"Fearless" - A New Harris Ad, Reforming The Supreme Court, America Is Far Better Off Today

Welcome New Subscribers!/Thursday 730pm ET - Call, postcard for Janelle Bynum (OR-5)

Happy Tuesday all. Got a few things for you today:

Major New Harris Ad Buy - The new Harris campaign has launched its first major new ad buy around a new 30-second ad, “Fearless.” Please watch and share widely through your networks. It is great.

Here’s the text of the narration:

NARRATOR: The one thing Kamala Harris has always been: fearless.

As a prosecutor, she put murderers and abusers behind bars. As California’s Attorney General, she went after the big banks and won $20 billion for homeowners. And as Vice President, she took on the big drug companies to cap the cost of insulin for seniors.

Because Kamala Harris has always known who she represents.

KAMALA HARRIS: This campaign is about who we fight for.

We believe in a future where every person has the opportunity not just to get by, but to get ahead. Where every senior can retire with dignity.

But Donald Trump wants to take our country backward. To give tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations and end the Affordable Care Act.

But we are not going back.

I’m Kamala Harris, and I approve this message

Harris Campaign Chair Jen O’Malley Dillon released this statement about the new campaign:

Throughout her career as a courtroom prosecutor, Attorney General, United States Senator, and now as Vice President, Kamala Harris has always stood up to bullies, criminals and special interests on behalf of the American people – and she’s beaten them. She’s uniquely suited to take on Donald Trump, a convicted felon who has spent his entire life ripping off working people, tearing away our rights, and fighting for himself. This $50 million paid media campaign, bolstered by our record-setting fundraising haul and a groundswell of grassroots enthusiasm, is one crucial way we will reach and make our case to the voters who will decide this election.

We are in a race to tell the Vice President’s story before the Republicans do. Spread this ad and/or the We Choose Freedom video from last week through your networks. This ad will run in the 7 battleground states, but all of us can reach many more people by sharing it aggressively in the days ahead.

Of all the early Harris language, this line remains my favorite:

We believe in a future where every person has the opportunity not just to get by, but to get ahead

The organic groundswell around the Harris candidacy has been historic, inspiring, so welcome. She’s gained significant ground in the polls in the past week, and Trump no longer has a lead in the national popular vote or in the battleground states. This is a very competitive election now, and there remains a great deal of upside for us to come - the continued effect of the rallying around Harris, her VP pick, our Convention and what will now certainly be the most robust field/early vote/GOTV operation in history. Our Senate polling remains very encouraging and as Leader Jeffries told us yesterday things are getting better for us in House races across the country. We are on offense now as Democrats, and need to press our advantage, be aggressive and go win this thing, together.

Do your part for the Vice President by donating before midnight tomorrow night and helping make July, 2024 the biggest fundraising month for a Presidential candidate in American history; by attending a national Harris for President organizing call tonight at 715pm ET; or by joining the hundreds of thousands of people who have volunteered for the campaign in recent days.

America Is Far Better Off Today Under Biden-Harris - The economist Rob Shapiro has a new article in Washington Monthly, Data Don’t Lie: Harris Has The Facts To Refute Trump’s Lies About The Economy. Some excerpts:

With Kamala Harris’ fast-approaching nomination, her campaign has an opening to call out Donald Trump’s lies about his economic record and reset the economic narrative based on facts. Trump regularly claims that “we had the greatest economy in history” under his leadership. In late June, Trump declared that he had left Biden an economy that “was so good, all he had to do is leave it alone … [instead] he destroyed it.” 

Those statements bear no resemblance to reality. But like other demagogues, Trump believes that repeating his lies long enough will convince those susceptible to him that he speaks the truth. The truth is that the Biden-Harris administration improved people’s economic lives, but Trump didn’t. That’s her narrative…..

Candidate Harris has a compelling economic narrative based purely on the facts—about growth, business investment and creation, employment, and the measures that helped us get there—the bipartisan infrastructure and semiconductor acts and the Democratically passed Inflation Reduction Acts. Yes, inflation hit the United States like other countries, and the Biden-Harris policies beat it.

And that’s the truth.

In the body of the article Rob goes through the data about how much better off we are today compared to the monumental chaos Biden and Harris inherited. Here’s how we talk about all this here at Hopium:

In the last few months we’ve gotten repeated and powerful confirmations of the success of the Biden-Harris Presidency - inflation *fell* last month and is running at the Fed’s target rate over the past six months, crime and murder rates are way down, gas prices are down, the flow to the border is down and was lower last month then in the final months of the Trump Presidency.

We’ve had the strongest economic recovery of any advanced economy in the world, the best job market since the 1960s, the lowest uninsured rate in American history, the deficit is trillions less, the Dow has broken 40,000 and all three indices continue to hover in record territory. Domestic oil, gas and renewable production continue to be at all time highs leaving America more energy independent than it has been in decades. The Wall Street Journal has called the American economy the “envy of the world,” and the Economist recently wrote about the unprecedented start up boom America is experiencing right now. The three big Biden-Harris investment bills have dramatically accelerated the energy transition necessary to combat climate change and will be creating opportunities and jobs for our workers for decades to come.

Together, the President and Vice President have reinvigorated the Western alliance, been an historic champion of democracy and freedom, and President Biden helped campaign against and defeat the fascists in recent European and French elections. We have also been winning elections of all kinds here in the US since Dobbs - these Western voters just keep voting down the fascists, and will do again this Novembers.

America is far better off today and we need to be loud and proud about saying it everyday. And it’s not just the stats - voters in the battlegrounds know they are better off today, and together we need to help them connect the dots between that sense things are better and the Biden-Harris policies which have made it so.

Biden and Harris Come Out For Reforming The Supreme Court - Yesterday, in the Washington Post, President Biden spelled out a bold plan to reform the Supreme Court. The full text of his op-ed is at the end of this post. The plan, which was immediately endorsed by Vice President Harris, calls for three changes to the Court and the law:

1. No more immunity for crimes a former president committed while in office

2. Term limits for Supreme Court justices

3. A binding code of conduct for the Supreme Court

This proposal by President Biden - thoughtful, measured, smart - is a very welcome addition to a much needed debate about reforming our politics after MAGA’s wrecking ball has done so much harm. I hope the President keeps going, though, and uses all his years in Washington to offer a much broader reform and renewal agenda for the country. I wrote about him leading the charge for reform in a recent New Republic article:

The president should commit to making progress in at least two other areas during his second term—cleaning up a city and a democracy that have been weakened by corruption and illiberalism of all kinds, and raising American life expectancy so it is again at the level of peer nations’.

I think Joe Biden should promise to clean up the city he has so long been a part of. Among the things we can tackle are the influence of foreign money, the need to raise ethical standards at the Supreme Court, eliminating the debt ceiling and the ability to shut down the government, and the wild abuse of Senate holds on nominations. Perhaps Biden could set up a commission to make broader recommendations on how to modernize and reform a city desperately in need of it.

A week ago Sunday President Biden took an extraordinary step on behalf of American democracy. Yesterday he took another. My sense is there are more extraordinary contributions left in our President. He has been working hard for all of us for more than 50 years, and it sure appears he is planning on not letting up in the months and years ahead. Let us hope so. For America, and the world, will be far better for it.

Wherever our President lives next year after he retires from the Presidency there is one thing we know for sure - outside Joe Biden’s home the American flag will be flying right-side up, not upside down.

Fired Up, Ready To Go For Hopium-Back Candidates and Party Committees - Our Thursday nights with Hopium kicks off this week! We will be postcarding and phonebanking for Janelle Bynum (OR-5) from 730 to 9pm ET. Join us by signing up here, learn more about this new grassroots collaboration project to win the House, and please consider giving us a shift or two in the weeks ahead. We can do this people!!!!!

Here are additional ways to do more and worry less in the days ahead:

• Harris For President - $747,000 raised today, $1m goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More. The $747,000 raised is both Biden-Harris and the $147,000 we’ve already raised for Harris for President.

• Winning The House - $702,000 raised today, $1m goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More. We’ve also raised more then $54,000 into the individual House campaigns (you can either give to all 12 or each one individually). Watch my interview with House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries

• North Carolina - $347,000 raised today, $400,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Watch my interview with NC Dem Chair Anderson Clayton

• Arizona/Ruben Gallego - $309,000 raised today, $350,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Watch my interview with Ruben Gallego

• Nebraska/Blue Dot - $125,000 raised today, $150,000 goal- Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Watch my interview with NE Dem Chair Jane Kleeb

Here’s how you can do even more:

• Volunteer for the Harris campaign - never been more important to volunteer!

• Watch our Winning The House interviews with Janelle Bynum (OR-5), George Whitesides (CA-27), Kirsten Engel (AZ-06) Andrei Cherny (AZ-01) and Will Rollins (CA-41) and Laura Gillen (NY-04). Great candidates all!

• Commit to Vote on Day 1 and get everyone you know to join you. Early voting begins in a few states on September 20th, less than 2 months away!

• Watch my With Dems presentation on the greatness and goodness of the Democratic Party, this six minute video on the incredible stakes in this election and my latest take on the 2024 election recorded on Monday, July 29th

• Read a new interview with me in the NYTimes about our new election, and you can also find me talking about our new, bluer election in new video pods with Fred Wellman and Jessica Denson.

Finally, please help me spread Hopium and grow this plucky community. Use this link to sign others up to be a Hopium subscriber. Note that options for group and gift subscriptions are available to those who want to bring friends and colleagues into the Hopium community. Click on the group and gift tabs here to learn more. To update your payment information or check your renewal status follow these instructions from Substack. We are now almost 97,000 strong - let’s keep the community growing and the Hopium flowing!

My plan to reform the Supreme Court and ensure no one is above the law

President Joe Biden

The Washington Post, July 29th 2024

This nation was founded on a simple yet profound principle: No one is above the law. Not the president of the United States. Not a justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. No one.

But the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision on July 1 to grant presidents broad immunity from prosecution for crimes they commit in office means there are virtually no limits on what a president can do. The only limits will be those that are self-imposed by the person occupying the Oval Office.

If a future president incites a violent mob to storm the Capitol and stop the peaceful transfer of power — like we saw on Jan. 6, 2021 — there may be no legal consequences.

And that’s only the beginning.

On top of dangerous and extreme decisions that overturn settled legal precedents — including Roe v. Wade — the court is mired in a crisis of ethics. Scandals involving several justices have caused the public to question the court’s fairness and independence, which are essential to faithfully carrying out its mission of equal justice under the law. For example, undisclosed gifts to justices from individuals with interests in cases before the court, as well as conflicts of interest connected with Jan. 6 insurrectionists, raise legitimate questions about the court’s impartiality.

I served as a U.S. senator for 36 years, including as chairman and ranking member of the Judiciary Committee. I have overseen more Supreme Court nominations as senator, vice president and president than anyone living today. I have great respect for our institutions and the separation of powers.

What is happening now is not normal, and it undermines the public’s confidence in the court’s decisions, including those impacting personal freedoms. We now stand in a breach.

That’s why — in the face of increasing threats to America’s democratic institutions — I am calling for three bold reforms to restore trust and accountability to the court and our democracy.

First, I am calling for a constitutional amendment called the No One Is Above the Law Amendment. It would make clear that there is no immunity for crimes a former president committed while in office. I share our Founders’ belief that the president’s power is limited, not absolute. We are a nation of laws — not of kings or dictators.

Second, we have had term limits for presidents for nearly 75 years. We should have the same for Supreme Court justices. The United States is the only major constitutional democracy that gives lifetime seats to its high court. Term limits would help ensure that the court’s membership changes with some regularity. That would make timing for court nominations more predictable and less arbitrary. It would reduce the chance that any single presidency radically alters the makeup of the court for generations to come. I support a system in which the president would appoint a justice every two years to spend 18 years in active service on the Supreme Court.

Third, I’m calling for a binding code of conduct for the Supreme Court. This is common sense. The court’s current voluntary ethics code is weak and self-enforced. Justices should be required to disclose gifts, refrain from public political activity and recuse themselves from cases in which they or their spouses have financial or other conflicts of interest. Every other federal judge is bound by an enforceable code of conduct, and there is no reason for the Supreme Court to be exempt.

All three of these reforms are supported by a majority of Americans — as well as conservative and liberal constitutional scholars. And I want to thank the bipartisan Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States for its insightful analysis, which informed some of these proposals.

We can and must prevent the abuse of presidential power. We can and must restore the public’s faith in the Supreme Court. We can and must strengthen the guardrails of democracy.

In America, no one is above the law. In America, the people rule.