hotair--2020-10-29--Glenn Greenwald resigns from the Intercept over site's refusal to publish a story about Hunter Biden

Glenn Greenwald resigns from the Intercept over site's refusal to publish a story about Hunter Biden docs

They don ’ t seem to think so

Here’s a 2020 twist I didn’t see coming. Glenn Greenwald is a co-founder of the Intercept, a progressive news site that leans toward the far left. Today Greenwald announced he had resigned from his own site after editors attempted to force him to remove criticism of Joe Biden from a story before publication. The exact content that offended the editors isn’t spelled out but it certainly sounds as if it’s related to the Hunter Biden documents. Here’s the first part of Greenwald’s explanation on his new substack site:
Today I sent my intention to resign from The Intercept, the news outlet I co-founded in 2013 with Jeremy Scahill and Laura Poitras, as well as from its parent company First Look Media. The final, precipitating cause is that The Intercept’s editors, in violation of my contractual right of editorial freedom, censored an article I wrote this week, refusing to publish it unless I remove all sections critical of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, the candidate vehemently supported by all New-York-based Intercept editors involved in this effort at suppression. The censored article, based on recently revealed emails and witness testimony, raised critical questions about Biden’s conduct. Not content to simply prevent publication of this article at the media outlet I co-founded, these Intercept editors also demanded that I refrain from exercising a separate contractual right to publish this article with any other publication. I had no objection to their disagreement with my views of what this Biden evidence shows: as a last-ditch attempt to avoid being censored, I encouraged them to air their disagreements with me by writing their own articles that critique my perspectives and letting readers decide who is right, the way any confident and healthy media outlet would. But modern media outlets do not air dissent; they quash it. So censorship of my article, rather than engagement with it, was the path these Biden-supporting editors chose.
He also had a broader criticism of the Intercept as having problems common to left-leaning media outlets:
The pathologies, illiberalism, and repressive mentality that led to the bizarre spectacle of my being censored by my own media outlet are ones that are by no means unique to The Intercept. These are the viruses that have contaminated virtually every mainstream center-left political organization, academic institution, and newsroom.
This is all part of an introduction. The rest of his piece recounts how he came to co-found the Intercept and how the site was handed over to a group of editors to run so that the founders could continue to focus on journalism. But as Greenwald describes it, that gradually meant working at a site that was happy to capitalize on his name and reputation but which gave him relatively little input into what the site was doing.
In particular, Greenwald points to the Reality Winner story as an embarrassment in which he was not involved. Here’s how the NY Times reported that last month:
The Intercept scrambled to publish a story on the report, ignoring the most basic security precautions. The lead reporter on the story sent a copy of the document, which contained a crease showing it had been printed out, to the N.S.A. media affairs office, all but identifying Ms. Winner as the leaker. On June 3, about three weeks after Ms. Winner sent her letter, two F.B.I. agents showed up at her home in Georgia to arrest her. They announced the arrest soon after The Intercept’s article was published on June 5. “They sold her out, and they messed it up so that she would get caught, and they didn’t protect their source,” her mother, Billie Winner-Davis, said in a telephone interview last week. “The best years of her life are being spent in a system where she doesn’t belong.”
Reality Winner wound up being sentenced to five years thanks to the Intercept’s sloppy handling of the documents. Here’s what Greenwald says motivated them:
It was Intercept editors who pressured the story’s reporters to quickly send those documents for authentication to the government — because they was eager to prove to mainstream media outlets and prominent liberals that The Intercept was willing to get on board the Russiagate train. They wanted to counter-act the perception, created by my articles expressing skepticism about the central claims of that scandal, that The Intercept had stepped out of line on a story of high importance to U.S. liberalism and even the left. That craving — to secure the approval of the very mainstream media outlets we set out to counteract — was the root cause for the speed and recklessness with which that document from Winner was handled.
Greenwald also cites the decision to “hang Lee Fang out to dry and even force him to apologize when a colleague tried to destroy his reputation.” The Lee Fang story is another one that I covered here. The very short version is that Fang was called a “racist” by one of his co-workers. What was his crime? He posted a brief video interview with a real person who strayed from progressive orthodoxy:
Asked everyone I spoke with today if there was anything they wanted to get off their chest about the movement. Max from Oakland, a supporter of BLM, had a measured critique he wanted to share. pic.twitter.com/07qMQyCdJ9 — Lee Fang (@lhfang) June 4, 2020
As reporter Matt Taibbi would later say of the situation, “If you’re labeled a racist in this corner of the media you really can’t work.” So Fang had to issue a groveling apology for the shocking act of accurately reporting what a mixed-race person said about Black Lives Matter.
The Intercept has published a response which is not particularly kind to Greenwald. It says in part:
The narrative he presents about his departure is teeming with distortions and inaccuracies—all of them designed to make him appear a victim, rather than a grown person throwing a tantrum. It would take too long to point them all out here, but we intend to correct the record in time. For now, it is important to make clear that our goal in editing his work was to ensure that it would be accurate and fair. While he accuses us of political bias, it was he who was attempting to recycle a political campaign’s—the Trump campaign’s—dubious claims and launder them as journalism. We have the greatest respect for the journalist that Glenn Greenwald used to be…
Here’s the full response via Erik Wemple:
Intercept EIC Betsy Reed sent me this statement regarding the departure of @ggreenwald, saying there's a "fundamental disagreement over the role of editors in the production of journalism and the nature of censorship." pic.twitter.com/Od2TTKLsyq — ErikWemple (@ErikWemple) October 29, 2020
My own view is that Greenwald clearly has the better of this argument. Just looking at what happened to Lee Fang should make it clear what kind of people are running the Intercept. And yeah, it doesn’t hurt that Greenwald has been one of the few people on the left (along with Matt Taibbi) willing to note that the media’s Russia fixation was an epic disaster for journalism, especially for credulous partisans on the left. The country would have been better off if it had more reporters willing to say as much. Ultimately, I think it rankles many on the left that he would say so and even worse that he would go on Fox News and say it.
Update: About an hour after I finished this Greenwald published the story the Intercept refused to publish.
On his new platform, @ggreenwald publishes the story on Joe Biden and the media that triggered his resignation from the Intercept. It aligns very closely with his archive. https://t.co/ggO5wMbUp9 — ErikWemple (@ErikWemple) October 29, 2020
It’s titled “THE REAL SCANDAL: U.S. MEDIA USES FALSEHOODS TO DEFEND JOE BIDEN FROM HUNTER’S EMAILS” Here’s how it opens:
Publication by the New York Post two weeks ago of emails from Hunter Biden’s laptop, relating to Vice President Joe Biden’s work in Ukraine, and subsequent articles from other outlets concerning the Biden family’s pursuit of business opportunities in China, provoked extraordinary efforts by a de facto union of media outlets, Silicon Valley giants and the intelligence community to suppress these stories. One outcome is that the Biden campaign concluded, rationally, that there is no need for the front-running presidential candidate to address even the most basic and relevant questions raised by these materials. Rather than condemn Biden for ignoring these questions — the natural instinct of a healthy press when it comes to a presidential election — journalists have instead led the way in concocting excuses to justify his silence.
I guess you can add the Intercept the list of outlets concocting excuses.


hotair--2020-10-29--So that's why Trump and Barr dumped the U.S. Attorney in charge of the SDNY

They don ’ t seem to think so

“[T]his story is a good example of why pious Republican outrage over possible Biden overseas entanglements falls with such a thud,” said Ross Douthat about this Times scoop, correctly. It’s everything that the Hunter Biden laptop narrative claims to be, an expose of a high government official abusing the power of his office to do favors for shady foreigners, possibly in order to protect his own overseas interests.
Trumpers are right to complain about the gatekeeping around the Hunter Biden story, particularly Twitter’s attempt to suppress it. The media will tell you that they’re not covering it because they fear it’s false and/or a foreign influence operation, and that they don’t want a reprise of 2016 in which a Russian dirty trick is amplified through their own outlets. But really, they don’t want to cover the story because they fear it might be true and/or not a case of foreign meddling, which would oblige them to dig into it at the worst possible moment for Joe Biden. They’d rather wash their hands of the whole thing.
Read this with a reminder that the gatekeeping goes both ways, though. It’s a story of a sitting president and his lackeys meddling in the prosecution of a foreign entity that was undermining his own foreign policy in order to curry favor with Turkey’s sleazebag ruler, for reasons that remain unclear. It’s real news. But most of righty media will suppress it or spin it as aggressively as big media is spinning and suppressing the Hunter Biden stuff, even though the Times has Trump’s former National Security Advisor on the record along with some two dozen other sources. Fox News probably won’t spend more than a few minutes of airtime on it, assuming they touch it at all.
But other media will. And the part of the public that consumes that media will view the distinct lack of outrage over the Halkbank case from people who profess outrage over the Hunter Biden matter in context in deciding how seriously they should take the latter.
The SDNY has spent the last several years prosecuting Halkbank, a Turkish state-owned bank, for various crimes, including evading U.S. sanctions on Iran. That’s Trump’s own policy, of course, aimed at pressuring the Iranian regime financially to force them to make concessions on their nuclear program. According to the Times, not one but two of Trump’s attorneys general, Bill Barr and former acting AG Matt Whitaker, leaned on the U.S. Attorney in charge of the case to go easy on the Turks and drop parts of the prosecution. How come? Well, Erdogan appealed privately to Trump more than once to intervene, fearing that a harsh financial penalty imposed by the U.S. could wreck the bank or that the investigation could lead to his own inner circle. Interestingly, he also appealed privately to the previous administration for help — specifically, to a figure you might recognize — but was rebuked. The United States doesn’t obstruct justice for political reasons, he was told:
Speaking to reporters before he left Turkey, Mr. Biden made clear that there were limits to what the United States could or should do to address Mr. Erdogan’s requests, including any effort to extradite Mr. Gulen. “If the president were to take this into his own hands, what would happen would be he would be impeached for violating the separation of powers,” Mr. Biden said, with Mr. Erdogan at his side.
That was Biden in 2016, with not the barest inkling that that norm was soon to go up in smoke. Erdogan allegedly went as far as to ask him to have the U.S. Attorney at the time, Preet Bharara, removed from his position in order to obstruct the case. No dice.
But Trump was different:
At the White House, Mr. Trump’s handling of the matter became troubling even to some senior officials at the time. The president was discussing an active criminal case with the authoritarian leader of a nation in which Mr. Trump does business; he reported receiving at least $2.6 million in net income from operations in Turkey from 2015 through 2018, according to tax records obtained by The New York Times. And Mr. Trump’s sympathetic response to Mr. Erdogan was especially jarring because it involved accusations that the bank had undercut Mr. Trump’s policy of economically isolating Iran, a centerpiece of his Middle East plan. Former White House officials said they came to fear that the president was open to swaying the criminal justice system to advance a transactional and ill-defined agenda of his own.
Trump had built a Trump Towers in Istanbul four years before being elected, with Erdogan attending the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Whether the president’s handling of Halkbank was a case of him banking a favor for the future or returning a favor that Erdogan had already done for him isn’t known. But John Bolton has identified Trump’s relationship with the Turkish leader as one of the most alarming things he observed as NSA, telling an audience at a private speech last year that he thought Trump’s positions on Turkey were being dictated by some personal or business relationship. He couldn’t make sense otherwise of why Trump resisted sanctions on Turkey passed by Congress after the Turks purchased a Russian missile defense system. And he couldn’t make sense of Trump’s interest in the DOJ’s handling of the Halkbank case, writing about it in his book and speaking to the Times about it for today’s story.
According to Bolton, Trump himself told Erdogan in 2018 that he wanted to replace prosecutors at the SDNY. And lo and behold, that finally happened in June of this year under bizarre circumstances, with Bill Barr insisting that U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman had resigned and Berman himself issuing a statement insisting that he hadn’t. Trump then fired Berman the next day to finally force him off the job, but Berman’s resistance to leaving his position raised suspicions that Trump and Barr wanted him out for some illicit reason with which he was reluctant to go along. The Times piece suggests that Berman’s handling of the Halkbank case was part of the calculus. Acting AG Matt Whitaker reportedly wanted the case dropped altogether, but his deputies at the DOJ ignored him in the belief that he wouldn’t last in his position for long. Then Bill Barr took over and ended up leaning on Berman personally to drop the charges.All Barr wanted was a fine for the bank itself and an admission of some wrongdoing, with the key players involved all off the hook.
Berman wouldn’t go for it, finding it crazy that criminal suspects would be let go without even a promise of cooperation. “Justice Department officials cited his handling of the Halkbank matter, including his blocking of the proposed global settlement, as a key reason for his removal,” the Times claims. If that’s true then an ethical prosecutor got bounced because he wouldn’t cut a special deal for the president’s corrupt Turkish autocratic ally, who was pestering the White House to interfere with the case. Bolton made a good point about that in the piece: Trump’s willingness to exert leverage on Erdogan’s behalf meant that the targets of the probe had no incentive to cooperate with the DOJ. If making a deal with Berman was their only hope of avoiding prosecution, they would have had no choice; but once the president started twisting Berman’s arm their incentive to work with the SDNY evaporated. Trump’s own Justice Department ended up hamstrung by his meddling, allegedly abetted by Bill Barr.
The Halkbank prosecution finally did proceed, but only after Erdogan’s Trump-permitted invasion of Kurdish areas of Syria earned the president a bunch of bad press here at home.
All of this is context for the last-second hit on Biden’s character that Team Trump is trying to orchestrate right now. Which, I suppose, is less crazy than it seems at first blush. If Biden’s core pitch to the electorate is that he’ll restore norms and rebuild the dignity of the office, any dirt suggesting that he’s a sleaze too is useful in neutralizing that pitch. The question is whether there’s been so much sleaze and indecorousness from Trump himself over the past four years that Biden is functionally immune on that point, for the reason Douthat gave at the beginning of this post. It can’t possibly be that the Trump campaign and its followers are worried in good faith about ethics at this point. So why should voters take their ethical objections seriously?


hotair--2020-10-29--Michael Moore: 'Don't believe these polls'

They don ’ t seem to think so

Michael Moore famously predicted Trump’s win in 2016. Today he appeared on the Hill’s show Rising and warned that the presidential race could be closer than it appears, especially in battleground states: “Trump has tightened virtually every one of these swing states to the point where—what are they saying this morning…Biden’s 5 points ahead in Wisconsin, maybe 3 points ahead in Florida, 2 points ahead in Arizona.”
“Listen, don’t believe these polls, first of all, and second of all the Trump vote is always being undercounted,” Moore said. He went on to suggest that when pollsters call Trump voters they are not likely to get the truth out of them. Moore admitted his opinion was not scientific but based on his own instincts, “Whatever they’re saying the Biden lead is, cut it in half right now in your head. Cut it in half and now you’re within the four point margin of error.” “That’s how close this is,” he added.
Moore pointed out that in a recent trip to Michigan Trump held a rally in one of the counties Hillary won in 2016, with thousands of people showing up. He said he doesn’t know who is going to win the election next week but said, “I wake up every morning with the assumption that Trump believes he’s going to win and that’s good enough for me.” He added, “He thinks he’s going to win and I know he’s an evil genius and he’s smarter than all of us.”
Moore went on to say that he wasn’t simply saying this as an “exercise” to keep Democrats on their toes. “He’s already done it,” he said, referring to 2016. But later in the interview he said he could make the argument that this election was about to be “a massive tsunami” in favor of Biden.
The interview went off the rails a bit later when Moore claimed that a Member of Congress had suggested to him that Trump and AG Barr were planning to send federal marshals into Pennsylvania to seize election materials. Co-host Saagar Enjeti pulled him back and said he wanted to be careful about spreading what amounts to a conspiracy theory. Moore continued to argue for the rest of the segment that it was naive not to expect some kind of evil genius ploy in the final days.
Look, I’m aware that Moore might be saying all of this just to light a fire under Democrats to get out and vote. What’s surprising to me and what makes me think he might be actually somewhat worried (as opposed to pretending to be) is that he gave a similar interview to MSNBC earlier this week (wearing the same hat and from the same location) in which he sounded far less concerned about Trump’s chances. In fact he pointed to various signs that maybe Trump didn’t want to win the election and said he could wind up losing by 10 million votes. Overall it was a very rosy picture for Biden fans. So if the goal was to scare Democrats into not letting up on the gas, why not say what he said today on MSNBC?
I’ll leave it to the reader to sort out what constitutes Moore’s real beliefs about this election and what is just a performance designed to generate a win for Biden. Here’s the full interview from today and below that is the very different interview he did with MSNBC on Sunday.


hotair--2020-10-29--Today's hot topics on #TEMS: Polling leads, "Anonymous" misleads, Warp Speed, Philly bleeds, "Americ

Today's hot topics on #TEMS: Polling leads, "Anonymous" misleads, Warp Speed, Philly bleeds, "America is Good" indeed, and more!

They don ’ t seem to think so

Today on The Ed Morrissey Show (4 pm ET), we have another great lineup for the news of the day! The show will be streamed on Hot Air’s Facebook page and embedded here and on the show page for those who are not on Facebook.
Join us as we welcome:
Duane “Generalissimo” Patterson brings us up to date on the week’s top stories and gives us a preview of tomorrow’s Hugh Hewitt show. We’ll take another look at the 270towin.com tote board and try to game out what will happen in the election. We’ll also look at the fraud that was “Anonymous,” plus other media-meltdown stories.
What is the election really about? Claremont Institute chair Thomas Klingenstein echoes what I have argued for some time — it’s about whether America is a fundamentally good place or a fundamentally bad place. The 1619 Project is one of the efforts to prove the latter. Klingenstein argues that America is good — and that’s a message that “BLM Democrats” are trying to silence. What can we do about that?
The Ed Morrissey Show and its dynamic chatroom can be seen on the permanent TEMS page. Be sure to join us, and don’t forget to keep up with the debate on my Facebook page, too!
How can Republicans and conservatives keep winning after 2016? Find out in GOING RED, published in April from Crown Forum!


hotair--2020-10-29--Moderna: We're about ready to launch our COVID-19 vaccine too

They don ’ t seem to think so

Chalk up another Operation Warp Speed reveal, thanks to corporate reporting. Moderna has one of the three most promising and advanced COVID-19 vaccine candidates, which is currently in Phase 3 testing. Following a similar announcement from Pfizer earlier this week, Moderna told its investors that they have begun “actively preparing for the launch of mRNA-1273,” and that they may join Pfizer in a late-November emergency-use application in the US:
“We are actively preparing for the launch of mRNA-1273 and we have signed a number of supply agreements with governments around the world,” Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel said in a press release. “Moderna is committed to the highest data quality standards and rigorous scientific research as we continue to work with regulators to advance mRNA-1273.” Shares of Moderna were up more than 3% in midmorning trading. Moderna, a front-runner in the Covid-19 vaccine race, said last week it had completed enrollment for its 30,000-participant late-stage trial. As of last week, more than 25,650 participants had received the second of the company’s two-dose Covid-19 vaccine. Moderna said about 37% of the participants were from diverse communities and 42% were at high risk of severe disease. … On a call with investors Thursday, Bancel said the company expects the data and safety monitoring board, which will assess whether the trial is successful, will conduct its first interim analysis in November. The board will not conduct its analysis until after there are 53 cases of Covid-19 diagnosed in Moderna’s phase three trial.
Forbes notes that Moderna appears to be slightly behind Pfizer, but it’s not by much:
Last week, the company said that it completed the enrollment process of 30,000 participants in its final-stage study, with initial data on the efficacy of the vaccine expected by late November. The company will apply for emergency-use authorization – which could cover use for high-risk individuals such as the elderly and healthcare workers – around December, at the earliest. While the clinical trials continue to progress, Moderna and its manufacturing partners are doubling down on production with plans to produce 20 million doses of the vaccine by the end of the year. Assuming that two doses are required, this would be enough for about 10 million people. The company intends to manufacture at least 500 million to 1 billion doses in 2021. … That said, Moderna appears to be slightly behind Pfizer’s (NYSE:PFE) vaccine candidate, which is being developed with German biotech BioNTech (BNTX). Pfizer PFE -0.9% is likely to provide efficacy data on its vaccine as early as this month and there is a possibility that it could receive emergency approval before the end of this year. Pfizer expects to have about 100 million doses available by year-end.
Pfizer has already produced twice as many double doses and is closer to the emergency-use authorization request. Thanks to the funding from Operation Warp Speed and the newer COVAX initiative, Pfizer has gotten farther down the production curve, as Forbes points out. However, its vaccine requires much colder storage, which will complicate distribution and access at least a little bit. Either way, it appears that tens of millions of doses of these two vaccines may be accessible before Christmas — which would create a large impact on the ability to curtail transmission of COVID-19.
There is even more good news on a non-vaccine front. The Regeneron cocktail that Donald Trump took looks like it will become an effective way to address acute cases in general, and higher-risk patients especially:
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals said Wednesday its coronavirus antibody cocktail, the experimental treatment that President Donald Trump received, significantly reduced medical visits in a trial of nearly 800 patients with mild-to-moderate Covid-19. Regeneron said patients given the treatment, REGN-COV2, made around 57 percent fewer Covid-19-related medical visits than those given a placebo over a 29-day period. The drop was around 72 percent in patients with one or more risk factors, such as being over age 50, obesity, cardiovascular, metabolic, lung, liver or kidney disease, or an immunocompromised status. Last month, the company released early data from the trial showing the treatment reduced viral levels and improved symptoms in non-hospitalized Covid-19 patients. The new data confirm the initial findings, the company said.
Regeneron has 50,000 doses already on hand; Operation Warp Speed paid for 300,000 doses, so production should ramp up quickly now. The FDA already has an emergency-use authorization request in hand from Regeneron and are reviewing the data. If it passes muster, it comes just in time to address a national increase in hospitalizations and diagnoses. Hopefully Regeneron can escalate its production quickly.
People are understandably impatient for these developments, perhaps none more than Trump himself. These are lights at the end of a tunnel — although a very long tunnel still. We should not forget to consider just how extraordinary this fast innovation has been — and if it succeeds, just how well Operation Warp Speed performed.


hotair--2020-10-29--UPS found the missing documents sent to Tucker Carlson

They don ’ t seem to think so

Mystery solved? Not exactly. Last night Tucker Carlson devoted a segment of his show to how a package of documents related to Hunter Biden mysteriously disappeared in shipment. Carlson didn’t identify the company by name but said the shipment had been found opened and the documents inside were gone. After a thorough search the company said they’d been unable to find out what happened. Here’s the clip which got a lot of attention online last night. The clip has been viewed 8.7 million times.
Damning Hunter Biden documents suddenly vanish pic.twitter.com/B2qsajZlID — Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) October 29, 2020
Carlson’s segment immediately generated some concern, mostly from people on the right, but also a lot of snarky responses from people on the left:
Oh for f*%! sake, seriously? Would have been a better story if your dog ate the damn papers. https://t.co/6yllQu7pU0 — Michael Steele (@MichaelSteele) October 29, 2020
The dog ate my bullshit https://t.co/NCYLxlJvhL — Ron Fournier (@ron_fournier) October 29, 2020
The little green men will not be deterred. https://t.co/eAL6Lkpb0x — Ben Rhodes (@brhodes) October 29, 2020
You get the idea. Lots of people claiming Carlson was full of it. Today Business Insider reported that what Carlson reported last night, at least the basic outlines of it, was in fact true. BI identified the shipper as UPS and got confirmation that the package had been lost:
Glenn Zaccara, UPS’s corporate media relations director, confirmed to Business Insider that Fox News used UPS to ship the documents. “The package was reported with missing contents as it moved within our network,” Zaccara said in an emailed statement. “UPS is conducting an urgent investigation into this matter and regrets that the package was damaged. The integrity of our network and the security of our customers’ goods are of utmost importance. We will remain in frequent, direct contact with Fox News as we learn more through our investigation.”
In a later development, UPS now says the contents of the package have been found and will be delivered to Carlson:
“After an extensive search, we have found the contents of the package and are arranging for its return,” UPS told TheWrap. “UPS will always focus first on our customers, and will never stop working to solve issues and make things right. We work hard to ensure every package is delivered, including essential goods, precious family belongings and critical healthcare.”
UPS didn’t explain how or where the contents were found or give any hint about what happened in the first place. Was the package accidentally ripped open by a machine? By a person? Where did they turn up? Maybe we’ll get more detail on Carlson’s show tonight. In any case, now that we’ve had all this build up I hope there’s something in the documents that is significant. We’ll have to wait for that too.


hotair--2020-10-29--Cuomo to "Anonymous": How can we at CNN put you on the air when you lied to our faces -- and our vie

Cuomo to "Anonymous": How can we at CNN put you on the air when you lied to our faces -- and our viewers?

They don ’ t seem to think so

Kudos to Chris Cuomo for asking this question of paid CNN contributor Miles Taylor. Too bad CNN executives didn’t actually have an answer to it yesterday. Taylor, now outed as the much-vaunted “senior administration official” who penned the New York Times’ 2018 “Anonymous” op-ed claiming the resistance in the Trump White House was real, had actually lied on CNN air to Anderson Cooper about being the author of the essay.
If Taylor’s willing to lie on air, Cuomo challenges him, why should anyone watching believe anything he says now? Exactly:
—@ChrisCuomo to @MilesTaylorUSA: "You lied to us….Why should CNN keep you on the payroll after lying like that?" pic.twitter.com/T4kzZ8zKJM — Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) October 29, 2020
CUOMO: All right. First, what matters most, certainly to me, you lied to us, Miles. You were asked in August, if you were “Anonymous,” here on CNN, with Anderson Cooper and you said “No.” Now, why should CNN keep you on the payroll after lying like that? TAYLOR: Chris, it’s a great question, and I’ll just give you the blunt truth. When I published “A Warning,” I said in the book that if asked, I would strenuously deny I was the Author. And here’s the reason. Because the things I said in that book were ideas that I wanted Donald Trump to challenge on their merits. We have seen over the course of four years that Donald Trump’s preference is to find personal attracts and distractions to pull people away from criticisms of his record. I wrote that work anonymously to deprive him of that opportunity and to force him to answer the questions on their merits. And I’ll tell you what happened, Chris. The end result is the President couldn’t. He failed to deny what was in that book. And, in fact, to this day, the White House has failed to challenge the narratives that were in that book or the narratives that I have explained in my own name, over the past four months, speaking out against the President. So, when asked by Anderson, whether I was “Anonymous,” during that time period, I said what I was going to do. I temporarily denied it. But I’ve always said I would ultimately come out under my own name. But that said, I owe Anderson Cooper a beer, I owe him a mea culpa, and the same thing for other reporters who, at that time period, asked me “Are you Anonymous,” and I said “No,” because I wanted that work to stand on its own two legs and deprive the President of an opportunity to do one more personal attack to distract from his record. But look, I’m here tonight to say that was me, and I hope people challenge me on those accounts, and I hope the White House looks back at those accounts, and looks at them, and tries to actually say, whether they’re true or not, because there is an army of people who’ve now come out, Chris– CUOMO: We– TAYLOR: –who will validate them. CUOMO: We will go through what the White House said in response. We will go through your time there, and what mattered, in terms of what you were trying to hold off for America’s collective national security. But you know what the problem is with having lied is that now you are a liar, and people will be slow to believe you, when you lied about something as important as whether or not you wanted to own this. TAYLOR: Chris, that’s the truth. And this was a very torturous decision. It was not immediate for me to want to publish this work anonymously at the get-go. It really wasn’t. But at the time, and I’ll be frank with you, behind the scenes, I was trying to get people, who I’m not going to dime out, but other household names in the Administration, to come out and tell the truth that, Chris, we all knew, inside this Administration. This isn’t about just Miles Taylor. It’s about a majority of the President’s cabinet at that time that shared these views. I couldn’t. And the next best opportunity was to convey it in a way that the President would avoid those personal attacks. But you’re right, Chris. And I owe an apology for having to maintain that necessary misdirection for that period of time in order for that argument to work. But look, I’m here now to talk about it. And I’ve been out there talking about this for four months.
Put simply, this is nonsense on stilts. Taylor’s still claiming to speak for Cabinet members when he wrote this as a deputy chief of staff at DHS. That might make Taylor a senior official in that agency, but not a senior official in the Trump administration. It seems highly unlikely that a deputy CoS would know his own boss’ entire state of mind, let alone that of other Cabinet officials or White House senior staff. It’s far more likely that Taylor’s main contact activities were downward rather than upward, and the “Anonymous” op-ed reflected nothing more than careerist discontent with new populist policies, filtered upward through a glorified gofer.
Even apart from that, Taylor’s excuses for lying amount to nothing more than Orange Man Bad. Taylor says he wanted to remain anonymous to force Trump to respond to his criticisms rather than attack his standing to make them. Well, that much is true, because Taylor didn’t have the kind of standing that he and the New York Times insinuated he did. Taylor lied to keep up a pretense of a vast conspiracy within the Trump administration to thwart him, and blames Trump for his lying — including the lie of his “senior” status in the Trump administration. Let’s not forget that this lie also conveniently allowed Taylor to get a book deal pushing the same nonsense, although Taylor claims he donated the proceeds to charity. Did he? Well, Taylor does have a track record of lying to boost the status of “Anonymous,” so who knows?
And now that CNN knows he lied about that … they’re still paying him as a credible analyst. That speaks volumes about CNN’s credibility, Washington Post media critic Erik Wemple wrote last night, as well as the NYT’s:
As The Post’s Carlos Lozada pointed out in his review of Taylor’s book-length anti-Trump essay — “A Warning” — the author made the extraordinary pledge that he’d “strenuously deny” authorship if challenged on the matter. He wasn’t kidding: In an August interview on CNN, where Taylor is a contributor, he said this to Anderson Cooper about authoring “A Warning”: “I wear a mask for two things, Anderson: Halloween and pandemics. So, no,” said Taylor. Meaning, Taylor made good on his commitment to lie. We asked CNN what it had to say about a contributor doing such a thing on air. A spokeswoman responded that he will remain a contributor — on the network that pillories Trump for lying, that sics a fact-checker on virtually every statement coming out of the White House, that has made a franchise out of “Facts First.” … As to his relationship with Cooper, Taylor says, “If he’s willing, I owe Anderson a beer and a mea culpa.” Beers and mea culpas are appropriate salves for collegial infelicities, like, perhaps, blindsiding a co-worker at softball practice, or inadvertently chugging a colleague’s iced latte sitting in the office refrigerator. They don’t mitigate a lie on national television. Yet that’s the mind-set with which the New York Times and CNN are now associated.
Good point, although CNN has trodden that path of late. It hired James Clapper as its nat-sec analyst in 2017 to present day despite lying to Congress about domestic surveillance. CNN also hired Andrew McCabe as a contributor in August 2019 after the former #2 at the FBI got fired for lying to investigators. Taylor might feel right at home at “facts first” CNN.


hotair--2020-10-29--Telemundo poll: Biden's lead among Hispanics down to five in Florida, far behind Hillary's pace

They don ’ t seem to think so

I feel about this the way I felt about those Minnesota polls that Ed posted this morning: They can’t be reconciled with other data, so someone somewhere is wrong. It could be that the Minnesota polls are right — but if they are, then the national polling is wildly, wildly off. There’s no plane of reality where Joe Biden wins the national popular vote by seven points but loses a heartbreaker in Minnesota.
Likewise, it’s all but impossible to believe that Biden is leading in Florida right now — slightly, according to the RCP average — if he’s turned a 27-point Clinton lead among Hispanics in 2016 into a five-point lead. The pollster who conducted the poll for Telemundo said as much to Politico: “If Biden is going to flip Florida, he has to at least match Clinton’s numbers among Hispanics and that looks like it’s not going to happen.” I’m not sure that that’s strictly true, as the story of the campaign to date has been Trump overperforming with Latinos and Biden overperforming with whites, a much larger group. In theory, Trump could win Hispanics in Florida outright and Biden could still take the state by cutting deeply enough into the president’s advantage with white voters.
But that would be a heavy lift.
This isn’t the first poll of the race to show Trump doing remarkably well with Florida Hispanics, either. It’s why I think he has to be favored in the state on Tuesday.
Biden leads Trump among Hispanics by just 48-43 percent, numbers that could mean trouble for the former vice president in the nation’s biggest swing state… Part of Trump’s improved numbers are due to strong support from Cuban-American voters in the state. Trump has long touted his support within that community after winning 54 percent of the Cuban-American vote, according to 2016 exit polls. Now, he is leading among them by 71 percent to 23 percent, according to the new poll. “That might be the thing that saves Donald Trump in Florida,” Coker said. Coker said Venezuelans and Colombians polled similarly to Cubans in offering strong support for Trump. However, Biden leads with Florida Puerto Ricans, 66 percent to 23 percent. Puerto Ricans traditionally have had lower turnout rates but are growing in numbers in the state.
Is there reason to believe this polling is accurate, more or less? Most definitely. Democrats in Florida have been warning for months that Biden is weak among Latinos there and isn’t doing enough to bring them home. Read this from early September noting a different poll showing Trump *leading* statewide among that demographic. A few weeks later brought more bad news for Team Joe. It would be shocking at this point if Trump didn’t top the 35 percent he pulled in 2016 among Florida Hispanics next week.
But there’s reason for doubt too. Per Politico, not every recent poll of FL shows a race this tight among the Latino minority. A Univision poll had Biden up 20 among that group, still off Clinton’s pace but much less dramatically than in Telemundo’s data. Another poll from CBS found him leading Florida Hispanics by 27 — exactly matching Hillary’s margin. If Trump *doesn’t* overperform among that demographic next week, he’s probably cooked in Florida. And as goes Florida, so goes the presidency.
…Well, for Trump at least. Biden doesn’t actually need FL if he’s cleaning up in the Rust Belt. And this same Telemundo poll shows that he’s faring more strongly with Latino voters in Arizona, Nevada, and Texas. Clinton won Hispanics in AZ by 30 points four years ago according to the exit polls. Biden leads there by 36 according to Telemundo. He’s also slightly ahead of Clinton’s pace in Nevada and only a few points behind in Texas.
I gave you a shot of optimism with the Telemundo poll. Now here’s a shot of pessimism via the LA Times:
More than 6.8 million people ages 18 to 29 had voted early or by mail in the national election by midweek, a 2 ½-fold increase over their voting level at this point four years ago, according to the Democratic data firm TargetSmart. Texas has witnessed a particularly robust turnout among younger voters. As of Wednesday morning, voters under 30 had cast more than 900,000 ballots in the Lone Star State, nearly three times the number as around this time in 2016… Other battleground states mirrored that outsized turnout by young people, TargetSmart data showed: Young Florida voters have cast 569,000 ballots, a 42% increase over their 2016 total; some 404,000 young North Carolinians have voted, a 63% jump; and young people in Georgia have expanded their vote by 82% to more than 340,000.
You know which way younger voters lean. None of the above proves that they’ll be out in greater numbers this year than they were four years ago; it could be that the early vote is simply cannibalizing Election Day turnout, not adding to it. But if a youth wave is showing up — and if it’s also true that Biden is winning seniors this year — then the math starts to look very grim for Trump.
Which, of course, is not to say that he can’t win. Kristen Soltis Anderson, a pollster at Echelon Insights, reminded her Twitter followers of that this morning, with the caveat that a Biden landslide scenario is also on the table.
Current polling averages in the Sun Belt states – FL, NC, AZ, TX, GA – all have Trump in striking distance. They are tied or within just a point or two. Not enough for me to say confidently which way they'll go. If they all go Trump, that's ALMOST enough… — Kristen Soltis Anderson (@KSoltisAnderson) October 29, 2020
There's a scenario where the map looks like this. And this scenario DOES NOT REQUIRE THE POLLS TO BE WRONG. pic.twitter.com/CZuREaQRoz — Kristen Soltis Anderson (@KSoltisAnderson) October 29, 2020
Is it true that her map of a Trump win doesn’t require the polls to be wrong? What she means by that is that even in states where Biden leads narrowly right now (e.g., Florida), the race is so tight that his lead is within the margin of error. When a pollster has it Biden 50, Trump 48 and the outcome is Trump 50, Biden 48, that’s not a “miss.” The margin of error — let’s say three points in this case — means that the poll also envisioned an outcome where Trump did three points better and Biden did three points worse.
But it depends on which data you look at. Here’s the New York Times’s latest update on where things stand and what it will look like on Tuesday if the polls miss by exactly the same margin they did in 2016. This is not a “Trump upset” scenario:
If the margins in the middle column are what the margins on election night look like, we’re headed for a Biden electoral college blowout. His margin of victory in each individual battleground would be modest, four points or less in all of the big ones. But Trump won by a whisker in those states in 2016 and that hasn’t stopped him from treating the 306 electoral votes he got as a thunderous victory, never mind that he lost the popular vote nationally. All of which is a long way of saying that if the Times is right about where the race stands right now then Trump needs an even bigger polling error than in 2016 to pull the upset. And if we’re willing to believe that pollsters have adjusted their methodology since then to make sure they’re overlooking fewer Trump voters this time then a bigger polling error this year seems unlikely.
Update: Twenty minutes after I finished this post, Monmouth dropped its final Florida poll of the campaign. They have it Biden 50, Trump 45 among registered voters, with Biden gaining a point in a high-turnout scenario and losing a point in a low-turnout scenario. As for Latinos:
A 26-point Democratic advantage, basically identical to Clinton’s margin within that group four years ago. Five days until we know whether Monmouth or Telemundo was right.


hotair--2020-10-29--Attack in French city of Nice leaves three dead

They don ’ t seem to think so

The attacker walked into a church with a knife and killed three people before police could stop him. He repeatedly shouted “Allahu Akbar” during the attack:
The attack in Nice occurred near the Basilica of Notre-Dame de L’Assomption, shortly after 9 a.m. Nice Mayor Christian Estrosi said three people were confirmed dead, and that the attacker repeatedly shouted “Allahu Akbhar,” or “God is greatest” in Arabic… According to Estrosi and to French media reports citing police sources, one of the three victims, a woman, had her throat slashed inside the church. The second victim, a man, was stabbed to death. The third known victim, another woman, was killed in a bar in front of the basilica where she had hidden.
No one has spoken to the attacker yet. It’s not even certain he’s going to live, so it hasn’t been formally confirmed what motivated him but the Mayor of Nice said he had no doubt this was terrorism. He compared the death of one of the victims to that of Samuel Paty, a teacher who was beheaded in Paris less than two weeks ago:
The mayor of Nice, Christian Estrosi, told reporters on Thursday that a suspect, who has not been identified, was arrested after being shot and wounded by the police. The suspect “kept repeating Allahu akbar in front of us even though he was sedated,” Mr. Estrosi said, adding this left “no doubt” about the motivation behind the attack. “There is a woman who quite clearly was attacked with the same modus operandi as Samuel Paty,” the Nice mayor, Mr. Estrosi, told BFM TV, referring to the teacher who was killed, suggesting that the victim was also decapitated… “Enough is enough,” said Mr. Estrosi, the Nice mayor. “It is now time for France to exempt itself of peacetime laws to permanently annihilate Islamo-facism from our territory.”
There were several other attacks around France this morning. First in the city of Avignon where a man with a gun was killed after making threats and refusing to drop the weapon:
The man was shot dead in Montfavet, a district in the city of Avignon, on Thursday, police said. He was killed after he refused to drop his weapon and a flash-ball shot failed to stop him, one police official said. The man had shouted “Allahu akbar”, according to French radio station Europe 1.
There was another involving a man with a 12″ knife in the city of Lyon:
A man armed with a long knife was arrested in the southeastern French city of Lyon on Thursday as he was about to board a tram, a a source close to the inquiry told AFP. The suspect, an Afghan national in his 20s who was dressed in traditional Afghan clothes, had already been flagged to French intelligence services, the source said.
Finally a security guard at a French Consulate in Saudi Arabia was attacked by a man with a knife. His wounds were not life threatening.
All of this happened in the midst of a backlash against France for its response to the beheading of a teacher in Paris. Multiple Muslim countries have started boycotts of French goods. An anti-France protest in Bangladesh earlier this week attracted tens of thousands of people who burned French flags.
Within France, some recent polls indicate a majority of the public feel they, and their values, are under attack by radical Islam. There have been three dozen serious terror attacks in France since 2012, including the 2015 attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices, then later the same year a series of attacks killed 130 people in Paris. In 2016 an attack in Nice using a heavy truck as a weapon killed 86.
Today, President Macron gave a speech in Nice saying, “”if we are attacked, it is because of our values, our values of freedom and our desires not to yield to terrorism.” He added that the number of soldiers mobilized on French soil would be doubled to 7,000.
Two clips to close this out. The first includes a bit of the statement by the Mayor of Nice about the attack. It has been subtitled in English. Below that is an AFP clip from this morning which puts what happened into context.


hotair--2020-10-29--Girl Scouts of America congratulate Amy Coney Barrett and the angry mob went nuts

The angry mob came for the Girl Scouts of America Wednesday evening when the organization dared to post congratulations to Justice Amy Coney Barrett .
The post should have been perfectly acceptable to everyone , as it was nonpartisan in nature .
But , this is 2020 , and even one tweet with the pictures of all five female Supreme Court justices causes the left to lose its mind .
That , in turn , caused the right to respond .
The Girl Scouts deleted the tweet and Facebook post after the backlash from the angry left began .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Court colleagues , associate justices Elena Kagen and Sonia Sotomayor ; former associate justice Sandra Day O ’ Connor ; and the late associate justice , Ruth Bader Ginsburg .
The caption read : “ Congratulations Amy Coney Barrett on becoming the 5th woman appointed to the Supreme Court since its inception in 1789 ” .
It ended with an emoji of raised hands .
That simple acknowledgment of a woman ’ s professional achievement was unacceptable to the left , bitterly angry that President Trump fulfilled his constitutional duty and filled the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Conservative women are not to be praised , much less included among liberal women is a social media post , apparently .
One of the first to criticize the Girl Scouts was a member of The Squad , Rep. Ayanna Pressley .
She tweeted in response , “ What kind of patch does one earn for uplifting a woman who is the antithesis of justice ?
” An antithesis of justice ?
So much for supporting all women , right ?
Legal professionals from both sides of the aisle who have worked with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t good enough for social justice warriors who are quick to share hot takes on social media .
One tweeter called herself a “ life-time scout ” who said she is “ ashamed ” of the GSA tweet .
@ IkeaClark , who seems to have made her account a private one after posting her response tweeted , “ I already felt uneasy as a trans person in this organization , but now I really understand that with this message that Girl Scouts really does not support me or my trans/LGBTQ siblings @ @ @ @ @ @ @ case anyone didn ’ t understand the left ’ s concern about abortion rights , a law professor tweeted out her opinion .
The GSA deleted the post and tried to appease the left by declaring themselves a non-political organization .
Conservatives were quick to point out that by the very act of deleting their congratulatory tweet , they were playing politics .
The organization that exists to empower girls – all girls – decided to cave to liberal women and favor them over standing up for conservative women .
It was an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of empowerment .
The lesson it teaches is that when people don ’ t agree with you , just yield to them and change your own opinion .
A HuffPo editorial director offers his hot take .
Just because she “ identifies as a woman ” doesn ’ t mean she is a hero or something .
The irony in the statement from GSA is that their original tweet was , in fact , non-partisan .
The five women are from both political parties .
To the eyes of non-political people , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ achievement by a woman .
I guarantee you if a liberal woman had been placed on the Supreme Court , there would have been very little if any , negative response to such a tweet .
Conservative women are accustomed to rising above such pettiness while liberal women are not as open-minded as they would have you believe .
The Girl Scouts organization has come under fire in recent years for moves to surrender to liberal agendas .
Whether it is appeasing the LGBTQ agenda or blending Girl Scout troops with Boy Scout @ @ @ @ @ @ @ goes one way and that isn ’ t a conservative one .
This sort of cowardice doesn ’ t reassure conservative parents that their daughter is welcome .
What this action does tell conservative parents is that the same courtesy will not be extended to them as is extended to liberal parents .
When decisions must be made , they will go with a liberal point of view .
Conservative parents supported the organization ’ s original tweet .
Even an opponent of ACB ’ s appointment recognized it was the right thing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ commenters also offered praise for the post , with one woman on Facebook writing , “ Girl Scouts , thank you for celebrating ALL women and showing us there is a place at the table for those with ALL different sorts of values .
Practicing what you ’ re preaching , right here .
It ’ s very nice to see.
” Another woman wrote , “ I ’ m glad to see the organization support all women both liberal and conservative !
” One conservative woman pointed out that she didn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I didn ’ t agree with things that were against my beliefs.
” “ As much as I dislike this particular woman and deplore the political hypocrisy that allowed her to be in such respected company , GSUSA is completely right to recognize her , ” the commenter wrote .
“ Well done .
It could not have been easy.
” In 2013 , GSA was quick to show support for Hillary Clinton and use her career as an example for girls .
From the GSA website , the mission of the organization @ @ @ @ @ @ @ There is nothing wrong with encouraging girls to participate in their communities and to understand what it means to be a good citizen .
That has been a part of scouting from the early days .
Community service projects and lessons on citizenship were standard during my days in scouting as a girl .
I don ’ t , however , remember any kind of focus on a specific political agenda .
My husband was a Boy Scout , and he participated in our son ’ s troop as a co-leader .
Our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he is well past his days in scouting , I also don ’ t remember any friction about politics within his troop .
That is how it should be .
Leaders can teach and encourage scouts without dragging in their own personal political agenda .
Deleting social media posts shows poor judgment on the part of the GSA .
By continuing to show how woke the organization is in today ’ s world , they lose out on appealing to all girls .
The organization is supposed to be an apolitical one .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , it doesn ’ t deliver the right message .
For instance , leaders can teach about the importance of being a well-informed voter and exercising their right to vote without being biased about one candidate over another , or one party over the other .
Girls need to know that all girls will be supported and empowered , otherwise , the talk about inclusiveness is just advertising , not reality .
Role models must include both sides of the political aisle .
The life story of ACB is one that should be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has not satisfied anyone as they try to please everyone .
There is a lesson here that should be taken for future engagement in social media .

The angry mob came for the Girl Scouts of America Wednesday evening when the organization dared to post congratulations to Justice Amy Coney Barrett. The post should have been perfectly acceptable to everyone, as it was nonpartisan in nature. But, this is 2020, and even one tweet with the pictures of all five female Supreme Court justices causes the left to lose its mind. That, in turn, caused the right to respond.
The Girl Scouts deleted the tweet and Facebook post after the backlash from the angry left began. The post included ACB’s two Supreme Court colleagues, associate justices Elena Kagen and Sonia Sotomayor; former associate justice Sandra Day O’Connor; and the late associate justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The caption read: “Congratulations Amy Coney Barrett on becoming the 5th woman appointed to the Supreme Court since its inception in 1789”. It ended with an emoji of raised hands.
Why did the Girl Scouts delete this tweet? pic.twitter.com/VQ1GB7YvQK — DaybreakInsider (@DaybreakInsider) October 29, 2020
That simple acknowledgment of a woman’s professional achievement was unacceptable to the left, bitterly angry that President Trump fulfilled his constitutional duty and filled the seat after the death of RBG. Conservative women are not to be praised, much less included among liberal women is a social media post, apparently. One of the first to criticize the Girl Scouts was a member of The Squad, Rep. Ayanna Pressley. She tweeted in response, “What kind of patch does one earn for uplifting a woman who is the antithesis of justice?”
What kind of patch does one earn for uplifting a woman who is the antithesis of justice? https://t.co/Z7TfkymPfL — Ayanna Pressley (@AyannaPressley) October 28, 2020
An antithesis of justice? So much for supporting all women, right? Legal professionals from both sides of the aisle who have worked with Justice Barrett praise her but that isn’t good enough for social justice warriors who are quick to share hot takes on social media. One tweeter called herself a “life-time scout” who said she is “ashamed” of the GSA tweet. @IkeaClark, who seems to have made her account a private one after posting her response tweeted, “I already felt uneasy as a trans person in this organization, but now I really understand that with this message that Girl Scouts really does not support me or my trans/LGBTQ siblings,” she added.
Just in case anyone didn’t understand the left’s concern about abortion rights, a law professor tweeted out her opinion.
The GSA deleted the post and tried to appease the left by declaring themselves a non-political organization.
Girl Scouts of the USA is a nonpolitical, nonpartisan organization. We are neither red nor blue, but Girl Scout GREEN. We are here to lift up girls and women. — Girl Scouts (@girlscouts) October 28, 2020
Conservatives were quick to point out that by the very act of deleting their congratulatory tweet, they were playing politics. The organization that exists to empower girls – all girls – decided to cave to liberal women and favor them over standing up for conservative women. It was an act of cowardice, not an act of empowerment. The lesson it teaches is that when people don’t agree with you, just yield to them and change your own opinion.
A HuffPo editorial director offers his hot take. Just because she “identifies as a woman” doesn’t mean she is a hero or something.
Noah Michelson, editorial director of HuffPost Personal, argued in a Facebook post that there was “no requirement that we celebrate someone as a hero to women simply because she identifies as a woman, especially when the thing she did was actually done for her by a gang of disgraceful goons and when she is poised to destroy the lives of so many people.”
The irony in the statement from GSA is that their original tweet was, in fact, non-partisan. The five women are from both political parties. To the eyes of non-political people, the tweet was a gracious acknowledgment of exceptional achievement by a woman. I guarantee you if a liberal woman had been placed on the Supreme Court, there would have been very little if any, negative response to such a tweet. Conservative women are accustomed to rising above such pettiness while liberal women are not as open-minded as they would have you believe.
The Girl Scouts organization has come under fire in recent years for moves to surrender to liberal agendas. Whether it is appeasing the LGBTQ agenda or blending Girl Scout troops with Boy Scout troops, the direction of the organization goes one way and that isn’t a conservative one. This sort of cowardice doesn’t reassure conservative parents that their daughter is welcome. What this action does tell conservative parents is that the same courtesy will not be extended to them as is extended to liberal parents. When decisions must be made, they will go with a liberal point of view. Conservative parents supported the organization’s original tweet. Even an opponent of ACB’s appointment recognized it was the right thing to do to support her.
Some commenters also offered praise for the post, with one woman on Facebook writing, “Girl Scouts, thank you for celebrating ALL women and showing us there is a place at the table for those with ALL different sorts of values. Practicing what you’re preaching, right here. It’s very nice to see.” Another woman wrote, “I’m glad to see the organization support all women both liberal and conservative!” One conservative woman pointed out that she didn’t “trash the Girl Scouts when I didn’t agree with things that were against my beliefs.” “As much as I dislike this particular woman and deplore the political hypocrisy that allowed her to be in such respected company, GSUSA is completely right to recognize her,” the commenter wrote. “Well done. It could not have been easy.”
In 2013, GSA was quick to show support for Hillary Clinton and use her career as an example for girls.
Why is it so important to have female political #leadership in the United States? @HillaryClinton explains: http://t.co/YjQoUgbOF3 — Girl Scouts (@girlscouts) December 20, 2013
From the GSA website, the mission of the organization has taken a decidedly political tone. There is nothing wrong with encouraging girls to participate in their communities and to understand what it means to be a good citizen. That has been a part of scouting from the early days. Community service projects and lessons on citizenship were standard during my days in scouting as a girl. I don’t, however, remember any kind of focus on a specific political agenda. My husband was a Boy Scout, and he participated in our son’s troop as a co-leader. Our son is an Eagle Scout and though he is well past his days in scouting, I also don’t remember any friction about politics within his troop. That is how it should be. Leaders can teach and encourage scouts without dragging in their own personal political agenda.
Deleting social media posts shows poor judgment on the part of the GSA. By continuing to show how woke the organization is in today’s world, they lose out on appealing to all girls. The organization is supposed to be an apolitical one. By saying it is a non-partisan organization, it doesn’t deliver the right message. For instance, leaders can teach about the importance of being a well-informed voter and exercising their right to vote without being biased about one candidate over another, or one party over the other. Girls need to know that all girls will be supported and empowered, otherwise, the talk about inclusiveness is just advertising, not reality. Role models must include both sides of the political aisle. The life story of ACB is one that should be celebrated by all girls. The GSA has not satisfied anyone as they try to please everyone. There is a lesson here that should be taken for future engagement in social media.


hotair--2020-10-29--The humiliation(?) of Martha McSally

The humiliation(?) of Martha McSally

Lotta chatter last night about how Trump introduced her at yesterday ’ s rally in Arizona , with some comparing it to how one might call a dog to come .
Having watched the clip , I didn ’ t take it that way .
But it does seem as if she wasn ’ t scheduled to speak and he decided , impromptu , to give her a turn at the mic — which would be strange , since other Republican pols and Trump hangers-on attending the rally were given some time .
Rand Paul said a few words , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Nigel Farage ( ! )
.
McSally ’ s the one running for reelection in AZ , though , and having a hell of a time trying to overcome Democrat Mark Kelly .
If anyone should have been given priority for a moment in the spotlight with the president , it ’ s her .
In the end , Farage got more speaking time than she did .
I thought he was just being playful in telling her to hustle , but the part where he slips in “ They don ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
One Arizona columnist titled her piece about the incident today , “ Trump ’ s disrespect of Sen. Martha McSally was painful to watch.
” Was he pissed off at her , perhaps , because she declined to defend him when pressed during her Senate debate a few weeks ago to say whether she ’ s proud of him ?
Or is he pissed off at her because she ’ s on the brink of losing both of Arizona ’ s Senate seats to Democrats in a two-year span ?
He hates @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he ’ ll feel more sympathetic to them come next Wednesday morning .
If you want to see a U.S. senator be humiliated , have I got the clip for you .
Trump didn ’ t need to say a word to make this puppy roll over .
Georgia Republicans , what ’ s the argument for supporting Loeffler over Doug Collins at this point ?
Not that I ’ m a big Collins fan , but he ’ s been a populist for longer than six seconds .
He ’ s not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ candidate — although not for lack of trying , I assume — and he ’ s not going straight back to the country club if he finishes out of the running next week .
He also happens to be Trump ’ s preferred choice for Loeffler ’ s Senate seat .
Although the president hasn ’ t endorsed him in the primary , no doubt under pressure from McConnell to stay out of the race , he was Trump ’ s pick for the appointment that eventually went to Loeffler last year .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ that *in theory* she ’ ll play better with suburban voters in a runoff than Collins will .
That ’ s why Brian Kemp chose her for the seat .
But she ’ s squandered so much of her credibility as a “ traditional ” Republican by pandering to Trumpers in order to try to hold off Collins that it ’ s unclear if she ’ s more of a liability with college grads in Georgia than he is at this point .
Pretending that she ’ s never heard of the “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ insult to the intelligence of voters , designed to avoid even the most minimally criticism of the president .
( She could have simply said , “ It was unfortunate that he said that but he ’ s apologized for it and everyone has moved on .
It ’ s ancient history.
” ) She ’ s not a good politician .
If you want a senator who ’ ll do whatever Trump wants but whose attempts to posture as a populist will be slightly less cringy , Collins is the obvious choice @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one more humiliation , a painful one .
Mike Lee was the first tea partier to oust an establishment Republican in a Senate primary .
He ’ s the staunchest “ constitutional conservative ” in the Senate .
His moral bearings were sufficiently intact circa 2016 that he tried to organize a revolt against Trump at the convention and later called on him to withdraw from the race following the “ Access Hollywood ” incident .
( The video of him explaining his reasoning is still up . )
Four years later , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by the Trump cult that he made his pitch to Arizona ’ s Mormon minority at yesterday ’ s rally by comparing the president explicitly to an LDS religious figure .
“ He seeks not the praise of the world or the fake news , ” says Lee of Trump , distorting a bit of Mormon scripture .
Mike , I hate to tell you : The praise of the world is precisely what he seeks , every minute of the day , from the moment he opens his eyes in the morning @ @ @ @ @ @ @ night .
What an endless embarrassment the Republican leadership class is .

Lotta chatter last night about how Trump introduced her at yesterday’s rally in Arizona, with some comparing it to how one might call a dog to come. Having watched the clip, I didn’t take it that way.
But it does seem as if she wasn’t scheduled to speak and he decided, impromptu, to give her a turn at the mic — which would be strange, since other Republican pols and Trump hangers-on attending the rally were given some time. Rand Paul said a few words, Mike Lee said a few, even Nigel Farage(!). McSally’s the one running for reelection in AZ, though, and having a hell of a time trying to overcome Democrat Mark Kelly. If anyone should have been given priority for a moment in the spotlight with the president, it’s her.
In the end, Farage got more speaking time than she did.
Martha McSally has done everything she can to appeal to Trump & his base This is how he introduced her: "Just come up fast. Fast. Fast. Come on. Quick. You got one minute! One minute, Martha! They don’t want to hear this, Martha. Come on. Let’s go. Quick, quick, quick. Come on" pic.twitter.com/3caQZaAmx9 — Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) October 28, 2020
I thought he was just being playful in telling her to hustle, but the part where he slips in “They don’t want to hear this” is odd. One Arizona columnist titled her piece about the incident today, “Trump’s disrespect of Sen. Martha McSally was painful to watch.” Was he pissed off at her, perhaps, because she declined to defend him when pressed during her Senate debate a few weeks ago to say whether she’s proud of him?
Or is he pissed off at her because she’s on the brink of losing both of Arizona’s Senate seats to Democrats in a two-year span? He hates losers, you know.
Although maybe he’ll feel more sympathetic to them come next Wednesday morning.
If you want to see a U.S. senator be humiliated, have I got the clip for you. Trump didn’t need to say a word to make this puppy roll over.
Here’s the video of Kelly Loeffler denying knowing about President Trump’s infamous Access Hollywood tape. #GASen (Source: @11AliveNews) pic.twitter.com/t7satCF0cU — Jessy Han (@hjessy_) October 29, 2020
Georgia Republicans, what’s the argument for supporting Loeffler over Doug Collins at this point? Not that I’m a big Collins fan, but he’s been a populist for longer than six seconds. He’s not doing photo ops with the local QAnon candidate — although not for lack of trying, I assume — and he’s not going straight back to the country club if he finishes out of the running next week. He also happens to be Trump’s preferred choice for Loeffler’s Senate seat. Although the president hasn’t endorsed him in the primary, no doubt under pressure from McConnell to stay out of the race, he was Trump’s pick for the appointment that eventually went to Loeffler last year.
The only argument for preferring her is that *in theory* she’ll play better with suburban voters in a runoff than Collins will. That’s why Brian Kemp chose her for the seat. But she’s squandered so much of her credibility as a “traditional” Republican by pandering to Trumpers in order to try to hold off Collins that it’s unclear if she’s more of a liability with college grads in Georgia than he is at this point. Pretending that she’s never heard of the “Access Hollywood” tape is a blatant insult to the intelligence of voters, designed to avoid even the most minimally criticism of the president. (She could have simply said, “It was unfortunate that he said that but he’s apologized for it and everyone has moved on. It’s ancient history.”) She’s not a good politician. If you want a senator who’ll do whatever Trump wants but whose attempts to posture as a populist will be slightly less cringy, Collins is the obvious choice.
I’ll leave you with one more humiliation, a painful one. Mike Lee was the first tea partier to oust an establishment Republican in a Senate primary. He’s the staunchest “constitutional conservative” in the Senate. His moral bearings were sufficiently intact circa 2016 that he tried to organize a revolt against Trump at the convention and later called on him to withdraw from the race following the “Access Hollywood” incident. (The video of him explaining his reasoning is still up.) Four years later, he’s now been sufficiently absorbed by the Trump cult that he made his pitch to Arizona’s Mormon minority at yesterday’s rally by comparing the president explicitly to an LDS religious figure. “He seeks not the praise of the world or the fake news,” says Lee of Trump, distorting a bit of Mormon scripture. Mike, I hate to tell you: The praise of the world is precisely what he seeks, every minute of the day, from the moment he opens his eyes in the morning to the moment he closes them at night. What an endless embarrassment the Republican leadership class is.


hotair--2020-10-29--Breaking: Hackers steal $2.3M from WI GOP's Trump campaign days before the

Breaking: Hackers steal $2.3M from WI GOP's Trump campaign days before the election

If this is an October surprise , it ’ s a particularly unpleasant and criminal example — or it just might be carelessness .
The Wisconsin GOP has notified the FBI that hackers managed to steal $ 2.3 million from its coffers .
The theft first got noticed last week after suspicious invoice activity signaled a potential problem , and the large haul suggests that they may have been at it for a while : Hackers stole $ 2.3 million from the Wisconsin Republican Party ’ s account that was being used to help reelect President Donald Trump in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s chairman told The Associated Press on Thursday .
The party noticed the suspicious activity on Oct. 22 and contacted the FBI on Friday , said Republican Party Chairman Andrew Hitt .
Hitt said the FBI is investigating .
FBI spokesman Leonard Peace did not immediately return a message seeking comment .
This puts a serious dent in efforts by the state ’ s Republican Party to use the cash for last-minute efforts to bolster Donald Trump in the key swing state .
It leaves them with fewer options for spot spending and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Hitt said the stolen money would have been used in the final days of the campaign to make snap spending decisions based on the state of the race .
He said the hackers manipulated invoices from four vendors who were being paid to send out direct mail for Trump ’ s reelection efforts and to provide pro-Trump material such as hats that could be handed out to supporters .
Invoices and other documents were altered so when the party paid them , the money went to the hackers instead of the vendors , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ damaging , since the WI GOP lagged far behind Democrats in the state in fundraising .
That amounts to nearly ten percent of their overall fundraising over the last two years , although more recent donations have yet to be reported .
So is this a dirty trick , or is this just a case of carelessness ?
Hitt acknowledges that this started off with a phishing “ attempt , ” according to the AP ’ s report , but that could be either/or .
Hitt also acknowledges that the RNC warned all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cyber attacks .
Thus far , it seems that Wisconsin ’ s GOP is the only one to be victimized .
Did they fail to take the threat seriously enough ?
Or did someone with a specific motive against the GOP have superior resources to target them ?
Perhaps we ’ ll find out soon , but the lack of other attacks makes this look more like a crime of opportunity .
If this had been a dirty-trick plot , we would see similar attacks in other swing states , and perhaps those @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Florida , Pennsylvania , Ohio , and so on .
If that kind of a pattern emerges , then perhaps we can assume that this has political motives .
Until then , though , it looks more like the usual hacking motives — greed and glory , of sorts .
It does remind me of the too-smug finale/epilogue from Sneakers , which unfortunately is not available on YouTube .
Don ’ t necessarily put a political motive out of mind , even if it turns out to be only a secondary or tertiary @ @ @ @ @ @ @ re laying out all possibilities , don ’ t discount the idea of an inside job , too .
That ’ s a lot of money to lose without attracting notice .
If this got drained over a period of time , the FBI will want to know who was supposed to supervise these accounts and why the losses went unspotted long enough for the organization to lose 10 % of its donations .

If this is an October surprise, it’s a particularly unpleasant and criminal example — or it just might be carelessness. The Wisconsin GOP has notified the FBI that hackers managed to steal $2.3 million from its coffers. The theft first got noticed last week after suspicious invoice activity signaled a potential problem, and the large haul suggests that they may have been at it for a while:
Hackers stole $2.3 million from the Wisconsin Republican Party’s account that was being used to help reelect President Donald Trump in the key battleground state, the party’s chairman told The Associated Press on Thursday. The party noticed the suspicious activity on Oct. 22 and contacted the FBI on Friday, said Republican Party Chairman Andrew Hitt. Hitt said the FBI is investigating. FBI spokesman Leonard Peace did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
This puts a serious dent in efforts by the state’s Republican Party to use the cash for last-minute efforts to bolster Donald Trump in the key swing state. It leaves them with fewer options for spot spending and advertising, the Associated Press notes:
Hitt said the stolen money would have been used in the final days of the campaign to make snap spending decisions based on the state of the race. He said the hackers manipulated invoices from four vendors who were being paid to send out direct mail for Trump’s reelection efforts and to provide pro-Trump material such as hats that could be handed out to supporters. Invoices and other documents were altered so when the party paid them, the money went to the hackers instead of the vendors, Hitt said.
It’s especially damaging, since the WI GOP lagged far behind Democrats in the state in fundraising. That amounts to nearly ten percent of their overall fundraising over the last two years, although more recent donations have yet to be reported.
So is this a dirty trick, or is this just a case of carelessness? Hitt acknowledges that this started off with a phishing “attempt,” according to the AP’s report, but that could be either/or. Hitt also acknowledges that the RNC warned all its state organizations to protect against suspected cyber attacks. Thus far, it seems that Wisconsin’s GOP is the only one to be victimized. Did they fail to take the threat seriously enough? Or did someone with a specific motive against the GOP have superior resources to target them?
Perhaps we’ll find out soon, but the lack of other attacks makes this look more like a crime of opportunity. If this had been a dirty-trick plot, we would see similar attacks in other swing states, and perhaps those where Republicans had more resources — like Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and so on. If that kind of a pattern emerges, then perhaps we can assume that this has political motives. Until then, though, it looks more like the usual hacking motives — greed and glory, of sorts.
It does remind me of the too-smug finale/epilogue from Sneakers, which unfortunately is not available on YouTube. Don’t necessarily put a political motive out of mind, even if it turns out to be only a secondary or tertiary motive.
Addendum: If we’re laying out all possibilities, don’t discount the idea of an inside job, too. That’s a lot of money to lose without attracting notice. If this got drained over a period of time, the FBI will want to know who was supposed to supervise these accounts and why the losses went unspotted long enough for the organization to lose 10% of its donations.


hotair--2020-10-29--What happened to that "flood" of mail-in ballots?

By this point , I ’ m sure you ’ ve all heard the various horror stories about mail-in ballots going missing , being sent to the wrong homes , getting set on fire , tossed into dumpsters and all the rest .
Why ?
Because there are so many of them as compared to a “ normal ” election year .
But are there really ?
This rather odd story from the Associated Press quotes some figures that don ’ t seem to line up with the hype .
The focus of the article is the large number of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ yet to be returned .
Underlying those bits of data , however , are the total numbers that have been received and processed thus far .
And it ’ s really not that many more than four years ago at this point .
Just days before the presidential election , millions of mail ballots have yet to be returned in key battleground states , and election officials warn that time is running out for voters who want to avoid a polling place on Election Day .
At least 35 million mail ballots had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Wednesday , according to data collected by The Associated Press .
That surpasses the 33.3 million total mail ballots returned during the 2016 election , according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission .
Yet an estimated 1.9 million ballots were still outstanding in Florida , along with 962,000 in Nevada , 850,000 in Michigan and 1 million in Pennsylvania .
In most states , the deadline for ballots to be received is Election Day .
If these figures are accurate , there have been less than two million more mail-in ballots received this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ two million isn ’ t a small number , but in a country of roughly 250 million eligible , voting-age people where more than half of them voted in 2016 , it ’ s not that big of a figure .
Since I hadn ’ t bothered to look up the numbers before now , I was honestly a bit surprised that there were 33 million absentee ballots in 2016 .
That ’ s basically a quarter of the vote .
Of course , if we ’ re at 35 million as of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ coming in during the final six days , so perhaps we will be seeing a real surge .
If the figures reach 45 million or so , that will be a fairly spectacular change .
As to the states with all of the “ missing ” ballots that were sent out , our previous reporting should give us a few hints as to what ’ s going on here .
Certainly , some percentage of them represent people who waited until this week to send them in , though there ’ s no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the nine states that sent ballots to everyone , most of those states don ’ t have clean voter rolls so a lot of the ballots went to incorrect addresses .
That likely accounts for a chunk of them .
The relatively high number in Nevada probably has a different explanation .
962,000 ballots haven ’ t been returned .
In 2016 , there were roughly 1.1 million ballots cast .
Of those , only around 78,000 were either mail-in or absentee ballots .
But this year Nevada was one of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a ballot to everyone .
It ’ s not difficult to imagine that the lion ’ s share of voters there didn ’ t actually want a mail-in ballot and still plan to vote in person .
It ’ s harder to say what happened to the nearly four million “ missing ” ballots in Florida , Michigan , and Pennsylvania .
I assume those ballots were all requested and therefore sent to the correct address .
But not everyone plans to send in their ballots using the United States Postal Service .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ where people can put them in the bin themselves rather than relying on their postal carrier to get the job done correctly and on time .
It ’ s a fair guess that quite a few of those will be showing up this week in that fashion .

By this point, I’m sure you’ve all heard the various horror stories about mail-in ballots going missing, being sent to the wrong homes, getting set on fire, tossed into dumpsters and all the rest. Why? Because there are so many of them as compared to a “normal” election year. But are there really? This rather odd story from the Associated Press quotes some figures that don’t seem to line up with the hype. The focus of the article is the large number of ballots that were sent out but have yet to be returned. Underlying those bits of data, however, are the total numbers that have been received and processed thus far. And it’s really not that many more than four years ago at this point.
Just days before the presidential election, millions of mail ballots have yet to be returned in key battleground states, and election officials warn that time is running out for voters who want to avoid a polling place on Election Day. At least 35 million mail ballots had been returned or accepted as of early Wednesday, according to data collected by The Associated Press. That surpasses the 33.3 million total mail ballots returned during the 2016 election, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. Yet an estimated 1.9 million ballots were still outstanding in Florida, along with 962,000 in Nevada, 850,000 in Michigan and 1 million in Pennsylvania. In most states, the deadline for ballots to be received is Election Day.
If these figures are accurate, there have been less than two million more mail-in ballots received this year than in 2016. Granted, two million isn’t a small number, but in a country of roughly 250 million eligible, voting-age people where more than half of them voted in 2016, it’s not that big of a figure. Since I hadn’t bothered to look up the numbers before now, I was honestly a bit surprised that there were 33 million absentee ballots in 2016. That’s basically a quarter of the vote.
Of course, if we’re at 35 million as of Wednesday, more will no doubt be coming in during the final six days, so perhaps we will be seeing a real surge. If the figures reach 45 million or so, that will be a fairly spectacular change.
As to the states with all of the “missing” ballots that were sent out, our previous reporting should give us a few hints as to what’s going on here. Certainly, some percentage of them represent people who waited until this week to send them in, though there’s no way of knowing how many. But in the nine states that sent ballots to everyone, most of those states don’t have clean voter rolls so a lot of the ballots went to incorrect addresses. That likely accounts for a chunk of them.
The relatively high number in Nevada probably has a different explanation. 962,000 ballots haven’t been returned. In 2016, there were roughly 1.1 million ballots cast. Of those, only around 78,000 were either mail-in or absentee ballots. But this year Nevada was one of the nine states I mentioned above that mailed a ballot to everyone. It’s not difficult to imagine that the lion’s share of voters there didn’t actually want a mail-in ballot and still plan to vote in person.
It’s harder to say what happened to the nearly four million “missing” ballots in Florida, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. I assume those ballots were all requested and therefore sent to the correct address. But not everyone plans to send in their ballots using the United States Postal Service. Many states are setting up drop boxes where people can put them in the bin themselves rather than relying on their postal carrier to get the job done correctly and on time. It’s a fair guess that quite a few of those will be showing up this week in that fashion.


hotair--2020-10-29--SCOTUS once again takes a pass on late ballots in North Carolina

This is turning into something of a habit at this point .
Republican officials from multiple states have been challenging Democrats ’ efforts to stretch out mail-in voting deadlines as far as possible .
Given the short window left before the election , most of these challenges are being booted straight up to the Supreme Court for a resolution on an emergency basis .
The latest two episodes of this show took place yesterday , with the final one coming from the tightly contested state of North Carolina .
There , Democrats issued a rule stating that ballots could be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ day and the GOP objected .
A lower federal court sided with the Democrats and the Supremes once again allowed the lower court ’ s ruling to stand .
( NBC News ) The Supreme Court late Wednesday declined to block lower court rulings that allow six extra days for accepting ballots sent by mail in North Carolina .
The justices left the later deadline in place , a victory for Democrats in a presidential battleground state… The Trump campaign , state and national Republican parties , and Republican leaders of the state @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s Board of Elections to extend the deadline , upheld by lower federal courts , had posed “ an immediate threat to the integrity of the federal elections process.
” The board changed the mail ballot deadline from Nov. 6 , set by the state legislature in June , to Nov. 12 , explaining that it acted “ to protect lawful North Carolina voters from having their votes thrown out because of mail delays that the Postal Service had explicitly warned the state about.
” Some of you may be wondering how @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she ’ s been seated as an Associate Justice .
The answer is that she didn ’ t .
There was another vote earlier in the day giving the court a second chance to overturn a similar ruling in Pennsylvania .
Barrett didn ’ t vote in that one either .
The stated reason was plain enough .
She had only just arrived that day and hadn ’ t had time to fully review the requests from both parties .
That ’ s pretty standard for any new justice showing up in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The North Carolina ruling isn ’ t as bad as it may look on the surface , and not nearly as odious as the Pennsylvania decision .
Despite stretching the deadline out to November 12 , any ballots received during that period will still have to be clearly postmarked by election day , November 3rd .
All this rule is really doing is allowing for the possibility that the Post Office might not be able to deliver some ballots as quickly as usual due to anticipated high volumes of mail .
The other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with the recent decision on the same subject in Wisconsin , is that the court continues to not override the decisions made by the lower-level federal courts who are closer to the dispute .
As long as the rules don ’ t appear discriminatory or unconstitutional , how states run their elections is typically left up to them .
There ’ s plenty of precedent for this , so it ’ s not outrageous that the court would continue to defer in these matters .
Clearly justices Thomas , Alito and Gorsuch don @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be in the minority here .
And even if Barrett had decided to vote and sided with them , the measure still would have failed .

This is turning into something of a habit at this point. Republican officials from multiple states have been challenging Democrats’ efforts to stretch out mail-in voting deadlines as far as possible. Given the short window left before the election, most of these challenges are being booted straight up to the Supreme Court for a resolution on an emergency basis. The latest two episodes of this show took place yesterday, with the final one coming from the tightly contested state of North Carolina. There, Democrats issued a rule stating that ballots could be accepted up to six days after election day and the GOP objected. A lower federal court sided with the Democrats and the Supremes once again allowed the lower court’s ruling to stand. (NBC News)
The Supreme Court late Wednesday declined to block lower court rulings that allow six extra days for accepting ballots sent by mail in North Carolina. The justices left the later deadline in place, a victory for Democrats in a presidential battleground state… The Trump campaign, state and national Republican parties, and Republican leaders of the state legislature said a decision by North Carolina’s Board of Elections to extend the deadline, upheld by lower federal courts, had posed “an immediate threat to the integrity of the federal elections process.” The board changed the mail ballot deadline from Nov. 6, set by the state legislature in June, to Nov. 12, explaining that it acted “to protect lawful North Carolina voters from having their votes thrown out because of mail delays that the Postal Service had explicitly warned the state about.”
Some of you may be wondering how Amy Coney Barrett voted, now that she’s been seated as an Associate Justice. The answer is that she didn’t. There was another vote earlier in the day giving the court a second chance to overturn a similar ruling in Pennsylvania. Barrett didn’t vote in that one either. The stated reason was plain enough. She had only just arrived that day and hadn’t had time to fully review the requests from both parties. That’s pretty standard for any new justice showing up in the middle of a busy court schedule.
The North Carolina ruling isn’t as bad as it may look on the surface, and not nearly as odious as the Pennsylvania decision. Despite stretching the deadline out to November 12, any ballots received during that period will still have to be clearly postmarked by election day, November 3rd. All this rule is really doing is allowing for the possibility that the Post Office might not be able to deliver some ballots as quickly as usual due to anticipated high volumes of mail.
The other thing I would note, just as with the recent decision on the same subject in Wisconsin, is that the court continues to not override the decisions made by the lower-level federal courts who are closer to the dispute. As long as the rules don’t appear discriminatory or unconstitutional, how states run their elections is typically left up to them. There’s plenty of precedent for this, so it’s not outrageous that the court would continue to defer in these matters. Clearly justices Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch don’t agree, but they appear to be in the minority here. And even if Barrett had decided to vote and sided with them, the measure still would have failed.