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    Kamala Harris grilling prompts doubtful claim from Amy Coney Barrett

    Amy Coney Barrett

    Democratic senator and vice-presidential nominee condemns Republican push to overturn healthcare law and abortion rights

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    Kamala Harris questions Amy Coney Barrett over the Affordable Care Act – video

    Kamala Harris delivered a blistering rebuke of Republican efforts to tear down healthcare and abortion access as she grilled Amy Coney Barrett, prompting the supreme court nominee to make the unbelievable claim that she was not aware of Donald Trump’s campaign promise to appoint justices who would dismantle Obamacare.
    Speaking via teleconference during Barrett’s Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday, the Democratic senator and vice-presidential nominee began with a campaign speech about the importance of accessible healthcare amid the coronavirus – highlighting the number of Americans who would lose insurance if the 2010 Affordable Care Act were repealed in five states where Republican senators are struggling to win re-election.
    She then addressed Barrett: “Prior to your nomination, were you aware of President Trump’s statement committing to nominate judges who will strike down the Affordable Care Act? And I’d appreciate a yes or no answer.”
    Barrett maintained that before she was nominated to the supreme court, she was unaware of his public statements. “I don’t recall hearing about or seeing such statements,” Barrett said.
    Harris asked how many months after Barrett wrote an article criticizing John Roberts’ decision upholding the Affordable Care Act she received her nomination for her appeals court position.
    “The Affordable Care Act and all of its protections hinge on this seat,” Harris said.
    “I would hope the committee would trust my integrity,” Barrett said, noting, as she has done throughout the hearings, that she has not made any commitments to rule a certain way on the healthcare law.
    The assertion, and Barrett’s implication that she had somehow tuned out the president’s loud, public criterion for judges he’d appoint, is difficult to believe.
    Harris, the former attorney general of California, is famous for her prosecutorial style of questioning. Her sharp interrogation of Donald Trump’s last Supreme Court nominee – now Justice Brett Kavanaugh – helped elevate her political profile.

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    Complete exchange between Sen. Kamala Harris and Judge Kavanaugh on Mueller Investigation.Kavanaugh: “I would like to know the person you’re thinking of.”Sen. Harris: “I think you’re thinking of someone and you don’t want to tell us.” pic.twitter.com/3bP7rJ6u0L

    August 11, 2020

    Harris also tackled Barrett’s views on abortion, making a carefully laid-out case that despite Barrett’s equivocation and insistence that she is unbiased on the issue of reproductive rights, she is far from it.
    Barrett was a member of a “right to life” organization that in 2016 promoted a crisis pregnancy center in South Bend, Indiana, that has been criticized for misleading and misdirecting vulnerable women seeking abortions. She has signed off on a newspaper ad calling Roe v Wade – the landmark 1973 ruling protecting the right to choose – “barbaric”. A Notre Dame Magazine article from 2013 describes a lecture series during which Barrett “spoke … to her own conviction that life begins at conception”.
    As a federal judge, she has considered three laws restricting abortion and expressed misgivings about rulings that had struck down the laws. She joined the dissent against a decision to strike down an Indiana abortion rule – signed into law by Mike Pence when the vice-president was Indiana’s governor – that mandated the fetal remains be buried or cremated.
    “I would suggest that we not pretend that we don’t know how this nominee views a women’s right to choose or make her own decisions,” Harris said. The senator noted that Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whom Barrett has cited as her model in declining to give any hints on how she would vote on future cases, was, unlike Barrett, much more forthcoming with her own personal views on abortion.
    Harris did not ask Barrett a direct question about Roe v Wade, driving home the point that her views have already been made plain.
    Harris ended by asking to enter into the record letters opposing Barrett’s nomination from the NAACP, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and Planned Parenthood.

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    US election 2020: what if Trump refuses to concede? – podcast

    Trump has repeatedly stated that he may refuse to accept defeat in the coming election. As Lawrence Douglas explains, things could get very messy if the result is close

    How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know

    In the run-up to the 2016 election, Donald Trump famously declared that he would accept the result of the contest with Hillary Clinton, before pausing for dramatic effect and adding: “If I win.” Even after being sworn in as president he cast doubt over the legitimacy of millions of votes that had seen him lose the popular vote while winning in the electoral college. This time around, with millions more than usual expected to vote by mail and with him trailing badly in the polls, Trump is once again questioning the legitimacy of the voting system. Prof Lawrence Douglas, the author of the recently published Will He Go?, tells Anushka Asthana that the stage is being set for a disputed election if the result hinges on small margins and mail-in ballots, which take longer to count. In this scenario, he believes Trump is likely to refuse to concede if the vote goes against him. It could open up a legal and political minefield that the US constitution and the separated powers of the US government is ill-equipped to deal with. One thing is clear: a new president must be sworn in at noon on 21 January 2020. But who turns up to that ceremony could be the result of a bitter and protracted battle. More

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    'How many people's hearts are broken?' Biden slams Trump over Covid-19 death toll – video

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    Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has urged his supporters in the battleground state of Florida to vote out ‘reckless’ Donald Trump after taking aim at his response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Biden accused Trump of not taking the initial response to the coronavirus outbreak seriously, leading to the growing death toll across the United States. “How many empty chairs are around the dining room table tonight because of his negligence?” Biden asked. “How many people’s hearts are broken?”
    Biden leads Trump by 17 points as election race enters final stage

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    Twitter suspends accounts for posing as Black Trump supporters

    Twitter has suspended a network of accounts claiming to be owned by Black supporters of Donald Trump and his re-election campaign due to spam and platform manipulation, it said Tuesday.The company is investigating the activity and may suspend additional similar accounts if they are found to be violating its policies, a spokesperson said.The Washington Post first reported on the investigation, citing more than a dozen accounts using identical, inauthentic language including the phrase: “YES IM BLACK AND IM VOTING FOR TRUMP!!!”A review of some of the suspended accounts shows they often used stolen images to appear real. The accounts sometimes claimed to be owned by military veterans or members of law enforcement.This is not the first time Twitter has had to address a spam operation claiming to be led by Black voters. NBC News also reported spam operations from fake accounts posing as Black Trump supporters in August.Some accounts were able to attract thousands of followers before they were suspended. One tweet, for example, amassed more than 10,000 retweets before it was removed, NBC News found. Another account allegedly used a photo of a veteran who died last month to pose as a Trump supporter.Polls show about 10% of Black voters in the US support Trump. These accounts raised suspicion for their identical language and stock image avatars.Meanwhile, research shows Black Americans have been negatively impacted by misinformation campaigns online in recent months, particularly those focused on spreading misinformation about Covid-19.“Black lives are consistently put in danger, and it is incumbent upon community actors, media, government, and tech companies alike to do their part to ensure that timely, local, relevant and redundant public health messages are served to all communities,” a study from Harvard’s Shorenstein Center found.Twitter rules prohibit using the platform “in a manner intended to artificially amplify or suppress information or engage in behavior that manipulates or disrupts people’s experience on Twitter”, a Twitter spokesman told the Guardian.The company reports campaigns discovered to be state-backed in its public archive. This month it revealed it had suspended more than 1,500 accounts affiliated with Iran, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Thailand and Russia that had sought to spread misinformation. It did not say where it believed the network of people posing as Black Trump supporters originated or whether it was state-backed.Reuters contributed reporting More

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    Obama to hit campaign trail in final sprint of election, Biden says

    Democratic challenger Joe Biden indicated that his Barack Obama would soon be hitting the campaign trail in person to stump for his former running mate, with three weeks to go until the presidential election.“He’s doing enough for our campaign. He’ll be out on the trail,” Biden said on Tuesday before leaving for a campaign stop in Florida.Obama has participated in virtual fundraisers for Biden, his former vice-president, and the two filmed a “socially distanced conversation” in July, which focused on criticizing Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.Obama is seen by many as a brilliant campaigner, able to stir Democratic enthusiasm and get voters to the polls. He’s also appeared in online fundraising with vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris.Reports appeared to confirm the move that Obama would soon be stepping out. “President Obama plans to hit the trail soon, in addition to all the other activities he’s undertaken all year in support of electing VP Biden – as he’s said, we all have to do everything we can to win on November 3,” an aide to the former president told ABC News.Any appearance by Obama on the stump in the final sprint of the election would also be in marked contrast to the attitude of the most recent former Republican president – George W Bush – who has not even expressed support for Trump, let alone joined him on his re-election bid.Meanwhile, Biden kept up his withering assault on Trump’s record in office by hitting yet another key swing state. In Pembroke Pines, Florida, Biden focused a speech on criticizing the president’s response to Covid-19, which is still out of control in the US, with cases rising in many states.The Democratic nominee told senior voters that Trump had treated America’s older citizens like they were expendable, for his own ends. To Trump, “you’re expendable, you’re forgettable, you’re virtually nobody,” Biden said at a senior center in Pembroke Pines, about 20 miles from Fort Lauderdale.The “only senior Donald Trump seems to care about” is himself, Biden added.“I prayed for his recovery when he got Covid. And I hoped he’d at least come out of it somewhat chastened,” Biden said of the president. “But what has he done? He’s just doubled down on the misinformation he did before and [is] making it worse.”Biden’s courting of seniors was a sign of his bet that a voting bloc that buoyed Trump four years ago has become disenchanted with the White House’s handling of the pandemic, in particular. It was Biden’s third visit to the state in a month, after making targeted appeals to other voting communities, including military veterans and Latinos.Florida is an essential state for both candidates to win, but especially Trump, whose narrow triumph there in 2016 fueled his shock victory over Hillary Clinton.Later, Biden was speaking at a voter mobilization rally in the heavily African American Florida community of Miramar. His swing through the state coincided with a $500,000 donation from billionaire former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg to increase Democratic turnout in Miami-Dade county.It also corresponded with more encouraging polling for the Democrat who seems to have surged in recent weeks. In most national polls he has a double digit lead over Trump and is also comfortably ahead in most swing state polls. But a new poll on Tuesday evening showed Biden’s lead surging to 17 points, according to an Opinium Research and Guardian opinion poll.About 57% of likely voters surveyed said they intended to vote for Biden, while just 40% said they favor Trump. More

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    'Slayer Pete': Buttigieg emerges as Biden's unlikely Fox News fighter

    At home, he is the unassuming former mayor of a small town in Indiana, where he lives happily with his husband, a junior high school teacher, and their two lazy dogs.But on cable TV, where he has emerged in the homestretch of the presidential campaign as a likable and lethal surrogate for Democrat Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg is something else: “Slayer Pete”.Conferred on Buttigieg by the Los Angeles Times columnist Mary McNamara, the nickname captures the efficacy with which Buttigieg has turned his rhetorical chops to the task of obliterating apologists for Donald Trump.Buttigieg’s biggest scores have come on Fox News, an arena not many Democrats deign to enter, unwilling or unable to argue against an alternative reality where Covid-19 is a hoax, Hillary Clinton is public enemy No 1 and Trump is infallible.But if the echo-chamber quality of most Fox broadcasts has led the hosts into a sense of complacency when challenging their guests, they have recently been fed rude surprises – in the nicest possible way – by the rapier-tongued “mayor Pete” (his other nickname).Before the vice-presidential debate, Buttigieg, whose own presidential bid came to an end in March, was asked on Fox News why Kamala Harris, Biden’s running mate, had modified her stance on healthcare reform after joining the presidential ticket.“Well, there’s a classic parlor game of trying to find a little bit of daylight between running mates,” Buttigieg said. “And if people want to play that game, we could look into why an evangelical Christian like Mike Pence wants to be on a ticket with the president caught with a porn star, or how he feels about the immigration policy that he called ‘unconstitutional’ before he decided to team up with Donald Trump.”Buttigieg is not universally loved. His record on policing and racial justice as mayor of South Bend, Indiana, has been heavily criticized, and during the Democratic primary he had a long-running feud with Senator Amy Klobuchar, who in one debate quipped: “I wish everyone was as perfect as you, Pete.”But with the Democrats having mended their differences and the battle lines now clearly drawn in an election with epic stakes, Biden supporters of every persuasion might feel free to sit back and enjoy one thing Buttigieg does seem practically perfect at: dissecting Trump sycophants with a smile.When Fox host Steve Doocy tried to hit Biden for declining to debate Trump in person in the aftermath of Trump’s coronavirus diagnosis, Buttigieg deftly turned the tables.“It’s too bad,” he said. “I don’t know why the president’s afraid to debate. All of us have had to get used to a virtual format. Parents are having to deal with e-learning, which is not what we’re used to. We’re having to take meetings over Zoom. It’s not something I think most of us enjoy, but it’s a safety measure.“I think part of why the US is badly behind the rest of the developed world on dealing with the pandemic is because every time there’s been a choice between doing something in a way that’s more safe or less safe, this president seems to push for less safe.”The range of Buttigieg’s analytical intelligence was on display in an interview in a friendlier forum, on MSNBC, when he was asked about a call by supreme court nominee Amy Coney Barrett for rulings to be “fairly reasoned and grounded in the law”.“This is what nominees do,” Buttigieg said. “They write the most seemingly unobjectionable, dry stuff. But really what I see in there is a pathway to judicial activism cloaked in judicial humility.”“At the end of the day, rights in this country have been expanded because courts have understood what the true meaning of the letter of the law and the spirit of the constitution is.“And that is not about time-traveling yourself back to the 18th century and subjecting yourself to the same prejudices and limitations as the people who write these words.“The constitution is a living document because the English language is a living language. And you need to have some readiness to understand that in order to serve on the court in a way that will actually make life better.”Buttigieg then quoted Thomas Jefferson, smiled, and finished with a dagger: “Even the founders that these kind of dead-hand originalists claim fidelity to understood better than their ideological descendants, today’s judicial so-called conservatives, the importance of keeping with the times.” More

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    'I'll kiss everyone': Trump claims he has immunity at first rally since Covid diagnosis – video

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    Donald Trump has returned to the campaign trial after being hospitalized with Covid-19. He arrived on Air Force One to a packed outdoor rally in Florida without a protective mask but tossed out masks to the crowd. Trump boasted about his recovery, claiming he was now ‘immune’ to the virus. ‘I feel powerful,’ he said. ‘I’ll kiss the guys and the beautiful women and everybody.’ Trump’s return to his signature campaign rallies kicked off a three-week sprint to election day, as polls showed him losing more ground to Democratic rival Joe Biden
    Trump holds first rally since Covid diagnosis, as Senate opens bitter hearings on court pick – as it happened
    Trump holds packed rally after Covid diagnosis as he struggles in polls

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