“Judging from earlier scandals, revelations about President Donald Trump's deceit about coronavirus and derogation of fallen soldiers won't repel many of his supporters.
“But that doesn't mean the revelations don't hurt him. The furor they touched off has kept the President from tackling a re-election challenge much harder than preserving his loyal ‘base.’ cnn.com/2020/09/13/pol…
“With support hovering around 43% nationally, Trump needs a chunk of new supporters to overcome Democratic nominee Joe Biden's lead. He has just more than seven weeks to lure them. And he faces a significant obstacle that he didn't in 2016: a smaller pool of available prospects.
“The circumstances of 2020 limit his opportunities for several overlapping reasons:
“Fewer voters remain undecided.
“Fewer voters have parked their preferences with third-party candidates.
“Fewer voters face the cross-pressures of antipathy toward their choices.
“Result: in CNN's post-convention poll, just 7% reported disliking both candidates. Most favored Biden. Compare that to 18% in 2016, where most broke for trump.”
“The vagaries of the Electoral College mean Biden could lose even while capturing 51% support nationally. Drawing within 3-4 points in the popular vote, election modelers say, would give Trump a reasonable chance.
“But in individual swing states, anything over 50% wins. And Biden already reaches or approaches that level in enough battlegrounds to win.”
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The crackdowns at universities is excessive & inexcusable, but the actions of the protestors do nothing to further their cause. Fringe anarchism & mindless destruction lead ordinary Americans to reject the cause of students’ righteous anger.
The students aren’t being punished for having the audacity to highlight the injustices suffered by the Palestinian populace.
The police response is disproportionate, but they’re responding to the protestors’ childish antics, not their beliefs.
This argument by @jackmirkinson is the next step in justifying outside agitators & provocateurs leading college students down the garden path. This tactic has backfired & removed the focus from the underlying injustice being protested.
This statement by professor Douglas Laycock rings true.
“‘Lots of Americans on all sides are deeply committed to protecting liberty for themselves and the people they agree with, and unconcerned with or affirmatively hostile to liberty for the folks they disagree with.’”
“Douglas Laycock, a prominent scholar of religious liberty law at the University of Virginia who has argued for both same-sex marriage and the rights of religious objectors before the U.S. Supreme Court, questions Barr's commitment to religious liberty at all.
GIFT ARTICLE: A live stream of proceedings in trump’s criminal trial.
“Conroy says Trump violated the gag order when on Truth Social, he quoted the Fox News commentator Jesse Watters denigrating prospective jurors as ‘undercover liberal activists.’”
This sounds like a great project, helping survivors of war heal their lingering emotional wounds & providing a new perspective on war for the rest of us.moralinjuriesofwar.org/about
“Weaving together the voices of veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, Moral Injuries of War is a visionary production that brings the untold stories of war to the American public.
“The experience integrates 3D spatial audio with ambient visual design to create an immersive landscape of sound and light, inviting the public to journey alongside veterans as they grapple with their memories.
“Even Justices Neil Gorsuch & Amy Coney Barrett & Chief Justice John Roberts appeared to be embarrassed with the slurry of bad plaintiffs & worse evidence that Hawley paraded before them as a serious legal challenge.
“As usual, when it was clear that the case was too asinine to contemplate, what surfaced instead was a protracted gripe about nationwide injunctions from Gorsuch & aggrieved grousing from Justice Samuel Alito, who sounded annoyed that ADF hadn’t cooked up a more plausible case.”
@Dahlialithwick and @mjs_DC predict SCOTUS will look for another case to ban mifepristone. We must win and win big in November so that the Comstock Act can be repealed Supreme Court can be reformed. slate.com/news-and-polit…
“There are always a couple of tells when the most conservative Supreme Court in more than a century finds itself adjudicating a truly mortifying and meritless case.