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Andrew Prokop Profile picture
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27 Oct, 5 tweets, 2 min read
Flatly false. Nuclear option rules change in 2017. None of Trump's justices could have been confirmed without that.

Harry Reid changed Senate rules for non-Supreme Court nominations in 2013. Mitch McConnell changed Senate rules for Supreme Court nominations in 2017. This really isn't complicated, but some people really enjoy misleading their followers.
My goodness. If you change the rules because you are mad at Harry Reid for making a different rules change four years ago... you're still changing the rules!

Anyway, I think a rules change was inevitable in 2017 and would have happened no matter who won in '16, but the fact is that *it is a thing that happened*!

This rhetorical dancing would really put some of those much-loathed post-modernists to shame.
Let's say Reid didn't use the nuclear option in 2013. Everything else stays the same. It's 2017, Trump's presidency, and Senate Democrats filibuster Gorsuch. What happens?

Reid is a handy excuse. Partisan logic of SCOTUS appointments is real reason

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More from @awprokop

Andrew Prokop Profile picture
29 Oct
Just spoke to Diana Solorio from the Maricopa County, AZ recorder’s office.

She says over 1.3 million early ballots have been returned and processed. That’s about half the number of total registered voters in Maricopa County (about 2.6M).
Each returned ballot must be signature verified by two separate people. That's already happened for these 1.3 million ballots.

(This is the time-consuming mail ballot processing that WI, PA, and MI haven't started yet, bc Republican legislators wouldn't allow an early start)
Due to a 2019 law change, Arizona's ballot processing now begins 14 days before the election — previously, it could only begin 7 days before.

This extra time will be a big help in dealing with a record number of mail ballots
Read 4 tweets
Andrew Prokop Profile picture
28 Oct
It's kind of odd that Republican-controlled Nebraska never bothered to fix this "hey, some years we might randomly throw an electoral vote to the Democrat" situation.
After Obama won NE-2 in 2008 they did redistrict the state to make that less likely. But they didn't ditch the weird congressional district electoral vote system entirely, and now it's rearing its head again.
Apparently a bill to move Nebraska's electoral votes back to winner-take-all failed in 2016... by a single vote, because it was filibustered

pbs.org/newshour/natio… ImageImage
Read 4 tweets
Andrew Prokop Profile picture
27 Oct
Most consequential bad conduct at the state level re: elections this year is a three-way tie between PA, MI, and WI GOP legislators, for refusing to let mail ballot processing start earlier.

Effect is to guarantee a slow, lengthy mail vote count. Deliberately delaying results
I'm not referring to mail ballots that arrive after election day. I mean those that arrive *before* it.

With an unprecedented number coming, several GOP-run states (FL,AZ,OH) sensibly begin processing them early. Gets paperwork out of the way, allows quicker election night count
GOP legislators in PA, WI, MI refused Dem requests for significant advance processing time.

So PA and WI can't process the mail ballots that have been piling up for weeks until election day.

MI GOP made a limited concession to allow some the day before, may not mean much
Read 5 tweets
Andrew Prokop Profile picture
21 Oct
The real October surprise?

theguardian.com/film/2020/oct/…
Sacha Baron Cohen had the kompromat
Rudy will probably gain newfound appreciation for the argument that even in material that appears to be largely authentic, there can be misleading presentation or disinformation
Read 4 tweets
Andrew Prokop Profile picture
20 Oct
The use of "Russia" as a shorthand to heap scorn on Democrats is odd because... Russian intelligence officers really did hack and release emails to damage the 2016 Democratic candidate.

That is a real thing that happened despite being inconvenient for the narratives of some.
Are there people who have taken that and run with it way too far? Absolutely.

But the core of it was correct. There was a genuinely unusual intervention into the 2016 US election by the Russian government, centered around the stealing and leaking of emails.
Crowdstrike was correct and since their initial assessment based on limited info far more information has been released in Mueller's indictment of GRU officers and in the Mueller Report itself: techniques, methods, tons of communications.

Read 7 tweets
Andrew Prokop Profile picture
14 Oct
For more than 3 years, prosecutors investigated Trump's late Oct 2016 "loan" of $10 million to his campaign. Intel suggested the money was tied to Egypt's government.

But in the end, nobody was willing to subpoena Trump's bank records to try & find out

cnn.com/2020/10/14/pol…
Mueller had the investigation while he was special counsel. An Egyptian state-owned bank involved fought hard against a Mueller subpoena for records. This was the famed "mystery grand jury" fight went on for months

cnn.com/2020/10/14/pol…
Investigation handed back to DC federal prosecutors after Mueller left. One US attorney wouldn't approve subpoena for Trump bank records. Another then closed case

Fantastic story from @kpolantz @evanperez @jeremyherb finally reveals what was going on

cnn.com/2020/10/14/pol…
Read 4 tweets

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