Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe and FBI Director Christopher Wray announced on Wednesday in a last-minute press briefing that both Iran and Russia have obtained voter registration information and have "taken specific actions to influence public opinion."

In particular, Ratcliffe said that Iran has been found to have sent "spoofed emails designed to intimidate voters, incite social unrest, and damage President Trump." He seemed to be referring to an incident described in a Washington Post story published right before the conference, which said the U.S. has concluded that Iran had sent emails pretending to be from the right-wing group the Proud Boys to Democratic voters.

The Post explained:

The messages appeared to target Democrats using data from digital databases known as "voter files," some of which are commercially available. They told recipients the Proud Boys were "in possession of all your information" and instructed voters to change their party registration and cast their ballots for Trump.

It's not exactly clear the intent behind the emails. Ratcliffe, a partisan Republican put in place by President Donald Trump because he wanted a crony leading the intelligence community, seemed to give contradicting explanations. If the emails were intended to intimidate Democratic voters out of voting, that would presumably help Trump. But if the emails were meant as a false flag, designed to make Trump supporters look dangerous, then that would "damage President Trump," as Ratcliffe said. It's hard to see how Iran could have intended both outcomes. It's troubling that his explanation was this unclear, especially since he doesn't have a reputation for independence and credibility. (Ratcliffe and Wray took no questions at the briefing, refusing to give the press any opportunity to clarify their remarks.)

The other aim, though, seems quite plausible — the emails were designed to sow doubt, fear, and confusion about the election and its security. When Wray spoke, he encouraged viewers to trust in the American election system.

"You should be confident that your vote counts," Wray said. "Early, unverified claims to the contrary should be viewed with a healthy dose of skepticism. We encourage everyone to seek election and voting information from reliable sources, namely, your state election officials. And to be thoughtful, careful, and discerning consumers of information online."

He added: "We are not going to tolerate foreign interference in our elections or any criminal activity that threatens the sanctity of your vote or undermines public confidence in the outcome of the election."

Neither Wray nor Ratcliffe mentioned any details about how Russia is interfering in the election or what it might use voter registration data for. It's not clear whether that's because the FBI doesn't have any details about Russian interference or if it is simply unwilling to share them for whatever reason. This, too, is concerning, because the despite Ratcliffe's claim that foreign election interference isn't a "partisan" issue, Trump himself has repeatedly tried to cover up Russia's intervention in 2016 on his behalf. There's no way to be confident that isn't happening now.

But there was another even more glaring omission in the pair's comments. Neither mentioned the fact that Trump — not Russia, Iran, or anyone else — is by far the greatest threat to the credibility of the election. He has been fueling bogus conspiracy theories that the election is going to be "rigged" for months, and he has called mail-in ballots a "hoax." So there was something ridiculous about the press conference emphasizing the threat of foreign election interference, especially as Ratcliffe name-checked the president as authorizing the intelligence community's efforts to protect American democracy.

"The president has instructed me to keep the country informed as appropriate," Ratcliffe said. "We will not tolerate foreign interference in our elections."

Wray's remarks about "early, unverified" claims that votes won't count, and that state election officials are the most reliable sources of information about the process, could be read as an implicit rebuke to the president. Trump has repeatedly contradicted local election officials in trying to spread doubt about the integrity of the vote.

And in urging Americans to be "thoughtful, careful, and discerning consumers of information online," Wray was, essentially, telling them to be the opposite of Trump, who has spread absolutely ridiculous conspiracy theories on Twitter recently. When asked to defend himself at an NBC News town hall, he said simply: "l put it out there, people can decide for themselves."

James Dale Reed is under arrest after leaving a handwritten and graphic note at a Fredrick, Maryland home that threatens to kidnap and kill Democratic presidential and vice presidential nominees Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. The house has Biden/Harris signs on its lawn.

The suspect's image was caught by a video doorbell camera.

"This is a warning to anyone reading this letter if you are a Biden/Harris supporter you will be targeted," the letter states, according to WUSA9 News.

The threats in the letter (image below) are graphic.

(Trigger warning:)

"When We capture Grandpa Biden We will all severely beat him to the point of death as for Mrs. Harris she will be bent over and Anally raped by my rifle barrel," it reads.

It also threatens Biden and Harris "both will be executed on National Television [sic]."

"We have a list of homes and addresses by your election signs," the letter claims.

"We are the ones with the scary guns, we are the ones your children have nightmares about."

"We will not let Biden/Harris turn are [sic] country into a Communist wasteland," it also says.

"If Biden/Harris Want A War [sic] then they will get one, of course that means Black lives matter and Antifa."

Brad Bell, Maryland Bureau Chief for ABC 7 News, posted a photo of Reed and an image of the letter:

Arguing that Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos had undermined the agreement, a federal judge on Tuesday denied approval for a class action settlement over the Trump administration's handling of a student debt forgiveness program.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup said DeVos had subverted the agreement by rejecting tens of thousands of applications from defrauded students without adequate explanation, Politico first reported.

Alsup, a Bill Clinton appointee, threatened to block DeVos from denying any additional applications, calling the denial notices "potentially unlawful" and the process faced by borrowers "disturbingly Kafkaesque."

The May settlement required DeVos to speed up the processing of about 160,000 backlogged applications, some of which had been pending for years. DeVos has thus far denied 94% of applications, approving just 4,400 claims while denying 74,000 others, according to Alsup. The department told borrowers they could appeal the decision but did not say why it had denied the applications, the judge said.

"All may not be entitled to relief, but all are entitled to a comprehensible answer," Alsup wrote. "For 18 months, the secretary refused, largely on the grounds that such answers required backbreaking effort and, thus, substantial time. Now, the secretary has begun issuing decisions at breakneck speed. But most are a perfunctory 'insufficient evidence' — without explanation."

Alsup also said he would consider requiring DeVos to be deposed in a probe of the administration's handling of the claims and authorized depositions for up to five Education Department officials.

The judge granted preliminary approval for the settlement in May, requiring the department to process the backlogged claims within 18 months. As the department began processing the applications, hundreds of students objected to the settlement. About 650 people attended a virtual hearing to raise concerns about the settlement earlier this month.

"Students came together to speak up for themselves and show the court the massive scope of the trauma they have endured at the hands of the Department of Education, and the courts are listening," Eileen Connor, the legal director at Harvard Law School's Project on Predatory Student Lending, which represents the students, told Politico. "We look forward to the next stage of litigation in which we depose Department of Education officials to explain their actions under oath."

Alsup noted in his ruling that the Obama administration had approved more than 99% of "borrower defense" claims, which allow students to seek debt relief if they were defrauded by for-profit colleges. Under DeVos, the department has rejected 89.9% of applications.

The Department of Education said it is "studying the ruling."

"It's important to understand that no claim is 'denied.' Many are simply ineligible, because the claimant wasn't enrolled in an eligible program at an eligible date," department spokeswoman Angela Morabito told The Hill. "Others claims don't demonstrate financial harm. Just because a claim was filed does not make it valid and eligible for taxpayer-funded relief. The department is following the publicly available process for resolving claims as quickly as possible, so those students who are eligible and were harmed get the relief they deserve."

DeVos revised rules related to the borrower defense program in 2019, prompting some Republicans to join Democrats to pass a bill blocking the policy.

"These for-profit colleges are the coronavirus of higher education," Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said at the time, adding that DeVos' rules made it "extremely difficult, if not impossible, for students to find relief."

But President Donald Trump vetoed the bill and allowed DeVos to implement the new rules in July.

Rep. Susie Lee, D-Nev., the lead sponsor of the bill, said Trump's veto "sent a message to the American people that he cares more about enriching predatory schools than protecting defrauded students and veterans."

DeVos has repeatedly run afoul of the courts in the borrower defense litigation. Last year, a judge held the education secretary in contempt for violating a court order by trying to collect debt payments from thousands of students defrauded by for-profit colleges.

"At best, it is gross negligence," U.S. Magistrate Jude Sallie Kim said at the time. "At worst, it's an intentional flouting of my order."

Arne Duncan, who served as the secretary of education under former President Barack Obama, said DeVos "consistently chooses the powerful over the vulnerable."

"Luckily, she is not very good at it," he added, "and very consistently loses in court."

A bombshell Columbia University study finds President Donald Trump is responsible for the coronavirus deaths of 130,000 to 210,000 Americans.

"We believe that this was a monumental, lethal screwup by an administration that didn't want to deal with reality," Dr. Irwin Redlener, the lead author on the study and the founding director at Columbia's National Center for Disaster Preparedness told The Daily Beast.

The study calls Trump's response to the pandemic an "abject failure," citing "the staggering and disproportionate nature of COVID-19 fatalities in the United States."

"The inability of the U.S. to mitigate the pandemic is especially stark when contrasted with the response of high-income nations, such as South Korea, Japan, Australia, Germany, France, and Canada, as well as low- and middle-income countries as varied as Thailand, Pakistan, Honduras, and Malaysia. All of these nations have had greater success in protecting their populations from the impact of the coronavirus," researchers say in the report published Wednesday.

They note the U.S. per capita death rate is "more than fifty times that of Japan."

"If the U.S. had followed Canadian policies and protocols, there might have only been 85,192 U.S. deaths—making more than 132,500 American deaths 'avoidable.' If the U.S. response had mirrored that of Germany, the U.S. may have only had 38,457 deaths—leaving 179,260 avoidable deaths," according to the study.

The researchers say "Politicization, leadership vacuum, and the failure of top officials to model best practices" especially mask-wearing, have contributed to the disproportionately high U.S. death rate.

The report concludes the "two major deficiencies" of "inadequate testing and insufficient contact tracing, have blunted the United States' capacity to stop the exponential spread of COVID-19."

"According to Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response Robert Kadlec at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), thousands of lives could have been saved if the White House had approved the distribution of over six million masks that were prepared for delivery in late February," the report notes.

Dr. Redlener does not mince words.

"Americans have a bad case of pandemic fatigue. We want to get back to some semblance of normalcy, but we never did what we had to do to achieve that state," Redlener told The Beast. "We've delayed the return of normalcy and fallen into this web of dishonesty and opposing science that was concocted by the president."

Redlener adds, "this incredibly anti-science administration has caused an enormous tragedy in America."

Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani was reportedly tricked by comedian Sasha Baron Cohen into having an "indiscreet encounter" with a young actress who was playing as a far-right journalist in his new "Borat" movie.

The Guardian, which has seen footage from Cohen's upcoming movie, reports that "the former New York mayor and current personal attorney to Donald Trump is seen reaching into his trousers and apparently touching his genitals while reclining on a bed in the presence of the actor playing Borat's daughter."

The actress in question, 24-year-old Bulgarian native Maria Bakalova, posted as a right-wing journalist interested in interviewing Giuliani to ask him about his work for President Donald Trump.

According to The Guardian, Bakalova after the interview asks Giuliani to come to her hotel room for a drink.

Little does the New York mayor know, however, that Bakalova's room has been rigged with cameras — and as soon as Giuliani starts apparently playing with himself, Cohen's character bursts into the room and tells him that she's only 15 years old and thus "too old for you."

The Trump administration is considering designating several preeminent international human rights groups "anti-Semitic" in response to their criticism of Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people, according to a report published Wednesday.

Politico reports the State Department could as early as this week declare groups including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Oxfam to be anti-Semitic organizations and urge world governments to stop supporting them.

A congressional aide told Politico that the move is backed by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who reportedly has presidential aspirations and is burnishing his Zionist credentials while serving in what is arguably the most pro-Israel administration ever.

The proposal is highly controversial, however, and has raised eyebrows and ire among career State Department officials including attorneys who argue the potential designation poses serious free speech concerns.

The declaration would likely take the form of a report from Elan Carr, the U.S. special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism. It would likely cite the groups' criticism of Israeli policies and actions, as well as their actual or perceived support for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS), the peaceful global protest movement for Palestinian rights that is backed by prominent Jewish peace groups. None of the targeted organizations officially support BDS.

Carr's report is expected to cite posts, reports, and media statements by the rights groups criticizing Israel's ongoing illegal occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights, as well as the exclusively Jewish settler colonization of Palestinian territory, which is also illegal under international law. Both the occupation and settlements have been the subject of dozens of United Nations resolutions, most of them condemning Israel's actions.

Settlement building and expansion have also been called a form of ethnic cleansing and apartheid by international observers, icluding over 400 Jewish scholars and the former U.N. human rights official Richard Falk—who is also Jewish.

It is unclear what, if any, impact the proposed anti-Semitic designation would have on the rights groups. None of the three named groups receive any funding from the U.S. government. All three categorically deny accusations of anti-Semitism.

"AIUSA is deeply committed to fighting anti-Semitism and all forms of hate worldwide, and will continue to protect people wherever justice, freedom, truth, and dignity are denied," Amnesty International USA iterim director Bob Goodfellow said in a statement. "We vigorously contest any allegation of anti-Semitism, and look forward to addressing the State Department's attacks in full."

Eric Goldstein, an official with HRW, said in a statement that his organization "fight[s] discrimination in all forms, including anti-Semitism."

"Criticizing government policy is not the same as attacking a specific group of people," added Goldstein. "For example, our critiques of U.S. government policy do not make us anti-American."

Republican supporters of Judge Amy Coney Barrett have been citing her Catholicism as one of the reasons why the U.S. Senate should confirm her nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court as soon as possible. But Barrett is by no means universally loved among Catholics. And the National Catholic Reporter has slammed Barrett this week in a blistering staff editorial, asking the U.S. Senate to "reject" her nomination.

In the editorial, the Reporter's editorial board argues, "We believed it was wrong for the Senate to consider this nomination in the first place given the precedent set four years ago when Justice Antonin Scalia died in February (2016), nine months before the election. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to even hold hearings on the nomination of Judge Merrick Garland, saying repeatedly that the American people should have a say in the matter. This year, when the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg created a vacancy less than nine weeks before Election Day, McConnell has seen fit to ram through the nomination."

The editorial complains that "hypocrisy is rank" with the nomination and that it is impossible to see how "rushing this nomination will be good for our democracy."

Although the National Catholic Reporter says that Barrett isn't responsible for McConnell's actions, she has let herself be used as a "vehicle for his agenda and that of President Donald Trump."

The Reporter stresses, "She could have phoned the White House and asked not to be considered for the nomination. Barrett is only 48 years old, and there will be other vacancies."

The publication also takes Barrett to task for being so evasive when answering questions from Sen. Amy Klobuchar and others during her confirmation hearings.

"It is her bad faith in discussing the law that warrants disqualifying her," the editorial stresses. "About the evils of climate change, access to health care and voter intimidation, Americans deserve better than a relativist dressed in originalist drag."

When Donald Trump first announced, in 2015, that he was seeking the Republican presidential nomination, no one in the GOP gave much thought to his son, Donald Trump, Jr. But the younger Trump has since become a prominent figure in the Trumpian version of the Republican Party. Journalist David Smith discusses the rise of Trump, Jr. in an article published in The Guardian this week, explaining why he has become so popular with a certain type of Republican voter — even though some conservatives view him as a glaring example of the GOP's intellectual decline.

Combative, snarky, belligerent and mean-spirited, Trump, Jr. has a lot more in common with his father than he does with his sister, White House Senior Adviser Ivanka Trump — who fancies herself as more of a conservative intellectual even though her critics view her as low-information. Ivanka Trump at least pretends to have a thoughtful tone when she is giving a speech or writing a Twitter post, whereas Trump, Jr. openly disdains intellectuals. And even though Trump, Jr. is a millionaire, MAGA voters with a fraction of his income adore his anti-elitist schtick.

"When Don Jr. and his father bash Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and (former Vice President Joe) Biden at campaign rallies, they generate louder reactions from the crowd than when they set out agenda items or achievements," Smith explains. "Don Jr.'s Twitter feed offers his 5.8 million followers little by way of policy but a torrent of Democrat-baiting and conspiracy theories."

Trump, Jr., Smith stresses, is "adept at throwing red meat to" his father's MAGA base, and Trumpians eat it up when he is giving a speech at a rally.

But Trump, Jr., now 42, has his share of critics on the right, including conservative activist/author Rick Wilson — a former Republican Party strategist who is supporting former Vice President Joe Biden in this year's presidential election and was a co-founder of The Lincoln Project, a right-wing anti-Trump group. Interviewed by The Guardian, Wilson slammed Trump, Jr. as a perfect example of the modern-day GOP's intellectual bankruptcy but stressed that he knows how to rally his father's base because he "speaks fluent MAGA."

The 56-year-old Wilson explained, "Trumpism replaced conservatism as the ideological underpinning of the Republican Party, and because of that, they don't really fight about issues anymore. They fight about effect and whether or not they're winning these ephemeral social media battles — and in that world, the highest order goal is the 'owning of the libs.' It is a throwaway phrase substituting the validity or strength of an argument with a sort of self-satisfaction that you have been transgressive in some way towards liberals or progressives."

The Never Trumper continued, "Donald Trump, Jr. is a master of that. He is a post-Republican Republican. He is there only to engage in that performative dickery that is lib-owning in the Trump world. It is a political performance art to show your contempt for norms, institutions and education."

But even though Wilson has a very low opinion of the president's son, he predicts that Trump, Jr. will run for president in 2024 and believes that the GOP has sunk low enough to give him the nomination.

by Lynne Anderson, The Conversation

The Affordable Care Act has seen dozens of legal challenges, but it could now be at its most vulnerable, many health policy scholars and advocates believe. And this is after a Republican-dominated Senate couldn't kill it, Republican governors who refused to expand Medicaid couldn't end it, and two prior U.S. Supreme Court rulings kept it alive.

The law is up for another challenge Nov. 10, 2020, once again before the U.S. Supreme Court. The issue is whether the elimination of a tax penalty for failing to have health insurance now makes the entire law unconstitutional. It involves a legal issue called severability, and it's anyone's guess about how the court will decide. But Republicans have high hopes that the court will strike down the law. One of President Trump's campaign promises in 2016 was to “repeal and replace the disaster of Obamacare."

The makeup of the court that day will be different from the court that originally agreed on March 2, 2020 to hear the case. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on Sept. 18, 2020, leaving the Supreme Court with eight justices. Republicans in Congress – most of whom vehemently oppose the law – are aiming to confirm a justice in record time to replace her. Ginsburg consistently voted in favor of the ACA. Given Republican challenges to the law over 10 years, health care advocates and Democrats are concerned.

That is not only because of the speed with which Republicans are moving to seat a new justice. Health policy experts and those who back the law are concerned that the nominee, Judge Amy Coney Barrett, may not back the law. After Chief Justice John Roberts wrote a majority opinion in the 5-4 decision in 2012 upholding the ACA, Barrett wrote in a legal journal that Roberts had “pushed the Affordable Care Act beyond its plausible meaning to save the statute." On Oct. 13, Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin asked Barrett in congressional hearings about her views on the ACA. She replied by saying, in part, that “I am not hostile to the ACA."

Judge Amy Coney Barrett testifying before Congress.

The current case is called California v. Texas.

We hope these articles from our archive will help you understand the complicated developments.

1. The case that led to Nov. 10

This latest challenge began when Republican attorneys general or governors of 20 states, led by Texas, challenged the legality of the ACA in 2018 based on the 2017 tax law. (That first case was Texas v. U.S.) In December 2018, a Texas judge ruled in favor of the Republican challenge. A previous landmark case in 2012 had ruled that the penalty for not having insurance was basically a tax. And because the 2017 tax law zeroed out that penalty, the judge ruled, the entire ACA was unconstitutional.

Simon Haeder and Valarie Blake explained in this article:

(Judge Reed) O'Connor suggested that people will feel nonetheless beholden to follow the law even without the penalty…Next, O'Connor held that the individual mandate is unconstitutional. In NFIB v. Sebelius, the Supreme Court upheld the individual mandate as a tax. With Congress reducing the individual mandate penalty to zero in the 2017 tax bill, the plaintiffs in the Texas case argue it no longer functions as such.

2. The second ruling

Democratic leaders and many others were stunned. In response to O'Connor's ruling, states led by Democratic governors and attorneys general jumped in and appealed the Texas ruling. A year later, in December 2019, a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit essentially split the issue raised in O'Connor's ruling in two. The matter remained unsettled and seemed destined for the U.S. Supreme Court.

Haeder explains in this article:

The Fifth Circuit Appeals Court on Dec. 18, 2019 agreed with regard to the unconstitutionality of the individual mandate. The judges punted, however, on the crucial question of severability by tasking the original judge to reexamine what parts of the ACA should fall with it.
While the verdict left the ACA standing for now, it added potentially years of uncertainty. An ultimate showdown at the U.S. Supreme Court appears inevitable.

On March 2, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to review the case. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died Sept. 18, 2020. On Sept. 24, 2020, President Trump issued an executive order that aims to replace parts of the ACA, should the Supreme Court strike down the law. On Sept. 26, President Trump announced his intention to nominate Amy Coney Barrett, who has served as an appeals court judge for three years, to fill Ginsburg's seat.

3. The recent executive order

Trump has been steadfast in his resistance to the ACA, which, among other things, includes protections for people with preexisting conditions. This is a very popular component of the health care law. In his Sept. 24 executive order, Trump tried to assure the American public that they would still be able to obtain insurance, regardless of preexisting conditions, even without the ACA.

Haeder had this to say:

When it comes to Trump's executive order, the topic that received the most public attention – the guarantee that “Americans with preexisting conditions can obtain the insurance of their choice at affordable rates" – carries no legal weight nor clear explanation of how it would be achieved or funded.
More generally, after years of promising a detailed plan, the America-First Healthcare Plan focuses primarily on past actions. It also spends just 491 words on laying out a set of objectives – lower costs, better care and more choice – yet does not provide a mechanism or road map for how to implement them.

Editor's note: This article is a roundup of articles from The Conversation's archives.

Lynne Anderson, Senior Health + Medicine Editor, The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

A new report highlights the decline in liberal journalism outlets over the last 15 years with more than 25% of America's newspaper publications and news communities slowly becoming "news deserts" amid the rise of right-wing publications.

A report titled, "The Expanding News Desert," released by the University of North Carolina's Hussman School of Journalism and Media which revealed statistics about the decline in publications and the disappearance of nearly half of the journalists in the United States. According to the report, thousands of communities are now being described as "news deserts" as paid politically-charged journalism attempts to take centerstage.

Another issue that contributes to the war on journalism is the fast-paced production of algorithmically generated content. In 2019, the Lansing State Journal became aware of a website called, The Lansing Sun. At first glance, the website looked like a typical news outlet, but a closer look revealed that the site was, in fact, part of a network of sites baring only the appearance of an actual community news outlet.

Additional reports expounded on Columbia University's Tow Center's reporting of "at least 450 websites in a network of local and business news organizations, each distributing thousands of algorithmically generated articles and a smaller number of reported stories."

By August of 2019, the network of pseudo news outlets had expanded to more than 1,200 websites. In fact, The New York Times recently revealed a former journalist by the name of Brian Timpone was behind the rise of the "pay-for-play" network which fuels the spread of right-wing propoganda.

"Employees at the Illinois Opportunity Project, a conservative advocacy group, requested dozens of articles about specific Republican politicians in Illinois. The group has paid $441,000 to Mr. Timpone's companies, according to the nonprofit's tax records." - The New York Times

According to one report, the ongoing scheme further perpetuates the war on "the entire concept of media literacy."

"The scheme takes advantage of how profit-chasing has blown up the entire concept of 'media literacy.' When your local paper's website is as larded up with spammy-looking ad crud as an illegal Monday Night Football stream, these spare sites cannot possibly look any less 'real.' And as newspapers die and people get more and more of their news from social media, fewer people recognize which news 'brands' are supposed to be 'trustworthy.'

As these types of platforms continue to rise, American journalism is at stake.

In a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday, more than 40 progressive groups urged the House Democrats to initiate impeachment proceedings against Attorney General Bill Barr—not only to hold his accountable for numerous wrongdoings while in office, but also as a procedural tactic to keep the Senate from confirming Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The groups, including United We Dream Action, the Center for Popular Democracy, and the Sunrise Movement, listed multiple offenses by the attorney general which would warrant impeachment proceedings, including:

• Misleading Congress regarding the Mueller investigation
• Supporting—and reportedly personally ordering—the use of federal troops against protestors in support of racial justice
• Prohibiting the referral of an intelligence community whistleblower complaint to Congress
• Failing to comply with subpoenas issued by the House of Representatives

Beyond holding Barr to account, as a team of legal experts also demanded the Democrats do in a report last week, beginning impeachment proceedings before this Friday, Oct. 23, would throw a wrench into Senate Republicans' plans to confirm Coney Barrett ahead of Election Day as well as their intent to use the court system to President Donald Trump's benefit.

"The administration's successful efforts to delay to 2021 court proceedings that would vindicate Congress's rights and to stack the courts with unqualified Trump judges—and Trump justices—means that the window for your actions to matter is rapidly closing," wrote the groups. "In a lawless administration whose only principle is helping the president's friends and hurting his enemies, and in the face of widespread efforts by the administration to prevent the peaceful transition of power, the final line of accountability lies with you."

The letter was drafted amid widespread frustration from progressives regarding the Senate Democrats' handling of Coney Barrett's confirmation hearings last week.

Democrats, particularly Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.)—ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee—"lent legitimacy to an illegitimate process," according to Adam Jentleson, public affairs director for Democracy Forward.

Jentleson on Wednesday blamed the Democrats for new Morning Consult poll results showing that support for the right-wing judge's confirmation has risen by 18 points among Democratic voters.

As the hearings adjourned last week, Feinstein praised committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) for his "leadership" during the proceedings. She also refused to join her more progressive colleagues in calling for the expansion of the Supreme Court and offered Coney Barrett a passive "nonsense line of questioning" regarding her views on Roe vs. Wade and other issues, according to Demand Justice executive director Brian Fallon.

Now that the hearings are over, the groups wrote Tuesday, House Democrats must use every procedural tool available to them to delay a vote on Coney Barrett.

If the Democrats initiate the impeachment process before Friday, the Senate will either be obligated to hold a trial or change the Senate rules to amend how the chamber responds to articles of impeachment, the groups explained.

"Either outcome is desirable," the groups wrote, explaining that if McConnell changes the rules, it "would lay the groundwork for future reform of Senate procedure and the rebalancing and depoliticization of the Federal Judiciary. The House of Representatives needs a Senate that is capable of acting on the legislation it reports, and only reform of how the Senate operates can make that possible."

"The best time for the House of Representatives to consider an impeachment of Attorney General Barr was months ago," the organizations continued. "The second-best time is right now. If you wait, it may be too late for the House, for the Senate, for the Supreme Court, and for our democracy. Time is running out."

For months, Congress has failed to pass a coronavirus relief bill, despite the widespread economic devastation and the fact that, under Donald Trump's malicious mismanagement, the pandemic has spiraled out of control, infecting 8.25 million people and killing more than 220,000, as of Wednesday morning.

The mainstream media has firmly decided who they blame for the lack of a bill: Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats who control the lower house of Congress. Blaming Democrats has been the dominant press narrative, even though it's been obvious from the get-go that Republicans don't want more relief legislation.

Now we have concrete proof that Republicans are to blame: Late Tuesday, the Washington Post reported that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell "has warned the White House not to strike an agreement," on the grounds that any new deal struck with Pelosi and the Democrats and "could disrupt the Senate's plans to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court next week."

To anyone unburdened by the delusion that "balance" is a more important journalistic principle than truth, it was always obvious that Republicans were the reason no coronavirus bill was getting passed. For one thing, House Democrats already passed a robust relief bill in May, which Senate Republicans have basically ignored while avoiding any substantive efforts at negotiating a bill that can pass both houses. For another thing, there are obvious ideological differences between Democrats, where even the party's "moderate" wing supports increased social spending, and Republicans, whose only real goal is moving as much wealth as possible from the hands of working people to the rich.

Even setting common sense aside, there's plenty of concrete evidence that McConnell had no intention of passing a bill to stimulate the economy and control the pandemic. When he was asked in July if such a bill was going to pass, he laughed contemptuously. Facing down an August deadline when unemployment benefits from previous coronavirus relief legislation were set to expire, McConnell chose to adjourn the Senate instead of working on a replacement bill. When Trump started getting sweaty and worried this month, believing he needed such a bill to have a chance at re-election, McConnell torpedoed the idea yet again.

McConnell's behavior is not mysterious. For one thing, he's an ideologue who actively opposes any government spending that might reduce the vast wealth inequalities that plague our nation. Indeed, McConnell's main goal these days is installing Barrett on the Supreme Court — where she will arguably be the most reliably right-wing vote, or second only to Justice Clarence Thomas — in time for her to strike down the Affordable Care Act. Moreover, Trump's erratic behavior — angrily rejecting a bill and then desperately tweeting his longing for one hours later — strongly suggests that the president is torn between his hopes that such a bill can save his fading hopes of re-election and pressure from Republican senators not to pass one.

Nor does McConnell seem worried about the electoral consequences to Republicans of a collapsing economy. For one thing, he likely thinks that Trump will lose in November, and that he can do nothing to save the president from his downward spiral. So he's setting up a potential Joe Biden presidency to fail by refusing economic relief now. For another thing, McConnell's multi-year strategy of capturing the courts, voter suppression and gerrymandering is paying off. He has good reason to believe that Republican control of government will not be seriously imperiled by democratic accountability, even if Democrats win both the Senate and the White House this time around.

Despite all this, mainstream media has been desperate to blame the Democrats for a lack of a bill. As Media Matters has documented, CNN's coverage has been tilted for months toward suggestions that Democrats are the ones blocking new relief legislation. Shows like "Meet the Press" on NBC and "This Week" on ABC have uncritically advanced the narrative that Democrats are deliberately tanking the relief bill to damage Trump, even though Democrats are the ones who are actively negotiating with the White House while Senate Republicans twiddle their thumbs.

Things came to a head last week when Pelosi lashed out at CNN's Wolf Blitzer after Blitzer said that Americans were "waiting in food lines" and proceeded to blame Pelosi, rather than Republicans, for the lack of a bill.

Pelosi responded by saying, "I don't know if you're always an apologist — and many of your colleagues — for the Republican position" and followed up by telling Blitzer, "You really don't know what you're talking about."

That response set off a predictable round of sexist finger-wagging for Pelosi's supposedly out-of-control behavior — the male-dominated media really hates it when women talk back — but whoops, it turns out she was right. Blitzer was carrying water for sleazy Republicans who want to do nothing, while pretending the entire situation is Democrats' fault. McConnell is eagerly monkey-wrenching any effort to pass a new bill, and doing so while actively trying to seat a Supreme Court justice he hopes will destroy the Affordable Care Act, further plunging the American economy into chaos and causing the pandemic to get even worse.

Why on earth is the media so devoted to blaming Democrats, when Republicans are clearly the problem here? Part of it, as the response to the Blitzer/Pelosi exchange shows, is sexism. Pelosi is the lone female leader in Capitol Hill, and despite some #MeToo purges, there are still a lot of sexist men in control of the media and eager to find excuses to pin the blame for any and all problems on women.

But mostly, the issue is the plain old "both sides" fallacy, the one that leads reporters to believe that in the interest of "balance" they must pretend that Democrats are just as bad as Republicans, even if the facts show the opposite.

Over the past year, Republicans have been especially repulsive, covering for Trump's crimes that led to his impeachment and making excuses for his refusal to deal with a pandemic that's laying waste to the country. Far too many journalists are bending over backward to find some terrible thing they can say about Democrats in the name of "balance," and they've landed on these empty accusations about a stimulus bill.

Moreover, deliberately destroying the economy in order to undermine a sitting president of the opposition party is the sort of thing Republicans would do — and indeed have done. Under the false but stalwart media belief that "both sides" are equally bad, therefore, the assumption has reigned that Democrats are doing the same that, even though there's no real evidence for that. On the contrary, it's much likelier story that McConnell knows Biden is likely to be president soon, so he's pre-emptively undermining the economy to damage his administration in advance.

The reveal that it was Republicans who were the bad guys all along is unlikely to change the media's insistence on covering national politics through a "both sides" lens. The fear of getting angry tweets from conservatives about "bias" will apparently never stop mattering more than the actual truth. But it's just possible this report will make it a little harder for the Wolf Blitzers of the world to wax sentimental about the millions of Americans thrust into poverty while pretending that this is somehow Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats' fault.