Today is Monday, October 3, 2022. With only 36 days until the crucial midterms, Democrats are finally warning the rest of us slumbering in our loungers that if the other party ever wins enough seats in the House or the Senate, that they will indeed turn this country into a “fascist hellhole if the GOP prevails in the midterms” on November 8, my birthday. This dire prediction comes via an online article in Vanity Fair by Bess Levin entitled “Democrats Warn That Republicans Will Turn US Into a Fascist Hellhole If GOP Prevails in Midterm Elections.”

The original message Democrats subscribed to in going into the midterm campaign cycle was running on what they’ve done for the average American – things like passing a critical infrastructure plan and provisions aimed at slashing drug costs. But as Levin reports, “Democrats have since decided to take a new approach: warning that Republicans, should they retake one or both chambers of Congress, will turn the country into a fascist, apocalyptic hellscape where forced births are the norm, insurrections get a free pass, and every American will have a chip implanted in their brain that plays the words ‘Hunter Biden laptop, Hunter Biden laptop,’ on loop 24/7 for all eternity.” This last statement is posited as a tease, but who knows.

Thus the Republicans – if they do freaking win – only need five seats to retake the House and one to retake the Senate. While the reversal of Roe v. Wade has given Democrats some hope that they wouldn’t totally lose control of Congress, it was also a reminder that conservatives believe women should be treated like second-class citizens and “the stakes of losing this election are pretty damn high.”

If Republicans do win, and we must pray that they don’t, they would undoubtedly block basically everything President Joe Biden wants to get done in the second half of his first term. This blockage would include judicial nominations, including in the unlikely event a Supreme Court vacancy arises, given “Bitch” McConnell’s penchant for making up rules about when a president is allowed to fill a seat on the Supreme Court. This obstruction from one of the worst people in Congress, McConnell, should come as no surprise to anyone given his terrible record during the Obama presidency when he blocked the then-president from nominating a Supreme Court justice to the vacancy after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.

In other actions, if the GOP should ever win back power, expect a vote on a national abortion ban. Just last month, “Lady” – as I’ll call this weasel of a Senator from now on – Graham had proposed a 15-week abortion ban, some repugnicans were quick to distance themselves from the idea – even though it’s obvious that conservatives are champing at the bit to further restrict reproductive rights. So women should be very fearful if Republicans do win over the House or the Senate. Another strategy that repugnicans would foster on all Americans is requiring Congress too reauthorize Medicare and Social Security every five years, which fits into their worldview that government should do positively nothing for people (unless they’re billionaires). We should also expect round-the-clock hearings about Hunter Biden (this is the male Democrat equivalent to their obsession of Hillary Clinton) and a push to impeach his father for who knows what? If they’re in power, they will definitely find something to impeach “sleepy Joe” for.

As The Washington Post reports, another thing we can expect from a GOP-controlled House are lots of other superfluous investigations – likely including Biden’s border policy, the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago which was court authorized, and ones that “lend credence to Trump’s false election fraud claims.” And, no doubt, these corrupt lawmakers will move to disband the January 6 committee, which has made Dumpf and his craven allies look really, really bad.

Conversely, if Democrats do stay in power, The Washington Post reports they could try again to pass more climate legislation, pass national protections for abortion, same-sex marriage, and voting rights; and also make it harder for any future president (with Donald Dumpf in mind) to clear out any dissenting voices from the federal government.

Therefore, given the high stakes entailed in November’s midterm elections, you can probably understand why Democrats have taken this darker tack in opposing Republican hegemony in Congress.

This being the first Monday in October should alarm everyone, as this is the first day that the Supreme Court is now in session. A perceptive online opinion on the legitimacy of the Supreme Court is offered by CNN contributor Fareed Zakaria entitled “Opinion: The Supreme Court’s legitimacy is in danger.”

Zakaria begins his assessment of the body by pointing out the powers of the various branches of government, starting with Congress that has the ability to tax and spend, which is a formidable strength. “The power of the second branch, the president, crucially includes his role as commander in chief of the armed forces,” Zakaria writes. The power of the third branch, the judicial branch, by contrast, is technically its symbolic authority.

As noted, the Supreme Court cannot enforce any of its own rulings, as it relies on the other branches and the public to accept them. “That is why the legitimacy of the Court is so important.”

Zakaria indicates that the Court’s approval rating has been declining for decades. It went down sharply after Bush v. Gore in 2000.

The Court’s behavior has been growing more ideologically predictable – that is, politically partisan – in recent years. Judges appointed by Republicans now almost always rule in ways that Republicans want them to. Ditto for judges appointed by Democrats. This is all part of the hyperpolarization of American life at the moment.

What is eminently peculiar about the strange way that America’s highest court is structured is that no other democracy gives members of its highest court life tenure like we do in America. Most Western countries have fixed terms or mandatory retirement ages: 68 in Germany, 75 in Britain, 75 in Canada. Germany gives is Constitutional Court judges a 12-year term, as do other democracies.

So here is the most egregious aspect of the American judicial system which is surely the one that is now close to unique: life tenure. It raises the stakes sky high. Judges can wield their power longer than most dictators; some stay on the court for decades. Clarence Thomas, husband of crazy Ginni Thomas, has been on the Supreme Court for almost 31 years, and he is now 74 years old. If we had followed Britain’s and Canada’s example here, Thomas would have had to retire next year after turning 75. Now we have to wait until he dies or is impeached, which will probably never happen, unfortunately.

Here in America then, the prize is to find young judges, in order to perpetuate their rule for as long as possible. It would now seem that for an aspiring judge, ideological rigidity and lockstep consistency are now the most prized signals to their party that they should get the nod. And a middle-aged, middle-of-the-road, extremely distinguished moderate judge – in other words, a judge with perfect judicial temperament – doesn’t stand a chance.

Because our judges can still be on the bench way into their 80s, there is the uncomfortable question of mental deterioration, which is surely something worth considering when judges can be ruling into their octogenarian years while they rule on matters involving new technologies, complex economic systems, and legal theories.

“The Supreme Court of the United States has moved in a direction that has weakened its own legitimacy.” Zakaria writes, “It might be an occasion to begin a national conversation about what reforms could be put in place to make it less partisan, less divisive, and more trusted by the vast majority of citizens.” If we can do this, this would signify the only way that the Court’s rulings will be truly accepted in a diverse democracy of more than 330 million people.

In the midst of all of this questioning of the Supreme Court’s legitimacy, today marked the investiture of a new Supreme Court Justice, Katanji Brown Jackson, the first Black female jurist. We wish her great success on the Court, but her being on the bench does not signify any more leaning toward the left, as conservatives still hold sway in the body.

On a lighter note, a news story in Science Alert gives me reason for being cheerful because of a massive study of coffee drinkers in the United Kingdom that connects drinking two or more cups of coffee each day to living a longer life and exhibiting less cardiovascular disease than the rest of us who eschew coffee for tea or some other beverage.

This online article appears in Health entitled “Massive Study Finds Coffee Drinkers Will Probably Outlive The Rest of Us” by David Nield, and it’s reassuring to me, as I am a frequent coffee drinker.

“In this large, observational study, ground, instant, and decaffeinated coffee were associated with equivalent reductions in the incidence of cardiovascular disease and death from cardiovascular disease or any cause,” says electrophysiologist Peter Kistler, from the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute in Australia.

The UK Biobank from where the participants in this study came from is a large-scale database containing records on individuals’ genetics, health, and lifestyle. In this study, the sample provided an average of 12 and a half years’ worth of health and dietary information on 449,563 people with a median age of 58. So this would seem to encompass a large sample of survey subjects.

The participants were grouped according to their daily coffee consumption and what type of coffee they usually drank – with just over 100,000 people reporting that they didn’t drink coffee at all.

Drinking instant, ground, and even decaffeinated coffee were all associated with a lower likelihood of death. Those who drank two or three cups of coffee a day had better odds of living longer than those who didn’t drink any.

We can only guess what contributes to this relationship behind living longer and the drinking of coffee. Researchers might deduce that one of the most well-known constituents in coffee, caffeine, is responsible for the connection, but it also likely that the noncaffeinated compounds were responsible for the positive relationships observed between coffee drinking, cardiovascular disease, and survival.

As for the risk of arrhythmia or an abnormal heart rhythm in those who either drink coffee or not, here ground and instant coffee, but not decaffeinated, were linked to a lower likelihood of developing the condition. Once again, just a couple of cups each day seemed to be the sweet spot.

Even if there are some limitations to consider in this study, especially that database records were predominantly Caucasian, making it harder to generalize the findings across a more ethnically diverse population, it could be safe to say that you can now sip that morning brew without too much guilt. There are great chances that it’s doing you some good.

Now I don’t feel so bad when I start my morning with a cup of coffee in a diner or at home. I’ve been validated! Or should I say, my coffee drinking has been validated by this recent research, which has been published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology.

So for those of you who are squeamish about drinking coffee, maybe you should begin as this research shows. You might just live longer!

Tomorrow is Yom Kippur, so I will be MIA here. Elliot and I will be spending the evening at Temple Beth-El in Jersey City attending Kol Nidre (“All Vows”) services in Elliot’s deceased aunt’s synagogue. We are expected there at 6, so we will leave here around 3 and travel by train and Jersey transit. Driving there would certainly not be recommended.

I hope to see you Wednesday night then. For those who do fast, I wish everyone an easy and headache-free fast.

Stay safe and be well.