Bill Maher: ‘The [Republicans’] War on Democracy’

 

Bill Maher has been directing a lot of his verbal fire at Democrats lately — and with them in charge in the White House and in the Congress, that’s understandable.  But he’s also been getting a lot of stuff wrong lately.  The plight of people of color seems to be particularly off Maher’s radar.  He’s been needlessly cynical regarding health regulations in the wake of the coronavirus.  And because of this, he’s come down with foot-in-mouth disease several times over the last year and a half.  But he’s still spot-on when it comes to articulating the threat posed to U.S. democracy by the Republican Party.  This is his best “New Rule” in a while.

Brian Tyler Cohen: ‘Michigan Democrat Gives the Most Viral Speech of the Year’

Paul Waldman: ‘Republicans just gave us a terrifying preview of their 2024 strategy’

 From the Washington Post:

If Republicans announce now, two-and-a-half years in advance, that they’re refusing to participate in the debates, it could save them a last-minute act of cowardice. But the more important reason they’re doing this is to reinforce the idea that every institution and practice associated with the presidential campaign must be considered corrupt and biased against Trump and therefore illegitimate, whether it’s the news media, the debates, maybe even the weather — and especially the vote counting.

 

Read the full story.

 

Jonathan Chait: ‘Why Ketanji Brown Jackson will be the last Democratic justice for a long time’

 

From New York magazine:

On the surface, Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation to the Supreme Court appeared to portend a hopeful future for liberals. She was the bright, youthful (as these things go) face of a more enlightened judiciary.

But appearances can be deceiving. A more accurate picture of the Court’s future could actually be discerned from two other stories that flanked it. The first was Ginni Thomas’s ravings to Donald Trump’s chief of staff — more specifically, the nonplussed response thereto from the Republican Establishment, which is perfectly satisfied to allow a prominent conservative activist to draw on her connection to an esteemed conservative jurist to promote QAnon-inflected conspiracy theories in the highest corridors of power.

The second was Mitch McConnell’s refusal to commit to hold any hearings for a potential Supreme Court vacancy should his party win a Senate majority when prodded by Jonathan Swan. McConnell made it clear that Jackson is likely the last Supreme Court justice Democrats will nominate for years, maybe even a decade or more.

Jackson’s confirmation was a brief, joyful respite. The future is a semi-permanent Republican judicial majority in which, contrary to the visual impression, Thomas’s worldview is much closer to the mainstream and Jackson’s is a relic of a rapidly fading past.

 

Read the full story.