Harvard law professor Noah Feldman, who was a star witness in favor of impeaching Donald Trump, writes that Trump Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett is "a brilliant lawyer, a genuine and good person...when she is confirmed, I am going to accept it as the consequence of the constitutional rules we have and the choices we collectively and individually have made. And I'm going to be confident that Barrett is going to be a good justice, maybe even a great one—even if I disagree with her all the way."

Feldman is taking flak from the left for that piece—Stanford law professor Michele Dauber let lose some particularly nasty tweets in response—but it strikes me as a brave move, a welcome departure from the usual partisan pattern in these situations of desperately trying everything to block whomever the other side puts up.

Many people are honoring the memory of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg by making political contributions to the campaigns of Democrats running for Senate. This is ironic, because Ginsburg herself was a consistent vote in the Supreme Court to restrict the ability of people to make such political expenditures, notwithstanding the First Amendment preventing Congress from abridging the rights of speech, assembly, and petition. In virtually every campaign finance case that came before her— Citizens United, McConnell v. FEC, McCutcheon v. FEC, Davis v. FEC, Nixon v. Shrink, Randall v. Sorrell—Ginsburg deferred to the legislators who enacted restrictive campaign finance laws, ostensibly to prevent the corrupting influence of campaign contributions. She declined to use the First Amendment to strike down the laws as unconstitutional.

Joe Biden, who has lately been attacking Park Avenue on the campaign trail, held an 80-person fundraiser there in January of this year, I report in my column this week. Please check out the full column at the New Boston Post ("Joe Biden Runs Against Park Avenue, Where He Raised Money"), Newsmax ("Biden Runs Against Park Avenue Revealing He's Anti-Growth"), and the New York Sun ("Biden Attacks Park Avenue While Raising Money There").

A direct mail letter from the executive director of the ACLU, Anthony D. Romero, claims, "Fueled by racial animosity and political desperation, Trump won't stop at anything to keep people from the polls this November." The partisan turn by the non-profit American Civil Liberties Union was the topic of my column last week. Please check out the full column at the New Boston Post ("ACLU Campaigns for Biden"), Newsmax ("ACLU Campaigns for Biden"), and the New York Sun ("ACLU Turns Political, Backing Biden Campaign"). It was also picked up in the New York Post.

The Wall Street Journal magazine falls for Communist Cuban propaganda about how it's better in Havana than Florida. Under the headline "Cuba Is Staying Strong," the Journal reports:

As world travel began to close down in March due to the coronavirus pandemic, Collin Laverty had to make a snap decision: Miami or Havana? For an American who divides his time between the two cities as he runs Cuba Educational Travel, an agency that in less restricted times counted U.S. senators and tech-world luminaries among its clientele, the choice was obvious. "I felt the Cubans were going to do a better job," he explained by phone from Havana. "It would be safer here."

Joe Biden is trying to raise at least $7 million before Election Day for his presidential transition, Politico reports. "Two people involved in fundraising for a Biden transition said it has already brought in at least $2 million, and one person said the transition has already raised $3 million...Raising money for the transition is a discreet enterprise, as donors said they want to avoid the appearance of presumptuousness during the election."

The Politico article doesn't explain whether the donors get a refund if Biden loses and there is no "transition."

A press release from U.S. Customs and Border Protection reports on the seizure of 20,000 counterfeit N95 masks at the Port of Boston, arriving from Hong Kong. A brief report in the Saturday New York Times described it as "the latest example of scammers attempting to profiteer from fake personal protective equipment."

It's certainly possible that profits are the motive of those trying to sell this stuff, but in the long run, you can probably make more profit selling equipment that works. Left unexplored are possible other possible motives, such as a desire by a hostile foreign government to harm or damage the United States.

Anyone who mistakenly thought the departure of Preet Bharara would be the end of shenanigans by federal prosecutors and FBI agents in New York—actually, anyone interested in justice—will want to read carefully the scathing opinion and order issued this week by Judge Alison Nathan of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, in the case of United States of America v. Ali Sadr Hashemi Nejad. Judge Nathan is concerned after it emerged that federal prosecutors failed to meet their disclosure obligations. "When the Court pressed for more information about one of these failures, the Government made a misrepresentation to the Court. This serious dereliction requires a serious response," she wrote.

Biden the Divider is at it again. Last night in a CNN Town hall, Joe Biden said, "I view this campaign as a campaign between Scranton and Park Avenue...All Trump can see from Park Avenue is Wall Street. All he thinks about is the stock market."

The Democratic presidential candidate amplified it in a tweet: "This election is Scranton vs. Park Avenue."

Leave it to Soledad O'Brien to respond brilliantly with a pushback against Biden's zero-sum approach of pitting one part of America against another: "Or... both. NYC's Park Avenue is amazing. No need to knock it. Would be nice to have a President who sees every American as worth fighting for. Thank you."

We couldn't have said it better ourselves.

Jacob Siegel writes in Tablet Magazine:

Over the past four years, the big names in journalism have shared a single overriding preoccupation: consolidating an emergent ruling-class social consensus that justifies itself in large part by the claim that Donald Trump's presidency is an existential threat that makes every action by the White House a national emergency. The media both demonstrates and justifies its role in opposing this extraordinary threat by hyping one crisis of American democracy after another. Fascism is upon us! The Russians are taking over! The Russians are behind the white nationalists who are taking over! Kavanaugh! Ukraine! Impeachment! The Post Office!

Polls indicate there are fewer undecided voters in the presidential election this time around than there were in 2016.

At least a few among them, though, have made themselves publicly known. Gary Cohn, the former Goldman Sachs president who served as director of Trump's National Economic Council until April 2018, told CNBC on Monday, "I honestly haven't made up my mind." And Stephen Ross, "the billionaire real estate developer who founded Related Companies, owns the Miami Dolphins and has an interest in brands including SoulCycle and Equinox," and who hosted a fundraiser for Trump in 2019, told the New York Times last month, "I haven't really made a decision who I'm voting for."

The enduring relevance of Milton Friedman has been a recurring theme around here. Please see, for example, 2018's "The Hottest Midterm Race Is Milton Friedman Versus Marc Benioff" and 2020's "Biden Runs Against Milton Friedman."

Sunday's New York Times devoted a full special print section to the 50^th anniversary of a Friedman New York Times Magazine essay headlined "The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits."

As part of the project, the Times solicited pieces reflecting on the essay.

Yesterday's "Executive Order on Lowering Drug Prices" from President Trump is a reminder to post my column from last week. Please check out the full column at the New Boston Post ("Trump Risks 'Exit Stage Left' Headline"), Newsmax ("Trump Risks 'Exit Stage Left'"), and at the New York Sun ("'Exit Stage Left' Could Be Trump's Parting Headline").

Harvard Magazine has a profile of law professor Noah Feldman that is a strange combination of fawning and nasty.

Fawning, in that includes passages such as "His work displays the mix of synthesis and substantive mastery that serious journalists aspire to, and the combination of clarity and eloquence that few scholars display."

And nasty, in that it includes this anonymous stuff: "some who follow Feldman closely don't want to be quoted as saying what they believe: that he has squandered his talent, becoming a public intellectual too young, without developing his craft as a scholar and doing work worthy of his gifts; or that, in writing about so many topics, he has failed to fulfill his promise to reshape some field of knowledge. Aside from some comments about Feldman's arrogance and impatience, the harshest criticism is that he hasn't developed a theory about constitutionalism."

The New York City Comptroller, Scott Stringer, recently announced his candidacy for mayor. Among his remarks: "when the contributions those residents made, over decades, put their neighborhoods on the map, the real estate companies and other profiteers wasted no time swooping in with luxury development. These speculators had a willing partner in City Hall — through multiple administrations. All the while, people were being pushed out and priced out....When I am mayor, we will end the crushing cycle of speculation, eviction, and displacement. No more giving away the store to developers. No more unaffordable affordable housing. We will put an end to the gentrification industrial complex."