Sep 25, 2020

Axios PM

By Mike Allen
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Mike Allen

Good afternoon: Today's PM — edited by Justin Green — is 485 words, a 2-minute read.

1 big thing: "Brick by brick, case by case"
Members of Congress and guests pay their respects to the late Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Photo: Olivier Douliery/Pool/AFP via Getty Images

A bipartisan group of female lawmakers flanked the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's casket as she was carried down the Capitol steps today after lying in state in Statuary Hall.

  • Rabbi Lauren Holtzblatt eulogized Ginsburg as a lawyer who "won equality for women and men — not in one swift victory but brick by brick, case by case, through meticulous, careful lawyering."

Why it matters: Women are underrepresented in positions of power in U.S. politics.

  • Ginsburg was the first woman and first Jewish American to lie in state at the Capitol.
  • That list includes 31 known others — plus unknown soldiers from WWI, WWII, Korea and Vietnam.
  • Rosa Parks lay in honor — a distinction for private citizens — after her death in 2005. Billy Graham received similar treatment after he died in 2018.
Photo: Erin Schaff-Pool/Getty Images

Joe Biden, who chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee during Ginsburg's Supreme Court confirmation hearings in 1993, was in attendance, as was Sen. Kamala Harris.

Photo: Jonathan Ernst/Pool/Getty Images)

Highlights from the service, per the N.Y. Times.

  • House Speaker Nancy Pelosi: “It is with profound sorrow and deep sympathy to the Ginsburg family that I have the high honor to welcome Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to lie in state in the Capitol of the United States. ... She does so on a catafalque built for Abraham Lincoln."
  • Ginsburg's longtime trainer Bryant Johnson did 3 pushups in her honor.
  • American opera singer Denyce Graves performed the spiritual “Deep River” and Gene Scheer’s “American Anthem," the N.Y. Times notes.
2. Pic du jour
Photo: Darron Cummings/AP

Breonna Taylor family attorney Ben Crump speaks during a news conference in Louisville.

  • Crump, along with fellow family attorneys Lonita Baker and Sam Aguiar, called on Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron "to release the grand jury transcripts to see what evidence and recommendations he presented," the Louisville Courier-Journal reports.
3. Catch up quick
  1. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in his UN address called for an international peace conference on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict after the U.S. presidential elections. Go deeper.
  2. Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam tested positive for the coronavirus, as did his wife, Pamela. Go deeper.
  3. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) announced the state will completely reopen its economy. Go deeper.
  4. Former President Barack Obama endorsed 111 Democratic candidates running for office in November. The list.
  5. 🎧 Friday afternoon pod: Axios Re:Cap interviewed Substack CEO Chris Best. Listen here.
4. You can't bring your desk home

Empty desks in NYC. Photo: Michael Loccisano/Getty Images

Adds desks to the list of pandemic supply shortages, spurred by millions of kids and adults scrambling for remote work and education.

  • Online sales of desks and accessories were up 283% in August from the year before, and interest in desks on Facebook Marketplace doubled in the last month from the month before, AP reports.

One solution: DIY...

  • Megan Fry of Indianapolis made her own, using a $30 legless tabletop from Ikea placed on top of two short bookcases from Amazon, which cost $42 apiece.
  • Patrick Burgh went with crates to build a desk for his 6-year-old after he couldn’t find a desk at Ikea or Amazon. He built it in two days, spending about $70 at Home Depot on four crates and a board that he painted in bright blue.
Mike Allen