'No hints, no previews, no forecasts'

Today's Senate hearing is...interesting. That is, if you like listening to U.S. senators whine about their campaign's poor fundraising, or give long speeches with few actual questions for, you know, the Supreme Court nominee. As Judge Amy Coney Barrett sat for her second day before the Senate Judiciary Committee, she did get to respond to some questions, but despite Democrats' best efforts, the answers weren't as candid as they had hoped.

• — Healthcare, gay marriage, and abortion rights. Democrats met with little success in pressing Barrett on these three issues. She argued that she is not a "pundit," and cited remarks by Justices Elena Kagan and the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg in explaining that, outside of reviewing a specific case, it was not her place to offer a position.
•  
• — Refuse to recuse. Barrett also refused to say whether she would recuse herself, if confirmed, from considering an upcoming case in which Republican states are trying again to get the Supreme Court to strike down the Affordable Care Act, or from any legal dispute that may arise over the outcome of next month's presidential election.
•  
• — Delaying the election. When asked about the president's musings that he might have to delay the election, Barrett replied, "I would need to hear arguments from the litigant and read briefs and consult with my law clerks and talk to my colleagues and go through the opinion-writing process." Got it. —The Guardian

Voters stymied in Virginia

Don't wait until the last minute. That's what our parents and teachers always told us. Prospective voters in Virginia who didn't heed that advice are paying the price now, as a severed fiber optic cable shut down the state's online voter registration system this morning, on the last day to register before the November general election.

• — The Virginia Department of Elections said in a statement that the issue was affecting connectivity for multiple agencies, including the citizen portal and registrar's offices. Election officials have been forced to register voters using paper forms, as technicians work to repair the problem.
•  
• — This isn't the first time technical problems affected Virginians' ability to register to vote under a looming deadline. In 2016, an unknown number of people were not able to register because of unprecedented demand, ultimately leading to a lawsuit.
•  
• — "This error is particularly astounding given that this same problem occurred at virtually the same time in 2016," said Kristen Clarke, executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, which filed the 2016 lawsuit on behalf of voters. "It is astonishing that Virginia has not learned from failures of the not-so-distant past." —Associated Press

DN Ed Board: We need more real-life engagement

"The conversations that will be most productive come Nov. 3 are the ones that happen offline. They are the ones that start with, 'Help me understand …' or, 'What do you think about …' They won't use labels or epithets, and they will emphasize participation rather than monologues. They will also let people ardently disagree. As social scientist and Harvard professor Arthur Brooks is fond of saying, 'America doesn't need to disagree less, it needs to disagree better. It's in the competition of ideas that solutions are honed, not in the absence of conflict.'" —Deseret News

MORE: The election is being fought on social media amid the pandemic —MarketWatch

'I'm not going to walk away'

Donald Trump revived his public criticism of Dr. Anthony Fauci this morning, continuing his efforts to undermine the infectious disease expert. He contended in a tweet that Fauci's pitching arm is "far more accurate than his prognostications." In reality, Fauci's assessments have largely been in line with public health experts throughout the pandemic—just not with what the president perceives his political interests to be. "I'm certainly not going to give up. I've devoted my entire professional life to fighting infectious diseases," Fauci said in a CNBC interview. "I'm not going to walk away from this outbreak, no matter who's the president." —CNN

• — "Now they say I'm immune." Purportedly having tested negative for COVID-19 "on consecutive days," according to White House physician Sean Conley, Trump held a campaign rally in Florida last night. Still sounding like he's under the influence of medication, he declared, "I'll kiss everyone in that audience. I'll kiss the guys and the beautiful women and the... I'll just give you a big, fat kiss." Hoo boy. —USA Today
•  
• — It's worse than we thought. Far more Americans have died as a result of the coronavirus pandemic than have been counted and reported, according to new research published yesterday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. "For every two Americans that we know of who are dying of COVID-19, another American is dying," said Dr. Steven Woolf, author of the new research and director emeritus of the Center on Society and Health at Virginia Commonwealth University. —NBC News
•  
• — Another vaccine trial suspended. Johnson & Johnson has halted clinical trials of its COVID-19 vaccine after a participant fell ill, the second time that a front-runner developer has paused testing. The participant's illness is being evaluated, and the company said late yesterday that it would share more information after further investigation. The vaccine is undergoing tests in as many as 60,000 volunteers. —Bloomberg

Neumann: Trump made it difficult for me to protect America

"I served as the Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Counterterrorism and Threat Prevention, and my job was to help keep Americans safe from terrorist attacks. My time in office coincided with a dramatic rise in white nationalist violence, but my colleagues and I couldn’t get the president to help address the problem. At the debate, America saw what I saw in the administration: President Trump refuses to distance himself from white nationalists. I realized after watching the White House response to the terrorist attack in El Paso that his rhetoric was a recruitment tool for violent extremist groups. The president bears some responsibility for the deaths of Americans at the hands of these violent extremists." —USA Today

Ed. Note: Elizabeth Neumann served as the assistant secretary of Homeland Security for counterterrorism and threat prevention in the Trump Administration.

MORE: Group charged in Michigan governor kidnap plot discussed targeting Virginia governor, FBI agent says —CNN

Focus on Joint Chiefs Chair Mark Milley

Gen. Mark Milley has been unusually public lately. First came the news that he and other top military officials were quarantining due to exposure to the coronavirus. Now, he's become the latest example of an apolitical public servant being pulled into the political realm by President Trump. The Trump campaign is running an online political ad that uses an image of Milley for which it did not seek his approval. "This photo, like many others, was not used with [Milley's] knowledge or consent," according to a Defense Department official.

• — "As a matter of long-standing policy, military service members and federal employees acting in their official capacity may not engage in activities that associate the DOD with any partisan political campaign or elections, candidate, cause, or issue," the DOD's website states. Active-duty service members are prohibited from participating in fundraisers, speaking before partisan gatherings, and wearing military uniforms at campaign events. —Politico
•  
• — "There is no role there." Regardless of what happens with the presidential election, Milley said in an interview with NPR on Sunday that he sees "zero" role for the U.S. military in resolving any election disputes. "This isn't the first time that someone has suggested that there might be a contested election," he said. "And if there is, it'll be handled appropriately by the courts and by the U.S. Congress. There's no role for the U.S. military in determining the outcome of a U.S. election." —The Hill
•  
• — Milley has also declined to endorse the White House's sudden announcements on Afghan troop withdrawals, saying that the agreement reached with Afghan and Taliban officials to leave Afghanistan was "conditions-based," and the U.S. would "responsibly" end the war. With no warning to the Pentagon, National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien told an audience last Wednesday that the U.S. would cut its troops in Afghanistan to 2,500 by early next year. —The New York Times

McKew: Discord is not a foregone conclusion

"Don't amplify unnecessarily divisive content—even when it plays to your beliefs and fears. Don't tweet your fears—offer something smarter instead. Don't participate in the echo chamber of the inevitability of American descent into violence and despair. We are not powerless actors. Our institutions matter. We matter. We have a month to convince ourselves that we're willing to do the real work to hang on to our hard-won nation, in which there is a place for all of us, and a better future for all of us. Echo the America you love, not the America you fear. Don't mirror the discord." —Stand Up Republic

Ed. Note: Molly McKew served as an adviser to then-president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili from 2009 to 2013. She is an expert in information warfare specializing in U.S.-Russia relations.

MORE: Schmich: Don't succumb to hatred, even in the era of Trump —The Mercury News

Love thy neighbor...even during election season

Almost half of registered voters in both Biden and Trump camps say they do not have a single close friend who supports the other major party candidate, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey. This is especially true in Cedar Park, Tx., a suburb of Austin, where people on both sides have been vandalizing and stealing each other's political signs, according to residents Marne Litton and Tasha Hancock.

• — The two women are on opposite sides of the political spectrum: Litton supports Donald Trump; Hancock supports Joe Biden. The women also happen to be very close friends, ever since Hancock moved into the house next door to Litton six years ago.
•  
• — To counter the anger and vitriol circulating around their community, they took to Facebook “to spread a message of kindness and love during these challenging times," Litton said. Their post included pictures of the friends posing affectionately together with their respective political signs and imploring others to show respect for people with different views.
•  
• — The reactions they received were exactly what they were hoping for—the post went viral and drew a huge positive response. "We're just asking people to be more tolerant and not to judge so quickly,” Litton said. —CNN

Here's a recent e-mail from Mitch McConnell:

"Although Democrats need to flip just FOUR SEATS in order to flip the Senate BLUE, they’re now targeting THIRTEEN Republican-held seats. From right here in Kentucky to Arizona to North Carolina to even ALASKA, Democrats are determined to COMPLETELY HIJACK our Republican Senate Majority."

Two comments about this message:

"Democrats are targeting THIRTEEN Republican-held seats." Mitch, if the Democrats held a four-seat majority in the Senate, wouldn't you also target 13 Democrat-held seats? What would you do, only target the four most likely to flip seats?

"COMPLETELY HIJACK our Republican Senate Majority." I would think that winning elections by accumulating more votes than your opponent is in the tradition of American democracy, something that Mitch might have been familiar with, and agreed with, in the days before Donald Trump.

It is interesting to watch the way Republicans are scrambling for money in the final days before the election. It is also instructive to observe Republican senators oh-so-slightly seek to place distance between themselves and Trump.

What took them so long?

It is as if they are rats who waited until two hours after the Titanic hit the iceberg to abandon ship. —Jim V., New York

The views expressed in "What's Your Take?" are submitted by readers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff or the Stand Up Republic Foundation.