Columns, Constitutional Law, Politics, Society, Supreme Court

The Barrett Rule: How Democratic Members Are Creating A New and Dangerous Standard For Confirmations

Below is my column in USA Today on the troubling course taken by Democratic members in the confirmation hearing of Judge Amy Coney Barrett. As I have stated, there are a host of legitimate questions to be raised over Judge Barrett’s view of the law. Indeed, I praised the exchanges between Sen. Dick Durbin (D., IL.) and Judge Barrett as the substantive highlight of the hearing. Unfortunately, those were the exceptions. Instead, the thrust of the entire hearing was that Barrett was unqualified due to her expected vote in the upcoming case on the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Various senators directly stated that they would vote against Barrett to protect the ACA. That is what is so unnerving about the Barrett confirmation hearing.

Here is the column:

The confirmation hearing of Judge Amy Coney Barrett could easily have been mistaken for the sentencing hearing for John Wayne Gacy. Surrounding Barrett were huge pictures of sick individuals. One would think that Barrett was being confronted with the faces of her victims. In reality, the pictures perfectly captured a far more important message. Senators had finally broken free from any pretense of principle in reviewing the qualifications of a nominee. Indeed, many are about to create a new rule, the Barrett Rule, allowing conditional confirmation voting. The pictures were meant to pressure Barrett to either satisfy senators that she would vote against an Affordable Care Act challenge or they would vote against her confirmation.

There has long been a debate over the legitimate grounds for opposing a Supreme Court nominee. While senators can vote under the Constitution for good, bad or no reason at all, most have sought to justify their votes on some principled basis. For most of our history, senators followed the rule that disagreement with a nominee’s jurisprudential views was not a basis to vote against their confirmation. A president was viewed as constitutionally entitled to appoint jurists reflecting their own legal viewpoint and the primary basis for voting against a nominee was on the lack of qualifications or some disqualifying personal or professional controversy. It was a rule of senatorial deference that controlled the majority of nominations in our history.

Voting against nominees based on their expected votes

Members began to chafe at the limitations of this principle in the second half of the twentieth century. With abortion, desegregation and other hot button issues, confirmations became politics by another means. With every year, senators became more open about voting against nominees solely on the basis for their expected votes. This trend was accelerated in October 1987 in the confirmation hearing of Judge Robert Bork presided over by a senator from Delaware named Joe Biden. Bork was labeled “outside of the mainstream” of legal thought and rejected in a process that is now called “Borking.”

Democratic members have struggled with changing rationales for voting against Barrett, who has impeccable credentials as an accomplished academic and respected jurist. One such implausible claim was made the day before the hearing by Sen. Chris Coons (D., Del.)  on Fox News Sunday. He claimed the nomination “constitutes court packing.” Both Biden and his running mate Sen. Kamala Harris (D., Cal.) have referred to nominating conservatives as court packing. Biden and others have refused to tell voters whether they will move to pack the Supreme Court if the Democrats retake both the Senate and the White House (a proposal once denounced by Ruth Bader Ginsburg herself). Instead of answering, Coons and others insist that Barrett’s nomination is court packing — a position that would allow them to vote against her without the need to consider her actual qualifications.

The portrayal of the Barrett nomination as court packing is facially absurd. Court packing is the expansion of the Court to create a dominant ideological majority. Referring to such a proposal by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, then Sen. Joe Biden once denounced it as “a bonehead idea . . . a terrible, terrible mistake” in seeking to add seats to the Court just to create a majority. Filling a vacancy on the Supreme Court is not court packing under any remotely plausible definition. Otherwise, anytime you disagree with the choices of a president, it would be court packing despite leaving the court the same size.

With little traction on the packing pitch, Senators were left with a rare moment of clarity. Indeed, Sen. Cory Booker (D., NJ) captured it best when, without waiting to hear from Barrett, Booker announced that he would vote against her. The reason was that she might vote against the ACA. The clear suggestion is that, after an election, the Democrats hoped to nominate someone who would clearly support the ACA. The issue was simply her expected vote on Nov. 10 in the case of California v. Texas.

Barrett and the ACA

We have now reached the Rubicon of confirmation politics. Thirty-three years after the Bork hearing, senators are now stripping away any pretense or nuance: they will oppose Barrett because of her expected votes on cases. In particular, Democrats have been arguing that they will vote against Barrett to prevent her from voting on a pending case, California v. Texas, dealing with the constitutionality of the ACA. Sen. Mazie K. Hirono (D., HI) announced recently that she would vote against Barrett because “she will vote to strike down the Affordable Care Act.”

In reality, the ACA case is unlikely to be struck down. The Court may uphold the lower court in declaring the individual mandate of the original ACA to be unconstitutional, but the real issue is whether that provision can be “severed” from the rest of the statute. Most legal experts believe that the Court has a clear majority favoring severance and preserving the rest of the act. The law was originally saved by Chief Justice John Roberts who felt that the individual mandate was constitutional. Congress later nullified the mandate.

The question before the Court is whether the rest of the act can be “severed” from the now defunct mandate — a question that cuts across the Court’s ideological divisions. Indeed, conservatives like Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh are expected to uphold the rest of the law. Thus, despite the pictures in the hearing, the picture for the ACA looks solid even with a Justice Barrett on the Court. Indeed, no one knows how Barrett would vote on the issue of severability.

The more important decision in the hearing is that some Senators are now invoking the right to vote against a nominee on the basis of her expected vote on this pending case. It will be a uniquely ironic moment since it was Ginsburg who refused to answer questions on pending or expected cases as improper and unethical inquiries by the Senate. It became known as the “Ginsburg Rule.” We may now have the Barrett Rule where a nomination can be rejected without such assurances.

The Barrett Rule would allow not only for the packing of a Court but the packing of the Court with guaranteed ideological drones. It is court packing without any pretense. Like our current politics, it would finally strip away any nuance or nicety. The court, like Congress, would become subject to raw and brutal politics at its very worst.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University and a member of USA TODAY’s Board of Contributors. Follow him on Twitter: @JonathanTurley

515 thoughts on “The Barrett Rule: How Democratic Members Are Creating A New and Dangerous Standard For Confirmations”

  1. Heard the Dumpster went to Crazy Town again tonight, too big a pussy to own the conspiracy nonsense he tweets, but insisting there might be something to them, then lying about Covid cures and masks.

    This is who some of you want 4 more years of? He’s done. Put a harpoon in him.

    1. Without hesitation, yes, four more years of Trump. Trump is a fighter. Biden is a snoozefest of lies and corruption. He hasn’t earned a single vote and he’s too dam old for the job.

      Joe Biden had an ice cream social tonight with former Clinton operative, George Stephanopolous, who didn’t ask one question about the major story in the headlines today about crackhead Hunter Biden raking in millions selling access to his father, the Vice President of the United States.

      Oh and Biden got to speak for 5 or 10 minutes without interruption or correction by Stephanopolous as Biden told lie after lie…and none of them were corrected or questioned.

      The Boilermakers Biden claims are overwhelmingly supporting him actually endorsed President Trump last month.

      Biden said he will “go back to being a professor” at the University of Pennsylvania when he loses and be “back teaching.” Biden never taught a single class at UPenn.

      And there were many other lies not pushed back on or corrected. Per usual. Biden’s entire campaign is based on lies. All of his ads are full of lies. Biden was a plagiarizer in law school, plagiarized his speeches, and now? He is still lying…once a liar always a liar….it is the very foundation of his campaign. Unbelievable he has yet to be called on it by the MSM.

      Make no mistake, Biden could not handle the kind of incoming Donald Trump takes daily from a hostile media. On the rare occasions Biden has been asked the tough questions, he absolutely loses it and calls voters names, tells them they are “dam liars” challenges them to fights or pushups, and he tells interviewers they don’t know what they are talking about and he loses control. Biden absolutely could not handle being pressed on literally anything. Why? Because he never has been. What a disgrace the media are. Absolute disgrace.

      And yes, 4 more years of Trump! Get out and VOTE!

  2. Turley on Biden’s latest town hall comment re Court-packing: “Biden said that he will give an answer before election day but ‘it depends how they will handle this.’ Again he says it is a legitimate question but again will not answer it now. He also said that there are a variety of options to change the Court.”

    It was Biden’s best strategy at this point – better than waiting until after the election, and better than folding or over-committing ahead of October 31.

    Biden did cite one of the most obvious problems with court-packing as he again affirmed that he is not exactly a fan. But strategically, he must have the result of FDR’s 1937 Judicial Procedures Reform Bill in mind. Can he influence the thinking of the Court? Earlier in the campaign season, Biden said he does not support SCOTUS term limits. Harris said she is open to them:

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/policy-2020/voting-changes/supreme-court-term-limits/

    1. Probably won’t happen, but the court should be expanded. With Barrett, it will have 5 of the justices appointed by presidents who voters specifically did not want in the WH and did not want making SC nominations. It will have one seat unconstitutionally stolen from a twice elected president. Those are facts and the court will be illegitimate, deserving neither the respect or confidence of Americans. Enough justices should be added to create a majority which reflects the will of voters who have voted for Democrats in every presidential election but one since 1992 (and that one loss was to an incumbent who shouldn’t have been in office). If the GOP doesn’t like, they can pound sand. They turned SC nominations into nothing but a political power play and should reap the consequences.

      1. Turley has been thinking about court expansion for a while (at least since 2007):

        https://jonathanturley.org/2020/09/25/democrats-introduce-unconstitutional-act-to-limit-the-tenure-of-supreme-court-justices/

        Dismembering a recent Democratic proposal that includes term limits alongside expansion, Turley writes: “Notably, such a bill would raise a severability problem for the courts. The term limits are clearly unconstitutional and the question would be whether the expansion provision could be preserved. The two provisions could be viewed as so closely related in the legislative scheme to require that the entire law be struck down….If Democrats want to reargue the anti-Federalist arguments against life tenure, they need to seek the amendment of the Constitution. While they can expand the Supreme Court without such an amendment, they cannot rewrite the Constitution to achieve this unworthy purpose of packing the Court.”

        The distinction between packing and reform hinges on the rate of expansion:

        https://jonathanturley.org/2020/09/25/destroying-the-court-to-save-it-democrats-wrongly-use-ginsburg-it-push-as-court-packing-scheme/

        So we are looking at how many justices under 4-8 years of a Biden win? And if Trump wins a second term?

        1. Jonathan, the simple math yields a minimum of 13 total.

          6 GOP appointees – the soon to be existing number, 3 existing Dem appointees, and 4 new Dem appointees. Whether one likes that number for other reasons or not, there is no other way to restore legitimacy to the court.

          Consider that if the GOP had not stolen the Garland seat, we would have had a liberal majority over the last 4 years and that would have reflected the will of American voters, even though there still would have been more GOP seats than our elections indicated they deserved.

    2. That’s great. When the big takeaway is her not remembering a clause in the constitution during this process, instead of her not respecting the constitution as a judge, then you know she is awesome.

      1. Sasse said redress or protest, but I don’t know how accurate or complete his words are. The actual word is petition, another word that may have had some nuances attached to it at the time. Any ideas?

        1. The DoI passionately describes the various efforts that were made for redress, protest and petition. Those words accurately describe the forms of the right that was denied by the King and parliament. Here is a good example:

          Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

          1. Olly the First Amendment reads ” to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” but Sasse used the word protest rather than petition. All would be considered part of the 1st amendment but why did he substitute protest for petition? Elsewhere he has tried to upstage others. It makes me wonder where his mind is at.

                1. Now Anonymous the Stupid is reading minds. Reading a mind is the closest he gets to one.

      2. You know that she cannot remember a basic fact that’s central to her job. It would be like a first grade teacher not being able to name all of the letters in the alphabet or a mathematician who cannot tell you what the fundamental theorem of calculus is.

        1. You know that she cannot remember a basic fact that’s central to her job.

          To believe that was consequential would be to assume she’ll sit on the court and hear oral arguments without preparation for the case before her. Nothing in her judicial record reflects that. If that’s your big takeaway from her testimony, then you weren’t listening.

          1. That’s my takeaway from a tiny sliver of her testimony.

            My bigger takeaways are that she regularly attempted to avoid answering questions she should have answered, that she was willing to be nominated and attend hearings despite knowing from the news that Trump believes her to be an important vote in his favor in an anticipated election case, and that she was willing to use her kids as props during the hearings, even though the content was distressing to them.

            1. I understand her unwillingness to opine on cases that will likely come before the court distresses you, but she’s not a politician interviewing for a seat in the legislative branch. Why wouldn’t she be willing to accept the nomination from President Trump, regardless of whatever reason the President believed she would rule in his favor on cases that come before the court? Her judicial history doesn’t reflect a bias towards anything other than the constitutionality of cases. And as far as her children are concerned, their mother was in a hearing for a position that would put her on SCOTUS. The hearing permits guests to attend and it was highly appropriate to have her supporting family in attendance. If the content was distressing, then look no further than those injecting that content.

          2. Olly, did you note how graceful Barrett was when she had a brain freeze? Very graceful and confident because she is absolutely brilliant.

            Did you note the pettiness behind the comment of Anonymous the Stupid? That is because he is dumb so he depends on simple gotcha’s and cut and paste where half the times he is pasting the wrong argument. He is worthless. He has to depend on pretend friends for approbation.

    1. I hope some brilliant hacker is ripping the guts out of the system. Leave ’em dead in their optical cables and computer systems.

      Twitter has made few friends and many enemies today.

      1. take a look at the live outage map. wow the twitter cancel mob in CA and NY must be very unhappy now LOLZ

        https://downdetector.hk/status/twitter/map/

        i still think the most likely reason is they choked on their new censorship routines. users may have overwhelmed the AI routines in the system like a DOS attack

      2. of course one wonders if perhaps some element of the “DEEP STATE” has finally entered the fray on Trump’s side of the equation.

        I guess we will know before too long

        it’s a good time to remind ourselves that the internet CAN be “switched off” to the public in a time of national emergency

        otherwise known as “continuity events”

        https://www.fema.gov/media-library-data/1520878493235-1b9685b2d01d811abfd23da960d45e4f/ContinuityGuidanceCircularMarch2018.pdf

        internet communications packets CAN be prioritized and government wires can still connect when the rest of us could be in the dark

        think about it, one day you may wake up and the lines are all down, for us at least.

  10. Gosh Twitter really sucks. They are blocking everybody who linked or commented on their NY Post censorship at all. They’re running AI routines that smash down trivial accounts which barely have any political content at all. This is incredible. Been going on since about 5 PM est on thursday October 15 2020 the day after twitter banned the NY Post article about the Bidens

    I guess it all must be true since they have to been thousands of accounts from mentioning it. Confirmed! Biden is in on his son’s graft and bribes is the obvious conclusion, so dangerous they have to censor the devil out of everyone

    SHORT TWITTER

      1. not triggered just excited. it’s always exciting when the S hits the Fan
        you never know what’s coming next, exciting times we live in

        Ask yourself who do you want at the helm when the ship enters the storm.

        A doddering old man, long past due for retirement from public service, with an angry harpy waiting in the wings?

        Or the hero of the people!

    1. Amazing that got through.

      There are so many absurd federal laws, there must be a few that could be used on people like Dorsey for interfering in a presidential election.

      1. I haven’t seen a NYT headline in my email box on this subject.

        I’m taping Trump’s NBC interview.

  13. Black Voices for Trump official says Biden is the “Grand Wizard of mass incarceration”

    The co-chairman of Black Voices for Trump told “Just the News AM” on Thursday that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is the “Grand Wizard” of mass incarceration and his record on African American issues is “atrocious.”…

    Shannon pointed out that the Crime Bill of 1994, supported by Biden as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, resulted in more African-Americans being arrested.

    “Joe Biden is the Grand Wizard of mass incarceration, there’s just no question about it,” he said, using a title associated with the white supremacist group the Ku Klux Klan.

    Shannon also said Biden once said people that look like him and Ice Cube are predators.

    “So yeah, there’s a lot of suspicion among African-Americans, as there probably should be,” he said.

    “https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/black-voices-trump-official-says-biden-grand-wizard-mass-incarceration”

    1. Black voters are the reason that Biden is the nominee, as they voted for him more than other primary candidates.

      1. The plantation folk preferred him but do they know him or do they vote based on the information available. Trump looks like he will get a higher percentage of their vote and soon the floodgates will be open and that democrat vote will disappear. The democrats know that and that is one reason for them to want to give illegals the right to vote.

        Anonymous, Biden has always been a racist. I used to grimace when he used the ‘n’ word on the Senate floor. You are a staunch supporter of the party of death and racism (democrats).

        1. The guy referring to Blacks as “plantation folk” calls someone else racist.

          1. The DNC is very worried that their plantation folk might leave the plantation so that suddenly the DNC has to pay more attention to what was once considered a solid block of voters.

            1. You’re continuing to call Black people “plantation folks,” underscoring your racism.

              1. That is what democrats have done since slavery ended. Slaves left the plantations and then after awhile the dems figured out a way to get them back on. That is the way you look at blacks. Racism, thy name is democrat and Anonymous the Stupid.

    2. Allan, Have you noticed we aren’t getting so much from the trolls today? Must be getting briefed on how to deal with the exploding Biden scandal. Yesterday CTHD was in full flower attacking the reports as fraudulent. As more has come out that denial option is much less tenable.

      Appalling how the Tech Monsters are squashing the story to try to control the election. There should be no doubt now that these guys need to be trimmed and broken up and, perhaps, jailed.

      They are all in for the fight now because they will have to deal with Trump if he wins and they won’t like that after pulling this outrageous stunt of censorship.

      1. Twitter is shadowbanning the hell out of users today. blocking and all kinds of AI managed mischief

            1. Gosh it’s a massive smackdown. They have stripped out a couple days worth of information and blocked posts and posting and you name it. Wow., The breadth of this is amazing. I have seen some complaints coming through which is amazing since this purge has many people blocked from posting at all.

              Unlike here i post almost nothing political on twitter but I may have reposted something about that story or perhaps made a comment or two about antitrust enforcement against them,

              Isnt that cute? Twitter will throttle back accounts which suggest they need some antitrust enforcement attention. Wow, what a fake operation it is. They are scum

                1. see from my other posts the outage is confirmed in other media and it “massive”

                  “cause unknown”

                  hmmmmmmmmmm

      2. Y’all have to be really obsessed with Committ to talk about her so much when she isn’t here. She certainly seems to have gotten under your skin.

        1. we had a nice chat last night about global warming but my questioning concerning the potential dire implications made her very unhappy with me

          1. Yes, it did make her unhappy, but if she would think awhile she would see that your points were entirely correct and inevitable. Maybe she did think and went into depression. The projected outcomes are depressing.

            1. they are depressing and I wonder why climate advocates can’t just spit that out. i am waiting to hear one say “gee i hope I am wrong about this”
              they seem to share no sense of doubt or skepticism in their own projections at all, even within the margins of error. it seems a heresy to even suggest that there may be margins of error

              and the implications are very, very dire if their predictions are correct

              I find it equally amazing that based on their own predictions, we already are into the chute for a massive failure. I mean if they believe what they say, why would they have countenanced their leadership in Congress wasting 4 years on inconsequential smear campaigns against the guy who could through compromise and negotiation, help address this “existential threat?”

              the only explanation is, perhaps, they do not believe their own contentions, or, the leadership does not; maybe both– or they do not appreciate the gravity of the consequences and difficulties if their contentions are correct. as a whole picture, the equation does not balance, it does not add up

              I find when you confront people who are emotionally invested in climate activism with this quandry, they tend to be very unhappy

              this is why they say “climate doomers are as bad as climate deniers”

              the problem is doomers take their contentions seriously. so the bottom line, is it a linguistic football to bat around in a political game, or is truly an existential threat?

              of course, the reality that it might be both, at the same time, may be hard to stomach

              1. perhaps this is the sort of thing that Carl Schmitt illuminated in his work, “The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy”

                published nearly a century ago, examines the dynamics of failure in parliamentary systems when confronted with imminent dangers at scale

                1. fascinating character. that paper explores the environmental impacts of large solar and wind developments. that’s just one dimension but worth considering. biodiversity impacts and their potential negative consequences are an interrelated subject and cant be ignored

                  his wiki talks about how he became a nuclear power advocate through his environmentalism. i think of Democratic party leadership was serious about cutting Co2 emissions then they would back the most obvious and feasible alternative. and yet so little has been done. in Obama’s term he proudly announced he had brought 2 new ones online — but in the same time the PRC deployed over 20 new ones into service

                  the two most dishonest aspects i find about renewables are that they require massive amounts of fossil fuel consumption to bring online, such as coal which is absolutely necessary to smelt steel, to use in wind turbines; or silver mining which is necessary for solar panels. then there are all the costs not only of fabrication but transportation, building, and maintenance, all of which is substantially powered by oil for the most part. that’s one

                  the second thing is that as you bring more online and the costs of power go down, paradoxically, demand for power goes up, which increases the rate of fossil fuel extraction and consumption. i think that’s called Green’s paradox and it’s related to the first thing but a little more comprehensive of a notion. I never get a straight answer when i try to discuss these things. it seems that I am considered a climate denier heretic every time I ask such questions even if I completely accept the usual premises of climate change.

                  thanks for that Maxson

      3. “Jailed”, perhaps more. In business I would have been on my way to court long before. One doesn’t always have to win in order to win. Personal jeopardy for the likes of Zuckerberg, Dorsey and a few others. There are those on the left that also agree these people have gone too far and become dangerous. All need to be exposed.

        There are loads of questions from campaign violations, lying to Congress, monopoly, infringement on rights, the laws that benefit their companies, threats of dismantling them, taxes, violations at personal homes, adding competition and a whole host of other things that go against some of my libertarian views. Make them uncomfortable. That almost always can create a situation where people are likely to decide certain things aren’t worth it. Then a peaceful and pleasant agreement can be made. Some of my worst battles started out with legal threats and 4 letter words. When they ended we went out to lunch.

        Our problem isn’t really with them rather it is with our legislators that do not care about the nation. Most of them have no compunction about making this nation for the elite and super rich. They are the one’s that provided these companies a roadmap to abuse Americans. They are on both sides of the aisle though most of the worst personal thievery is on the left at this point in time. As a society we are too fat and have too many things we are afraid to lose. That makes us weak and very vulnerable. (One other thing, our personal information is ours not to be sold, transferred or held hostage. The company’s rights end at the individual’s desire.)

    3. I’m pleased they’re voting for Trump, but anyone who uses the term ‘mass incarceration’ is not to be taken seriously.

  14. Lindsey Graham committed a crime in plain sight today, soliciting donations to his Senate campaign while in a Senate building.

    https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/607
    “It shall be unlawful for an individual who is an officer or employee of the Federal Government, including the President, Vice President, and Members of Congress, to solicit or receive a donation of money or other thing of value in connection with a Federal, State, or local election, while in any room or building occupied in the discharge of official duties by an officer or employee of the United States, from any person.”

    video –
    https://twitter.com/aidachavez/status/1316522193711296513

  15. Turley’s headline does not go far enough. Democrat politicians have inflicted needless harm on all of us. e.g. COVID.

    The case fatality rate (CFR) for COVID-19 is vastly smaller than the CFR that has been reported these past months from oft referenced COVID online databases. We now are seeing data based on antibody results indicating a far greater number of infected people: 6 to 24 times more infections. This means the number of deaths is 6 to 24 times less lethal. Americans have been tortured and imprisoned for the sake of instilling fear and government control.

    Seroprevalence of Antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 in 10 Sites in the United States, March 23-May 12, 2020

    Serum samples were tested from 16 025 persons, 8853 (55.2%) of whom were women; 1205 (7.5%) were 18 years or younger and 5845 (36.2%) were 65 years or older. Most specimens from each site had no evidence of antibodies to SARS-CoV-2. Adjusted estimates of the proportion of persons seroreactive to the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein antibodies ranged from 1.0% in the San Francisco Bay area (collected April 23-27) to 6.9% of persons in New York City (collected March 23-April 1). The estimated number of infections ranged from 6 to 24 times the number of reported cases; for 7 sites (Connecticut, Florida, Louisiana, Missouri, New York City metro area, Utah, and western Washington State), an estimated greater than 10 times more SARS-CoV-2 infections occurred than the number of reported cases…. Six to 24 times more infections were estimated per site with seroprevalence than with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) case report data.

    JAMA Internal Medicine, July 2020
    DOI 10.1001/jamainternmed.2020.4130

    1. Covid is a way to make people afraid and less independent so they fall prey to dictators like Castro.

      Trump has certain personality traits that many find unacceptable but he has no desire to be a dictator. The left, some on the right and many of the elite do.

      1. I had a telephone conversation recently with a cousin, a retired chemist with various patents. She is older and consequently has a fresher memory of life under Fidel Castro than me. She is terrified for Americans. I am too

        1. I am reminded of people like Castro every day. My spouse risked a firing squad and mine fields to get here. I am familiar with death.

    2. Tests weren’t readily available to most people between March 23 and May 12, 2020, which is the period covered by the study.

      You seem to be assuming that “Six to 24 times more infections” than positive tests prior to May 13 implies “Six to 24 times more infections” than positive tests total, which of course it does not.

      You say “The case fatality rate (CFR) for COVID-19 is vastly smaller than the CFR that has been reported these past months,” but the authors do not conclude that, and if you look at subsequent publications that cited your article, they don’t conclude that either. You provide no evidence for your claim.

      Additionally, the CFR is not the only concern. Mayo Clinic: “COVID-19 symptoms can sometimes persist for months. The virus can damage the lungs, heart and brain, which increases the risk of long-term health problems. … Organ damage caused by COVID-19 … Blood clots and blood vessel problems … Problems with mood and fatigue … Many long-term COVID-19 effects still unknown …”
      https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/in-depth/coronavirus-long-term-effects/art-20490351

  16. Naturally, JT REFUSES to cover the most important story and legal issues facing the nation this week and, instead, focuses on the feckless commentaries of the Democrat political hacks of the SCOTUS hearings. Why? Simple. Because the story and the legal issues involved expose the corporate/political corruption of the Biden/media presstitute alliance and their ACTUAL interference with the presidential election, as opposed to their invented Russian “interference” hoax.

  17. Pingback: The Barrett Rule: How Democratic Members Are Creating A New And Dangerous Standard For Confirmations ⋆

    1. Another spoiled child that is angry with a parent (among other things) so she takes it out on the nation.

      This non-attack seems to be the best Anonymous and his pretend friends have to offer.

      1. His divorce from their mother was pretty gruesome. Both children were estranged from him for a while. Andrew Gieuliani has worked in the Trump White House, so the siblings do not see eye to eye.

        Still, no one was waiting with baited breath to hear what Rudy’s spinster daughter has to say about squat. No one’s been waiting to hear from George Conway or his horrid daughter. The Democratic Party is a collecting pool of those who fancy trashing your relatives in public is totes OK.

        1. No one is waiting with bated breath to hear what you have to say either. George Conway is a Republican. Nice to know that you trash 15 year olds you disagree with.

  20. Republican Sen. Ben Sasse, in a private call with constituents, excoriated President Trump, saying he had mishandled the coronavirus response, “kisses dictators’ butts,” “sells out our allies,” spends “like a drunken sailor,” mistreats women, and trash-talks evangelicals behind their backs.
    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/campaigns/exclusive-gop-sen-sasse-says-trump-kisses-dictators-butts-mocks-evangelicals

    If Republicans had balls (or ovaries, as the case may be), they’d all be saying it in public.

    Sasse –

    “But the reality is that he careened from curb to curb. First, he ignored COVID. And then he went into full economic shutdown mode. He was the one who said 10 to 14 days of shutdown would fix this. And that was always wrong. I mean, and so I don’t think the way he’s lead through COVID has been reasonable or responsible, or right.”

    “The way he kisses dictators’ butts. I mean, the way he ignores the Uighurs, our literal concentration camps in Xinjiang. Right now, he hasn’t lifted a finger on behalf of the Hong-Kongers.” “The United States now regularly sells out our allies under his leadership, the way he treats women, spends like a drunken sailor. The ways I criticize President Obama for that kind of spending; I’ve criticized President Trump for as well. He mocks evangelicals behind closed doors. His family has treated the presidency like a business opportunity. He’s flirted with white supremacists.”

    Sasse fretted that Trump and his “stupid political obsessions” could drive the country further to the Left. “If young people become permanent Democrats because they’ve just been repulsed by the obsessive nature of our politics, or if women who were willing to still vote with the Republican Party in 2016 decide that they need to turn away from this party permanently in the future,” Sasse said. “I’ve spent lots of the of the last year on a campaign bus, and when you listen to Nebraskans, they don’t really want more rage tweeting as a new form of entertainment,” he said. “I think the overwhelming reason that President Trump won in 2016 was simply because Hillary Clinton was literally the most unpopular candidate in the history of polling.”

    2. I deplore the treatment of the Uighurs and Hong Kongers. Nonetheless, that is within the sovereign ambit of the PRC. Let me flesh that out:

      As an internal domestic matter, the SU lacks any legal control over domestic matters in the PRC. Hong Kong like it or not, was and is part of the PRC
      the PRC, as the most populous country in the world which is also by the way the second largest economy and also nuclear armed, has the power to enforce its sovereignty.

      So.
      What does Mr Sasse expect Trump to do- other than seeks sanctions and continue the trade conflict and press them with naval exercises– all of which he’s done.

      Does Mr Sasse think the US should invade the PRC? Because there’s not much else Trump could do. That would be awful and uncalled for now. Insane!

      Sasse is a fool and a dangerous one. The disgraceful sort of Republican that disgusted so many of us who had stopped supporting the GOP before Trump. A war pig

      1. Right, Trump couldn’t express verbal support for the protesters in Hong Kong. That would clearly be off bounds.

    3. Joke Biden polls at 99%.

      What the —- are you communists (liberals, progressives, socialists, democrats, RINOs) so worried about?

      Don’t worry. Be Happy.

      Xi Jinping will soon be YOUR official General Secretary and Dear Leader and there are no actual Americans willing to defend their country.

      You go, girl!

      Enjoy.

        1. President Trump will kick — and take names.

          Kama-lie Harris will kiss — and take bribes

          while Joke Biden is being administered his meds in the assisted-living facility.

        2. ” incel”:

          Anonymous recently learned of the word incel when someone told him what he was. Now he is using it again and again perhaps looking for others similarly inclined.

            1. I’m happily married so it depends on what you mean by “not getting any”. With your vivid imagination you are probably getting it most of the day, with a pretend friend of course.

    4. Too little, too late Sasse. You knew he was a snake when you brought him in.

      You’ll get your head shaven with the rest of the collaborators.

    5. Imagine if we acted in the fashion Sasse was speaking of. We could be at war and never get anything done. That is why Sasse will never be President.

    6. Steve, have you ever once gone to the CDC website?

      https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm

      “Comorbidities

      “For 6% of the deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned. For deaths with conditions or causes in addition to COVID-19, on average, there were 2.6 additional conditions or causes per death.”

      I realize you’re just another member of the Covidian Cult with severe TDS/PTS. But you should actually look at the actual scientific data once in a while in the outside chance that it might make you “woke”.

      Here are some more wokey like facts courtesy of the WHO:

      “WHO (Accidentally) Confirms Covid is No More Dangerous Than Flu”

      https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm

      “The global population is roughly 7.8 billion people, if 10% have been infected that is 780 million cases. The global death toll currently attributed to Sars-Cov-2 infections is 1,061,539.

      That’s an infection fatality rate of roughly or 0.14%. Right in line with seasonal flu and the predictions of many experts from all around the world.

      0.14% is over 24 times LOWER than the WHO’s “provisional figure” of 3.4% back in March. This figure was used in the models which were used to justify lockdowns and other draconian policies.

      In fact, given the over-reporting of alleged Covid deaths, the IFR is likely even lower than 0.14%, and could show Covid to be much less dangerous than flu.”

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