Remembering RBG | Disorder in the Court

September 21, 2020

Today’s Daily Pnut is dedicated to the life and legacy of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The Daily Pnut’s Tim was fortunate enough to speak with the legendary jurist during his time at Stanford Law, and her profound impact on America will not soon be forgotten.

“Fight for the things that you care about. But do it in a way that will lead others to join you.” 

“Real change, enduring change, happens one step at a time.”

“I would like to be remembered as someone who used whatever talent she had to do her work to the very best of her ability.”— Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Disorder in the Court

(Bill Clark via Getty Images)

Last Friday, 27-year Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg passed away at her Washington, D.C. home. She was 87. 

The death of Justice Ginsburg further shocked a nation already marred by polarization and a pandemic, and the tasteless jockeying for power that immediately ensued in her wake set the stage for a partisan showdown of epic proportions to determine the future of all three branches of government. When future generations look back on the political significance of 2020, all of the tumult and electoral uncertainty accounted for, they will doubtlessly read about her passing. It promises, in the short term and long, to have seismic consequences.

Standing at just five feet tall, Ginsburg towered over the highest court in the land as a peerless champion of equality and women’s rights. Her popularity and profound impact on the judicial landscape of America made her both a titanic force on the bench and throughout popular culture. 

In the last decade of her life, Ginsburg’s career as a pioneering jurist transcended into one of a liberal icon. Her popularity amongst younger generations — who adoringly nicknamed her ‘Notorious R.B.G.’ —  was born from her powerful dissenting opinions, which she often penned amidst a court of primarily conservative men.

In the hours after the Supreme Court announced Ginsburg’s passing on Friday night, collective mourning was effectively undermined by a troubling series of announcements from GOP leaders. Both Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell released statements promising that Ginsburg’s vacancy will be filled by a Trump nominee as soon as possible, presumably before the November 3rd election.

The implications of this brazen power grab go well beyond the court’s immediate vacancy and threaten to fundamentally alter the balance of power in the United States government. The rushed approval of a Trump-nominated judge would give conservatives a 6-3 supermajority on the court for the foreseeable future, while the nomination process itself could drastically affect voter turnout in the 2020 general election.

For Donald Trump, the death of a Justice may be the greatest political boon for his re-election campaign. Traditional Republican voters who have been turned off by the president’s strong-armed antics will now be compelled to vote for Trump as a single-issue Supreme Court proxy. For Mitch McConnell and the slew of Republican senators, however, pushing a nominee through Congress would require dizzying amounts of political hypocrisy during their own bids for re-election. Voters will undeniably recall what transpired in 2016, when the Republican Senate refused to vote on an Obama Supreme Court nominee, Judge Merrick Garland, on the supposed basis that such influential nominations should not be rushed along during an election year.

Such principles seem now to have now been thrown to the wind in the name of political expediency, and it appears McConnell and company are forging ahead with a Supreme Court shake up that could alter the law of the land for decades to come. Trump announced on Sunday that his nominee will be a woman, and that they will be sworn in “without delay.

Additional Supreme Court Reads

• Will the Election Turn on RBG? (NYT, $)
• ‘The Only Person I Have Loved.’ Inside Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s History-Shaping Marriage of Equals (Time)
• 4 Reasons to Doubt Mitch McConnell’s Power (Atlantic, $)
• Amy Coney Barrett and Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Trump’s favored SCOTUS pick has a cruel vision of the law. (Slate)

The 1% Is Blowing Through Our Carbon Budget

(Ludovic Marin via Getty Images)

• Two century-defining global issues —climate change and income inequality — came together to paint a damning picture of the international elite in a new report on carbon dioxide emissions from the Stockholm Environment Institute. In a dire warning regarding global overconsumption, the report reveals that the world’s wealthiest 1% were responsible for more than double the carbon dioxide emissions than that of the bottom 50%. 
• Tim Gore, the head of policy, advocacy, and research who popularized the concept of a “carbon budget,” cites the rich world’s addition to carbon-heavy air transportation as our species’ most excessive expenditure. “The global carbon budget has been squandered to expand the consumption of the already rich, rather than to improve humanity,” he explains. “A finite amount of carbon can be added to the atmosphere if we want to avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis. We need to ensure that carbon is used for the best.”
• Perhaps even more astounding than the carbon use of the 1% is that of the world’s richest 10%, who account for over 52% of global emissions. Even if the rest of the world was to cut their emissions to zero in the next decade, the outsized ecological impact of the rich could raise global temperatures by 1.5C all by themselves. This is clearly unfair, as many developing countries still rely on fossil fuels to gain access to basic amenities. If anything, the report argues, the world’s most well-off should be the ones drastically reducing their carbon emissions so as to leave room in the carbon budget for those who need it most.
• “The best possible, morally defensible purpose is for all humanity to live a decent life, but [the carbon budget] has been used up by the already rich, in getting richer,” Gore plainly states in defense of his reasonable criticism of the super-rich. (Guardian)

The United States Is Getting a Bad Rep

• New polling data from the Pew Research Center suggests that in the four years since Donald Trump was elected to office, the United States’ global image has deteriorated amongst key allies and partners. In countries like France, Germany, Canada, and the UK, favorability ratings for the US have dipped to their lowest point since Pew began polling on the subject in 2000. 
• Entering the new millennium, the US enjoyed global favorability ratings in the mid-70s across most of Western Europe. Now, those figures have slid into the 40’s and 30’s as liberal democracies across the world pan Donald Trump’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Across the 13 nations surveyed, a median of only 15% say that the US has successfully dealt with the virus. For context, the World Health Organization, EU, and China all received universally higher marks for their COVID response.
• While the United State’s reputation as a whole has suffered, international reviews of Trump himself are even shabbier. Median trust in Donald Trump’s ability to do the right thing regarding world affairs sits around 16% across the 13 countries polled. In Belgium, where Trump is most disliked, that number is as low as 9%. Even in Japan, where the president enjoys his highest international approval ratings, only a quarter of citizens trust his ability to navigate world affairs successfully.
• You can read the full report here, and keep in mind this quote from one Joseph Hall. “A reputation once broken may possibly be repaired, but the world will always keep their eyes on the spot where the crack was. (Pew Research)

Additional World News

• Trump vs. Tehran: No U.N. support for reimposing Iran sanctions, secretary-general says (Politico) 
• Violent Attacks Plague Afghanistan as Peace Talks in Doha Slow (NYT, $)
• Hackers leak data on 1,000 Belarusian police officers & Opposition icon, 73, among hundreds detained in Minsk (Guardian, BBC)
• China Sends Warning to Taiwan and U.S. With Big Show of Air Power (NYT, $)
• Dancing around the issue: The TikTok deal solves quite literally nothing (TechCrunch)
• When you browse Instagram and find former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s passport number (Mango PDF Zone)
• A Danish Children’s TV Show Has This Message: ‘Normal Bodies Look Like This’ (NYT, $)
• Noam Chomsky: The world is at the most dangerous moment in human history (New Statesman). No good news from Noam.
• The tipping points at the heart of the climate crisis & Every Place Has Its Own Climate Risk. What Is It Where You Live? (Guardian, NYT)

COVID-19

• “That’s Their Problem”: How Jared Kushner Let the Markets Decide America’s COVID-19 Fate (Vanity Fair)
• Europe’s coronavirus second wave: What went wrong (CNN)
• The Pandemic, from the Coronavirus’s Perspective (NYT, $)
• Nearly 11,000 people have been exposed to the coronavirus on flights, the CDC says (WaPo, $)

The Zuck Sucks Up to Trump

• In a 2019 private meeting with Donald Trump, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg gave the president a statistic that certainly piqued his interest. “I’d like to congratulate you,” Zuckerberg said. “You’re No. 1 on Facebook.” Well, at least that’s what Trump claimed he said on Rush Limbaugh’s radio show. In reality, the #1 title is held by Barack Obama. 
• Regardless, Zuckerberg’s attempt to stroke the ego of one President Trump reveals the undeniable power dynamics at play between Facebook and the White House. The social media giant needs Trump more than he needs them. This isn’t a statement of ideology, but rather practicality. Meaning that Zuckerberg — whose primary concern is the growth and ubiquity of Facebook — is well aware that Trump has the power to go full TikTok on his platform, forcing him to bend his ethics to the will of the commander in chief.
• As a result, critics are accusing Zuckerberg of turning a blind eye to Trump’s most egregious misinformation campaigns. “Facebook, more so than other platforms, has gone out of its way to not ruffle feathers in the current administration,” laments Jesse Lehrich, co-founder of Accountable Tech. “At best, you could say it’s willful negligence.”
• These allegations of domestic negligence are corroborated by Facebook’s misconduct in foreign politics. A recent report from Buzzfeed News details instances where the social media giant willfully ignores the spread of fake and misleading news stories in third world countries. Perhaps Alex Stamos, a former top security executive at Facebook, best contextualizes the app’s inability to escape controversy.
• “You can continuously see the challenge of them trying to have these kinds of broad principles around free expression and stopping harm, and then that mixing with the realpolitik of trying to keep the executive branch happy.” (Bloomberg)
• Facebook Tried to Limit QAnon. It Failed. (NYT, $)

Additional US News

• Deal Reached in N.J. for ‘Millionaires Tax’ to Address Fiscal Crisis (NYT, $)
• Billionaire investor Ray Dalio on capitalism’s crisis: The world is going to change ‘in shocking ways’ in the next five years (Market Watch). The economic pie is not being divided fairly, no matter how you slice it.
• The United States is backsliding into autocracy under Trump, scholars warn (WaPo, $)
• Turing Award winners endorse Biden, say Trump immigration policy will stifle tech research (The Verge). A firm stance from the “Nobel Prize of computing.”
• Letter containing poison addressed to Trump at White House (BBC)
• An Experiment in Wisconsin Might Reveal the Key to Defeating Trump (Atlantic, $)
• Hi, There. Want to Triple Voter Turnout? (NYT, $)
• It takes one to know one: I Was An Evangelical Christian, And I Know Why Many Of Them Resist Logic About COVID-19 (HuffPost)

Losing Billions, On Purpose

• For most billionaires, allowing your net worth to dwindle down to $2 million in the waning years of your life may seem like a colossal failure. For Chuck Feeney, that was the goal all along. Last week, the former multi-billionaire dissolved Atlantic Philanthropies after donating more than $8 billion to an impressive list of humanitarian causes. 
• Over his 38-year philanthropic career, Feeney dedicated the wealth he amassed selling duty-free airport goods towards improving Vietnamese health care, promoting peace in Northern Ireland, and abolishing the death penalty in the United States. His philosophy centered around the idea of “giving while living,” a mantra that has garnered praise from fellow billionaires Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. 
• “Chuck’s been the model for us all,” Buffett told Forbes. “If you have the right heroes in life, you’re 90% of the way home. Chuck Feeney is a good hero to have.” Gates even made an appearance on the final Zoom meeting between Feeney and his philanthropic associates, where the billionaire turned mere millionaire issued a final statement from his quaint San Francisco apartment.
• “I’m not here to tell anyone what to do with their money,” Feeney said. “You make your money, you do what you want with it. But I think there is an obligation, certainly for the haves, to reach out and to see what they can do.” (Market Watch)

Additional Reads

• Another day not at the office: will working from home be 2020’s most radical change? (Guardian)
• Scientists discovered phosphine gas, a sign of life, on Venus. What might life look like there? (Vox) 
• My Healing Journey After Childhood Abuse (Includes Extensive Resource List) (Tim Ferriss Show)
• The movements that betray who you are (BBC)
• Twitter is looking into why its photo preview appears to favor white faces over Black faces (The Verge)
• Reimagining The James Baldwin And William F. Buckley Debate (NPR)   

Please consider making a donation to Daily Pnut, a fiercely independent publication that cares deeply about truth. We are thankful and grateful for all of our readers & supporters!

A couple of readers have emailed us that they are not receiving Daily Pnut regularly, we publish every weekday and here’s how our emails will hopefully go directly to your inbox in the future. On Gmail desktop: hover over our name ‘Daily Pnut’ at the top of the email and a window will pop up. Select “Add to Contacts.” (Instructions with pictures here.)

For Apple mail users: simply tap on our email address at the top of this email and “Add to VIPs”. For everyone else: follow these simple instructions to add us to your address book for your mailbox provider.