Trump set to cash in with D.C. 'victory party'

TOP STORIES

‌

Wednesday, October 14

‌

BARRETT SILENT ON HEALTH CARE, ABORTION During her second day of confirmation hearings, Judge Amy Coney Barrett wouldn’t tell the Senate Judiciary Committee if she thought Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided. She wouldn’t say if she agreed with the late Justice Antonin Scalia in his legal opinion against marriage equality. She refused to recuse herself from election-related disputes, and wouldn’t say if she thinks Trump can unilaterally delay the election. “I can’t pre-commit,” she said about Roe v. Wade. As for how she’d rule on potential election-related disputes, she said, “If I give off-the-cuff answers, I would basically be a legal pundit.” She said she has no "firm views" on climate change. [HuffPost]

‌

DOZENS OF BARRETT'S COLLEAGUES CALL FOR HALT TO NOMINATION Eighty-eight faculty members at the University of Notre Dame, where Barrett is a law school professor, said she should call for a halt to her Supreme Court nomination until after the election. Barrett’s colleagues congratulated her on her nomination, adding: “It is vital that you issue a public statement calling for a halt to your nomination process until after the November presidential election.” The signatories hailed from the university’s political science, sociology, history and other departments — none from the law school. [HuffPost]

‌

SCOTUS ALLOWS TRUMP TO HALT CENSUS COUNT EARLY The Supreme Court allowed President Donald Trump’s administration to wind down population counting for the 2020 U.S. census earlier than originally planned in a blow to civil rights groups concerned about an undercount particularly of racial minorities. The justices put on hold a lower court ruling that had ordered that the decennial population count be continued until Oct. 31. The census count’s accuracy is critical, as it determines how the U.S. House of Representatives and state legislatures draw voting districts during the next round of redistricting and guides the federal government in allocating $1.5 trillion a year in aid. [Reuters]

Get the latest coronavirus updates on our dedicated page

Join our reporters and editors for live Q&As as we break down the 2020 presidential debates together.

PELOSI'S DILEMMA: TIME IS RUNNING OUT ON A STIMULUS DEAL House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the White House are at a crucial juncture. At this point, Pelosi and the White House could reach a package of around $2 trillion that includes $400 a week in extra unemployment benefits, another round of stimulus checks for the majority of Americans, and hundreds of billions of dollars in state and local aid. Pelosi could hold out for a bigger deal around or after Election Day, potentially even waiting for a Democratic majority to take over the Senate and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden to take over the White House. But if Democrats don’t gain the Senate, Republicans could block stimulus and doom a Biden administration to a double-dip recession. [HuffPost]

‌

SCOTUS ENDS ANTI-CORRUPTION LAWSUIT AGAINST TRUMP The Supreme Court put an end to a lawsuit brought by congressional Democrats that accused Trump of violating anti-corruption provisions in the U.S. Constitution with his business dealings. The justices refused to hear an appeal by 215 Senate and House of Representatives Democrats of a lower court ruling that found that the lawmakers lacked the necessary legal standing to bring the case that focused on the Republican president’s ownership of the Trump International Hotel in Washington. [HuffPost]

‌

PROBE INTO 'UNMASKING' CONSPIRACY ENDS WITH NO WRONGDOING FOUND A federal investigation meant to target Obama administration officials for “unmasking” the names of individuals in classified intelligence reports ended without finding any wrongdoing that the Trump administration could use as political ammunition. Attorney General William Barr appointed Texas U.S. Attorney John Bash in May to look into the unmasking requests from late 2016 and early 2017, which involved intercepted conversations between Michael Flynn — Trump’s former national security adviser — and Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. during the 2016 election. [HuffPost]

WHAT'S BREWING

‌

TRUMP PLANS TO CASH IN WITH 'VICTORY PARTY' IN D.C. Trump appears to be planning his election night “victory” party not in his new home state of Florida, but in Washington ― providing him possibly his final opportunity to cash in on his presidency. While Trump votes by mail using his resort in Palm Beach as a mailing address, Mar-a-Lago has only a small number of guest rooms. In contrast, his hotel a few blocks from the White House has 263 rooms that during peak periods cost more than $1,000 to several thousand dollars per night to occupy. Those rates could put hundreds of thousands of extra dollars from supporters into Trump’s own pocket. [HuffPost]

‌

ACB DRAGGED FOR CLAIMING SHE 'NEVER' DISCRIMINATES ON SEXUAL PREFERENCE Amy Coney Barrett claimed during her confirmation hearing that she has “never” discriminated based on “sexual preference,” prompting backlash from LGBTQ advocates who denounced her statement as offensive and inaccurate. Barrett stated during her nomination ceremony last month that she has adopted the “judicial philosophy” of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, a conservative judge who delivered the dissenting opinion in the 2015 landmark decision requiring states to grant and recognize same-sex marriages. [HuffPost]

‌

SOLAR SET TO DETHRONE COAL The Paris-based International Energy Agency said renewables would make up 80% of new power generation by 2030, overtaking the fossil fuels that presently dominate electricity production. Installing solar photovoltaics is “consistently cheaper” than building coal or natural gas plants in most countries, and solar projects “now offer some of the lowest cost electricity ever seen,” the IEA’s researchers said in their decade-long outlook for the 2020s. The organization expects solar energy to eclipse coal as the top source of electricity in the next five years, with wind energy following close behind. [HuffPost]

‌

GIULIANI SAYS 'PEOPLE DON'T DIE' OF COVID-19 ANYMORE Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal attorney, falsely claimed that “people don’t die of [COVID-19] anymore” while standing in a cramped room of Trump supporters in Philadelphia. The former New York mayor was attending a Columbus Day gathering of Italian Americans for Trump and speaking without wearing a mask when he uttered the ridiculous lie. “Young people don’t die at all," he said. "Middle-aged people die very little. And even elderly people have a 1% chance of dying.” [HuffPost]

‌

FEDERAL COURT STRIKES DOWN ANTI-ABORTION MOVE IN TEXAS In a win for abortion rights groups, a federal appeals court has struck down a Texas law that had banned an abortion procedure that is commonly used after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit decided to lift the state’s ban on dilation and evacuation (D&E), a standard method of abortion in the second trimester of pregnancy. The Center for Reproductive Rights filed a lawsuit in 2017 challenging the ban on behalf of Whole Woman’s Health in partnership with Planned Parenthood. [HuffPost]

‌

HALF OF CORALS ON GREAT BARRIER REEF HAVE DIED SINCE '90s Half of the corals on Australia’s iconic Great Barrier Reef have died since the 1990s, according to a troubling new study that analyzed just how devastating years of catastrophic mass bleaching have been for one of the planet's most biodiverse structures. The paper found dramatic losses of corals large and small, of nearly every major species, from branching colonies of pale yellow staghorn to massive protrusions that look like underwater tables. [HuffPost]

BEFORE YOU GO