“The End of Democracy as We Know It”
Everything you need to know for Friday, Nov. 20: NC vs. the South + Murphy-Brown gets spanked + Fixing health care without Congress
Friday, Nov. 20, 2020
6 days until Thanksgiving
20 days until Hanukkah
24 days until the Electoral College votes
35 days until Christmas
41 days until this cursed year ends
61 days until this cursed presidency is over
Today’s Numbers:
4,376,847
Americans receiving Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation—federal benefits, included in the CARES Act, for those who have used up their state unemployment benefits. PEUC expires on Dec. 26.
8,681,647
Americans receiving Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, the program for those ineligible for state benefit. It, too, expires at the end of the year.
20,319,615
Americans receiving any form of unemployment assistance as of Oct. 31.
1.06 million
Americans who filed new unemployment or PUA claims last week, the 35th straight week over 1 million.
0
Bills that Senate Republicans have passed to address the crisis.
ABOVE THE FOLD
—> “The End of Democracy as We Know It”
At this point, there’s no point denying the obvious: The Trump team is trying to overturn the results of a democratic election—in other words, to engineer a coup. Losing in court, the AP reports, their strategy “is shifting toward obscure election boards that certify the vote as Trump and his allies seek to upend the electoral process, sow chaos and perpetuate unsubstantiated doubts about the count.”
Let us count the ways:
“In Arizona on Wednesday, the Democratic secretary of state, Katie Hobbs, issued a statement lamenting the ‘consistent and systematic undermining of trust’ in the elections and called on Republican officials to stop ‘perpetuating misinformation.’ … In Georgia … Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, has said he, too, received menacing messages. He also said he felt pressured by Senator Lindsey Graham … to search for ways to disqualify votes. In Pennsylvania, statehouse Republicans on Wednesday advanced a proposal to audit the state’s election results that cited ‘a litany of inconsistencies.’”
“In courtrooms, statehouses, and elections board meetings across the country, the president is increasingly seeking to force the voting system to bend to his false vision of the election, while also using the weight of the executive office to deliver his message to lower-level election workers, hoping they buckle.”
“President Trump has abandoned his plan to win reelection by disqualifying enough ballots to reverse President-elect Joe Biden’s wins in key battleground states, pivoting instead to a goal that appears equally unattainable: delaying a final count long enough to cast doubt on Biden’s decisive victory. … [Rudy] Giuliani has also told Trump and associates that his ambition is to pressure GOP lawmakers and officials across the political map to stall the vote certification in an effort to have Republican lawmakers pick electors and disrupt the electoral college when it convenes next month—and Trump is encouraging of that plan.”
“After three hours of tense deadlock on Tuesday, the two Republicans on an election board in Michigan’s most populous county reversed course and voted to certify the results of the Nov. 3 election …. Now, they both want to take back their votes. In affidavits signed Wednesday evening, the two GOP members of the four-member Wayne County Board of Canvassers allege they were improperly pressured into certifying the election ….”
Trump called them after they voted to certify. Then they changed their minds. Today, Michigan GOP lawmakers are flying to Washington to meet with Trump, at Trump’s request, for what is surely an innocent chat.
“The statewide canvassing board, a bipartisan four-member panel, is responsible for certifying Michigan’s election results by a Monday deadline, a step that must take place before any move could be made to change the electors. One of the Republican members of the board, Norm Shinkle, said in an interview on Thursday that he was coming under enormous pressure regarding his vote, which he said was complicated by a late-night announcement from the two Republicans on the four-member canvassing board in Wayne County, which includes Detroit, that they wanted to ‘rescind’ their votes to certify the county’s results.”
Cheers to incompetence, I guess: “Some in the Republican president’s orbit have held out hope that by delaying certification, GOP-controlled state legislatures will get a chance to select different electors, either overturning Biden’s victory or sending it to the House, where Trump would almost surely win. But most advisers to the president consider that a fever dream. Trump’s team has been incapable of organizing even basic legal activities since the election, let alone the widescale political and legal apparatus needed to persuade state legislators to try to undermine the will of their states’ voters.”
“There is no precedent for the Trump team’s widespread effort to delay or undermine certification, according to University of Kentucky law professor Joshua Douglas. ‘It would be the end of democracy as we know it,’ Douglas said. ‘This is just not a thing that can happen.’”
—> BRILLIANT MINDS: Rudy casually observed that if you throw out all of the (Black) votes from Detroit, Michigan’s largest city, Trump would win Michigan.
—> THE END GAME: The Electoral College votes on Dec. 14. That will be the official end of the road.
“Trump's advisers are talking to him about what the end looks like—using the word ‘conclusion’ rather than ‘concession.’ One off-ramp being recommended as a ‘conclusion’ is that he admits that Biden will enter the White House on Jan. 20 while continuing to allege the results are questionable, and simultaneously announces that he's running for president in 2024.”
“Those close to Trump have also been trying to move his attention to his post-presidency plans, talking about a potential run in 2024 and starting his own media venture.”
“Trump has also been talking about a potential media partnership, perhaps with the right-wing news channel OANN or the Newsmax website, a person close to him said. ‘He wants to make money, but more than that he wants attention,’ an ally said.”
—> MEANWHILE: The president’s petulance has real-world consequences.
“The Health and Human Services Department will not work with President-elect Joe Biden's team until the General Services Administration makes a determination that he won the election, Secretary Alex Azar said Wednesday, even as public health experts stress that a smooth transition is a critical part of the government's response to the worsening coronavirus pandemic.”
“[Biden] said his ability to plan [for the pandemic] was restricted by the delayed transition caused by President Trump’s refusal to acknowledge his victory and the refusal of Emily W. Murphy, the G.S.A. administrator, to sign the paperwork that would grant Mr. Biden’s transition team access to funds, equipment, and government data. Mr. Biden said he did not ‘have any budget for any of this’ until he was sworn in or until Mr. Trump conceded defeat and began a transition. But he noted that he planned to work with state and local leaders on mask mandates.”
—> NORMAL COUNTRY: Just because a coup will fail doesn’t mean we should take it lightly. The propaganda machine is in place, effective, and dangerous.
Trump’s fanboys are paying attention. Here are some texts they’ve sent to the wife of Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger:
“You better not botch this recount. Your life depends on it.”
“Your husband deserves to face a firing squad.”
“The Raffenspergers should be put on trial for treason and face execution.”
LOCAL & STATE
—> NC vs. the South on COVID
In the N&O, Dawn Baumgartner Vaughan looks at how North Carolina is handling COVID-19 compared with its Southern neighbors South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and Virginia. North Carolina and Virginia have Democratic governors. The other three are run by Republicans who’ve followed President Trump’s lead. Care to guess the results?
Gathering limits: NC (10 indoors, 15 outdoors), VA (25), GA (50), SC (250), TN (none statewide)
Statewide mask mandate: NC (yes), VA (yes), SC (no), TN (no), GA (no)
Cases per 100,000 people: VA (2,428), NC (3,026), SC (3,867), GA (4,052), TN (4,710)
Deaths per 100,000 people: VA (45), NC (46), TN (57), SC (81), GA (85)
I think I can make out a pattern.
—> No Retrial for Hog Giant Murphy-Brown
After getting slapped with a $50.75 million verdict in 2018—reduced to about $3.25 million because of North Carolina’s punitive damages laws—pork giant Murphy-Brown, a subsidiary of the conglomerate Smithfield Foods, took its case to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals 10 months ago, arguing that federal Judge Earl K. Britt had made a number of errors in McKiver v. Murphy-Brown LLC, and the verdict should be tossed. That didn’t happen.
The case was the first of two dozen lawsuits, brought by nearly 500 mostly poor, mostly Black neighbors of Eastern North Carolina hog farms who had been subjected to noxious odors and other kinds of grossness, to go to trial. The five that have already made it to a jury have led to $98 million in damages.
In this appeal, Murphy-Brown complained that the farm with which it contracted should be held responsible, and that it had stopped working with the farmer after the verdict. At the trial, though, it said the farm had followed its protocols. The judges didn’t buy it.
Murphy-Brown also argued that the 2017 Right-to-Farm Act should be applied retroactively, and that the statute of limitations should preclude the lawsuits. Nope and nope.
Murphy-Brown claimed expert testimony shouldn’t have been allowed. Also, no.
Murphy-Brown said the judge shouldn’t have allowed testimony showing that it knew the rest of its farms were nuisances, too. Again, no.
However, Murphy-Brown had more luck with punitive damages. The judges weren’t on board with killing punitive damages altogether, mind you:
“[Plaintiffs] here provided evidence that [Murphy-Brown’s] decisionmakers actually required Kinlaw Farms’ continued application of the problematic policies and attendant harms (such as dead boxes), in the face of statewide policy pressure to change these methods due to their known effects on neighbors when used as [Murphy-Brown] prescribed and with the knowledge that area residents were complaining about odor, flies, noises, and trucks associated with industrial hog operations.”
But they gave the pork producer a break. At trial, the plaintiffs’ attorney talked about Murphy-Brown’s parent company, Smithfield, which is owned by a Chinese conglomerate and pays its executives obscene amounts. That was inflammatory, the court ruled, so the court needed to reassess the amount of punitive damages.
“To be quite clear—we do not disturb the district court’s decision to submit the availability of punitive damages to the jury or the jury’s determination that those damages are appropriate in this case; rather, we are only remanding for a new calculation of those damages absent the parent company financial evidence that threatens significant prejudice without any relevance to the question of the appropriate amount of punitive damages to award.”
—> The North Carolina Roundup
Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law (she’s married to Wall Street Villain Hair Trump, not Cocaine Bender Trump, if that helps), is thinking about running for Senate in North Carolina OH GOD WE CAN’T GET AWAY FROM THESE PEOPLE.
Tim Gunther, recently elected as a District Court judge in Wake County, has been ruled ineligible to take office, as he doesn’t actually live in the district.
According to a GAO report, 12% of North Carolina’s 1.2 million food stamp recipients as of February—before the pandemic—were working adults. Walmart, Food Lion, and McDonald’s employed 6% of them.
International flights have returned to RDU.
Newly appointed Durham city council member Pierce Freelon proposed spending $750,000 on “mutual aid centers” and grassroots organizations to support Black and brown neighborhoods.
Kane Realty has sold the Warehouse District-transforming development The Dillon for $236 million. The buyer is, as yet, unknown.
Alamance County, in its continuing quest to embarrass us all, has filed felony charges against the pastor who led the Oct. 31 march to the polls that the Sheriff’s Office blocked because, well, you know why.
Chief Justice Cheri Beasley filed a lot of challenges in her fight to overcome a 406-vote deficit. They don’t seem to be going well.
The Charlotte Observer’s Jim Morrill, perhaps the most-respected state political reporter around, will retire at the end of the year, capping 39 (!) years at the paper.
Quick note: A couple of people contacted me about the the Downtown South rezoning that came up at the Raleigh Planning Commission meeting yesterday. First, I’m sorry if I didn’t get back to all of you. Second, I plan to get into the Downtown South project next week.
—> Weather
Sunny, high of 68. Pretty nice this weekend, too.
NATION & WORLD
—> How Biden Can Address Health Care Without Congress
Joe Biden will either take office with the thinnest possible Senate majority, dependent on Joe Manchin for everything he wants to do, or with Mitch McConnell blocking everything. Neither bodes well for his more ambitious health care plans. Under the former scenario, maybe he squeaks by some version of a public option; he might also be able to lower the age of Medicare eligibility and adjust the ACA’s insurance subsidies. Under the latter, all of that seems unlikely.
But he still has options, Politico health editor Joanna Kenen writes:
Biden and the leaders he picks to run HHS and CMS will have broad executive power to shape health care, just as President Donald Trump and his appointees did. Remember that Trump and the congressional Republicans failed to repeal the ACA, despite nearly a year of trying. But the Trump administration did go on to use its executive powers to weaken the ACA and tried to significantly change Medicaid as well. Biden can use those same powers―executive orders, regulations, waivers, guidance, etc.―to bolster the health law and address Medicaid. …
In the “easy” category: Biden can restore the funds Trump has cut for ACA marketing, outreach and assistance via navigators (and he can utilize free media and social media). … A Biden administration could reverse, or at least modify in consumer-protective ways, some Trump regulations that made it easier for people to buy health plans that don’t meet ACA standards. …
There are tons of waivers in health care, some directly created by the ACA, others that pre-existed, so to speak. … The most dramatic waiver is one given recently to Georgia. It allows the state in 2021 to leave the ACA exchanges and HealthCare.gov. and put brokers in charge. While new administrations tend not to reverse a state waiver totally, this one may be an exception―or at least a place where the feds will step in to change it.
—> THE BOTTOM LINE: This is all well and good, but the country’s not-universal-but-better-than-it-was health care system will be on firmer ground with a Senate majority than without. As a wise man once said, the ACA was a BFD.
—> The Brief: 5 Stories to Read Today
The upside of the pandemic? Fewer carbon emissions. “Greenhouse gases generated by the U.S. economy will slide 9.2 percent this year, tumbling to the lowest level in at least three decades, a new BloombergNEF study says. Battered by the coronavirus pandemic, the stalled economy is projected to have generated 5.9 billion metric tons of emissions, about the same level as 1983, according to the private research organization. As a result, the United States has been inadvertently pushed back on track to meet the commitments the Obama administration made at the Paris climate agreement in December 2015.”
Kyle Rittenhouse used stimulus funds to buy his murder weapon. “The Post found that Rittenhouse, who was too young to buy a rifle, had arranged for an adult friend to buy the weapon for him using money Rittenhouse had received from a government stimulus program.’”
A federal judge read the Trump administration the riot act over DACA. “A federal judge in New York who ruled over the weekend that the new DACA rules were invalid tore into the Trump administration for its handling of the program in a hearing Wednesday, calling the latest government actions a ‘sad and inappropriate use of executive authority.’”
A different federal judge told the administration to stop expelling children at the border. “A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the Trump administration to stop expelling immigrant children who cross the southern border alone, halting a policy that has resulted in thousands of rapid deportations of minors during the coronavirus pandemic. US District Judge Emmet Sullivan issued a preliminary injunction sought by legal groups suing on behalf of children whom the government sought to expel before they could request asylum or other protections under federal law.”
Tyson Foods managers bet on how many employees would get COVID. “A wrongful death lawsuit tied to COVID-19 infections in a Waterloo [Iowa] pork processing plant alleges that … plant manager Tom Hart organized a cash-buy-in, winner-take-all, betting pool for supervisors and managers to wager how many plant employees would test positive for COVID-19.”
—> Et Cetera
The CDC says not to travel for Thanksgiving.
Courting young voters, Democrats again voted to make 80-year-old Nancy Pelosi House Speaker.
This headline, I can’t: “Trump appoints speechwriter fired for attending conference with white nationalists to commission that preserves Holocaust memorials.”
The White House asked the Justice Department to investigate former aide Omarosa Manigault Newman one day after the announcement that she would write a tell-all memoir.
Georgia ended its hand recount, confirming that Biden won the state.
New York’s attorney general and Manhattan’s DA look like they’re going to go hard after Trump.
Something to look forward to: When Trump is no longer a world leader, his Twitter protections will (theoretically) go away.
Will Biden turn to deficit hawks to run his economic policy?
Australian special forces executed 39 civilians and prisoners in Afghanistan.