We learn that this is the “ brother ” whom Nurse Ratched grew up with , and that she has hatched a plan to help him break free @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Ratched ’ s sibling heist to come to fruition , but by that time the plot has become so convoluted that it barely matters .
There are story lines involving dunking patients in boiling water as a form of gay conversion therapy , patients committing suicide , a woman with flamboyant multiple personalities , hotel-room surgeries with blunt instruments , acts of sexual deviancy between a convicted murderer and a libidinous nurse-in-training .
A smooth hitman ( Corey Stoll ) who has come to town to hunt down and kill Dr. Hanover occupies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and they begin a sordid affair complete with naughty , Tennessee Williams-esque roleplay .
California ’ s governor ( Vincent D ’ Onofrio , looking like a late-career Orson Welles ) takes a special interest in Dr. Hanover ’ s facility as part of his new campaign , and his personal secretary ( Cynthia Nixon ) takes a special interest in Nurse Ratched .
The two slurp down oysters and visit hidden “ lady bars ” in the woods .
This clandestine sapphic affair , the most touching part of “ Ratched , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ suppressed yearning that Todd Haynes brought to the portrayal of mid-century queer romance in “ Carol , ” but it lacks the subtextual elegance that made Haynes ’ s film crackle .

The novelist Ken Kesey based the character of Nurse Ratched, the villain of his 1962 novel, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” on a real person—a nurse whom he once met while working the night shift in a psychiatric facility in Oregon. But, as Kesey later admitted, he greatly exaggerated the woman’s cruelty in his story for theatrical effect, twisting her into a symbol of autocratic control and blithe barbarism, who takes quiet pleasure in torturing her patients through a combination of medicinal control and psychological manipulation. When the director Milos Forman was casting his 1975 film adaptation of the book, he initially struggled to find an actress to take on Ratched—Anne Bancroft, Angela Lansbury, Geraldine Page, Colleen Dewhurst, and Ellen Burstyn turned the role down, considering the character to be too maniacal and unfeeling. The role ultimately went to Louise Fletcher, a lesser-known actress whose most prominent work was in television Westerns a decade before. Fletcher, for her part, said she found the role of Ratched (which earned her an Oscar for Best Actress) to be terribly opaque and difficult to play. “I envied the other actors tremendously. They were so free, and I had to be so controlled,” she told the Times in a 1975 interview. “The still photographer kept taking pictures of all the crazies and putting them up in the hospital dining room. I asked why he didn’t take pictures of me and he said, ‘You’re so boring, always in that white uniform.’ ”
In retrospect, both Kesey and Forman’s characterizations of Nurse Ratched—as the frigid embodiment of an institutional femininity that serves to both neuter and negate men’s wily impulses—were shaped by the snickering machismo of their times. Ratched, whom Kesey described in one interview as a “big castrator of a nurse,” is seen as the mean mommy to Jack Nicholson’s merry prankster Randle McMurphy, the block of ice standing between him and a good time. But did a caricature as crude as Mildred Ratched need to be reclaimed? And to what purpose? These are the questions I found myself asking as I sat through eight hour-long episodes of “Ratched,” a new Netflix drama created by Evan Romansky and produced by Ian Brennan and Ryan Murphy as part of Murphy’s gargantuan Netflix development deal. “Ratched,” starring Murphy’s frequent collaborator Sarah Paulson in the titular role, is an origin story, the making of a villainess. The series, which Netflix ordered for two seasons upfront, intends to follow Mildred over the course of two decades, beginning in the nineteen-forties (the first season only gets so far as a few months; according to Paulson, Randle McMurphy might not surface until Season 4). The rise-of-the-antihero genre is an old trope, going back to special editions of comic books that would explain Lex Luthor’s bloodlust or the childhood neglect at the heart of the Joker’s nihilism. But only recently has the genre expanded to include reviled female characters; Disney’s “Maleficent” franchise, for example, or the upcoming “Cruella de Vil” film, starring Emma Stone. The idea behind these projects tends to follow a formula: this woman wasn’t always a monster, a harpy, a shrew. She, too, was young and beautiful once. There was not always a worm inside the apple.
“Ratched” is not subtle about what caused the rot at the core of its protagonist. In fact, it hits you over the head with the inciting incident: first in multiple flashbacks, then in the form of a marionette show, and then, finally, in a maudlin monologue in which Paulson divulges her deepest trauma, lest the viewer remain confused. What you learn, through these several retellings, is that Ratched was an orphan who bounced around the foster system, alongside a boy whom she considered to be her brother, until the pair landed in a particularly twisted family. What she confesses about her childhood, without giving too much away, is classic Murphy, a grisly story of sexual abuse and violence that could have been pulled directly from the shock-and-saw playbook of his macabre “American Horror Story” anthology franchise. “Horror Story” consistently tried to push the boundaries of what a show could present on cable television. At its best, as in “American Horror Story: Asylum,” a season that closely resembles “Ratched” ’s subject matter and in which Paulson played a plucky journalist, the formula was an intriguing carnival sideshow of gross and garish delights, depending on your tolerance for masturbation and mutilation. At its worst, it was an aggressive bombardment of off-putting funk, too slick and self-satisfied in its quest to titillate and nauseate as many people as possible.
“Ratched” is not just an extension of the “A.H.S.” ethos but a bubbling cauldron of all of Murphy’s well-established obsessions. It has the snappy, acid-tinged dialogue of his misanthropic comedies like “Glee” and “The Politician,” with every character classically trained in the art of the wicked one-liner. It features the body horror and operating-room theatrics of his plastic-surgery drama “Nip/Tuck.” (In an early scene of “Ratched,” viewers are treated to seeing a frontal lobotomy, performed with an ice pick through an eye socket.) And it is a splashy, mid-century period piece, much like Murphy’s shows “Feud” and “Hollywood,” that waggles its opulent set dressings and generous costuming budget in the viewer’s face like a fan dancer working overtime. When the show begins (after a brief, bloody cold-open murder spree that I will not spoil) we meet a pristinely dressed Mildred Ratched as she drives along the central California coast in a shiny blue coupe. A wide panoramic shot pulls back to reveal the grandeur of the ocean, waves crashing against the rocks. Paulson’s costumes, as an extension of this visual feast, are sumptuous and cinched; she seems to have an endless supply of fashionable jewel-toned wool garments with prim little fascinator hats to match.
Romansky and Murphy seem to have pulled much of the show’s soundtrack directly from Bernard Herrmann’s orchestral pieces for “Vertigo.” We know immediately, however, that Mildred Ratched is not the type of restrained, opaque woman who populated Hitchcock’s work. Her first lines are directed at a gas-station attendant, telling him he reeks and needs to bathe. She checks into a roadside motel alone—another self-conscious Hitchcock reference, this time to “Psycho”—and then continues on to her destination, a gleaming psychiatric facility run by Dr. Richard Hanover (Jon Jon Briones), a lobotomy enthusiast who is addicted to self-administered anesthesia, and his sidekick Betsy Bucket (Judy Davis), the long-suffering head nurse with a hangdog appearance and an air of superiority. Nurse Ratched asks Dr. Hanover for employment, and, when denied, devises a devious plot to finagle her way into a job. By the end of the pilot, having secured her position, she descends to the basement to visit the hospital’s newest inmate, a psychopath named Edmund Tolleson, who brutally murdered four priests. We learn that this is the “brother” whom Nurse Ratched grew up with, and that she has hatched a plan to help him break free.
It takes all eight episodes for Ratched’s sibling heist to come to fruition, but by that time the plot has become so convoluted that it barely matters. There are story lines involving dunking patients in boiling water as a form of gay conversion therapy, patients committing suicide, a woman with flamboyant multiple personalities, hotel-room surgeries with blunt instruments, acts of sexual deviancy between a convicted murderer and a libidinous nurse-in-training. A smooth hitman (Corey Stoll) who has come to town to hunt down and kill Dr. Hanover occupies a motel room near Mildred’s and they begin a sordid affair complete with naughty, Tennessee Williams-esque roleplay. California’s governor (Vincent D’Onofrio, looking like a late-career Orson Welles) takes a special interest in Dr. Hanover’s facility as part of his new campaign, and his personal secretary (Cynthia Nixon) takes a special interest in Nurse Ratched. The two slurp down oysters and visit hidden “lady bars” in the woods. This clandestine sapphic affair, the most touching part of “Ratched,” seems to want to channel the suppressed yearning that Todd Haynes brought to the portrayal of mid-century queer romance in “Carol,” but it lacks the subtextual elegance that made Haynes’s film crackle.
Perhaps this is the central weakness of “Ratched”: there is nothing bubbling underneath the surface. Romansky and Murphy throw everything at the screen, and all at once. Judy Davis does a valiant job of playing a neglected older woman at the end of her rope. Sharon Stone, who sweeps into a couple of episodes as a vain heiress who carries a capuchin on her shoulder, delivers the kind of wacky performance that you would hope Sharon Stone would give as a woman who owns a monkey. Paulson, who has delivered rich, excellent performances in previous Murphy projects, does her best to hold onto the script’s curves as it ventures into increasingly unhinged terrain, but neither Mildred nor the other women of “Ratched” ever come close to seeming like people who exist in the real world. The actresses in “Ratched” could certainly not complain, as Fletcher did, that they’ve been given too little to do, but this show is evidence that making female characters bigger does not necessarily make them better. Years after writing her into his novel, Kesey ran into the nurse who inspired his famous villain, at an aquarium. He realized, he later said, that “she was much smaller than I remembered, and a whole lot more human.”


newyorker--2020-09-19--Can Trump and McConnell Push Through a Successor to Ruth Bader Ginsburg?

In Washington , grief yields quickly to calculation .
The announcement of the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg , the Supreme Court Justice and epic figure in American legal history , came in the early evening on Friday .
This led to two simple questions that are now preoccupying the Capitol : Can President Trump win confirmation for Ginsburg ’ s successor before the end of his term ?
If so , who will it be ?
The broad outlines of the situation are already clear .
Mitch McConnell , the Senate Majority Leader , announced within hours of Ginsburg @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sure that a Trump nominee gets a vote in the Senate this year .
The hypocrisy of his position is breathtaking .
Antonin Scalia died on February 13 , 2016 , nine months before that year ’ s Presidential election .
On that day , McConnell said that he would not allow a hearing or a vote on a nominee from President Barack Obama , because the next President should be allowed to make the choice .
McConnell and his Republican colleagues were as good as his word , and Merrick Garland , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a hearing or a vote .
Now , of course , the Presidential election is less than two months away , and McConnell has nevertheless vowed to jam through Trump ’ s nominee .
Still , McConnell faces a genuine time crunch .
Ginsburg died forty-five days before Election Day .
It took eighty-nine days for Brett Kavanaugh to be confirmed after he was nominated .
( It took sixty-five days for Neil Gorsuch to be confirmed , eighty-seven for Elena Kagan , and sixty-six for Sonia Sotomayor . )
Yet Democrats have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ delay the process .
Specifically , under the Senate ’ s rules , the opposition party has the right to delay a vote in the Judiciary Committee for a week ; and it has the right to insist on at least thirty hours of debate on the Senate floor before cloture—that is , a final move to a vote .
So it does seem procedurally possible for McConnell to push through a nominee , either before Election Day or during the lame-duck period .
The real question is more political than procedural .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ leader of the Senate , but he is not an absolute ruler .
Under McConnell , the Republicans changed the Senate rules to abolish the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations , so he only needs a simple majority to confirm a Justice .
( He also has the tie-breaking vote of Vice-President Mike Pence . )
There are fifty-three Republicans in the current Senate , and they all have their own calculations to make on the issue .
Several senators , including Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins , as well as Lindsey Graham @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about or outright opposition to pushing through a confirmation in an election year .
Others , such as Mitt Romney and Lamar Alexander , might be expected to feel similarly .
But those were theoretical concerns about theoretical nominations .
Soon the President will present them with a flesh-and-blood choice for the Ginsburg seat—and Senate Republicans have , almost without exception , fallen into line when Trump ( and McConnell ) has asked them to do so .
Given McConnell ’ s singular obsession with the courts ( and especially the Supreme Court @ @ @ @ @ @ @ use every tool at his disposal to close this deal , even if the Republicans lose control of the Senate on November 3rd .
( The margin might be even slimmer at that point , if , as expected , the Democrat Mark Kelly defeats the Republican Martha McSally in Arizona .
Under Arizona state law , Kelly could take office as early as November . )
In sum , then , it seems that Trump and McConnell could find their way to a vote on a nominee this year .
It ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But who would it be ?
The leading candidate is clearly Amy Coney Barrett , whom Trump interviewed for the nomination that went to Kavanaugh .
She is a dream candidate for the right wing of the Republican Party .
She ’ s just forty-eight years old , a recently confirmed judge on the Seventh Circuit , a former professor at Notre Dame Law School—and believes that life starts at conception and has said that Court precedent is not sacrosanct .
And she has a compelling personal story : she and her husband @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and two who are adopted from Haiti .
Trump has also publicly updated his Supreme Court shortlist throughout his Presidency .
Other realistic candidates include Barbara Lagoa , who was the first Cuban-American to serve on the Florida Supreme Court , and now is on the Eleventh Circuit .
Amul Thapar , a McConnell favorite who is now on the Sixth Circuit , was also interviewed for the Kavanaugh seat and may get another look this time .
They all have the formal qualifications that are customary for Supreme Court Justices .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ violate its supposed principles from 2016 to push one of them through .
If the answer is yes—if Trump fills the Ginsburg seat—the next question will be how the Democrats respond .
If the Democrats fail to retake the majority in the Senate in November , their options are few except to grin and bear it .
But , if they win the majority and Joe Biden wins the Presidency , there are four major possibilities for retribution—which all happen to be good policy as well .
The first is the abolition of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ decades ago .
Even in the minority , McConnell will do everything he can to thwart Biden , and the filibuster will be the tool .
This antidemocratic relic should be retired once and for all .
Second , statehood for the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico , with two senators apiece , would be another appropriate rejoinder .
Third , Congress should pass a law expanding the number of lower-court federal judges ; that number has not increased since Jimmy Carter was President .
Finally , the greatest and most appropriate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ itself .
The number of Justices is not fixed in the Constitution but , rather , established by statute .
If Republicans succeed in stealing two seats—the Scalia and Ginsburg vacancies—the Democrats could simply pass a law that creates two or three more seats on the Supreme Court .
To do so would be to play hardball in a way that is foreign to the current Senate Democrats .
But maybe , in light of all that ’ s happened , that ’ s a game they should learn to play .
Read @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Joe Biden win the Presidency based on a promise of generational change ?
• The fall and rise of Kamala Harris .
• When a sitting President threatens to delay a sacrosanct American ritual like an election , you should listen .
• To understand the path Donald Trump has taken to the 2020 election , look at what he has provided the executive class .
• What happens if Trump fights the election results ?
• The refusal by Mitch McConnell to rein in Trump is looking riskier than ever .
• @ @ @ @ @ @ @ insight and analysis from our reporters and columnists .

In Washington, grief yields quickly to calculation. The announcement of the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Supreme Court Justice and epic figure in American legal history, came in the early evening on Friday. This led to two simple questions that are now preoccupying the Capitol: Can President Trump win confirmation for Ginsburg’s successor before the end of his term? If so, who will it be?
The broad outlines of the situation are already clear. Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader, announced within hours of Ginsburg’s death that he will make sure that a Trump nominee gets a vote in the Senate this year. The hypocrisy of his position is breathtaking. Antonin Scalia died on February 13, 2016, nine months before that year’s Presidential election. On that day, McConnell said that he would not allow a hearing or a vote on a nominee from President Barack Obama, because the next President should be allowed to make the choice. McConnell and his Republican colleagues were as good as his word, and Merrick Garland, Obama’s nominee, never received a hearing or a vote. Now, of course, the Presidential election is less than two months away, and McConnell has nevertheless vowed to jam through Trump’s nominee.
Still, McConnell faces a genuine time crunch. Ginsburg died forty-five days before Election Day. It took eighty-nine days for Brett Kavanaugh to be confirmed after he was nominated. (It took sixty-five days for Neil Gorsuch to be confirmed, eighty-seven for Elena Kagan, and sixty-six for Sonia Sotomayor.) Yet Democrats have few procedural tools at their disposal to delay the process. Specifically, under the Senate’s rules, the opposition party has the right to delay a vote in the Judiciary Committee for a week; and it has the right to insist on at least thirty hours of debate on the Senate floor before cloture—that is, a final move to a vote. So it does seem procedurally possible for McConnell to push through a nominee, either before Election Day or during the lame-duck period.
The real question is more political than procedural. McConnell has proved to be a cunning leader of the Senate, but he is not an absolute ruler. Under McConnell, the Republicans changed the Senate rules to abolish the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations, so he only needs a simple majority to confirm a Justice. (He also has the tie-breaking vote of Vice-President Mike Pence.) There are fifty-three Republicans in the current Senate, and they all have their own calculations to make on the issue. Several senators, including Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins, as well as Lindsey Graham and Chuck Grassley, have expressed misgivings about or outright opposition to pushing through a confirmation in an election year. Others, such as Mitt Romney and Lamar Alexander, might be expected to feel similarly. But those were theoretical concerns about theoretical nominations. Soon the President will present them with a flesh-and-blood choice for the Ginsburg seat—and Senate Republicans have, almost without exception, fallen into line when Trump (and McConnell) has asked them to do so. Given McConnell’s singular obsession with the courts (and especially the Supreme Court), he can be expected to use every tool at his disposal to close this deal, even if the Republicans lose control of the Senate on November 3rd. (The margin might be even slimmer at that point, if, as expected, the Democrat Mark Kelly defeats the Republican Martha McSally in Arizona. Under Arizona state law, Kelly could take office as early as November.)
In sum, then, it seems that Trump and McConnell could find their way to a vote on a nominee this year. It’s difficult, but not impossible. But who would it be? The leading candidate is clearly Amy Coney Barrett, whom Trump interviewed for the nomination that went to Kavanaugh. She is a dream candidate for the right wing of the Republican Party. She’s just forty-eight years old, a recently confirmed judge on the Seventh Circuit, a former professor at Notre Dame Law School—and believes that life starts at conception and has said that Court precedent is not sacrosanct. And she has a compelling personal story: she and her husband have seven children, five biological children and two who are adopted from Haiti. Trump has also publicly updated his Supreme Court shortlist throughout his Presidency. Other realistic candidates include Barbara Lagoa, who was the first Cuban-American to serve on the Florida Supreme Court, and now is on the Eleventh Circuit. Amul Thapar, a McConnell favorite who is now on the Sixth Circuit, was also interviewed for the Kavanaugh seat and may get another look this time. They all have the formal qualifications that are customary for Supreme Court Justices. The question is whether the Republican Senate will violate its supposed principles from 2016 to push one of them through.
If the answer is yes—if Trump fills the Ginsburg seat—the next question will be how the Democrats respond. If the Democrats fail to retake the majority in the Senate in November, their options are few except to grin and bear it. But, if they win the majority and Joe Biden wins the Presidency, there are four major possibilities for retribution—which all happen to be good policy as well. The first is the abolition of the filibuster, which should have happened decades ago. Even in the minority, McConnell will do everything he can to thwart Biden, and the filibuster will be the tool. This antidemocratic relic should be retired once and for all. Second, statehood for the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, with two senators apiece, would be another appropriate rejoinder. Third, Congress should pass a law expanding the number of lower-court federal judges; that number has not increased since Jimmy Carter was President. Finally, the greatest and most appropriate form of retribution involves the Supreme Court itself. The number of Justices is not fixed in the Constitution but, rather, established by statute. If Republicans succeed in stealing two seats—the Scalia and Ginsburg vacancies—the Democrats could simply pass a law that creates two or three more seats on the Supreme Court. To do so would be to play hardball in a way that is foreign to the current Senate Democrats. But maybe, in light of all that’s happened, that’s a game they should learn to play.
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