Bits 'n pieces from east, west and beyond

East, west or beyond, sooner or later events elsewhere may have a local impact. A recent sampling:

The Commission on Presidential Debates canceled the presidential debate scheduled for this week. A proposal to have a virtual debate, owing to President Donald Trump’s COVID-19 status, and Republican attendees’ non-compliance with masking-up, was rejected by Trump.

Confirmation hearings for Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the Supreme Court began this week in the Senate on a fast-forward timetable. “Why the rush forward?” asked Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.). “Well, the answer isn’t pretty. There’s a promise to big donors that must be kept. When David Koch ran for vice president, he campaigned on getting rid of Medicare and Medicaid. Imagine his fury when Obamacare passed. His groups are spending millions right now on this nomination.”

Barrett has drawn criticism due to her written response to the NFIB vs. Sebellius ruling, where she said the Affordable Care Act should have been struck down as unconstitutional. The Supreme Court will hear a case questioning constitutionality of the ACA on Nov. 10.

In his recently released book Michael Cohen, a former Trump attorney, speculates the president will resign if he loses the election and will then pressure Mike Pence to pardon him for crimes he faces in New York. Cohen told MSNBC last week that would be the reason U.S. Attorney General William Barr attempted to replace the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York with the chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, who is a Trump golfing friend.

Cohen was found guilty in 2018 of campaign-finance violations, tax and bank fraud, and lying to Congress — acts he claimed were done to shield Trump. The White House calls Cohen a “disgraced felon” and liar.

And more speculation about a post-Trump election loss: Paul Krugman, a New York Times columnist and economist, expressed concern that Trump will refuse to accept the results of the election if he loses, not only inciting violent rebellion from supporters, but also sabotaging the U.S. economy during his remaining time in office.

Economic concerns voiced include Trump refusing aid to state governments, which have so far been forced to cut 900,000 jobs due to declining tax revenues; refusing aid to families facing hardships due to loss of jobs; and refusing aid to struggling businesses. The warnings about triggering a major recession are also coming from Wall Street analysts and the chairman of the Federal Reserve. Republicans say they’re resisting aid because it would bail out crime-ridden and poorly run liberal states, but Krugman claims those states “have lower crime rates, on average, than Republican states.”

There have been 215,418 deaths in the U.S. from COVID-19 as of Oct. 12. A week ago the figure was 210,426 deaths, according to stats from The New York Times.

The FBI issued an internal report suggesting an imminent “violent extremist threat” posed by far-right militias. The report speculates that the 2021 inauguration could be the “potential flashpoint,” The Nation revealed. Those under surveillance, the FBI memo reported, “indicate a propensity toward violence … that cause mass casualties, used by a small number of attackers.”

Blast from the past: Regarding “court packing,” the addition of judges to the usual nine on the U.S. Supreme Court. Some also call it packing the court when a disproportionate number of judges with sympathies on a particular political spectrum are appointed. Since 1969 Democrats have appointed four Supreme Court justices and Republicans have appointed 15. Four were appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote. While the Constitution does not name a size for the court, the current number of nine has been with the nation since 1869.

But adding more is perfectly legal.

In 2016 Republicans said that if Hillary Clinton were elected they would not allow her to fill any Supreme Court vacancies, leaving the number smaller than nine. Under President Barack Obama, they also refused to fill a March vacancy with his nominee, saying it was too close to the November election.

The Republican focus on obtaining Supreme Court seats sympathetic to their beliefs has resulted in five of the current eight members being members of the Federalist Society. That would be six if the current nominee were approved before the election, which seems increasingly likely. The Federalist Society was formed in 1982. Their Supreme Court members voted to permit businesses to make unlimited contributions to political campaigns, and to gut the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

The Koch family-backed Americans for Prosperity, which campaigned for the last two Federalist Society appointees, is now campaigning for Trump’s Federalist Society nominee.