Dear Commons Community,

Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows provided an email to Jan. 6 investigators that referred to a PowerPoint plan showing how Donald Trump could use emergency presidential powers after his 2020 election defeat to overturn the vote, according to several media reports.

The plan involved then-president Trump declaring a national security emergency to delay the certification of the 2020 election results, then manhandling the vote to favor him and stay in the White House.

It was not clear who created the PowerPoint plan or how it came to be emailed to Meadows. Meadows’ lawyer said the former chief of staff did not act on the plan or otherwise do anything about the email, according to The New York Times.

The chilling 38-page presentation, titled “Election Fraud, Foreign Interference & Options for 6 Jan,” was referred to in an email sent on Jan. 5, the day before the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol while Congress certified the Electoral College vote. The email was among a trove of documents provided by Meadows to the House select committee investigating the riot.

Phil Waldron, a retired Army colonel who contributed to and helped circulate the PowerPoint told The Washington Post that he discussed it as many as ten times with former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.

He also said he briefed several members of Congress on the PowerPoint of “options” with a team the night before the Jan. 6 insurrection — and attended a meeting with then-President Donald Trump and Pennsylvania lawmakers in the Oval Office weeks after the election, the Post reported.

The PowerPoint plan involved Trump declaring a national security emergency to delay the certification of the 2020 election results, then manhandling the vote to keep him in the White House.

Waldorn is a cybersecurity expert who specialized in psychological operations in the military. He was working with Trump’s outside lawyers and others to devise schemes to upend the vote as part of a “command center” of Trump allies holed up in the Willard Hotel ahead of the Jan. 6 riot.

Some challenges to electoral votes pressed by  “coup memo” attorney John Eastman — who was also part of the “command center” to stop the election — appear to echo strategies in the PowerPoint plan.

Meadows exposed the PowerPoint scheme in a trove of documents he provided to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chair of the House select committee, referred to elements of that plan and others as part of a “direct and collateral attack” by Trump allies after the election.

Meadows’ lawyer said the former chief of staff did not act on the plan or otherwise do anything about the email, according to The New York Times.

Under the PowerPoint plan, Trump was to declare a national emergency, citing foreign “control” of electronic voting systems, and then all electronic voting would be rendered invalid. Then-Vice President Mike Pence was to install Republican electors in states where Trump allies would baselessly declare that “fraud occurred,” according to the maneuvers outlined in the plan.

Waldron told the Post that he was largely responsible for the foreign control angle of the strategy.

Meadows reversed an earlier promise to cooperate with the House committee, even though he himself appears to be breaching the executive privilege he claims by widely discussing what led up to Jan. 6, even writing a book that includes details he now refuses to discuss with investigators.

He also appears to have played a role in exactly what investigators are examining.

Slime and deceit are all over Trump, Meadows and others for the January 6^th insurrection.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

John Roberts,  Chief Justice of the United States, warned Friday that the Supreme Court risks losing its own authority if it allows states to circumvent the courts as Texas did with its near-total abortion ban.

In a strongly worded opinion joined by the high court’s three liberal justices, Roberts wrote that the “clear purpose and actual effect” of the Texas law was “to nullify this Court’s rulings.” That, he said, undermines the Constitution and the fundamental role of the Supreme Court and the court system as a whole.  As reported by NBC News.

The opinion was a remarkable plea by the chief justice to his colleagues on the court to resist the efforts by right-wing lawmakers to get around court decisions they dislike, in this case Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that made abortion legal in the United States, within limits. But in this case, his urgent request was largely ignored by the other justices on the court who were appointed by Republicans.

His point to them was that the court system should decide what the law is, and it should resist efforts like that of the Texas Legislature to get around the courts by limiting the ability of abortion providers to sue.

It is a basic principle, he wrote, “that the Constitution is the ‘fundamental and paramount law of the nation,’ and ‘[i]t is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.'” He cited as proof the landmark 1803 Marbury v. Madison case, which established the principle of judicial review, allowing the court to nullify laws that violate the Constitution.

“If the legislatures of the several states may, at will, annul the judgments of the courts of the United States, and destroy the rights acquired under those judgments, the Constitution itself becomes a solemn mockery,” he said, quoting the 1809 U.S. v. Peters case, which found that state legislatures can’t overrule federal courts. “The nature of the federal right infringed does not matter; it is the role of the Supreme Court in our constitutional system that is at stake.”

The Texas law, which took effect in September, delegates enforcement to any person, anywhere, who can sue any doctor performing an abortion or anyone who aids in the procedure. That makes it virtually impossible for abortion providers to sue the state to block the law, S.B. 8. Texas has argued that the law’s opponents had no legal authority to sue the state because S.B. 8 does not give state officials any role in enforcing the restriction.

Roberts has said that politics has no place at the Supreme Court and has made it clear he will resist efforts to draw the court into partisan cultural fights, fearing that the perception of partisanship will undermine the court’s legitimacy.

With the court now having a 6-3 conservative supermajority, Roberts wound up siding with the three liberal justices: Elena Kagan, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor. The addition of three justices by former President Donald Trump meant Roberts could not find another vote for his position, leaving him largely in the minority in the abortion ruling.

Melissa Murray, a law professor at New York University, said Friday on MSNBC that “the real question here is whether or not Chief Justice John Roberts is chief justice in principle as well as name.”

“The question here is how can he rein in that hardcore conservative bloc of the court?” she asked. “And it seemed obvious last week in oral arguments, and this week — in terms of how these opinions are written, and where the chief justice finds himself — that maybe he’s having a hard time keeping all of the conservative bloc in line.”

The Supreme Court ruling Friday said that abortion providers in Texas can move forward with their lawsuit challenging S.B. 8 along a very narrow path. But it kept the law in effect while the court battle unfolds, which abortion rights supporters said would prevent large numbers of low-income Texas women from obtaining abortions during the legal fight.

With the Texas abortion law and others like it such as the one in Mississippi, the rights of women to an abortion will continue to be challenged at various levels of our judicial  system.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The US Supreme Court ruled yesterday that abortion providers in Texas can challenge a state law banning most abortions after six weeks, allowing them to sue at least some state officials in federal court despite the procedural hurdles imposed by the law’s unusual structure.

But the Supreme Court refused to block the law in the meantime, saying that lower courts should consider the matter.

The development was both a minor victory for supporters of abortion rights and a major disappointment to them. They had hoped that the justices would reverse course from a Sept. 1 ruling that had allowed the law, the nation’s most restrictive, to go into effect, causing clinics in Texas to curtail performing the procedure and forcing many women seeking abortions to travel out of state.  As reported by The New York Times and Reuters.

“We will continue to seek justice in the shred of the case that the court has allowed to go forward and seek every other legal means to stop this catastrophic law,” said Nancy Northup, the president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which represents the providers challenging the law.

The justices in an 8-1 ruling lifted a block on lower court proceedings and permitted a lawsuit by abortion providers, which may pave the way for a federal judge to block the nation’s toughest abortion law at least in part. The conservative-majority court on Sept. 1 declined to halt the law on the day it took effect. It also dismissed on Friday a separate challenge by President Joe Biden’s administration.

The law bans abortions at around six weeks, a point when many women do not yet realize they are pregnant, with no exception for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest.

The Supreme Court has yet to decide another major abortion case from Mississippi that could lead to the overturning of the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized the procedure nationwide. Mississippi’s law, blocked by lower courts, bans abortions at 15 weeks of pregnancy. The conservative justices during arguments on Dec. 1 indicated sympathy toward Mississippi’s law and potential support for overturning Roe.

Abortion providers and Biden’s administration had asked the Supreme Court to block the Texas law while the litigation continues, but the justices opted to leave it in place for now.

Friday’s ruling, authored by conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch, did not directly address the broader questions raised in the Mississippi case. The court’s decision not to block the Texas law provided another signal that its majority may be inclined to curb abortion rights.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Biden is “very concerned” that the justices left the Texas law in place and reiterated his support for Democratic-backed legislation that would buttress abortion rights nationwide.

The Texas law enables private citizens to sue anyone who performs or assists a woman in getting an abortion after embryo cardiac activity is detected. Individual citizens can be awarded a minimum of $10,000 for successful lawsuits. Biden’s administration has called this a “bounty.”

“It’s stunning that the Supreme Court has essentially said that federal courts cannot stop this bounty-hunter scheme enacted to blatantly deny Texans their constitutional right to abortion. The court has abandoned its duty to ensure that states do not defy its decisions,” said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which challenged the law on behalf of abortion provider Whole Woman’s Health.

The measure is one of a series of restrictive Republican-backed abortion laws pursued in states in recent years.

Women dressed as handmaids demonstrate in front of anti-abortion protestors outside the United States Supreme Court as the court hears arguments over a challenge to a Texas law that bans abortion after six weeks in Washington, U.S., November 1, 2021. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who defended the law, welcomed the justices leaving it in place, promising on Twitter to defend it and “FIGHT FOR LIFE!!!”

“We celebrate that the Texas Heartbeat Act will remain in effect, saving the lives of unborn children and protecting mothers while litigation continues in lower courts,” added Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, a group opposing abortion.

The ruling stated that a narrow lawsuit is allowed under a 1908 Supreme Court precedent that said state laws can be challenged in federal court by suing state officials.

Texas had sought to exploit a loophole in the 1908 ruling by saying no state officials could enforce the law. The Supreme Court said challengers could pursue their case by naming state licensing officials including members of the Texas Medical Board and Texas Board of Nursing as defendants.

The lone dissenter, conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, favored tossing the lawsuit.

Abortion rights advocates said being able to sue only the licensing officials may not allow for fully block the law. A five-justice majority ruled that neither state court clerks nor the Texas attorney general could be sued as Whole Woman’s Health sought. Conservative Chief Justice John Roberts and the court’s three liberals disagreed, saying those officials should be considered proper defendants.

Roberts criticized the law as specifically designed to “nullify” the Supreme Court’s abortion precedents, effectively denying women a constitutional right.

“The nature of the federal right infringed does not matter; it is the role of the Supreme Court in our constitutional system that is at stake,” Roberts wrote.

Liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor blasted the court for failing to “put an end to this madness” and warning that other states could try to copy the Texas enforcement mechanism.

“The court thus betrays not only the citizens of Texas but also our constitutional system of government,” Sotomayor wrote in an opinion joined by the two other liberal justices.

The case now returns to U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman. Separately, a state court judge ruled on Thursday that the law violates the Texas constitution with its private-enforcement mechanism.

All eyes will now be on the Mississippi case.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported yesterday that most of the 43 COVID-19 cases caused by the Omicron variant identified in the United States so far were in people who were fully vaccinated, and a third of them had received a booster dose

The CDC said that of the 43 cases attributed to Omicron variant, 34 people had been fully vaccinated. Fourteen of them had also received a booster, although five of those cases occurred less than 14 days after the additional shot before full protection kicks in.   As reported by Reuters and the Associated Press.

While the numbers are very small, they add to growing concerns that current COVID-19 vaccines may offer less protection against the highly transmissible new variant. 

The Omicron variant of the coronavirus has been found through testing in about 22 states so far after first being identified in southern Africa and Hong Kong in late November. 

Among the Omicron cases, 25 were in people aged 18 to 39 and 14 had traveled internationally. Six people had previously been infected with the coronavirus. 

Most of them only had mild symptoms such as coughing, congestion, and fatigue, the report said, and one person was hospitalized for two days. Other symptoms reported less frequently including nausea or vomiting, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing, diarrhea and loss of taste or smell. 

The CDC said that while many of the first reported Omicron cases appear to be mild, a lag exists between infection and more severe outcomes. Symptoms would also be expected to be milder in vaccinated persons and those with previous SARS-CoV-2 infection. 

The first known U.S. Omicron case was identified on Dec 1 in a fully vaccinated person who had traveled to South Africa. The CDC said that the earliest date of symptom onset was Nov. 15 in a person with a history of international travel. 

The Delta variant still accounts for more than 99% of all U.S. cases. But reports from South Africa show that the Omicron variant is very transmissible. 

Even if most cases are mild, a highly transmissible variant could result in enough infections to overwhelm health systems, the CDC cautioned. 

Laboratory studies released this week suggest that the Omicron variant will blunt the protective power of two doses of Pfizer and BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine, although a third dose may restore that protection. 

The U.S. has authorized COVID-19 vaccine booster for all Americans age 16 and older. 

This is not good news and portends of a COVID resurgence as we move further into the winter months and spend more time indoors.  And I don’t even want a mild case of COVID!

Tony

Jim Malatras

Dear Commons Community,

Jim Malatras, the chancellor of the State University of New York, submitted his resignation yesterday following intense political pressure for him to step down over text messages that showed him belittling one of the women who had accused former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of sexual harassment.

His resignation, which goes into effect on Jan. 14, marked a spectacular fall for a Cuomo ally amid the multiple scandals that led to the former governor’s resignation in August.

Mr. Malatras faced bipartisan backlash and mounting criticism over the past two weeks after Letitia James, the state attorney general, released new evidence from her office’s investigation into Mr. Cuomo.

The new materials included text messages from May 2019 between Mr. Malatras and top Cuomo officials disparaging Lindsey Boylan, a former economic development official who 18 months later accused Mr. Cuomo of sexual harassment.  As reported in The Chronicle of Higher Education this morning.

In exchanges with Cuomo aides, Malatras suggested, “Let’s release some of her cray emails!,” using slang for “crazy.” In another text, Malatras wrote, “Malatras to Boylan: Go fuck yourself.”

The texts were sent when Malatras was moving into the presidency at SUNY’s Empire State College, the position he held immediately before becoming chancellor.

Malatras apologized for the texts, describing them as “inappropriate, disrespectful, and wrong.”

Late last week, the Board of Trustees issued a statement of support for the chancellor, saying Malatras “remains the right leader” for the 64-campus system. But another shoe dropped on Tuesday, when Albany’s Times Union released audio of Malatras, in 2017, berating an administrative employee. In the audio, Malatras raises his voice and uses profanity, telling the employee she has a “bad attitude on everything, lady.”

The chancellor contributed to a “polarized, ‘take no prisoners’ culture. This behavior was, and is, unacceptable.”

Taken together, the evidence complicates and undermines Malatras’s image as a no-nonsense executive, who has won praise for his navigation of the pandemic. What had once seemed appealing about Malatras — a tough-minded leader, schooled in the pugnacious world of New York politics — looks ugly and mean-spirited in the private moments that have now spilled into public view.

As the SUNY University Faculty Senate put it, in a statement on Tuesday, Malatras appeared all too much like a participant in the problems that came to define Cuomo’s tenure. “Not only did he not push back against the toxic work environment that we now know characterized that administration,” the senate wrote of the chancellor, “he also contributed to its polarized, ‘take no prisoners’ culture. This behavior was, and is, unacceptable.”

Malatras and Merryl H. Tisch, chairwoman of SUNY’s board, did not respond to interview requests made through the SUNY system’s office.

In his resignation letter, dated Thursday, Malatras told Tisch that the revelations of the past week “had become a distraction.”

“I believe in an individual’s ability to evolve, change, and grow,” he wrote, “but I also believe deeply in SUNY and would never want to be an impediment to its success.”

With his resignation, which is effective January 14th, Malatras closes out a short tenure that was tainted from the start. In what has become a familiar story in higher education, the chancellor came into the job through a less-than-inclusive process that smacked of politics and angered faculty members.

Forgoing a national search, SUNY’s board seized on Malatras in August 2020 as a target to replace Kristina M. Johnson, who, two months earlier, had been named president of Ohio State University.

Malatras wasn’t a purely political person before he became chancellor; nor was he a traditional academic. A product of the SUNY system, he holds a doctorate in political science from the university’s Albany campus, where he also earned master’s and bachelor’s degrees in that field. He previously served as SUNY’s vice chancellor and chief of staff to the former SUNY chancellor Nancy Zimpher. He is the first SUNY graduate to lead the system.

But Cuomo looms large in Malatras’s story. His numerous roles under the former governor included a stint as director of state operations, a high-level position charged with managing the day-to-day operations of New York’s government agencies. “In this role, Malatras was Governor Cuomo’s point person on policy and served as a chief negotiator with the state legislature,” according to a biography from the Rockefeller Institute of Government, a SUNY-affiliated think tank where Malatras was previously president.

In the wake of Cuomo’s resignation, there has been no shortage of discussion about whether the “tough guy” political persona that defined the former governor has any place in a modern-day workplace, where harassment, bullying, and abuse aren’t tolerated. It is unclear whether Malatras’s texts and the recently released recording were indicative of a larger pattern, and his resignation means that a further investigation of that question, which the faculty senate had called for, isn’t likely to happen.

Even in public settings, Malatras betrayed a political style that felt to some observers more hard-nosed Albany than academe. He could be blunt and sometimes used off-color language in meetings, said Frank J. Byrne, chairman of the Oswego campus’s history department and a representative on the faculty senate.

“The question of temperament struck me when I first heard him communicate to the SUNY senate,” Byrne said. “I thought, this person is very, very different than the previous chancellor.

“We were told, ‘This is good. He is a brass-knuckle fighter; he’ll fight for the budget.’”

“Some may have found it refreshing,” Byrne said of the chancellor’s communication style. “I found it unsettling to some extent.”

Given Malatras’s persona as a political fighter, Byrne said, he was surprised to see the chancellor resign without more of a fight. (And the professor, based on the available information, isn’t sure the chancellor absolutely had to go.)

“Candidly, what I’ve seen thus far was quite unprofessional; I’m not sure it rises to the level of resignation,” Byrne said. “But I might be in the minority, because a lot of my colleagues want him out of there.”

Evidence trickled out on Thursday, though, that Malatras may have run out of political runway. Gov. Kathy Hochul, who replaced Cuomo, confirmed to reporters that she had had a phone call with Tisch, the SUNY board’s chairwoman, on Wednesday night. She offered few details but said she told the chairwoman that SUNY needed to maintain “undistracted attention” on its goals.

Deborah J. Glick, a democratic lawmaker whose district includes lower Manhattan, was among those calling on Malatras to resign. In an interview with The Chronicle on Thursday, she said the board needs to learn from its mistakes and conduct a true national search for the next chancellor.

“The erosion of respect for higher education, using colleges as political footballs, is disheartening,” she said. “I would hope that we could recover, at least here in New York state, a modicum of support and respect for academia.”

Goodbye Mr. Malatras!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

A federal appeals court yesterday rejected an effort by former President Donald Trump to block White House records from the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that “there is a unique legislative need for these documents and that they are directly relevant to the Committee’s inquiry into an attack on the Legislative Branch and its constitutional role in the peaceful transfer of power.”

Trump sued the select committee and the National Archives to prevent the White House from turning over records related to the Jan. 6 attack, claiming executive privilege, but President Biden, as the current office holder, has so far waived those executive privilege claims for documents relevant to the select committee’s investigation. Last month, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., ruled that Biden’s authority in this matter supersedes Trump’s.

“Former President Trump has provided no basis for this court to override President Biden’s judgment and the agreement and accommodations worked out between the Political Branches over these documents,” the appeals court concluded in its ruling yesterday. 

The federal appeals court had previously granted a request from Trump’s attorneys for a temporary injunction to delay the release of the first batch of requested documents by the National Archives. According to the Associated Press, the appeals court decided Thursday that the temporary injunction “will expire in two weeks, or when the Supreme Court rules on an expected appeal from Trump — whichever is later.”

According to court documents, the National Archives has said that the documents Trump has tried to keep secret include daily presidential diaries, schedules, visitor logs, activity logs, call logs, drafts of speeches, “handwritten notes concerning the events of January 6” from the files of former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, and “a draft Executive Order on the topic of election integrity.”

Meadows is also attempting to challenge the select committee’s subpoenas in court. The former Trump aide filed his own lawsuit against the panel on Wednesday, hours after he failed to appear for a scheduled deposition with the Jan. 6 committee. The committee has said it will now move ahead with the process of holding Meadows in contempt of Congress, making him the third Trump ally to face a referral for possible criminal penalties for refusing to cooperate with the Jan. 6 probe.

All eyes will be on the US Supreme Court and whether it decides to hear Trump’s appeal.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The late Senator Bob Dole lay in state at the U.S. Capitol yesterday, as President Joe Biden and others paid tribute to an “American giant” who served the country in war and in politics with pragmatism, self-deprecating wit and a bygone era’s sense of common civility.

President Biden entered the Capitol and a military escort carried Dole’s casket draped with the American flag into to the Rotunda. Biden offered remarks along with invited guests and congressional leaders for the former Republican senator and presidential contender. Dole, who served nearly 36 years in Congress, died Sunday at the age of 98.

“For those like me who had the honor of calling him a friend, Bob Dole was an American giant,” President Joe Biden said and called Dole “a man of extraordinary courage, both physical and moral courage.”

“A war hero, who sacrificed beyond measure,” Biden said. “Who nearly gave his life for our country in World War II. Among the greatest of the great generation.”  As reported by the Associated Press.

The service will be the first of several in Washington commemorating Dole’s life and legacy. Yesterday’s event at the Capitol and today’s funeral at the Washington National Cathedral are closed to the public. But Dole’s funeral will be livestreamed at the World War II Memorial on the National Mall, and his motorcade is expected to stop by later at an event with actor Tom Hanks honoring his life and military service before the casket travels to his Kansas hometown and the state capital.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Dole was a “patriot from the start” and an “exemplary person to serve with in Congress.”

“He served at a time when there was mutual respect, even though disagreement on many issues, across the aisle, across the Capitol,” Pelosi said Wednesday. “I found him to be a man of his word. Everybody did.”

Black draperies hung on doorways under the Capitol dome in preparation for the service. About 100 chairs were set up, socially distanced for COVID-19 protocols. A lectern was positioned in a way that the statue of another Kansas stateman, Dwight Eisenhower, will likely be seen in the background behind the day’s speakers.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, now the longest-serving Republican Senate leader, said Dole idolized Eisenhower, calling the former president and general a hero who embodied “the finest qualities of the American people.”

“We can say with certainty that Eisenhower isn’t the only Kansan who meets those standards,” McConnell said in a speech earlier this week.

McConnell had raised concerns that an event planner for the memorial service, Tim Unes, had been subpoenaed by the House committee investigating the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol about his role planning that day for Donald Trump, the former president, according to a person granted anonymity to discuss the private conversation.

Dole family spokesperson Steve Schwab said in a statement that Unes’ role had been terminated. 

Schwab said Unes, a former Dole campaign staffer, had “volunteered his time to serve on the advance team for this week’s memorial events.” Schwab said Dole’s wife, Elizabeth Dole, “was previously unaware” of Unes’ participation and once he made her aware she “terminated his volunteer role.”

Unes did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The story was first reported by The New York Times.

Born a child of the Dust Bowl in Russell, Kansas, Bob Dole suffered paralyzing and near-fatal wounds after being shot in World War II that sent him home with a severely damaged right arm that he could not use to shake hands. Instead, Dole held a pen in it and reached out with his left as a way to put greeters at ease.

After earning a law degree, he worked as county attorney and served as a Kansas state legislator before running for Congress in 1960, joining the House for eight years then going on to win the Senate seat. He was the GOP’s presidential nominee in 1996, his third and final campaign for president — a race he never won.

Dole’s quick wit was on display after losing the presidential contest to incumbent Democrat Bill Clinton, who awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom days before the 1997 inauguration.

McConnell said when it was time for Dole’s remarks, he stood at the podium and began: “I, Robert J. Dole … do solemnly swear … oh, sorry, wrong speech!”

But that humor was rarely seen on the campaign trail or in his public pronouncements, where it could have helped him win more votes.

Instead, Dole was seen as a GOP “hatchet man,” a mentee of Richard Nixon and chairman of the Republican National Committee during the Watergate era. He went on to become the sharp-tongued vice presidential running mate to Gerald Ford, another lost race.

But it was Dole’s long career in the Senate where he grew to see the value of reaching across the aisle to Democrats and secured his more lasting achievements — most notably the Americans with Disabilities Act that to this day ensures a level of accessibility as a civil right.

At times, Dole bucked his own party, particularly on a landmark tax bill, and helped create the Martin Luther King Jr. federal holiday.

The former senator announced in February 2021 a diagnosis of stage 4 lung cancer. Biden visited Dole at his home at the Watergate complex.

A few hours before the memorial was set to begin, Capitol Police locked down part of the Capitol complex after a staffer walked into an office building with a gun in his bag. The man was arrested on a charge of carrying a pistol without a license.

May a great American rest in peace!

Tony

Jussie Smollett

Dear Commons Community,

Former “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett was found guilty yesterday on charges he staged an anti-gay, racist attack on himself nearly three years ago and then lied to Chicago police about it.

In the courtroom as the verdict was read, Smollett stood and faced the jury, and show no visible reaction.  As reported by the Associated Press.

The jury found the 39-year-old guilty on five counts of disorderly conduct — one count for each separate time he was charged with lying to police in the days immediately after the alleged attack. He was acquitted on a sixth count, of lying to a detective in mid-February, weeks after Smollett said he was attacked.

The charge is a class 4 felony that carries a prison sentence of up to three years, but experts have said if convicted, Smollett would likely be placed on probation and ordered to perform community service.

The damage to his personal and professional life may be more severe. Smollett lost his role on the TV program “Empire” after prosecutors said the alleged attack was a hoax, and he told jurors earlier this week that “I’ve lost my livelihood.”

The jury deliberated for just over nine hours Wednesday and Thursday after a roughly one-week trial in which two brothers testified that Smollett recruited them to fake the attack near his home in downtown Chicago in January 2019. They said Smollett orchestrated the hoax, telling them to put a noose around his neck and rough him up in view of a surveillance camera, and that he said he wanted video of the hoax made public via social media.

Smollett testified that he was the victim of a real hate crime, telling jurors “there was no hoax.” He called the brothers “liars” and said the $3,500 check he wrote them was for meal and workout plans. His attorneys argued that the brothers attacked the actor — who is gay and Black — because they are homophobic and didn’t like “who he was.” They also alleged the brothers made up the story about the attack being staged to get money from Smollett, and that they said they wouldn’t testify against him if Smollett paid them each $1 million.

In closing arguments on Wednesday, a prosecutor told jurors there was “overwhelming evidence” that Smollett staged the attack, then lied to police about it for publicity. His defense attorney said prosecutors’ case was based on lies.

Special prosecutor Dan Webb told the jury that Smollett caused Chicago police to spend enormous resources investigating what they believe was a fake crime.

“Besides being against the law, it is just plain wrong to outright denigrate something as serious as a real hate crime and then make sure it involved words and symbols that have such historical significance in our country,” Webb said.

He also accused Smollett of lying to jurors, saying surveillance video from before the alleged attack and that night contradicts key moments of Smollett’s testimony.

Defense attorney Nenye Uche called the brothers “sophisticated liars” who may have been motivated to attack Smollett because of homophobia or because they wanted to be hired to work as his security.

“These guys want to make money,” he said.

Webb questioned why Smollett didn’t turn over his cellphone to police or give them a DNA sample or access to his medical records to help with the investigation. Smollett testified he doesn’t trust Chicago police, and that he was concerned about his privacy.

“If he was a true victim of a crime he would not be withholding evidence,” Webb said.

Uche called it “nonsense” for Chicago police to ask Smollett for his DNA when he was still considered the victim of a crime. He noted Smollett later provided DNA to the FBI for a separate investigation into hate mail he had received at the “Empire” studio shortly before the alleged attack.

“He wasn’t hiding anything,” Uche said.

The disorderly conduct charge is a class 4 felony that carries a prison sentence of up to three years, but experts have Smollett would likely be placed on probation and ordered to perform community service.

This trial has been a tough lesson for Smollett and has devastated his career.

Tony

Scott Reed

Dear Commons Community

Long-time Republican Party strategist Scott Reed made a number of comments yesterday about Donald Trump, the Georgia gubernatorial election, and the Democrats.

He said that former Sen. David Perdue’s entry into the Georgia governor’s race against incumbent Brian Kemp is a “disaster” for the Republican Party that will likely lead to the election of Democrat Stacey Abrams.

Reed blames this development on one man: Donald Trump.

“What did [Trump] say a month ago? He thinks Stacey Abrams would be a better governor than Kemp. Well, guess what? He may get what he wanted,” said Reed in an interview on the Yahoo News podcast “Skullduggery.”

“Because by getting Perdue in this race, you’re going to split the party,” he added. “It will be a circus — worse than it was in January when we lost those two Senate seats. … It’s a disaster. I’m shocked Perdue is doing this. He’s being used by Trump. And we could lose a governorship.”

Perdue announced his run this week and was immediately endorsed by Trump, who praised him as a “conservative fighter” who will push to “secure the elections” — a reference to Kemp’s failure to endorse the ex-president’s claims of election fraud in the state. As if to underscore Reed’s comments, a new poll shows Georgia Republican voters split down the middle on the race, which offers some encouragement to Democrats.

Reed has for years been among the most prominent of Republican consultants, a longtime party operative who managed the late Sen. Bob Dole’s race for president in 1996 against Bill Clinton. Like many who have spoken about Dole’s legacy this week, he praised the former senator as a figure who consistently pushed to enact major legislation — from food stamps to the American Disabilities Act — by forging compromises with Democrats.

He also bemoaned the impact of Trump, who he says is “fading in the rearview mirror” even while he still holds sway over the Republican base, including in states like Georgia and Arizona. Reed held out hope for the party in 2024, saying he doesn’t believe either Trump or Biden will run again.

But he made a bold prediction for the Democrats: Biden will tap Vice President Kamala Harris — who has been plagued by staff upheaval and a lack of a clearly defined mission — for the Supreme Court next year assuming, as many predict, Justice Stephen Breyer retires.

“There’s no role for her” as vice president, Reed said, and Biden “can no longer salvage her … and they’re going to have to move her out.”

Interesting comments!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

President Joe Biden announced yesterday that the number of Americans fully vaccinated against COVID-19 reached 200 million even as there has been a spike in cases and hospitalizations.  

New cases in the U.S. climbed from an average of nearly 95,000 a day on Nov. 22 to almost 119,000 a day this week, and hospitalizations are up 25% from a month ago. The increases are due almost entirely to the delta variant, though the omicron mutation has been detected in about 20 states and is sure to spread even more.

Deaths are running close to 1,600 a day on average, back up to where they were in October. And the overall U.S. death toll less than two years into the crisis could hit another heartbreaking milestone, 800,000, in a matter of days.

The situation is not as dire as last year’s holiday-season surge, before the public had access to COVID-19 vaccines, but the 60% of the U.S. population that is fully vaccinated has not been enough to prevent hot spots.

The cold weather, Thanksgiving gatherings and a big rebound in holiday travel are all believed to be playing a role, along with public weariness with pandemic restrictions.  As reported by the Associated Press.

Lawrence Gostin, director of the WHO Collaborating Center on Public Health Law and Human Rights at Georgetown University, likened the virus to a wildfire.

“You can clear a forest of the shrubbery. But if you leave some shrubs and trees standing, the fire will find them,” Gostin said. “The virus will find you. It is searching for hosts that are not immune. The fact that you live in New England or New York doesn’t insulate you.”

Demand for the vaccine — with recent approval of boosters for all adults and shots for elementary school children — has been high amid the surge and the emergence of the omicron variant, whose dangers are still not fully understood. On Wednesday, Pfizer said that the initial two shots of its vaccine appear significantly less effective against omicron but that a booster dose may offer important protection.

Nearly 48 million people have received a booster, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. White House officials noted the U.S. administered 12.5 million shots last week, the highest weekly total since May.

“And that’s critical progress as we head into the winter and confront the new omicron variant,” White House coronavirus adviser Jeffrey Zients said.

At the same time, some states, notably in highly vaccinated New England, but also in the Midwest, are grappling with some of the worst surges since the start of the pandemic. Hospitals are filling up and reacting by canceling non-urgent surgeries or taking other crisis measures, while states are strongly promoting boosters.

Despite one of the highest vaccination levels in the country — over 74% of the population fully vaccinated — Vermont is coping with its biggest surge yet. In the last week, new cases per day are up 54%, and the number of people in the hospital with COVID-19 has climbed 18%.

The virus is preying on those who haven’t gotten their shots: As of Tuesday, 90% of the COVID-19 patients in intensive care were unvaccinated.

“Obviously, it’s not where we want to be,” Gov. Phil Scott said Tuesday, calling the situation “extremely frustrating.”

More than 400 people were in the hospital with COVID-19 in New Hampshire at the start of the week, breaking the record set last winter.

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu directed hospitals to set up COVID-19 “surge centers” using space normally reserved for such things as outpatient care.

“Every day for the next several weeks, we’re likely to see a new high in COVID hospitalizations in New Hampshire,” said Steve Ahnen, president of the New Hampshire Hospital Association. “With over 1,000 new cases a day, that number’s not going to do anything but continue to go up.”

Maine likewise is struggling with record-breaking COVID-19 hospitalizations. Gov. Janet Mills on Wednesday activated as many as 75 members of the National Guard to help out.

“The vast majority of patients in our hospitals are unvaccinated. That’s especially true of critical care patients,” said Andy Mueller, CEO of MaineHealth, the state’s biggest health network. “It requires a tremendous amount of our resources to provide care.”

Rhode Island’s largest hospital system, Lifespan, said staffing shortages are at never-before-seen crisis levels, while Kent Hospital said it is near capacity and is considering delaying non-urgent procedures.

Dr. Paari Gopalakrishnan, Kent’s interim president and chief operating officer, said the spike is probably due to “people letting their guards down” during the holidays, and flu season could complicate things further.

New Hampshire plans to hold a “booster blitz” on Saturday at 15 locations. Most appointments

“I have friends that are in their 20s that are getting sick and friends that are 60 that are getting sick,” he said. “The thing you see on Facebook and stuff like that is, ‘I just want this to be over. I’m very sick,’ so I’m just trying to avoid that.”

Elsewhere around the country, Indiana has seen COVID-19 hospital admissions double in the last month and is approaching levels not seen since this time a year ago, before vaccines were widely available.

The number of people in intensive care in Minnesota has reached the highest level yet during the pandemic, with 98% of ICU beds occupied. Teams of military medics have been sent into Michigan and New Mexico.

We are making good progress in the fight against COVID even as the Delta and Omicron variants push us backward.

Tony