School of Evolutionary Astrology Forum

Hi Rad,

On the EA Zoom channel, Kim Marie Weimer gave an interesting analysis of Trump's 2020 chart. She mentioned that he has a lunar return on Oct. 29, 2020, just days before the election, which might prove beneficial to his being re-elected. Do you have an opinion on how it might affect his chances?

Also, Mercury will be retrograde from October 14 to November 3, the actual day of the election. From my observation and correlation of past Merc retros, I've noticed that the day Merc goes direct, technology and communications are often extra vulnerable to fluctuations.

Given that Russia will attack our election again in one way or another, plus the fact that apps may be used by the Democrats which could malfunction, do you see anything in the U.S. chart for 2020 or for the election day which could signal election result malfunctions?  It's especially worrisome because 8 or 10 states still don't have paper ballot backups---any Democratic candidate should be screaming at the top of their lungs about this.

Re the candidates, things seem so fluid at the moment. Trump is going to viciously attack whoever the candidate is and will create and distribute disinformation about them. Whoever the candidate is has to be a street fighter like Trump, willing to stand up to him and attack back.

Sanders seems to be the one most capable of doing this, but I don't know how he would fare in the general election. Do you think any of the candidates have what it takes to counter Trump's attacks and his evil cheating and disinformation tricks? I have to say, the current crop of candidates concerns me.....I really really hope one of them is capable of standing up to him and defeating him.

And I hope the Democrats turn out to vote. The Iowa caucus had fewer people voting than in 2008 and 2016. That concerns me as well.

Let me know your thoughts.

Thanks.

Soleil

Hey Soleil, just a couple of thoughts....I have been completely bummed out and disillusioned by Trump's actions  and the Republicans' power grab culminating in them acquitting the evil one of all wrongdoing.  I have been further disillusioned by family and some friends being apathetic and really unconcerned with what is going on.  They are simply not paying attention.  As a result I am concerned that such apathy will infect the nation and negatively impact 2020 turnout.  I personally have been supportive of Elizabeth Warren, but much to my horror I am starting to feel attracted to Mike Bloomberg for the simple reason I think he has the best chance of beating Trump.  DDD

Hi Soleil,

What I have said in that thread 'Trump's impeachment' about the next election in America is pretty much all's I have to say. The essence of that is that, in my view, he will loose the popular vote by anywhere between 3 to 5 million votes, and that again the Electoral College may keep him in power anyway. Even it does not, should he loose both the popular and Electoral College vote, he will do anything, whatever, to keep himself in power. Remember, again, the Neptune transit at that time will be in opposition to the USA's natal Neptune in Virgo, from the 10th the the 5th Houses, that Neptune transit will be squaring the USA's natal Mars in Gemini which is exactly Trump's N.Node, Sun, and Uranus in his 10th House, and that same Neptune transit will be squaring his S.Node and Moon in his 4th. The transiting Uranus will be square the Lunar Nodes in the USA's chart.

All of this, to me, correlates to an election in which massive chaos, crisis, and confusion will be created which can include the voting systems themselves: the technology that you are referring too. Virgo.

When Lucifer installed Trump into power in 2016 with the help of his mentor, Putin, the transiting Neptune then was around 8  Pisces which is the N.Node of Lucifer in Trumps chart. The transiting N.Node of Lucifer was on top of the USA's Pluto. During this upcoming election the same transiting N.Node of Lucifer will be in exactly the same place but in conjunction with the transiting Saturn. In 2016 the transiting Mars was on the USA's Pluto.

Trumps natal Mars is at 26 Leo in his 12th. Thus, the natal Pluto for the USA is inconjunct that Mars. During the 2016 election the transiting Mars and N.Node of Lucifer were inconjuncting that Mars. In 2020 the Saturn and N.Node of Lucifer will be inconjucting it, and both are in opposition to his natal Venus and Saturn.  He will do anything to keep himself in power including any crisis necessary in order to do so. The transiting Lucifer will be in Virgo with it's own S.Node.

Remember, long ago, there was a ruler in Rome who burnt down an entire city in order to keep himself in power, creating the necessary scapegoats to blame for that in order to do so.

The Democrats will need to nominate someone whose voice can be as acerbic as Trump's, and whose voice speaks to the issues that the actual majority of Americans stand for, and need. Someone who represents 'normalcy' where normalcy is the reality of that country before Trump, and who can represent traditional Democratic policies that benefit the majority of normal Americans and their needs. Things like health care, the climate emergency, social programs of all kinds, etc.

God Bless, Rad

Hi Rad,

Thanks a lot for your reply. Even though Trump has some heavy transits coming up this year, he somehow always seems to skate through them without a scratch. I too see a chaotic confusing election. It's just a shame Democrats aren't taking enough action to shore up the weak spots.

I totally agree with you that the Democratic candidate needs to be someone who can be as ascerbic as Trump is---that's a good way of putting it---while at the same time talking about the important issues. I just hope whoever the Democratic candidate is consistently points out the terrible damage Trump has done to our environment, to access to health care, to the courts, etc.

All the best,

Soleil

Hi DDD,

Thanks for your comments. I feel the same way you do. It's worrisome to see people apathetic to the extreme danger that Trump is. He is truly evil and has already done an incredible amount of damage to this country. I'm baffled as to how people can't see that.

I've been a Warren supporter so far myself but, for several reasons, her viability seems to be slipping. Part of it is the fault of mainstream media. The media is owned by corporations, which always favor Republicans and conservatives, and definitely not women.

But Warren is also making a mistake by sticking too much to rote talking points, know what I mean? The ability to communicate spontaneously is so important---it's one of the reasons people gravitate to Trump. She needs to get off her talking points and stop repeating them over and over. It's not working.  I hope she makes a comeback but at this point I'm not sure she can.

Up to this point I've had zero interest in Bernie or Bloomberg but I would happily vote for either one.

What the Democrats have to do in order to win is to register more people to vote, especially African Americans, as they are the heart of the Democratic base, and I think right now they're being ignored.

Let's hope for the best!

Soleil

This is what the Lucifer In Chief, Trump, is doing .. conscious, purposeful, lying ..... propaganda ..

The Billion-Dollar Disinformation Campaign to Reelect the President

How new technologies and techniques pioneered by dictators will shape the 2020 election

The Atlantic
2/13/2020
Story by McKay Coppins

One day last fall, I sat down to create a new Facebook account. I picked a forgettable name, snapped a profile pic with my face obscured, and clicked "Like" on the official pages of Donald Trump and his reelection campaign. Facebook's algorithm prodded me to follow Ann Coulter, Fox Business, and a variety of fan pages with names like "In Trump We Trust." I complied. I also gave my cellphone number to the Trump campaign, and joined a handful of private Facebook groups for MAGA diehards, one of which required an application that seemed designed to screen out interlopers.

The president's reelection campaign was then in the midst of a multimillion-dollar ad blitz aimed at shaping Americans' understanding of the recently launched impeachment proceedings. Thousands of micro-targeted ads had flooded the internet, portraying Trump as a heroic reformer cracking down on foreign corruption while Democrats plotted a coup. That this narrative bore little resemblance to reality seemed only to accelerate its spread. Right-wing websites amplified every claim. Pro-Trump forums teemed with conspiracy theories. An alternate information ecosystem was taking shape around the biggest news story in the country, and I wanted to see it from the inside.

The story that unfurled in my Facebook feed over the next several weeks was, at times, disorienting. There were days when I would watch, live on TV, an impeachment hearing filled with damning testimony about the president's conduct, only to look at my phone later and find a slickly edited video-served up by the Trump campaign-that used out-of-context clips to recast the same testimony as an exoneration. Wait, I caught myself wondering more than once, is that what happened today?

As I swiped at my phone, a stream of pro-Trump propaganda filled the screen: "That's right, the whistleblower's own lawyer said, "˜The coup has started "¦'"Š" Swipe. "Democrats are doing Putin's bidding "¦" Swipe. "The only message these radical socialists and extremists will understand is a crushing "¦" Swipe. "Only one man can stop this chaos "¦" Swipe, swipe, swipe.

I was surprised by the effect it had on me. I'd assumed that my skepticism and media literacy would inoculate me against such distortions. But I soon found myself reflexively questioning every headline. It wasn't that I believed Trump and his boosters were telling the truth. It was that, in this state of heightened suspicion, truth itself-about Ukraine, impeachment, or anything else-felt more and more difficult to locate. With each swipe, the notion of observable reality drifted further out of reach.

What I was seeing was a strategy that has been deployed by illiberal political leaders around the world. Rather than shutting down dissenting voices, these leaders have learned to harness the democratizing power of social media for their own purposes-jamming the signals, sowing confusion. They no longer need to silence the dissident shouting in the streets; they can use a megaphone to drown him out. Scholars have a name for this: censorship through noise.

After the 2016 election, much was made of the threats posed to American democracy by foreign disinformation. Stories of Russian troll farms and Macedonian fake-news mills loomed in the national imagination. But while these shadowy outside forces preoccupied politicians and journalists, Trump and his domestic allies were beginning to adopt the same tactics of information warfare that have kept the world's demagogues and strongmen in power.

Every presidential campaign sees its share of spin and misdirection, but this year's contest promises to be different. In conversations with political strategists and other experts, a dystopian picture of the general election comes into view-one shaped by coordinated bot attacks, Potemkin local-news sites, micro-targeted fearmongering, and anonymous mass texting. Both parties will have these tools at their disposal. But in the hands of a president who lies constantly, who traffics in conspiracy theories, and who readily manipulates the levers of government for his own gain, their potential to wreak havoc is enormous.

The Trump campaign is planning to spend more than $1 billion, and it will be aided by a vast coalition of partisan media, outside political groups, and enterprising freelance operatives. These pro-Trump forces are poised to wage what could be the most extensive disinformation campaign in U.S. history. Whether or not it succeeds in reelecting the president, the wreckage it leaves behind could be irreparable.

THE DEATH STAR

The campaign is run from the 14th floor of a gleaming, modern office tower in Rosslyn, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C. Glass-walled conference rooms look out on the Potomac River. Rows of sleek monitors line the main office space. Unlike the bootstrap operation that first got Trump elected-with its motley band of B-teamers toiling in an unfinished space in Trump Tower-his 2020 enterprise is heavily funded, technologically sophisticated, and staffed with dozens of experienced operatives. One Republican strategist referred to it, admiringly, as "the Death Star."

Presiding over this effort is Brad Parscale, a 6-foot-8 Viking of a man with a shaved head and a triangular beard. As the digital director of Trump's 2016 campaign, Parscale didn't become a household name like Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway. But he played a crucial role in delivering Trump to the Oval Office-and his efforts will shape this year's election.

In speeches and interviews, Parscale likes to tell his life story as a tidy rags-to-riches tale, embroidered with Trumpian embellishments. He grew up a simple "farm boy from Kansas" (read: son of an affluent lawyer from suburban Topeka) who managed to graduate from an "Ivy League" school (Trinity University, in San Antonio). After college, he went to work for a software company in California, only to watch the business collapse in the economic aftermath of 9/11 (not to mention allegations in a lawsuit that he and his parents, who owned the business, had illegally transferred company funds-claims that they disputed). Broke and desperate, Parscale took his "last $500" (not counting the value of three rental properties he owned) and used it to start a one-man web-design business in Texas.

Parscale Media was, by most accounts, a scrappy endeavor at the outset. Hustling to drum up clients, Parscale cold-pitched shoppers in the tech aisle of a Borders bookstore. Over time, he built enough websites for plumbers and gun shops that bigger clients took notice-including the Trump Organization. In 2011, Parscale was invited to bid on designing a website for Trump International Realty. An ardent fan of The Apprentice, he offered to do the job for $10,000, a fraction of the actual cost. "I just made up a price," he later told The Washington Post. "I recognized that I was a nobody in San Antonio, but working for the Trumps would be everything." The contract was his, and a lucrative relationship was born.

Over the next four years, he was hired to design websites for a range of Trump ventures-a winery, a skin-care line, and then a presidential campaign. By late 2015, Parscale-a man with no discernible politics, let alone campaign experience-was running the Republican front-runner's digital operation from his personal laptop.

Parscale slid comfortably into Trump's orbit. Not only was he cheap and unpretentious-with no hint of the savvier-than-thou smugness that characterized other political operatives-but he seemed to carry a chip on his shoulder that matched the candidate's. "Brad was one of those people who wanted to prove the establishment wrong and show the world what he was made of," says a former colleague from the campaign.

Perhaps most important, he seemed to have no reservations about the kind of campaign Trump wanted to run. The race-baiting, the immigrant-bashing, the truth-bending-none of it seemed to bother Parscale. While some Republicans wrung their hands over Trump's inflammatory messages, Parscale came up with ideas to more effectively disseminate them.

The campaign had little interest at first in cutting-edge ad technology, and for a while, Parscale's most valued contribution was the merchandise page he built to sell MAGA hats. But that changed in the general election. Outgunned on the airwaves and lagging badly in fundraising, campaign officials turned to Google and Facebook, where ads were inexpensive and shock value was rewarded. As the campaign poured tens of millions into online advertising-amplifying themes such as Hillary Clinton's criminality and the threat of radical Islamic terrorism-Parscale's team, which was christened Project Alamo, grew to 100.

Parscale was generally well liked by his colleagues, who recall him as competent and intensely focused. "He was a get-shit-done type of person," says A. J. Delgado, who worked with him. Perhaps just as important, he had a talent for ingratiating himself with the Trump family. "He was probably better at managing up," Kurt Luidhardt, a consultant for the campaign, told me. He made sure to share credit for his work with the candidate's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and he excelled at using Trump's digital ignorance to flatter him. "Parscale would come in and tell Trump he didn't need to listen to the polls, because he'd crunched his data and they were going to win by six points," one former campaign staffer told me. "I was like, "˜Come on, man, don't bullshit a bullshitter.'"Š" But Trump seemed to buy it. (Parscale declined to be interviewed for this story.)

James Barnes, a Facebook employee who was dispatched to work closely with the campaign, told me Parscale's political inexperience made him open to experimenting with the platform's new tools. "Whereas some grizzled campaign strategist who'd been around the block a few times might say, "˜Oh, that will never work,' Brad's predisposition was to say, "˜Yeah, let's try it.'"Š" From June to November, Trump's campaign ran 5.9 million ads on Facebook, while Clinton's ran just 66,000. A Facebook executive would later write in a leaked memo that Trump "got elected because he ran the single best digital ad campaign I've ever seen from any advertiser."

Though some strategists questioned how much these ads actually mattered, Parscale was hailed for Trump's surprise victory. Stories appeared in the press calling him a "genius" and the campaign's "secret weapon," and in 2018 he was tapped to lead the entire reelection effort. The promotion was widely viewed as a sign that the president's 2020 strategy would hinge on the digital tactics that Parscale had mastered.

Through it all, the strategist has continued to show a preference for narrative over truth. Last May, Parscale regaled a crowd of donors and activists in Miami with the story of his ascent. When a ProPublica reporter confronted him about the many misleading details in his account, he shrugged off the fact-check. "When I give a speech, I tell it like a story," he said. "My story is my story."

DISINFORMATION ARCHITECTURE

In his book This Is Not Propaganda, Peter Pomerantsev, a researcher at the London School of Economics, writes about a young Filipino political consultant he calls "P." In college, P had studied the "Little Albert experiment," in which scientists conditioned a young child to fear furry animals by exposing him to loud noises every time he encountered a white lab rat. The experiment gave P an idea. He created a series of Facebook groups for Filipinos to discuss what was going on in their communities. Once the groups got big enough-about 100,000 members-he began posting local crime stories, and instructed his employees to leave comments falsely tying the grisly headlines to drug cartels. The pages lit up with frightened chatter. Rumors swirled; conspiracy theories metastasized. To many, all crimes became drug crimes.

Unbeknownst to their members, the Facebook groups were designed to boost Rodrigo Duterte, then a long-shot presidential candidate running on a pledge to brutally crack down on drug criminals. (Duterte once boasted that, as mayor of Davao City, he rode through the streets on his motorcycle and personally executed drug dealers.) P's experiment was one plank in a larger "disinformation architecture"-which also included social-media influencers paid to mock opposing candidates, and mercenary trolls working out of former call centers-that experts say aided Duterte's rise to power. Since assuming office in 2016, Duterte has reportedly ramped up these efforts while presiding over thousands of extrajudicial killings.

The campaign in the Philippines was emblematic of an emerging propaganda playbook, one that uses new tools for the age-old ends of autocracy. The Kremlin has long been an innovator in this area. (A 2011 manual for Russian civil servants favorably compared their methods of disinformation to "an invisible radiation" that takes effect while "the population doesn't even feel it is being acted upon.") But with the technological advances of the past decade, and the global proliferation of smartphones, governments around the world have found success deploying Kremlin-honed techniques against their own people.

In the United States, we tend to view such tools of oppression as the faraway problems of more fragile democracies. But the people working to reelect Trump understand the power of these tactics. They may use gentler terminology-muddy the waters; alternative facts-but they're building a machine designed to exploit their own sprawling disinformation architecture.

Central to that effort is the campaign's use of micro-targeting-the process of slicing up the electorate into distinct niches and then appealing to them with precisely tailored digital messages. The advantages of this approach are obvious: An ad that calls for defunding Planned Parenthood might get a mixed response from a large national audience, but serve it directly via Facebook to 800 Roman Catholic women in Dubuque, Iowa, and its reception will be much more positive. If candidates once had to shout their campaign promises from a soapbox, micro-targeting allows them to sidle up to millions of voters and whisper personalized messages in their ear.

Parscale didn't invent this practice-Barack Obama's campaign famously used it in 2012, and Clinton's followed suit. But Trump's effort in 2016 was unprecedented, in both its scale and its brazenness. In the final days of the 2016 race, for example, Trump's team tried to suppress turnout among black voters in Florida by slipping ads into their News Feeds that read, "Hillary Thinks African-Americans Are Super Predators." An unnamed campaign official boasted to Bloomberg Businessweek that it was one of "three major voter suppression operations underway." (The other two targeted young women and white liberals.)

The weaponization of micro-targeting was pioneered in large part by the data scientists at Cambridge Analytica. The firm began as part of a nonpartisan military contractor that used digital psyops to target terrorist groups and drug cartels. In Pakistan, it worked to thwart jihadist recruitment efforts; in South America, it circulated disinformation to turn drug dealers against their bosses.

The emphasis shifted once the conservative billionaire Robert Mercer became a major investor and installed Steve Bannon as his point man. Using a massive trove of data it had gathered from Facebook and other sources-without users' consent-Cambridge Analytica worked to develop detailed "psychographic profiles" for every voter in the U.S., and began experimenting with ways to stoke paranoia and bigotry by exploiting certain personality traits. In one exercise, the firm asked white men whether they would approve of their daughter marrying a Mexican immigrant; those who said yes were asked a follow-up question designed to provoke irritation at the constraints of political correctness: "Did you feel like you had to say that?"

Christopher Wylie, who was the director of research at Cambridge Analytica and later testified about the company to Congress, told me that "with the right kind of nudges," people who exhibited certain psychological characteristics could be pushed into ever more extreme beliefs and conspiratorial thinking. "Rather than using data to interfere with the process of radicalization, Steve Bannon was able to invert that," Wylie said. "We were essentially seeding an insurgency in the United States."

Cambridge Analytica was dissolved in 2018, shortly after its CEO was caught on tape bragging about using bribery and sexual "honey traps" on behalf of clients. (The firm denied that it actually used such tactics.) Since then, some political scientists have questioned how much effect its "psychographic" targeting really had. But Wylie-who spoke with me from London, where he now works for H&M, as a fashion-trend forecaster-said the firm's work in 2016 was a modest test run compared with what could come.

"What happens if North Korea or Iran picks up where Cambridge Analytica left off?" he said, noting that plenty of foreign actors will be looking for ways to interfere in this year's election. "There are countless hostile states that have more than enough capacity to quickly replicate what we were able to do "¦ and make it much more sophisticated." These efforts may not come only from abroad: A group of former Cambridge Analytica employees have formed a new firm that, according to the Associated Press, is working with the Trump campaign. (The firm has denied this, and a campaign spokesperson declined to comment.)

After the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke, Facebook was excoriated for its mishandling of user data and complicity in the viral spread of fake news. Mark Zuckerberg promised to do better, and rolled out a flurry of reforms. But then, last fall, he handed a major victory to lying politicians: Candidates, he said, would be allowed to continue running false ads on Facebook. (Commercial advertisers, by contrast, are subject to fact-checking.) In a speech at Georgetown University, the CEO argued that his company shouldn't be responsible for arbitrating political speech, and that because political ads already receive so much scrutiny, candidates who choose to lie will be held accountable by journalists and watchdogs.
Shady political actors are discovering how easy it is to wage an untraceable whisper campaign by text message.

To bolster his case, Zuckerberg pointed to the recently launched-and publicly accessible-"library" where Facebook archives every political ad it publishes. The project has a certain democratic appeal: Why censor false or toxic content when a little sunlight can have the same effect? But spend some time scrolling through the archive of Trump reelection ads, and you quickly see the limits of this transparency.

The campaign doesn't run just one ad at a time on a given theme. It runs hundreds of iterations-adjusting the language, the music, even the colors of the "Donate" buttons. In the 10 weeks after the House of Representatives began its impeachment inquiry, the Trump campaign ran roughly 14,000 different ads containing the word impeachment. Sifting through all of them is virtually impossible.

Both parties will rely on micro-targeted ads this year, but the president is likely to have a distinct advantage. The Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign have reportedly compiled an average of 3,000 data points on every voter in America. They have spent years experimenting with ways to tweak their messages based not just on gender and geography, but on whether the recipient owns a gun or watches the Golf Channel.

While these ads can be used to try to win over undecided voters, they're most often deployed for fundraising and for firing up the faithful-and Trump's advisers believe this election will be decided by mobilization, not persuasion. To turn out the base, the campaign has signaled that it will return to familiar themes: the threat of "illegal aliens"-a term Parscale has reportedly encouraged Trump to use-and the corruption of the "swamp."

Beyond Facebook, the campaign is also investing in a texting platform that could allow it to send anonymous messages directly to millions of voters' phones without their permission. Until recently, people had to opt in before a campaign could include them in a mass text. But with new "peer to peer" texting apps-including one developed by Gary Coby, a senior Trump adviser-a single volunteer can send hundreds of messages an hour, skirting federal regulations by clicking "Send" one message at a time. Notably, these messages aren't required to disclose who's behind them, thanks to a 2002 ruling by the Federal Election Commission that cited the limited number of characters available in a text.

Most experts assume that these regulations will be overhauled sometime after the 2020 election. For now, campaigns from both parties are hoovering up as many cellphone numbers as possible, and Parscale has said texting will be at the center of Trump's reelection strategy. The medium's ability to reach voters is unparalleled: While robocalls get sent to voicemail and email blasts get trapped in spam folders, peer-to-peer texting companies say that at least 90 percent of their messages are opened.

The Trump campaign's texts so far this cycle have focused on shouty fundraising pleas ("They have NOTHING! IMPEACHMENT IS OVER! Now let's CRUSH our End of Month Goal"). But the potential for misuse by outside groups is clear-and shady political actors are already discovering how easy it is to wage an untraceable whisper campaign by text.

In 2018, as early voting got under way in Tennessee's Republican gubernatorial primary, voters began receiving text messages attacking two of the candidates' conservative credentials. The texts-written in a conversational style, as if they'd been sent from a friend-were unsigned, and people who tried calling the numbers received a busy signal. The local press covered the smear campaign. Law enforcement was notified. But the source of the texts was never discovered.

WAR ON THE PRESS

One afternoon last March, I was on the phone with a Republican operative close to the Trump family when he casually mentioned that a reporter at Business Insider was about to have a very bad day. The journalist, John Haltiwanger, had tweeted something that annoyed Donald Trump Jr., prompting the coterie of friends and allies surrounding the president's son to drum up a hit piece. The story they had coming, the operative suggested to me, would demolish the reporter's credibility.

I wasn't sure what to make of this gloating-people in Trump's circle have a tendency toward bluster. But a few hours later, the operative sent me a link to a Breitbart News article documenting Haltiwanger's "history of intense Trump hatred." The story was based on a series of Instagram posts-all of them from before Haltiwanger started working at Business Insider-in which he made fun of the president and expressed solidarity with liberal protesters.

The next morning, Don Jr. tweeted the story to his 3 million followers, denouncing Haltiwanger as a "raging lib." Other conservatives piled on, and the reporter was bombarded with abusive messages and calls for him to be fired. His employer issued a statement conceding that the Instagram posts were "not appropriate." Haltiwanger kept his job, but the experience, he told me later, "was bizarre and unsettling."

The Breitbart story was part of a coordinated effort by a coalition of Trump allies to air embarrassing information about reporters who produce critical coverage of the president. (The New York Times first reported on this project last summer; since then, it's been described to me in greater detail.) According to people with knowledge of the effort, pro-Trump operatives have scraped social-media accounts belonging to hundreds of political journalists and compiled years' worth of posts into a dossier.

Often when a particular news story is deemed especially unfair-or politically damaging-to the president, Don Jr. will flag it in a text thread that he uses for this purpose. (Among those who text regularly with the president's eldest son, someone close to him told me, are the conservative activist Charlie Kirk; two GOP strategists, Sergio Gor and Arthur Schwartz; Matthew Boyle, a Breitbart editor; and U.S. Ambassador Richard Grenell.) Once a story has been marked for attack, someone searches the dossier for material on the journalists involved. If something useful turns up-a problematic old joke; evidence of liberal political views-Boyle turns it into a Breitbart headline, which White House officials and campaign surrogates can then share on social media. (The White House has denied any involvement in this effort.)

Descriptions of the dossier vary. One source I spoke with said that a programmer in India had been paid to organize it into a searchable database, making posts that contain offensive keywords easier to find. Another told me the dossier had expanded to at least 2,000 people, including not just journalists but high-profile academics, politicians, celebrities, and other potential Trump foes. Some of this, of course, may be hyperbolic boasting-but the effort has yielded fruit.

Parscale has said the campaign intends to train "swarms of surrogates" to undermine coverage from local TV stations and newspapers.

In the past year, the operatives involved have gone after journalists at CNN, The Washington Post, and The New York Times. They exposed one reporter for using the word fag in college, and another for posting anti-Semitic and racist jokes a decade ago. These may not have been career-ending revelations, but people close to the project said they're planning to unleash much more opposition research as the campaign intensifies. "This is innovative shit," said Mike Cernovich, a right-wing activist with a history of trolling. "They're appropriating call-out culture."

What's notable about this effort is not that it aims to expose media bias. Conservatives have been complaining-with some merit-about a liberal slant in the press for decades. But in the Trump era, an important shift has taken place. Instead of trying to reform the press, or critique its coverage, today's most influential conservatives want to destroy the mainstream media altogether. "Journalistic integrity is dead," Boyle declared in a 2017 speech at the Heritage Foundation. "There is no such thing anymore. So everything is about weaponization of information."

It's a lesson drawn from demagogues around the world: When the press as an institution is weakened, fact-based journalism becomes just one more drop in the daily deluge of content-no more or less credible than partisan propaganda. Relativism is the real goal of Trump's assault on the press, and the more "enemies of the people" his allies can take out along the way, the better. "A culture war is a war," Steve Bannon told the Times last year. "There are casualties in war."

This attitude has permeated the president's base. At rallies, people wear T-shirts that read rope. tree. journalist. some assembly required. A CBS News/YouGov poll has found that just 11 percent of strong Trump supporters trust the mainstream media-while 91 percent turn to the president for "accurate information." This dynamic makes it all but impossible for the press to hold the president accountable, something Trump himself seems to understand. "Remember," he told a crowd in 2018, "what you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening."

Bryan Lanza, who worked for the Trump campaign in 2016 and remains a White House surrogate, told me flatly that he sees no possibility of Americans establishing a common set of facts from which to conduct the big debates of this year's election. Nor is that his goal. "It's our job to sell our narrative louder than the media," Lanza said. "They're clearly advocating for a liberal-socialist position, and we're never going to be in concert. So the war continues."

From December 2019: The dark psychology of social networks

Parscale has indicated that he plans to open up a new front in this war: local news. Last year, he said the campaign intends to train "swarms of surrogates" to undermine negative coverage from local TV stations and newspapers. Polls have long found that Americans across the political spectrum trust local news more than national media. If the campaign has its way, that trust will be eroded by November. "We can actually build up and fight with the local newspapers," Parscale told donors, according to a recording provided by The Palm Beach Post. "So we're not just fighting on Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC with the same 700,000 people watching every day."

Running parallel to this effort, some conservatives have been experimenting with a scheme to exploit the credibility of local journalism. Over the past few years, hundreds of websites with innocuous-sounding names like the Arizona Monitor and The Kalamazoo Times have begun popping up. At first glance, they look like regular publications, complete with community notices and coverage of schools. But look closer and you'll find that there are often no mastheads, few if any bylines, and no addresses for local offices. Many of them are organs of Republican lobbying groups; others belong to a mysterious company called Locality Labs, which is run by a conservative activist in Illinois. Readers are given no indication that these sites have political agendas-which is precisely what makes them valuable.

According to one longtime strategist, candidates looking to plant a negative story about an opponent can pay to have their desired headlines posted on some of these Potemkin news sites. By working through a third-party consulting firm-instead of paying the sites directly-candidates are able to obscure their involvement in the scheme when they file expenditures to the Federal Election Commission. Even if the stories don't fool savvy readers, the headlines are convincing enough to be flashed across the screen in a campaign commercial or slipped into fundraising emails.

DIGITAL DIRTY TRICKS

Shortly after polls closed in Kentucky's gubernatorial election last November, an anonymous Twitter user named @Overlordkraken1 announced to his 19 followers that he had "just shredded a box of Republican mail in ballots" in Louisville.

There was little reason to take this claim at face value, and plenty of reason to doubt it (beginning with the fact that he'd misspelled Louisville). But the race was tight, and as incumbent Governor Matt Bevin began to fall behind in the vote total, an army of Twitter bots began spreading the election-rigging claim.

The original post was removed by Twitter, but by then thousands of automated accounts were circulating screenshots of it with the hashtag #StoptheSteal. Popular right-wing internet personalities jumped on the narrative, and soon the Bevin campaign was making noise about unspecified voting "irregularities." When the race was called for his opponent, the governor refused to concede, and asked for a statewide review of the vote. (No evidence of ballot-shredding was found, and he finally admitted defeat nine days later.)

The Election Night disinformation blitz had all the markings of a foreign influence operation. In 2016, Russian trolls had worked in similar ways to contaminate U.S. political discourse-posing as Black Lives Matter activists in an attempt to inflame racial divisions, and fanning pro-Trump conspiracy theories. (They even used Facebook to organize rallies, including one for Muslim supporters of Clinton in Washington, D.C., where they got someone to hold up a sign attributing a fictional quote to the candidate: "I think Sharia law will be a powerful new direction of freedom.")

But when Twitter employees later reviewed the activity surrounding Kentucky's election, they concluded that the bots were largely based in America-a sign that political operatives here were learning to mimic Russian trolling tactics.

Of course, dirty tricks aren't new to American politics. From Lee Atwater and Roger Stone to the crooked machine Democrats of Chicago, the country has a long history of underhanded operatives smearing opponents and meddling in elections. And, in fact, Samuel Woolley, a scholar who studies digital propaganda, told me that the first documented deployment of politicized Twitter bots was in the U.S. In 2010, an Iowa-based conservative group set up a small network of automated accounts with names like @BrianD82 to promote the idea that Martha Coakley, a Democrat running for Senate in Massachusetts, was anti-Catholic.

Since then, the tactics of Twitter warfare have grown more sophisticated, as regimes around the world experiment with new ways to deploy their cybermilitias. In Mexico, supporters of then-President Enrique Peña Nieto created "sock puppet" accounts to pose as protesters and sabotage the opposition movement. In Azerbaijan, a pro-government youth group waged coordinated harassment campaigns against journalists, flooding their Twitter feeds with graphic threats and insults. When these techniques prove successful, Woolley told me, Americans improve upon them. "It's almost as if there's a Columbian exchange between developing-world authoritarian regimes and the West," he said.

Parscale has denied that the campaign uses bots, saying in a 60 Minutes interview, "I don't think [they] work." He may be right-it's unlikely that these nebulous networks of trolls and bots could swing a national election. But they do have their uses. They can simulate false consensus, derail sincere debate, and hound people out of the public square.

According to one study, bots accounted for roughly 20 percent of all the tweets posted about the 2016 election during one five-week period that year. And Twitter is already infested with bots that seem designed to boost Trump's reelection prospects. Regardless of where they're coming from, they have tremendous potential to divide, radicalize, and stoke hatred that lasts long after the votes are cast.

Rob Flaherty, who served as the digital director for Beto O'Rourke's presidential campaign, told me that Twitter in 2020 is a "hall of mirrors." He said one mysterious account started a viral rumor that the gunman who killed seven people in Odessa, Texas, last summer had a beto bumper sticker on his car. Another masqueraded as an O'Rourke supporter and hurled racist invective at a journalist. Some of these tactics echoed 2016, when Russian agitators posed as Bernie Sanders supporters and stirred up anger toward Hillary Clinton.

Flaherty said he didn't know who was behind the efforts targeting O'Rourke, and the candidate dropped out before they could make a real difference. "But you can't watch this landscape and not get the feeling that someone's fucking with something," he told me. Flaherty has since joined Joe Biden's campaign, which has had to contend with similar distortions: Last year, a website resembling an official Biden campaign page appeared on the internet. It emphasized elements of the candidate's legislative record likely to hurt him in the Democratic primary-opposition to same-sex marriage, support for the Iraq War-and featured video clips of his awkward encounters with women. The site quickly became one of the most-visited Biden-related sites on the web. It was designed by a Trump consultant.

FIGHTING FIRE WITH FIRE

As the president's reelection machine ramps up, Democratic strategists have found themselves debating an urgent question: Can they defeat the Trump coalition without adopting its tactics?

On one side of this argument is Dmitri Mehlhorn, a consultant notorious for his willingness to experiment with digital subterfuge. During Alabama's special election in 2017, Mehlhorn helped fund at least two "false flag" operations against the Republican Senate candidate, Roy Moore. For one scheme, faux Russian Twitter bots followed the candidate's account to make it look like the Kremlin was backing Moore. For another, a fake social-media campaign, dubbed "Dry Alabama," was designed to link Moore to fictional Baptist teetotalers trying to ban alcohol. (Mehlhorn has claimed that he unaware of the Russian bot effort and does not support the use of misinformation.)

When The New York Times uncovered the second plot, one of the activists involved, Matt Osborne, contended that Democrats had no choice but to employ such unscrupulous techniques. "If you don't do it, you're fighting with one hand tied behind your back," Osborne said. "You have a moral imperative to do this-to do whatever it takes."

Others have argued that this is precisely the wrong moment for Democrats to start abandoning ideals of honesty and fairness. "It's just not in my values to go out there making shit up and tricking voters," Flaherty told me. "I know there's this whole fight-fire-with-fire contingent, but generally when you ask them what they mean, they're like, "˜Lie!'"Š" Some also note that the president has already handed them plenty of ammunition. "I don't think the Democratic campaign is going to need to make stuff up about Trump," Judd Legum, the author of a progressive newsletter about digital politics, told me. "They can stick to things that are true."

Eventually, the fear of covert propaganda inflicts as much damage as the propaganda itself.

One Democrat straddling these two camps is a young, tech-savvy strategist named Tara McGowan. Last fall, she and the former Obama adviser David Plouffe launched a political-action committee with a pledge to spend $75 million attacking Trump online. At the time, the president's campaign was running more ads on Facebook and Google than the top four Democratic candidates combined. McGowan's plans to return fire included such ads, but she also had more creative-and controversial-measures in mind.

For example, she established a media organization with a staff of writers to produce left-leaning "hometown news" stories that can be micro-targeted to persuadable voters on Facebook without any indication that they're paid for by a political group. Though she insists that the reporting is strictly factual, some see the enterprise as a too-close-for-comfort co-opting of right-wing tactics.

When I spoke with McGowan, she was open about her willingness to push boundaries that might make some Democrats queasy. As far as she was concerned, the "super-predator" ads Trump ran to depress black turnout in 2016 were "fair game" because they had some basis in fact. (Clinton did use the term in 1996, to refer to gang members.) McGowan suggested that a similar approach could be taken with conservatives. She ruled out attempts to misinform Republicans about when and where to vote-a tactic Mehlhorn reportedly considered, though he later said he was joking-but said she would pursue any strategy that was "in the bounds of the law."

"We are in a radically disruptive moment right now," McGowan told me. "We have a president that lies every day, unabashedly "¦ I think Trump is so desperate to win this election that he will do anything. There will be no bar too low for him."

This intraparty split was highlighted last year when state officials urged the Democratic National Committee to formally disavow the use of bots, troll farms, and "deepfakes" (digitally manipulated videos that can, with alarming precision, make a person appear to do or say anything). Supporters saw the proposed pledge as a way of contrasting their party's values with those of the GOP. But after months of lobbying, the committee refused to adopt the pledge.

From May 2018: The era of fake video begins

Meanwhile, experts worried about domestic disinformation are looking to other countries for lessons. The most successful recent example may be Indonesia, which cracked down on the problem after a wave of viral lies and conspiracy theories pushed by hard-line Islamists led to the defeat of a popular Christian Chinese candidate for governor in 2016. To prevent a similar disruption in last year's presidential election, a coalition of journalists from more than two dozen top Indonesian news outlets worked together to identify and debunk hoaxes before they gained traction online. But while that may sound like a promising model, it was paired with aggressive efforts by the state to monitor and arrest purveyors of fake news-an approach that would run afoul of the First Amendment if attempted in the U.S.

Richard Stengel, who served as the undersecretary of state for public diplomacy under President Obama, spent almost three years trying to counter digital propaganda from the Islamic State and Russia. By the time he left office, he told me, he was convinced that disinformation would continue to thrive until big tech companies were forced to take responsibility for it. Stengel has proposed amending the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which shields online platforms from liability for messages posted by third parties. Companies such as Facebook and Twitter, he believes, should be required by law to police their platforms for disinformation and abusive trolling. "It's not going to solve the whole problem," he told me, "but it's going to help with volume."

There is one other case study to consider. During the Ukrainian revolution in 2014, pro-democracy activists found that they could defang much of the false information about their movement by repeatedly exposing its Russian origins. But this kind of transparency comes with a cost, Stengel observed. Over time, alertness to the prevalence of propaganda can curdle into paranoia. Russian operatives have been known to encourage such anxiety by spreading rumors that exaggerate their own influence. Eventually, the fear of covert propaganda inflicts as much damage as the propaganda itself.

Once you internalize the possibility that you're being manipulated by some hidden hand, nothing can be trusted. Every dissenting voice on Twitter becomes a Russian bot, every uncomfortable headline a false flag, every political development part of an ever-deepening conspiracy. By the time the information ecosystem collapses under the weight of all this cynicism, you're too vigilant to notice that the disinformationists have won.

POWERS OF INCUMBENCY

If there's one thing that can be said for Brad Parscale, it's that he runs a tight ship. Unauthorized leaks from inside the campaign are rare; press stories on palace intrigue are virtually nonexistent. When the staff first moved into its new offices last year, journalists were periodically invited to tour the facility-but Parscale put an end to the practice: He didn't want them glimpsing a scrap of paper or a whiteboard scribble that they weren't supposed to see.

Notably, while the Trump White House has endured a seemingly endless procession of shake-ups, the Trump reelection campaign has seen very little turnover since Parscale took charge. His staying power is one reason many Republicans-inside the organization or out-hesitate to talk about him on the record. But among allies of the president, there appears to be a growing skepticism.

Former colleagues began noticing a change in Parscale after his promotion. Suddenly, the quiet guy with his face buried in a laptop was wearing designer suits, tossing out MAGA hats at campaign rallies, and traveling to Europe to speak at a political-marketing conference. In the past few years, Parscale has bought a BMW, a Range Rover, a condo, and a $2.4 million waterfront house in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. "He knows he has the confidence of the family," one former colleague told me, "which gives him more swagger." When the U.K.'s Daily Mail ran a story spotlighting Parscale's spending spree, he attempted deflection through flattery. "The president is an excellent businessman," he told the tabloid, "and being associated with him for years has been extremely beneficial to my family."

But according to a former White House official with knowledge of the incident, Trump was irritated by the coverage, and the impression it created that his campaign manager was getting rich off him. For a moment, Parscale's standing appeared to be in peril, but then Trump's attention was diverted by the G7 summit in France, and he never returned to the issue. (A spokesperson for the campaign disputed this account.)

Some Republicans worry that for all Parscale's digital expertise, he doesn't have the vision to guide Trump to reelection. The president is historically unpopular, and even in red states, he has struggled to mobilize his base for special elections. If Trump's message is growing stale with voters, is Parscale the man to help overhaul it? "People start to ask the question-you're building this apparatus, and that's great, but what's the overarching narrative?" said a former campaign staffer.

But whether Trump finds a new narrative or not, he has something this time around that he didn't have in 2016-the powers of the presidency. While every commander in chief looks for ways to leverage his incumbency for reelection, Trump has shown that he's willing to go much further than most. In the run-up to the 2018 midterm elections, he seized on reports of a migrant caravan traveling to the U.S. from Central America to claim that the southern border was facing a national-security crisis. Trump warned of a coming "invasion" and claimed, without evidence, that the caravan had been infiltrated by gang members.

Parscale aided this effort by creating a 30-second commercial that interspersed footage of Hispanic migrants with clips of a convicted cop-killer. The ad ended with an urgent call to action: stop the caravan. vote republican. In a final maneuver before the election, Trump dispatched U.S. troops to the border. The president insisted that the operation was necessary to keep America safe-but within weeks the troops were quietly called back, the "crisis" having apparently ended once votes were cast. Skeptics were left to wonder: If Trump is willing to militarize the border to pick up a few extra seats in the midterms, what will he and his supporters do when his reelection is on the line?

It doesn't require an overactive imagination to envision a worst-case scenario: On Election Day, anonymous text messages direct voters to the wrong polling locations, or maybe even circulate rumors of security threats. Deepfakes of the Democratic nominee using racial slurs crop up faster than social-media platforms can remove them. As news outlets scramble to correct the inaccuracies, hordes of Twitter bots respond by smearing and threatening reporters. Meanwhile, the Trump campaign has spent the final days of the race pumping out Facebook ads at such a high rate that no one can keep track of what they're injecting into the bloodstream.

After the first round of exit polls is released, a mysteriously sourced video surfaces purporting to show undocumented immigrants at the ballot box. Trump begins retweeting rumors of voter fraud and suggests that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers should be dispatched to polling stations. are illegals stealing the election? reads the Fox News chyron. are russians behind false videos? demands MSNBC.

The votes haven't even been counted yet, and much of the country is ready to throw out the result.

NOTHING IS TRUE

There is perhaps no better place to witness what the culture of disinformation has already wrought in America than a Trump campaign rally. One night in November, I navigated through a parking-lot maze of folding tables covered in MAGA merch and entered the BancorpSouth Arena in Tupelo, Mississippi. The election was still a year away, but thousands of sign-waving supporters had crowded into the venue to cheer on the president in person.

Once Trump took the stage, he let loose a familiar flurry of lies, half-lies, hyperbole, and nonsense. He spun his revisionist history of the Ukraine scandal-the one in which Joe Biden is the villain-and claimed, falsely, that the Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams wanted to "give illegal aliens the right to vote." At one point, during a riff on abortion, Trump casually asserted that "the governor of Virginia executed a baby"-prompting a woman in the crowd to scream, "Murderer!"

This incendiary fabrication didn't seem to register with my companions in the press pen, who were busy writing stories and shooting B-roll. I opened Twitter, expecting to see a torrent of fact-checks laying out the truth of the case-that the governor had been answering a hypothetical question about late-term abortion; that a national firestorm had ensued; that there were certainly different ways to interpret his comments but that not even the most ardent anti-abortion activist thought the governor of Virginia had personally "executed a baby."

But Twitter was uncharacteristically quiet (apparently the president had said this before), and the most widely shared tweet I found on the subject was from his own campaign, which had blasted out a context-free clip of the governor's abortion comments to back up Trump's smear.

After the rally, I loitered near one of the exits, chatting with people as they filed out of the arena. Among liberals, there is a comforting caricature of Trump supporters as gullible personality cultists who have been hypnotized into believing whatever their leader says. The appeal of this theory is the implication that the spell can be broken, that truth can still triumph over lies, that someday everything could go back to normal-if only these voters were exposed to the facts. But the people I spoke with in Tupelo seemed to treat matters of fact as beside the point.

One woman told me that, given the president's accomplishments, she didn't care if he "fabricates a little bit." A man responded to my questions about Trump's dishonest attacks on the press with a shrug and a suggestion that the media "ought to try telling the truth once in a while." Tony Willnow, a 34-year-old maintenance worker who had an American flag wrapped around his head, observed that Trump had won because he said things no other politician would say. When I asked him if it mattered whether those things were true, he thought for a moment before answering. "He tells you what you want to hear," Willnow said. "And I don't know if it's true or not-but it sounds good, so fuck it."

The political theorist Hannah Arendt once wrote that the most successful totalitarian leaders of the 20th century instilled in their followers "a mixture of gullibility and cynicism." When they were lied to, they chose to believe it. When a lie was debunked, they claimed they'd known all along-and would then "admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness." Over time, Arendt wrote, the onslaught of propaganda conditioned people to "believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true."

Leaving the rally, I thought about Arendt, and the swaths of the country that are already gripped by the ethos she described. Should it prevail in 2020, the election's legacy will be clear-not a choice between parties or candidates or policy platforms, but a referendum on reality itself.

This article appears in the March 2020 print edition with the headline "The 2020 Disinformation War."
McKay Coppins is a staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of The Wilderness, a book about the battle over the future of the Republican Party.

Hi Rad,

That's a great article. Thanks for posting it. Very chilling, though, especially the fact that Trump is going to spend $1 billion spreading his lies and propaganda.

The Democratic nominee is going to end up having a ton of lies made up about them in the 2 weeks prior to the election and those lies will be spread with pinpoint accuracy to those most likely to believe them.

Facebook was complicit in the past election and will be again in this one. The mainstream media---run by Republican corporations---will also spread these lies, as they did with the "Hillary's emails" issue in 2016, and, once again, they will pretend they're just covering the facts.

I just hope enough of us voters don't believe the lies and I hope enough of us see the emergency that is Trump and vote in record numbers for whoever the Democratic nominee is.

All the best,

Soleil

I can't wait until we delve deeper into the chart of Bernie Sanders

Can we stop tiptoeing around the fact that Trump is behaving like a dictator?

on February 15, 2020
By Lucian K. Truscott IV, Salon
- Commentary

There will come a time when we look back on this week as the moment in our history when we finally understood that we have a man as president who is acting like a fascist dictator. Just look at the headlines from one day's New York Times alone: "Alarm in Capital as Axes Swing in Growing Post-Acquittal Purge," "Justice Dept. Acts to Ease Sentence for a Trump Ally." If either one of those headlines had run on the front page of a major American newspaper before now, not to mention both of them at once, we would have believed as a people, as a citizenry, that we were facing a national crisis. But this week? Wednesday was just another day in Donald Trump's America.

The day before that, in what became known as the "Tuesday night massacre," all four prosecutors in the case against Trump's longtime friend and political bad boy Roger Stone had resigned in protest of the intervention by Trump and his attorney general, William Barr, to reduce the sentence recommended by the Department of Justice in Stone's conviction for lying to congressional committees and tampering with witnesses.

All of this followed closely the "Friday night massacre" of last week, when Trump fired two of the impeachment witnesses against him, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman of the National Security Council and Gordon Sondland, ambassador to the European Union.

But two "massacres" in a row was just the beginning. By mid-week, Trump was suggesting that Army officials with court-martial authority over Vindman should "take a look at" punishing him for testifying at the impeachment hearing. On Thursday, the New York Times front page trumpeted, "U,S. Lawyers Fear Removal of a Guardrail: Sone Case Stirs Worry of What's to Come." And by Friday morning, a panel of legal pundits on MSNBC were worrying about what would happen when Trump didn't merely step in to help allies like Stone but actually began prosecuting his political foes.

Folks, let's not mince words: This is the kind of stuff we read about happening in dictatorships like Russia and North Korea and Iran. And yes, it's the kind of rule by strong-arm fiat that was practiced by Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany.

Before this week, I would have thought it an exaggeration to compare Trump's frequent rallies to the infamous Nuremberg rallies Hitler held during the1930s. No longer. Trump's rallies are unnervingly close to those held in Nuremberg. The MAGA hat has become a kind of Trumpian Nazi helmet. The denunciations of hated minorities are the same. As is his insane bellowing before a crowd screaming its slavish obeisance.

Let's just stop for a moment and consider the angry chants of "Lock her up," first directed at Hillary Clinton, now at Nancy Pelosi. What do Trump's cheering crowds want his Democratic opponents locked up for? Neither of those women has faced criminal charges, much less been convicted of any crime. Neither is even under investigation for corruption or alleged criminal behavior. But that doesn't matter to Trump and his rally crowds. This stuff has been going on for so long, it's clear that they actually do want them locked up. When Trump stands before his screaming fans, raising his arms and smiling, it's obvious he does, too. To call for the imprisonment of political opponents without trial is not playing with rhetoric for effect. It's not political gimmickry. It's not cute. It's not funny. It's not clever. Let's say out loud what it is: It's pure fascism, plain and simple.

The man who stands before those rallies and encourages such idolatry isn't merely running for president. He is calling, directly and without apology, for the kind of obedience and loyalty demanded by dictators. He is commanding worship and submission. It must be why he attracts so completely the support of evangelical Christians. He truly is the false idol their Bible warned them against. They have fallen for him in the same way the most conspicuously devout worshipers commit sins. The inevitability of Trump and his evangelical masses is jaw-dropping, and yes, biblical.

By the end of the week, we had the practically comic spectacle of Attorney General Barr scolding Trump publicly for his tweets in an interview with ABC News, saying they "make it impossible for me to do my job." Within hours, Trump replied - by tweet, naturally enough - that he has the "legal right" to tell Barr what to do in a criminal case, "but I have so far chosen not to!"

Which given the events of the rest of the week is a little bit like reassuring the "Lock her up" minions at his rallies, "Just wait."

It's hard to put a finger on the worst thing Trump has done since taking office, but right up there is the complete destruction of the idea that the person in the Oval Office is the president of all the people. He isn't. He doesn't want to be. If you didn't vote for him, if you're not out there wearing a MAGA hat and screaming at his rallies, you're a non-person. If your state didn't go for him in the 2016 election, forget about it. Just ask California, or Puerto Rico, still waiting for federal assistance after natural disasters. Or ask New York, which Trump is now extorting like a domestic Ukraine, by denying New Yorkers access to the "Trusted Traveler" program unless the state "stop all of its unnecessary lawsuits & harrassment" [sic].

To divide the country into those Trump approves of and those he does not is inherently fascistic. That way lies the singling out of non-supporters and minorities for special treatment. With anti-abortion laws being contemplated around the country - almost entirely in red states that supported Trump - that would actually "lock up" women who get abortions, the day when we can sit back and review Trump's "latest outrage" calmly is over.

Donald Trump is an existential threat to the virtues of the democracy we have enjoyed for more than two centuries. He is a real threat to the things we have thought we shared as Americans: the love of variety and dissent, and a belief in the consent of the governed. The capacity of all citizens to respect each other's opposing positions, even amid vigorous disagreement. A respect for the disadvantaged and a scorn for the absolutism of the strong. A universal contempt for the public lie. Trump stands in outright opposition to all of this, and he is a threat to us all.

The feeling in the air by the end of the week was one of powerlessness. How could it not be, having watched Trump take a blowtorch to the Department of Justice and the rule of law, firing his enemies, rewarding his friends, making a mockery of the Constitution and everything it stands for?

I remember the last time the feeling of powerlessness was this strong. It was back in 1969, with Richard Nixon in the White House. On the day he took office, 34,000 young Americans had been killed in the war in Vietnam. By that fall, another 9,000 had died. It seemed as if everyone opposed that war, even those in the military being made to fight it. Nixon was bombing North Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. The war had become a massive trench filled with blood and bodies. Nothing anyone did could stop it.

The answer came on Oct. 15, 1969, with the Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam. It was organized the old fashioned way, by word-of-mouth in bars and college dorms and offices and on the phone. The result was millions marching in the United States and around the world, with a quarter of a million people marching on the White House in protest. Two weeks later, Nixon gave his famous "silent majority" speech, widely seen as an answer to the Moratorium. But two weeks after that, Seymour Hersh exposed the My Lai massacre, and three days later, on Nov. 15, another Moratorium March took place in Washington, with half a million marching against the war. A quarter million marched in San Francisco. Hundreds of thousands marched elsewhere. Nixon was forced into the Paris Peace Accords. By August 1973, the Congress passed the Case-Church Amendment, ending direct U.S. military involvement in the war.

We're there again. It's time for another Moratorium march, this time against Donald Trump. It's not enough to vote against him in November. We're sliding into a fascist dictatorship. The time to act is now.

Hi Rad,

Thanks for posting this. It's spot-on.

Yes, Trump is frighteningly similar to Hitler in many ways. What's frustrating is how the media keeps giving him the benefit of the doubt, while whitewashing his tyrannical and authoritarian behavior and downplaying the seriousness of the danger he represents. Whether we like it or not, the way the media covers the president drives the narrative.

As Sarah Kendzior (a writer and scholar on authoritarian regimes, who has a great podcast called Gaslit Nation) tweeted recently:

"The pattern is that the pundits cover our transition into an authoritarian mafia state every few months, after a particularly egregious offense occurs, and then develop collective amnesia and proclaim they are "shocked"."
https://twitter.com/sarahkendzior?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

I agree with what the piece you posted said---that we need to protest in the streets, because, yes, a sense of powerlessness and anxiety has seeped into the atmosphere. This is exactly what tyrants and authoritarians want and we have to rise up and counter that. Unfortunately, it seems as if a collective fatigue has also taken hold, so maybe that's why we don't see mass protests in the streets?

The most important thing is to get this evil sociopath removed from office asap. Let's just hope we can do that soon.

Peace + blessings,

Soleil

Rad, the only known birth time of Sanders is from a second hand memory, but in my correlations looking at transits over several years and just observing the evolutionary trajectory of his life, the proposed 12:27 pm seems fairly accurate. Do you have any insight on this?

Hi Ari,

I just don't know his birth time Ari. If you would like to post the chart you have based on the second hand source for his birth time go ahead so that others can check it out, and make observations about it.

God Bless, Rad

Here's the chart:
This particular birth time feels really aligned - though it's always important to remember that the mind can make logical sense out of anything.

For now a basic observation: The Virgo stellium in Virgo in the 10th: a lifetime of serving through a political career. And his focus is of course Neptunian in the sense of wanting to create a structural reality (10th house) that fixes (Virgo) a corrupt system (10th house) to serve those in society who are in greatest need (Neptune in the 10th, also Virgo: inferior conditions). And his main focus is on universal healthcare as a government system.

There's a lot more and especially very strong trasit correlations which I don't have the time to go into right now. If anyone has any observations and correlations go for it!

Edit: here's where I got the speculative 12:27 pm birth time:

https://www.astro.com/astro-databank/Sanders,_Bernie (https://www.astro.com/astro-databank/Sanders,_Bernie)

QuoteSource Notes
Isaac Starkman quoted Donald Clayton's blog: "The birth of Bernard Sanders occurs in New York City, Borough of Brooklyn, New York. He is born at 00:00 A./P.M. on September 8, 1941. His mother is Dorothy Glassburg (married name Dorothy Sanders). His father is Eli Sanders. Certification of Live Birth - State of New York - No information or document appears to publicly exist". Kanon McAfee reports per email: Donald Clayton, on whose Qala bist blog appears the 0:00 a./p.m. time has told me directly via twitter, "... the 0:00 is a space-saver entry for information that is not known ..."

Starkman quotes astro-charts.com: "Bernie Sanders' birth time is not entirely certain. I talked with a man who campaigned with Bernie Sanders in the Burlington, Vermont races 35 years ago, and was also an astrology enthusiast. According to him, working off of his memory, Bernie's birth time was 12:27 PM EDT"

Sy Scholfield quotes an interview in which Sanders says he does not know his rising sign: "Jessica Pels: I know you're a Virgo, just like me, which explains a lot. But do you know your Rising sign? Bernie Sanders: No. Sam Feher, assistant to the editor-in-chief [of Cosmopolitan magazine]: Scorpio! BS: Oh, Scorpio!" ("Cosmo Asks Bernie Sanders the Questions Young Women Want Answered," by Jessica Pels, Cosmopolitan, 27 Sept 2019 [1]).

Hi Ari,

Thanks for posting his chart. Do you know the source of this 2nd hand birth time ? In any case the Saturn transit forming a grand trine in his chart now to his natal Saturn and Neptune will also be in place on the election day in November: right now this correlates with him being on top in the Democrats polling. If he becomes the nominee for the Democrats the transiting N.Node will be on top of his natal Jupiter. 

Like Ari suggests if any one else would like to comment on his chart please feel free to do so.

God Bless, Rad

Hi Rad,

The mainstream media is relentlessly putting out the message that Bernie Sanders absolutely can't beat Trump in the general election because the voters won't vote for a "socialist". I think he can beat Trump but, as we've discussed before, it all comes down to who wins Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan. Still, the fact that the media is against him doesn't help.

What concerns me is Bloomberg, who is not really a Democrat. He's a Republican. He seems to exhibit some authoritarian tendencies and he has enough money to buy people off and, in some cases, to silence them. Yet the media loves him and is pushing him while bashing Sanders and ignoring Elizabeth Warren.

Is there anything you see astrologically or intuitively re Bloomberg?

Thanks.

Soleil

Hi Soleil

Right now it all comes down to the Democratic convention and who becomes the nominee. Like Sanders he has an ongoing transiting grand trine from Pluto and Saturn to his natal Neptune, Mars, Saturn, and Uranus. He is a 'moderate' so of course the media in America are more favorable to him vs the 'radical', from a consensus media point of view, of someone like Sanders and Warren.

God Bless, Rad

i amended my post to include my source on the speculative 12:27 birth time.

Hi Rad,

Thanks for your reply and for posting Bloomberg's chart.

Let's hope voters will rally around whoever the nominee ends up being, and let's also hope that we turn out in enough numbers to nullify whatever attacks, manipulation and disinformation the Russians do on Trump's behalf.

All the best,

Soleil

Trump is trying to bring "˜thousands' of federal judges under his thumb - and hurling the US "˜further toward an authoritarian' rule: attorney

on February 26, 2020
By Alex Henderson, AlterNet

Much has been written about President Donald Trump's impact on the United States' federal government - not only the U.S. Supreme Court, but also, the lower federal courts. Trump's influence at the federal level, however, goes beyond the courts and the judicial branch of the federal government. And journalist/attorney Peter M. Shane, in an article for The Atlantic, warns that Trump is also trying to bring federal administrative adjudicators under his control within the government's executive branch.

Shane opens his article by explaining who administrative adjudicators are and what they do.
Defend democracy. Click to invest in courageous progressive journalism today.

"Throughout the federal government are thousands of officials who do not direct courtrooms, but who are, in a sense, judges," Shane notes. "They are federal employees who preside over trial-like disputes, hear evidence and testimony, and make decisions that can deeply shape people's lives, such as the granting of asylum and veterans benefits. These executive branch employees are administrative adjudicators."

The Trump Administration, according to Shane, has "launched an obscure but dangerous effort to undermine this system, and to dictate both the appropriate circumstances for commencing adjudication and the rules that govern how disputes with agencies are resolved. If the Trump Administration's strategy works, it will have steered the federal bureaucracy further toward an authoritarian future in which all executive branch policy-making must bend to the whims of a single individual: the president."

Shane describes the Trump Administration's power grab as a "two-pronged attack on the independence of all administrative adjudicators" and "the agencies that employ them." According to Shane, "the first prong involves telling agencies, via executive orders, how to exercise the discretion that Congress has given them to conduct adjudication."

"The second and even more aggressive prong is the Trump Administration's campaign to undermine independent agencies, which conduct a lot of the highest-profile administrative adjudications," Shane goes on to say. "The aim is to put an end altogether to the idea of independent officers in the executive branch."

Shane wraps up his piece by stressing that the Trump Administration's campaign to weaken administrative adjudicators underscores the president's authoritarian leanings.

"Impartiality is anathema to Trumpism," Shane warns. "That the Trump Administration wants to upend a long-standing system for assuring both the reality and appearance of fairness in agency adjudication may be shocking, but it is not surprising. If you consider yourself on block watch for threats to democracy, take your eyes for a moment off the president's Twitter feed and turn your attention to administrative law. Danger is lurking amid the complexity."

Hi Rad,

What Trump is doing to administrative judges is alarming. I wish more people understood how dangerous this all is. Thanks for posting the article---more people need to be made aware of this.

He's also been dismantling a lot important government agencies while no one was looking. For example, the CDC and the global health security unit of the NSC.
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-cuts-programs-responsible-for-fighting-coronavirus-2020-2

And now this insane moronic sociopath is responsible for trying to contain a possible pandemic when we know that all he really cares about is propping up the stock market so he can get re-elected. In the meantime, he's muzzling scientists like Tony Fauci, who have real information.

All the best,

Soleil

Hi Rad,

On Jan. 15, you wrote In the impeachment thread:

"My sense is what the majority of Americans want and need is for someone like Biden who symbolizes America BEFORE Trump. Thus, a sense of safety, familiarity, and stability. Someone who will restructure the government in the way it has been in America, to undo everything that Trump has done: the destruction of the government that is underway. Within this he symbolizes the reality that Obama had created while he was his VP."

You were right. Looks like the tide has turned in Biden's favor. After the disaster of Trump, I was hoping this country was ready for progressive policies, like the kind Warren laid out. Unfortunately it isn't, and it's definitely not ready to elect a woman.

I still think it would be a great idea for Biden to pick a strong capable woman as VP, but because of the intense misogyny in this country, even a woman as VP seems like it might be too controversial.

Do you think the need for people to feel safe, the way they did before Trump, will necessitate Biden choosing a man as VP? Also, do you think the VP will probably be another moderate, or do you think voters would feel ok with a progressive as VP? I have a feeling he will pick someone very safe and moderate.

I think the VP pick is extremely important this time around. Given his age, if he's elected, there's a chance the VP may have to take over at some point.

Thank you.

Soleil

Hi Soleil,

My sense of this is that he will choose a moderate female like Amy Klobuchar. In her birth chart she has lot's of planets in Gemini which would land in Trump's 10th house symbolizing the underlying strength of majority of females in American who detest Trump, and a female who could get in his face. Her Mars in Aries correlates to a female warrior through which many women, and men, would rally too. 

Attached is her natal chart that has no birth time: a noon chart.

God Bless, Rad

Hi Rad,

Thanks for the feedback and for posting Klobuchar's chart. It's interesting.

I think you're right, that Biden will pick a moderate like her. I really do hope he picks a woman. I think we need one.

All the best,

Soleil

Hi All,

Yes, I agree with Rad on this one.
Also, Biden's wife Jill, has similar Gemini planets to Klobuchar, so these two women would serve as a strong tag team, a female force to trip Trump.
Of course they are both highly intelligent and while Jill may be tiny, she and Biden's sister did not hesitate to take on those protestors that were coming after Biden while he was speaking after his big success on Super Tuesday.
These two women would appeal to the masses of women, remembering this country is 75% consensus, and they are more in the middle and would appeal to Republican women too.
We need sanity again and something that feels safe to the masses to attempt to bring back a semblance of normalcy again.
I love Bernie's passion for the poor and the middle class, as well as his ideas, but we need someone who can tow this sinking US boat back to dry land.

Klobuchar's Venus is 26 Taurus, so Pluto and Saturn are trining that ie BALANCE and Saturn will enter Aquarius to trine all of her Gemini planets and progressively sextile her Mars in Aries next year. She is tough enough and smart enough for this position.

Peace,
Kristin

BE READY AMERICA....

America needs to plan now in case Trump loses in November - but refuses to leave the White House

on March 14, 2020
By Thom Hartmann, Independent Media Institute

The Constitution provides a couple of mechanisms for Trump to lose the 2020 election-both the popular vote and the Electoral College-and still hold the office of president for a second term.

It's keeping historians and constitutional scholars up at night and, based on offline conversations I've had with D.C. conservatives I know, is something the GOP and partisans within the Trump administration are already discussing.

Bill Maher and I have been repeatedly asking a question on the air that the rest of America's media seemingly thinks is too far out to even consider: What if Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen is right, and after losing the 2020 election Trump refuses to leave office?

On its surface, the question seems silly-nobody who has lost both the popular vote and an uncontested Electoral College vote has ever gone on to become president, right?

Unfortunately, it's wrong. The GOP has done this before, an action that included multiple threats of violence and bloodshed on the floor of Congress, leading Democrats to cave in even though their candidate won the popular vote and had 22 more electoral votes than the Republican (who became president).

Additionally, the Constitution says that if a presidential election really turns into a mess with multiple claims of fraud or some other crisis, the president is selected by the U.S. House of Representatives.

While that sounds like good news, with Democrats controlling the House today, each state's delegation only gets one vote-50 votes from 50 states determine the president. And a majority of the states are Republican-controlled, so this remedy would put Trump into office regardless of how badly he lost the popular vote, the electoral vote, or both.

So, how did we get here, and what are the scenarios the Republicans I know are considering?

First, some background.

Swing States' Legislatures Decide (and Trump Wins)

Article II (the Executive Branch), Section 1, Clause 2 of the Constitution (and the 12th Amendment, which revises it) gives solely to the legislature of the states the power to control the electors who will decide the presidential election.

It does not say that the people of the states shall vote for their choice of president and then that vote shall be reflected in the states' electoral votes. It's entirely up to the legislature (without any input from the governor). "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors"¦" is how it appears in Article II of the Constitution.

Every state's legislature generally directs all their electors to vote for the candidate who won the majority in the state (Maine and Nebraska are the exception, allowing for split decisions), a system we call "winner takes all," but a state's legislature (its combined house or assembly and senate, where each member has one vote) can, by simple majority vote, direct its electors to vote for any candidate they want, even over the objections of their governor.

In the 2000 election, for example, when the Florida Supreme Court had ordered a complete recount of the vote for president in that state, Republicans were concerned that a full, statewide recount would give Al Gore the presidency.

(And, indeed, that's what would have happened, as a consortium of newspapers including the New York Times discovered a year later when they fully recounted the Florida vote and found that Al Gore won Florida-a fact largely buried by the papers because it was published just two months after 9/11 and no newspaper wanted to challenge the legitimacy of Bush's presidency during one of the nation's most severe times of national crisis since Pearl Harbor.)

Thus, had the U.S. Supreme Court not intervened to stop the Florida recount, the Republicans in the Florida legislature fully intended to hand the Florida electoral college vote-and, thus, the White House-to George W. Bush, even if a recount showed that Al Gore actually won the vote.

The 2000 Dress Rehearsal

As David Barstow and Somini Sengupta wrote for the New York Times on November 28, 2000, "The president of Florida's Senate said today that Gov. Jeb Bush had indicated his willingness to sign special legislation intended to award Florida's 25 Electoral College votes to his brother Gov. George W. Bush of Texas even as the election results were being contested."

Barstow and Sengupta added that "talk of a special legislative session continued unabated here today as local Republicans fretted about the possibility that the justices on the Florida Supreme Court, all appointed by Democrats, might uphold the challenge by Vice President Al Gore [for a statewide recount], ultimately awarding him the state's electoral votes."

Bluntly, they noted, "The driving force behind the calls for a special session is the Republican desire to use the Legislature to trump the state's Supreme Court, should the need arise." In other words, should the recount discover that Gore had actually won.

If the Florida legislature, then firmly in GOP hands, had voted to require all their electors to cast their votes for Bush (or appoint new ones who would), the recount would have been irrelevant; the Constitution gives that power exclusively to the state's legislatures.

Which includes purple states with Democratic governors and a majority of Republicans in the combined House and Senate of the state, as with Michigan, Pennsylvania, and-most significantly because in 2020 it'll probably play the role Florida did in 2000-Wisconsin.

Thus, through simple brute force, if Trump, Fox News and Limbaugh, et al, were to loudly claim that there was "voter fraud" in any or all of those states and succeed in casting doubts about the integrity of an election that would put a Democrat in the White House, the manufactured conflict could be resolved and the election given to Trump by one or more state legislatures as Florida threatened to do in 2000.

The GOP and right-wing radio and TV have been preparing this ground for the better part of two decades, constantly harping on non-existent voter fraud by undocumented Hispanics and African Americans who, as Trump alleged, go from polling place to polling place by bus to double- or even triple-vote.

While there's absolutely no evidence for any of this-despite the Bush administration spending tens of millions of dollars, enlisting all 93 U.S. attorneys nationwide, and examining over 840 million votes and finding fully 35 examples of illegal votes nationwide (and none by "illegal Hispanics")-this "voter fraud" fantasy is widely believed among the Republican electorate and could be used by a state's legislature to flip a close vote.

The U.S. House of Representatives Decides (and Trump Wins)

Another way Trump could lose both the popular vote and the uncontested electoral vote is found in the election of 1876.

Democrat Samuel Tilden won the popular vote nationwide but, with 184 electoral votes, was one vote short of the necessary 185 electoral votes to become president.

Republican Rutherford B. Hayes not only lost the popular vote but had only 163 electoral votes.

Ohio's Republican Congressman James Monroe (not related to the president of generations earlier of the same name) wrote the definitive summary of that election and how it played out in Congress, a narrative he published in the Atlantic in October 1893.

Pointing out that "the votes of Florida, Louisiana, Oregon, and South Carolina, with an aggregate of 22 electors" would turn the election to either Hayes or Tilden, Monroe (who was there) wrote, "From the States just named there were two sets of returns, one favorable to General Hayes, the other to Mr. Tilden."

The dispute had to do with three of those four states then being occupied by the Union Army (this was just 11 years after the Civil War ended, and Reconstruction was in full swing). At the same time, the Klan was riding high in all four states.

Formerly enslaved African Americans were trying to turn out large numbers of voters for the Republican candidate, but there was also widespread Klan activity suppressing that black vote. On the other side, Democrats in Congress charged that Union soldiers had intimidated Southern Democratic voters, suppressing their vote.

Monroe wrote that the Democrats charged, "that these returns [in those four states for Republican Hayes] were a product of fraud and dishonesty; that, in preparing them, the vote of whole precincts, parishes, and counties had been thrown out in order to secure Hayes electors"¦ [and] they did not represent the people of those States, but were themselves the product of fraud and corruption, and were kept in place only by what was called the "˜moral influence' of Federal bayonets."

The nation nearly exploded, wrote Monroe: "The feeling of mutual hostility had been greatly intensified by party leaders, orators, and presses. In some of our cities it took all the terrors of the police court to keep Democrats and Republicans from breaking the peace."

The 12th Amendment, ratified in 1804, had a simple solution to the problem of neither candidate winning a majority of electoral votes. "If no person have such majority," the 12th Amendment says, "then"¦ the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote"¦"

Because all the Southern states had now been re-admitted to the Union, a majority of the House of Representatives that year were controlled by Democrats, as were a majority of the states. With each state's delegation having only one vote, the Democratic-controlled House representing a Democratic majority of states would end up making Democrat Tilden the president, something the Republicans wouldn't go along with.

Republicans added that because the 12th Amendment also says that "The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the [electoral] votes shall then be counted"¦" that the president of the Senate should be the one to make the call as to which state's contested votes were legitimate.

The Constitution provides that the vice president shall be the president of the Senate, but President Ulysses Grant's veep, Henry Wilson, had died the previous year and Grant hadn't replaced him; the president of the Senate in 1876 was Senator Thomas Ferry of Michigan, a Republican.

"It would have been as unsatisfactory to Republicans to have the vote declared by the House," wrote Monroe, "as it would have been to Democrats to have it declared by the President of the Senate."

"The situation was serious," Monroe wrote. "Some thoughtful men felt that perhaps the greatest peril that the Republic had encountered was not that of the Civil War" but that "within a hundred days, people would be cutting each other's throats."

Senator Banning of Ohio, "My colleague," Monroe wrote, "declared in a speech, that, if the Republicans should attempt to carry out their theory of the election, and if a part of the army with eighty rounds of ammunition, and the navy, should be ordered to support them, the people would put them all down."

In response, Virginia's Congressman Goode stood up and loudly asked his colleagues if they were willing to essentially restart the Civil War.

"A shout of "˜Yes' went up from the Republican side of the House," wrote Monroe.

Cooler heads ultimately prevailed, and both sides worked out a compromise that gave the GOP the White House but only on the condition that the newly minted President Hayes would remove Union troops from the Southern states, ending Reconstruction.

The republic was saved, but only by selling out Southern black people for the next hundred years.

Congress Empowers Electoral Challenges

In the wake of the election of 1876, Congress passed the Electoral Count Act of 1887 to resolve things should such a situation recur. The law (now codified as 3 U.S. Code §"¯15) specifies that after the president of the Senate opens and reads all the electoral votes as specified in Article II and in the 12th Amendment, then "the President of the Senate shall call for objections, if any."

If a single member of each house of Congress (just one from the House and one from the Senate) objects to the results, then both houses of Congress shall go back to their respective chambers and decide how to resolve the conflict. The objection "shall be signed by at least one Senator and one Member of the House of Representatives" is how the law reads.

I was recently in Seattle speaking at Town Hall with Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington State. She told me the story of how, in the election of 2016, some Democrats were concerned that Republicans or possibly even Russians had manipulated the votes in Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

She was willing to be the "objector" from the House but couldn't find a single senator to sign onto her objection. She said she repeatedly asked Vice President Biden, who as president of the Senate, had the job of opening and certifying the electoral votes, to hold up the certification of Trump's election win, and Biden repeatedly told her no.

The president of the Senate in 2020 will be Mike Pence, and if Trump loses the electoral vote but he and Fox are asserting fraud in some of the states, all it takes is one member each of the House and Senate to throw the issue into debate.

If this is resolved before the first week of January when the House and Senate are sworn in and, like in 1876, the House is Democratic-controlled and the Senate is still run by Republicans, the outcome will likely be a deadlock, which takes us back to the 12th Amendment's remedy that the Democrats were afraid to use in 1876.

On the other hand, if the Democrats take the Senate and hold the House in 2020 and the dispute drags out into the next Congress, it's possible (barring Supreme Court intervention) a united House and Senate could reject disputed votes and put the Democrat in the White House.

If, before the new session or if Democrats fail to take the Senate, the GOP or the Supreme Court could force that vote in the House (or Democrats, unwilling to let a new Civil War break out, were to cave in), because there are more states whose legislatures are controlled by Republicans than Democrats, Trump would become president regardless of the popular or the electoral vote.

If you doubt that the Supreme Court might think that the individual state legislatures should each cast a single vote for president and keep Trump in office, consider what Rehnquist, Scalia and Thomas wrote in their separate concurrence to the Bush v. Gore decision that gave Bush the White House, when a majority of the states' legislatures were similarly controlled by Republicans.

Speaking of the possibility that the House may have to vote for the president, with each state having one single vote (which would have given 2000 to Bush, too), they wrote, "there are a few exceptional cases in which the Constitution imposes a duty or confers a power on a particular branch of a State's government. This is one of them."

For emphasis, they added: "In McPherson v. Blacker (1892), we explained that Article II, Section 1, Clause 2, "˜conveys the broadest power of determination' and "˜leaves it to the [state] legislature exclusively to define the method' of appointment. A significant departure from the legislative scheme for appointing Presidential electors presents a federal constitutional question."

Democrats Need to Plan

I've had discussions around each of these scenarios over the past few years with conservatives and Republicans I got to know during the seven years I lived and worked in Washington, D.C. The GOP, I believe, is seriously gaming out all of these possibilities.

Meanwhile, Trump is preparing his base for this.

During the 2016 primary and general election, Trump repeatedly said that the vote was "rigged" for Democrats and Hillary Clinton. A few weeks after he won, on November 27, he tweeted, "Serious voter fraud in Virginia, New Hampshire and California-so why isn't the media reporting on this? Serious bias-big problem!"

In January of 2017, USA Today reported that, "On Jan. 23, the new president told congressional leaders that between 3 million and 5 million illegal votes caused him to lose the popular vote to Hillary Clinton. Trump won the election with a convincing victory in the Electoral College, even as Clinton won the popular vote by nearly 2.9 million votes."

In April of 2018, he said to a group of supporters and reporters, "In many places, like California, the same person votes many times-you've probably heard about that. They always like to say "˜oh, that's a conspiracy theory'-not a conspiracy theory, folks. Millions and millions of people." He added that Democrats wanted "sanctuary cities" because "they think they're going to vote Democrat."

The week after the 2018 midterm election, Trump alleged massive voter fraud in Florida, tweeting, "The Florida Election should be called in favor of Republicans Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis in that large numbers of new ballots showed up out of nowhere, and many ballots are missing or forged."

On January 27, 2019, he tweeted, "58,000 non-citizens voted in Texas, with 95,000 non-citizens registered to vote. These numbers are just the tip of the iceberg. All over the country, especially in California, voter fraud is rampant. Must be stopped."

In August of 2019, Trump told reporters, "New Hampshire should have been won [by Trump] last time, except we had a lot of people come in at the last moment, which was a rather strange situation. Thousands and thousands of people, coming in from locations unknown. But I knew where their location was."

In early 2020, Trump told a New Hampshire rally, "Remember last time? We won the primary tremendously. We should've won the general election, but they had buses being shipped up from Massachusetts, hundreds and hundreds. And it was very close, even though they did."

This is just a scattering of his statements on the issue; it's a frequent refrain in his rallies and press statements, and a line repeated constantly on Fox News.

This is no accident; these people are preparing the public for the claims they'll use to contest the 2020 election as described earlier.

There are two possible long-term solutions to this problem, which is caused by the existence of the Electoral College.

The first is to simply repeal the Electoral College itself with a constitutional amendment, something that was last seriously tried in the 1970s when Senator Birch Bayh led the effort in Congress. It hit the two-thirds needed in the House but fell short in the Senate. Now that the last two Republican presidents have been elected exclusively with the electoral vote, the GOP has dug in its feet and is resisting any effort to eliminate it.

A second option is to go around the Electoral College. Because the Constitution gives the state legislatures the entire power to determine how their state's electoral votes are allocated, the second way to solve the problem is for enough state legislatures to equal 270 votes (the threshold to win the electoral vote) to pass laws directing their electors to give all of their votes to whatever candidate wins the national popular vote.

There's an interstate compact to do this (in the legislatures of California, Colorado, Connecticut, D.C., Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington), but that's only 196 electoral votes. So long as red and purple states continue to have legislatures with a majority of Republicans, it faces an uphill fight.

But neither of these solutions will be in place this year.

Democrats need to get ready for the Republican plans to hold onto the White House when Trump loses by explaining now to the American people, repeatedly and loudly, how there's no such thing as "voter fraud" but that the GOP's main tool now to win elections is to pretend there is in order to justify voter suppression and election theft.

They also need to point out that the Republicans are, right out in the open and in front of us, trying to pull off a preemptive version of the 2000 Florida "Brooks Brothers riot," when GOP staffers flew in from D.C. and pretended to be Floridians, loudly protesting outside vote-counting places and demanding that the recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court be stopped and Bush be made president.

Get it into the media and repeat it over and over again: "The GOP plans to claim "˜Democratic voter fraud' in this election to steal the election for themselves, and they're already getting people primed for it!"

Then, when the GOP starts screaming that some states where Trump lost "are in doubt" because of "voter fraud," it'll be seen as the scam that it is.

Hola Rad and All,
To date, Trump is only the fifth person in USA history to become president while losing the nationwide popular vote.

In the United States presidential election of 1824, John Quincy Adams was elected President on February 9, 1825, after the election was decided by the House of Representatives. This election is notable for being the only time since the passage of the Twelfth Amendment in which the presidential election was decided by the House of Representatives, as no candidate received a majority of the electoral vote. This presidential election was also the only one in which the candidate receiving the most electoral votes did not become president (because a majority, not just a plurality, is required to win). Andrew Jackson won 99 electoral votes, and 153,544 popular votes, however, Jackson lost the presidential race to John Quincy Adams who won only 84 electoral votes and 108,740 popular votes!

The United States presidential election of 1876 was one of the most disputed presidential elections in American history. Samuel J. Tilden, Democratic candidate of New York won 184 electoral votes and 4,300,590 popular votes yet lost the presidential election to Ohio's Republican candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes who won 185 electoral votes and only 4,036,298 popular votes.

The United States Presidential Election of 1888, Democratic candidate Grover Cleveland won 168 electoral votes and 5,540,309 popular votes and yet lost the election to Republican Benjamin Harrison who won 233 electoral votes and only 5,439,853 popular votes.

In the United States Presidential Election of 2000,  Democratic candidate Al Gore won 266 electoral votes and 50,996,582 popular votes and yet lost the election to Republican George W. Bush who won 271 electoral votes and only 50,456,062.

It seems like Republican candidates have a history of losing the popular vote, and yet, still win the presidential election, however the Democratic candidates don't seem to be able to follow suit. Trump has already won a US Presidential election in which he lost the popular vote; so it seems likely that if he loses the upcoming 2020  popular vote as well as the electoral vote, he would dispute (calling it a Democratic Hoax) and refuse to leave office.

Rad, what indicators in the charts that you posted seem to support this hypothesis; how can we flush this out in the chart? Thank you in advance for your response.
Pura vida!

Hi Chocolate Astrologer

Among other symbols is the transiting Lunar Nodal Axis in the 1876 Chart squaring the transiting Lunar Axis in the 2020 chart. The natal USA Mars is conjunct the transiting N.Node of the 2020 chart, and is square to the 1876 chart. The USA's natal Neptune is conjunct the S.Node of the 1876 chart, and the transiting Neptune in the 2020 chart is conjunct the N.Node in the 1876 chart, and square the transiting Nodes in the 2020 chart, and also square the USA's natal Mars. Just for starters.

I posted these charts so anyone interested could look at them to see what they can see in the possibility of what happened in 1876 happening again in 2020. As that article point out Trump and the Republicans have certainly laid the groundwork for that to happen: if it is to happen.

I am posting the natal USA chart as well.

God Bless, Rad

Hi Rad,

Thanks for posting that opinion piece on Trump losing but refusing to leave. A truly terrifying scenario.

One of the things that concerns me is the impact the coronavirus may have on the 2020 election---we just don't know how long it will take for this thing to play out---and I can imagine Trump trying to cancel the election if we're in a state of emergency. Legally speaking, he can't do it, (https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/dominicholden/coronavirus-trump-cancel-postpone-2020-election) but that doesn't mean he won't try.

One thing that may come out of the coronavirus pandemic is that it will force states to use vote by mail instead of or in addition to in-person voting, and this could be beneficial to Democrats, as the results would be much harder to fudge. The fact that there are still 8 or 10 states that don't have paper ballot back-up is insane.

I hope Democratic donors and lawmakers are already strategizing about how to fight against Trump's scheme, should he lose the electoral college.

Do you see anything in the U.S. chart for 2020 that correlates to the coronavirus issue or in the election day chart that hints at the pandemic playing a part?

Thank you.

Soleil

Hi Soleil,

Yes, this would be symbolized first by Pluto, Virus, in opposition to the USA's natal retrograde Mercury in Cancer in the 3rd, then the Neptune transit retrograde in the 10th in Pisces squaring USA's natal Mars in the 1st, that same Neptune transit squaring the transiting Lunar Nodes with the N.Node conjunct that natal Mars, and the S.Node in the 7th, both these transiting Nodes squaring the natal USA's Neptune in Virgo in it's 5th House, and the Uranus transit which is retrograde in Taurus in the USA's 12th House squaring it's Lunar Nodes: the S.Node itself being in Aquarius in the 9th. One of the archetypes of Uranus is CONTAGION and in the 12th at a collective level. The transiting Sun in Scorpio in the USA's 6th House is opposed that transiting retrograde Uranus, and both are square the USA's natal Lunar Nodes.

God Bless, Rad

Hi Rad,

Thanks for pointing out all the vectors in the chart relative to contagion and viruses. Really interesting. Especially striking:

"One of the archetypes of Uranus is CONTAGION and in the 12th at a collective level".

Let's hope this thing peaks soon so that recovery can begin.

All the best,

Soleil

Hi Rad,

I notice this election chart shows a return for Pluto, Ceres and Chiron, all balsamic to their natal positions, Ceres in different sign in a degree almost exact to the current mercury retrograde direct motion.
Besides the culmination and activation of the natal conjunctions, i notice specially the moon and the south node of the moon, could you give additional information to what this archetypes represent in the context of the United States as a nation?

Thank you,
Helena

Hi Helena,

This correlates to the demographic changes in America in which the white people will become a minority in the 2040's which will progressively change the economic structure of the country itself. The current form of capitalism has created an totally perverse and distorted economic reality in that country in which less than 1 % of the population owns and controls just about 90 % percent of the wealth of the nation. The reality that has then created for the other 99% equals a fact wherein over 60% of the people do not have more than 400 U.S dollars in the 'saving's' account: living from paycheck to paycheck. The health industry then reflects these distortions, the big pharma's of that country refuse to develop a vaccine right now for the cornona virus because there is no profit for them for example, and so on at every level of reality for America.

A perfect example of this is the capitalistic pig called Donald Trump: check this out ... https://www.rawstory.com/2020/03/trump-offered-german-firm-large-sum-for-exclusive-coronavirus-vaccine-to-make-sure-it-would-be-available-for-profit-report/

This is what will be culminating over time as the demographics change wherein the economic structure of distorted and perverse capitalism will be replaces with socialistic forms of capitalism exampled in countries like Denmark. This of course is exactly what Bennie Sanders has about. And it is where America is headed. Pluto will be going into Aquarius in 2024 on it increasing march towards the U.S.A's S.Node. This will correlate to a 'quickening' of these changes. This will lead a realty shift wherein the entire structural reality of America becomes more socially equitable for all concerned.

God Bless, Rad

Hi Rad,

It makes much sense. I would not have arrived to the correlation to demographics by myself for sure, and after you mention it never ceases to amaze me the core simplicity of EA and the archetypes, as in this case of ceres in aquarius correlating to fertility/demographic change.
I went back to the chart considering what you say and it all falls now in to this contributive stream with pluto in capricorn 9th (skin color/gender), to ceres, moon in aquarius in the 10th, to chiron in the 11th in aries (healing and dealing with trauma) then being at check-point in the election by uranus 12th squaring the nodal axis. It makes sense enough so we think about EA as always a stream of forces.

Relative to the sad example of a president trying to guarantee profit over a global pandemic when the main wish we should naturally share as humans is for the next door neighbour to be as safe and well as us, it still very inspiring to see cases like this https://www.projectopenair.org, of a researcher who just in a matter of a couple of days joined together volunteer specialists from all over the world with a single appeal and good idea, so that open source ventilators could be developed fast and as needed, for instance printed 3D, to give response to the overwhelming needs of hospitals at this time. He says the project took instantly a life of its own, this is so nice...

Thank you very much Rad,
Helena

P.S. I just realised this open air project developed instantly in these last days when uranus (air) was conjuncted by venus in taurus, wow

Trump, GOP challenge efforts to make voting easier amid coronavirus pandemic

By Elise Viebeck, Amy Gardner and Michael Scherer
WA Post
April 5, 2020

President Trump and a growing number of Republican leaders are aggressively challenging efforts to make voting easier as the coronavirus pandemic disrupts elections, accusing Democrats of opening the door to fraud - and, in some cases, admitting fears that expanded voting access could politically devastate the GOP.

Around the country, election officials trying to ensure ballot access and protect public health in upcoming contests face an increasingly coordinated backlash from the right. Much of the onslaught of litigation has been funded by the Republican National Committee, which has sought to block emergency measures related to covid-19, such as proactively mailing ballots to voters sheltering at home.

"I think a lot of people cheat with mail-in voting," Trump, who voted absentee in New York in 2018, said at a news conference Friday, offering no examples. "I think people should vote [in person] with voter ID. I think voter ID is very important, and the reason they don't want voter ID is because they intend to cheat."

Democrats and their allies in the civil rights community are also seizing the moment, arguing that the current crisis has created an urgent need for many of the voting policies they have pushed for years, including mass expansion of mail balloting and relaxation of voter ID, signature and witness requirements.

With tense legislative and legal fights underway in three key states - and fresh battle lines being drawn in at least a dozen more - the viral outbreak has intensified a long-running partisan fight over ballot access into a battle now playing out on multiple fronts.

The latest action occurred Saturday in Wisconsin, where Republican lawmakers who gathered for a special legislative session rebuffed pleas from Gov. Tony Evers (D), voting advocates, election officials and even a federal judge to cancel in-person voting scheduled for Tuesday and extend the deadline for mail-in ballots.

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"Republicans in the Legislature are playing politics with public safety and ignoring the urgency of this public health crisis," Evers said in statement Saturday evening. "It's wrong. No one should have to choose between their health and their right to vote."

The RNC is expected to spend more than $10 million on legal battles related to voting this year and is involved in lawsuits in Minnesota, Michigan, Arizona, Florida and New Mexico, in addition to Wisconsin.

Party officials said their efforts are driven broadly by concerns that looser rules could lead to fraud.

"Our position is really about protecting the integrity of the process," said RNC chief counsel Justin Riemer, who is helping to coordinate litigation at the state level. "The paramount concern is not on whether they help us win. "¦ Our views on these issues are based on principle."

Some in the party have also publicly acknowledged concerns that higher voter turnout would harm the GOP's electoral fortunes - including those of the president himself.

Late last month, Trump said a proposal by House Democrats to expand mail balloting "had things - levels of voting that, if you ever agreed to it, you'd never have a Republican elected in this country again."

The Georgia House speaker, Republican David Ralston, offered a similar view this week, saying that an expansion of absentee voting would be "extremely devastating to Republicans and conservatives in Georgia."

Later, Ralston sought to clarify his remarks, saying absentee voting is more prone to fraud.

Wendy Weiser, director of the Democracy Program at the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, said such comments reveal that the "facade" is falling away for Republicans, revealing a "brazen desire to restrict access to voting."

"That's dangerous," she said. "It's just dangerous when we're not even pretending to adhere to our country's core democratic principles. "¦ When those get challenged by our leaders, they erode."

Within the GOP, there is some apprehension that seeking to block attempts to make voting safer during a pandemic could backfire. With millions of Americans fearing for their safety and hoping to vote by mail in upcoming primaries and the general election in November, GOP resistance could thwart their own voters as much as it does Democrats.

"I understand they want to win elections, but it's not clear to me that we gain advantage," said Republican Trey Grayson, the former secretary of state of Kentucky. "I also worry about the signal that it sends because there are people who are bothered by this. We look as a party like we don't care."
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On the local and state levels, efforts to relax rules around voting do not break easily along party lines. Of the 18 states that have taken steps to ease absentee voting in response to coronavirus, many have Republican governors or secretaries of state. And of the six states that have promised to proactively mail absentee ballot request forms to eligible voters, five are deep red.

Still, national party officials have argued that efforts to expand voting access are not needed now in response to coronavirus. They say that could change, depending on the course of the pandemic.

However, voting administrators say they are running out of time to expand mail voting for November.

Tensions are high in Wisconsin, where voters and poll workers have expressed fears about risking their health to participate in Tuesday's primaries and municipal elections. In Milwaukee, election administrators planned to open only five voting sites instead of the usual 180.

Republican leaders have argued that moving the date would sow confusion, but their opponents say Republicans are seeking to take advantage of the low turnout most officials expect on Tuesday to help them win a closely contested race for a state Supreme Court seat.

The Wisconsin Senate's majority leader, Republican Scott L. Fitzgerald, said last year that lower turnout would give Justice Daniel Kelly a "better chance" of winning a new term on the court.

Last month, GOP lawmakers rejected a proposal from Evers to send a mail ballot to every voter and waive photo ID and witness requirements. At the time, Evers did not seek to cancel in-person voting despite health officials' predictions of a wave of new infections across the state during the first two weeks of April.

Republicans are also fighting U.S. District Judge William M. Conley's decision Thursday to extend the receipt deadline for mail ballots to April 13 and to allow voters to forgo a witness requirement if they are unable to find witnesses.

On Friday, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit upheld Conley's ruling regarding the receipt deadline but granted a stay that blocks the counting of ballots with no witness signature. GOP legislative leaders on Saturday filed an appeal of the ruling to the Supreme Court.

Although Conley declined Democrats' and election officials' request that he cancel in-person voting Tuesday, he admonished both Evers and lawmakers for not doing it themselves.

"Wisconsin is obviously the real canary in the coal mine here that we're all concerned about," NYU's Weiser said. "Seeing the breakdown there in the Wisconsin legislature is a warning sign and something that raises significant concerns."

Republicans in New Mexico are staking out similar territory, with the state GOP filing a lawsuit this week to block an effort by county clerks to hold the state's June primary by mail. GOP leaders suggested that the switch would lead to voter fraud.

In North Carolina, Republicans are opposing recommendations from the State Board of Elections to ease absentee voting restrictions, including a requirement for signatures from two witnesses or a notary.

The debate is complicated by the fact that those rules were enacted just last year, on a nearly unanimous vote, following an explosive ballot fraud investigation that prompted North Carolina officials to discard the results in a congressional race and repeat the election. Among other irregularities, campaign operatives were accused of illegally collecting, forging and turning in absentee ballots.

In N.C., a surprise: In the end, everyone agreed it was election fraud

"In the very last election, there was fraud that took place. There was fraud here," said the state's Senate president, Republican Phil Berger, in an interview. "What responsible leader would want to go back to the policies that allowed that to take place?"

While some Republicans may be taking advantage of the moment for political gain, Berger said, Democrats are doing the same - and, in some cases, he said, trying to enable fraud for political gain.

Yet resistance to loosening the rules could make it difficult - if not impossible - for some voters to cast ballots at a time when many communities are under orders not to congregate. Voting rights advocates say the risk is profound in urban areas with unreliable mail service, and among African American voters, whose forebears shed blood for the right to vote and who are mistrustful of mailing a ballot rather than feeding it directly into a tabulating machine.

Elderly voters self-isolating with underlying health issues fall into the risk category too, with greater likelihood of struggling with an unfamiliar process or being unable to find a witness, experts said.

The voting challenges created by the pandemic come during a pivotal presidential election that already faces a range of threats, including reported attempts by foreign powers to interfere in the campaign.

The coronavirus first collided with the Democratic primary process on March 3, following the first hints of a U.S. outbreak, when election officials in Super Tuesday states began providing hand sanitizer for voters.

In the intervening month, initial small steps to protect the public's health have given way to primary delays in 17 states and a reinvigorated push by Senate Democrats to offer funding for vote-by-mail systems around the country.

The recently passed stimulus bill included $400 million of funding to support state election officials during the pandemic, a far cry from the $2 billion to $4 billion some advocates say is needed to prepare for November.

Hi Rad,

Thanks for posting that article.

It's disgusting but predictable that Trump and the Republicans are blocking ways of making voting easier during this pandemic period.

In one of the rare times Trump has ever blurted out the truth about anything, he admitted (and of course Republicans are cringing at the fact he actually said it out loud) "...if you ever agreed to it, you'd never have a Republican elected in this country again."

In other words, if we do vote by mail, the Republicans will have a harder time cheating their way to success.

Even if Pelosi manages to add another vote-by-mail section in the next Coronavirus stimulus bill, McConnell won't sign it. That means the states will be the only ones that can make it happen but, unfortunately, governors in red states won't.

Am hoping people will protest. They can't take to the streets, but they can call their senators, governors and reps.

As usual when it comes to anything to do with Trump, the whole things is a complete s**t show.

Still, since the energy on the planet is in such flux at the moment, it's hard to predict how this will all play out.

Praying that some unexpected good changes come out of this challenging time.

All the best,

Soleil

What Bernie Sanders' withdrawal means for the battle to unseat Trump

on April 9, 2020
By AlterNet

Today, Bernie Sanders announced that he is suspending his presidential campaign. Polls throughout the cycle have consistently found that most Democratic primary voters were looking for a nominee who was best positioned to beat Trump, and were unwilling to roll the dice on a self-identified democratic socialist.

Sanders is asking his supporters to continue to vote for him in an effort to accrue the 25 percent of delegates that he would need to help shape the party's platform and internal rules at the national convention (or whatever remote convention they hold in the midst of a pandemic).
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But this effectively begins the general election season. There are some immediate ramifications.

First, Joe Biden's campaign can begin coordinating messaging and fundraising and list-building with the DNC, at least on an informal basis, prior to Biden's formal nomination. (Some Sanders supporters believe that the DNC has been working with Team Biden all along, but that's not the case.) The Trump campaign has a significant advantage in these areas and the Democrats have a difficult task ahead of them to catch up.

Second, Sanders reportedly enjoys a warm personal relationship with Biden, which was not the case with Hillary Clinton, and he can now start the work of unifying his base with the rest of the coalition. (This will be likely be easier than some believe.)

This will also bring Barack Obama, one of the most popular figures among Dems and Dem-leaners, off of the sidelines.

Biden announced this week that he was moving ahead with the process of selecting a running-mate and potential cabinet members. He will likely announce his VP pick relatively soon. He's said that he wants to select a woman for the job, and most observers think it likely that he'll go with a younger woman of color. This will change the dynamic of the ticket and potentially give the campaign an attack dog who's quicker on their feet than the nominee.

Advisors to Biden and Sanders have reportedly been talking to each other about a potential Sanders exit for weeks now, and Sanders almost certainly secured some input into Biden's policy agenda moving forward. In an interview with MSNBC last month, Biden praised Sanders' supporters' enthusiasm and said, "We've been talking to Bernie's people. I have respect for them. And I think there ought to be a way we could accommodate his concerns on other matters in terms of everything from people being engaged, to his organization."

The Democratic primaries have effectively been stuck in limbo since the COVID-19 crisis hit, and bringing them to an (informal) end allows the party to start focusing on November. The general election season starts in earnest now.

You can read the Biden campaign's complete statement on Sanders' suspension below.

    Today, Senator Sanders announced he was suspending his campaign. Bernie has put his heart and soul into not only running for President, but for the causes and issues he has been dedicated to his whole life. So, I know how hard a decision this was for him to make - and how hard it is for the millions of his supporters - especially younger voters - who have been inspired and energized and brought into politics by the progressive agenda he has championed. Bernie has done something rare in politics. He hasn't just run a political campaign; he's created a movement. And make no mistake about it, I believe it's a movement that is as powerful today as it was yesterday. That's a good thing for our nation and our future.

    Senator Sanders and his supporters have changed the dialogue in America. Issues which had been given little attention - or little hope of ever passing - are now at the center of the political debate. Income inequality, universal health care, climate change, free college, relieving students from the crushing debt of student loans. These are just a few of the issues Bernie and his supporters have given life to. And while Bernie and I may not agree on how we might get there, we agree on the ultimate goal for these issues and many more.

    But more than any one issue or set of issues, I want to commend Bernie for being a powerful voice for a fairer and more just America. It's voices like Bernie's that refuse to allow us to just accept what is - that refuse to accept we can't change what's wrong in our nation - that refuse to accept the health and well-being of our fellow citizens and our planet isn't our responsibility too. Bernie gets a lot of credit for his passionate advocacy for the issues he cares about. But he doesn't get enough credit for being a voice that forces us all to take a hard look in the mirror and ask if we've done enough.

    While the Sanders campaign has been suspended - its impact on this election and on elections to come is far from over. We will address the existential crisis of climate change. We will confront income inequality in our nation. We will make sure healthcare is affordable and accessible to every American. We will make education at our public colleges and universities free. We will ease the burden of student debt. And, most important of all, we will defeat Donald Trump.

    At this moment, we are in the middle of an unprecedented crisis in American history. There is enormous fear and pain and loss being felt all across the country. There are also untold stories of heroism - of nurses and health care workers and doctors and first responders and grocery store workers and truck drivers and so many others on the front lines of this crisis. Putting their own lives in danger for the rest of us. If we didn't know it before, we know it now: This is the backbone of our nation.

    Our first job is to get through the immediate crisis threatening the public health and getting help into the pockets of America's workers. But we also need to take a hard look at what we need to fix and change in this country. Many of the biggest cracks in the social safety net have been laid bare - from health care to paid sick leave to a more extensive and comprehensive system of unemployment benefits. We will need to address these. Just as we need to address rebuilding our nation's infrastructure. And we all know - the clock is ticking - we don't have a moment to waste in combating the climate crisis.

    As friends, Jill and I want to say to Bernie and Jane, we know how hard this is. You have put the interest of the nation - and the need to defeat Donald Trump - above all else. And for that Jill and I are grateful. But we also want you to know: I'll be reaching out to you. You will be heard by me. As you say: Not me, Us.

    And to your supporters I make the same commitment: I see you, I hear you, and I understand the urgency of what it is we have to get done in this country. I hope you will join us. You are more than welcome. You're needed.

    Together we will defeat Donald Trump. And when we do that, we'll not only do the hard work of rebuilding this nation - we'll transform it.

Hi Rad,

Do you see, either astrologically or intuitively, the November election happening via vote-by-mail?

At  this point, the only way it can be accomplished is to put a provision mandating it in the next coronavirus stimulus bill (if McConnell allows it). After what happened in the Wisconsin primary this past week, it's clear the Supreme Court will block any states' attempts to make voting fair and available to all.

Another potential  problem is the U.S. Postal service is in deep financial trouble (see articles below) and we need them to be fully operational if we're going to do vote-by-mail.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/4/10/1936160/-Trump-is-trying-to-kill-the-USPS-as-vote-by-mail-becomes-the-best-chance-to-save-our-democracy?utm_campaign=trending

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/4/10/1936123/-Krugman-what-just-happened-in-Wisconsin-scares-me-more-than-either-disease-or-depression?utm_campaign=trending

Thank you.

Soleil

HI Soleil,

Some states as I understand it already have voting by mail. Others may use the absentee ballot a way to create a kind of defacto way of voting by mail. The Democratic party will do all it can to expand upon the vote by mail through legislation that will be met with all kinds of resistance by the utterly corrupt Republican part who is, as we know, dependent on minimizing in every way possible who and how many get to vote at all so as to help themselves get elected/ re-elected. This is one of the core issues all leading the election day in the U.S. that will correlate to the transits in place that potentially manifests is some of the worst kinds of  crisis, confusion, an chaos that I have mentioned before. It can not be overstated.

God Bless, Rad

Hi Rad,

Thank you. Yes, it does seem like we're headed for one of the most dangerous and problematic presidential elections ever. As you said, the crisis, chaos and confusion we may face around this cannot be overstated.

The reason why the Republicans fought so hard in Wisconsin this past week to allow voting to continue in the midst of a pandemic was so they could elect the right wing Wisconsin Supreme Court judge they wanted:

From: How Republicans Exploited the Coronavirus to Steal a Wisconsin Election
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/04/wisconsin-voting-coronavirus/

"Tuesday's outcome seems likely to set the stage for yet another ruling by the Wisconsin Supreme Court that will advantage Republicans. If Kelly holds his seat and conservatives retain a 5-2 majority, they are poised to issue a ruling in the coming months allowing the state to purge 232,000 voters, disproportionately from Democratic areas like Madison and Milwaukee, from the voter rolls before the 2020 general election."

And, as you know, Wisconsin is probably the most crucial state the Democrats need to win, and the one the Republicans can least afford to lose.

There's still time for action. Am hoping the Democrats will step up.

And am hoping enough disapproval of that evil moronic madman will motivate some of the 100 million who didn't vote in 2016 to participate this time.

All the best,

Soleil

Trump Reveals the Truth About Voter Suppression

The president is the latest in a long line of conservative politicians to see minority voters as a threat.

By David W. Blight
Dr. Blight is the author of "Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom."
NY Times
4/12/2020 

On March 30, the Republican id burst forth when President Trump said that the latest congressional stimulus bill "had things - levels of voting that, if you ever agreed to it, you'd never have a Republican elected in this country again." Two days later, the Republican House speaker in Georgia, David Ralston, admitted that an expansion of absentee voting would be "extremely devastating to Republicans and conservatives in Georgia."

And on April 6, the U.S. Supreme Court refused, in a 5-to-4 ruling, to allow additional days for absentee voting in the Wisconsin primary. For years, Wisconsin Republicans have demonstrated that they will do anything to gerrymander and restrict access to voting to stay in power, including now asking citizens to risk their health to vote. Someone should ask Mr. Ralston and the conservative legislators and judges in Wisconsin what they are conserving.

Petitions are now flying around the internet, calling for mail-in voting as has long been practiced in Oregon and other states. Democrats are using Mr. Trump's stumble into truth-telling as a fund-raiser. Republicans are trying to avoid the subject entirely or repeating worn-out claims of voter "fraud."

This eruption has immediate consequences: Americans are about to see how fragile our right to vote really is. Among our many fears is the widespread concern over whether we will have an open and legitimate general election in November. If we are still stuck at home, will we be able to vote? Or will we have to risk our lives by venturing to our local school gym?

With customary ignorance, Mr. Trump has also stumbled unknowingly into history, our long tale of trickery, laws, Orwellian propaganda and violence as ways of keeping the mass of voters from casting ballots. Since the beginning of our Republic, and especially since Emancipation and the stirrings of black suffrage established in the 14th and 15th Amendments, restricting the franchise has been a frighteningly effective tool of conservatism and entrenched interests.

America has a long history of attempts to restrict the right to vote to people with property, with sufficient formal education and, too often, those privileged by gender or race. Political minorities - today's Republican Party, antebellum slaveholders, Gilded Age oligarchs or rural states empowered disproportionately by the Electoral College - have always feared and suppressed the expansion of both the right and the access to the right to vote. There is no Republican majority in America, except on Election Days.

Mr. Trump's rhetorical stumble into truth joins a litany of similar expressions in American history. The creation of black male suffrage was the most contested of all the problems of the early new state governments formed during Reconstruction. Most white Southerners were hellbent on trying to restore white supremacy, especially in voting. Appointed by President Andrew Johnson as South Carolina's governor in 1865, Benjamin F. Perry believed that black suffrage would give political power over to "ignorant, stupid, demi-savage paupers." In North Carolina, the politician William A. Graham believed enfranchising blacks would "roll back the tide of civilization two centuries at least."

In Southern history, when the law wasn't on the side of voter suppression, intimidation, fraud and murderous violence served as ready alternatives. As the historian Carol Anderson writes in her brilliant book "One Person, No Vote," the techniques of voter suppression in the 19th century were conducted with "warped brilliance" and were "simultaneously mundane and pernicious," whether by requiring voters to interpret bizarrely complex written passages to prove literacy, in fail-safe grandfather clauses or through allegedly race-neutral poll taxes. Today's vote suppressors are no less pernicious, sporting earnest outrage at the fraud they cannot find.

As many Americans broadly came to embrace the defeat of Reconstruction in the South, viewing it as a futile, even unnatural, racial experiment, historians at the turn of the 20th century declared black suffrage the great demon of a "tragic era." Writing in 1901 in The Atlantic, the historian William A. Dunning, whose work helped define a generation's interpretation of the post-Civil War era, wrote of "The Undoing of Reconstruction."

In Dunning's polite brand of white supremacy, black voting during Reconstruction - which for a while brought political revolution and hundreds of black elected officials to the South - was a curse and a historical blunder. The "political equality of the negroes," he maintained, went too far and necessitated a counterrevolution to roll it back.

Dunning never used our modern term, suppression. He called it "pressure applied by all these various methods" to reduce the black vote. Indeed, the "undoing" of Reconstruction could be measured, as Dunning celebrated, in the large reductions of black voter turnout in Southern states. Votes were not suppressed; they simply "disappeared," he said, like bad weather.

In the 1884 presidential election compared with that of 1876, the black vote declined from 182,000 to 91,000 in South Carolina, 164,000 to 120,000 in Mississippi and 160,000 to 108,000 in Louisiana. As the Jim Crow system descended on Southern life, black voters became increasingly "extinct," Dunning wrote. Dr. Anderson documents this "voter mortality rate" by the early 20th century: Between 1896 and 1904, registered black voters in Louisiana plummeted from 130,000 to 1,342, and in Alabama from 180,000 to 3,000. Today's Republicans can only dream of such numbers, but they need only fractions of those counts to succeed. Their trickery matches their challenge. We should not mince words: Voter mortality is their goal.

Fueling Dunning's confidence about Jim Crow's control over voting was the coup and bloody massacre committed by white Democrats in Wilmington, N.C., in the election of 1898. The largest city in the state, Wilmington had forged a black majority and a successful black economic and political leadership. White Democrats found black rule and economic success unbearable. In a vicious white-supremacist campaign led by a Confederate veteran and congressman, Alfred Waddell, whites used lies, intimidation, cartoon journalism and racial terrorism to take back control first of the city and then of the entire state. Organized mobs, energized by grievance and racial hatred, violently overthrew the election.

In rousing speeches, Waddell made their "duty" clear to the mobs of Wilmington. "This city, county and state shall be rid of Negro domination, once and forever," he shouted at an election-eve rally. "Go to the polls tomorrow and if you find a Negro voting, tell him to leave the polls. And if he refuses, kill him! Shoot him down in his tracks!" The mob roared and raised their rifles in the air. On and after Election Day, 15 to 20 people were murdered in the immediate uprising, while hundreds of black women and children fled into nearby swamps. About 1,400 fled the city during the next 30 days.

Generations later, the right to vote never seemed so important and newly triumphant as on the day President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act in 1965. The violence on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., in the early spring, and the heroic march that it inspired; a brave and persistent civil rights movement; liberal Democrats joined by a key cadre of moderate Northern Republicans in Congress; and a converted, dedicated former segregationist in Johnson, who embraced his most important historic moment - all of this made the act possible. But it became law against the same resistance and rhetoric left over from the past.

W.B. Hicks, the leader of the white-supremacist Liberty Lobby, told Congress: "If the president's law is passed, the South will disappear from the civilized world just as surely and certainly as Haiti did in 1804." Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina trotted out numerous notorious segregationists to testify before his Senate Judiciary Committee. Leander Perez, the Democratic leader of a Louisiana parish, invoked the Dunning school vision of Reconstruction. The bill "was worse than the Thaddeus Stevens legislation during Reconstruction," he said. "It is inconceivable that Americans would do that to Americans." The new power of the Voting Rights Act empowered the Justice Department to scrutinize any changes to voting laws and practices (so-called preclearance) in seven states and other regions of the country with especially notorious records of denying the franchise.

As Ari Berman shows in his excellent book on the modern history of voter suppression, "Give Us the Ballot," the Voting Rights Act has enjoyed many bipartisan renewals since the 1960s. Even the George W. Bush administration, in 2006, after long trying with its Justice Department to engineer new ways to restrict voting in the guise of protecting the "integrity" of the ballot and firing U.S. attorneys who would not pursue voter "fraud" cases that did not exist, buckled under huge public pressure and supported the renewal of the act.

But since Shelby v. Holder in 2013, in which the Supreme Court struck down the crucial preclearance section of the Voting Rights Act, and even before that in other court challenges, a new era of Republican schemes of voter suppression has emerged. The party, increasingly dominated by conservative whites, has demonstrated not only its id but also its deepest fear: the loss of power in the face of demographic change it cannot control.

Mr. Trump's newfound opposition to mail-in voting (having voted by mail himself in the past), claiming it is an invitation to fraud, is just one more example of the latest turn in the Republican obfuscation of reality. An "epidemic of fraud" stalked the Texas election system, claimed its attorney general (now governor) Greg Abbott, in 2005. In 2011 and 2012 alone, before the Shelby decision, 180 new voter restrictions were created in 41 states, and 27 specific laws were enacted in 19 states, nearly all controlled by Republicans.

Mr. Berman called this process "Old Poison, New Bottles." And he's right: Conservative voter suppression has always emerged in perceived crises and necessitated new variations on old lies about the threats of blacks or other marginalized groups to "civilization" or social "order," or the "liberty" of the powerful. After the 2008 election, the Republicans paid lip service to a new inclusivity; the Obama coalition scared them. But the Tea Party, financial conservatives and Trumpian white nationalism have driven them instead into a spiral of moral panic and voter suppression.

When Trump stumbled into this history, he linked the crisis of his profound failure to manage a pandemic with the recurring challenge of how to conduct fair elections with the ballot truly free. We have many diseases to conquer. Lies and cunning sustain voter suppression in its many forms. Only truth and fierce political action can reveal and defeat it.

David W. Blight is a professor of history at Yale and the author, most recently, of "Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom," which won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for history.

Hi Rad,

Thank you. Great article.

Yes, Trump is only the latest in a long line of conservative politicians to see minority voters as a threat. But I think he is unique in that he is a sociopath and racist and pathological liar and conman and narcissist and mentally disturbed individual and authoritarian would-be king in a way no other president has been.

The question is, what are the Democrats in Congress going to do about it? How long will we keep allowing this? So far, I just don't see the appropriate level of outrage or awareness of upcoming danger in members of Congress or in the American people.

I just hope what happened in Wisconsin this past week acts as a giant wake-up call.

Speaking of Trump's mental instability, here is a good article about it written by psychiatrist Bandy Lee, who authored/edited a a book about it:

Trump's Pandemic Is Our Cuban Missile Crisis
And He's Bungling It Badly. The Time to Intervene is Still Now.

https://www.dcreport.org/2020/04/11/trumps-pandemic-is-our-cuban-missle-crisis/

Some excerpts:

"He will continue to push for the maximal number of deaths possible."

"Without intervention, the president's psychological disposition was always to cause a massacre."

" His method is classic psychological abuse: "I do not care what the reality is.  I am going to push my will on you, and you are going to accept it, even if it is to your death."  He does this to the media, Congress members, his followers, and the general public.  Soon, it will become: "I do not care what the election laws are.  I am going to push my agenda on you, and you are going to accept it, even if it is to the country's demise."  And the more the country has been abused, the more it will accept this without condition."

Am praying we can somehow stop this dangerous madman...

Peace + blessings to you and to all,

Soleil

Maybe there is some hope in America ...

MSNBC's Morning Joe laughs out loud at "˜stupid' Wisconsin GOP after pandemic election stunt backfires

on April 14, 2020
RAW STORY
By Brad Reed

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough started cracking up on Tuesday while discussing the Wisconsin Republican Party's humiliating loss in an election for the state's Supreme Court.

Even though the GOP had refused to postpone last week's election amid the pandemic in the hopes of suppressing voter turnout in Democratic strongholds, liberal judge Jill Karofsky nonetheless handily defeated incumbent conservative Daniel Kelly after many voters across the state risked getting infected by COVID-19 to exercise their constitutional rights.

After hearing that Wisconsin Republicans are now accusing Democrats of trying to "rig" an election that the GOP insisted had to happen amid the pandemic, Scarborough burst out laughing.
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"In the immortal words of Forrest Gump, "˜Stupid is as stupid does,'" Scarborough said. "In this case, stupid would be the Wisconsin Republican Party, [which] forced people to go out and vote in the middle of a pandemic, believing that it would lower turnout and would elect a Republican so they could purge voter rolls."

Guest John Heilemann similarly mocked President Donald Trump for personally endorsing Kelly and claiming that his endorsement would put the conservative judge over the top.

"Stupider is as stupider does," Heilemann quipped. "In this case, stupider was Donald Trump."

Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUHK468thBg&feature=emb_title

Hi Rad,

Thank you. Great to see that the Republicans' dirty tricks in Wisconsin failed. Trump's pick for the Wisconsin Supreme Court went down in flames. Maybe now 223,000 voters won't be purged from the voter rolls in Wisconsin.

By the way, here's a great (but long) piece on McConnell by Jane Mayer, which fleshes out how power-hungry and sociopathic he is, and even though he apparently calls Trump "nuts" and says he can't stand him, he continues to enable him in every way :

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/04/20/how-mitch-mcconnell-became-trumps-enabler-in-chief

How Mitch McConnell Became Trump's Enabler-in-Chief:
The Senate Majority Leader's refusal to rein in the President is looking riskier than ever.

All the best,

Soleil

Obama endorses Biden for president to "˜heal' America

on April 14, 2020
By Agence France-Presse

Barack Obama endorsed Joe Biden's White House bid on Tuesday, saying his longtime vice president can unify and "heal" a nation struggling through some of its darkest moments.

The formal backing by perhaps the most popular politician in America is the latest shot in the arm for Biden's surging candidacy, and a further sign that Democratic leaders are rallying around the party flagbearer ahead of November's election.

"Joe has the character and the experience to guide us through one of our darkest times and heal us through a long recovery," Obama said in a 12-minute video filmed at his home in Washington and released online.
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"I believe Joe has all the qualities we need in a President right now," Obama said, calling his choice of Biden as running mate in 2008 "one of the best decisions I ever made."

The 77-year-old former vice president and Democratic stalwart is the party's presumptive nominee to challenge Donald Trump, after his lone remaining rival Bernie Sanders dropped out of the race last week.

The leftist US senator from Vermont endorsed his former rival on Monday, saying it was time for Americans of all political stripes to "come together" in support of Biden.

Two-term president Obama also praised Sanders as a champion of progressive ideas, a passionate candidate whose energy and enthusiasm inspired young voters by the millions.

And he said it was time for those progressive supporters to help defeat the Republican incumbent.

"Right now, we need Americans of goodwill to unite in a great awakening against a politics that too often has been characterized by corruption, carelessness, self-dealing, disinformation, ignorance, and just plain meanness," Obama said.

"To change that, we need Americans of all political stripes to get involved in our politics and our public life like never before."

- Special bond -

Obama's endorsement comes as Biden and Trump have been forced off the campaign trail by the deadly coronavirus pandemic.

Under typical campaign conditions, such high-profile support would be followed by Obama's appearance at a major rally alongside Biden, generating major national buzz and prompting a deluge of campaign donations.

But it remains unclear when, if at all, on-the-ground campaigning will resume in 2020.

Obama forged a special bond with Biden during the eight years the former Delaware senator served as his vice president, awarding him the presidential medal of freedom in January 2017.

But thus far in the 2020 race the nation's first African-American leader had largely flown under the political radar, preferring Democrats battle for the nomination without his interference.

While publicly neutral, Obama did play a role in persuading Sanders to end his campaign and endorse Biden, The New York Times reported.

And despite his silence he was given a starring role in multiple campaign advertisements by Biden, Sanders and other candidates as they scrambled for advantage ahead of key statewide primaries such as those on Super Tuesday on March 3.

At campaign events and debates Biden made sure to show he is running as Obama's heir, routinely highlighting the partnership with his former boss.

But Biden had made clear from the start that he would run for president on his own terms.

"I asked president Obama not to endorse," Biden said back on April 25 on the day he launched his candidacy. "Whoever wins this nomination should win it on their own merits."

Obama's endorsement comes relatively early in the race compared to 2016.

That year he waited until June 8 to endorse Hillary Clinton, who had clinched the Democratic nomination against rival Sanders two days earlier.

All,

Here is the link to listen to Obama's endorsement of Joe Biden. For all of those who live in America, and all others no matter where you live, listen to this for it will allow you to here and FEEL in your Soul the difference between true evil in the form of Trump, and God/ess in the form of Obama.

Here is that link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQF-ZjKu5Mo

Goddess Bless, Rad

Trump campaign fraudulently claims "˜Democrats are trying to steal the election' as president calls to "˜liberate' blue states

on April 19, 2020
By David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement

The Trump re-election campaign on Friday accused Democrats of "trying to STEAL THE ELECTION right before our eyes," in an email blast with the subject line that reads "Cheaters."

   April 17: Trump accuses Democrats of trying to steal the election. pic.twitter.com/V65E5PWiai

   - Rebecca Ballhaus (@rebeccaballhaus) April 17, 2020

The email came to some just minutes after President Donald Trump issued a series of tweets that called on Americans to "LIBERATE" three blue states. At least one of them has been subjected to protests by right wing extremists who oppose the governor's stay-at-home orders. Those orders have worked to slow the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. The protests have been linked to the DeVos family.
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Washington Post columnist and University College London assistant professor of global politics Brian Klass warns Trump is laying the groundwork to get "his supporters to reject results" of the November election "and use violence."

   Trump is calling for insurrection with reference to guns at the same time his campaign is falsely claiming that Democrats are trying to "steal" the election. This is what despots do. It's dangerous. He's laying the groundwork for his supporters to reject results and use violence. pic.twitter.com/pNCeqq0Phz

   - Brian Klaas (@brianklaas) April 17, 2020

Earlier this week Trump posted this unhinged tweet:

   GET RID OF BALLOT HARVESTING, IT IS RAMPANT WITH FRAUD. THE USA MUST HAVE VOTER I.D., THE ONLY WAY TO GET AN HONEST COUNT!

   - Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 14, 2020

In fact, the only "ballot harvesting" that has ever been charged was by a Republican in North Carolina.

**************

Former DOJ official: Trump's "˜Liberate' tweets "˜incite insurrection' - and that's "˜illegal'

on April 19, 2020
By David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement
- Commentary

President Donald Trump may have gotten more than he bargained for Friday, when he posted three tweets, just sixteen words in total, that stunned and infuriated the nation and have legal experts weighing in on just how much trouble he could be in.

One, a former U.S. Dept. of Justice official, suggests possibly a lot.

But first, the tweets:

The average Trump supporter might say, "So?" Or, as Trump has often defended his actions, he has a First Amendment right to say what he wants.

Both are wrong, according to Mary McCord, a former Acting Assistant Attorney General for National Security at the U.S. Department of Justice, and former Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division, according to her bio at Georgetown Law, where she is a Visiting Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center.

If all that's not enough, McCord currently serves as the Legal Director at the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection (ICAP).

In other words, she knows what she's talking about. And what she's saying, in a just-published Washington Post op-ed, is Trump's actions meet the definition of inciting insurrection, and inciting insurrection is "illegal."

"President Trump incited insurrection Friday against the duly elected governors of the states of Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia," McCord begins. "Just a day after issuing guidance for re-opening America that clearly deferred decision-making to state officials - as it must under our Constitutional order - the president undercut his own guidance by calling for criminal acts against the governors for not opening fast enough."

The op-ed's subtitle notes: "Federal law bans advocating the overthrow of government."

There's a lot more, but she sets up her argument well.

""˜Liberate' - particularly when it's declared by the chief executive of our republic - isn't some sort of cheeky throwaway," McCord continues. "Its definition is "˜to set at liberty,' specifically "˜to free (something, such as a country) from domination by a foreign power.' We historically associate it with the armed defeat of hostile forces during war, such as the liberation of Western Europe from Nazi Germany's control during World War II. Just over a year ago, Trump himself announced that "˜the United States has liberated all ISIS-controlled territory in Syria and Iraq.'"

In that context, it's not at all unreasonable to consider Trump's tweets about "liberation" as at least tacit encouragement to citizens to take up arms against duly elected state officials of the party opposite his own, in response to sometimes unpopular but legally issued stay-at-home orders.

McCord also says - and this is important for the naysaying MAGA KAGs in the back, "we can't write these tweets off as just hyperbole or political banter."

And that's why these tweets aren't protected free speech. Although generally advocating for the use of force or violation of law is protected (as hard to conceive as that may be when the statements are made by someone in a position of public trust, like the president of the United States), the Supreme Court has previously articulated that where such advocacy is "inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action," it loses its First Amendment protection.

Hi Rad,

Yes, Trump is absolutely laying the groundwork to get his followers to reject the results of the November election and he is also inciting them to use violence with his ridiculous but dangerous tweets.

These tweets where he basically screams out to certain states that they should liberate themselves and protect their 2nd amendment rights could definitely be interpreted as "fighting words" from a legal perspective, and fighting words are a category of speech that is not protected under the First Amendment. Thing is, no one will hold his feet to the fire on this or on anything else.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/fighting_words

Re the protests that Trump is supporting against stay-at-home orders (funded by right wing Trump donors like Betsy Devos, the Koch brothers and racist groups like the Proud Boys), the timing doesn't seem to be coincidental---they are happening right after data has come out showing that black and brown people are dying from Covid 19 at a much higher rate than white people.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/17/far-right-coronavirus-protests-restrictions

The sooner the stay-at-home orders are lifted, the more that a disproportionately large numbers of black and brown people will die from this virus. A truly sickening agenda of Trump and company, but not a surprising one.

Wishing peace to you and all,

Soleil

Joe Biden warns that Donald Trump may try to delay November election

    "˜I think he is going to try to kick back the election somehow'
    Democrat also expect Russia and others to interfere

Amanda Holpuch in New York
Guardian
25 Apr 2020 14.15 BST

Joe Biden said he is concerned Donald Trump will try to delay the November presidential election.

"Mark my words, I think he is going to try to kick back the election somehow, come up with some rationale why it can't be held," Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, said on Thursday night in remarks at an online fundraiser.

Under the law, no president has the power to postpone the presidential election. To change the date, Congress has to intervene.

Trump has not announced plans to delay the 3 November election, but it is a concern both political parties have raised. The president has repeatedly demonstrated a lack of understanding about the limits on executive power, particularly when it comes to his own self-preservation.

The Covid-19 outbreak has also increased concerns about how to conduct in-person voting safely. In response, many are pushing for an expansion of voting by mail.

Trump has used Covid-19 press briefings to make false claims about voting by mail, calling it "corrupt" and "dangerous". Earlier this month, Trump also urged Republicans to fight efforts to expand voting by mail.

"Republicans should fight very hard when it comes to state wide mail-in voting," Trump tweeted. "Democrats are clamoring for it. Tremendous potential for voter fraud, and for whatever reason, doesn't work out well for Republicans."

At the fundraiser, Biden also referenced reporting by the Washington Post which revealed Trump's reluctance to fund the US postal service and efforts to force changes to its financial structure, which could harm voting by mail.

"Imagine threatening not to fund the post office. Now, what in God's name is that about? Other than trying to let the word out that he's going to do all he can to make it very hard for people to vote," Biden said. "That's the only way he thinks he can possibly win."

The Covid-19 outbreak has already reshaped the 2020 campaign. The candidates are campaigning from home and at a stage in the cycle when the election tends to dominate news coverage, reporters are instead focused on Covid-19.

Biden also shared a broader concern about interference in the presidential election by Russia and two unnamed "major actors".

"I promise you the Russians did interfere in our [2016] election and I guarantee you they are doing it again with two other major actors," Biden said. "You can be assured between [Trump] and the Russians there is going to be an attempt to interfere."

In response to Biden's comments, the Trump campaign said in a statement: "Those are the incoherent, conspiracy theory ramblings of a lost candidate who is out of touch with reality. Perhaps he also missed the news that the infamous Steele Dossier, central to the Russian Collusion Hoax, was likely compiled with Russian disinformation. That's the real Russian collusion."

From:

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/24/calling-us-postal-service-joke-trump-demands-four-fold-price-hike-customers-amid

Friday, April 24, 2020

"...Trump...threatened to withhold all future Covid-19 relief funding from the U.S. Postal Service unless the federal agency dramatically raises its shipping prices-a demand that critics say is ludicrous given the economic calamity the American people and the post office are now facing."

"...critics accused Trump of trying to destroy the USPS "to suppress mail-in votes."

"U.S. Mail Not for Sale, a worker-led campaign sponsored by the American Postal Workers Union and the National Association of Letter Carriers, circulated a petition urging Congress to provide USPS with "urgent and ongoing financial support from the federal government during this public health and economic crisis."

    If you don't want your mail delivery to get FOUR TIMES more expensive, take action now. #SaveThePostOffice #SaveTheUSPS https://t.co/Vy2XNx7K4t


From:

https://www.axios.com/trump-postal-service-squeeze-f08faad5-c1ec-43f9-b851-04c88ab3b6bb.html
Apr 24, 2020

"A spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also told Axios that, while the first stimulus bill included roughly $10 billion for USPS, the White House refused her request to add even more funding - but it continues to be a top priority in negotiations over the next package."

A Candidate in Isolation: Inside Joe Biden's Cloistered Campaign

Walled off from voters in a distinctive kind of lockdown, Mr. Biden has developed a routine, of sorts, as he seeks the presidency from his basement.

By Alexander Burns, Shane Goldmacher and Katie Glueck
NY Times
April 26, 2020

Joseph R. Biden Jr. usually rises before 8 a.m. at his home in Wilmington, Del., and starts his day with a workout in an upstairs gym that contains a Peloton bike, weights and a treadmill. He often enjoys a protein shake for breakfast and puts on a suit or blazer much of the time. In the evenings, he and his wife, Jill, sit down together for dinner, a ritual that was absent for much of the last frenzied year on the campaign trail.

In the intervening hours, Mr. Biden attempts to win the presidency without leaving his house.

With the coronavirus outbreak freezing the country's public life, Mr. Biden has been forced to adapt to a cloistered mode of campaigning never before seen in modern American politics. He was unable to embark on a victory tour after the Democratic primaries or hold unity rallies with onetime rivals like Senators Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. Instead, the former vice president is in a distinctive kind of lockdown, walled off from voters, separated from his top strategists and yet leading in the polls.

For a famous backslapper like Mr. Biden, this open-ended period of captivity has tested both his patience and his political imagination. He has lamented being deprived of human contact, and he has expressed exasperation with media coverage critiquing his limited visibility compared with President Trump's daily performances in the White House briefing room. He does not make a habit of watching the president's briefings in full; he is said to be fixated mainly on the eventual challenge - if he wins - of governing amid a pandemic.

Interviews with dozens of people in touch with the presumptive Democratic nominee and his advisers revealed a newly detailed picture of Mr. Biden's life in seclusion, one spent in long-distance consultation with a wide array of coalition leaders helping him map out the fall campaign and a potential administration.

Mr. Biden has revived many of the rituals of the vice presidency, including similarly formatted briefing memos and tour d'horizon-style updates from aides on the virus and the economy - all aimed at giving him the information he would need to make the weighty decisions at hand if he were in charge, except that he is not.

Fran Person, who served for years as a Biden aide and speaks with him regularly, said the detached lifestyle was unnatural for Mr. Biden, an extrovert who spent virtually his entire adult life in government.

"I can imagine, for him, you're watching this play out, you know what needs to get done," Mr. Person said. "You want to be right in the middle of it."

As the temperature of the campaign rises in public, increasingly featuring caustic attacks on Mr. Biden from Mr. Trump and his allies and blunt rebuttals from Mr. Biden's aides, the former vice president has not attempted to match Mr. Trump blow for blow on television.

For the most part, Mr. Biden is seeking to run a campaign based on something like digital-age fireside chats, offering himself as a calmly authoritative figure rather than a brawler like his opponent. In private, he voices a combination of optimism about American resilience and recognition that the country is likely to be in a bleak state on Inauguration Day.

It remains to be seen whether that approach will come to be viewed as appropriately sober or perilously passive against a tenacious and unpredictable opponent. Many Democrats remain anxious about the limitations of Mr. Biden's position, even though Mr. Trump has slipped markedly in the polls and faces growing disapproval of his response to the pandemic.

Only a few people have seen Mr. Biden, 77, in the flesh in recent weeks. He is guarded by the Secret Service, and a pair of trusted staffers assist with his daily activities. The rare outside visitors don masks and gloves as a safety measure.

Like many professionals these days, the former vice president fills his time with conference calls. There are at least four standing calls on his daily schedule, including one with Jennifer O'Malley Dillon, his new campaign manager. There are daily briefings on the economy, public health and electoral strategy, and a less frequent session on national security.

Mr. Biden has used a television-quality video uplink from his refurbished rec room for interviews and online campaign events. But for private conversations, he prefers conferring by telephone, usually on speakerphone in his study. At times, callers deduce from rowdy background noise that Mr. Biden is working beside his German shepherds, Major and Champ.

The former vice president also places calls to mayors and governors; congressional leaders like Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina; elder statesmen like Al Gore; potential running mates; donors; and former rivals like Mr. Sanders and Ms. Warren. A few governors have become favorite points of contact, including Andrew M. Cuomo of New York, Jay Inslee of Washington and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan.

At his request, Mr. Biden talks at least once daily to a voter or campaign volunteer - the kind of people he would meet constantly on the trail. And he regularly phones allies to express sympathy or support, including a call to Ms. Warren when he learned that one of her brothers had died of the coronavirus.

Ms. Whitmer, a potential running mate for Mr. Biden, said the former vice president had been deeply engaged with the details of the outbreak in her state. He had offered advice and commiserated over the isolation brought on by the virus, and how it had barred them from performing consoling tasks like visiting mourners and medical workers.

"I think that's why he's calling and reaching out and trying to keep a pulse on what's happening," Ms. Whitmer said. "It's not a great substitute for personal interaction, but it's a way to stay connected."

The Biden campaign declined to make him available for an interview. But the former vice president has at times spoken publicly about his isolation. "I'm chomping at the bit," Mr. Biden told reporters a month ago. "I wish I were still in the Senate, you know, being able to impact on some of these things. But I am where I am.''

For a team that employed a relatively skeletal digital operation throughout the primaries, the sudden shift toward online campaigning has been abrupt. At times, Mr. Biden has appeared out of his comfort zone and he continues to express a kind of chuckling disbelief that his basement has become a makeshift studio. Advisers acknowledge that they have considerable catching up to do on sites like Facebook and YouTube.

Mr. Biden is also facing pressure from donors to ramp up his at-home fund-raising activities, and from leaders in the states who want to see him beaming more often into key battlegrounds. To that end, he has recently conducted a series of interviews with local television stations in markets like Detroit and Pittsburgh, with more planned.

But Mr. Biden is burrowing in for the long haul, telling donors this month he did not anticipate holding traditional public events anytime soon.

"It's going to be this way," he said, "for a little while."

An Extrovert in Lockdown

The estate on which Mr. Biden is functionally trapped has long been a personal refuge. Nestled along a lake and recessed from the road by a long private drive, the 6,800-square-foot home took more than two years to build and Mr. Biden has said he designed it himself.

It is a home the Bidens had talked about bequeathing to his son, Beau, and that Mr. Biden later considered mortgaging or selling to help support Beau's family as he suffered from cancer. It was at this home where Mr. Biden worked to refine the 2016 presidential announcement speech he never delivered.

Today, the house has become an almost sealed containment zone. Two political aides regularly enter and leave the house, according to people briefed on the safety restrictions put in place: Annie Tomasini, Mr. Biden's traveling chief of staff, and Anthony Bernal, Jill Biden's chief of staff, both of whom have worked for the Bidens on and off for more than a decade.

But several people familiar with their roles said they are not staffing the Bidens around the clock and it is not clear whether any other aides assist the candidate at home. Much of the time Mr. Biden answers his own telephone, and he frequently falls behind his limited public schedule.

The campaign has consulted physicians and health experts about safeguarding Mr. Biden, who at 77 falls squarely into a high-risk group for the coronavirus. Irwin Redlener, a clinical professor at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, said he had spoken with the campaign about health precautions, including how to handle the possibility that members of Mr. Biden's traveling staff had been exposed.

"In terms of the safety of the staff, the candidate, what did they need to know?" said Dr. Redlener, who previously served on Mr. Biden's public health advisory committee.

Mr. Biden has embraced the safety guidelines: He has described in interviews a careful protocol that allows him to interact with some of his grandchildren, who live nearby. They come over to play on his lawn, allowing Mr. Biden and Jill Biden to talk to them and sometimes throw them candy or ice cream from a short distance.

To interact with voters, his campaign has experimented with virtual town halls and round tables, but Democrats in the states are anxious to see more of the candidate.

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, who recently endorsed Mr. Biden, said he had prodded the campaign to do more to put him directly in front of Wisconsin voters.

"It is so critically important for him to have a presence here," Mr. Barrett said. "I think, in some ways, Zoom and FaceTime - they're the 2020 counterpart to what President Trump used effectively for his base, which is Twitter."

Mr. Biden is working to adapt to those platforms; this past week he spent half an hour on a Zoom call with a nurse in Wisconsin and then contacted other members of her family by phone. But targeted video-chatting offers Mr. Biden only so many opportunities to hear from voters directly about their struggles and needs.

Ashley Ruiz, a voter in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., who recently participated in a "virtual rope line" with Mr. Biden, said she had found him eager to share his ideas about education and child care. But Mr. Biden grew most animated when he detected the presence of her two sons - ages 10 and 7 - along with her red-nose pit bull, Kacie.

Mr. Biden, she said, was determined to communicate with her 7-year-old son, who has autism and, like Mr. Biden, a stutter. "He said to my son, "˜I want you to know you can do anything,'" Ms. Ruiz said, recalling that Mr. Biden had told her, "When I'm president, I will care for your family like they're my family."

Defining the substance behind that promise is what mainly occupies Mr. Biden's time.

Seeking Bigger Ideas

Even before Mr. Biden entered his state of near-quarantine, he was telling associates that he feared the onset of a national catastrophe. In mid-March, Mr. Biden told one confidant that he was concerned that the country could face another Great Depression, sharing that he had discussed the possibility with Lawrence H. Summers, the former treasury secretary.

That dark contingency now looks more plausible than ever. In the daily briefings he receives about public health and the economy, Mr. Biden seeks the kind of minute information he would need to make important policy decisions - if only he were in a position to do so.

Several participants in the briefings said Mr. Biden probes extensively about the mechanics of how money and medical resources are being distributed around the country. Spurred by beleaguered governors, he regularly presses his team about the steps Washington might take to shore up shattered state budgets.

"There is that sort of suspended quality to things in that you're not making a decision that's urgent and that people have to carry out today," said Senator Chris Coons of Delaware, a close Biden ally. Still, he described "a real sense of imminence" because the aides briefing Mr. Biden in lockdown today could well be managing the government response in 10 months.

"It's like the relief pitcher warming up in the bullpen, knowing you only get a couple more pitches and then you're going out on the mound," Mr. Coons said.

One of those advisers, Vivek Murthy, the former surgeon general, said Mr. Biden wanted to stay on top of both the large-scale policies aimed at containing the virus and on the precise efforts of local governments and medical facilities. Though most people on the calls are former government officials, a view from the front lines of medicine comes from a member of the Biden family: Howard Krein, the former vice president's son-in-law, who is a doctor in Philadelphia.

In one briefing, Dr. Murthy said it hit Mr. Biden hard to learn that hospitals were barring people from visiting dying family members. "He knows what it's like to lose people and to have your life turned upside down," Dr. Murthy said.

A daily call on the economy and a somewhat less frequent briefing on national security are stocked with veterans of the Obama administration, including Ben Harris and Jared Bernstein, who served as economic advisers to Mr. Biden in the vice presidency, and Antony J. Blinken and Jake Sullivan, his former national security advisers. Murmurs about Mr. Summers's quiet role advising Mr. Biden have alarmed some progressives, who saw the former Harvard president as closely aligned with Wall Street during the last recession.

It is not clear, however, that any ideological camp has a full claim on Mr. Biden's ear right now: On the economic calls, Mr. Biden regularly seeks insight into the thinking of his party's populist wing, inquiring by name about Ms. Warren, Mr. Sanders and a third liberal, Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio.

So far, Mr. Biden's policy huddles have yielded proposals to contain the immediate damage of the pandemic. But his allies expect he will soon go substantially further with a national-emergency agenda, likely to include huge new promises on economic stimulus, infrastructure, climate change and student debt.

The test ahead for him, however, is not just defining a bold agenda, but also communicating it from a desk in his house as Mr. Trump makes ruthless use of his bully pulpit.

Mr. Inslee, who endorsed Mr. Biden on Wednesday after conferring with him privately about broadening his climate agenda, said he urged Mr. Biden to put safety first. Democrats, he said, "understand that we're not going to hear from our candidate as much as we would if we didn't have a pandemic."

"It's really important that he take care of his health right now," Mr. Inslee said. "It's important for all of us."

From:

Biden's invisible campaign is winning
Harry Enten, CNN
April 26, 2020

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/26/politics/joe-biden-polling-media-exposure/index.html

"A new Fox News poll from Michigan finds former Vice President Joe Biden leading President Donald Trump by a 49% to 41% margin. Other Fox News polls from Florida and Pennsylvania also showed Biden clearly ahead.

"Biden's proving that the less media he receives, the better it is for his electoral prospects."

From:

President Trump faces a major hurdle with swing state voters
Douglas Schoen
The Hill
04/26/20

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/494718-president-trump-faces-a-major-hurdle-with-swing-state-voters

"In Michigan...Trump trails Biden by 8 points, according to two statewide polls".

"In Wisconsin...the Ipsos poll shows Biden slightly leads the president 43 percent to 40 percent."

"In Pennsylvania...the Ipsos poll shows Biden leads 46 percent to 40 percent."

"In Florida...Biden leads 46 percent to 42 percent, a new Quinnipiac University poll found last week."

"While swing state polling is indicative of the prospects of Trump, national polling reveals that his federal response has taken a toll on his chances in the election in November. A Wall Street Journal poll shows Biden leads the president 49 percent to 42 percent. A Harvard Harris poll shows him with a similar advantage and leads Trump 53 percent to 47 percent nationally."

Election doomsday 2020: Here's how scholars fear the Trump-Biden race could go terribly wrong

on May9, 2020
Raw Story
By Bob Brigham

With six months to go until November's 2020 election, dozens of America's top legal minds convened to consider what would have been unthinkable before Donald Trump's presidency. They gathered to brainstorm what could be done to prevent the country from descending into a "civil war-like scenario," as one participant put it, if Trump and Joe Biden both claim that they won the presidency-and won't back down.

Their May 4 teleconference parsed a series of nightmare scenarios in the aftermath of the November 3 election that would lead to competing Electoral College results being sent to Congress from battleground states-one issued by a Republican legislature backing Trump, and another issued by the Democratic governor backing Biden.

The scenarios continued onto January 6, 2021, where, in a joint congressional session to ratify the Electoral College votes presided over by Vice President Mike Pence, the House and Senate were sent to their chambers to debate for two hours. When they reconvened, the Senate backed the Trump electors while the House backed the Biden slate.

The question put before the scholars was what could stop the 2020 election from spiraling that far out of control or going even further downhill, as occurred in the 1876 presidential election when two candidates claimed to win, waged relentless partisan battles, and were both planning separate inaugurations-with Samuel Tilden backing down only 48 hours before Rutherford B. Hayes was sworn in as president.

"My big fear, as a country, is that we don't know our history well enough to know that we came within 48 hours of inauguration day with two people claiming to be president, and the incumbent thinking about martial law-that was Ulysses Grant because he was worried that there were going to be two simultaneous inauguration sessions," said Edward B. Foley, director of Moritz College of Law's election law program at Ohio State University and a national authority on disputed presidential elections. He organized the brainstorming session with Steven F. Huefner, a Moritz senior fellow and former U.S. Senate counsel who also is an expert on vote-counting disputes.

"To replicate that kind of thing [a cascading crisis] on January 18, 2021, in an era with nuclear codes, seems to me an altogether more problematic scenario than even the dire circumstances of March 1, 1877," Foley continued, referring to the date Congress convened in the Hayes-Tilden dispute. "So it may be a Don Quixote quixotic effort to try to wrestle these legal problems into the ground. But I feel some responsibility to say that we have actually been there as a country once before, and it was not pretty. There might be no avoiding a calamity if we go down that road again."

Never before in recent history have the nation's top constitutional and election scholars convened six months ahead of a presidential election to ward off what they fear could be a constitutional meltdown if an incumbent president and his most strident partisan allies seek to disrupt or disregard counting votes and the transfer of presidential power.

Lighting the Fuse

Three nightmarish scenarios were put before the legal and electoral scholars:

   In Pennsylvania, an outcry emerges after thousands of Philadelphia voters have not received absentee ballots. Civil rights activists sue, and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court extends the election for these voters-and anyone else in the state not getting their ballot. Pennsylvania's Republican-majority legislature countersues in federal court to block the extended voting, but it doesn't stop there. The legislature uses the extension as an excuse to certify a pro-Trump Electoral College slate and submits that result to Congress.
   In Michigan, the crisis begins when early but incomplete election night returns show Trump ahead. But as the counting continues and the momentum starts to shift to Biden, Trump tweets that he won and declares that enough votes have been counted. Michigan's Republican-majority legislature follows Trump's tweets and certifies a pro-Trump slate of presidential electors. That unilateral move prompts the Michigan Democratic Party to sue in federal court, using an argument that's similar to what Republicans cited in the Pennsylvania scenario: pre-existing election rules cannot be ignored.

In these two scenarios, both states' Democratic governors end up sending a separate certificate to Congress declaring their state's Electoral College votes should be awarded to Biden. Thus, two sets of Electoral College results from the same state are presented for Congress to sort out. These developments spark an explosion of political posturing, partisan threats and disinformation, and more litigation.

   In the final scenario, in Florida, a state with a GOP governor and legislative majority, the governor cancels the election due to a major hurricane. It cannot be rescheduled before December 14, 2020, when the national deadline falls for all of the presidential electors to cast their ballots. Emergency legislation ensues, and Republicans authorize a pro-Trump Electoral College slate-citing pre-election polling. The Florida Democratic Party sues in federal court, claiming that Florida's GOP cannot nullify a popular vote election.

What would, could or should happen, Foley asked as the process wound its way through expected and unexpected twists and turns that comprise the presidential election's final stages. The scholars were asked to identify where legal lines in the sand could be drawn, so that the 2020 election would not disintegrate: where laws lost their meaning, could not be enforced, and what they called "politics not law" could emerge to seize the presidency.

The academics were some of the nation's most respected constitutional law scholars, election law experts and political scientists. Apart from the U.S. Constitution, the only federal law laying out how to resolve a disputed presidential election was the Electoral Count Act of 1887 (ECA).

That little-known law took 14 years to craft, with debates going back even before the 1876 presidential election debacle. According to a scholarly article by DePaul University's Stephen Siegel-said by some teleconference participants to be the most authoritative modern exposition on the ECA-the law was "turgid," "repetitious," and "contradictory," and it had been incorrectly interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court when it stopped Florida's presidential recount in 2000, elevating George W. Bush to the White House.

These nightmare scenarios and the prospect of an obscure 133-year-old law deciding a post-election battle between Trump and Biden led the scholars to say that even with its flaws, some principles or norms in the ECA had to be clarified before November.

"In the context we're imagining, any kind of rule structure that can be put on the table in any greater clarity to the focal point that we have with the Electoral Count Act is desirable because you're basically in a civil war context at this point-or very close to it," said New York University Law School constitutional law professor Rick Pildes. "I think that is as much as you can hope for. It may be meaningless at the end of the day. It may become a focal point in the midst of this civil war-like scenario."

Scenario One: Philadelphia Disenfranchisement

The scenarios presented by Foley and Huefner all start on or around Election Day with easily imaginable developments, but escalate unpredictably.

The first scenario starts with voting rights groups suing on behalf of Philadelphia voters who did not get absentee ballots in time to vote. That delay triggered legal battles, first in state court, seeking to extend the election so that Philadelphians and any other similarly affected Pennsylvanian could vote. (In 2018, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, citing the state Constitution's protection of voting rights, overturned an extreme gerrymander by the Republican-majority legislature in 2011. That case's ruling suggests that the court might be open to extending voting in November.)

But the Republican Party of Pennsylvania does not sit idly by. It filed a federal lawsuit to stop that extension of voting, creating what New York University Law School's Samuel Issacharoff said was a key feature of this scenario: "a turf war" between federal and state courts. (In Wisconsin's April 7 primary, the Wisconsin Supreme Court, federal district court and U.S. Supreme Court issued contradictory rulings concerning absentee ballots. The U.S. Supreme Court ordered the election to continue-including not extending the deadline for voters not receiving absentee ballots.)

Richard Hasen, a University of California, Irvine, law and political science professor, found the scenario disturbing on many levels. He initially focused on the pragmatic task of extending a vote-by-mail election in a state that did not have a history of widespread absentee voting (which is occurring in many states in response to the pandemic).

"I would hope that if the state court is going to order relief like this, it is going to do what some courts have done in the past, which is bring in election officials and ask them if this is actually doable," he said. "I'm not confident that Philadelphia election officials would be able to handle thousands of these ballots and be able to process them in a way that wouldn't raise yet another lawsuit about the due process concerns-about the actual counting of those ballots."

Court orders can prompt unintended consequences, Hasen said. "We saw it in the Wisconsin case, where the Supreme Court went to the postmark [date on the ballot as a deadline for it to count]. That turned out to create a whole bunch of new issues because there was not consistency in how the local election boards dealt with non-postmarked ballots."

Teasing out these scenarios left Hasen and others with an uneasy déjà-vu feeling.

"I was having nightmare flashbacks to Bush v. Gore-actually back to Bush v. Palm Beach County Canvassing Board, the first case," he said, where there were questions about whether a state constitution could legitimize "changing rules for presidential elections"¦ without the state legislature affirmatively agreeing to those changes."

"If that question arose [in November], I expect that we would see exactly the same ideological partisan division between conservatives and liberals, between Republican-appointed justices and liberal-appointed justices, should it get to the Supreme Court," Hasen said. "I don't think that we have made any progress in 20 years"¦ You can hear the arguments being made here, the echoes of exactly what we heard in Bush v. Gore."

The Pennsylvania scenario is not without a factual basis. Problems with delivering and counting large volumes of absentee ballots occurred in the first two statewide elections held since the pandemic broke in mid-March: Wisconsin's presidential primary on April 7 and Ohio's primary on April 28. In Wisconsin, more than 150,000 absentee ballots were not returned on time or were disqualified for other reasons, according to an April 30 court filing by the Democratic National Committee and state Democratic Party.

As of May 7, more than a week after Ohio's primary, the state's 88 county election boards had yet to account for 199,693 "outstanding absentee" and 44,368 "outstanding provisional" ballots, according to the Ohio secretary of state's website. These are not small numbers from either state. The volume of Wisconsin's rejected ballots in its low-turnout April 2020 primary was more than six times the size of Trump's 2016 margin over Hillary Clinton in that state.

Later in the nearly five-hour discussion, Michael Morley, a Florida State University law professor, made a telling point that suggested that the Democrats' intention to protect the vote in the Pennsylvania scenario could backfire. Any major last-minute voting extension was likely not only to be rejected by federal courts-following the U.S. Supreme Court's Wisconsin primary ruling, he said. But that last-minute change also could give the GOP-led legislature a legal excuse and argument to act on its own to certify a pro-Trump slate of electors-and send it to Congress without the Democratic governor's signature.

"You could imagine situations where the legislature is stepping in to say"¦ "˜We are appointing a slate of electors reflecting what we perceive to be the accurate outcome based on the election as it was conducted in accordance with state statute-not with what appears to be this judicial deviation from state statute,'" Morley said.

Scenario Two: Overriding the Popular Vote

In the Michigan scenario, Trump declared victory before the vote counting was finished and officially certified. Following his cues on Twitter, its Republican-majority legislature certified a pro-Trump Electoral College slate and sent it to Congress-ignoring the state's Democratic governor, secretary of state and attorney general. In response, the Michigan Democratic Party sued in federal court, citing much the same legal argument that the GOP used in the Pennsylvania scenario: you can't change the rules in midstream.

"This scenario is built on the concept of the so-called "˜blue shift' or late-counted ballot scholarship that some of us have been involved in," explained Foley, "which is a phenomenon where, with nothing going wrong, but just because of the way in which we have done changes to voting since 2000 and the Help America Vote Act of 2002, it's just much more likely that ballots are going to be counted, not on election night, but subsequently during the post-Election Day canvassing process."

"This [scenario] also builds on what was observed in Arizona and Florida in 2018," he continued, citing real-life precedents. "The fear is that we can imagine, for example, President Trump, winning, as it were, or, at least ahead on election night in the count of votes in a pivotal state-let's say Michigan-and yet that lead disappearing over the next week as additional ballots get counted. And President Trump tweeting, as he did with respect to the Florida election in 2018, saying, "˜No"¦ The initial count is good. Let's stop counting ballots because we've got an accurate count.' Whereas the election officials say, "˜No, these are valid ballots. They need to be counted.' And then you have a certified final result after canvassing the official post-Election Day reconciliation of all votes cast that puts the Democrats on top, and yet Trump is still protesting that outcome."

What happens next is a mix of disinformation and bullying that ignores the law and raises yet more demons, namely the old trope that the process is corrupt if your side loses.

"Again, this is all hypothetical," Foley said. "But what if the Michigan legislature says, "˜You know what? We just don't trust late-counted ballots. And so we are going to assert our authority under the federal constitutional Article II to appoint electors directly.' So now we have this conflict between the certified result from the secretary of state that said that Biden won Michigan, but we have the legislature in Michigan saying, "˜No"¦ We don't trust that result. We are going to appoint the Republican electors.' So now, the Democrats are going to federal court invoking the same concept of due process-"˜hey, don't change the rules'-as the Republicans cited in the scenario from Pennsylvania."

This scenario also is not merely theoretical. The battleground states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and North Carolina all have Democratic governors and Republican-majority legislatures. Whether the most partisan legislative leaders would ignore vote-counting law and procedure, trash election officials and resurrect voter-fraud tropes is an open question that can only be assessed state by state.

In Wisconsin, the GOP-led legislature forced the state to hold its April primary in a pandemic to try to secure a swing vote on the state supreme court-which backfired. Also in April, North Carolina's top-ranking Republican, Senate Majority Leader Phil Berger, slammed suggestions by the North Carolina State Board of Elections to expedite absentee voting in the pandemic, saying that the procedural reforms came from "progressive, liberal Democratic groups." Berger further said that he did not trust North Carolina Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper to oversee the 2020 election.

The Michigan scenario raised the question of whether a state legislature has the authority to override the popular vote in a presidential election. The third scenario, in Florida, where a hurricane forced the election to be canceled and it could not be rescheduled before the Electoral College met on December 14, was a variation of this question.

A Line in the Sand-or Not?

The core issue here was whether or not legislatures could act independently-either ignoring the popular vote result and/or bypassing their governor. Later in the discussion, the question came up of whether governors could do the same. (It turned out that the 1887 Electoral Count Act gave governors more authority than legislators.) But for now, restricting renegade legislatures seemed to be a place where scholars could draw a line in the sand, some said.

"I actually think that this may be one of the most important places to seek consensus," said Justin Levitt, Loyola Law School associate dean for research and professor. "Because of the procedural problems that other people have noted: Who do you sue? Can you enjoin stop anything? Is this something that Congress should decide about what to do with different slates of electors? I think if you were looking for a robust consensus from a group of people across partisan boundaries who study this issue to weigh in, this would be a place"¦ particularly because the federal courts might not be ideally empowered to make that assessment."

Levitt was responding to the challenge that Foley and Huefner laid out: Was there a baseline that nationally known experts in constitutional law, election administration and presidential succession could agree on? Was it plainly unconstitutional for legislatures to independently appoint presidential electors to benefit their party?

But the legal answer was not clear. Some conservative scholars on the teleconference said that Congress should take up the issue of competing slates of electors, as it did in 1960 when Hawaii submitted three slates in the photo-finish race between Democrat John F. Kennedy and Republican Richard Nixon. They said it might even be desirable for Congress to openly debate that clash. But could there be an open debate, Foley asked, when in the joint session of Congress on January 6, 2021 (to ratify the 2020 Electoral College results), the presiding officer is the vice president, Mike Pence, a candidate seeking re-election? Some noted that Al Gore had the role after the 2000 election.

As the discussion kept going, the severity of the possible constitutional crisis and lack of clear boundaries sunk in and alarmed some participants.

"This is one of the real nightmare scenarios that could very well take place," said Norman Ornstein, a historian and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. "We could easily imagine state legislatures in a number of places deciding that they didn't like the outcome of the election, and trying to shift it to Congress-knowing or believing at that point that we might get the House and Senate disagreeing over which slates of electors to accept, and leaving it to the House of Representatives to decide who would become the president. Then leaving it in a situation where we would not have anybody getting the requisite 270 Electoral College]votes."

If the selection of the next president ended up in the House, under the 12th Amendment each state delegation gets one vote. Currently, there are 26 delegations with a majority of Republican members, 22 with a majority of Democratic members, and two states with equal members from both parties-Pennsylvania and Michigan. But before that eleventh-hour process would kick in, Foley said that other steps and legal interventions would likely occur. Meanwhile, could scholars draw a line much closer to Election Day, he asked, by affirming the state's official presidential election results?

"As long as independently and objectively the election officials, [and] the election administrators, are correct that the popular vote is an accurate count"¦ [is] there a true legal answer to which certificate Congress should adopt?" Foley asked. "If that's true, then maybe the legal community can rally around that point."

"Because what I fear is if there has been political pressure that's going to cause the Michigan legislature to want to supersede the popular vote, there's going to be political pressure in Congress, for one chamber at least, to try to do that too," he continued. "Is there any point where legal intervention [can happen]? Not necessarily by a court, but by academics who can say, "˜Wait a second. There's actually a right answer to this question that Congress should follow.'"

But not every scholar present agreed that the official election results could be trusted.

Conservative Skepticism

"Ned, could I jump in here," said John C. Fortier, director of governmental studies at the Bipartisan Policy Center. "There's a distinction between, "˜I think"¦ the facts don't really support that there's anything [that] was particularly wrong here,' versus a decision of an election administrator. That decision might be something you find very objectionable. I can bring up election administrators on either side of the aisle about whom people would have said, "˜Well, they did that for bad purposes. They made the wrong decision.'"

At this point the discussion entered the constitutional danger zone, where respect for laws and enforcing rules as the underpinning of elections begins to disintegrate.

The scholars wanted to respect precedent and institutional authority. But there were likely to be problems in administering November's elections in a pandemic, especially as states were poised to make unprecedented shifts to voting by mail. There were little-known and untested ambiguities in the Electoral Count Act, whose rules were written 133 years ago. The longer a presidential election dispute went on, including what might happen if it went before Congress, the more dangerous it became, some scholars said.

"This is a very difficult set of questions," said NYU Law School's Issacharoff. "One question is what can be done ahead of time to try to forestall this"¦ I don't think that the Electoral Count Act is well-settled law. It has been on the books for a long time. It has never been applied. The closest we came to it was its spiritual invocation in Bush v. Gore. It is hardly a blueprint for how institutional actors can settle themselves."

But some conservative scholars disagreed, noting that the ECA has been used recently.

"In 2001, members of Congress repeatedly on the floor tried to object to counting Florida's electoral votes, and [then-Vice President] Al Gore said [it was], "˜improper under the Electoral Count Act,'" said Derek Muller, professor of law at Pepperdine University's Caruso School of Law. "In 2005, they challenged Ohio's electors-Democrats in both the House and Senate. They debated for two hours. They came back. They counted Ohio's votes. In 2017, it was a parade of objections on the floor of Congress with [presiding Vice President] Joe Biden saying, "˜It's over. It's over under the Electoral Count Act.' I agree: the two-slate [of electors] question is sort of an open, highly debatable contest. But I do think the Electoral Count Act has served its function the last three times the Republicans have been elected, where Democrats have been contesting the election [result] on the floor of Congress."

"I think there's always a question about what one says rhetorically and what actually is driving the result," replied Issacharoff. "The overriding of the seemingly expressed popular will, by legislative fiat either at the state or congressional level, is, thus far, a radical departure from American norms"¦ I doubt if a single member of Congress had any idea what the Electoral Count Act was or what its provisions might say."

Politics or Law?

The notion that "politics, not law" could determine the 2020 presidential election outcome began to hover over the discussion's closing hours. Scholars asked if non-legal factors, such as public opinion after the popular vote was seen as being ignored by partisans, might pressure or sway congressional actions.

"It may make sense to, in the same way that you'd advise a client, [say,] "˜Look, you need to win beyond the margin of litigation.' You can also say to the people who are involved, "˜Look, you need to win beyond the margin for intransigence,'" said Lisa Manheim, a University of Washington law professor. "What exactly does that mean? Well, we have been talking for hours about all of the different places where we can have these problems. One of the things that we can do perhaps is to flag those-say those are the problems. We need to avoid those. The truth of the matter is there is not a clear legal answer."

These kinds of thresholds would likely be where the U.S. Supreme Court would weigh in, several scholars said.

"The question of whether law applies or doesn't apply is itself a legal question," said Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Brennan Center for Justice's liberty and national security program. "In the sense [that] a lot of what we are asking is whether Congress can be bound by the Electoral Count Act, that itself is a legal question: Whether Congress can be bound by it; whether it is enforceable. Which is not to say that if the Supreme Court were to resolve that question that Congress would necessarily abide by it, and then we'd be back in the land of politics."

"I agree with all of this. If we get to this worst-case scenario, with two competing slates and split-party control of the two chambers of Congress, it is almost inconceivable to me that the Supreme Court doesn't decide that question," said Adav Noti, senior director of trial litigation and chief of staff at the Campaign Legal Center. He added that Chief Justice "John Roberts, for all his reluctance to get involved in political disputes, the reason he doesn't like that is to build credibility for exactly situations like this."

"There is no other mechanism to solve it," Noti continued. "I think the Supreme Court justices will weigh in, even if it's a 5-4 decision, before they will let blood run in the streets. Now maybe they will enforce the ECA. They'll say the governors get to tie-break. Maybe they'll say, "˜No, the ECA is unconstitutional because under the Constitution, state legislatures have plenary power, so they have to have the tie break. Maybe they'll say the president of the Senate decides, unless he's overruled by a majority of senators"¦ But I think they will decide."

But whether partisan Republicans in Congress would follow the Supreme Court-or any legal framework-as opposed to muscling Trump's appointment to a second term, is not a given. Not when, as the Amherst College law professor Lawrence Douglas said, the nation's most fervent partisans seem to be operating under diverging assumptions and principles.

"Maybe the binary that we are drawing between law on one hand and politics on the other doesn't entirely describe the gravity of the situation that we are confronting right now," he said. "Rules presuppose certain presupposed normative understandings. And once these normative understandings erode, I'm not sure that rules are really in the position to solidify or reinforce them."

"This discussion makes me nervous. I assume it makes all of us nervous because it drives home how quickly we can spiral into this dynamic in our current polarized and existential political culture, in which there are no effective legal structures that are going to govern if we get into some of these kinds of disputes," NYU's Pildes said. "This discussion drives home the more uncertainty there is beyond Election Day, the more rules are changed at the last minute, whether by courts that think they are doing things in good faith and are worried about protecting the individual right to vote of a few thousand people who didn't get the ballots they requested for absentee voting and the like; the more that opens up all of the capacity to destabilize the result"¦"

"You can see from this discussion how quickly those kinds of changes can become the excuse for kind of blowing up the whole election. And that's part of what I am taking away from this whole discussion."

Steven Rosenfeld is the editor and chief correspondent of Voting Booth, a project of the Independent Media Institute. He has reported for National Public Radio, Marketplace, and Christian Science Monitor Radio, as well as a wide range of progressive publications including Salon, AlterNet, the American Prospect, and many others.

This article was produced by Voting Booth, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

Biden's lead over Trump widens - but strain on his virtual campaign grows

Coronavirus has robbed the Democrat of his typical back-slapping approach as he faces growing scrutiny and a third-party challenge

Lauren Gambino in Washington
Guardian
Sat 9 May 2020 10.00 BST

The Tampa, Florida, rally for Joe Biden on Thursday evening began as it normally might have, before a once-in-a-century pandemic transformed all aspects of American life, including the presidential campaign. A local high school student recited the pledge of allegiance, a campaign organizer pleaded with supporters to volunteer and a local DJ spun R&B music between speakers.

But in a sign of how profoundly the coronavirus crisis has reshaped American politics, that was where the similarities ended.

With much of the US still in lockdown, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee has been forced to take his campaign to unseat Donald Trump online. It has not always been easy.

His campaign's first attempt to recreate a traditional rally - part of a virtual swing through the battleground state of Florida - was later described by his opponents as an "unmitigated technological failure". The video stream was glitchy and pixelated. The audio was choppy, rendering some remarks nearly incomprehensible. And there were lengthy delays between speakers and at one point, the feed went dark for several minutes.

"Am I on?" asked Biden, beaming into the telecast from his home in Wilmington, Delaware, where he has been isolated since the middle of March. An off-camera voice replied that he was. Biden removed a pair of aviator sunglasses as he walked toward the camera.

"Good evening, Tampa. Thanks so much for tuning in," he continued, a hint of irritation in his voice. "I wish we could have done this together - and it had gone a little more smoothly."

For nearly two months, Biden has been the test subject in a novel political experiment: running for president in the age of Covid-19.

Social distancing restrictions imposed to stop the spread of the virus have already starved the campaign of a victory tour to mark his ascent to the Democratic nomination. It may well deny Democrats the chance to formally nominate him in person at the party's national convention this summer. Endorsements from former rivals and party leaders occur online to varying degrees of fanfare. . The remote set-up, anathema to Biden's back-slapping, glad-handing approach to politics, has left the candidate walled off from voters and competing for visibility.

Yet, technical difficulties aside, his campaign of confinement seems to be working.
Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton at a virtual town hall during which she endorsed him last month.

In recent weeks, Biden has widened his lead over Trump as the president's support slips amid growing disapproval of his response to the pandemic. Surveys from Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Florida, North Carolina and Arizona - key battlegrounds that Trump won in 2016 - show Biden ahead. At a recent virtual fundraiser last week, Jennifer O'Malley Dillon, his new campaign manager, expressed optimism about Biden's prospects in Florida and Arizona.

"The natural state of this race is to be a referendum on Donald Trump and every time Donald Trump steps to the microphone he hurts himself," said Mark Mellman, a veteran Democratic pollster. "That's a pretty good position for Joe Biden to be in."

Biden initially struggled to adapt to his cloistered reality. In March, the campaign turned a recreation room in the basement of his home into a studio, though not fast enough for his critics, who launched a "Where's Joe" campaign to mark the candidate's relative disappearance from the national stage.

But since then, Biden has been busy. Nearly every day he makes appearances on local TV news channels or national talkshows. He launched a podcast, where he has hosted conversations with prominent Democratic governors and potential vice-presidential candidates. He spends time each day speaking with a voter - a frontline worker, campaign volunteers - and he participated in what the campaign billed as a "virtual rope line".

"So what's up?" he said to Ashley Ruiz of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, one of several voters on the rope line. "Tell me about your situation, Ash."

"¢"¢"¢

Biden's rise in the polls comes as he contends with an allegation from Tara Reade, a former aide in his Senate office who accused him of sexual assault in 1993. In an interview this week with Megyn Kelly, the former Fox News and NBC television host, Reade said he should withdraw from the presidential race.

Biden has forcefully denied the allegation. "It's not true, I am saying unequivocally. It never, never happened," he said last week, in an interview addressing her claim for the first time publicly.

Publicly, Democrats, including prominent #MeToo advocates, have rallied around Biden, though privately some in the party have expressed concern about the continuous drip of reporting on the matter.

So far the allegation appears to have marginally dented his reputation, but not his lead. Most voters - 86% - are aware of the allegation, according to a Monmouth poll, which found the electorate divided over whether they viewed the claim as credible. At the same time, the poll showed Biden nine points ahead of Trump.

Despite Trump's falling electoral fortunes, many Democrats remain anxious about Biden's position - and his strategy.

David Axelrod and David Plouffe, two of Barack Obama's top campaign strategists, implored Biden's campaign to expand its digital footprint in a joint New York Times op-ed that compared the atmospherics of the candidate's home videos to "an astronaut beaming back to earth from the International Space Station".

"Online speeches from his basement won't cut it," they wrote.

Lis Smith, the former top adviser to Pete Buttigieg's presidential campaign, followed with an op-ed on Thursday that offered a blueprint for turning Biden into the "hottest bad boy and disrupter in the media game". She suggested his campaign use TV appearances and digital content to highlight Biden's empathy, a trait even supporters say the president has lacked in response to the rising coronavirus death toll.

Part of the campaign's evolving digital strategy includes partnering with groups that already have an online presence, like JoeMamas2020, a national coalition of "moms, caregivers, moms to be, aunts & all the parental figures in between" with about 27,000 Facebook and 1,200 Twitter followers. The group has helped amplify Biden's appearances and policy proposals while spreading the word about upcoming events.

Julie Zebrak, the group's co-founder, said the online army is growing with women energized to help elect a candidate who would end the Twitter presidency.

"We are all extremely enthusiastic for Joe Biden to beat Donald Trump," she said.

Yet the same traits that endear Biden to a growing coalition of suburban women and Never Trump Republicans have largely failed to excite younger, progressive voters. It's not that they prefer Trump - they don't - but a lack of enthusiasm among those voters could spell trouble in November if they stay home or vote for a third-party candidate.

The campaign has also ramped up its outreach to young people, who overwhelmingly supported Biden's rival Bernie Sanders. On Friday, Biden presented his economic pitch in an appearance on NowThis, a social-media-heavy news outlet with a young, progressive audience.

"This crisis hit harder and will last longer because Donald Trump spent the last three years undermining the core pillars of our economic strength," Biden said in remarks that attacked Trump's stimulus efforts a kind of "cronyism" and corporate welfare. Before he began speaking, Biden removed a face mask, a pointed rebuke of the president who had refused to wear one.

Still, new research conducted on behalf of NextGen America found many young people weren't convinced Biden's policies meet the scale of the challenges bearing down on their generation.

This makes the efforts of groups like Progressive Turnout Project, which endorsed him this week, all the more important. In the coming months, the group is investing more than $52m to turn out low-propensity Democratic voters - including young people and people of color - in 17 key battleground states.

"The best thing we can do is go and knock on doors and have face-to-face conversations with voters," said Alex Morgan, the group's executive director. "We are still looking to do that. But it'll be knocking on that door and then taking a few big steps back and having a more distant conversation."

"¢"¢"¢

Biden's campaign also faces another looming threat. The Michigan congressman Justin Amash, who left the Republican party last year after voting to impeach Trump, recently announced that he would seek the Libertarian party nomination.

His entrance has alarmed Democrats, who fear he could siphon off Never Trump voters who might otherwise back Biden, particularly in Amash's home state of Michigan, where third-party candidates pulled away a combined 5% of the vote share in 2016. Hillary Clinton lost the state by just 10,704 votes, less than 0.25%.

Many Democrats believe Biden's fate may well rest on his ability to persuade their own side to vote.

"Trump has shown no desire or ability to moderate for those swing voters in this election," said Addisu Demissie, who served as Cory Booker's presidential campaign manager. "So those voters are now likely going to end up either Biden voters or non-voters or third-party voters, and that's the competition."

This week, Trump traveled to the battleground state of Arizona, where he toured a medical mask facility without wearing one himself. The visit was a symbolic show of his administration's push to reopen the US economy but there were unmistakable elements of his signature campaign rallies, including the music that played when Trump finished his remarks (the Rolling Stones' You Can't Always Get What You Want).

Trump's cross-country venture stood in striking contrast to Biden's virtual swing through Florida - which included a rally, a roundtable in Jacksonville and an appearance on the local news in Tampa. The technical glitches only further highlighted the limitations of his confinement.

But the coronavirus has also upended Trump's strategy, erasing the booming economy he has made a centerpiece of his re-election campaign. In recent weeks, his campaign has all but abandoned championing the president's leadership, instead focusing its efforts on diminishing Biden.

Trump's campaign manager, Brad Parscale, previewed the onslaught on Twitter this week, comparing the Trump re-election juggernaut to the Death Star from the Star Wars movies. "In a few days we start pressing FIRE for the first time," he wrote.

As Trump prepares to make even greater use of the advantages of incumbency, Biden faces his biggest test yet. Can he really lead a Rebel Alliance from his basement?

Hi Rad,

Thanks for posting those articles---I share those concerns.

Am also concerned about when and how Trump is going to cheat again. Maybe with some kind of October surprise against Joe Biden through the Russians, Bill Barr or whoever the head of the FBI is at the time?

Still, no matter what happens, Trump's poll numbers don't shift. Doesn't seem to matter that he clearly doesn't care if people die from Covid 19, or that he tells people to inject themselves with disinfectant. He's obviously insane, incompetent, moronic, immature and sociopathic, yet he still has huge support among Republicans.

Do you think the economy tanking between now and election day is the thing that may finally affect his poll numbers or do you think his crowd is just so brainwashed/racist/greedy/power-hungry/anti-abortion etc. that nothing will change his numbers?

All the best,

Soleil

Hi Soleil,

Given that Trump has made a contract with Evil, his Faustian deal, he is as you know capable of anything that serves his own perception of self-interest. His malignant narcissism will try to destroy anything relative to that self interest, and destroy anything that his evil soul perceives to be destroying him including the entire country of the USA.

From what I have been reading ( https://www.rawstory.com/2020/05/trump-glum-and-shell-shocked-as-coronavirus-pandemic-cripples-his-re-election-efforts-report/ ) he is now going steadily down in the polls in general. However, his core supporters are exactly like himself: humans that need to be victims who can not accept any responsibility in their own lives for that which they are responsible for, and who live in an utterly delusional reality. And, like Trump. need to validate that delusional reality by attempting to force others to 'believe' in their own delusions so that they can then prove to themselves that the delusions themselves are ACTUAL REALITY.

Within that they have no actual principles, like Trump, and who need absolute power to prove to themselves and others that their delusional 'beliefs' are actually real. These types of humans will not change for to change at all is to admit they have been wrong. To admit that will equal an absolute state where they lives become utterly meaninglessness. Utterly emotionally and psychologically insecure. They would have no idea what to do with their delusional lives as a result. This sort of inner panic then manifests as an intensified need to force anyone who is not like themselves to 'believe' in their delusional reality.

God Bless, Rad

Hi Rad,

Thank you. What you said is so true. Trump's core supporters are just like him---they're delusional (I don't think I've ever seen someone as insecure and delusional as Trump) and they're pathologically unable to admit they're wrong because of how insecure they feel and how weak their inner core is.

They're also driven by racism, cruelty, and a desire to hold onto power (autocratic/monarchical/total power) at the expense of all else. Add to the list: "owning the libs", which is a bizarre, self-defeating form of revenge.

As part of natural law, (I'm reminded of the quote "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice") I keep thinking there has to be some sort of cosmic justice system---some may call it karma---that eventually balances the scales, but in Trump's case, I don't see it in operation. I see him getting away with more and more outrageous evil acts and no one is willing or able to stop him.

Somehow, it feels like he will find a way to spin the coronavirus disaster and economic collapse in a way that satisfies his base and cons people into continuing to support him.

In the case of someone like Trump, who has made a contract with Evil, does this cosmic justice system cease to operate as it normally does?

Do you think karma is about to bite him or do you think he will continue to teflon his way through everything?

Thanks for your feedback.

Regards,

Soleil

Hi Soleil,

Given he has made that contract which creates it's own evil 'superpower' the law of karma still exists but can warded off because of the nature and power of Evil, Lucifer, itself. Yet, in the end, there is what we call God which is more powerful that Evil/ Lucifer. So, in the end, even that evil 'protection' can stand up to God Itself. It can take a lot longer than 'normal' but it will catch up. Consider the case of Hitler: it did catch up.

God Bless, Rad

Hi Rad,

Thank you. Good reminder that in the case of Hitler, it eventually did catch up.

Am praying it catches up to Trump soon...this guy is a toxic force affecting the entire planet.

Peace + blessings to you and to all,

Soleil

Red states expand voting by mail - ignoring Trump and right-wing think tanks

on May 12, 2020
By Pro Publica

On April 23, during the same week that Kentucky's Republican secretary of state said he was contemplating a "significant expansion" of vote by mail, the Public Interest Legal Foundation emailed one of his employees under the subject line "28 MILLION ballots lost."

"Putting the election in the hands of the United States Postal Service would be a catastrophe," wrote J. Christian Adams, president of PILF, a conservative organization that has long complained about voter fraud. His missive contended, with scant evidence, that "twice as many" mailed ballots "disappeared" in the 2016 presidential election than made up the margin of votes between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

The state worker forwarded the message to his supervisor, who ignored it, according to emails obtained through a public records request. Only days later, Kentucky finalized its plan for the biggest increase in vote by mail in the state's history. Secretary of State Mike Adams (no relation to J. Christian) said he had little trouble persuading legislators to pass the measure. "I've been pleasantly surprised on social media and elsewhere," he said. "Republicans and Democrats both have been supportive of what we did."
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Not long ago, such a rebuff in a reliably red state to a conservative outlet's warnings of voter fraud would have been unusual. Think tanks like PILF and the Heritage Foundation; advocacy groups like True the Vote; and politicians like Kris Kobach, Kansas' former secretary of state, have effectively lobbied Republicans for decades for voter ID laws and stricter registration rules. They generally favor measures that would reduce turnout and oppose those, like vote by mail, that could make it easier to vote. The Heritage Foundation has hosted confidential meetings with like-minded secretaries of state "to strategize on advancing their shared goal of ensuring the integrity of the elections they administer in their home states," records show.

But now, even as Trump has joined these advocates in denouncing vote by mail, Republican election administrators are rejecting their concerns. In Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Nebraska, Ohio, South Dakota and West Virginia, GOP officials are expanding vote by mail. Even in Alabama, where Secretary of State John Merrill has long spoken out against vote by mail, the state has added the coronavirus to the reasons for which voters can request an absentee ballot.

Election officials in these states say they have confidence in their ballot security practices. Kentucky's expansion of vote by mail included "ballot integrity safeguards, such as an application requiring personally identifiable information in order to obtain an absentee ballot, a barcode tracking system for all outgoing and incoming absentee ballots, and proactive maintenance of the voter rolls," said Miranda Combs, Mike Adams' spokeswoman. Also, because they don't see an alternative if the pandemic persists into November, many Republican officials who would otherwise oppose widening vote by mail are showing they are open to it. And they're aware that Americans support voting by mail by a 2 to 1 margin.

"While the Washington politicians may not agree, our polling shows 70% of Georgia voters approve of the absentee ballot application process and plan on voting by mail due to the COVID-19 crisis," said Jordan Fuchs, a Republican and Georgia's deputy secretary of state. "As a result, Georgia has seen more than 1 million absentee ballot requests, with more than 900,000 ballots dropped into the mail system."

David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research, said he isn't surprised that the attacks on vote by mail have failed to sway state officials. "The facts simply don't support" the claims, said Becker, who works directly with states to improve their election systems. "Election officials know what they are doing, and they know that mail voting has proper safeguards and that fraud is extremely rare in elections."

Spokespeople for Trump, Heritage and PILF did not respond to requests for comment.

National election officials have noticed the states' adoption of vote by mail. "When it comes to information on how best to administer elections, I rely on state and local election officials," said Ben Hovland, a Republican and chairman of the Election Assistance Commission, a national clearinghouse that offers guidance on voting procedures. "I have repeatedly heard from officials of both parties that absentee and mail ballots will be an integral part of their 2020 election response to the COVID-19 pandemic."

The wide public support and the relatively smooth expansion of vote by mail on the state level contrast with the opposition of Trump and many Republicans in Congress. Trump used his formerly daily press briefings on the pandemic to cast doubt on vote by mail, often parroting the talking points used by J. Christian Adams and the Heritage Foundation's Hans von Spakovsky, both of whom served on his now-disbanded voter fraud commission. Trump has called vote by mail "horrible" and "corrupt." With universal vote by mail, "you'd never have a Republican elected in this country again," he said.

"Mail ballots are a very dangerous thing for this country, because they're cheaters," Trump said at a briefing in early April. He recently tweeted about vote by mail in connection with Tuesday's special congressional election in California, writing: "Turn your Ballots in now and track them, watching for dishonesty. Report to Law Enforcement."

But states that backed Trump in the 2016 presidential election are largely disregarding his warnings. In the largest expansion of vote by mail in Georgia's history, its Republican secretary of state sent applications to every active voter, despite protests from the speaker of the Georgia house, David Ralston. There are "a multitude of reasons why vote by mail in my view is not acceptable," Ralston said in a recent interview. "The president said it best, this will be extremely devastating to Republicans and conservatives in Georgia."

Ohio went all absentee for its April 28 primary with limited in-person voting for individuals with disabilities. Ballots needed to be postmarked before Election Day but could be received through May 5. Nearly 2 million Ohioans requested absentee ballots, overwhelming clerks with requests.

Kobach, Kansas' former secretary of state, became prominent by promoting unsupported claims of rampant voter fraud. Yet parts of Kansas, where he is now running for U.S. Senate, are encouraging vote by mail. Johnson County, the state's largest county, where Kobach personally appointed the current clerk in charge of elections, will mail absentee ballot applications to all active voters ahead of the June primary. The state has allowed citizens to vote by mail up to 20 days before an election since the late 1960s, and it has in recent decades refined that process to enable voters to track their ballots online.

In an April column for Breitbart, Kobach told readers that fraud occurs "in the vast majority of states" that vote by mail. "All except Kansas, that is," he wrote, where most problems "have been solved by the security reforms that I drafted and the Kansas Legislature enacted in 2011." Kobach was referring to voter identification requirements, signature verification and prevention of ballot harvesting, in which political operatives round up and cast absentee ballots. These measures, though, aren't unique to Kansas; 31 states have signature verification, and nearly a dozen others require a witness or a notary. Several states require ID verification to vote by mail, and all but 13 states have laws to deter ballot harvesting.

Kobach did not respond to requests for comment.

In Louisiana, the Republican secretary of state, Kyle Ardoin, worked with the Democratic governor on a plan to let anyone worried about health risks vote by mail. After Republican legislators rejected the proposal, saying it increased the risk of fraud, a scaled-down version passed a few days later. It enables voters to seek absentee ballots if they are at higher risk for the coronavirus.

"This is a great result for Louisiana's voters and election workers, especially those most susceptible to the COVID-19 virus," Ardoin said in a statement. "Our plan serves as a temporary and pragmatic response to the COVID-19 pandemic ravaging our nation."

Texas is responding to the pandemic by lengthening the early voting period, rather than by expanding vote by mail. On Monday night, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott announced that early voting for a state special election on July 14 would begin on June 29 instead of July 6. Still, a federal court may impose an incremental extension of vote by mail in Texas. Over the objections of the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, who threatened "criminal sanctions" for voters who apply for an absentee ballot for fear of COVID-19, a U.S. district court issued a temporary injunction expanding the definition of "disability" for purposes of voting by mail to include voters concerned about contracting the disease. Across the state, election administrators say they are prepared to allow people to seek absentee ballots for this reason. "It will make everything so much easier," said one, who declined to be named.

As in Texas, courts in other states have generally been unsympathetic to allegations that vote by mail increases fraud. Last Tuesday, a federal court in Virginia rejected arguments by the state Republican Party and PILF that removing a requirement that absentee ballots be notarized would increase fraud. The governor had waived the requirement for those who did not feel safe obtaining a notary signature because of the pandemic.

Similarly, a federal judge in Reno, Nevada, in April rejected True the Vote's lawsuit challenging the state's plan to hold its June primary largely by mail. "Their claim of voter fraud is without any factual basis," the judge wrote. "Plaintiffs cannot demonstrate a burden upon their voting rights, only an imposition upon their preference for in-person voting."

Some red states remain holdouts. In Missouri, Republican Gov. Mike Parson has declined to expand vote by mail, calling it "inappropriate" to change election procedures. The secretary of state has stayed largely silent on the practice.

Von Spakovsky and J. Christian Adams have been pushing voter fraud claims since they both served in the U.S. Department of Justice's civil rights division during the administration of President George W. Bush. As early as 2010, von Spakovsky called universal vote by mail "a terrible idea whose time should never come," and he predicted an array of bad outcomes: rampant fraud, voter intimidation, even that the secret ballot would be "under siege." He has made a habit of calling mailed ballots the "vote thieves' tool of choice."

To back up his claims, the Heritage Foundation has compiled a database of vote by mail fraud. But Amber McReynolds, chief executive of Vote at Home, and Charles Stewart, an MIT political scientist who studies election administration, contend that the database actually shows how rare fraud is. In late April, the pair wrote for The Hill that, of the 1,200 cases in the database, "204 involved the fraudulent use of absentee ballots; 143 resulted in criminal convictions."

"One hundred forty-three cases of fraud using mailed ballots over the course of 20 years comes out to seven to eight cases per year, nationally. It also means that across the 50 states, there has been an average of three cases per state over the 20-year span. That is just one case per state every six or seven years. We are talking about an occurrence that translates to about 0.00006 percent of total votes cast," they wrote.

For the last three years, von Spakovsky has pressed Republican election officials on election security and voter fraud in private, off-the-record meetings. These get-togethers take place during the National Association of Secretaries of State conferences twice a year, in January in Washington, D.C., and in the summer at a rotating location.

The half-day meetings gather secretaries and election officials on an invitation-only basis. Correspondence obtained by ProPublica through public records requests shows that the meetings' purpose has been "to have in-depth discussions of these issues and to share strategy and tactics on achieving long-term goals and objectives shared by the secretaries." Guest speakers, such as Ed Meese, attorney general under President Ronald Reagan, occasionally make appearances.

"I mean, you always know when the meetings are happening, because all of the most conservative secretaries are just gone" from the regular conference events, said one secretary of state whom the Heritage Foundation has not invited. "What would actually be helpful is if these secretaries were present" at the NASS trainings and briefings.

As the pandemic has raged, and states have rejected their attacks on vote by mail, von Spakovsky and Adams have slightly modified their position. Like Kobach, von Spakovsky has touted his home state as an island of responsible practices. He, Adams and Cleta Mitchell wrote on Fox News' website that Georgia - where von Spakovsky lives and speaks frequently with the secretary of state's staff, according to email records - will "cut down" on fraud by sending absentee ballot applications only to registered and active voters.

The authors didn't point out that similar procedures have become the norm in other states. Instead, they warned, "No one should forget that absentee-ballot voting is vulnerable to intimidation, fraud and chaos as all-mail elections move behind closed doors beyond the oversight of election officials."

Hi all, today the Supreme Court will consider whether the House of Representatives and a New York prosecutor can subpoena Donald Trump's accounting firm and banks for his financial documents.  There will be oral arguments today and a decision towards summer.  At a very basic level this will be a decision on whether Trump is above the law.  Let's see which of the justices are willing to go against the spirit of the law by parsing the wording of the law in order to prop up this impostor in the white house. DDD

Hi DDD,

With this configuration of the Supreme Court---especially with the additions of Kavanaugh and Gorsuch---I'm not optimistic. Hope I'm wrong. I also think they'll kick the cases back down to the lower courts, so that the decisions are delayed till after the election.

All the best,

Soleil

Hey Soleil, yep I also think they will kick it back down to the lower courts.  Wouldn't it be wonderful if all the Supremes just did the right thing? DDD

Yeah, DDD, it really would be amazing if all the Supremes just did the right thing. But based on their recent rulings and the fact that some of them are bought and paid for by Trump, I'm not holding my breath! Regards, Soleil

This is what Republicans do .........

Wisconsin Republican supreme court strikes down governor's stay-at-home order

Justices say Tony Evers lacked authority to extend order through May in ruling that reopens state
 
Guardian
5/14/2020

Wisconsin's supreme court struck down the state's stay-at-home order on Thursday, ruling that Governor Tony Evers overstepped his authority by extending the order through the end of May.

The ruling reopens the state, lifting caps on the size of gatherings, allowing people to travel as they please and allowing shuttered businesses to reopen, including bars and restaurants. The Tavern League of Wisconsin swiftly posted the news on its website, telling members, "You can OPEN IMMEDIATELY!"

The 4-3 decision, written by the court's conservative justices, also chips away at Evers' authority to slow the spread of coronavirus and will force the Democratic governor to work with the Republican legislature as the state continues to grapple with the outbreak.

Evers issued a stay-at-home order in March and extended it in late April. Republicans asked the supreme court to block the extension, arguing that move required legislative approval.

Nearly seven out of 10 Wisconsin residents support the governor's "safer at home" order, according to a Marquette University Law School poll. But Republican lawmakers in the state worried about the economic impacts of an extended shutdown.

Americans for Prosperity-Wisconsin, which filed a friend-of-the-court brief on Republicans' behalf, praised the ruling. The state director, Eric Bott, called it "a win for the protection of the separation of powers and the necessary legislative and public oversight in the administrative rule-making process".

But top health officials, including Dr Anthony Fauci, have warned against reopening too quickly.

The sheltering orders will remain in place until 20 May to give lawmakers time to develop a new coronavirus plan.

Republican lawmakers have yet to offer an alternative outbreak response plan. The state's chamber of commerce proposed allowing all the state's businesses to open at once, while asking high-risk establishments to take some safety measures.

Local governments can still impose their own health restrictions, however. In Dane county, home to the capital, Madison, officials quickly imposed a mandate incorporating most of the statewide order.

The GOP move against Evers mirrors actions taken by Republican-controlled legislatures in other states, most notably against the Democratic governors in the nearby "blue wall" states of Michigan and Pennsylvania. All three are critical presidential battlegrounds in November.

The GOP has been working to weaken Evers' powers since he ousted incumbent Republican governor Scott Walker in 2018.

Speaking on the court's decision, the chief justice, Patience Roggensack, wrote for the majority that the stay-at-home order issued by Wisconsin health secretary, Andrea Palm, amounted to an emergency rule that she did not have the power to create on her own, and also imposes criminal penalties beyond her powers.

"Rule-making exists precisely to ensure that kind of controlling, subjective judgement asserted by one unelected official, Palm, is not imposed in Wisconsin," Roggensack, part of the court's 5-2 conservative majority, wrote.

Rebecca Dallet, one of the court's liberal justices, dissented. She wrote that the court's decision will "undoubtedly go down as one of the most blatant examples of judicial activism in this court's history. And it will be Wisconsinites who pay the price."

********

The GOP "˜has turned Wisconsin into a failed state': CNN's Toobin unloads on court overturning stay-at-home order

on May 14, 2020
RAW STORY
By Brad Reed

CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin on Thursday unloaded on the Wisconsin State Supreme Court ruling that overturned Democratic Gov. Tony Evers's stay-at-home order meant to slow the outbreak of COVID-19.

"The Republican Party has turned Wisconsin into a failed state," he said. "This is such an outrageous lawsuit, such an outrageous decision"¦ the idea that a state cannot try to protect the public health of its citizens is contrary to Wisconsin law, as well as common sense, and this hostility in the Republican Party to the Democratic governor there has just jeopardized thousands of lives."

Toobin later accused the Republican Party of politicizing the virus to such an extent that even commonsense public health measures were met with suspicion and hostility from GOP voters.
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"You have Democrats believing in science," he said. "You have Republicans who are looking at this, it seems to me, through an ideological lens that is about hostility to government, disbelief in science."

Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUDG3r1h0ww&feature=emb_title

***************

Sioux tribes refuse to take down coronavirus checkpoints after GOP governor threatens legal action

on May 14, 2020
By Alex Henderson, AlterNet

In South Dakota, Sioux tribes have set up highway checkpoints in the hope of preventing the spread of coronavirus on their reservations - and Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican, has demanded that the checkpoints be removed. But Sioux leaders are fighting back.

In a letter on Sunday, May 10, Maggie Seidel (Noem's policy director), told members of the Oglala Sioux and the Cheyenne River Sioux tribes, "The checkpoints on state and US highways are not legal, and if they don't come down, the state will take the matter to federal court." But Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Chairman Harold Frazier is not backing down.

Frazier told CNN, "We want to ensure that people coming from "˜hot spots' or highly infected areas, we ask them to go around our land"¦. With the lack of resources we have medically, this is our best tool we have right now to try to prevent (the spread of COVID-19)."

In her letter, Seidel asserted that it is "unlawful to interrupt the flow of traffic on these roads." But Frazier has maintained that his top priority is "protecting the lives of our people and those that live on this reservation."

MSNBC's Joy Reid clearly sided with Frazier's position when he appeared on her show, "AM Joy," on May 10 - asserting that Noem was endangering the lives of Native Americans by interfering with the checkpoints. Frazier told Reid, "We have every legal right to do what we're doing. In the past history, and time after time, the lack of adequate health care for our people - we just don't really have the resources to combat this virus once it gets into our lands. Right now, the main tool we have at this point is prevention."

**************

Texas Supreme Court puts expansion of voting by mail on hold

on May 16, 2020
By Texas Tribune

The state Supreme Court's order comes one day after a state appeals court had allowed the expansion to stand while a legal case was appealed.

The Texas Supreme Court on Friday temporarily put on hold an expansion of voting by mail during the coronavirus pandemic.

Siding with Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Supreme Court blocked a state appeals court decision that allowed voters who lack immunity to the virus to qualify for absentee ballots by citing a disability. That appellate decision upheld a lower court's order that would have allowed more people to qualify to vote by mail. The state's Supreme Court has not weighed the merits of the case.

It's the latest in an ongoing legal squabble that in the last three days has resulted in daily changes to who can qualify for a ballot they can fill out at home and mail in.

Federal and state courts are considering legal challenges to the state's rules for voting by mail as Democrats and voting rights groups ask courts to clarify whether lack of immunity to the coronavirus is a valid reason for people to request absentee ballots. A resolution to that question is gaining more urgency every day as the state approaches the July primary runoff elections.

Paxton asked the Supreme Court to intervene the day after a state appeals court let stand a ruling from state District Judge Tim Sulak that susceptibility to the coronavirus counts as a disability under the state election code and is therefore a legally valid reason for voters to request absentee ballots.

The appeals court rebuffed Paxton's efforts to block voters from requesting absentee ballots under those conditions while the case was making its way through the courts.

But the Supreme Court's Friday decision means that order will remain blocked while the appeal of the case moves forward.

"The Legislature has carefully limited who may and may not vote by mail," Paxton said in a statement after the ruling. "The Travis County trial court's decision to allow everyone to vote by mail is contrary to state law and will be reversed on appeal."

In a statement, Texas Democratic Party Chair Gilberto Hinojosa said the party would continue the legal battle.

"This is a dark day for our democracy," he said. "The Republican Texas Supreme Court is wrong to force the people of Texas to choose between their health and their right to vote. They would have Texans die, just so they can hold on to power."

The attorney general has said local officials must follow his reading of existing eligibility requirements. Paxton argues that a fear of contracting the virus while voting in person doesn't meet the state's definition of a disability.

The Texas election code defines disability as a "sickness or physical condition" that prevents a voter from appearing in person without the risk of "injuring the voter's health."

But Sulak's ruling is not based on voters' fear of contracting the virus; instead, he agreed with the individual Texas voters, state Democrats and civic organizations that argued that a lack of immunity to the virus makes voters eligible under the existing disability definition.

The court also set oral arguments for Wednesday on Paxton's request for it to weigh in on whether the appeals court erred and abused its discretion when it allowed Sulak's order to go into effect.

A Sitting President, Riling the Nation During a Crisis

By smearing his opponents, championing conspiracy theories and pursuing vendettas, President Tru"‹mp has reverted to his darkest political tactics in spite of a pandemic hurting millions of Americans.

By Alexander Burns, Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Martin and Nick Corasaniti
NY Times
May 15, 2020

"‹"‹Even by President Trump's standards, it was a rampage: He attacked a government whistle-blower who was telling Congress that the coronavirus pandemic had been mismanaged. He criticized the governor of Pennsylvania, who has resisted reopening businesses. He railed against former President Barack Obama, linking him to a conspiracy theory and demanding he answer questions before the Senate about the federal investigation of Michael T. Flynn.

And Mr. Trump lashed out at Joseph R. Biden Jr., his Democratic challenger. In an interview with a sympathetic columnist, Mr. Trump smeared him as a doddering candidate who "doesn't know he's alive." The caustic attack coincided with a barrage of digital ads from Mr. Trump's campaign mocking Mr. Biden for verbal miscues and implying that he is in mental decline.

That was all on Thursday.

Far from a one-day onslaught, it was a climactic moment in a weeklong lurch by Mr. Tru"‹mp back to "‹"‹the darkest tactics that defined his rise to political power"‹. Even those who have grown used to Mr. Trump's conduct in office may have found themselves newly alarmed by the grim spectacle of a sitting president deliberately stoking the country's divisions and pursuing personal vendettas in the midst of a crisis that has Americans fearing for their lives and livelihoods.

Since well before he became president, Mr. Trump's appetite for conflict has defined him as a public figure. But in recent days he has practiced that approach with new intensity, signaling both the depths of his election-year distress and his determination to blast open a path to a second term, even at the cost of further riling a country in deep anguish.

His electoral path has narrowed rapidly since the onset of the pandemic, as the growth-and-prosperity theme of his campaign disintegrated. In private, Mr. Trump has been plainly aggrieved at the loss of his central argument for re-election. "They wiped out my economy!" he has said to aides, according to people briefed on the remarks.

It is unclear whether he has been referring to China, where the virus originated, or health experts who have urged widespread lockdowns, but his frustration and determination to place blame elsewhere have been emphatic.

Ken Goldstein, a professor of politics at the University of San Francisco, said that Mr. Trump and his campaign were going on the offensive in nasty ways in an attempt to shift the attention of the public away from him and onto other targets, and ultimately onto Mr. Biden.

"If this election is about Trump, he probably loses," Mr. Goldstein said. "Trump's only hope is to make the election about Biden."

A number of Republican operatives believe Mr. Biden's advantage is soft and that his penchant for gaffes will at least make the race more competitive than it would otherwise be amid a pandemic and an incipient economic depression.

"We have a very good story to tell on him and we've got to do it," said Corry Bliss, a Republican strategist, of the negative narrative his party aims to generate about Mr. Biden.

Still, Mr. Trump's behavior has rattled even some supportive Republicans, who believe it is likely to backfire and possibly cost them the Senate as well as the White House. It has also further alarmed Democrats, who have long warned that Mr. Trump would be willing to use every lever of presidential power and deploy even the most unscrupulous campaign tactics to capture a second term.

In many respects Mr. Trump's approach to the 2020 election looks like a crude approximation of the way he waged the 2016 campaign against Hillary Clinton, attacking her personal ethics, often in false or exaggerated terms; taking Mrs. Clinton's admitted errors and distorting them with the help of online disinformation merchants; and making wild claims about her physical health and mental capacity for the job. Given that the 2016 campaign - the only one Mr. Trump has ever run - ended in a razor-thin victory for him, it is perhaps not surprising that the president would attempt a kind of sequel in 2020.

But there are vitally important differences between 2016 and 2020, ones that amplify the risks involved both for Mr. Trump and for the country he is vying to lead.

He is running against an opponent in Mr. Biden who, despite his vulnerabilities, has not faced decades of personal vilification as Mrs. Clinton did before running for president. And unlike 2016, Mr. Trump has a governing record to defend - one that currently involves presiding over a pandemic that has claimed more than 80,000 American lives - and he may not find it easy to change the subject with incendiary distractions.

Yet with the responsibility to govern also comes great power, and Mr. Trump has instruments available to him in 2020 that he did not have as a candidate four years ago - tools like a politically supportive attorney general, a Republican-controlled Senate determined to defend him and a vastly better financed campaign apparatus that has been constructed with the defining purpose of destroying his opponent's reputation.

His attacks over the last week on Mr. Obama have showcased Mr. Trump's persistent determination to weaponize those tools to bolster a favorite political narrative, one that distorts the facts about Mr. Flynn, the president's former national security adviser, in order to spin sinister implications about the previous administration.

But Mr. Trump also appears to genuinely believe many of the conspiratorial claims he makes, people close to him say, and his anger at Mr. Obama is informed less by political strategy than by an unbending - and unsubstantiated - belief that the former president was personally involved in a plot against him.

This weekend, Mr. Trump will huddle with some of his conservative allies in the House at Camp David, where they are expected to discuss the efforts - entirely fruitless up to this point - to prove Mr. Obama was involved in a conspiracy.

Of all Mr. Trump's efforts, this one may be among the least concerning to Democrats, given Mr. Obama's strong popularity and the degree to which Mr. Trump's claims of an "Obamagate" scandal have been confined so far to the usual echo chambers of Fox News and right-wing social media. As he did in 2016, Mr. Trump is trying to force other outlets to cover the matter through repetition on his Twitter feed.

Democratic anxiety about the president's attacks on Mr. Biden runs higher. But in general Mr. Biden's advisers have professed confidence that the severity of the country's problems will make it difficult for Mr. Trump to retake control of the campaign, and that Mr. Biden's fundamental political strengths make him well positioned to survive a campaign of attempted character assassination.

On a conference call with reporters on Friday, Mike Donilon, one of Mr. Biden's closest advisers, said Mr. Trump was transparently engaged in "an all-out effort to take people away from what they're living through."

"I think that's going to be real hard to do, because the country has really been rocked," Mr. Donilon said. "And where the president has succeeded in the past, in terms of throwing up lots of distractions and smoke screens and trying to move the debate to other questions, I don't think he's going to succeed here."

The president has been grumbling about his own campaign and this week complained to allies that he had not significantly outraised Mr. Biden in April, according to a Republican who spoke with Mr. Trump.

Still, Mr. Trump's political operation has moved over the last month to devise a plan for tearing down Mr. Biden, who does not inspire great enthusiasm in voters but is held in higher esteem by most than the incumbent president. The result has been a blizzard of negative digital and television ads, battering Mr. Biden on a range of subjects in a way that suggests Mr. Trump's advisers have not yet settled on a primary line of attack.

The campaign's ads on Facebook are as relentless as they are varied, as if plucked from a vintage Trump rally rant: Some make unfounded inferences about Mr. Biden's mental state, saying "geriatric health is no laughing matter." Others paint the presumptive Democratic nominee as "China's puppet" by highlighting statements that Mr. Biden made when he was vice president, like "China is not our enemy." Still others stick to traditional themes of illegal immigration.

Over the last week, the Trump campaign has spent at least $880,000 on Facebook ads attacking Mr. Biden.

Yet there are persistent doubts even within Mr. Trump's political circle that an overwhelmingly negative campaign can be successful in 2020, particularly when many voters are likely to be looking for a combination of optimism, empathy and steady leadership at a moment of crisis unlike any in living memory. And the more Mr. Trump lashes out - at Mr. Biden and others - the more he may cement in place the reservations of voters who are accustomed to seeing presidents react with resolute calm in difficult situations.

Private Republican polling has shown Mr. Trump slipping well behind Mr. Biden in a number of key states. Perhaps just as troubling for Mr. Trump, it has raised questions about whether his efforts to tar Mr. Biden are making any headway.

Last month, a poll commissioned by the Republican National Committee tested roughly 20 lines of attack against Mr. Biden, ranging from the private business activities of his son, Hunter Biden, to whether Mr. Biden has "lost" a step, a reference to mental acuity. None of the lines of attack significantly moved voter sentiment, according to two people briefed on the results. There were some lines of attack that had potential, one of the people briefed on the results said, but they were more traditional Republican broadsides about issues like taxes.

Mr. Trump has also been warned by Republican veterans that his efforts to define Mr. Biden in negative terms so far have been slow or ineffective. At a meeting with political advisers this week that included Karl Rove, the top strategist for former President George W. Bush, Mr. Rove warned Mr. Trump that he had fallen behind in the task of damaging Mr. Biden, people familiar with the meeting said.

Part of the challenge, though, is that Mr. Trump constantly undermines his own team's strategy, in ways big and small. While he finally stopped doing his daily press briefings, after weeks of pleading from his allies, he still makes comments on Twitter or to reporters nearly every day that hand Democrats fodder and make Republicans squirm.

In addition to his attacks against Mr. Obama, he separated himself from the highly popular Dr. Anthony Fauci, downplayed the importance of testing and has refused to wear a mask. And Mr. Trump's appetite for conspiracy theories is often embarrassing to his party: Several times in recent weeks, he has falsely accused a prominent television host of murder and called for a "cold case" investigation.

The president also routinely misses even the political opportunities his advisers deliberately tee up for him.

When Mr. Trump was visiting Pennsylvania this week, for instance, his team scheduled a friendly interview in the hope that he would make the case that Mr. Biden would undermine fracking, an important industry in Pennsylvania. But Mr. Trump made no mention of fracking and instead attacked Mr. Biden's mental condition and called wind power a "disaster" that "kills all the birds."

"He's come back down because that's where his natural state is," said Terry Nelson, a Republican strategist, referring to Mr. Trump's slide in the polls after a short-lived bump in March. "Because he's not in position to rally the country in a way a president traditionally would in a situation like this."

*************

Trump cheers on anti-lockdown protestors for attacking a journalist covering their event

on May 16, 2020
By New Civil Rights Movement

This morning President Donald Trump issued two tweets in support of anti-lockdown protestors in Commack, Long Island, New York who lashed out at News 12 Long Island reporter Kevin Vesey as he covered their event.

While the majority of white Trump-supporting demonstrators peacefully picketed the roadside, four minutes into covering the event, several protestors started yelling at Vesey through bullhorns, giving the reporter the middle finger, telling him "Go home, you're fake news" and "Fake news is not essential," and trying to invade his personal space without masks, risking the possibility of attempting to infect him with COVID-19.

In response to videos of the protestors attacking Vesey, Trump tweeted, "People can't get enough of this. Great people!" and "FAKE NEWS IS NOT ESSENTIAL!" Numerous times in the past, Trump has referred to the media as the "enemy of the people."

Here is video of Vesey's report:

   This was my story that aired on TV today - a recap of yesterday's events, and what's happened since. pic.twitter.com/cfGrBYiLGJ

   - Kevin Vesey (@KevinVesey) May 15, 2020

The protest was organized by a Facebook group called the Setauket Patriots who later issued a public apology to Vesey via Facebook, stating:

   "The Setauket Patriots group, would like to apologize on how you were treated"¦ The few who decided to Harass you and try to prevent you from doing your job are not members or affiliated with the Setauket patriots group in any way, shape or form"¦. As with all mass rally events, you will always get a few idiots to disrupt an otherwise peaceful, pleasant demonstration and they should have been removed by Police."

On April 29, President Donald Trump cheered on armed anti-lockdown protestors in Minnesota, Michigan and Virginia - three states run by Democratic governors - by telling them to "liberate" their states. Trump later defended the tweets, saying that some state's social distancing policies are "too tough." Meanwhile, anti-lockdown protestors in Michigan have openly discussed assassinating its female Governor Gretchen Whitmer, causing the state legislature to shut down this week.

New York remains the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak. As of May 16, the state has had 346,000 confirmed cases and 22,304 deaths.

************

Trump threatens to cut off funds to Michigan after it sends out "˜illegal' absentee ballots

on May 20, 2020
Raw Story
By Brad Reed

President Donald Trump on Wednesday uncorked an angry Twitter rant against Michigan for sending out absentee ballots to its state's voters.

"Michigan sends absentee ballots to 7.7 million people ahead of Primaries and the General Election," the president wrote. "This was done illegally and without authorization by a rogue Secretary of State. I will ask to hold up funding to Michigan if they want to go down this Voter Fraud path!"

Trump's angry rant came after Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson announced this week that all registered voters in Michigan would receive ballot applications through the mail this year that they could send in to avoid having to go to the polls during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Trump's threat to cut off funding to Michigan comes as the state deals with the twin crises of the pandemic and mass flooding caused by a burst dam.

    Breaking: Michigan sends absentee ballots to 7.7 million people ahead of Primaries and the General Election. This was done illegally and without authorization by a rogue Secretary of State. I will ask to hold up funding to Michigan if they want to go down this Voter Fraud path!..

    - Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 20, 2020

Hi Rad and all,

Thank you, Rad, for posting those articles. I hope the Biden campaign starts fighting back hard against Trump---I think it's the only way to counter his dirty tricks---and I also hope they start consulting with Republican and ex-Republican never-Trumpers, like the people behind the Lincoln Project. Republicans are a lot better at fighting hard. Democrats don't seem to have it in them.

Steve Schmidt, one of the founders of the Lincoln Project, is one of the few pundits who isn't afraid to speak the unvarnished truth about the moron in the White House. I find it cathartic.

Here are excerpts of Steve Schmidt on MSNBC with Joy Reid, May 15:

"Donald Trump has been the worst president this country has ever had."

"When you listen to the president, these are the musings of an imbecile, an idiot...they're the precise words in the English language to describe his behavior, his comportment, his actions.

We've never seen a level of incompetence, a level of ineptitude so staggering on a daily basis by anybody in the history of the country who's ever been charged with substantial responsibilities.

It's just astonishing that this man is the president of the United States---the conman from New York City, many bankruptcies, failed businesses, a reality show that branded him as something he never was (a successful businessman).

Well, he's the president of the United States now, and the man who said that he would make the country great again has brought death, suffering and economic collapse on truly an epic scale, and let's be clear---this isn't happening in every country around the world."

"We're the ones with the most shattered economy and we are because of the fool that sits in the oval office behind the resolute desk."

https://twitter.com/Eleven_Films/status/1261557712590012416

**********************

On a lighter note...

Daily Show mashup of Trump's inability to speak properly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ftpc4fwcDfk

Although funny to listen to---and I think humor is an antidote to evil and to just about everything---the slurred speech and unintelligible gibberish that comes out of his mouth are disturbing. They seem to point to either cognitive decline, drug use or a neurological issue---or all of the above. It should be a concern, but it is barely talked about in the media.

If any other president had uttered even 1% of these, it would have been a major scandal, but, once again, this guy gets away with everything.

All the best,

Soleil

Seeking: Big Democratic Ideas That Make Everything Better

By the end of primary season, the Democratic Party had all but settled on a conventional center-left agenda. But the pandemic is forcing the Biden campaign and other leaders to redraw plans for 2021.
Mr. Biden's campaign has been rapidly expanding its policy-drafting apparatus, with an uphill economic recovery waiting if he wins in November.

By Alexander Burns
NY Times
May 17, 2020, 4:35 a.m. ET

More than 36 million Americans are suddenly unemployed. Congress has allocated $2.2 trillion in aid, with more likely to be on the way as a fight looms over government debt. Millions more people are losing their health insurance and struggling to take care of their children and aging relatives. And nearly 90,000 are dead in a continuing public health catastrophe.

This was not the scenario Joseph R. Biden Jr. anticipated confronting when he competed for the Democratic nomination on a conventional left-of-center platform. Now, with Mr. Biden leading President Trump in the polls, the former vice president and other Democratic leaders are racing to assemble a new governing agenda that meets the extraordinary times - and they agree it must be far bolder than anything the party establishment has embraced before.

So far, neither Mr. Biden nor Mr. Trump has defined in itemized terms what an agenda for the first 100 days of a new presidency in the coronavirus era might look like. But on the Democratic side, far more than within the Republican Party, there is an increasingly clear sense of the nature and scale of the goals a new administration would pursue.

Mr. Biden's campaign has been rapidly expanding its policy-drafting apparatus, with the former vice president promising on Monday to detail plans for "the right kind of economic recovery" within weeks. He has already effectively shed his primary-season theme of restoring political normalcy to the country, replacing it with promises of sweeping economic change.

On Wednesday, Mr. Biden signaled anew that he was willing to reopen his policy platform, announcing six policy task forces - covering issues including health care, climate and immigration, as well as the economy - that combine his core supporters with left-wing allies of Senator Bernie Sanders, his vanquished primary opponent.

The formation of those committees was aimed in part at easing divisions between Democrats that are already flaring on subjects like the size of a potential infrastructure bill and the intractable issue of health care. Despite having dashed Mr. Sanders's populist insurgency in the primary, Mr. Biden is still facing loud calls from his party's activist wing to adopt ideas he has firmly resisted, like single-payer health care.

But in several areas there are already strong signs of consensus within Mr. Biden's party, as once-cautious electoral and legislative tacticians shed their opposition to huge price tags and disruptive change amid a crisis that has melted traditional obstacles to government action.

Democratic leaders say that if they hold power next January, they must be prepared to move to pump trillions more into the economy; enact infrastructure and climate legislation far larger than they previously envisioned; pass a raft of aggressive worker-protection laws; expand government-backed health insurance and create enormous new investments in public-health jobs, health care facilities and child care programs.

Discussions are also underway, some of them involving Republicans, about policies that would ban stock buybacks and compel big corporations to share more of their profits with workers.

And there is more to come: Interviews with more than a dozen influential lawmakers, union leaders, think tank experts and advisers to Mr. Biden and other senior Democrats revealed an intensifying set of deliberations in the Zoom meetings of Mr. Biden's campaign, the skeletally staffed offices of Capitol Hill, and a web of conference calls and email chains initiated by powerful Democratic interest groups. Across all of them, there is a sense that Democrats must use the next six months - with an unpredictable campaign still in progress - to prepare to act swiftly in case they get the chance.

"There is a recognition that this event is more transformative than 2008, more transformative than 9/11, more transformative than the fall of the Berlin Wall," said Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, a centrist Democrat.

The party's moderates, Mr. Warner said, had begun to think "exponentially bigger" about a legislative vision for overhauling the economy.

Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who since ending her presidential campaign has laid out an array of plans for countering the pandemic, said she saw a widening recognition within her party that it faced "a big moment that we must meet with big ideas." Ms. Warren, who has recently spoken several times about policy with Mr. Biden, said she believed the former vice president saw the moment in similarly urgent terms.

"The coronavirus has pushed to the front the need for real change," said Ms. Warren, a contender to be Mr. Biden's running mate. "Families need more economic security and we need an economy over all that has more resilience and more protection built in for helping each other in a time of crisis."

For Mr. Biden and other leaders of the Democratic establishment, a difficult balancing act still awaits, as they navigate competing pressures from their party's left flank and the middle-of-the-road voters Mr. Biden is determined to court in the general election. If the current political mood and conditions of the country seems ready-made for promises of dramatic change, that does not necessarily mean most voters are hungering for the same wish list as the ideological left.

As Mr. Biden surely knows from his years as vice president - most of all the battle over the Affordable Care Act - voters who demand new policies from the government in one moment may not patiently endure the disruptions and unintended consequences that tend to accompany structural change, particularly in times of economic hardship.

Yet Mr. Biden has plainly changed his outlook on the mission he would pursue in office: As a newly announced presidential candidate last year, Mr. Biden presented himself as a tinkerer under whom "nothing would fundamentally change."

That spirit was absent from a speech Mr. Biden delivered this month from his porch in Delaware, telling voters that his aim was "not just to rebuild the economy, but to transform it."

The task of reimagining the economy is in many respects an unlikely one for Mr. Biden, whose driving interests for most of his career were foreign affairs and criminal justice. His most prominent stint as an economic leader came as vice president, when the Obama administration shepherded a reeling financial sector back to functionality and imposed new regulations on Wall Street - but stopped well short of seeking to overhaul the nature of the American private sector and rewrite the rules of the workplace.

Mr. Biden earned praise for his high-profile role overseeing the distribution of a $787 billion economic stimulus program. But the Recovery Act has come to be seen by many Democrats as something of a cautionary tale about governing in a recession: a law that stitched up a tattered economy but failed to spur a strong comeback, leading to deep electoral losses for the party.

It is a scenario Democratic leaders are determined not to repeat, particularly progressives who have long faulted the Obama administration for paring back the stimulus in the hope of winning Republican support.

Many of Mr. Biden's close advisers are veterans of the Obama administration with similar political scars from the last recession. But the Biden campaign has also begun to recruit and corral scores of other Democratic experts into a web of advisory groups aimed at generating policy faster and with greater ambition. Stef Feldman, Mr. Biden's policy director, said much of the campaign's energy was devoted to mapping out a "quick slate of executive actions" to address pandemic conditions and carry out other aspects of Mr. Biden's agenda.

But Mr. Biden is also soliciting input from a range of party luminaries outside his campaign, some of whom described him as eager for new ideas.

"I think that he wants to work and support working families, and I think he's interested in hearing programs and thinking outside the box as far as what needs to be developed to achieve that goal," said Lee Saunders, president of the government workers' union Afscme, who has spoken several times recently with Mr. Biden.

Separate from the Biden campaign, about three dozen influential figures at labor unions, think tanks and other progressive institutions have convened a weekly virtual meeting ­- known as the Friday Morning Group - with the same goal, according to multiple participants who spoke about the sessions on the condition of anonymity. Among its motivating forces is a view that liberal Democrats failed in the last recession to take the initiative in specifying plans for achieving large-scale change.

This convening of progressive minds, one of several brainstorming-and-planning initiatives underway in Washington, has mulled a range of policy options, including mainstream proposals like major new spending on public health and child care and less widely supported options like creating a universal basic income or offering a federal jobs guarantee.

Mary Kay Henry, president of the Service Employees International Union, which represents more than a million health care workers, said she had briefed Democratic lawmakers in both the House and Senate about her organization's view that it was time to "change the rules of the economy for the long term," including a powerful expansion of the rights and employment benefits of lower-income workers.

"We don't want to stand for any short-term fixes when we need a total overhaul," said Ms. Henry, who has also been in touch with the Biden campaign.

Hanging over Mr. Biden's plans will be uncertainty about elections for the House and Senate that will determine whether Mr. Biden would have cooperative Democratic majorities or face opposition from a Republican-held Senate aligned with conservative business interests. Mr. Trump, who has said little about his goals for another term, has begun accusing Democrats of imperiling an economic recovery by proposing new regulations and taxes.

For now, however, the political atmosphere seems to be one of demand for more aggressive action: One Democratic group, Navigator Research, that has been conducting daily polling on the pandemic, found large majorities of voters concerned that the government would do too little to help people and eager for the government to do more, even if it cost a lot of money.

Jake Sullivan, one of Mr. Biden's closest policy advisers, said the former vice president had not shed the underlying view of the American economy that defined his candidacy for much of the last year, when Mr. Biden rejected calls for his party to embrace the agenda of democratic socialism. But, he said, the external circumstances facing a potential Biden administration were different now.

"We are going to have to do more, push further, be more creative coming out of this once-in-a-century pandemic - no doubt about it," Mr. Sullivan said.

According to several aides, Mr. Biden is expected to produce detailed plans for funding health care jobs and green infrastructure, and initiatives to rebuild the domestic manufacturing of critical supplies and help Americans who lost jobs in the most devastated industries find lasting employment.

In his speech on the economy this month, Mr. Biden also said he wanted to "insist that big corporations, which we've bailed out twice in 12 years, set up and take responsibility for their workers and their communities" - a striking flash of populist sentiment that Mr. Biden has not yet translated fully into policy.

Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado, a moderate Democrat who also ran for president last year, said he hoped Mr. Biden would embrace policies that would shift wealth and economic power away from the extremely rich and toward workers and middle-class people hit hardest by the pandemic.

Mr. Bennet, who has proposed a range of tax and health benefits for low- and middle-income households, said he saw a window for action that did not exist during the last recession.

"I think there was not the same recognition, 10 years ago, that there is today, that we've had 50 years of an economy that only works for people at the very top," Mr. Bennet said, adding with blunt impatience: "I think a decade of not achieving the stuff we need to achieve is probably enough."

Freed by Court Ruling, Republicans Step Up Effort to Patrol Voting

Officials seek to recruit 50,000 poll watchers and spend millions to fight voter fraud. Democrats say the real goal is to stop them from voting.

By Michael Wines
NY Times
May 18, 2020,

WASHINGTON - Six months before a presidential election in which turnout could matter more than persuasion, the Republican Party, the Trump campaign and conservative activists are mounting an aggressive national effort to shape who gets to vote in November - and whose ballots are counted.

Its premise is that a Republican victory in November is imperiled by widespread voter fraud, a baseless charge embraced by President Trump, but repeatedly debunked by research. Democrats and voting rights advocates say the driving factor is politics, not fraud - especially since Mr. Trump's narrow win in 2016 underscored the potentially crucial value of depressing turnout by Democrats, particularly minorities.   

The Republican program, which has gained steam in recent weeks, envisions recruiting up to 50,000 volunteers in 15 key states to monitor polling places and challenge ballots and voters deemed suspicious. That is part of a $20 million plan that also allots millions to challenge lawsuits by Democrats and voting-rights advocates seeking to loosen state restrictions on balloting. The party and its allies also intend to use advertising, the internet and President Trump's command of the airwaves to cast Democrats as agents of election theft.

The efforts are bolstered by a 2018 federal court ruling that for the first time in nearly four  decades allows the national Republican Party to mount campaigns against purported voter fraud without court approval. The court ban on Republican Party voter-fraud operations was imposed in 1982, and then modified in 1986 and again in 1990, each time after courts found instances of Republicans intimidating or working to exclude minority voters in the name of preventing fraud. The party was found to have violated it yet again in 2004.

The 2018 ruling merely "allows the R.N.C. to play by the same rules as Democrats," a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, Mandi Merritt, said in a statement.

"Now the R.N.C. can work more closely with state parties and campaigns to do what we do best - ensure that more people vote through our unmatched field program," the statement said.

But the program escalates a Republican focus on limiting who can vote that became a juggernaut after the Supreme Court dismantled the Voting Rights Act in 2013. But beyond that, it also reflects an enduring  tension in American life in which the voting rights of  minorities - whether granted in 1870 by the 15th Amendment or nearly a century later by the Voting Rights Act of 1965 - seldom seem free from challenge.

Besides the national party and Mr. Trump's campaign strategists, conservative advocacy groups are joining lawsuits, recruiting poll monitors and mounting media campaigns of their own. Leading them is a new and well-funded organization, the Honest Elections Project, formed by Leonard Leo, a prolific fund-raiser, advocate of a conservative judiciary and confidant of President Trump.

Republicans will have an Election Day operations program "that probably no other presidential campaign has had before," Josh Helton, a Republican consultant, said at a meeting of the Conservative Political Action Committee in March. "It's going to be all hands on deck."

In battleground states, that extends even to comparatively quiet places like Fond du Lac County, an eastern Wisconsin outpost of about 100,000 people and 1,200 farms midway between Green Bay and Milwaukee.

"I think the big push is going to be for poll observers" in November's general election, the Republican Party county chairman, Rohn Bishop, said this month. "No harm in making sure." Indeed, he said that training sessions for election monitors were already in the works.

Democrats who have been tracking the effort say the goal is not to limit fraud, but to make the supposed threat of election theft the tentpole of a coordinated campaign by Republicans and their allies to limit the number of Democratic ballots counted in November.

"This is a burn-it-down strategy, a strategy to win at all costs," said Lauren Groh-Wargo, the senior adviser at Fair Fight, the voting rights group founded by Stacey Abrams, the former Democratic candidate for governor of Georgia. "They see this as central to victory."

Fair Fight claims that the groups' combined spending on lawsuits, election monitoring and spreading allegations of cheating will far exceed the $20 million announced to date. That message, blasted out, in particular by Mr. Trump, has stirred concerns that the Republican fraud drumbeat could lay the groundwork for Mr. Trump and his supporters to reject the election results should he lose.

The Covid-19 pandemic has raised the stakes further, leading Democrats and voting rights advocates to call for expanded voting by mail and Mr. Trump and some Republicans to claim with little evidence that it would invite fraud.

Some skeptics say the voting wars are partly political Kabuki, acted out to rally supporters in both parties and raise funds for advocacy groups. But in a presidential election where social distancing has muffled campaigning and few voters remain on the fence, turnout has taken on outsized importance. And neither side disputes that November's vote, as in 2016, could turn on a relative handful of ballots in key states

Neither the Trump campaign nor the Republican National Committee responded to requests for interviews, although the committee provided a summary of its work and policies. In essence, Republicans say Democratic efforts to relax voting restrictions are partisan moves that demand a firm response, and that Republican countermeasures reflect standard political mobilizing.

Others say the Republican focus on vanishingly rare cases of fraud targets a politically useful phantom.

"It's utter nonsense. This has been shown over and over," said Kenneth R. Mayer, an elections expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "The continued insistence that there are material levels of intentional voter fraud is itself a form of fraud."

But political strategists insisted at the conservative committee conference in March that ballot fakery was a major concern. "In some of these areas where there's no Republican presence whatsoever, then they're going to cheat, and they're going to cheat early and they're going to cheat often," Mr. Helton said at the March conference. At polling places, he said, "just having a presence of some sort is a deterrent for probably 80 percent of the bad behavior."

Being present at the polls isn't unusual; in fact, both parties monitor polls. Monitors check whether poll workers follow the rules and can complain to election supervisors or summon party lawyers if differences are not resolved.

They also can challenge voters' right to cast a ballot - if, for instance, a voter lacks a required ID card. That can force voters to cast provisional ballots that are not counted unless they prove their eligibility.

But Democrats say the Republican focus on monitors and repeated allegations of fraud are part of a coordinated strategy to depress turnout, especially by minorities, by fueling anxieties among voters already suspicious of the authorities.

"They don't need to keep millions of people away" from the polls, said Ms. Groh-Wargo. "Challenge a couple of voters here, a couple there, and it all aggregates up. They realize they're going to win or lose this thing at the margins."

Among other things, Democrats cite Mr. Trump's repeated demands that law-enforcement officers patrol the polls and the recent creation of voter-fraud task forces by Republicans in four state governments, at least in part at the national party's urging.

They also point to a meeting in February attended by conservative political luminaries and at least one national Republican Party official, sponsored by the Center for National Policy, a group of conservative power brokers. The topic was voter fraud and "ballot security" operations, particularly in inner cities and areas with Native American populations, according to The Intercept, which published excerpts from a recording of the meeting.

One group represented at that meeting, Texas-based True the Vote, is recruiting military veterans to become poll monitors. The group, an offshoot of a Houston Tea Party branch, was scrutinized by local prosecutors after its first poll-monitoring effort in 2012 sparked complaints of voter intimidation.

The group's founder, Catherine Engelbrecht, told the gathering that Democrats could inundate the polls with phony votes. "The swarming tactics of a radicalized socialist mind-set," she warned, "is a dangerous thing to behold." The group did not respond to a request for comment.

History also offers reason for Democrats' concern. The court order vacated in 2018 involved repeated efforts to depress Democratic turnout. In the first instance, the party recruited off-duty police officers wearing "National Ballot Security Task Force" armbands to monitor polling places in black and Latino neighborhoods in New Jersey. A Democratic lawsuit claimed the officers hectored poll workers and voters and stopped volunteers from helping voters cast ballots.

At the Conservative Political Action Committee conference, Justin Clark, a Trump campaign senior adviser overseeing Election Day operations, argued that the court order had handed a decades-long edge to Democrats.

"We were really operating with one hand behind our back," he said.

Speaking to Wisconsin Republicans in November, Mr. Clark said the party's expanded poll-monitoring plans were accelerated by defeats last November in governor's races in  Kentucky and Louisiana.

The party has named three regional directors of Election Day operations, is hiring directors in 15 key states and will beef up the paid staffs that recruit and work with volunteers. Wisconsin, for example, is to receive 100 operatives, compared to 62 in 2016.

One aim, he said, is to expand poll monitoring beyond the usual big-city Democratic strongholds. Mr. Clark, in remarks which were posted online by the Democratic opposition group American Bridge, cited a county where he said Mr. Trump won by 14,000 votes in 2016. "But maybe he should have won by 17,000," he said. "Their cheating doesn't just happen when you lose a county."

In addition to the $20 million raised by the party for legal battles over election rules, conservative advocacy groups have joined the legal war, filing lawsuits and briefs in states such as New Mexico, Minnesota and Nevada. The Honest Elections Project, which surfaced only this spring, already has joined legal battles over voting in six states and has spent $250,000 on advertising opposing voting by mail. 

Honest Elections officials did not respond to a request for an interview. But an account in the online publication Axios in January detailed plans by Mr. Leo, its creator, "to funnel tens of millions of dollars into conservative fights" nationwide.

Republicans said the goal of their litigation effort  was "to ensure the integrity of the 2020 election" and rebuff Democratic attempts "to sue their way to victory in 2020." But Mark Elias, a Washington lawyer who represents Democrats in many of the suits that Republicans are contesting, said every Republican court filing has sought to add or keep limits on voting rather than remove them.

"I go to bed sleeping pretty well, thinking I'm fighting for everybody to be able to vote," he said. "When was the last time a party said it would spend $20 million to make voting harder?"

Trump's defenders are drumming up fake Democratic "˜scandals' to provide cover for his failures: ex-RNC spokesperson

Trump's Weekend of Scandal Was Hiding in Plain Sight ..It's going on right now and no one can see it because of the chaff.

by Tim Miller
May 18, 2020
The Bulwark

The Washington Post published a picture of Stacey Abrams wearing a cape this weekend.

You may have seen it, since in certain corners of the conservative news media, this fawning coverage of the becaped former state representative and vice-presidential hopeful was the single most noteworthy piece of news from the weekend.

And I'd like to preface the impending rant by saying, for the record, that in the narrowest possible sense, these conservative media critics have a sliver of a point. It is true that the number of glowing profiles given over to a failed gubernatorial candidate and long-shot vice presidential contender is absurd. And yes, it is impossible to imagine a losing Republican candidate being given this sort of treatment.

And yes, it's telling that the biggest media outlets are unable to have even a modicum of self-awareness in situations like this. I wish they would stop. (See also: Cuomo, Andrew).

But while the professional media critics, anti-anti-Trumpers, and assorted both-siders were obsessing over the Stacey Abrams Caped Crusader feature, there were some other things happening in the actual real world.

Here are some of them:

(1) The president of the United States quote-tweeted an avowed alt-right account that flirts with Holocaust denial,

(2) The president also texted supporters false allegations that he had been illegally spied on by the previous vice president.

(3) The president also fired another independent inspector general without providing cause.

(4) The official American death toll from COVID-19 inched close to 90,000 souls while the president spent his time live tweeting cable TV.

(5) One of the president's large adult sons grotesquely suggested that Joe Biden is a "pedophile."

(6) Another of his large adult sons claimed that the virus was a hoax perpetrated by the left and the media and that it will disappear after the election.

(7) The President sent a tweet encouraging protesters who aggressively shouted down and chased after a random local news reporter with calls of "you are the virus," "traitor," and "enemy of the people." (Note: This was entry number seven because I even forgot about it until after writing the article because Trump does so much insane stuff every day)

But who could find the time to care about any of this when the Washington Post publishes a picture of Stacey Abrams in a cape. #Capegate. What an outrage.

Three and a half years into the Trump experiment, the president is still using chaff to prevent people from zeroing in on any one of his actions. He veers from incident to incident-at any point in U.S. history, any of the above seven items would have been an all-encompassing scandal, a few could've been career enders. Meanwhile, Trump's defenders run content farms of counter "scandals" which they litigate and re-litigate and then litigate some more. Which has the effect of paralyzing the mainstream media, which has produced a great deal of good journalism, but has been unable to change its fundamental priorities, which create recency bias, kabuki balance, and an evolutionary imperative for clicks.

The current conservative content farm "scandal" is "Obamagate," in which Trump has fabricated an espionage claim against both his predecessor and general election opponent. This "scandal" has been a public-private partnership, created both with the tools of the federal government as well as Trump's campaign and its proxies in conservative media.

The very creation of this fake "scandal" is, as I wrote last week, being largely treated as a sideshow by those who either think it too stupid to be taken seriously or don't understand how the Department of Justice and director of National Intelligence are leveraging government assets in order to aid the president's reelection campaign.

For those who have not followed it, the tl;dr of what the government is doing is this:

The Department of Justice has deputized U.S. Attorney John Durham to oversee a team of investigators aimed at looking into whether the Russia investigation was actually a Deep State plot. Durham has access to a grand jury and the resources to scour the globe. Meanwhile the acting director of National Intelligence, someone whose main experience for the job was pleasing President Trump with his aggressive trolling of reporters on Twitter, is selectively leaking innocuous intelligence gathering efforts in order to advance this conspiratorial narrative.

These leaks, in turn, are being driven by the Trump campaign. On Saturday the president used the leads from the director of National Intelligence to advance an elaborate lie that accuses his opponent of committing illegal espionage against him.

Just read that sentence again.

The president used the leads from the director of National Intelligence to advance an elaborate lie that accuses his opponent of committing illegal espionage against him.

This is the most outrageous and pernicious lie that a president has levied against his opponent in my lifetime.

And despite the president himself elevating this lie on Saturday, it was not discussed on front pages across the country. Forget front pages, it's hard to find any article at all addressing the President's insane charges.

Most coverage of the issue is framed around discussing whether or not Obama and Biden did anything wrong-there is literally no evidence to suggest that they did-rather than focusing on how the Trump administration is guilty of weaponizing American intelligence agencies for political ends by perpetrating this falsehood.

Drawing historical analogies to Trump's behavior is more or less impossible-there is no true analog. The best I can do is this: Imagine if, in 2012, President Obama had deputized a U.S. attorney to investigate claims that 9/11 was an inside job perpetrated by the Bush family, while asserting that the GOP engaged in illegal espionage against his campaign because the government was investigating the Tony Rezko scandal. And that he somehow tied Mitt Romney to the fiction, too.

Set aside the fact that this would be Wuhan batshit level crazy that would have caused people to wonder if Obama was even mentally fit for office. There is a 100 percent chance that these actions would have become the all-encompassing scandal for the rest of Obama's administration.

Trump's actions combine the politicization of intelligence, the misuse of tax dollars, and the creation of a phony investigation using the Department of Justice in order to advance the president's reelection campaign. And that's just the nuts-and-bolts, the stuff you can probe with your hands. The president has also created a propaganda campaign that will lead millions to believe that one party actively spied on the other, further tearing the fabric of our country in ways that won't be repaired for a generation. Or maybe ever.

And if that isn't giving you cause for concern, the president has systematically fired the independent inspectors general overseeing the departments most intertwined with his COVID-19 response and his "Obamagate" abuses. The fired IGs include the State and Defense Departments, the pandemic response, and the intelligence community. The only person in the Republican Senate majority who seems to give a damn about this is Mitt Romney.

And for good measure the president elevated an avowed white nationalist and Holocaust denier who proceeded to brag about how Trump is helping him get around deplatforming.

    Six months ago Michelle Malkin was "cancelled" because she refused to disavow me after I was blacklisted by Con Inc.

    Three months ago my 77k sub channel was banned from Youtube.

    Yesterday the President retweeted a video of Malkin posted by an America First clips channel. pic.twitter.com/8fPuDlGqSb

    - Nicholas J. Fuentes (@NickJFuentes) May 17, 2020

Put all this together with beyond the pale defamation and the COVID lies and the Trump family went exponentially further than any previous president in eroding our norms rhetorical, political, and legal - and that was just one weekend.

But hey, don't forget that cape pic.

Democracy is the enemy for Republicans .........

Republicans Have a New Plan to Thwart the Will of the People

A Missouri initiative would undo voters' preference for nonpartisan legislative districts - and perhaps shift representation itself.

By David Daley
Mr. Daley is the author of "Unrigged: How Americans Are Battling Back to Save Democracy."
NY Times
May 21, 2020, 5:00 a.m. ET

When Karl Rove laid out the Republican plan to win back power by weaponizing redistricting in a March 2010 op-ed, Democrats failed to pay proper attention.

The vision set forth - called Redmap, short for the Redistricting Majority Project - proved simple yet revolutionary: In most states, legislatures control the decennial redistricting that follows the census. So in November 2010, Republicans invested tens of millions of dollars in these ordinarily sleepy local races and swept elections.

Through gerrymandering, they drew themselves huge advantages in Congress and state capitals, firewalls that have allowed Republicans in Wisconsin, North Carolina, Michigan and elsewhere to survive wave elections in which Democratic state legislative candidates won hundreds of thousands more votes.

It's a census-year election again, and this time both sides understand the stakes. Democrats know down-ballot elections this fall are the last opportunity to close the redistricting gap before next decade's maps are drawn.

Republicans appear to have a different strategy for 2020 - subtler, more technical and instructed by successful legal challenges that overturned Republican-drawn maps in North Carolina and Pennsylvania as unconstitutional partisan gerrymanders.

Last week, Republicans in Missouri presented a dress rehearsal of this plan. If left unchallenged, it could once again dye many states red for a decade or more.

In 2018, nonpartisan movements in five states, including Missouri, won redistricting reform via ballot initiative. (Oregon, Oklahoma and Arkansas are attempting to follow suit.)

So last week, Missouri lawmakers looked to dismantle the initiative - called Clean Missouri and supported by 62 percent of the state's voters - that would have taken mapmaking authority away from politicians and handed it to a nonpartisan state demographer. If Republicans have their way, that demographer won't draw a single line and control over maps will be returned to a commission of party insiders.

That's not all they want to do, and it's entirely likely that the fine print tucked inside this proposal will make its way into redistricting bills in Republican-controlled state capitals nationwide.

First, the new bill would add language to the state constitution that makes it harder for Missouri citizens to gain legal standing to challenge a gerrymandered map in court. Voters living in districts intentionally "packed" with members of one political party - which allows a mapmaker to hand the surrounding seats to their own side - would not be eligible to argue that their rights have been harmed by a statewide plan, because they were still able to elect a member of their choosing within their own specific district.

Second, under the new plan, if a legal challenge did make it into the courts, the state constitution would limit the remedies available to judges. A judge would not be able to throw out the entire map as unconstitutional but merely to order smaller changes to individual districts - essentially retaining most of the advantages embedded into the map by partisans.

The Clean Missouri proposal required the state demographer to draw a map that reflected Missouri's overall political balance. The legislature's new plan would have insiders drawing a map that prioritized compactness. In a state like Missouri, where Democratic voters are concentrated in two cities at opposite ends of the state, weighting the criteria in favor of compactness would artificially benefit the party whose voters are spread more efficiently across the state.

While the Clean Missouri plan required a map that achieved "partisan fairness" as closely as practical, the Republican plan allows for a much looser calculation of partisan fairness - which would allow for a map that is more gerrymandered than some of the nation's most one-sided maps in Wisconsin and North Carolina.

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Perhaps most dramatically, the Republican plan would open the door to drawing state legislative districts in a way that could shift the essence of representation itself. The longtime standard has been to count everyone - the total population - when drawing up equally populated legislative districts.

Republicans, however, have urged states to redistrict based on voting-age population instead - and so count only American citizens over the age of 18. What impact would this switch have? Before his death in 2018, the Republican redistricting mastermind Thomas Hofeller completed a study to assess the impact of drawing political maps that were based not on a state's total population - the current practice virtually everywhere in the nation - but on citizens of voting age. Looking at Texas, he concluded that the switch would pull power away from cities and toward older, rural populations. It would also, he said, "be advantageous to Republicans and non-Hispanic whites."

Last summer, at the American Legislative Exchange Council's gathering of conservative lawmakers, a panel of Republican election experts urged state legislators to redistrict based on voting-age population as well.

The redistricting wars of 2021 will not be the same as 2011. The effort in Missouri should ring alarm bells that failed to go off after what amounted to a warning from Mr. Rove 10 years ago.

Republicans are looking ahead and planning carefully. If Democrats look to win last decade's battle and fail to fight this one, they'll be staring at another decade in the wilderness - and America's creep toward anti-majoritarianism will accelerate.

Meanwhile .........

A World Without Partisan Gerrymanders? Virginia Democrats Show the Way

In a rare move, a group of lawmakers voted to give up their own redistricting power.

By Jesse Wegman
Mr. Wegman is a member of the editorial board.
5/21/2020
NY Times

Politicians rarely give up power voluntarily. They never give it up when they have free rein to lock it in for at least a decade, and exact long-overdue revenge against their political opponents.

But a group of Virginia Democrats did just that earlier this month, when they voted in favor of an amendment to the State Constitution stripping themselves of the power to redraw legislative district maps in 2021, after the decennial census.

Last fall, Democrats won majorities in both houses of the Virginia Legislature; with a Democratic governor already in office, they took full control of the state government for the first time in a generation. They had unlimited power to fashion the new maps in their favor, cementing their own grip on power just as Republicans around the country have done since the last redistricting cycle in 2011. Some Republican maps are so biased that they have given the G.O.P. legislative supermajorities even when the party loses the statewide popular vote, which happened in Wisconsin in 2018. So it's entirely understandable for Democrats who regain power to want payback - now.

And yet nine Virginia Democrats agreed to put down their partisan swords and join Republicans to support the new amendment, which would require that the state's district maps be drawn by a bipartisan commission made up of lawmakers and regular citizens. Voters must ratify the amendment in November before it will take effect.

The Democrats' vote was a display of integrity and selflessness by members of a party with unified control of government. It placed long-term interest in the health of representative democracy over the shorter-term partisan benefits that both parties have been happy to exploit when they control redistricting.

The Virginia amendment's passage is all the more important in the present moment, when voters everywhere have been left at the mercy of self-serving state lawmakers, thanks to the Supreme Court's refusal to intervene to stop even the most extreme partisan gerrymanders. The ruling last June, by a 5-to-4 vote, asserted that redistricting was a political matter to be resolved by the states, not the federal courts. The justices thus enshrined one of the most corrosive and anti-democratic practices in American politics.

Virginia's new amendment would establish a 16-member commission, made up of eight lawmakers and eight citizens, divided evenly between the two major parties. A supermajority of both lawmaker and citizen commissioners would have to agree on a proposed map to send it to the Legislature for approval. If they can't, the job shifts to the State Supreme Court.

The amendment, which under the State Constitution had to pass the Legislature twice in a row before going to the voters, was first approved in 2019 by overwhelming bipartisan margins. At the time, Republicans controlled the Legislature, but polls pointed strongly toward an impending Democratic takeover in last fall's elections. As soon as that happened, most Democrats withdrew their support from the amendment. Many had previously vowed to keep supporting it even if they won - yet another reminder that power is a lot harder to relinquish once you have it in your hands.

Some black Democratic lawmakers also opposed the amendment because, they argued, it didn't provide enough protections for black voters, who have long been cheated out of political power by biased maps. In the past five years, federal courts in Virginia have struck down Republican-drawn state and congressional districts for intentionally discriminating against black voters.

To address various concerns about the amendment, the Legislature should pass laws that would ensure racial and ethnic diversity on the commission and require the State Supreme Court, which has a conservative majority, to appoint a special master to draw the maps using the same criteria as the commission. They have already passed a law to eliminate "prison gerrymandering," the practice of counting prisoners where they are incarcerated rather than where they are from.

There are good fixes. Still, the commission itself has significant flaws, chief among them that it includes lawmakers, who have demonstrated time and again that they shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the redistricting process. Foxes guarding henhouses are still foxes, even if they're being watched closely by the farmer. But the amendment is an important step in the right direction, and in the end it succeeded because nine Democrats joined all Republicans to get the measure over the hump for a second time.

And what of those Republicans? Aren't they to be commended for voting in favor of fairer maps? Sure, but it was an easy call once they were out of power, or knew they were about to be. The better question is, Where was their public spirit when they held an unthreatened majority?

Republicans continue to find countless ways to block efforts to make voting fairer and more democratic. In Missouri, Utah and Michigan, Republican lawmakers are working to undo citizen-led ballot initiatives that were passed, in some cases overwhelmingly, by voters tired of being chosen by their politicians.

And when Republicans do lose at the ballot box, they respond not by trying to appeal to more voters, but by stripping power from duly-elected Democrats - essentially looting the shelves on their way out the door. This is the behavior of a party that neither trusts its own popularity nor accepts its opponents' legitimacy, a fatal combination for a constitutional republic.

In light of this, many Democrats have little patience for calls to level the playing field. After all, why play fair when the other side doesn't? The answer is that the alternative is a race to the bottom, where voters of both parties give up because they know whatever box they check at the polls, the politicians have already made their choices for them.

In far too many parts of the country, that's the reality today. Partisan gerrymandering is a key reason millions of Americans feel the government is rigged against them. The good news is that this behavior used to happen behind closed doors, and now it's being dragged out into the open. The more the public learns about it, the more they oppose it. Virginia voters support the new redistricting amendment, 70 percent to 15 percent; according to a January 2019 poll commissioned by Campaign Legal Center, which pushes for electoral reform, 65 percent said they favored districts with no partisan bias, even if it meant their own party would win fewer seats.

As the nation approaches a new round of districting in 2021, lawmakers everywhere - especially Republicans, who've been drunk on their own mapmaking power for a decade - should take a lesson from Virginia's Democrats and lay down their pens. It may take more work to win elections by listening to what voters actually want than by simply rigging the maps, but it's a critical step to save our representative democracy.

Trump faces "˜nearly insurmountable' odds of being reelected thanks to COVID-19 recession: forecasting model

on May 21, 2020
By Brad Reed
Raw Story

The recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has put a major dent in President Donald Trump's chances of winning the 2020 election, according to an influential election forecasting model.

NBC News reports that Oxford Economics, which has a strong track record of forecasting presidential elections, now sees Trump as all but certain to lose the popular vote this fall.

"An unemployment rate above its global financial crisis peak, household income nearly 6% below its pre-virus levels, and transitory deflation will make the economy a nearly insurmountable obstacle for Trump come November," the firm writes in explaining its latest forecast.

How dire is the situation for the president? The Oxford model projects Trump will receive just 35 percent of the vote this fall, and that it would take "take nothing short of an economic miracle" for him to overcome that.

That said, no major party nominee has ever received just 35 percent of the vote, as even Herbert Hoover in 1932 managed to get 40 percent of the popular vote in the middle of the Great Depression.

George H.W. Bush, who lost the 1992 election, got only 37 percent of the popular vote, but that was with third-party challenger Ross Perot taking away millions of potential votes from both him and Democratic challenger Bill Clinton.

Barack Obama poised to add his star appeal to Joe Biden's campaign

The former president, the most popular politician in America with a huge social media following, can bolster the Democratic nominee with key groups and drive voter registration

Daniel Strauss in Washington
Guardian
Sat 23 May 2020 11.00 BST

Former president Barack Obama has dipped his toes into the 2020 presidential campaign recently and is positioned to do more in the coming months as Joe Biden's effort to defeat Donald Trump gathers steam.

Interviews with about a dozen Democratic strategists, party officials and people close to Obama want the popular former president utilizing his powerful online presence and focusing on rallying key Democrat constituencies that are critical to a Biden victory.

Obama is regarded as one of the most popular politicians in American politics and a huge asset within the Democratic party. He left the White House with a near-60% approval rating. His endorsement for any candidate is the political campaign equivalent of an oilman and hitting a gusher.

Obama would be most effective, interviewees said, in highlighting his former vice-president's résumé, rallying key Democratic voting groups like African American women, and pushing voters to register.

The situation is unique. There hasn't been a popular former two-term president eager to hit the trail for his former running mate for years. On top of that, the coronavirus pandemic limits in-person campaigning and rallies. Still, the strategists interviewed say Obama is valuable and should be used everywhere.

"You rarely have a former president that is more popular than the now-sort-of-nominee," Democratic pollster Cornell Belcher said. "Barack Obama is the most popular political figure in America right now."
Joe Biden and Barack Obama before a presidential primary debate in 2007.

Valerie Jarrett, who served as a senior adviser to Obama during his time in the White House, said Obama is "committed to helping Vice-President Biden in any way the Biden campaign thinks is helpful. The pandemic is forcing everyone to be more creative since the conventional ways of doing business, including campaigning, are not possible."

Obama has a robust social media presence with millions of followers on his Twitter account and Jarrett pointed to Obama's endorsement of Biden, which was an online video now that campaign rallies have become a thing of the pre-pandemic past.

"I think you can tell from the video that he rolled out with his endorsement, one very useful platform is President Obama's social media platform where he has more followers than any other politician by far."

According to a Democratic strategist familiar with Obama's thinking, the former president is eager to campaign for Democrats "up and down the ballot" in 2020. He plans to follow the lead of the Biden campaign as well as that of the main Democratic campaign arms - the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and other umbrella organizations.

Obama was an active surrogate to boost Democrats in the 2018 midterm elections but since then has taken a more restrained approach to the national spotlight. He has only waded into current politics a few times and mostly on an indirect basis.

Most recently, though, he delivered a commencement speech for college graduates where he said the coronavirus pandemic had "finally torn back the curtain on the idea that so many of the folks in charge know what they're doing". Obama didn't mention Trump by name but the speech was widely regarded as a direct allusion to the president. It could also herald what Obama's public appearances in the final months of the 2020 presidential campaign would be like.

Separately, during a closed event with thousands of supporters and Obama alumni, the former president warned that the justice department's decision to drop charges against the former Trump administration national security adviser Michael Flynn put the rule of law at risk.

Campaign veterans and strategists say Obama is useful less as an attack dog going head to head with Trump and more as one who highlights a positive vision of why voters should elect Biden.

"To me, Obama is the world's best character witness," said Teddy Goff, who was digital director for Obama's second presidential campaign. "Yeah, he can make the case that Trump is bad. He can certainly validate the case for Biden's policies. But essentially he's the most popular political figure on planet Earth and the one guy he entrusted with the single most important appointment of his life was Joe Biden."

But Obama could also persuade more people to vote.

Meg Ansara, who was national regional director for Obama's first presidential campaign and more recently battleground states director for Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign, said one of the key priorities, especially in this environment, is voter registration.

"I think voter registration is a huge place," Ansara said, adding that persuading undecided voters is important for someone like Obama as well. "I'm a big believer that you need to do both in the bulk of these battleground states."

There have been moments during the last three years when Democrats had wondered why Obama didn't speak out more against Trump or weigh in more during the Democratic primary. That's actually an asset now and adds weight to when Obama does speak out, said Guy Cecil, who runs the Priorities USA Super Pac.

"I think in some respects the Biden campaign benefits from the fact that Obama has not spent three and a half years in the political limelight, attacking the president, attacking the administration, engaging in a back-and-forth with [Trump]," Cecil said.

Corey Platt, a veteran Democratic strategist and campaign manager, said that Obama and Biden have done a good job of appearing together so far and he should keep doing that rather than just focusing on going head-to-head with Trump.

"I think he if continues to remind people about competency and progress under his administration it will make people feel good about Biden, change and sanity. If he engages Trump I think that could backfire," Platt said. "He can help articulate Biden's vision for what happens next year and promote confidence in getting through this crisis together."

Here are excerpts from an article in Slate about how the media normalizes Trump and how dangerous that is. This is important because the softball way the media covers him may help get him elected again:

The President Still Has No Clothes
By Dahlia Lithwick and William Sage
Slate, May 20, 2020

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/05/trump-emperor-no-clothes.html

"We may never have the tests to determine exactly what is wrong with Trump himself. But we know that something is wrong, and we have known this for a long time."

"In the absence of psychiatric or cognitive tests Trump may never undergo, we cannot establish that some affirmative condition accounts for his daily shortage of rational output. This leaves us in the uncomfortable position of having to document only what Trump lacks."..."The burning question is why we don't."

"Anyone and everyone charged with reporting on this president should make a fundamental commitment that describing or interpreting this president's statements and actions must highlight, on an ongoing and even repetitive basis, what they don't see. Reporters, public intellectuals, and pundits should stop filling in Trump's gaps for him and should allow as full a picture as possible to emerge of his cognitive and personal incompleteness. Not doing so explicitly has resulted in four years of rationalizing, contextualizing, and indeed-in popular parlance-"normalizing" a president few of us would trust to take care of a pet over the weekend."

"Why does our public commentary about Donald Trump's words and deeds so seldom start or finish with the honest observation, familiar from fairy tales, that "he isn't wearing any clothes"? This unwillingness to mention the nakedness of his character, the absence of what is practically and morally required of presidents, becomes an act of draping layers of cloth over an unadorned and oblivious leader. And why do journalists and pundits keep doing this? The primary reason must be that news and its consumers and producers abhor a vacuum."

"It has taken years for some members of the mainstream press to note explicitly in headlines that Trump utters false statements."

"COVID-19 has brought Trump's irrationality and incoherence into clearer focus, but it will take energy and commitment among both media sources and their audiences to continually center that fact."

"...news coverage continues to excuse itself from connecting the dots of Trump's episodic irrationality into a larger demonstration of incapacity. Scattered lay commentary suggests that a crisis of the magnitude facing America has caused a mental or emotional collapse on the president's part, but few if any lines are traced to the persistent irrationality of Trump's entire presidency."

"It seems that an arguably outdated, likely irrelevant professional taboo on mental health diagnosis has overshadowed, and ironically nearly obscured, the pathology of this presidency. Still, no psychiatric diagnosis is needed to assess the president, just more explicit acknowledgment of the causal possibilities and their associated risks. If a sixth grader can look at Trump's behavior and conclude that he is emotionally challenged, unmoored from facts, and unable to speak the truth, why are informed, trained adults barred from saying the same thing?"

"...we must find ways to report on his increasingly dangerous irrationality, and we must do so without inadvertently rationalizing it. In order to understand it, we have to stop trying to make sense of it."

Trump claims Democrats will try to rig the 2020 election - but what Democrats fear could be a lot worse: report

on May 26, 2020
By Alex Henderson, AlterNet

President Donald Trump has been claiming that Democrats will do everything they can to promote voter fraud and rig the 2020 election in their favor. And according to an article written by journalist David Siders and published in Politico on Memorial Day 2020, Democrats fear that Trump - by making that claim - could be setting the deeply polarized United States up for a period of post-election chaos.

"Trump's increasingly amped-up rhetoric surrounding the integrity of the November election is beginning to bring to center stage a previously muted conversation," Siders reports. "With the president lagging behind Joe Biden in public opinion polls six months before the general election, his opponents are becoming increasingly anxious that Trump may attempt to undermine the results of the election if he loses - or worse, might attempt to cling to power regardless of the outcome."

On Sunday, May 24, Trump tweeted, "The Democrats are trying to Rig the 2020 Election, plain and simple!" And attorney Vanita Gupta, who headed the U.S. Justice Department's civil rights division under President Barack Obama, told Politico that such rhetoric will give Trump a chance to question the election results if he loses to the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee: former Vice President Joe Biden.

Gupta asserted, "He is planting the seeds for delegitimizing the election if he loses"¦. It's from the playbook. It'll get more intense as he gets more freaked out."

Another fear expressed by some Democrats is that Trump will try to find a way to extend his presidency beyond an eight-year limit. Former Democratic Rep. David Skaggs told Politico, "It's one of those things that I think has a very low probability, but a very high risk. So even though I don't think it's likely to eventuate into some kind of intervention at the state level by the president."¦ there's still some chance of that. And therefore, it's wise to take it seriously."

Democratic strategist Pete Giangreco believes that Trump's claims of a rigged election in favor of Democrats is symptomatic of his "autocrat playbook."

Giangreco told Politico, "He's already set the stage to say it's rigged. This is part of the Trump autocrat playbook"¦. There's no way this guy's going to win the popular vote, and it's at least 50-50 he's going to lose the electoral college. So, he's got to come up with something else."

Bob Bauer, Biden's personal lawyer, asserted that Trump "may well resort to any kind of trick, ploy or scheme he can in order to hold onto his presidency."

Les Francis, who served as deputy White House chief of staff under President Jimmy Carter, warns that Trump is more dangerous than President Richard Nixon - who, Francis explained, made an "institutional decision" to resign in August 1974. But Trump, Francis noted, has a very different mindset.

Francis told Politico, "One thing we know about Trump, for sure, is he's not an institutionalist by any stretch of the imagination"¦. I don't think there's any depth to which he will not go. I don't think there are any rules that he thinks apply to him. As his behavior grows worse, I think people become more alarmed at the possibilities."

No incumbent president has ever been in a weaker position than Trump: CNN polling analyst

on June 1, 2020
raw story
By Brad Reed

All recent polls suggest that President Donald Trump is losing to presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden, and CNN polling analyst Harry Enten argues that Trump's current position is unprecedentedly bad for an incumbent president.

In analyzing a new round of polls on the 2020 presidential race, Enten writes that Biden's lead over Trump has been stronger and steadier than any lead of a challenger over an incumbent president.

"There were more than 40 national public polls taken at least partially in the month of May that asked about the Biden-Trump matchup," he writes. "Biden led in every single one of them. He's the first challenger to be ahead of the incumbent in every May poll since Jimmy Carter did so in 1976."

Enten says that there's no mystery about why Trump is losing in poll after poll after poll: Most voters simply do not like him.

"Simply put, he remains unpopular," Enten writes. "His net approval rating (approval - disapproval) in the ABC News/Washington Post poll was -8 points. That's very close to the average of polls, which has it at about -10 points. At no point during the past three years has Trump ever had a positive net approval rating."

From a historical perspective, Enten notes that "the only other two presidents to have a net approval rating this low at this point in the campaign were Carter in 1980 and George H.W. Bush in 1992" - both of whom lost.

"˜Bill Barr is a liar': Trump AG floats new mail-vote conspiracy experts say "˜couldn't happen'

on June 2, 2020
By Igor Derysh, Salon

Attorney General Bill Barr has floated a new conspiracy theory that foreign actors could disrupt mail voting with counterfeit ballots. Voting experts quickly responded that it was nonsense.

"I haven't looked into that" theory, Barr told The New York Times, but without citing any evidence said it was "one of the issues that I'm real worried about."

"We've been talking about how, in terms of foreign influence, there are a number of foreign countries that could easily make counterfeit ballots, put names on them, send them in," Barr said. "And it'd be very hard to sort out what's happening."

Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., D-N.J., said that Barr's claim was impossible since "mail ballots are bar-coded to prevent fraud."

"Bill Barr is a liar. Our nation's chief law enforcement officer is trying to burn down American democracy to prop up a corrupt impeached executive," he tweeted. "Barr's debasement of our justice system and his assaults on American democracy have been so relentless I've been calling for his impeachment and the revocation of his law licenses since last year."

Voting experts agreed that Barr's claim showed no understanding of how mail ballots work.

"Bless Bill Barr's heart - this just couldn't happen," said Michael Li, senior counsel for the Brennan Center of Justice Democracy Program at NYU School of Law. "In most states, your signature on the mail-ballot envelope is compared to the signature on file before a ballot is counted"¦ And the reality is that the states that will be potentially decisive in 2020 all already allow no-excuse vote by mail."

"It's hard to see Barr's comments as something other than laying the groundwork for casting doubt about the election after November," Li added. "That's why it's important that we all push back."

Though most states already allow anyone to vote by mail for any reason, Trump has fomented baseless conspiracy theories alleging that mail voting is rife with fraud. There is no data to suggest that there ever has been any significant fraud related to mail voting, or in-person voting either, for that matter. That hasn't stopped Trump from blatantly lying and inventing hypothetical crimes, drawing a rare fact-check from Twitter. Last week, the president suggested that children might "raid the mailboxes" to steal ballots.

"Which is happening - they grab the ballots," Trump said. "You don't think that happens?"

No. It doesn't happen.

"What we know can be boiled down to this: Voting fraud in the United States is rare, less rare is fraud using mail ballots," Charles Stewart, en elections expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told The New York Times.

"Election fraud in the United States is very rare, but the most common type of such fraud in the United States involves absentee ballots," agreed Rick Hasen, an elections expert at the University of California, Irvine. "Sensible rules for handling of absentee ballots make sense, not only to minimize the risk of ballot tampering but to ensure that voters cast valid ballots."

Barr's conspiracy theory is likewise "pure BS," argued Michael McDonald, an elections expert at the University of Florida.

"You can't just print out a single ballot for the entire U.S. No two localities have the same ballot because local offices appearing on it are different," he explained. "What if you want to target a single precinct, since district lines cut [across] cities and counties? You'd need to hijack a ballot and be able to mass print the ballot and two return envelopes (the return envelope and the inner privacy envelope)."

"It is easy for election officials to detect ham-handed attempts like making ballot copies," McDonald added. "All the while, the post office, which works with election officials to process ballots, will have to be oblivious to fake ballots moving through their system. If someone dumps a bunch at a single location, that will be suspicious. Certainly if they are [coming from] overseas addresses."

Despite the Trump administration's attempts to cast doubt on the legitimacy of mail voting, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, White House adviser Kellyanne Conway and Trump himself have all voted by mail. Trump has yet to point to a single example of widespread voter fraud, but has publicly complained that he thinks Republicans are likely to lose if voting is expanded.

"This all comes from fear by Trump and like Republicans that more people voting means more non-white voters," Stuart Stevens, a Republican consultant who worked on Mitt Romney and George W. Bush's presidential campaigns, told HuffPost.

These attacks from the administration could backfire. Pennsylvania, for example, has seen more than twice as many requests for absentee ballots from Democrats than Republicans.

"I must tell you that locally, in my county, we're not advocating and we're not pushing the mail-in voting," Lee Snover, the chair of the Northampton County Republican Party, told the Philadelphia Inquirer. "We're concerned about fraud. We're not happy with the process. Trump has sent the message out there that he's concerned about it as well."

The county is one of three in the state that flipped from Obama to Trump in 2016.

"Our county kind of is a Trump county. We're kind of listening to Trump on this. He's spoken about it. He's tweeted about it. He doesn't want us to do it," Snover said, adding that "more than one person" has told her that "Trump doesn't want us mailing in, [so] I'm not mailing it in."

Amid pandemic, White House race becomes digital dogfight

on June 3, 2020
By Agence France-Presse

The 2020 US presidential race is becoming a digital-first campaign as the coronavirus pandemic cuts candidates off from traditional organizing and in-person events.

On the surface, President Donald Trump has the edge over Democrat Joe Biden because of the incumbent's extensive digital infrastructure and large social media following.

But Biden has been stepping up his digital presence and is getting a boost from a handful of outside organizations seeking to counter Trump's messaging on social platforms.

Both sides agree that digital will play a critical role in the 2020 White House race as social media have taken the place of rallies and door-to-door campaigning.

"The digital campaign has always been important. What has changed now is that it's the only show in town," said Republican digital strategist Eric Wilson, who has no direct role in the Trump campaign.

Wilson said the Trump campaign's experience since 2016 means it has a head start while Biden has been slow to embrace a digital strategy.

"Voters are consuming politics as entertainment and Biden doesn't seem to grasp his role as a social media influencer and doesn't see any interest in changing that," Wilson said.

Trump has some 81 million Twitter followers compared with 5.8 million for Biden, and similar advantages on Facebook and other platforms.

But Biden and an array of progressive organizations have been working to flood the internet with messages to neutralize Trump and his supporters.

- "˜Air cover' for Biden -

Digital advertising for the 2020 election is expected to reach $1.8 billion, according to research firm Advertising Analytics, which boosted its estimates by 13.5 percent due to the pandemic.

The progressive policy group Acronym and its political action committee Pacronym have pledged a $75 million digital campaign to bring out voters for Biden.

"Since last August we started to counter what we knew would be a sophisticated digital operation by President Trump," said Acronym founder Tara McGowan.

"We wanted to provide air cover for whoever the Democratic nominee would be since we knew the nominee would have a time and resources deficit."

Research by the group found a 3.6 percentage point drop in Trump's approval rating among "persuadable voters" who have seen Pacronym's digital ads.

Acronym's analysis of online ad spending showed Trump has spent over $62 million on Facebook and Google advertising since the 2018 midterm elections, compared with $21.9 million for Biden.

But the analysis showed Biden and progressive groups began outspending Trump and his backers in early May on Facebook, and narrowed the gap on Google.

"I don't think the candidates themselves need to be as comfortable on social media as much as they need to hire experienced digital staffers," McGowan said.

"We've seen the Biden campaign make leaps and bounds in their digital strategy."

- The digital battleground -

Other groups are also active: the large Democratic party organization Priorities USA is pledging to spend $150 million to defeat Trump, with at least $40 million in digital.

The newly formed political action group Defeat Disinfo plans to use paid influencers on social media and counter misinformation before it goes viral.

"My experience is that the total share of volume of conversation about a candidate is driven not by the campaigns themselves but by media, activists and other organizations," said Alan Rosenblatt, a Democrat-aligned digital strategist with Unfiltered Media and an adjunct professor at George Washington University.

"That's where the battlefield is and these groups can have a tremendous impact."

Rosenblatt added that Biden "has a lot of headroom to grow" on social media while Trump has probably maxed out with a social media army which has a considerable number of automated accounts or "bots."

- Targeting, manipulation -

Both campaigns will be testing the limits of online platforms' policies on manipulation and microtargeting, as Trump ramps up his war of words against Silicon Valley platforms.

"The shift to a digital focus in the 2020 election means online disinformation and propaganda will become more widespread and more potent," said University of Texas professor Samuel Woolley, who researches computational propaganda.

Woolley's research suggests campaigns are increasing their use of geolocation tools which can surreptitiously gather information about voters using their smartphones.

"Campaigns can find out which people are going to a gun range, to church or to Planned Parenthood, and they can turn that into actionable information," Woolley said.

"They might send messages out to try to get people to vote, or to discourage people from voting."

Jeffrey Chester of the Center for Digital Democracy warned of privacy concerns as political campaigns adopt technologies from digital marketers using location data and predictive analytics.

These targeting tools raise the same issues as the Cambridge Analytica scandal over private data being used to fashion psychological voter profiles.

"You are going to see artificial intelligence and machine learning used to make predictions about voters," Chester said.

"The campaigns are using all the latest tools to influence voters under the radar, and it's completely unregulated."

Excerpts from:

Trump said in 2014 riots would fix economic crash and return country to "˜when we were great'
Gino Spocchia
Independent
June 2, 2020

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-riots-fox-news-obamacare-putin-economy-us-coronavirus-george-floyd-a9544491.html

In damning comments made on television in 2014, Donald Trump told Fox News that "total hell" would make America "great" again.

The then TV host made an appearance on Fox & Friends in February 2014 to condemn Obamacare and Americans who were not in work, whilst backing Vladimir Putin's Russia.

"You know what solves it? When the economy crashes, when the economy goes to total hell and everything is a disaster"..."Then you'll have, you know, you'll have riots to go back to where we were when we were great".

TAKE HEART AMERICANS...

We are witnessing the birth of a movement - and the downfall of a president

on June 6, 2020
By Lucian K. Truscott IV, Salon
- Commentary

They almost always begin to right wrongs: illegitimate wars; decades of discrimination on the grounds of gender or racial or sexual identity; killings of innocents by police or gun-toting lunatics; oppression by governments wielding unequal laws; the deeply embedded legacy of centuries of racism.

They are imperfect. Arising out of rage, they can be unfocused, inchoate, contradictory. Protesting violence, they often involve violence. Protesting oppression, they sometimes oppress by destroying public spaces, small businesses, even entire neighborhoods.

But sometimes they are large enough and powerful enough and righteous enough to bend the arc of history. We are in such a moment. There has been a turning. A protest against the murder of a black man by police in Minneapolis has become a movement. Demonstrations, which began almost two weeks ago, are ongoing. They are huge. They are nationwide. They are peaceful. They show no signs of stopping.

Among the extraordinary things about this moment is the fact that every single person who has taken to the streets to demonstrate is risking his or her life. People who only days ago were huddled inside their homes, afraid of a virus that has taken in excess of 110,000 lives in this country, are putting on their face masks and gathering by the tens or even hundreds of thousands, unafraid of the virus or the forces arrayed on the streets against them. They are protesting the death of a man who should not have had to die, and they are protesting the man who seemingly gave permission for him to be murdered by the intolerance and racism he has openly promoted for more than four years.

If we had any doubts that our fellow citizens would turn out to vote in November because they would be afraid of the virus or intimidated by attempts to block their votes, we have our answer. More people will turn out to vote, not less, and this has Trump very, very worried.

The show of courage on the streets has frightened Trump and his allies in the Republican Party. If you have any doubts, all you have to do is watch the scene of Republican senators scurrying away from MSNBC reporter Kasie Hunt on Capitol Hill when she asked them to comment on Trump's disgusting and disreputable photo-op at St. John's Church on Monday.

Trump has turned Washington into an armed camp. He has built a three-mile-long wall around the White House and cowered in a basement bunker as protests grew on the streets outside. But Trump's threat to use active-duty soldiers to suppress dissent has encountered some profound pushback from an unexpected source: the United States military.

It began with a statement by former Secretary of Defense James Mattis in reaction to the use of force, including National Guard soldiers, to clear peaceful demonstrators from a street near the White House so Trump could make his now-infamous "walk" to St. John's Church for his Bible-waving photo-op. "I have watched this week's unfolding events, angry and appalled," Mattis wrote in The Atlantic:

   When I joined the military, some 50 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens - much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside. The protests are defined by tens of thousands of people of conscience who are insisting that we live up to our values - our values as people and our values as a nation. We do not need to militarize our response to protests. We need to unite around a common purpose. And it starts by guaranteeing that all of us are equal before the law.

And then something extraordinary happened. Mattis' clarion call was joined by more senior military figures, beginning with Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, who had been the object of strong criticism for standing next to Trump during his Bible photo-op. Esper held a press conference at the Pentagon on Wednesday and announced that he was against invoking the Insurrection Act, which would (hypothetically) authorize the deployment of active-duty military on the streets of America. Trump is said to be very, very unhappy with Esper and reversed his order for elements of the 82nd Airborne Division to return to their base in North Carolina. By week's end, however, Esper had prevailed, and the 82nd was on the way home.

Retired Adm. Mike Mullen, who served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Barack Obama, was next. He wrote a piece for The Atlantic entitled, "I cannot remain silent."

   "t sickened me yesterday to see security personnel - including members of the National Guard - forcibly and violently clear a path through Lafayette Square to accommodate the president's visit outside St. John's Church. I have to date been reticent to speak out on issues surrounding President Trump's leadership, but we are at an inflection point, and the events of the past few weeks have made it impossible to remain silent.

   Whatever Trump's goal in conducting his visit, he laid bare his disdain for the rights of peaceful protest in this country, gave succor to the leaders of other countries who take comfort in our domestic strife, and risked further politicizing the men and women of our armed forces."

Retired General John R. Allen weighed in next, writing ominously in Foreign Policy magazine, "The slide of the United States into illiberalism may well have begun on June 1, 2020. Remember the date. It may well signal the beginning of the end of the American experiment."

More retired generals weighed in later in the week, including two former chairs of the Joint Chiefs, Martin Dempsey and Richard Meyers. Both were critical of Trump's handling of protests and opposed the use of the military to suppress dissent.

But even more extraordinary than the retired officers who spoke out was the letter from the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Mark A. Milley, which was leaked to conservative pundit Bill Kristol on Thursday. Milley is said to have had a contentious meeting with Trump in the Oval Office on Monday before joining him in his infamous "walk" down the street cleared by police and National Guard soldiers. According to David Ignatius of the Washington Post, Milley, "whose temper can match Trump's"¦was vocal in reiterating his advice to the president against mobilizing troops, according to three knowledgeable sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity."  That is Washington-speak for "they were yelling at each other."

Sent to all of the other chiefs of staff for the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, National Guard and commanders of combatant commands, Milley's letter is unlike anything I have seen, and I've been around the military since I was born in an Army field hospital in occupied Japan in 1947.

He reminded everyone in uniform of their oath to support and defend the Constitution. I've never seen that done before. All service members take the same oath, but they don't go around reminding each other about it. Milley wrote of the Constitution, "This document is founded on the essential principles that all men and women are born free and equal, and should be treated with respect and dignity. It also gives Americans the right to freedom of speech and peaceful assembly. We in uniform - all branches, all components, all ranks - remain committed to our national values and principles embedded in the Constitution." He went on to note specifically that the National Guard "is operating under the authority of state governors."

For a military man, this comes close to a call for insurrection. Milley's message is written in a code that everyone in uniform will understand implicitly. By reminding every member of the military that the soldiers currently deployed on the street around the country are not there under the authority of the president, and by reminding them of their oath to the Constitution, he is telling them that the military will not be carrying out any un-American orders issued by Donald Trump. Late Friday, Secretary of Defense Esper disarmed the National Guard doing riot duty in Washington, ordering them to turn in their weapons and ammunition.  He also ordered all active duty troops amassed outside the capital earlier in the week by the White House to be sent home.  He issued both orders without consulting the White House.

These generals are not politicians, but all their statements are as political as any I've ever seen by senior officers, retired or active duty. It's the equivalent of lining up howitzers on Pennsylvania Avenue and aiming at the White House.

I'll bet Trump rues the day he appointed "Mad Dog" Mattis as secretary of defense. They don't go out and make statements like this without talking to one another. Mullen and Mattis were said to have been aware of Milley's confrontation with the president at the time they wrote their articles on Tuesday and Wednesday. Milley and his fellow generals and admirals are giving a clear sign that the military leaders are turning against Trump. Colin Powell will reportedly be next, in an appearance on one of the Sunday morning shows.

The military is the most reliably conservative institution this country has. But inside the military establishment, the signals are being sent. They have announced that they are more reliable as defenders of the rights of their fellow citizens than the police. Without stepping over the line into insubordination, they have made it as clear as they can that their loyalty isn't to the president. It's to the Constitution.

I don't think we have to worry about the military following illegal orders from Trump. At least for now, they're on our side.

"˜A coward and a commander': New Lincoln Project ad contrasts Trump with James Mattis

on June 6, 2020
Raw Story
By Matthew Chapman

On Friday, the conservative anti-Trump group The Lincoln Project released a new attack ad against President Donald Trump - this time using the criticism of his former Defense Secretary James Mattis, and comparing and contrasting their leadership ability.

"This is the story of a coward and a commander," said the ad's narrator. "The coward Trump dodged the draft. Jim Mattis led American troops for forty years. While a frightened Trump hides from protesters in a deep bunker firing off tweets, Jim Mattis does what he's always done: Leads. While Donald Trump angrily attacks, General Mattis' words deserve to be heard by every American."

"Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people - does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us," said the ad, quoting Mattis' words in The Atlantic. "Militarizing our response, as we saw in Washington, D.C., sets up a conflict - a false conflict - between the military and civilian society," continued the ad. "It erodes the moral ground that ensures a trusted bond between men and women in uniform and the society they are sworn to protect."
Defend democracy. Click to invest in courageous progressive journalism today.

"Who do you trust?" the ad concluded. "The coward, or the commander?"

Watch the ad below:

   "Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people-does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us." -General James Mattis pic.twitter.com/4OHA4FbSDh

   - The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) June 5, 2020

Watch: https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1269013225804357634

**********

Mattis Accuses Trump of Dividing the Nation in a Time of Crisis

He "does not even pretend to try" to unite Americans, the former defense secretary said, breaking his long public silence on the president amid protests across the nation.

By Eric Schmitt and Helene Cooper
NY Times
6/4/2020  

WASHINGTON - Former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, breaking months of public silence on President Trump since resigning in protest in December 2018, on Wednesday offered a withering critique of the president's leadership amid growing protests across the country.

"Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people - does not even pretend to try," Mr. Mattis wrote in a statement issued late Wednesday. "Instead he tries to divide us. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership."

Mr. Mattis, a retired four-star Marine Corps general, also criticized comments by the current defense secretary, Mark T. Esper, who in recent days has described protest sites across the nation as a "battle space" to be cleared.

"We must reject any thinking of our cities as a "˜battle space' that our uniformed military is called upon to "˜dominate,'" Mr. Mattis wrote. "At home, we should use our military only when requested to do so, on very rare occasions, by state governors. Militarizing our response, as we witnessed in Washington, D.C., sets up a conflict - a false conflict - between the military and civilian society."

Mr. Trump fired back on Twitter. "Probably the only thing Barack Obama & I have in common is that we both had the honor of firing Jim Mattis, the world's most overrated General," he said, although Mr. Mattis quit.

In 2013, Mr. Mattis was pushed out of his job as head of the military's U.S. Central Command because he was viewed as too much of a hawk on Iran policy during the Obama administration.

In his tweet, the president added: "His primary strength was not military, but rather personal public relations. I gave him a new life, things to do, and battles to win, but he seldom "˜brought home the bacon'. I didn't like his "˜leadership' style or much else about him, and many others agree. Glad he is gone!"

Mr. Mattis's condemnation carries huge weight in military circles, where he remains highly influential. In the insular world of Marines, he has an almost cultlike status. But that influence extends far beyond just the military to include much of the national security establishment, members of Congress, foreign dignitaries and defense contractors.

For instance, at the Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, Calif., last December, Mr. Mattis, gliding through a reception of influential national security thinkers from government and the private sector, was stopped constantly by people who wanted to shake his hand and take photos with him. A crowd of people trailed him as he made his way through the hall, amid excited murmurs of, "Hey, Mattis is here."

But his refusal to publicly denounce Mr. Trump since his resignation - over the president's decision to withdraw troops from Syria - earned him criticism even from some longtime admirers. He repeatedly told reporters who sought comment from him or engaged him during a tour of his best-selling book that he did not want to criticize a sitting commander in chief.

But the events of Monday night, in which Mr. Trump put peaceful American protesters squarely in the cross hairs of the American military that is sworn to protect the Constitution, was a step too far for Mr. Mattis, people who have spoken to him say.

"When I joined the military, some 50 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution," Mr. Mattis wrote. "Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the constitutional rights of their fellow citizens - much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander in chief, with military leadership standing alongside."

During a long and tense Monday night, protesters in Lafayette Square near the White House were forcibly removed so Mr. Trump could walk to a nearby church - with the Mr. Esper and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark A. Milley - for a photo op.

"We must not be distracted by a small number of lawbreakers," Mr. Mattis said. "The protests are defined by tens of thousands of people of conscience who are insisting that we live up to our values - our values as people and our values as a nation."

Citing James Madison's Federalist Paper 14, Mr. Mattis said: "We do not need to militarize our response to protests. We need to unite around a common purpose. And it starts by guaranteeing that all of us are equal before the law."

Reached by phone at his home in Washington State on Wednesday night, Mr. Mattis declined to comment.

In Mr. Mattis's early days as defense secretary, he often ate dinner with the president in the White House residence. Over hamburgers, and with the help of briefing folders, Mr. Mattis explained to Mr. Trump key points about the United States' relationships with allies - a bedrock principle for the former general turned secretary.

But Mr. Mattis also quietly slow-walked many of Mr. Trump's proposals, including banning transgender troops, starting a Space Force and putting on a costly military parade in the capital. In each case, he went through the motions of acquiescing to the White House - and then buried the plans in Defense Department red tape.

By late 2018, the relationship between Mr. Mattis and Mr. Trump had deteriorated badly. The widely accepted narrative that Mr. Mattis was the adult in the room, an anchor of reason in a stormy White House, came to annoy the president.

Even as his influence with Mr. Trump waned, however, Mr. Mattis repeatedly told friends and aides that he viewed his responsibility to protect the United States' 1.3 million active-duty troops as worth the concessions necessary as defense secretary to a mercurial president.

But Mr. Trump's abrupt decision in late December 2018 to withdraw roughly 2,000 American troops from eastern Syria without consulting allies was a step too far for Mr. Mattis, and he resigned. Mr. Mattis's letter of resignation condemned Mr. Trump's approach to the world as destructive to American influence and power.

In his statement on Wednesday, Mr. Mattis sounded a call to arms of a different sort than have resounded in the streets near the White House, and across the country.

"We know that we are better than the abuse of executive authority that we witnessed in Lafayette Square," Mr. Mattis said. "We must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution."

************

Colin Powell buries "˜birther and liar' Trump in CNN interview - and vows to vote for Biden

on June 7, 2020
Raw Story
By Tom Boggioni

In a highly candid interview with CNN's Jake Tapper, former Secretary of State Colin Powell went all in attacking Donald Trump, saying he didn't like him in 2016 when he was running as a "birther" and he dislikes the president even more now because he is a "liar."

Speaking with the "State of the Union" host, the normally reserved Powell became very animated.

After explaining his opposition to Trump in 2016 because of his flood of insults and racist remarks, the retired general then went on a tirade about Trump.

"When I heard some of the things he was saying, he made it clear to me I could not vote for this individual," Powell recalled. "The first thing that troubled me is the whole birther movement. The birther's movement had to do with the fact that the president of the united states, President Obama, was a black man. that was part of it. And then I was deeply troubled by the way in which he was going around insulting everybody - insulting Gold Star mothers, insulting John McCain, insulting immigrants and I'm a son of immigrants. Insulting anybody who dared to speak against him."

"That is dangerous for our democracy, it is dangerous for our country, and I think what we're seeing now, those massive protest movements I have ever seen in my life. I think this suggests the country is getting wise to this and we're not going to put up with it anymore," he stated before calling the president "a liar."

Later in the interview he was asked if he would support Biden's presidential, bid, he answered in the affirmative before adding he would be casting his vote for the former vice president.

Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p03cX9E4hhI&feature=emb_title

All,

Joe Biden: It's in some of our darkest moments of despair that we've made some of our greatest progress - and we have that chance once again. We're not just going to rebuild this nation - we're going to transform it. There is nothing we can't do if we do it together.

https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1268264439565807617?s=20

yes

Hi Rad and all,

Thank you, Rad, for posting the Lucian Truscott piece. Favorite part:

"If we had any doubts that our fellow citizens would turn out to vote in November because they would be afraid of the virus or intimidated by attempts to block their votes, we have our answer. More people will turn out to vote, not less, and this has Trump very, very worried."

The protests are inspiring. I hope they continue all the way to election day.

Peace + blessings,

Soleil

Trump needs to "˜run the table' in key states to have any chance of being re-elected: NYT reporter

on June 8, 2020
Raw Story
By Tom Boggioni

Appearing on MSNBC on Sunday afternoon with host Alex Witt, New York Times White House correspondent Peter Baker said Donald Trump's chances of being re-elected are getting worse by the day as voters in normally reliable Republican states are turning on the president.

Addressing former Secretary of State Colin Powell's endorsement of Joe Biden for president during an appearance on CNN, host Witt asked about the president's declining fortunes.

"What the president has done throughout his presidency is stick to his core constituency; the voters who got him there in the first place. He has done nothing to reach out beyond his core constituency,'" Baker explained. "For the most part, he has catered to the core constituency with the idea that, if he maximized turnout by them in the right states, he can duplicate what he pulled off in 2016 which was an electoral college win."

"That's going to be a tough road this time," he continued. "What we're seeing now is these swing states are really competitive races. Not just in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, the states pretty key to President Trump beating Hillary Clinton four years ago, but even the states like Florida, North Carolina and there's a Texas poll showing President Trump and Joe Biden virtually tied there. If those states are in play, states that were not thought to be competitive, that makes President Trump's job that much harder."

"In other words, he has to run the table," he predicted. "He not only has to win back the states he won last time, but hold on to these states that he is in danger of losing. Now again, as early as five months out, polls have been wrong before but I think even within President Trump's campaign right now there is a great deal of concern."

Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaW-8iV7Zag&feature=emb_title

**********

Trump's team is "˜scrambling' after weekend filled with devastating poll numbers: MSNBC's Morning Joe

on June 8, 2020
Raw Story
By Travis Gettys

President Donald Trump's poll numbers continue to plummet, and MSNBC's Joe Scarborough doesn't see a way for him to turn that trend around.

The president is down 5 percentage points against Joe Biden, but Americans overwhelmingly trust the former vice president over Trump and strongly back the nationwide protests against police brutality.

"These numbers, top-to-bottom, looking very bad for the president," said the "Morning Joe" host. "Do they have a plan moving forward to turn the page?"

Associated Press reporter Jonathan Lemire said the president's team knows they're losing, and they're increasingly concerned that the protests will energize young voters.

"If that energy Democrats hope can translate to November, the White House and re-election team knows they're in trouble," Lemire said. "The president, they are sort of scrambling for response. They are looking for new slogans, yes, but more than that they are looking for a new approach. They are going to go negative again on Joe Biden."

The re-election campaign will attempt to smear Biden while also trying to hype any economic gains made after the coronavirus wiped out the market and destroyed millions of jobs, but Lemire said the president may also try to crack down on the demonstrations.

"I want to flag one more thing," Lemire said. "The only thing on the White House schedule today, we know he's having a meeting with law enforcement, but it's unclear what the topic is going to be. Certainly, Attorney General [William] Barr and others, it doesn't seem necessarily about police reform but rather getting a handle on the protests. That may be a moment the president may miss an opportunity to speak to those who throngs in the nation's streets. Will they be able to change the tenor, have a meaningful dialogue with the protesters remains to be seen."

Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqLcgGaezM8&feature=emb_title

**********

Prominent Republicans serving notice they won't support Trump's re-election: report

on June 8, 2020
Raw Story
By Tom Boggioni

According to a report from the New York Times, prominent Republicans are making it clear to Donald Trump that he won't be receiving their votes or support as he runs for re-election - and they may endorse his presumptive opponent Joe Biden.

With one conservative commentator writing that some GOP lawmakers see the writing on the wall that the president won't be re-elected and may soon start distancing themselves from the embattled president, the Times reports that a few have already made their intentions clear that they won't back the 2020 Republican presidential nominee.

Noting that many of the top Republicans stayed away from Trump in 2016, figuring incorrectly that he couldn't win, the power of incumbency and having a Republican in the White House is still not enough to make them change their mind in 2020.

"It was one thing in 2016 for top Republicans to take a stand against Donald J. Trump for president: He wasn't likely to win anyway, the thinking went, and there was no ongoing conservative governing agenda that would be endangered," the Times' Jonathan Martin wrote. "The 2020 campaign is different: Opposing the sitting president of your own party means putting policy priorities at risk, in this case appointing conservative judges, sustaining business-friendly regulations and cutting taxes - as well as incurring the volcanic wrath of Mr. Trump."

With that in mind, Martin explained, GOP lawmakers past and still in office are making it known they want nothing to do with the volatile Trump.

"˜Far sooner than they expected, growing numbers of prominent Republicans are debating how far to go in revealing that they won't back his re-election - or might even vote for Joseph R. Biden Jr., the presumptive Democratic nominee," the report states. "They're feeling a fresh urgency because of Mr. Trump's incendiary response to the protests of police brutality, atop his mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic, according to people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose private discussions."

At the top of the list is former President George W. Bush, who still has his supporters within the Republican Party.

"Former President George W. Bush won't support the re-election of Mr. Trump, and Jeb Bush isn't sure how he'll vote, say people familiar with their thinking. Senator Mitt Romney of Utah won't back Mr. Trump and is deliberating whether to again write in his wife, Ann, or cast another ballot this November," Martin reports. "And Cindy McCain, the widow of Senator John McCain, is almost certain to support Mr. Biden but is unsure how public to be about it because one of her sons is eying a run for office."

Writing, "Former Republican leaders like the former Speakers Paul D. Ryan and John A. Boehner won't say how they will vote, and some Republicans who are already disinclined to support Mr. Trump are weighing whether to go beyond backing a third-party contender to openly endorse Mr. Biden," Martin added, "Former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis's blistering criticism of Mr. Trump and the admission this week by Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska that she is "˜struggling' with whether to vote for the sitting president of her own party have intensified the soul-searching taking place, forcing a number of officials to reckon with an act that they have long avoided: stating out loud that Mr. Trump is unfit for office."

"Mr. Trump won election in 2016, of course, in spite of a parade of Republicans and retired military officers who refused to support him. Far more current G.O.P. elected officials are publicly backing Mr. Trump than did four years ago. Among his unwavering supporters are Republican leaders like Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, and past foes like Senators Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham," the reports states, before adding a caveat.

"Yet it would be a sharp rebuke for former Trump administration officials and well-known Republicans to buck their own standard-bearer. Individually, they may not sway many votes - particularly at a time of deep polarization. But their collective opposition, or even resounding silence, could offer something of a permission structure for Trump-skeptical Republicans to put party loyalty aside," Martin explained.

Des Moines' top newspaper slams Iowa GOP's "˜egregious' voter suppression campaign

on June 11, 2020
By Alex Henderson, AlterNet

Iowa is among the swing states that could help determine whether President Donald Trump spends another four years in the White House or is voted out of office. It's also a state in which the GOP has been waging a sleazy voter suppression campaign, and the Des Moines Register's editorial board calls Iowa Republicans out for it in a blistering editorial published on June 10.

"Republican state lawmakers are on a mission: make it as difficult as possible for Iowans to vote," the editorial warns. "Their latest effort to fulfill this mission came in the form of a last-minute 30-page amendment to a previously simple, noncontroversial bill. Sen. Roby Smith, R-Davenport, said the new legislation - passed along party lines after a contentious late-night debate - is intended to support "˜safe, secure and reliable elections.' It is not."

The editorial goes on to stress that Iowa already has "safe, secure and reliable elections" - and that the obvious goal of Iowa Republicans is "voter suppression."

"The bill, among other things, prohibits the secretary of state from mailing absentee ballot requests to Iowans without a written voter request," the Register's editorial explains. "In other words, it would prevent the current secretary, Republican Paul Pate, from doing exactly what he recently did. To promote voting by mail during the coronavirus pandemic, he sent mail-in ballot request forms for the June 2 primary to all registered voters in the state."

In that June 2 primary, the Register notes, Iowa enjoyed "record voter turnout, largely due to absentee voting."

"Participation by more people in our democracy is a success," the Register stresses. "But that's not how legislative Republicans see it. Unfortunately, that should come as no surprise by now."

The Register's editorial also slams Iowa Republicans for discouraging absentee voting at a time when the United States continues to be battered by the coronavirus pandemic - which, according to researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, had killed more than 112,000 people in the U.S. and over 411,800 people worldwide as of early Wednesday morning, June 10.

Iowa Republicans, according to the Register, are doing everything they can to "ensure Iowans have to do more work to obtain an absentee ballot - a particularly egregious stunt considering we are in the midst of an infectious disease pandemic."

"The novel coronavirus will still be circulating during the November general election," the editorial warns. "To reduce transmission of the virus, Iowa needs to expand early and absentee voting. We will need more no-contact ballot drop-off sites. Because of increased early voting and difficulty in recruiting poll workers, counties should reduce the number of polling places, which the legislation also limits."

The editorial concludes by noting Republicans' obvious motivation for making it harder to Iowa residents to vote.

"Perhaps they fear being voted out of office if more people cast ballots," the Register asserts. "Which, for engineers of voter suppression, is exactly what needs to happen."


******

Georgia election disaster condemned as result of deliberate GOP voter suppression: "˜This is by design'

on June 11, 2020
By Common Dreams

Photos of would-be Georgia voters standing-and, in some cases, sitting-in long lines after 11 pm to cast their ballots in the state's primary on Tuesday encapsulated what rights groups and lawmakers decried as a disastrous day for democracy and an entirely predictable result of years of deliberate voter suppression efforts by Republican lawmakers and the U.S. Supreme Court.

The myriad issues that plagued Georgia's primary Tuesday-malfunctioning new voting machines, an insufficient number of paper ballots, too-few poll workers, polling places opening late-are hardly unheard of in the state, given that similar problems threw the 2018 midterm contests into chaos, sparking calls for better preparation and stronger protections against disenfranchisement.
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The coronavirus pandemic added another layer of hurdles, and provided Republicans with additional opportunities to limit ballot access.

"The ACLU warned that insufficient resources were allocated for polling places, machines, in-person election staff, and staff to process absentee ballots and that this would result in the disenfranchisement of voters in 2020," Andrea Young, executive director of the ACLU of Georgia, said in a statement. "It gives us no pleasure to be proven right."

"Whether it is incompetence or intentional voter suppression," Young added, "the result is the same-Georgians denied their rights as citizens in this democracy."

In response to drone footage showing long lines outside of a polling place in Atlanta, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) suggested it's more of the latter, writing, "This is by design, and it's their test run for November."

"Republicans don't want vote by mail because it chips away at their ability to do exactly this: target and disenfranchise black voters and people of color," Ocasio-Cortez wrote. "These scenes are specifically happening in black communities, not white ones."

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, echoed Ocasio-Cortez. "This is no accident," Jayapal said. "Black and brown people have been kept out of our elections-100% on purpose and by design. We must end racist voter suppression efforts, restore, and expand voting rights, and build a democracy that ensures every voice is heard."

    This drone footage shows a long line of voters waiting to cast ballots in Atlanta on Tuesday. Georgia election officials, poll workers and voters have reported major trouble with voting in Atlanta and elsewhere.

    Read the latest. https://t.co/wRnW8f5tng pic.twitter.com/BVU9J9CF79

    - The New York Times (@nytimes) June 9, 2020

As Ari Berman of Mother Jones noted late Tuesday, Georgia-which is poised to play a major role in the 2020 presidential election in November-"closed 214 polling places after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act" in 2013.

"There were 80 fewer polling places for the June primary in metro Atlanta, where a majority of black voters live," Berman tweeted. "Mitch McConnell is blocking legislation passed by House Dems to restore the VRA."

Georgia's Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who ignored repeated warnings that the state's new voting system would not be ready by 2020, was quick to point fingers at individual counties-particularly DeKalb and Fulton, which both have large black populations-for the voting problems, vowing to in a statement to launch an investigation to "determine what these counties need to do to resolve these issues before November's election."

Michael Thurmond, Chief Executive Officer of DeKalb County, fired back. "It is the Secretary of State's responsibility to train, prepare, and equip election staff throughout the state to ensure fair and equal access to the ballot box."

"Those Georgians who have been disenfranchised by the statewide chaos that has affected the voting system today in numerous DeKalb precincts and throughout the state of Georgia deserve answer," Thurmond added.

    Y'all it's 10pm in Georgia and Black folk are STILL in line waiting to vote!!!!! Here are photos taken by @cliff_notes 5 minutes ago. 😡😡@angela_rye @sunny pic.twitter.com/hqc1eGJ36t

    - LaTosha Brown (@MsLaToshaBrown) June 10, 2020

    Just a reminder that Georgia is on eastern time and IT'S PAST 11PM AND PEOPLE ARE STILL WAITING TO VOTE !!!!! https://t.co/Db73uBffx1

    - Mary Ibarra (@MaryIbarra_11) June 10, 2020

With the results of the statewide primary contests still rolling in, Common Cause Georgia executive director Aunna Dennis said in a statement that "the obstacles that Georgia's voters have faced in this election are simply unacceptable."

"It's also unacceptable that the officials entrusted with administering the elections have spent the day dodging blame, rather than accepting responsibility," said Dennis. "Today's problems were avoidable-and they disenfranchised voters. That must not be allowed to happen again."

Biden predicts military will intervene if Trump refuses to accept election loss

    Biden says biggest fear is Trump will "˜try to steal the election'
    Democratic challenger leads president in opinion polls

Oliver Milman in New York
Guardian
Thu 11 Jun 2020 11.30 EDT

Joe Biden has predicted the military will escort Donald Trump from the White House should the president lose November's election but refuse to leave office.

Biden, speaking to the Daily Show's Trevor Noah, said that his single greatest concern is that Trump will "try to steal this election".

The Democratic presidential nominee cited Trump's baseless linking of mail-in ballots to voter fraud, even though he has used this method of voting himself, and his accusations, without evidence, that Democrats are trying to rig the election.

Before the 2016 election Trump claimed the poll was rigged against him and even after he triumphed over Hillary Clinton he asserted, again with no evidence, that millions of people voted illegally against him. He estimated this cohort to consist of 3 million votes. This was the number Clinton beat him by in the popular vote, as opposed to the electoral college system that determines who ascends to the White House.

Biden told Noah that he has thought about a scenario where Trump would refuse to relinquish power after losing the election but said he was confident top military figures would intervene. "I am absolutely convinced they will escort him from the White House with great dispatch," Biden said.

Trump is trailing Biden in most opinion polls, with the president's election campaign demanding that CNN retract a "stunt and phony" poll that found the incumbent is trailing his challenger by 14%. CNN has said it stands by its poll.

States that expanded mail voting already seeing a "˜turnout' spike

on June 13, 2020
By Igor Derysh, Salon

At least half of the states that held primaries last week saw increased turnout after expanding their mail-in voting systems - despite President Donald Trump's efforts to discourage other states from doing the same.

At least four of the eight states that held primary elections last Tuesday saw higher turnout than they did in the 2016 primaries, with most of the votes being cast by mail, according to an analysis of state data by The Hill. Each of the four states sent absentee ballot applications to every registered voter earlier this year.

Iowa's turnout reached 24% last week, a 15% increase from the 2016 primaries and the highest turnout the state has ever seen for a primary. About 411,000 of the 524,000 votes cast were by absentee ballot, a nearly 1000% increase from 2016.

Montana, which held an all-mail primary this year, saw turnout surge to 55%, a 45% increase from 2016.

South Dakota saw a 28% turnout, a slight increase from 22% in 2016. About 89,000 of the 154,000 ballots cast were by mail, a massive increase from the 19,000 absentee ballots requested ahead of the 2016 primary.

New Mexico also saw turnout increase from 34% in 2016 to 40% last week. About 270,000 of the 400,000 votes cast were by mail.

"The June 2 primaries proved what we already knew - access to absentee ballots increases voter turnout," Tom Ridge, a Republican who served as the Homeland Security secretary under George W. Bush and now chairs the bipartisan group VoteSafe, told The Hill. "That's especially good news for someone like me who does not believe voting is a privilege, but rather a responsibility of citizenship. Voters should have options to demonstrate that responsibility safely and securely during this pandemic."

Not all states saw turnout increases, however. Indiana, which allowed anyone to vote by mail but did not mail applications to every voter, saw a dip in turnout. Turnout in Washington D.C., which also did not mail applications to every voter and struggled to get absentee ballots out in time, only saw a 1% increase in turnout.

The numbers could encourage other states to follow suit and mail absentee ballot applications to every voter amid concerns about in-person voting due to the coronavirus. A growing number of states have seen cases spike since Memorial Day.

Trump has led the charge against mail ballots, pushing a number of baseless conspiracy theories alleging it could lead to increased instances of fraud, despite ample evidence refuting the claim.

A Washington Post analysis of data collected by three vote-by-mail states found just 372 possible cases of "double voting or voting on behalf of deceased people" out of about 14.6 million votes cast in the 2016 and 2018 general elections - a minuscule rate of 0.0025%.

There are also numerous other safeguards in place to prevent fraud and those who are caught are prosecuted.

Trump has also baselessly argued that mail voting gives Democrats an advantage.

But a study published by the National Academy of Sciences found that universal vote-by-mail does not favor any one party.

"We find that universal vote-by-mail does not affect either party's share of turnout or either party's vote share," the authors wrote. "These conclusions support the conventional wisdom of election administration experts and contradict many popular claims in the media. Our results imply that the partisan outcomes of vote-by-mail elections closely resemble in-person elections, at least in normal times."

Trump's complaints fly in the face of the facts. Five states - Colorado, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Hawaii - already conduct their elections almost entirely by mail.

"In my state, I'll bet 90 percent of us vote by mail. It works very, very well and it's a very Republican state," Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, told reporters last month.

California and Montana rely heavily on mail-in ballots and 27 other states already allowed anyone to vote by mail before the coronavirus hit. In the 2018 midterms, about 25% of all votes were cast by mail.

Since the coronavirus pandemic began, a dozen states have loosened restrictions to allow any registered voter to cast an absentee ballot due to concerns about the coronavirus.

Only four states - Texas, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Mississippi - are still fighting efforts to allow all voters to cast absentee ballots.

The Texas Supreme Court ruled last week that concerns about the virus do not qualify as a "disability" under state law, rejecting a lawsuit seeking to expand eligibility. Voters can still self-identify as disabled without having to produce evidence but Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has threatened to bring criminal charges against voting groups that promote mail voting for those who are not disabled.

In Tennessee, a judge ruled on Thursday that the state violated a previous court order to make absentee ballots available to all voters. The judge ordered the state to comply and threatened officials with the "specter of criminal contempt" if they continue to disregard the ruling. The state is expected to appeal the decision.

The Louisiana House of Representatives rejected a bill that would have allowed anyone to vote by mail last month. The League of Women Voters of Louisiana filed a federal lawsuit after the vote, seeking to expand absentee ballot access.

"With its high transmission and mortality rates, COVID-19 poses a significant risk to in-person voters, especially to those voters at higher risk of severe complications from COVID-19," the lawsuit says. "The pandemic has decimated voter registration drive activity, makes it unreasonably dangerous and burdensome to comply with certain requirements for mail-in absentee voting, and threatens massive withdrawals by volunteer poll workers who justifiably fear contracting the disease."

In Mississippi, Republican Secretary of State Michael Watson has argued it would be "impossible" to implement a mail voting system by November even though other states have not had major issues with their expansions.

For the few states still opposing mail voting, the disastrous primaries in Wisconsin and Georgia could serve as a wake-up call.

Wisconsin's controversial in-person primary in April, which has been linked to an increase in coronavirus infections, saw polling places in Milwaukee slashed from 180 to just five as the state had to call in the National Guard to address a severe staff shortage.

Multiple state and local officials are now investigating the voting issues that caused hourslong lines at Georgia's polling places amid the pandemic. Though the state's new voting machines played a big role, one of the key reasons for the lines was understaffing and a lack of polling places (the state has systemically shuttered more than 200 polling places since the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013).

But Georgia should serve as a warning to absentee ballot advocates as well. A huge increase in absentee ballots overwhelmed officials and many voters did not receive their ballots, according to Reuters.

"The vast expansion of vote-by-mail and absentee-ballot voting was not enough to offset the drastic reduction in polling locations in many states," The New York Times reported. "In cities around the country, including Atlanta, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., voters waited in Election Day lines for hours, even as every city experienced exponential increases in vote-by-mail."

"You have states out there in the West that do ballot by mail professionally; their elections are almost exclusively by mail," Richard Barron, the elections director of Fulton County, which includes Atlanta, told the outlet. "What we were asked to do is do absentee by mail, and we still had to do our full complement of Election Day infrastructure."

Stacey Abrams, who ran for governor in Georgia in 2018, said "the good idea to encourage people to use absentee ballots" quickly became "a disaster."

"You have absentee ballots that never reached a number of voters, you have absentee ballots that were submitted but voters have no idea if they're going to be counted," Abrams said.

Other states have experienced issues too. The deadlines to get absentee ballots in Pennsylvania were too short, officials told The Times. Maryland had 20,000 ballots returned because of outdated voter registration lists. In Wisconsin, some mail-in ballots were found undelivered at the Post Office.

Expanding mail voting is crucial to ensuring that anyone who wants to vote can but states have very little time to shore up their systems before November.

"I can't fathom given all that's going on in America right now that anybody would have the gall to stall out and not fix this," Rev. Kobi Little, the head of the NAACP chapter in Baltimore, told The Times. "America can't say "˜we're the champions of democracy,' and then not deliver democracy."

Trump's re-election odds tumble as number of female voters fleeing him takes a huge jump: polling analyst

on June 14, 2020
Raw Story
By Tom Boggioni

According to polling analyst Harry Enten, Donald Trump's chances of being re-elected in November are growing worse every day as women increasingly say they won't vote for him.

Writing for CNN, Enten said the president is on the verge of losing the female vote by a "historic margin."

After reviewing polling over the last 70 years, the pollster wrote, "Joe Biden is leading among female registered voters by 59% to 35%, a 25-point margin when the numbers aren't rounded. That's a significant increase from his 19-point advantage earlier this year and the 14-point lead Hillary Clinton had in the final 2016 preelection polls of registered voters. Clinton had a 13-point edge with likely female voters."

Enten notes that - should those numbers hold up - Biden would beat the high watermark voting totals achieved by both former Preside t Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon.

"The only year that comes close to what we see in the polls right now is 1964. That year, Democrat Lyndon Johnson won nationally by 23 points overall, and Gallup had him taking the women's vote by 24 points," he wrote. "Biden's doing a point better than Johnson did among female voters, even as he is doing 13 points worse overall. In no other year since 1952 did the Democratic nominee win among female voters by more than 15 points. (If we look at Republican nominees as well, Richard Nixon won the women's vote by 24 points in 1972 as he won nationally by 23 points.)"

What keeps Biden's numbers against Trump from being overwhelming is the fact that president still does better with men, with the pollster writing, "Perhaps what makes Biden more impressive with women is how weak he is with men. He's seen only a 2-point climb with them from earlier this year and is still losing them to Trump by 6 points. That's about how Clinton did with them in the final 2016 preelection polling. Clinton trailed by 5 and 7 points among registered voters and likely male voters, respectively."

As Enten notes, Biden's strength with women has an extra benefit o in that female turnout is traditionally larger on election day.

"Still, you'd rather have women on your side than men for the simple reason that they make up a slightly larger share of voters. Biden's overall advantage would be about a point less if women and men made up an equal share of the electorate. That doesn't matter at this moment, but it could if the polls tighten up," he wrote before concluding, "For now, all we can say is if this election were just left up to men, we'd be talking about a clear Trump lead instead of what it is in reality: a big Biden advantage."

***********

"˜They're cooked': Team Trump "˜terrified' because voters are no longer buying GOP's racist "˜hoodoo juice'

on June 14, 2020
Raw Story
By Tom Boggioni

In a column for the Daily Beast, longtime political observer Michael Tomasky wrote that Donald Trump and Republicans hoping to ride their coded language and veiled racist rhetoric to victory in November are starting to realize it is no longer working on voters and they are "terrified."

With the public in an uproar over the murder of George Floyd - among others Black Americans  - at the hands of police, the columnist suggested that we have possibly entered into a new era where one of the Republicans major talking points come election time are falling on deaf ears as voters increasingly reject racist appeals for their votes.

Noting the Republicans and the president likely "hate" the change in attitude, Tomasky points out that their future as a governing party hangs in the balance if they don't adapt to evolving attitudes in a country that is rapidly becoming more diverse.

The columnists notes that for years Republicans have been known to "Cheat black people of their proper political representation. Curtail their civil rights. Slash programs that help minority businesses and poor people. Invent phrases like "˜race-neutral' to hang a veil over rank discrimination," using racist "˜dog-whistling' to reach their base.

Now, he notes, it is no longer working.

"What's happening now terrifies them because they all know one simple thing, which they'll never admit: If the white middle class rejects en masse racially discriminatory behavior and racially coded messages, they're cooked," he wrote before adding, "Mind you, as heartening as these last few weeks have been, that's still a big "˜if.' Let's not declare victory here. But we are seeing historic breakthroughs. Polls suggest a good two-thirds of the country will not buy that GOP hoodoo juice anymore."

With that in mind, the columnist suggested that Trump, who is still cheering on police attacking anti-police brutality protesters led by Black Lives Matter movement is coming apart at the seams over what is happening.

"He is really and truly losing it. You can see it. He's unraveling, like Queeg on the witness stand. "˜The black people" stole those strawberries! Send in the troops! Fred McMurray, fetch my Bible!'" he wrote before adding that it is not just the president - the entire Republican Party has feeding on racist tropes for years - and now it is coming him to roost.

"It's not just Trump. It's never just Trump. It's the party. Yes, Trump made the racism more flagrant and open. But ask yourself why the party embraced an open racist to begin with. It was because so many predecessors made that road by walking it before Trump came along," he explained before suggesting voters may see the first inklings of change coming in an upcoming bill in the Senate led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY)

"We sit at such an inspiring turning point. I am grateful to be alive to see it. Remember how in the '60s they sang "˜we shall overcome someday'?" He wrote before concluding, "Well, someday may finally be approaching, a reality made all the sweeter by the knowledge that its enemies, stupid and vindictive and embarrassing finally even to NASCAR officials and Clemson University, helped hasten its arrival."

********

"˜Awful news for Republican Senate candidates': Odds of GOP holding Senate collapsing over support for Trump

By Tom Boggioni
Raw Story
6/14/2020

According to an analysis by Politico's Jeff Greenfield, recent voting trends combined with Donald Trump's unpopularity with the electorate will likely see Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) lose his power following the November election.

First proposing, "It's a question as obvious as it is critical: How will the trio of crises-the pandemic, the economy, the demands for racial justice-affect the 2020 race for the White House," the columnist said it will be a major factor this election cycle and that is not good news for Republicans.

"History has some powerful answers to this question-and they leave Republican partisans with a strong case of agita," he wrote. "As a general proposition, when the nation is in a state of crisis, things do not go well for the President's party. When a war becomes a quagmire (Korea in '52, Vietnam in '68), when the economy craters (1980, 2008), voters look for a different leader. Far from a "˜retreat to safety' or a "˜rally round the flag' sentiment, there is an instinct to show the people in charge the way to the exit."
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As Greenfield notes, the Republican Party won't be an exception in 2020.

"This year, the Senate Republicans hold a majority, again making them vulnerable to any vote to toss out the status quo. But don't voters make different choices when they vote for a President and then a Senator? Once upon a time, yes," he explained. "The potentially awful news for Republican Senate candidates is another historical trend: the increasing link between votes cast for a Presidential contender and votes cast for senators, which makes it harder to create distance from an unpopular incumbent."

"Turn to the Senate map, and it's clear how these factors combine to produce a migraine for any strategist looking to hold the Senate for the Republicans. Not that long ago, Republicans were a good bet to hold the Senate even though they held 23 of the 35 contested seats. Only two-Cory Gardner of Colorado and Susan Collins of Maine-were in states that Hillary Clinton carried in 2016. Even with Arizona and North Carolina as potential Presidential battlegrounds, that left at most four vulnerable Republicans," he continued. "And with Alabama Democrat Doug Jones a very likely loser, there was little breathing room for Democrats to pick up the three net seats they'd need to capture the Senate, assuming Biden wins in November."

Greenfield goes on to point out that handful of Senate seats in normally GOP strongholds may also be in play - in part because of Republican senator's support for the unpopular president.

"Now-at least measured by polls-a passel of states now seem within Biden's reach, many of them with incumbent Republican senators up for re-election, " he elaborated. "He's even in Georgia, where both incumbent Republican senators will be on the ballot; he's even in Iowa, where Joni Ernst is up for re-election. And if Biden is going to make a real fight in Georgia and Iowa, that means a get-out-the-vote effort that will bring a lot of Democrats to the polls there."

Equally important, he notes, is that it is difficult for incumbents to distance themselves from Trump over fears he will turn his base against them - meaning they are in a trap of their own making.

"Now put yourself in the position of one of these endangered incumbents, especially in states where Trump is particularly unpopular, like Colorado or Maine. If you're tempted to create some distance from President Trump, to assert your independence, you're facing one pesky obstacle: The Republican Party is effectively now a wholly owned subsidiary of Trumpworld, and independence from the President is a trait that all but guarantees instant and massive pushback from your own party," he explained. "You have only to gaze around the Senate chamber, where ex-Senator Dean Heller, ex-Senator Jeff Flake, and ex-Senator Bob Corker sat, to see what happened to colleagues who did not tug the forelock with sufficient enthusiasm. If you're Gardner, or Collins, the temptation to confront the President's behavior has to be weighed against the likely outrage from the party apparatus whose help you need in an election, to say nothing of the populist media that animates your rank-and-file voters."

"˜If you are playing the percentages, the odds say that if the President cannot persuade a rattled, fretful electorate to stay with him, he will take the Republican Senate down with him," Greenfield concluded.

Trump aides scrambling to hide his "˜dumpster fire' poll numbers to keep him from "˜flying into a rage': report

on June 14, 2020
RAW STORY
By Tom Boggioni

According to a report from the Daily Beast, aides to Donald Trump are doing their best to keep him in the dark about his terrible poll numbers prior to November's selection out of fear of his wrath.

With the president's poll numbers plummeting in a match-up with presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, White House staffers and campaign officials are trying to keep the president calm while at the same time working to turn around a re-election campaign that is floundering.

Case in point, criticism of a recent poll that showed the president headed to defeat that had the campaign asking for a retraction.

"In a cease-and-desist letter dated June 9, 2020, the president's re-election staff demanded that CNN retract and apologize for a recently released poll that had presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden leading Trump by 14 points," The Beast reports, while also noting that the demand was widely ridiculed - and rightly so with one senior administration official calling it the "dumbest thing I've read in a long time."

"In one respect, it was just the latest effort by the president's aides to attempt to satisfy the boss' appetite for retribution. But it also revealed an element of the Trump political operation that has increasingly demanded time, money, and attention-mainly, the task of convincing Trump that the electoral landscape and polling deficits he faces aren't as dire as he's been hearing," the Beast's report states.

According to one White House official who has been part of meeting with the president about his re-election prospects, "This helps keep the president from flying into a rage as much as he otherwise would."

The report notes that aides are assuring the president that there is a lack of "enthusiasm" for his opponent and that the polling could be wrong.

"A chunk of the re-election team focuses on proving to the president that his "˜dumpster-fire numbers' aren't as bad as they seem, or reinforcing Trump's conviction that pollsters get it wrong "˜all the time,'" the Beast reports, adding that " "¦several key advisers making personal entreaties to Trump in the past few weeks to try to convince him that he should not brush off the numbers, even unpleasant ones that comes from news organizations such as CNN."

The report notes that two officials think the president, when confronted with the poor numbers, isn't taking them seriously - and that may be because officials are softening the blow when speaking with the president.

According to noted pollster Frank Luntz, Trump may be a victim of ""¦  pollsters who are bought and paid for, and they will tell you the client what you want to hear."

"I don't envy those who have to tell Donald Trump what he doesn't want to hear," Luntz continued. "I've met him several times, I've met Biden several times. I would rather present bad [polling] information to Biden than Donald Trump. Presenting bad information or tough information to Joe Biden, you'll break his heart, if you present tough information to Donald Trump, he breaks your arm."

You can read more here: https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-advisers-tell-him-his-poll-numbers-arent-a-dumpster-fire-while-other-aides-say-they-are?ref=home

Hi Rad,

Thanks for posting those articles. I was glad to see what Harry Enten and Jeff Greenfield had to say about the polls. The fact that the Democrats have the possibility of winning back the Senate is hopeful. We need that badly.

Even though Biden's poll numbers look good right now, I have a feeling Trump will do something shady to gain the advantage. He will definitely cheat again, and, since he seems to get away with everything, it concerns me he will again.

Although Trump is a an ignorant moron with an IQ of 12, the one thing he is good at is being relentlessly evil and corrupt. Do you think he'll find a way to get his numbers up or do you think his current downslide is a trend that's likely to continue?

Re Biden, I do think that who he picks as VP is extremely important. Do you think, as you've previously mentioned, that he's going to stick with a moderate like Amy Klobuchar or, as a result of the protests and pro-Black Lives Matter sentiment in the country, do you think he will pick an African American woman? I think the Democratic base would be more fired up by Stacy Abrams than Kamala Harris, but I have a feeling Abrams won't get picked.

I just hope we have a fair election so that Biden actually has a chance of winning. The U.S. Postal Service is about to run out of money, and without it, vote-by-mail will be difficult. Although the Heroes bill has enough funding to keep the USPS going for a while, McConnell has so far refused to pass it. Trump is also trying to prevent some key swing states from allowing no-excuse absentee ballot voting by suing in the courts. Any thoughts on this situation?

I keep hearing pundits say they're afraid Trump won't leave if he loses. I think putting that out there sends the wrong message----that we expect him to break the law and that no one will be able to stop him. I disagree with those pundits. If he loses, I think the U.S. Marshals will gladly escort him out.

I appreciate your feedback.

Thank you.

Soleil

Hi Soleil,

There is nothing Trump can do that will increase his popularity. He will  continue to focus, as he always has, upon his 'base'. He and the Republicans will do all they can to keep him and themselves in power at all costs however. See the article below.

I feel at this point Biden will choose a black women for his VP. My sense right now is that will most likely be Kamala Harris but there are other very worth black women he can also choose from.

God Bless, Rad

Investigative journalist predicts how Trump will steal the 2020 election

on June 15, 2020
By Chauncey Devega, Salon

As Election Day 2020 approaches, it would appear that presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden and his party have much to celebrate.

Biden leads Donald Trump by an average of eight percentage points in national polling, with some surveys showing Biden ahead of Trump by as many as 14 percentage points.

Biden also enjoys huge leads among the Democratic Party's key constituents, including black voters, Latinos and other nonwhites, college-educated white women and younger voters. Polls also show Joe Biden making gains among older white voters, a group that consistently supports Republicans and has been especially loyal to Trump. Biden also leads Trump in key battleground states such as Michigan and Wisconsin.

On closer inspection, however, matters are more complicated.

Election Day is still more than four months away, almost an eternity in electoral politics. Previous Democratic nominees such as Hillary Clinton and Michael Dukakis are object lessons in the cruel and mercurial ways of the political fates: Both appeared to hold big leads over their Republican opponents at this approximate point in the cycle, only to lose on Election Day.

There is also a not-insubstantial gap between what prospective voters tell pollsters and how they will actually decide to vote - if they vote at all.

Greg Palast is an investigative journalist whose work has been featured by the BBC, the Guardian, the Nation, Rolling Stone and here on Salon. He has become one of the nation's foremost experts on vote suppression, vote theft and vote fraud. He is the author of the bestselling books "Billionaires & Ballot Bandits" and "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy." His new book is "How Trump Stole 2020: The Hunt for America's Vanished Voters."

In our most recent conversation, Palast warns that Joe Biden's chances against Donald Trump are worse than the polls suggest because millions of Democrats will have their votes thrown out on Election Day. Moreover, many of those voters will have no idea that their votes were purged and therefore not counted.

Palast explains how the Republican Party has refined its strategy of voter suppression, voter intimidation and vote theft in elections across the country. Palast also highlights how the planned chaos during the recent Georgia Democratic primaries is a preview of how the Republican Party intends to steal the 2020 presidential election for Donald Trump.

Finally, Palast issues an ominous warning: Trump and the Republicans, he believes, are plotting to use the 12th Amendment to the Constitution to declare the popular vote and Electoral College results invalid, so that the 2020 presidential election will be decided in the House of Representatives - which, believe it or not, may well vote in Trump's favor.

You can also listen to my conversation with Greg Palast on my podcast "The Truth Report" or through the player embedded below.

This conversation has been edited for clarity and length. Click here: https://www.rawstory.com/2020/06/investigative-journalist-predicts-how-trump-will-steal-the-2020-election/

Democrats have an opportunity to dump Trump and "˜lock in Democratic majorities for decades': conservative

on June 15, 2020
Raw Story
By Tom Boggioni

In her column for the Washington Post, conservative Jennifer Rubin stated that there has never been a better time for Democrats to seize control of both Congressional chambers and the White House and relegate the Donald Trump-led Republican Party to the sidelines for decades.

Calling it a "once-in-a-generation" opportunity, Rubin claimed that the combination of national outrage over the killing of African-Americans by police, and the coronavirus pandemic with the attendant economic collapse during the Trump administration makes taking control of the government easily attainable.

According to a report from NBC News noted by Rubin, there is a huge demographic shift going on in the country, with NBC reporting, "Republicans have actually grown their advantage among white voters who do not have a college degree. They now hold a 24-point party ID edge with that group. In 2015, the GOP held a 21-point lead with them.

But among whites with a college degree, the numbers have moved sharply in the other direction. Democrats and Republicans drew equal support among that group in 2015, 47 percent identified with each party. But in the latest data whites with a college degree leaned Democratic by 12 points."

Many of those voters, the columnist points out, are suburban white women who are already voting overwhelmingly for Democrats, with Rubin suggesting the "gender gap has widened into a canyon."

"For the first time, you have a significant majority of white Americans who think there is a need for systemic change," she explained. "Coupled with the preference of most Americans for more government (spurred in part by the need for government action to battle the coronavirus and the ensuing economic recession), the party that is aligned with addressing racial inequity and that believes government can be a force for good has a huge advantage. Republicans anti-government ethos is entirely ill-suited to the time."

As Rubin notes, Democratic voters have selected a moderate in former Vice President Joe Biden to oppose Trump and, in Biden, they have a candidate who call pull more independents and moderate Republicans into the Democratic Party.

"Democrats may have the voters and the ideological consensus not only to win big in November (a sweep of the House and Senate majorities and the White House is a distinct possibility) but also to drive a progressive agenda on criminal justice, health care, economic opportunity and education. Democrats will need to address several issues if they are to not only win big but also govern boldly," she suggested.

"The public wants reform and change, but it is far from clear whether they want a radical agenda. Expanding Obamacare rather than doing away with it, creating a tax reform bill that undoes the excesses of the Trump era and equalizes the rates for capital gains and salary income, offering free community college tuition and advocating significant reforms in policing, sentencing and pot legalization would gain broad support. The Democrats will run into trouble if they put their energies into items such as single-payer health care," she added before cautioning, "They have a narrow window to do real things; overreaching risks them getting very little."

Rubin's analysis falls in line with more reports over the weekend that GOP candidates once thought safe are now scrambling to hold onto their seats.

"Democrats must win and win big in November if they hope to gather support for what may amount to a new New Deal," she wrote before concluding, "If they play their cards right, they can have as dramatic an effect on the scope of government and on the electoral landscape as did the original New Deal."

Hi Rad,

Thanks for posting the link to the Greg Palast interview. What he has to say is eye-opening and chilling and is exactly what I've been concerned about---that the Republicans will steal the election using covert voter suppression where voters have no idea that their votes are being purged and not counted at all.

As for the Republicans plotting to use the 12th Amendment to declare all results invalid...that is a sickening scenario. Of course, it could only happen if no one gets 270 electoral votes. I may be wrong, but I don't think this plot will work.

Palast is right, though, that the Democrats are asleep at the wheel. I hope they wake up soon.

Thanks for your feedback.

Regards,

Soleil

Supreme Court to decide the future of the Electoral College

on June 17, 2020
By The Conversation

Many Americans are surprised to learn that in U.S. presidential elections, the members of the Electoral College do not necessarily have to pick the candidate the voters in their state favored.

Or do they?

This month the Supreme Court will rule on the independent powers of electors, which will determine the meaning of the Electoral College in contemporary American politics.

An American invention

The constitutional system of presidential selection is a set of uneasy compromises worked out at the very end of the Constitutional Convention in 1787.

The framers could not decide whether the choice of a president should be made by Congress or the states.

They also could not agree whether all states should have equal power in the selection, or if more populous states should have more say.

And they didn't agree whether a state's choice should be made by local elites (state legislators) or the masses (all of the voters).

In the end, the Committee on Unfinished Parts created a unique governmental structure that compromised on all of these debates. Unlike many contemporary Americans, the founders were comfortable with such compromises and immediately approved the new mechanism of presidential selection.

A small number of citizens called electors would meet in each state to decide the presidency collectively. Congress would enter the picture only if the electors did not reach a majority decision. The number of electors would equal the number of senators and representatives in Congress, which means that small states had greater power than their population would suggest, but still not as much as big states.

State legislatures could use their discretion about how to choose electors, which could result in elitist or popular forms of democracy in different states. Pennsylvania held a popular election in the very first presidential contest, allowing voters to choose electors aligned with the emerging parties. Some state legislatures appointed electors themselves until the mid-1800s.

As Americans embraced popular democracy in the decades following the founding, most people began to expect a majority vote in the state would determine its choice. In most states, the legislature gives the winning party the duty of choosing electors - who typically are party members who have pledged to vote for their party's presidential candidate during a public meeting of the Electoral College in December.

When that happens, the state's Electoral College votes go to the winner of the state's popular vote. But it is possible for an elector to vote for someone else - which is why there is a case before the Supreme Court.

What are "˜faithless electors'?

When Donald Trump won enough states in November 2016 to be elected the 45th U.S. president, opponents turned to the Electoral College as a last attempt to alter the election's result. This became known as the Hamilton Electors movement.

Alexander Hamilton was an advocate of elitist democracy who did not trust ordinary people to vote. He also thought highly of the Electoral College. In Federalist 68, he asserted that "if the manner of it be not perfect, it is at least excellent."

His reason was that the selection of the president would reflect only "the sense of the people," but truly be made by "a small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass."

In Hamilton's view, these electors would hold the necessary "information and discernment," while the masses would likely vote for a president with the "talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity."

The Hamilton Electors' explicit goal in 2016 was to convince enough electors to cast "faithless" votes - against the election results of their state - to switch the outcome. Several celebrities, including Martin Sheen, who played the president of the U.S. in "The West Wing," urged Republican electors to be "an American hero" by blocking Donald Trump from winning.

Trump's official tally in the Electoral College was 304 to Hillary Clinton's 227. That doesn't add up to 538 - the total number of electoral votes - because seven electors were unfaithful to their state's popular decisions. Two Republican electors went their own ways, casting their ballots for John Kasich and Ron Paul. Five Clinton electors also refused to vote with their states' majorities: Three chose former Secretary of State Colin Powell and one each chose Sen. Bernie Sanders and Native American activist Faith Spotted Eagle.

Those seven electors were not enough to change the outcome. But what if they had been?
Most of the country's electors did as these six, from Nevada, did in 2016, and voted for the candidate who won their state's popular vote, regardless of whom they had personally backed.

What do faithless electors mean for 2020?

The outcome in 2020 may be closer than in 2016. If Joe Biden wins a few states that Hillary Clinton did not - say Pennsylvania and Arizona - but Trump holds on to the rest of his 2016 states, the Electoral College outcome will be remarkably close. By my count, it could be 274 to 264 in the Electoral College. If it is that close, even a small number of faithless electors could change the outcome.

Election Day is always the Tuesday after the first Monday in November, but the day the Electoral College votes is the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December.

If Americans believe on Nov. 3, 2020, that one person has been elected the next president, but find out on Dec. 14 that it is going to be a different person, it is difficult to predict what the public will think - or do.

Faithless electors at the Supreme Court

Even before the 2016 election, some states had tried to limit the discretion of electors. Colorado passed a law that allowed faithless electors to be replaced immediately with an alternate, and Washington imposed a US$1,000 fine for electors who voted differently from the public at large. Two faithless electors - Michael Baca and Peter Chiafalo - challenged the ability of states to restrict their discretion under the Constitution.

The debate at the court is about whether the U.S. still has elements of an elite democracy that cannot be altered by individual states, or if state legislatures can create a popular democracy within their borders by making electors simply registrars of the popular will - even though the constitutional text (and Alexander Hamilton's plans) may suggest that electors should make their decisions freely.

What the Hamilton Electors are saying is that the old idea of an occasional block to the popular will is still useful. In their view, the rise of populism has made the old elitism important again.
Washington electors and state officials pose after meeting on Dec. 19, 2016. Four of the state's 12 electors cast their votes for someone other than state popular-vote winner Hillary Clinton.
AP Photo/Elaine Thompson

The supporters of faithless electors are taking a position grounded in the intent of the framers, the usually conservative theory known as originalism.

But that interpretation of originalism runs up against another one: The founders let states decide how to pick electors.

These two originalist positions divide between a higher regard for the original purpose of electors and the original means of selecting and regulating them.

On the other hand, the usual liberal position - living constitutionalism - is clear. It supports the idea that the U.S. has evolved into a popular democracy regardless of the original intent. Binding electors to the vote of the state is simply the mechanism to achieve the representative elections that most Americans believe the country already has.

If the states win, they will be allowed to set the future rules for how electors may vote. If enough states bind electors, then the election will proceed as the public expects. But if the faithless electors win, the 2020 election results may be unclear far beyond Election Day.

Trump critics fear a major constitutional crisis if the president refuses to concede defeat: report

on June 18, 2020
By Alex Henderson, AlterNet

Some Trump critics and pundits have been asserting that a narrow victory over President Donald Trump on Election Night wouldn't be good enough - and that former Vice President Joe Biden (the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee) needs a landslide win in order to show a thorough rejection of Trumpism. Anti-Trump pundits, including some Never Trumpers on the right, have also warned that if Biden's victory is only a narrow one, Trump might claim that the election was stolen and refuse to concede. And journalist Peter Nicholas, in a June 16 article for The Atlantic, examines the possibility of Trump refusing to leave the White House in January 2021 even if he loses the election.

Nicholas explains, "Every four or eight years, the clock hits noon on January 20 - and the nation learns whether the old president accepts the legitimacy of the new"¦. That tradition's endurance depends on Trump's cooperation - or the resiliency of the country's democratic institutions should he withhold it. There's no assurance that Trump will accept the validity of the election results."
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Nicholas goes on to explain why Trump might refuse to accept a Biden victory.

"He's already described mail-in voting as a plot to steal the election," Nicholas writes. "And he's trolled critics with the tongue-in-cheek suggestion that, by popular demand, he might stay in office beyond the Constitution's eight-year limit."

In his article, Nicholas doesn't rule out the possibility of Trump being reelected.

"Trump could win, of course," Nicholas notes. "But if Biden sweeps enough battleground states in convincing fashion, any claim that Trump was robbed of victory would be ludicrous on its face. At noon on January 20, he'd no longer be president - and if he boycotted the rituals surrounding the presidential handoff and holed up inside the White House, he'd be squatting."

The journalist adds that things could get messy if Biden's win in the Electoral College is a narrow one and Trump insists that that the election was stolen.

"If Biden were to notch a narrow victory, Trump could look to contest the results and claim he'd actually won," Nicholas warns. "He could put the military and other tools of presidential power in an awkward spot, pressuring them to pick sides and untangle competing claims about who won. A supine Justice Department led by Attorney General William Barr might bolster Trump's claims by putting out statements that the vote was tainted."

In the U.S., incumbent presidents who were voted out of office have a long history of conceding defeat and congratulating the winner - from Herbert Hoover in 1932 to Jimmy Carter in 1980 to George H.W. Bush in 1992. In 2000, Vice President Al Gore didn't concede to George W. Bush right away but eventually acknowledged that Bush had won Florida and gave a concession speech. However, critics fear that Trump, unlike Gore, would maintain that he won the election.

Democratic Rep. Adam Smith, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, told The Atlantic that he recently spoke to a senior White House official and expressed concerns that Trump would refuse to accept the election results if he lost.

According to Smith, "I said, "˜There's a lot of concern that if your boss loses, he's not going to leave.' And he said, "˜No, that's ridiculous. Of course he would.'"¦. (But) there's a zero percent chance that he would gracefully transfer power. The best we can hope for is that he would ungracefully transfer power."

"˜Systematic assault on legitimacy of our election': Trump launches conspiratorial attack on mail-in voting

on June 22, 2020
By Jake Johnson, Common Dreams

The president is "laying the groundwork for an election challenge," warned Walter Shaub, former director of the Office of Government Ethics.

President Donald Trump on Monday launched a baseless attack on mail-in voting that critics charged is part of an effort to preemptively delegitimize the results of the 2020 election as his poll numbers continue to slide.

"Because of MAIL-IN BALLOTS, 2020 will be the most RIGGED Election in our nations history-unless this stupidity is ended," Trump tweeted Monday morning. "We voted during World War One & World War Two with no problem, but now they are using Covid in order to cheat by using Mail-Ins!"
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Trump's tweet followed an earlier all-caps outburst in which the president warned, without providing a shred of evidence, that "millions of mail-in ballots will be printed by foreign countries, and others."

"It will be the scandal of our times," Trump tweeted.

    This is a lie. Election officials have said this would be virtually impossible given the way they track ballots: https://t.co/vJqP4ZjFbC https://t.co/kWqRbzc9LT

    - Sam Levine (@srl) June 22, 2020

In a separate tweet just minutes earlier, the president cited Attorney General William Barr's evidence-free claim during a Fox News interview Sunday that mail-in voting "absolutely opens the floodgates to fraud."

"Those things are delivered into mailboxes," Barr said. "They can be taken out."

Walter Shaub, former director of the Office of Government Ethics, warned the president is "laying the groundwork for an election challenge" with his attacks on mail-in voting.

"Barr's corrupt enough to help him do it," said Shaub. "That's why the House must impeach Barr. Even if the Senate won't convict, it puts down a historical marker that this is not OK and creates a factual record exposing Barr's corruption."

Dartmouth College political scientist professor Brendan Nyhan echoed Shaub, calling Trump's tweets "a systematic assault on the legitimacy of our election."

"Elections have been held during wars and pandemics," Nyhan said, "but never with the president attacking the result before it has even taken place."

    A systematic assault on the legitimacy of our election. Elections have been held during wars and pandemics, but never with the president attacking the result before it has even taken place https://t.co/wEkya93m7J

    - Brendan Nyhan (@BrendanNyhan) June 22, 2020

Advocacy groups and election experts say nationwide mail-in voting is the only way to safely hold the November elections amid the Covid-19 pandemic. But Trump has repeatedly attacked absentee voting as "corrupt"-despite having done it himself-and threatened to sue states that expand access to mail-in ballots.

In an interview with Politico last Friday, Trump openly admitted that he views mail-in voting as a grave threat to his reelection prospects.

"My biggest risk is that we don't win lawsuits," Trump said, referring to the Republican Party's multi-million-dollar legal effort to block expansions of absentee voting. "We have many lawsuits going all over. And if we don't win those lawsuits, I think-I think it puts the election at risk."

Fearing that Trump could refuse to leave office if he loses reelection in November, advocacy groups Stand Up America and Indivisible are preparing to mobilize millions of people to ensure that the election results are protected.

"Trump has no respect for the rule of law, and we have no reason to believe he will leave willingly after losing reelection," Ezra Levin, co-founder and co-executive director of Indivisible, said in a statement earlier this month. "Preparing for the possibility of Trump refusing to concede isn't just reasonable, it's the responsible thing to do."

Biden Takes Dominant Lead as Voters Reject Trump on Virus and Race

A New York Times/Siena College poll finds that Joseph R. Biden Jr. is ahead of the president by 14 points, leading among women and nonwhite voters and cutting into his support with white voters.

By Alexander Burns, Jonathan Martin and Matt Stevens
NY Times
June 24, 2020, 5:00 a.m. ET

NYT Upshot/Siena College poll

of registered voters

50%

Biden

36%

Trump

14%

Other
"Other" includes those who would vote for another candidate, would not vote or did not know.·Based on a New York Times/Siena College poll of 1,337 registered voters from June 17 to June 22.

Joseph R. Biden Jr. has taken a commanding lead over President Trump in the 2020 race, building a wide advantage among women and nonwhite voters and making deep inroads with some traditionally Republican-leaning groups that have shifted away from Mr. Trump following his ineffective response to the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new national poll of registered voters by The New York Times and Siena College.

Mr. Biden is currently ahead of Mr. Trump by 14 percentage points, garnering 50 percent of the vote compared with 36 percent for Mr. Trump. That is among the most dismal showings of Mr. Trump's presidency, and a sign that he is the clear underdog right now in his fight for a second term.

Mr. Trump has been an unpopular president for virtually his entire time in office. He has made few efforts since his election in 2016 to broaden his support beyond the right-wing base that vaulted him into office with only 46 percent of the popular vote and a modest victory in the Electoral College.

But among a striking cross-section of voters, the distaste for Mr. Trump has deepened as his administration failed to stop a deadly disease that crippled the economy and then as he responded to a wave of racial-justice protests with angry bluster and militaristic threats. The dominant picture that emerges from the poll is of a country ready to reject a president whom a strong majority of voters regard as failing the greatest tests confronting his administration.

Mr. Biden leads Mr. Trump by enormous margins with black and Hispanic voters, and women and young people appear on track to choose Mr. Biden by an even wider margin than they favored Hillary Clinton over Mr. Trump in 2016. But the former vice president has also drawn even with Mr. Trump among male voters, whites and people in middle age and older - groups that have typically been the backbones of Republican electoral success, including Mr. Trump's in 2016.

If the 2020 presidential election were held today, whom would you vote for?

Trump ahead

Biden ahead

All reg. voters

+14 pct. pts.

(n=1,337)

Female

+22

GENDER

(725)

Male

+3

(612)

18 to 34

+34

AGE

(245)

35 to 49

+23

(287)

50 to 64

+1

(356)

65 and older

+2

(400)

Black

+74

RACE AND

EDUCATION

(150)

Hispanic

+39

(145)

+28

White, college

(436)

+1

White

(870)

+19

White, no coll.

(427)

Democrat

+85

PARTY

IDENTIFICATION

(466)

Independent

+21

(401)

Republican

+85

(341)

+83

Very liberal

IDEOLOGY

(177)

Somewhat liberal

+69

(260)

Moderate

+33

(332)

Somewhat conservative

+32

(281)

Very conservative

+73

(195)
Sample sizes may not add to the total because some demographic characteristics of respondents are unknown.·Based on a New York Times/Siena College poll of 1,337 registered voters from June 17 to June 22.

Arlene Myles, 75, of Denver, said she had been a Republican for nearly six decades before switching her registration to independent earlier this year during Mr. Trump's impeachment trial. Ms. Myles said that when Mr. Trump was first elected, she had resolved to "give him a chance," but had since concluded that he and his party were irredeemable.

"I was one of those people who stuck by Nixon until he was waving goodbye," Ms. Myles said. "I thought I was a good Republican and thought they had my values, but they have gone down the tubes these last few years."

Ms. Myles said she planned to vote for Mr. Biden, expressing only one misgiving: "I wish he was younger," she said.

Most stark may be Mr. Biden's towering advantage among white women with college degrees, who support him over Mr. Trump by 39 percentage points. In 2016, exit polls found that group preferred Mrs. Clinton to Mr. Trump by just 7 percentage points. The poll also found that Mr. Biden has narrowed Mr. Trump's advantage with less-educated white voters.

The exodus of white voters from the G.O.P. has been especially pronounced among younger voters, an ominous trend for a party that was already heavily reliant on older Americans.

Fifty-two percent of whites under 45 said they supported Mr. Biden while only 30 percent said they supported Mr. Trump. And their opposition is intense: More than twice as many younger whites viewed the president very unfavorably than very favorably.

Tom Diamond, 31, a Republican in Fort Worth, Texas, said he planned to vote for Mr. Trump but would do so with real misgivings. He called the president a "poor leader" who had mishandled the pandemic and said Mr. Biden seemed "like a guy you can trust." But Mr. Trump held views closer to his own on the economy, health care and abortion.

"Part of you just feels icky voting for him," Mr. Diamond said. "But definitely from a policy perspective, that's where my vote's going to go."

Some unease toward Mr. Trump stems from voters' racial attitudes. According to the poll, white voters under 45 are overwhelmingly supportive of the Black Lives Matter movement, while older whites are more tepid in their views toward racial justice activism. And nearly 70 percent of whites under 45 said they believed the killing of George Floyd was part of a broader pattern of excessive police violence toward African-Americans rather than an isolated incident.

What's striking, though, is that even among white seniors, one of Mr. Trump's strongest constituencies, he has damaged himself with his conduct. About two-fifths of whites over 65 said they disapproved of Mr. Trump's handling of both the coronavirus and race relations.

Mr. Trump retains a few points of strength in the poll that could offer him a way to regain a footing in the race, and the feeble condition of his candidacy right now may well represent his low point in a campaign with four and a half months still to go.

His approval rating is still narrowly positive on the issue of the economy, with 50 percent of voters giving him favorable marks compared with 45 percent saying the opposite. Should the fall campaign become a referendum on which candidate is better equipped to restore prosperity after the pandemic has subsided, that could give Mr. Trump a new opening to press his case.

The president is also still ahead of Mr. Biden among white voters without college degrees, who hold disproportionate influence in presidential elections because of how central the Midwest is to capturing 270 electoral votes.

Yet if Mr. Trump still has a significant measure of credibility with voters on the economy, he lacks any apparent political strength on the most urgent issues of the moment: the pandemic and the national reckoning on policing and race.

Nearly three-fifths of voters disapprove of Mr. Trump's handling of the coronavirus pandemic, including majorities of white voters and men. Self-described moderate voters disapproved of Mr. Trump on the coronavirus by a margin of more than two to one.

Most of the country is also rejecting Mr. Trump's call to reopen the economy as quickly as possible, even at the cost of exposing people to greater health risks. By a 21-point margin, voters said the federal government should prioritize containing the coronavirus, even if it hurts the economy, a view that aligns them with Mr. Biden.

Just a third of voters said the government should focus on restarting the economy even if that entails greater public-health risks.

That debate could become the central focus of the campaign in the coming weeks, as coronavirus outbreaks grow rapidly in a number of Republican-led states that have resisted the strict lockdown measures imposed in the spring by Democratic states like New York and California.

The public also does not share Mr. Trump's resistance to mask wearing. The president has declined to don a mask in nearly all public appearances, even as top health officials in his administration have urged Americans to do so as a precaution against spreading the coronavirus. In the poll, 54 percent of people said they always wear a mask when they expect to be in proximity to other people, while another 22 percent said they usually wear a mask.

Just 22 percent said they rarely or never wear a mask.

Mr. Trump's job approval on race relations was just as dismal. Sixty-one percent of voters said they disapproved of Mr. Trump's handling of race, versus 33 percent who said they approved. By a similar margin, voters said they disapproved of his response to the protests after the death of Mr. Floyd.

Mr. Trump has sought several times in the last month to use demonstrations against the police as a political wedge issue, forcing Democrats to align themselves squarely either with law-enforcement agencies or with the most strident anti-police demonstrators.

The poll suggested most voters were rejecting that binary choice, as well as Mr. Trump's harsh characterization of protesters: Large majorities said they had a positive overall assessment of both the Black Lives Matter movement and the police.

More voters feel strongly about Mr. Trump than they do about Mr. Biden

Voter impressions of ...

Trump

Biden

Very

favorable

Very

unfavorable

Very

favorable

Very

unfavorable

27%

50%

26%

27%

ALL REG. VOTERS

(n=1,337)

NONWHITE

Age 18 to 29

11%

68%

21%

15%

(88)

Age 30 to 44

15%

61%

29%

14%

(100)

Age 45 to 64

22%

62%

45%

19%

(150)

Age 65 and older

13%

70%

60%

16%

(85)

WHITE

Age 18 to 29

23%

46%

4%

28%

(89)

Age 30 to 44

17%

58%

20%

22%

(156)

Age 45 to 64

36%

39%

22%

35%

(305)

Age 65 and older

42%

38%

27%

38%

(320)
Sample sizes may not add to the total because some demographic characteristics of respondents are unknown.·Based on a New York Times/Siena College poll of 1,337 registered voters from June 17 to June 22.

The picture of Mr. Biden that emerges from the poll is one of a broadly acceptable candidate who inspires relatively few strong feelings in either direction. He is seen favorably by about half of voters and unfavorably by 42 percent. Only a quarter said they saw him very favorably, equaling the share that sees him in very negative terms.

Mr. Trump, by contrast, is seen very favorably by 27 percent of voters and very unfavorably by 50 percent.

Harry Hoyt, 72, of York County in Southern Maine, said he has sometimes voted for Republican presidential candidates in the past and cast a grudging vote for Mrs. Clinton in 2016. He felt better this time about his plan to vote for Mr. Biden.

"Biden would be a better candidate than Trump, simply because he's a nice person," Mr. Hoyt said. "One of the most important things to me is the character of the man in charge of our country."

Significantly, one group that saw Mr. Biden as far more than just acceptable was black voters. Fifty-six percent of black respondents in the poll said they saw Mr. Biden very favorably, a far more enthusiastic judgment than from any other constituency.

The limited passion for Mr. Biden among other Democratic constituencies does not appear to be affecting his position against Mr. Trump. Though only 13 percent of people under 30 said they had a very favorable opinion of the former vice president, that group is backing Mr. Biden over Mr. Trump by 34 percentage points.

Nicholas Angelos, a 20-year-old voter in Bloomington, Ind., who said he supported Senator Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primaries, said he would vote for Mr. Biden as the "lesser of two evils." He said he believed the former vice president would "try his best," in contrast to Mr. Trump, whom he described as "an autocrat" and "anti-science."

"We all have to compromise," said Mr. Angelos, who described himself as very liberal. He added of Mr. Biden, "I don't think he's anything special."

For the moment, voters also appear unpersuaded by one of the primary attack lines Mr. Trump and his party have used against Mr. Biden: the claim that, at age 77, he is simply too old for the presidency. Mr. Trump, 74, has mocked Mr. Biden's mental acuity frequently over the last few months and his campaign has run television advertisements that cast Mr. Biden as absent-minded and inarticulate.

But three in five voters said in the poll that they disagreed with the claim that Mr. Biden was too old to be an effective president. The percentage of voters who agreed, 36 percent, exactly matched Mr. Trump's existing support in the presidential race.

Lindsay Clark, 37, who lives in the suburbs of Salt Lake City, was among the voters who said she would probably vote for Mr. Trump because she was unsure Mr. Biden was "physically and mentally up to the task" of being president. But Ms. Clark expressed little admiration for Mr. Trump, whom she called unpresidential.

Ms. Clark, who voted for a third-party candidate in 2016, said she was hard-pressed to name something she really liked about Mr. Trump, eventually settling on the idea that he expressed himself bluntly.

"I was just trying to think if I could think of something off the top of my head that I was like, "˜Yes, I loved when you did that!'" she said of Mr. Trump. "And I kind of just can't."

Trump bruised as polls favour Biden - but experts warn of risk of dirty tricks

The president has had a difficult period and is trailing his rival by double digits. But he has time to fight back - and fight dirty

David Smith in Washington
Guardian
Sat 27 Jun 2020 10.00 BST

It was the death of a salesman. With tie undone and crumpled "Make America great again" cap in hand, Donald Trump cut a forlorn figure shambling across the White House south lawn on his return from his failed comeback rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Some observers likened him to Willy Loman, the tragic protagonist of Arthur Miller's benchmark drama.

The US president, critics say, has spent years selling a bill of goods to the American people. Now they are no longer buying.

The thinly attended rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, last weekend was the physical manifestation of what poll after poll is showing: Trump is trailing his Democratic rival Joe Biden by double digits and seemingly on course for a historic defeat in November's presidential election.

But seasoned commentators warn against complacency. Trump still has time to fight back - and fight dirty.

"You look at the polls and think "˜he can't win'," tweeted Bill Kristol, who served in two Republican administrations. "But Trump's path to victory doesn't depend on persuading Americans. It depends on voter suppression, mass disinformation, foreign interference, and unabashed use of executive branch power to shape events, and perceptions, this fall."

It was a reminder that the polls only tell part of any election story. In 2016, Trump nearly always appeared to be heading to defeat by Hillary Clinton. This time polls appear to point to a Biden landslide. The former vice-president leads Trump by 14 percentage points in a national survey of registered voters by the New York Times and Siena College.

As expected, the poll showed Biden well ahead among women, young people and African American and Hispanic voters. Alarmingly for the president, Biden had also drawn level among white voters, men, and middle-aged and older voters - typically the pillars of Trump's support. This and numerous other polls also show Trump trailing badly in six swing states likely to decide the all-important electoral college.

At the start of the year Trump was confident of victory, but the research suggests voters are punishing him for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, exacerbation of the economic crisis and violent response to Black Lives Matter protests. This week he continued to downplay the virus, and staged campaign events with few face masks and little physical distancing, even as the national death toll topped 120,000 and the infection rate soared to the highest level since April.

But Trump's foes have learned to write him off at their peril. He once famously boasted that he could shoot someone on New York's Fifth Avenue and not lose any voters. He still has the significant advantages of incumbency and, opponents say, of being entirely untroubled by a moral conscience: the president will stop at nothing to cling to power.

Kristol, editor at large of the Bulwark website and director of the advocacy organisation Defending Democracy Together, said in an interview: "The special circumstances with Trump are his total abandonment of any constraints and even more important, perhaps, his having people around him who've abandoned any constraints on the way in which they'll use the federal government, the executive branch, to say things, do things, pretend to do things.

"Richard Nixon did a little of that in 1972, and of course presidents always tout good news in the months before the election. But this time, it's the degree to which you could have a real sustained effort to suppress minority voting and not make it easy for young people to vote.

"It's the degree to which you could have foreign intervention and also Trump colluding, not in the sense of coordinating but just welcoming it and making it easier. It's the degree to which you could have Putin deciding if he wants Trump re-elected. to give Trump a "˜foreign policy victory' weeks before the election, which will turn out to be not a real victory months later."

Kristol added: "It's the use of loyalists at the office of the Director of National Intelligence and to some degree the state department and justice department. It's the degree to which we'll get "˜new' news about Biden and [his son] Hunter Biden, sort of based on something but wildly exaggerated and trumpeted and on Fox News.

"If you put all that together and you have a circumstance where someone is really shameless and a lot of the normal constraints have weakened, it's conceivable that the reluctant Trump voter from 2016 who's become a reluctant Biden voter in 2020 goes back to being a reluctant Trump voter. That's what worries me the most."

Voter suppression has haunted US elections for decades but the pandemic presents Trump with new opportunities. States are seeking a massive expansion of mail-in ballots so people do not have risk their health by queuing and voting in person. The president has intensified claims that this will lead to widespread cheating, even though several studies have shown that voter fraud is extremely rare.

"RIGGED 2020 ELECTION: MILLIONS OF MAIL-IN BALLOTS WILL BE PRINTED BY FOREIGN COUNTRIES, AND OTHERS," was a false claim he tweeted this week in capital letters. "IT WILL BE THE SCANDAL OF OUR TIMES!"

His wild words are often backed by organizational muscle and action. The Republican National Committee has devoted $20m to oppose Democratic lawsuits across the country seeking to expand voting. Republicans are also reportedly aiming to recruit up to 50,000 people in 15 key states to serve as poll watchers and challenge the registration of voters they believe are ineligible.

Monika McDermott, a political science professor at Fordham University in New York, said: "What we're seeing in some primary states is the closures of polling places in African American dominated areas and mistaken purging of Democrats from the voter rolls. Some of this is anecdotal, but it is worrying all the same. And it will, no doubt, continue through the general election."

Only two incumbent presidents have been defeated for reelection since the second world war: Jimmy Carter and George HW Bush. Trump has the advantages of the bully pulpit, support from Fox News and other conservative media, a huge data harvesting operation and more cash than Biden. He is traveling the country, throwing virus caution to the winds, as the Democrat remains mostly confined to his basement.

But critics fear that the president could also bend state apparatus to his advantage, noting the loyalty of officials such as attorney general Bill Barr, who ordered security forces to use tear gas against peaceful protesters outside the White House so his boss could stage a photo op.

Trump has repeatedly asserted a baseless conspiracy theory called "Obamagate", claiming that former president Barack Obama and Biden concocted fake allegations about Trump's links to Russia in a "coup" to deny him the White House. He could pressure Barr and Republicans in Congress to focus on this, as well as on Biden's son Hunter's business activities in Ukraine, as election day nears.

Lawrence Tribe, a constitutional law professor at Harvard University, said: "He could announce, perhaps without any basis at all, in mid-October that a new vaccine has been found, and he could pressure the FDA Food and Drug Administrationto approve it and that could mess with the vote. He could get help of the sort he has already asked for from China and Russia to interfere with the vote."

"He could engage in conspiratorial vote suppression in which a number of people are prevented from voting by a sudden announcement that there is a spike in the coronavirus in certain jurisdictions. The power that he has as president to both manipulate the votes actually cast, and in addition to that, to launch challenges where his manipulation has not been sufficiently successful is enormously broad."

Tribe added: "If we know nothing else about this man, we know that his priorities are entirely personal and narcissistic. We know that he is not worried about the stability or the safety of the country and, given that set of psychological realities, it would take a much more ironclad process than we have to warrant any degree of confidence that we will have a smooth and peaceful transition to a new president next January."

Another of Kristol's warnings is about foreign interference.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller identified 272 contacts between Trump's 2016 campaign team and Russia-linked operatives, including at least 38 meetings. Last year, asked by ABC News if he would take dirt on an opponent from a foreign source, the president said candidly: "I think I'd take it."

Trump was impeached for asking the president of Ukraine to investigate Biden on baseless charges in return for $400m in military aid. And in his new memoir, former national security adviser John Bolton alleges that Trump pleaded with China's president Xi Jinping to help him get re-elected by buying more US agricultural products.

Neil Sroka, a spokesperson for the progressive group Democracy for America, said: "We already know he's actively solicited the help of a foreign government in this election from the Bolton book."

And concerns persist that social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter are still doing too little to weed out foreign-based accounts that spread disinformation aimed at dividing Americans and potentially helping Trump.

Sroka added: "I don't think we have any reason to believe that foreign actors would be successful in intruding in our voting systems, which means that the way in which they have an impact is through disinformation and trying to stoke up divides within ourselves. That's another reason why it's so important that we make sure we win big."

Scarred by 2016, Democrats know their greatest threat could be complacency, especially among younger voters who might decide to stay at home on a rainy day and not get around to voting. Biden, who held a virtual fundraiser with Obama this week, tweeted: "Ignore the polls. Register to vote."

With four months to go, anything could happen.

Antjuan Seawright, a Democratic strategist based in Columbia, South Carolina, agreed that Trump should not be underestimated. "We should adopt the philosophy that there's no education in the second kick of the mule," he said.

"If someone finds success in something before, they're going to try to use those same ingredients to find success again. He is willing to do, to say, to have and be a part of anything that will position him to come across the finish line first, even if it means doing what is not in the long term best interests of this country."

*********

Trump blows into the dog whistle and ...

Senate panel demands testimony from ex-Obama officials in revived Biden probe

The request came from the chairman of the Homeland Security committee, Ron Johnson.

By NATASHA BERTRAND and ANDREW DESIDERIO
Politico
06/27/2020

A Senate committee is re-engaging former Obama administration officials as part of an investigation targeting Joe Biden's son, demanding transcribed interviews and documents for the Republican-led probe.

The renewed scrutiny from the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee comes amid intensifying efforts by President Donald Trump to target Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, over what the president and his allies portray as a corruption scandal that disqualifies the former vice president.

The panel, chaired by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.), reached out this week to former Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken; former Special Envoy for International Energy Amos Hochstein (though the letter referred to him by an informal title, as a former senior adviser on international energy affairs to Biden); former senior State Department officials Victoria Nuland and Catherine Novelli; and David Wade, the former chief of staff to Secretary of State John Kerry, a spokesperson for the committee confirmed.

The request this week - a follow-up from December, when the panel asked the same former officials for documents and testimony during the impeachment inquiry into Trump's Ukraine dealings - followed the Tuesday release of former national security adviser John Bolton's memoir, in which he confirmed that Trump withheld military assistance aid to Ukraine last year in exchange for the promise of an investigation targeting the Bidens.

And on Monday, Ukrainian lawmaker Andrii Derkach, an associate of Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani with links to Russian intelligence, held a press conference to announce the release of new recordings he says he obtained of then-Vice President Biden speaking to former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. It was the second such press conference he has held in just over a month. Derkach has long made unsubstantiated corruption accusations against Biden and his son, and the release of the tapes has echoes of Russia's hacking-and-dumping operation in 2016 in an effort to tip the election to Trump.

The committee said the requests were part of an investigation into "whether certain officials within the Obama administration had actual or apparent conflicts of interest, or whether there was any other wrongdoing, because of Hunter Biden's role in Rosemont Seneca and related entities, and as a board member of Burisma Holdings," according to letters the panel's chief counsel sent at the time.

Last month, the committee on a party-line vote authorized Johnson to issue a subpoena to Blue Star Strategies, a Democratic public-affairs firm, as part of the investigation. Johnson has zeroed in on allegations that the firm sought to leverage Hunter Biden's position on the board of Burisma in order to influence matters at the Obama-era State Department.

Democrats uniformly oppose the GOP-led investigation, dubbing it an effort to boost Trump's reelection prospects. Others have gone further in their criticisms, saying the probe itself jeopardizes U.S. national security and contributes to Russian disinformation campaigns. The former GOP chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Richard Burr, privately warned Johnson that the investigation could aid the Kremlin's efforts to sow chaos and distrust in the U.S. political system.

Johnson's investigations have fueled raw partisan tensions in public committee meetings as well as behind closed doors. In March, senators got into heated arguments during a classified election-security briefing as Democrats asserted that Johnson was participating in Russia's interference in U.S. elections.

Trump has openly encouraged the Senate's investigations, including similar efforts to probe the origins of the Russia investigation and the actions of the Obama administration during the presidential transition period in late 2016 and early 2017. Johnson's panel and the Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), secured authorizations from Republican senators earlier this month to issue subpoenas as part of those probes to a slew of former Obama administration officials, many of whom have drawn Trump's ire in recent years.

Democrats initiated impeachment proceedings last year over the effort to spur Ukraine-led investigations that would benefit the president politically, during which Trump's legal team focused on Biden's son Hunter and his role on the board of Ukrainian gas company Burisma while his father was vice president and in charge of Ukraine matters.

Trump's team presented no evidence that Biden used his role as vice president to benefit his son, nor alleged anything improper other than the "appearance of a conflict," and allegations of wrongdoing have been widely discredited.

But Senate Republicans appear to be reviving the issue less than five months before election day - and Johnson has said he intends to release an interim report on the Biden probe over the summer, thrusting the issue back into the spotlight as the 2020 campaign kicks into high gear.

Johnson has insisted that the investigations have nothing to do with the election, though Trump's reelection campaign has touted many of the revelations from Johnson, including a list of Obama White House officials who might have been involved in efforts that "unmasked" former national security adviser Michael Flynn's name from intelligence intercepts. Biden's name was on the list, but there is no evidence that he acted improperly, as Trump and his campaign have claimed.

Four ways William Barr is already subverting the 2020 elections

Safeguarding the vote would be the top priority of a normal attorney general. It's the opposite now.

By Joshua A. Geltzer
Joshua A. Geltzer, a former Justice Department and National Security Council lawyer, is executive director and professor of law at Georgetown's Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection.
June 27, 2020
WA Post

A normal attorney general of the United States right now would be focused on protecting the integrity of the fast-approaching November elections. Instead, the attorney general we have - William P. Barr - is intent on doing the opposite: unraveling the government's efforts to hold accountable those who infected our last presidential election, in 2016, and undermining the integrity of the vote in 2020. It's so bad that House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, who last weekend said it would be a "waste of time" to try to impeach Barr, is now reconsidering. (For the moment, Speaker Nancy Pelosi says impeachment is not happening.)

There are four ways that Barr's approach to running the Justice Department imperils the vote: He's letting off the hook those who contributed to interference in the last election; he's undermining confidence in the government's ability to protect the coming election; he's signaling to bad actors that helping President Trump win will garner them special treatment under the law; and he's spreading disinformation about the potential for voter fraud.

First, Barr is actively undoing work by the very department he oversees to address the counterintelligence threat exposed during the 2016 elections. At the core of Russia's effort to distort American democracy was its move to obtain influence over a presidential candidate and his team. That's what the FBI was investigating when it interviewed Trump's first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, in January 2017. The criminal charges brought against Flynn for lying during that interview - to which he pleaded guilty twice - affirmed federal law enforcement's commitment to investigate counterintelligence threats and disrupt them.

But Barr is deliberately unwinding that work. He has overseen the unprecedented attempt by the Justice Department - over the objections of the career prosecutor who handled the case - to drop the charges against Flynn despite his guilty pleas and based on legal theories invented by the department for the Flynn case alone. In a nod to the department's obviously unusual handling of the case, a dissenting judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit this past week criticized the opinion issued by his two fellow judges, a ruling he said "transforms the presumption of regularity into an impenetrable shield" blocking the trial judge from even scrutinizing why the department took such a bizarre approach to this case. A normal attorney general would be ratcheting up counterintelligence efforts as the 2020 elections approach; Barr is standing down.

Second, Barr is impugning the work by federal law enforcement that sought to hold accountable those who undermined the 2016 elections. "The Russia investigation," as it is now known, was the FBI's effort to understand the scope of Moscow's meddling. Once Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, that work shifted to the office of special counsel Robert Mueller, which brought criminal charges against Trump associates Paul Manafort and Roger Stone, as well as Russian military intelligence officials. Mueller's project was partly an attempt to protect against further election interference in 2020.

But here we are, just months from that election, and Barr is telling us that this work might've been all wrong from the start. That's the thrust of the "investigation of the investigators" that he has asked federal prosecutor John Durham to oversee, with unusual support and involvement from Barr himself. And it's despite essentially the same ground having been covered by the Justice Department's inspector general, who deemed the initiation of the Russia investigation justified and valid. The message: Foreign meddling in our democracy isn't a big problem.

Barr tried to exonerate Trump. That's not how the special counsel rules work.

Third, Barr is making clear that those who help Trump in his electoral ambitions will get special treatment from the Justice Department should he be reelected. The message radiates from the department's abrupt reduction of its sentencing recommendation for Stone - also over the objections of the career prosecutors who handled the case, as one laid out in detail Wednesday in testimony before the House Judiciary Committee. Stone has been implicated in the apparent coordination between the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks regarding the release of hacked emails to damage Hillary Clinton, and he was convicted of impeding and lying to investigators.

That would, in normal times, be an important deterrent to others close to Trump not to aid his reelection through foul play. But not under Barr. In response to angry tweets by Trump, the Justice Department reduced its recommendation for Stone's sentence. As former Stone prosecutor Aaron Zelinsky told Congress, there was only one explanation he heard: Trump wanted it for a buddy. As Zelinsky put it in his opening statement, "What I heard - repeatedly - was that Roger Stone was being treated differently from any other defendant because of his relationship to the President." That's become the message under Barr: Government lawyers should give friends of Trump lenient treatment or risk their careers. This is also the obvious takeaway from the abrupt ouster of the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Geoffrey Berman, who reportedly had been investigating Rudy Giuliani's role in recruiting information from Ukraine that might harm Trump's presidential opponent. That takeaway appears reinforced by new reporting in The New York Times that Barr clashed with Berman over his office's decision to pursue charges against Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen.

Fourth, any normal attorney general would be augmenting efforts to fight disinformation in the run-up to Election Day. Russia's spread of disinformation was a major component of its 2016 interference, and even America's private sector - in particular, technology companies - has pledged to do a better job of addressing the issue this year. The FBI has shown signs of trying to do the same, including establishing a task force dedicated to tackling the problem in a coordinated way.

We knew what Barr would do. Now it's too late to stop him.

But Barr is doing the opposite. He isn't just failing to take demonstrable steps to fight election-related disinformation; he's actively spreading disinformation himself. He echoes Trump's debunked claims that mail-in ballots - which will be crucial during the pandemic - somehow leave the country vulnerable to election fraud and interference. Barr recently told Fox News that these votes could "open the floodgates of potential fraud," without providing any basis for the claim. In 2016, Americans faced disinformation predominantly from abroad. In 2020, it also comes from inside our own government.

The threats to this election - not just from Russia but from the coronavirus - would be formidable enough if there were an attorney general acting in good faith to lead federal law enforcement's response to them. We have the opposite: The country's top lawyer turns a blind eye to these threats, taking us backward rather than forward in addressing them, and even worsening them himself. That makes an already dangerous situation dire. And it means that the calls for Barr's impeachment shouldn't be seen as backward-looking or retributive against an administration that may be on its way out anyway. They're forward-looking - if Americans believe that the country deserves an attorney general who protects not one presidential candidate but all citizens as they prepare for a crucial vote.

Trump admits it: He's losing

Amid a mountain of bad polling and stark warnings from allies, the president has acknowledged his reelection woes to allies.

By ALEX ISENSTADT
Politico
06/28/2020

Donald Trump knows he's losing.

The president has privately come to that grim realization in recent days, multiple people close to him told POLITICO, amid a mountain of bad polling and warnings from some of his staunchest allies that he's on course to be a one-term president.

Trump has endured what aides describe as the worst stretch of his presidency, marred by widespread criticism over his response to the coronavirus pandemic and nationwide racial unrest. His rally in Oklahoma last weekend, his first since March, turned out to be an embarrassment when he failed to fill the arena.

What should have been an easy interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity on Thursday horrified advisers when Trump offered a rambling, non-responsive answer to a simple question about his goals for a second term. In the same appearance, the normally self-assured president offered a tacit acknowledgment that he might lose when he said that Joe Biden is "gonna be your president because some people don't love me, maybe."

In the hours after the interview aired, questions swirled within his inner circle about whether his heart was truly in it when it comes to seeking reelection.

Trump has time to rebound, and the political environment could improve for him. But interviews with more than a half-dozen people close to the president depicted a reelection effort badly in need of direction - and an unfocused candidate who repeatedly undermines himself.

"Under the current trajectory, President Trump is on the precipice of one of the worst electoral defeats in modern presidential elections and the worst historically for an incumbent president," said former Trump political adviser Sam Nunberg, who remains a supporter.

Nunberg pointed to national polls released by CNBC and New York Times/Siena over the past week showing Trump receiving below 40 percent against Biden.

If Trump's numbers against erode to 35 percentage points over the next two weeks, Nunberg added, "He's going to be facing realistically a 400-plus electoral vote loss and the president would need to strongly reconsider whether he wants to continue to run as the Republican presidential nominee."

Behind the scenes, Trump and his team are taking steps to correct course. In the week since his Tulsa rally, the president has grudgingly conceded that he's behind, according to three people who are familiar with his thinking. Trump, who vented for days about the event, is starting to take a more hands-on role in the campaign and has expressed openness to adding more people to the team. He has also held meetings recently focusing on his efforts in individual battleground states.

Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, who effectively oversees the campaign from the White House, is expected to play an even more active role.

Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale was blamed internally for the Tulsa rally failure. Some people complained about him trumpeting that 1 million people had requested tickets, a boast that fell flat when thousands of seats sat empty during Trump's speech.

Parscale has been a target of some Trump allies who argue the campaign is lacking a coherent strategy and direction. But people close to the president insist that Parscale's job is safe for now. Trump, who visited the campaign's Arlington, Virginia headquarters a few months ago, has told people he came away impressed with the sophistication of the organization.

Parscale, whose background is as a digital strategist, has received some reinforcements in recent weeks. Longtime Trump adviser Bill Stepien was given added responsibilities in the campaign, including working with political director Chris Carr and the Republican National Committee on voter turnout. And Jason Miller, a veteran of the 2016 campaign, was brought back to serve as a chief political strategist, a position that had been unfilled.

But those internal moves have done little to calm Republican jitters about the president's personal performance. Fox News host and Trump favorite Tucker Carlson issued a blunt warning on his show this week that the president "could well lose this election." South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, another close Trump ally, told reporters that the president needs to make the race "more about policy and less about your personality."

Trump's team insists the president's numbers are bound to improve as he steps up his public events and intensifies his attacks on Biden. People involved in the campaign say they have settled on two main avenues to go after the former vice president: That he's beholden to liberals who want to do away with law and order, and that he's a consummate Washington insider.

The campaign has begun a massive TV ad campaign going after the 77-year-old former vice president, including over his mental capacity and his nearly five-decade political career. Hoping to make inroads with African-American voters, Trump's campaign is running ads slamming Biden over his central role in the 1994 crime bill.

The commercials are airing in an array of states including Georgia, a traditionally red state where Trump suddenly finds himself in a fight. The cash-flush campaign is expected to remain on the TV airwaves in a host of key states through the election.

Veterans of Trump's first presidential campaign liken their current predicament to the nightmarish summer of 2016, when he was buffeted by an array of self-inflicted scandals - from his criticism of a Gold Star family to his attack on a federal judge of Mexican ancestry.

Then as now, Trump trailed badly.

"There was similar fretting in 2016 and if it had been accurate, Hillary Clinton would be in the White House right now. Joe Biden is the weakest Democrat candidate in a generation and we are defining him that way," said Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh. "We are four months from Election Day and in the end it will be a clear choice between President Trump's incredible record of achievement and Joe Biden's half-century of failure in Washington, D.C."

Still, Trump advisers acknowledge that tearing down Biden will require a level of discipline he isn't demonstrating. They have pleaded with Trump - who has used his Twitter account to vilify critics from MSNBC host Joe Scarborough to former National Security Adviser John Bolton - to stop focusing on slights that mean little to voters.

Biden's low-profile during the pandemic has made it that much harder for Trump to land a punch, his advisers said.

But Republicans say he and his campaign need to figure out something soon.

"The key factor has been that Biden has been able to stay out of the race," said David McIntosh, the president of the pro-Trump Club for Growth. "Republicans have to start defining Biden and put resources and effort and consistent messaging behind it."

How the Trump Campaign Is Drawing Obama Out of Retirement

By Glenn Thrush and Elaina Plott
NY Times
June 29, 2020

Just after Donald J. Trump was elected president, Barack Obama slumped in his chair in the Oval Office and addressed an aide standing near a conspicuously placed bowl of apples, emblem of a healthy-snacking policy soon to be swept aside, along with so much else.

"I am so done with all of this," Mr. Obama said of his job, according to several people familiar with the exchange.

Yet he knew, even then, that a conventional White House retirement was not an option. Mr. Obama, 55 at the time, was stuck holding a baton he had wanted to pass to Hillary Clinton, and saddled with a successor whose fixation on him, he believed, was rooted in a bizarre personal animus and the politics of racial backlash exemplified by the birther lie.

"There is no model for my kind of post-presidency," he told the aide. "I'm clearly renting space inside the guy's head."

Which is not to say that Mr. Obama was not committed to his pre-Trump retirement vision - a placid life that was to consist of writing, sun-flecked fairways, policy work through his foundation, producing documentaries with Netflix and family time aplenty at a new $11.7 million spread on Martha's Vineyard.

Still, more than three years after his exit, the 44th president of the United States is back on a political battlefield he longed to leave, drawn into the fight by an enemy, Mr. Trump, who is hellbent on erasing him, and by a friend, Joseph R. Biden Jr., who is equally intent on embracing him.

The stakes of that re-engagement were always going to be high. Mr. Obama is nothing if not protective of his legacy, especially in the face of Mr. Trump's many attacks. Yet interviews with more than 50 people in the former president's orbit portray a conflicted combatant, trying to balance deep anger at his successor with an instinct to refrain from a brawl that he fears may dent his popularity and challenge his place in history.

That calculus, though, may be changing in the wake of George Floyd's killing by the police in Minneapolis. As America's first black president, now its first black ex-president, Mr. Obama sees the current social and racial awakening as an opportunity to elevate a 2020 election dictated by Mr. Trump's mud-wrestling style into something more meaningful - to channel a new, youthful movement toward a political aim, as he did in 2008.

He is doing so very carefully, characteristically intent on keeping his cool, his reputation, his political capital and his dreams of a cosseted retirement intact.

"I don't think he is hesitant. I think he is strategic," said Dan Pfeiffer, a top adviser for over a decade. "He has always been strategic about using his voice; it's his most valuable commodity."

Mr. Obama is also mindful of a cautionary example: Bill Clinton's attacks against him in 2008 backfired so badly that his wife's campaign staff had to scale back his appearances.

Many supporters have been pressing him to be more aggressive.

"It would be nice, for a change, if Barack Obama could emerge from his cave and offer - no wait, DEMAND - a way forward," the columnist Drew Magary wrote in a much-shared Medium post in April titled "Where the Hell is Barack Obama?"

The counterargument: He did his job and deserves to be left alone.

"Obama has now been out of office for three and a half years, and he is still facing this kind of scrutiny - no one is pressuring white ex-presidents like George W. Bush and Jimmy Carter the same way," said Monique Judge, news editor of the online magazine The Root and author of a 2018 article arguing that Mr. Obama no longer owed the country a thing.

Mr. Obama's head appears to be somewhere in the middle. He is not planning to scrap his summer Vineyard vacation and is still anguishing over the publication date of his long-awaited memoir. But last week he stepped up his nominally indirect criticism of Mr. Trump's administration - decrying a "shambolic, disorganized, meanspirited approach to governance" during an online Biden fund-raiser. And he made a pledge of sorts, telling Mr. Biden's supporters: "Whatever you've done so far is not enough. And I hold myself and Michelle and our kids to that same standard."

On Thursday, during an invitation-only Zoom fund-raiser, Mr. Obama expressed outrage at the president's use of "kung flu" and "China virus" to describe the coronavirus. "I don't want a country in which the president of the United States is actively trying to promote anti-Asian sentiment and thinks it's funny. I don't want that. That still shocks and pisses me off," Mr. Obama said, according to a transcript of his remarks provided by a participant in the event.

Mr. Obama speaks with the former vice president and top campaign aides frequently, offering suggestions on staffing and messaging. Last month, he bluntly counseled Mr. Biden to keep his speeches brief, interviews crisp and slash the length of his tweets, the better to make the campaign a referendum on Mr. Trump and the economy, according to Democratic officials.

He has taken a particular interest in Mr. Biden's work-in-progress digital operation, the officials said, enlisting powerful friends, like the LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman and the former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt, to share their expertise, they said.

Yet he continues to slow-walk some requests, especially to headline more fund-raisers. Some in Mr. Obama's camp suggest he wants to avoid overshadowing the candidate - which Mr. Biden's people aren't buying.

"By all means, overshadow us," one of them joked.

"˜Obama Will Not Be Able to Rest'

From the moment Mr. Trump was elected, Mr. Obama adopted a minimalist approach: He would critique his policy choices, not the man himself, following the norm of civility observed by his predecessors, especially George W. Bush.

But norms are not Mr. Trump's thing. He made it clear from the start that he wanted to eradicate any trace of Mr. Obama's presence from the West Wing. "He had the worst taste," Mr. Trump told a visitor in early 2017, showing off his new curtains - which were not terribly different from Mr. Obama's, in the view of other people who tramped in and out of the office during that chaotic period.

The cancellation was more pronounced when it came to policy. One former White House official recalled Mr. Trump interrupting an early presentation to make sure one staff proposal was not "an Obama thing."

During the transition, in what looks in hindsight like a preview of the presidency, one Trump aide got the idea of printing out the detailed checklist of Mr. Obama's campaign promises from the official White House website to repurpose as a kind of hit list, according to two people familiar with the effort.

"This is personal for Trump; it is all about President Obama and demolishing his legacy. It's his obsession," said Omarosa Manigault Newman, an "Apprentice" veteran and, until her abrupt departure, one of the few black officials in Mr. Trump's West Wing. "President Obama will not be able to rest as long as Trump is breathing."

When the two men met for a stilted postelection sit-down in November 2016, the president-elect was polite, so Mr. Obama took the opportunity to advise him against going scorched-earth on Obamacare. "Look, you can take my name off of it; I don't care," he said, according to aides.

Mr. Trump nodded noncommittally.

As the transition dragged on, Mr. Obama became increasingly uneasy at what he saw as the breezy indifference of the new president and his inexperienced team. Many of them ignored the briefing binders his staff had painstakingly produced at his direction, former Obama aides recalled, and instead of focusing on policy or the workings of the West Wing, they inquired about the quality of tacos in the basement mess or where to find a good apartment.

As for Mr. Trump, he had "no idea what he's doing," Mr. Obama told an aide after their Oval Office encounter.

Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump's son-in-law and close adviser, made an equally indelible impression. During a tour of the building he abruptly inquired, "So how many of these people are sticking around?"

The answer was none, his escort replied. (West Wing officials serve at the president's pleasure, as Mr. Trump would amply illustrate in the coming months.)

When the Kushner story was relayed to Mr. Obama, aides recalled, he laughed and repeated it to friends, and even a few journalists, to illustrate what the country was up against.

A White House spokesman did not deny the account, but suggested Mr. Kushner might have been talking about security and maintenance personnel rather than political appointees.

During other conversations with editors he respected, including David Remnick of The New Yorker and Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic, Mr. Obama was more ruminative, according to people familiar with the interactions. At times, he would float some version of this question: Was there anything he could have done to blunt the Trump backlash?

Mr. Obama eventually came to the conclusion that it was a historic inevitability, and told people around him the best he could do was "set a counterexample."

Others thought he needed to do more. During the transition, Paulette Aniskoff, a veteran West Wing aide, began assembling a political organization of former advisers to help Mr. Obama defend his legacy, aid other Democrats and plan for his deployment as a surrogate in the 2018 midterms.

He was open to the effort, but his eye was on the exits. "I'll do what you want me to do," he told Ms. Aniskoff's team, but mandated they carefully screen out any appearances that would waste time or squander political capital.

Mr. Obama was, then as now, so determined to avoid uttering the new president's name that one aide jokingly suggested they refer to him as "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" - Harry Potter's archenemy, Lord Voldemort.

Mr. Trump had no trouble naming names. In March 2017, he falsely accused Mr. Obama of personally ordering the surveillance of his campaign headquarters, tweeting, "How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!"

It was an inflection point of sorts. Mr. Obama told Ms. Aniskoff's team he would call out his successor by name in the 2018 midterms. But not a lot.

It was telling how Mr. Obama talked about Mr. Trump that fall: He referred to him less as a person than as a kind of epidemiological affliction on the body politic, spread by his Republican enablers.

"It did not start with Donald Trump - he is a symptom, not the cause," he said in his kickoff speech at the University of Illinois in September 2018. The American political system, he added, was not "healthy" enough to form the "antibodies" to fight the contagion of "racial nationalism."

The pandemic has, if anything, made him more partial to the comparison.

The virus, he said during his appearance with Mr. Biden last week, "is a metaphor" for so much else.

Golf Going "˜Better Than My Book'

Mr. Obama felt one of the best ways to safeguard his legacy was by writing his book, which he envisioned as both a detailed chronicle of his presidency and as a serious literary follow-up to his widely praised 1995 memoir, "Dreams From My Father."

In late 2016, Mr. Obama's agent, Bob Barnett, began negotiating a package deal for Mr. Obama's memoir and Michelle Obama's autobiography. Random House eventually won the bidding war with a record-shattering $65 million offer.

The process has been a gilded grind. One former White House official who checked in with Mr. Obama in mid-2018 was told the project "was like doing homework."

Another associate, who ran into the former president at an event last year, remarked at how fit he looked. Mr. Obama replied, "Let's just say my golf game is going a lot better than my book."

It was not especially easy for the former president to look on as his wife's book, "Becoming," was published in 2018 and quickly became an international blockbuster.

"She had a ghostwriter," Mr. Obama told a friend who asked about his wife's speedy work. "I am writing every word myself, and that's why it's taking longer."

The book's timing remains among the touchiest of topics. Mr. Obama, a deliberate writer prone to procrastination - and lengthy digression - insisted that there be no set deadline, according to several people familiar with the process.

In an interview shortly after Mr. Obama left office, one of his closest advisers had predicted that the book would be out in mid-2019, before the primary season began in earnest, an option preferred by many working on the project.

But Mr. Obama did not finish and circulate a draft of between 600 and 800 pages until around New Year's, too late to publish before the election, according to people familiar with the situation.

He is now seriously considering splitting the project into two volumes, in the hope of getting some of it into print quickly after the election, perhaps in time for the Christmas season, several people close to the process said.

Mr. Obama's other big creative enterprise, a multimillion-dollar 2018 contract with Netflix to produce documentaries and scripted features with his wife, has been a tonic, and quick work by comparison.

Mr. Obama got a kick out of screening dozens of potential projects and offered specific suggestions - scrawled onto the yellow legal pad he used to write his book - to directors and writers. His production firm, Higher Ground Productions, is run out of a small bungalow on a Hollywood studio lot once home to Charlie Chaplin's company, and he spent a day kibbitzing with its small staff during a visit in November.

One of the first efforts was "Crip Camp," an award-winning documentary about a summer camp in upstate New York, founded in the early 1970s, that became a focal point of the disability rights movement.

Mr. Obama saw the project as a vehicle for his vision of grass-roots political change, and provided feedback during the 18 months the movie was in production.

"We saw footage that the filmmakers had just begun to cut together and sent it to the president to look at," said Priya Swaminathan, co-head of Higher Ground. "He wanted to know how we could help the filmmakers make this the best telling of the story and they were into the collaboration. We watched many, many cuts together."

A "˜Tailor-Made' Moment

Part of what Mr. Obama finds so appealing about filmmaking is that it allows him to control the narrative. In that respect, the 2020 campaign has been a disorienting experience: His political career is supposed to be over, yet he has a semi-starring role in a production he has not written or directed.

Nowhere has that low-grade frustration been more apparent than in his complicated relationship with Mr. Biden, who is concurrently covetous of his support and fiercely determined to win on his own.

Mr. Obama was supportive of Mr. Biden, personally, from the start of the campaign, but he promised Senator Bernie Sanders, in one of their early chats, that his public profession of neutrality was genuine and that he was not working secretly to elect his friend, according to a party official familiar with the exchange.

Moreover, Mr. Obama has always been cleareyed about his friend's vulnerabilities, urging Mr. Biden's aides to ensure that he not "embarrass himself" or "damage his legacy," win or lose.

When a Democratic donor raised the issue of Mr. Biden's age late last year - he is 77 - Mr. Obama acknowledged those concerns, saying, "I wasn't even 50 when I got elected, and that job took every ounce of energy I had," according to the person.

Still, he is an enthusiastic supporter, and played a central role in pushing Mr. Sanders to "accelerate the endgame" that led to Mr. Biden's earlier-than-expected victory in April. He spent the next few weeks tidying up a few messy political loose ends, working to improve his chilly relationship with Senator Elizabeth Warren, who irked him by criticizing his Wall Street speaking fees as emblematic of the scourge of money in politics, calling it a "snake that slithers through Washington."

He has never seen Mr. Biden's campaign as a proxy war between himself and Mr. Trump, his aides insist. But he is, nonetheless, tickled by the lopsided metrics of their competition of late.

Mr. Obama monitors their respective polling numbers closely - he gets privately circulated data from the Democratic National Committee - and takes pride in the fact that he has millions more Twitter followers than a president who relies on the platform far more than he does, people close to him said.

The former president devours online news, scouring The New York Times, The Washington Post and Atlantic sites on his iPad constantly, and keeps to his White House night-owl hours, sending texts and story links to friends between midnight and 2 a.m. Even during the pandemic he does not sleep late, at least on weekdays, and is often on his Peloton bike by 8 a.m., sending off a new round of texts, often about the latest Trump outrage.

Mr. Obama was already stepping up his criticism of Mr. Trump before Mr. Floyd's killing in May. Ms. Aniskoff organized an online meeting with 3,000 former administration officials whose purpose, in part, was to soft-launch his tougher line. (Democrats close to Mr. Obama helpfully leaked the recording of his remarks.)

Yet the rising cries for racial justice have lent the 2020 campaign a coherence for Mr. Obama, a politician most comfortable cloaking his criticism of an opponent - be it Mrs. Clinton or Mr. Trump - in the language of movement politics.

Mr. Obama's first reaction to the protests, people close to him said, was anxiety - that the spasms of rioting would spin out of control and play into Mr. Trump's narrative of a lawless left.

But peaceful demonstrators took control, igniting a national movement that challenged Mr. Trump without making him its focal point.

Soon after, in the middle of a strategy call with political aides and policy experts at his foundation, an excited Mr. Obama pronounced that "a tailor-made moment" had arrived.

Mr. Obama has lately been in close contact with his first attorney general, Eric H. Holder Jr., sharing his outrage over the way the current attorney general, William P. Barr, personally inspected the phalanx of federal law enforcement officers who tear-gassed demonstrators to clear the path for Mr. Trump's walk to a photo op at a historic church near the White House.

Mr. Holder has few qualms about calling Mr. Trump a racist in the former president's presence. Mr. Obama has never contradicted him, but he avoids the term, even in private, preferring a more indirect accusation of "racial demagoguery," according to several people close to both men.

His response to the Floyd killing was less about hammering Mr. Trump than about encouraging young people, who have been slow in embracing Mr. Biden, to vote. When he chose to speak publicly, it was to host an online forum highlighting a slate of policing reforms that went nowhere in Congress in his second term.

In that sense, the role he is most comfortable occupying is the job he was once so over.

On June 4, an hour or so before Mr. Floyd's memorial service in Minneapolis, the former president called his brother, Philonise Floyd - a reprise of the calls he made to grieving families over his eight years in office.

"I want you to have hope. I want you to know you are not alone. I want you to know that Michelle and I will do anything you want me to do," Mr. Obama said during the emotional 25-minute conversation, according to the Rev. Al Sharpton, who was on the call. Two other people with knowledge of the call confirmed its contents.

"That was the first time, I think, that the Floyd family really experienced solace since he died," Mr. Sharpton said in an interview.

"˜Green light to suppress votes': Federal court reinstates Wisconsin GOP's early voting restrictions amid pandemic

7/1/2020
By Jake Johnson, Common Dreams

"They let this case collect dust for three years. And they decide today, four months out from Election Day, that "˜early voting is not a fundamental right' in the middle of a pandemic. Just outrageous."

A panel of three federal judges on Monday upheld a slate of Republican-authored restrictions on early voting and absentee ballots in Wisconsin, a decision rights groups warned could suppress votes and heighten the risk of spreading Covid-19 in upcoming elections.

The trio of Republican-appointed judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago overturned a 2016 lower court decision and ruled that a Wisconsin law restricting early voting to just two weeks before an election must be reinstated.
Defend democracy. Click to invest in courageous progressive journalism today.

"Right-wing judicial activists just gave their Republican allies in Wisconsin's legislature a green light to suppress votes."
-John Nichols, The Nation

"Early voting is not a fundamental right in itself; it is but one aspect of a state's election system," Judge Frank Easterbrook, a Reagan appointee, wrote in the 27-page ruling. "As we have stressed, Wisconsin's system as a whole is accommodating."

The panel also ruled that faxing and emailing absentee ballots to prospective voters is unconstitutional and said people must live in a district for at least 28 days, rather than 10, before voting there.

The court did not explain why its ruling came more than three years after it first heard Wisconsin Republicans' 2017 appeal of a lower court ruling that struck down several voting restrictions the state GOP enacted after taking full control of the legislature in 2011.

"They let this case collect dust for three years," tweeted Courtney Beyer, communications director for the Wisconsin Democratic Party. "And they decide today, four months out from Election Day, that "˜early voting is not a fundamental right' in the middle of a pandemic. Just outrageous."

In a series of tweets Tuesday morning, advocacy group Common Cause Wisconsin called the ruling "a huge blow to voting rights in a state that already had among the most restrictive and extreme voting laws in the nation, and not to mention just weeks before the next election in August."

"One positive is that the judges ruled that expired photo student IDs can be used as proof of identity to vote," the group noted.

John Nichols, national affairs correspondent for The Nation and a Wisconsin native, tweeted that "right-wing judicial activists"¦ just gave their Republican allies in Wisconsin's legislature a green light to suppress votes."

"If there is a Covid-19 surge," warned Nichols, "the court's decision will make voting more dangerous."

Quote from: Rad on Jun 17, 2020, 10:00 AM
Supreme Court to decide the future of the Electoral College

on June 17, 2020
By The Conversation

"If Americans believe on Nov. 3, 2020, that one person has been elected the next president, but find out on Dec. 14 that it is going to be a different person, it is difficult to predict what the public will think - or do."

Hola Rad and community,
I have been thinking deeply about the upcoming elections and reflecting on the potential of Trump refusing to leave office if not re-elected. Now with this realization of the electoral college and 'faithless electors' who may choose not to vote in line with the majority of their state has profound implications of how Trump may validate his refusal to leave office. Compounding this is the fact that Mercury will still be Rx (25 libra) and in third quarter square to Saturn (26 Cap), Pluto (22 Cap) and Jupiter (21 Cap) on Nov. 3, 2020, and station direct the following day, the 4th of Nov. 2020. A third quarter square is a crisis in consciousness and Mercury Rx in Libra can be a whole lot of unbalance. I am anticipating much confusion as to who won the election on Nov 3rd and 4th of 2020; with both sides claiming victory, and the masses reacting based on their be(lie)fs, and affiliations (libra). Be(lie)fs lead to impulsive passionate responses that in these polarized times have proven to be violent and destructive. What's going to happen when one polarized side claims victory and then to deemed not?

As the article further states, it is guesstimated the the electoral votes will be extremely close, allowing for faithless electors and potential influencers to change the direction and course of the election. This can lead to massive protests and reactions based on Be(LIE)f. Fueling this reaction on a collective level is the eminent 3rd and final conjunction of Jupiter and Pluto in Capricorn on Nov 12, 2020. With the heightened polarization between Trump and his racist, gun-touting "base," and the moderate to liberal democrats desperate and demanding for change, the outcome sounds and feels dangerous, and vulnerable at best.

And as I quoted before, "If Americans believe on Nov. 3, 2020, that one person has been elected the next president, but find out on Dec. 14 that it is going to be a different person, it is difficult to predict what the public will think - or do."
I look forward to any comment on these upcoming astrological alignments and potential outcomes.
Thank you,
Chocolate Astrologer

Renowned psychiatrist worries "˜psychopath' Trump will create "˜Reichstag incident' before election and "˜destroy Democracy'

on July 2, 2020
By Chauncey Devega, Salon

For four years Donald Trump has willfully and repeatedly violated the presidential oath of office and its promise to "faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States," and "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

It now appears that Trump was aware - perhaps for as much as a year - that Russian agents had placed bounties on the heads of American soldiers serving in Afghanistan. That's only the most recent example of the president's betrayal of his oath of office.

Former national security adviser John Bolton's new book "The Room Where It Happened," in conjunction with new investigative reporting from CNN shows Trump to be reckless, out of control, negligent, delusional, corrupt, incompetent and thoroughly unfit to lead the United States both domestically and internationally.

Carl Bernstein's reporting for CNN paints a particularly damning portrait:

    In hundreds of highly classified phone calls with foreign heads of state, President Donald Trump was so consistently unprepared for discussion of serious issues, so often outplayed in his conversations with powerful leaders like Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Erdogan, and so abusive to leaders of America's principal allies, that the calls helped convince some senior US officials - including his former secretaries of state and defense, two national security advisers and his longest-serving chief of staff - that the President himself posed a danger to the national security of the United States, according to White House and intelligence officials intimately familiar with the contents of the conversations. "¦

    The calls caused former top Trump deputies - including national security advisers H.R. McMaster and John Bolton, Defense Secretary James Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and White House chief of staff John Kelly, as well as intelligence officials - to conclude that the President was often "delusional," as two sources put it, in his dealings with foreign leaders.

As many of the nation's and the world's leading mental health professionals have warned, Trump appears mentally unwell in the extreme. His evident mental pathologies, likely including malignant narcissism, an addiction to violence, a God complex and near-psychotic levels of delusional thinking, have only served to exacerbate his many defects of character and values.

In total, Donald Trump is unfit to be president of the United States. If he is not removed from office by the 2020 election, he will continue to pose an extreme threat to the health and safety of the American people and the world.

I recently spoke about this with Dr. Lance Dodes, whom I have interviewed on several previous occasions. Dodes is a retired assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and a training and supervising analyst emeritus at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute.

In our most recent conversation he explained how the information revealed in Bolton's new book helps to confirm that Donald Trump is mentally unwell and a public menace. Dr. Dodes also warned that Trump will only become more dangerous in the remaining months before Election Day and may attempt start a war, impose martial law or create some other crisis in order to stay in power indefinitely.

Dodes issued another ominous warning: From his callous response to the coronavirus pandemic to his threats of violence against journalists and leading Democrats, Donald Trump is incapable of human concern and empathy - and he will find a way to follow through on his threats of death and destruction if given the opportunity.

As usual, this interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What happens to a person like Donald Trump when they suffer a narcissistic injury, such as what happened in Tulsa with his failed rally?

Donald Trump is incapable of tolerating losing without withdrawing into delusional paranoid explanations of what happened. His fundamental need to be always right and an absolute ruler, a God above all criticism, is what has led to his inability to tolerate democracy, and his repeated efforts to destroy it with his attacks on Congress, the judiciary system and a free press.

A few days after the Tulsa rally, Trump traveled to Arizona where he spoke to thousands of hand-picked adoring supporters at a right-wing evangelical church. So on one day he is in the pits of despair and anger, but the next day he is elated and flying high. How does such an emotional rollercoaster impact his mind?

Trump is able to appear more in touch with reality when he is being worshiped. Indeed, when his primitive needs are not being challenged, he can look like a normal person - it's what has made him a successful con man.  When he is challenged, however, his cruelty, sadism, paranoia, lack of conscience, incitement to violence and active pursuit of policies that kill people become obvious. These traits are properly described as "evil." In professional terms, they mean he is a psychopath.

At his rally in Tulsa, Donald Trump admitted to ordering that testing for the coronavirus be limited and slowed down so that it would appear that fewer Americans are becoming ill in this pandemic. In Trump's mind, this helps his re-election chances. Trump is killing people. Does he know that he is doing that? Or is he so delusional that he cannot connect his actions to the many thousands of Americans who are now dead?

Trump knows what he is doing, and he does not care. Many people cannot accept that Trump doesn't care about all this human suffering because they cannot grasp the idea of the president of the United States being as deeply disturbed as he is. That denial is a pretty normal reaction; nobody wants to believe we have a president who lacks human empathy and is willing for others to die for his personal gain.

Donald Trump continues to accuse former President Barack Obama of being a "traitor" and committing "treason." This is another example of Trump threatening violence and death - treason has often been punished with execution - against his political enemies. How much of this behavior is a function of Trump's projecting his own guilt on other people?

Donald Trump is incapable of guilt. In the most obvious and primitive way, often seen in very young children, he accuses others of exactly what he has done. He knows that he has committed treason, not only because of the Russian interference in the 2016 election but because he is actively and aggressively undermining the Constitution, democracy and the rule of law. His accusing others of treason was, therefore, entirely predictable. Reversing the truth is a tactic used by psychopathic dictators forever, as in destroying democratic governments in order to "restore democracy." Unfortunately, such simple tactics often work and it's only years later that citizens wake up to the fact they've been conquered from within.

How do we make sense of the standard deflection where some people say that it is all "hyperbole," and that Trump would never actually kill anybody?

Donald Trump has already killed people. He is killing people all the time through his willful negligent handling of the coronavirus pandemic in order to improve his election chances. More than 120,000 Americans have died because of Trump's behavior. His incitements to racist violence have likewise caused deaths from racist crime. There is by now overwhelming evidence that Donald Trump cares nothing about anyone else's life.

John Bolton's new book confirms that members of Trump's staff, including cabinet officials, mock and make fun of the president behind his back. How will Trump react when he learns he is so disrespected by the people around him, people who are supposed to be loyal to him?

If Donald Trump believes that people in his inner circle are even criticizing him, much less mocking him, he will do whatever he can to harm them, starting with firing them but then slandering and blaming them for his actions.

Bolton details how Trump wants journalists to be killed and imprisoned. Bolton's also writes about Trump's support for the concentration camps in China where Uighur Muslims have been tortured, and even reportedly have their organs "harvested" without anesthesia.

How is that different from what Hitler did? How is it different from what Stalin did? Dictators always want to punish journalists. The last thing that Donald Trump wants is a free press. It is another way in which he is an existential threat to democracy.

Bolton's book also reveals that hostile foreign leaders such as Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un and others have learned that all they have to do is flatter and complement Trump in order to get what they want from him. Trump is very malleable and easily manipulated. If you were going to advise somebody about how to manipulate Donald Trump, what would you tell them to do?

It is extremely easy to manipulate Donald Trump, since he cares only about being worshiped and is indifferent to the truth or facts. From the very earliest days of his presidency, people marveled that Trump changed his views every five minutes in the direction of the last person he talked with. If you worship him, then you control Trump until the next person worships him. There is every reason to think that he has been successfully manipulated by emotionally stronger leaders of other nations.

Donald Trump has all this power, but he appears to be very lonely, sad and empty. Trump imagines himself to be a type of god, but he behaves like a small, petty, pitiable person. There is something very sad about the whole spectacle. 

Normal people have a tendency to project onto Trump their own humanity - their normal sense of empathy, care, concern for others, their sadness and loneliness. This is a mistake because Donald Trump has never shown the capacity for those feelings. There is nothing in his history or behavior to suggest he has any feelings beyond those of the predator: sadistic triumph if he can defeat or destroy others, and rage and violence if he feels attacked or is at risk of losing.

At present, Donald Trump trails presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden by double digits. If the polls are correct and Donald Trump loses on Election Day, how will he react? What advice would you give to the American people about these upcoming months?

As Hitler did to consolidate his power, it is likely that Trump will create some type of Reichstag incident, such as starting a war with China or Iran, attempting to fool the American people into thinking there is a crisis that requires total obedience to him. There is a serious probability that he will try to cancel the 2020 election, given that he has already claimed the election will be invalid and is fighting to disallow or prevent votes by people who oppose him. Trump is telegraphing his plans for all to see. What we need to see is that Donald Trump is fundamentally psychologically defective, that he is a psychopath who will destroy decency and democracy if his efforts to do this are not recognized in time.

New report explains why Trump is facing "˜not just defeat but humiliation' in November

on July 3, 2020
By Cody Fenwick, AlterNet

A report Thursday night in the New York Times dove into the behind-the-scenes details of a terrible month for President Donald Trump's re-election campaign.

While Trump's prospects against former Vice President Joe Biden have never been bright - the president has never once taken the lead in the RealClearPolitics average of their head-to-head national polls - things have gone from bad to worse.

"June represented the political nadir of his three and a half years in the Oval Office, when a race in which he had been steadily trailing, but faring respectably, broke open and left him facing the possibility of not just defeat but humiliation this fall," the Times reported.

It found that internal campaign polls have shown Trump losing Georgia and even Kansas - which few have considered even a potential swing state.

Within the campaign, the grim external reality is reflected by tumultuous power struggles. Though there are doubts about whether Trump will fire his campaign manager after the recent disastrous Tulsa rally, the Times reported that the president's son-in-law is openly hostile with Brad Parscale:

    Mr. Kushner and Mr. Parscale appear increasingly at odds. Mr. Kushner has sent mixed signals about his view of the campaign manager: In a meeting with Republican officials this week, Mr. Kushner repeatedly shushed Mr. Parscale and told him to "shut up," according to multiple people familiar with the events, but at other times he has urged friends of the president to tell Mr. Trump they think Mr. Parscale is doing a good job.

Of course, the truth is that regardless of the quality of the president's campaign, his team can't spin the way out of the mess he has created. The economy is in tatters, the virus he has repeatedly downplayed is resurgent, and Trump is a walking disaster. It's a terrible environment for an incumbent to run in, and Trump only makes it worse for himself. The Times noted that the morning after one top GOP donor, Bernard Marcus, convinced Trump that his campaign was in trouble, the president sent his now-infamous "white power" tweet.

The report explained:

    Last month's convergence of crises, and the president's missteps in responding to them, have been well-chronicled: his inflammatory response to racial justice protesters and his ill-considered rally in Tulsa, his refusal to acknowledge the resurgent virus or seriously address detailed reports about Russian operatives' putting a cash bounty on American soldiers. It's this kind of behavior, polls indicate, that has alienated swaths of swing voters.

But everyone knows he's like this, and everyone knows he's not going to change. It's always possible that things could somehow turn around for the president, of course, but that would almost certainly be due to sheer luck.

Another report from Vanity Fair's Gabriel Sherman painted Trump as despondent and out of sorts about the state of his re-elect:

    Republicans that have spoken with Trump in recent days describe him as depressed and "down in the dumps." "People around him think his heart's not in it," a Republican close to the White House said. Torn between the imperative to win suburban voters and his instincts to play to his base, Trump has complained to people that he's in a political box with no obvious way out. According to the Republican, Trump called Tucker Carlson late last week and said, "what do I do? What do I do?"

Sherman also reported that Trump's hoped-for in-person Republican National Convention may turn out to be a bust:

    This week, Jacksonville, Florida-where Trump moved the Republican National Convention so he could hold a 15,000-person rally next month-mandated that people wear masks indoors to slow the explosion of COVID-19 cases. According to a Republican working on the convention, the campaign is now preparing to cancel the event so that Trump doesn't suffer another Tulsa-like humiliation. "They probably won't have it," the source said. "It's not going to be the soft landing Trump wanted."

That would really sour his mood.

CNBC founder claims Trump has a specific plan in hand to stay in office no matter what the voters decide

on July 3, 2020
Raw Story
By Tom Boggioni

Appearing on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" with hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, the founder of CNBC walked viewers through a scenario where Donald Trump would attempt to remain president even if he is rejected by the voters in November.

Speaking with hosts, Tom Rogers along with co-author former Senator Tim Wirth (D-CO) explained the central point of their piece in Newsweek that proposes: "How Trump Could Lose the Election- and Still Remain President."

According to Rogers, who began by saying his scenario was "not farfetched" he believes Trump has no chance of winning the election and will do anything to remain in office.
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"This is how it happens, Biden wins," he began. "I don't just mean the popular vote, he wins the key swing states, he wins the electoral college. President Trump says there's been Chinese interference in the election. He's been talking about Biden's soft on China - China wanted Biden to win so he says a national emergency; the Chinese have intervened in the election."

"Why do I think that's real?" he continued. "Just ten days ago he tweeted, he actually tweeted, "˜rigged 2020 election,' millions of mail-in ballots will be printed by foreign countries it will be the scandal of our times. so he's laying the groundwork for this. So he does an investigation and [Attorney General Bill] Barr backs this up with all kinds of legal opinions about emergency powers that the president has."

"Then what happens is it's all geared towards December 14th. Why December 14th? Well, that's the deadline when the electors of the states have to be chosen," he elaborated. "Why is that key? Because that's what the Supreme Court used in Bush v. Gore to cut off the Florida counting. They keep this national emergency investigation going through December 14th. Biden, of course, challenges this in the courts and says, "˜hey, we won these states, I want the electors that favored me named. The Supreme Court doesn't throw the election to the republicans as it did in 2000, instead it says, "˜look, there's a deadline here.' If they can't be certified in these states because of this investigation going on, there's a constitutional process for this."

"What's the constitutional process? It goes to the House of Representatives," Roger continued. "Everybody says, "˜that's good. Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats control the House. No. when a presidential election is thrown into the House of Representatives under the Constitution, it's state-by-state vote. each state gets one vote based on the number of Republicans and Democrats in that delegation. Today Republicans control the House on that kind of vote it 26-23 with on delegation, Pennsylvania split. Even if Pennsylvania was to elect a Democratic delegation, come this new election because it's the new Congress that votes here, it would be 26 to 24 Republicans and Trump retains the presidency."

He then concluded, "It is not so farfetched - he Trump is planning to do this."

Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9BYI9qBIP8&feature=emb_title

'We've got to do something': Republican rebels come together to take on Trump

A slew of organized Republican groups have sprung up to do all they can to defeat Trump in November. Will their effort work?

Daniel Straussin Washington
Guardian
Sun 5 Jul 2020 10.00 BST

Trump has enjoyed high approval ratings among his base - but a growing band of disgruntled Republicans is doing its best to force him out.

Just like in 2016, a faction of the Republican party has emerged to try to defeat Donald Trump in the upcoming presidential election.

But unlike the last presidential race, where the effort never truly took off, this time those rebel Republicans have formed better organized groups - and some are even openly backing Trump's Democratic opponent, Joe Biden.

In 2016, as Trump steamrolled his way through the Republican primary, some Republican lawmakers and operatives tried to mount an effort to stop him. Elected officials and veterans of previous Republican administrations organized letters, endorsed Hillary Clinton, and a few set up meager outside groups to defeat Trump.

That's happening again - but there are differences. The outside groups are more numerous and better organized, and most importantly, Trump has a governing record on which Republicans can use to decide whether to support him or not.

"I think it's qualitatively different," said Republican operative Tim Miller, who co-founded one of the main anti-Trump organizations. "A lot of people who opposed [Trump] did the whole, "˜Oh, Hillary's also bad, and Trump's bad, and everybody can vote their conscience' kind of thing."

Miller said that 2016's effort was far more of a "pox on both your houses" phenomenon versus 2020's "organized effort to defeat him".

The latest prominent Republican anti-Trump organization made its debut in early July. It's a Super Pac called 43 Alumni for Biden, and aims to rally alumni of George W Bush's administration to support the Democrat.

The new Super Pac was co-founded by Kristopher Purcell, a former Bush administration official; John Farner, who worked in the commerce department during the Bush administration; and Karen Kirksey, another longtime Republican operative. Kirksey is the Super Pac's director.

"We're truly a grassroots organization. Our goal is to do whatever we can to elect Joe Biden as president," said Farner.

The Super Pac is still in its early stages and isn't setting expectations on raising something like $20m. Rather, 43 Alumni for Biden is just focused on organizing.

"After seeing three and a half years of chaos and incompetence and division, a lot of people have just been pushed to say, "˜We have got to do something else," Purcell said. "We may not be fully on board with the Democratic agenda, but this is a one-issue election. "˜Are you for Donald Trump, or are you for America.'"

    This is a one-issue election. Are you for Trump, or are you for America?
    Kristopher Purcell

43 Alumni for Biden is new compared with two other larger anti-Republican groups.

The best-knownis the Lincoln Project, a political action committee founded in 2019 by Republican strategists who have long been critical of Trump.

The Lincoln Project has made a name for itself for its creative anti-Trump ads. It has also brought on veteran Republican strategists like Stu Stevens, a top adviser for now-Utah senator Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign. George Conway, the husband of Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway, is also a co-founder of the group.

Unlike other anti-Trump groups, the Lincoln Project has weighed in to Senate races and has begun endorsing Senate candidates. It has backed the Montana governor, Steve Bullock, in his Senate bid against the sitting Republican Steve Daines.

Then there's Republican Voters Against Trump, a group led by Bill Kristol, a well-known neoconservative and former chief of staff to then vice-president Dan Quayle, and Republican consultants Sarah Longwell and Tim Miller.

That group is focused on organizing anti-Trump Republicans.

"Lincoln is doing two things really well. One is narrative-setting, and just beating Trump over the head with hard-hitting attacks," Miller said. "And they're also working on Senate races, which we're not doing. I think that, frankly, they're bringing the sledgehammer and working on Senate races, and we are elevating these peer voices in a way to persuade voters."

A set of Republican national security officials has also emerged in opposition to Trump.

That group hasn't given itself a name yet, and includes the former Bush homeland security adviser Ken Wainstein, and John Bellinger III, who served in the state department. The group is looking to rally national security officials away from Trump - either by supporting Biden or writing in someone else.

Even with all the organizing by these groups, there's still the persistent fact that swaths of former Republican officials and operatives methodically endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016, and since then Trump has enjoyed sky-high approval ratings among the Republican party electorate.

But these groups say that was a result of Americans having not yet experienced a Trump presidency. They also say that the reason elected officials aren't coming out to support Biden is because they're worried about the blowback.

Colleen Graffey, part of the national security group of Republicans opposing Trump, said the reason some elected Republican officials aren't coming out to oppose Trump publicly is because they're scared.

"They're worried they're going to be primaried," Graffey said. "They're worried they're going to be tweeted, if that can be a weaponized verb."

Asked what his big fear is now, Farner said it's that Republicans won't come out to vote at all.

"My fear is that they will not come out and vote. And we're here to say that it's OK. We're putting ourselves out here too," Farner said. "It's OK."

***************

Biden builds lead as Trump goes from trailing to flailing

Biden's polling lead over Trump is significant, though not unprecedented.

By DAVID SIDERS
Politico
07/05/2020 07:00 AM EDT
 
As recently as one month ago, Donald Trump was merely losing. Now he is flailing, trudging into the Independence Day weekend at the nadir of his presidency, trailing by double digits in recent polls and in danger of dragging the Republican Senate down with him.

But there are still four months before the election - and any number of ways for Biden to blow it.

Even the best campaigns "can get f----- up," said Kelly Dietrich, founder of the National Democratic Training Committee, which trains candidates across the country. "There are a million ways to lose."

Dietrich, like even the most circumspect observers of the 2020 campaign, does not predict that Biden will fall apart. But Democrats carry checklists in their minds of the universe of things that could alter the course of the campaign.

Biden might say the wrong thing at a debate, or have an awkward moment in an interview or at a press conference. Trump's massive advertising campaign might begin to resonate, hurting Biden's favorability ratings. Biden's campaign might make poor decisions about spending allocations in the battleground states, or the coverage of his campaign may sour if he loses even a percentage point or two in polls. Presidential candidates with large leads have all suffered from less.

And then there are the factors outside of Biden's control. It is possible that Trump before November will announce a coronavirus vaccine, whether real or imagined. And it is possible that the economy will improve, a prospect Republicans are pinning their hopes to.

So much has changed over such a short period of time - so far, much of it to Biden's advantage - that it's impossible to rule out any kind of black swan political event.

Late this week, Les Francis, a Democratic strategist and former deputy White House chief of staff in the Carter administration, sent an email to a circle of friends, including a former congressman and former administration officials, with the subject line, "123 days until the election - and a sobering prospect."

Right now, he said, "Trump is more than vulnerable." But then he went on to outline a scenario in which Republicans hold down turnout and sufficiently harden Trump's base.

"Think it can't work?" Francis concluded. "Think again."

Biden's polling lead over Trump is significant, but not unprecedented. The RealClearPolitics polling average has Biden running ahead of Trump by just less than 9 percentage points.

Richard Nixon maintained double-digit leads over Hubert Humphrey throughout the summer of 1968, then was forced to scramble in the fall as Humphrey surged. Twenty years later, following that year's Democratic National Convention, a Gallup Poll put Michael Dukakis' lead over George H.W. Bush at 17 percentage points. As they do today, voters that summer appeared eager for change - before abandoning Dukakis and voting for Bush.

"Sometimes things can look very, very comfortable and it changes, it can change very, very quickly," said Ken Khachigian, a former aide to Nixon and chief speechwriter for Ronald Reagan. "The psyche of the American voter can be affected by events very dramatically between Labor Day and Election Day."

If he were running Biden's campaign, he said, "I'd be feeling pretty good now, but I wouldn't be buying property in Northwest Washington quite yet."

Perhaps nothing is more indicative of Biden's growing advantage than the changing frames of reference required to doubt it. Throughout the Democratic primary, Biden was so widely expected to implode that several other centrist candidates premised their entire campaigns on the expectation. Then came the comparisons to 2016 - and the polls that put Hillary Clinton ahead at a similar point in the campaign. After it became clear that Biden was on stronger footing than Clinton, the unpersuaded reached back further for examples of catastrophe.

Often, they settle on Dukakis and his race against Bush.

In one way, that election is uniquely on point for Biden. It was during the 1987 primary - his first run for president - that a plagiarism scandal engulfed Biden's campaign, with the discovery he had lifted lines from a speech by British Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock.

"If there's one thing we learned from '88, Biden is capable of screwing up big time," said John J. Pitney Jr., who helped on Bush's campaign in 1988 and wrote a book about that election last year.

Pitney, who went on to become an acting director of research at the Republican National Committee, said that in the current race between Biden and Trump, "you'd have to rate [Biden] as a decisive favorite at this point."

However, he said, "What we found in 2016 is even a few points in a few states can make all the difference, so that's why Biden shouldn't be counting on napping through September and October."

So far, Biden appears not to be. He has raised more money than Trump for two months in a row, and his campaign recently went up with its first major advertising offensive of the general election. Biden is taking more steps out of his Delaware home, where he has remained throughout much of the coronavirus pandemic. He said this week that he "can hardly wait" to debate Trump.

Former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who ran for president in 2008 and was initially skeptical of Biden's decision to remain cloistered at home, said that there is "no historical context for what's happening, at least in my lifetime."

"I thought it was a mistake to run a low-key race," he said. "But given Trump's erratic behavior and his miscues "¦ for now, Biden is running a perfect race, which means let Trump be Trump, let him self-destruct."

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Trump has privately acknowledged he's losing, and he is desperate to correct course. Republicans view the debates as an opportunity to gain ground, as Bush did following Dukakis' emotionless response to a question about the death penalty in the event his wife, Kitty, "were raped and murdered."

And Trump's campaign is just beginning to swamp the airwaves with negative ads about the presumptive Democratic nominee. In a campaign not unlike the Lee Atwater-orchestrated assault on Dukakis' fitness to serve, Trump is airing ads casting Biden as aged and confused, with mental capabilities that are "clearly diminished."

Phil Angelides, the former California state treasurer who was a major fundraiser for Dukakis and who has bundled money for every Democratic nominee since, said that after Trump's victory in 2016, "I don't think we can take anything for granted."

But Dukakis, he said, was not as well known to voters as Biden. And the economic conditions that year were far better than they are now.

"It was a pretty good environment for the incumbent [party], unlike today," Angelides said.

If anything, the underlying environment may be historically bad for Trump - so bad he may not only get flattened in November, but he might become the proximate cause of a wholesale shift in the American electorate.

Seniors and suburban voters, two longtime pillars of the Republican coalition, are defecting to Joe Biden. Once-red states suddenly seem competitive, and children of Reagan Democrats are marching in the streets.

"The tectonic plates are shifting," said Chris Lehane, a former Clinton White House staffer who helped to manage the turmoil surrounding that president's impeachment proceedings. "On June 1, if I had told you that by July 1 the flag would be down in Mississippi, Woodrow Wilson would be off the wall at Princeton, Juneteenth would be a national holiday for companies, Black Lives Matter would reflect the great, not so silent majority, you would question my sanity. That's all happened in 30 days."

In the midterm elections, suburban voters revolted against the president. And then came the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed about 130,000 people in the United States. Trump's favorability rating cratered, and his problems were compounded by the civil unrest following the death of George Floyd. While Trump responded with a stream of "law and order" rhetoric, streets filled with protests amid a national reckoning on race.

"The pandemic's bad enough for Trump, because he BS'd his way through it," said Paul Maslin, a top Democratic pollster who worked on the presidential campaigns of Jimmy Carter and Howard Dean. "What George Floyd did is it served to activate this other America to say, "˜Wait a minute, who are we?'"

It is possible that the election will be close, he said. But "it wouldn't surprise me if it ends up between 8 and 10" points - a landslide for Biden.

Dietrich, at the National Democratic Training Committee, said Friday, "Can we have the election this afternoon? We'd wipe the f------ board with him right now. But polls and momentum, they're a snapshot "¦ We have absolutely no idea where we'll be in November."

Still, he said, "I would rather be us than them."

************

Republicans have gone silent about their internal polls because they show a "˜Democratic rout': Election analyst

on July 5, 2020
Raw Story
By Matthew Chapman

On Saturday, writing for CNN, elections forecaster Harry Enten argued that it's not just public polls showing President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans losing big in November - it's the GOP's private internal polls, too.

"Perhaps, it's not surprising then that when one party puts out a lot more internal polls than normal, it is good for their side," wrote Enten. "Parties tend to release good polling when they have it. Since 2004, there has been a near perfect correlation (+0.96 on a scale from -1 to +1) between the share of partisan polls released by the Democrats and the November results."

"Right now, Democrats and liberal groups are releasing a lot more surveys than Republicans, which suggests the public polling showing Democrats doing well is backed up by what the parties are seeing in their own numbers," continued Enten. "Democratic and liberal aligned groups have put out 17 House polls taken in April or later. Republican aligned groups have put out 0. That's a very bad ratio for Republicans."
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This stands in contrast to the pre-coronavirus polling landscape, argued Enten, when it was Republican-aligned groups releasing more polls - further suggesting that the pandemic has mortally wounded the president and his allies, and tacking with recent reports that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) may start advising GOP incumbents to distance themselves from Trump.

"This reminds me a lot of what happened just two years ago. Almost universally, Democrats were the ones publishing their House polls publicly. They went on to have a net gain of 40 seats in the House. Democrats also won the House popular vote by 9 points," wrote Enten. "Indeed, the 2018 example speaks to a larger pattern going back since 2004. Although Democrats tend to publish more internal polls publically, they do very well when that advantage is overwhelming."

"For Republicans, something needs to change or they're going to get blown out come November," concluded Enten.

SCOTUS says states can force Electoral College delegates to vote for the popular winner: report

on July 6, 2020
Raw Story
By Matthew Chapman

On Monday, the Supreme Court handed down a long-anticipated decision on the constitutionality of laws prohibiting so-called "faithless electors."

In a unanimous 9-0 ruling, the court found that it is constitutional for states to force delegates in the Electoral College to cast a vote in line with the result of the popular vote winner for president in that state - and can remove and replace them if they refuse to do so.

Thirty-two states currently have such laws on the books, which effectively guarantee that the winner of their states' electors will be decided by the popular vote.

Faithless electors have occurred in a number of elections throughout American history, including a handful in the 2016 election in both red and blue states who refused to vote for the winner of their state. However, electors have never broken ranks in large enough numbers to significantly shift the outcome of a presidential election.

"˜A Democratic tsunami': Top election forecaster changes 2020 prediction

on July 9, 2020
By Alex Henderson, AlterNet

President Donald Trump and his supporters are hoping that if his hardcore MAGA base shows up in big numbers in November and Democratic turnout is weak, he will be able to pull off another Electoral College victory. In order for that to happen, Trump will need to fire up his base as much as possible in swing states.

But according to new, updated analysis from the Cook Political Report, former Vice President Joe Biden has an increasing advantage in many of the swing states that Trump needs to win.

"This election is looking more like a Democratic tsunami than simply a blue wave," Cook's Amy Walter reports. "President Trump, mired in some of the lowest job approval ratings of his presidency, is trailing Biden by significant margins in key battleground states like Pennsylvania (8 points), Michigan (9 points) and Wisconsin (9 points). He's even running behind Biden in his firewall states of Florida and North Carolina."

This month, Walter explains, Biden is looking even better in swing states than he did in June - and Cook has changed its Electoral College ratings to "reflect this reality."

Walter explains that according to Cook's analysis this week, "Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Nebraska's 2nd District move from "˜toss-up' to "˜lean Democrat.' Maine, once in "˜lean Democrat,' moves to the safer "˜likely Democratic category.'"

The Cook reporter adds, "Georgia has joined Arizona, North Carolina and Florida in the "˜toss-up' column, although at this point, Biden would be slightly favored to win at least Arizona and Florida."

Florida has been a swing state for a long time. President George W. Bush won Florida twice, but so did President Barack Obama - before Trump carried the state in 2016. But only in recent years has once-red Arizona become a swing state.

The victory of Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema in Arizona was one of the big political bombshells of 2018, and poll after poll has shown Republican Sen. Martha McSally trailing Democrat Mark Kelly in this year's U.S. Senate race in that state. Moreover, Biden appears to be quite competitive in Arizona, which for decades, was a deep red state synonymous with the conservatism of Sen. Barry Goldwater and later, Sen. John McCain.

Trump's poor performance in recent polls is being felt on Wall Street: according to Axios reporter Dino Rabouin, Wall Street is now betting on a Biden victory - a change from earlier this year.

Rabouin reports: "Betting markets have turned decisively toward an expected victory for Joe Biden in November - and asset managers at major investment banks are preparing for not only a Biden win, but potentially, a Democratic sweep of the Senate and House too"¦. The shift is the latest indicator of how quickly the political and business worlds have aligned in the view that Trump is unlikely to win a second term as COVID-19 infection numbers have spiked again and the economy looks to be stalling."

On May 11, Rabouin reported that Wall Street was expecting Trump to win a second term. But more recently, according to Rabouin: "A Citigroup poll of 140 fund managers released last week found that 62% expect a Biden win, compared to 70% who expected a Trump victory in the same survey in December. And according to Kace Capital Advisors Managing Director Kenny Polcari, "˜Talk of a Democratic sweep (is) now common' among investors."

Walter, on Cook's website, stresses that the "Democratic tsunami" in November could include not only Trump losing to Biden, but also, Democrats retaking the U.S. Senate and expanding their majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.

None of that is to say that Trump won't turn things around between now and November. There were summer polls that, in 1988's presidential race, showed Democratic nominee Mike Dukakis with a double-digit lead over Vice President George H.W. Bush. But in 1988, the U.S. wasn't coping with the world's deadliest pandemic in more than 100 years.

Walter adds the caveat that the race could still change, noting:

    One of the biggest unknowns, however, is voting itself. As we've seen this spring and early summer, most states are not prepared for an onslaught of absentee ballots. And confusion about how/where to vote could impact turnout.

She also floats the possibility of voters splitting their ticket this year - that is, voting for Biden over Trump but voting GOP in Senate and House races. However, a GOP strategist interviewed by Cook is predicting that many voters will go straight Democratic this time.

"If voters start to sense that the race for president is a blow-out, will they be more willing to split their tickets to ensure a "˜check and balance' in Washington next fall?" Walter writes. "At least one Republican I spoke with, however, was wary of a check-and-balance working this year, telling me that "˜people are looking for a restart and a reset.' That includes down-ballot candidates as well as the president."

How Republicans are using technology to deny your right to vote

By Erik Sherman, DC Report @ Raw Story - Commentary
on July 9, 2020

This article was paid for by Raw Story subscribers. Not a subscriber? Try us and go ad-free for $1. Prefer to give a one-time tip? Click here.

How do you win an election? You could gain a majority of votes. Or you can cheat-as Republicans have been doing in force since 2010-with gerrymandering and other forms of suppression across the country so the minority party can gain and hold power even as its numbers shrink.

Now those who would discourage or disable unwanted ballots have a new potential tool: voting machines. If there aren't enough working machines to enable people to cast their ballots, you blunt their will.

Manipulative conservative GOP politicians have a long history of actively attempting to interfere with voters they considered "unfriendly" or even "unworthy."
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    Republicans are investing $20 million in a plan to challenge votes, even though evidence of widespread voter fraud is non-existent.

Photo ID requirements, slashing available polling places in minority and poor areas, the Supreme Court's evisceration of the Voting Rights Act, adoption of effective poll taxes, and other tactics have resurfaced to target moderate or progressive voters.

Last December, Justin Clark, a top re-election advisor of Donald Trump was caught on a recording admitting this inconvenient truth:  "Traditionally it's always been Republicans suppressing votes in places "¦ It's going to be a much bigger program [in 2020], a much more aggressive program, a much better-funded program," as the Associated Press reported.

Later, Clark claimed he was referring to false allegations of attempted vote-rigging.

But that isn't the only evidence.

In 2016, Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.) said: "Well I think Hillary Clinton is about the weakest candidate that the Democrats have ever put up and now we have photo ID. I think photo ID is going to make a little bit of a difference as well."

Republicans this year are investing $20 million in a plan to challenge votes, even though evidence of widespread voter fraud is non-existent.

The Heritage Foundation list of voter fraud cases that argues for ID laws is a thin read. For instance, it shows only 77 cases in 2010 scattered throughout the country. That would be barely enough, if gathered, to affect the outcome of an election in a small town.

There is one well-documented example, which prosecutors allege happened on behalf of a GOP candidate in North Carolina-a case Republicans have done their best to downplay and ignore.

However, the GOP will spend tens of millions because harassment might reduce turnout for Democrats.

Machine-Aided Suppression

Now there's a new front in potential voter suppression: voting machines.

There's a virtual industry of voting machine lobbyists, as Sue Halpern of the New Yorker reported. Often the attempt is to steer business away from a requirement for paper-ballot systems and toward fully electronic ones, even though paper is less expensive, more secure, can be audited and is otherwise reliable.

Hacking or manipulating the machines to change outcomes-long a concern of security and voting experts-isn't the biggest problem. In practice, the Brennan Center for Justice has noted, that "vote flipping" is more likely a result of aging machines that act erratically from wear and tear.

The more realistic and immediate danger is the way technology can throw a wrench into the election process.

Ballot Breakdowns

Voting machines, especially the so-called ballot-market devices, or BMDs, have significant weaknesses. "If a touchscreen goes down, it's out of service until it's fixed," said Christopher Deluzio, policy director of the University of Pittsburgh Institute for Cyber Law. "That machine is out of service for the voters to have a ballot printed."

The issue isn't theoretical. "You want to vote on paper because there have been a number of instances where machine failure meant votes were lost," Susannah Goodman, Common Cause's director of election security, told DCReport. "That's a known fact."

Then, as Deluzio-who served on a commission that audited Pennsylvania's voting system infrastructure-notes, the machines are expensive. "The BMB options were costing roughly twice as much per voter," as paper ballots, he said.

The potential for equipment failing, combined with elevated costs that keep governments from having plenty of spares (unlike stockpiling additional pencils), means the chance that citizens will find it difficult to vote.

Georgia on Their Minds

Georgia's primary election in early June was a disaster so vast that Brad Raffensperger, the Republican secretary of state, called it "unacceptable" and vowed to investigate, according to NBC News.

The problems, which generally appeared in minority neighborhoods, caused multi-hour waits for people to exercise their franchise.

"I don't think voter suppression was the idea behind it," said Common Cause's Goodman. But when there aren't enough machines to let people vote efficiently, that doesn't matter.

"I do think there's a real serious problem with the number of machines deployed," Goodman added. "If you're only going to let voters use a machine, then you damned well better be sure there are enough."

"Especially in Georgia, they didn't have enough machines and when the machines broke down, they didn't fix them fast enough, replace them," she said. "And it was in the areas that are more minority."

In addition, the machines use a QR bar code that is the actual vote that will run through a scanner for the count. There is readable text as well, but, significantly, no way to know whether it represents what is in the QR code.

Kentucky's Near Nightmare

This is exactly what many worried about Kentucky. Would minority residents get a fair chance to vote?

Only one polling place and 350 ballot machines were available last month for all of  of Jefferson County, home to the state's largest city, Louisville, and many minority residents. Half of Black Kentuckians live in that county. Which at 389 square miles is the equivalent of 17 Manhattans.

There were widespread expectations of voter suppression in the primary vote on June 23.

Even though the procedure seemed largely smooth-because pandemic-driven mail-in voting and early voting took pressure off in-person-the concerns were reasonable.

Stephen Voss, professor of political science at the University of Kentucky, argued that an "alienating" process tended to disenfranchise "people with lower socioeconomic standing," many of whom could no longer walk to their local polling place.

A higher in-person turnout, which couldn't have been ruled out, would have made the situation far worse.

There are 616,523 registered voters in Jefferson County, which had a ratio of one voting machine to 1,762 voters, the highest in the state. That was 70% more than the next highest, a DCReport analysis of Kentucky state voting data found. The median figure was 379 voters per machine and the smallest was 150.

Even if voting took no more than five minutes per person, only a tenth of voters appeared and there were no breakdowns, each Jefferson County machine would have been busy for nearly 15 hours. Polls opened for only 12. Had every voter showed up, the polls would have needed to remain open for six days and until dawn on the seventh.

Areas with fewer financial resources might not be able to afford sufficient voting machines for people to cast ballots during the brief periods when the polls are open, constraining the process. That means that residents of less affluent areas can find themselves facing election disaster as their voices are subtly quashed.

Voters should push back on the lobbying and the assurances that technology solves all problems. Simple paper ballots, hand-marked with pencil or pen, should be standard issue at every polling place. Scan the ballots later when there is time.

Focus on ensuring the most fundamental right of citizenship-the ability to vote-is available to all.

Even if those people aren't financially comfortable White Republicans.

Excerpts from:

Trump's Loss at the Supreme Court Is a Win for His Candidacy
The president may eventually face legal liability, but he will not face a public reckoning for his actions before November.
David Frum, The Atlantic
July 9, 2020
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/trump-candidate-won-trump-man-lost/613960/

"The Supreme Court rebuked Donald Trump, the arrogant president. The Supreme Court has prepared a world of trouble for Donald Trump, the dirty businessman. But the Supreme Court has done a tremendous favor to Donald Trump, the candidate for reelection."

"Trump's legal arguments to protect his business records from subpoena were always miserably flimsy...always bound to lose."

"But Trump's legal strategy was cannier than his legal arguments. The strategy was to play for time, to push the day of reckoning beyond November 2020. That strategy has now paid off."

"The Court turned back, for now, the subpoenas that could enlighten the public: those issued by the House of Representatives. That case will be reargued in lower courts, under new rules that suggest the House will win eventually. But it will not win soon-and that's all candidate Trump cares about.

"Trump has lived his whole life one jump ahead of the law."

"What Trump has never before faced-and what, thanks to the Supreme Court, he will not face before November-is a public reckoning for his acts. He has lived a lie, presenting himself as a great American businessman. In the eyes of much of the American electorate, that lie will continue past Election Day."

"In every way Trump cares about at this moment, he has gotten away with it...The Supreme Court saved Trump today."

***
Future presidents won't invent crazy immunities for the same reason that past presidents did not invent crazy immunities: they did not have lifelong records of financial fraud to conceal. That's only Trump. Today Trump got the OK to conceal, not forever, but just long enough.
---David Frum (@davidfrum) July 9, 2020

In 2010, Ivanka and Don Jr were nearly indicted for felony fraud. The district attorney who dropped the case -- after a hefty donation from Trump's lawyer -- was Cy Vance. SCOTUS ruled that Vance, not Congress, can access Trump's tax returns.
---Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) July 9, 2020

In "˜Buy American' Speech, Biden Challenges Trump on the Economy

Joseph R. Biden Jr. laid out a populist economic vision with the tagline "Build Back Better," part of an effort to confront President Trump on his strongest issue in polling

By Shane Goldmacher and Jim Tankersley
NY Times
July 10, 2020

Joseph R. Biden Jr. laid out a populist economic vision to revive and reinvest in American manufacturing on Thursday, calling for major new spending and stricter new rules to "Buy American" as part of an effort to more aggressively challenge President Trump on two of his signature issues: the economy and nationalism.

In a speech in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, Mr. Biden lacerated Mr. Trump for a bungled response to the coronavirus pandemic that has deepened the economic crisis and a misplaced focus on the stock market, while framing his own economic agenda around a new campaign tagline, "Build Back Better."

In some ways, Mr. Biden was seizing the "Buy American" message from Mr. Trump himself, who campaigned on an "America First" agenda in 2016 and wrote on Twitter on his Inauguration Day that "Buy American" and "Hire American" were "two simple rules" that would guide his administration.

Mr. Biden said his plans would leverage trade, tax and investment policy to spur domestic innovation, reduce the reliance on foreign manufacturing and create five million additional American manufacturing and innovation jobs.

"I do not buy for one second that the vitality of American manufacturing is a thing of the past," Mr. Biden said, speaking at a metalworks factory in Dunmore not far from his childhood home of Scranton, a place where Mr. Biden often returns rhetorically to emphasize his blue-collar roots.

"When the federal government spends taxpayers' money, we should use it to buy American products and support American jobs," he added.

On the same day, Vice President Mike Pence embarked on a Trump campaign bus tour across Pennsylvania, a sign of the state's significance in the Electoral College calculations of both campaigns.

Mr. Biden's campaign is riding high in the polls but his advisers, as well as Republican strategists, still see the economy as perhaps his area of greatest vulnerability against Mr. Trump. The president's campaign - and the president himself when on message - has tried to argue that he oversaw a booming economy until the coronavirus pandemic brought about an "artificial" slowdown.

House Republican leaders recently briefed their members on polling showing Mr. Trump's enduring advantage on the economy, and a recent New York Times/Siena College poll showed the economy as perhaps a lone bright spot for the president, even as he trailed by 14 percentage points over all.

"The one issue that Trump really has going for him is who's better to handle the economy," said Stephen Moore, a member of Mr. Trump's economic recovery task force, who added that Mr. Biden's agenda, which includes rolling back some of the Trump administration's corporate tax cuts, would damage the economy.

Mr. Biden has long cast himself as a champion of the American worker, particularly as vice president, when he led the Obama administration's Middle Class Task Force and oversaw implementation of the 2009 economic stimulus bill. But he has faced criticism from Mr. Trump and from progressive former rivals like Senator Bernie Sanders over his support for the North American Free Trade Agreement in the 1990s and other trade deals that followed.

On Thursday, the Trump campaign announced a new television ad attacking Mr. Biden's record as "dangerous and foolish," highlighting Mr. Biden's vote for NAFTA in 1993 and his past support for trade relations with China and for the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

The Pennsylvania speech was the first of several steps Mr. Biden is taking in the coming weeks to detail an expanded economic agenda, beyond what he proposed in the primaries. On Thursday, Mr. Biden specifically proposed a $300 billion increase in government spending on research and development of technologies like electric vehicles and 5G cellular networks, as well as an additional $400 billion in federal procurement spending on products that are manufactured in the United States.

Mr. Biden described it as a level of investment "not seen since the Great Depression and World War II" and emphasized that a top priority was to expand prosperity to all corners of the country, both racial and geographic.

"This money will be used purposefully to ensure all of America is in on the deal, including communities that historically have been left out: Black, brown and Native American entrepreneurs, cities and towns everywhere," he said.

Mr. Biden's campaign is rallying top surrogates in key battleground states to amplify his economic themes on Friday: Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota will hold a round-table discussion aimed at Arizona voters, Senators Tammy Duckworth and Tammy Baldwin will do one for Wisconsin, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan will headline one for her state, and Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio will hold one for his state.

The former vice president's campaign aides cheered on Twitter that the three leading cable news networks - CNN, Fox News and MSNBC - carried Mr. Biden's speech live, even as his remarks were briefly interrupted by an audible downpour at the plant.

As Mr. Trump has increasingly focused his campaign on stoking white resentment and fears, Mr. Biden and his campaign have stressed their efforts to create "an economy for every American," as Mr. Biden said on Thursday.

"Donald Trump may believe that pitting Americans against Americans may benefit him. I don't," he said. Later in his speech, he invoked Mr. Trump's recent comments defending the Confederate flag and accused the president of being "determined to drive us apart."

While Mr. Biden has said in speeches since he began his campaign more than a year ago that Wall Street is not the true economic engine of America, he sharpened his populist tone on Thursday, declaring it "way past time to put an end to shareholder capitalism."

He lashed Mr. Trump, in particular, for his focus on the stock market as a metric of success as tens of millions of Americans have been driven to file jobless claims during the pandemic. "Throughout this crisis, Donald Trump has been almost singularly focused on the stock market, the Dow, Nasdaq," Mr. Biden said. "Not you. Not your families."

Neil Newhouse, a veteran Republican pollster, called the economy a critical issue for Mr. Biden's campaign to try to neutralize, especially if voters are focused on it this fall.

"It is probably the No. 1 issue for the Trump campaign," Mr. Newhouse said. "The president's job approval ratings have consistently been higher on the economy than any other measures." In fact, he added, the president's positive ratings on the economy have helped "hold up a lot of his other measures."

Mr. Biden is planning four economic rollouts ahead of the Democratic National Convention in August, with Thursday's speech the first in the series. The next three, according to campaign aides, will be on modern infrastructure and clean energy, then building "a 21st-century caregiving and education work force" followed by a plan "to advance racial equity in America."

Thus far, Mr. Biden has proposed to offset the entirety of his spending plans with nearly $4 trillion in tax increases, largely by reversing some of Mr. Trump's signature tax cuts for high earners and otherwise raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations. Aides said he would do the same to pay for his procurement and research plans announced on Thursday.

But campaign aides also said that Mr. Biden would propose additional deficit spending next year to help the economy recover from the recession caused by the pandemic, building on the more than $3 trillion in new borrowing that Congress and Mr. Trump have already approved amid the crisis.

During the primaries, Mr. Biden had proposed the smallest amount of new federal spending among the major Democratic contenders, and his plan, despite its new spending, remains far less expensive and expansive than those proposed by his former rivals, like Mr. Sanders of Vermont and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.

Mr. Biden has sought to straddle the line on economic policy and elsewhere between his moderate political instincts and a progressive wing of the party that lined up in the primaries behind candidates like Mr. Sanders and Ms. Warren who promised sweeping and systemic change.

"After today," Mr. Moore, the Trump adviser, said of Mr. Biden, "I don't think anybody's going to call him a moderate."

More new Biden plans could be coming. A Biden-Sanders "unity task force" published 110 pages of platform recommendations on Wednesday, with economic proposals that included a New Deal-style federal jobs program to use government money to put Americans to work on infrastructure and other projects. The task force also called for a so-called baby bonds plan that would seek to reduce wealth disparities between Black and white Americans by giving every child in the country a government-funded savings account.

Advisers said Mr. Biden would place racial disparities at the forefront of his evolving platform recommendations, amid a recession that has disproportionately hurt Black workers.

"Race is not an issue in this," Darrick Hamilton, an Ohio State University economist who served on the unity task force, said of developing a comprehensive economic agenda, "but a pillar in this."

Watch: https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000007231038/live-biden-speech-scranton.html?action=click&gtype=vhs&version=vhs-heading&module=vhs&region=title-area&cview=true&t=9

Election experts warn of November disaster

on July 11, 2020
By Stateline.org

After a presidential primary season plagued by long lines, confusion over mail-in voting and malfunctioning equipment, election experts are increasingly concerned about the resiliency of American democracy in the face of a global pandemic.

With four months until the presidential election, the litany of unresolved issues could block some voters from casting ballots and lead many citizens to distrust the outcome of one of the most pivotal races of their lifetimes.

There is widespread concern among voting activists, experts and elections officials that it will take further federal investment in local election systems, massive voter education campaigns and election administrators' ingenuity to prevent a disaster come November.

"The coronavirus has really laid bare the cracks in our system," said Myrna Pérez, director of the Brennan Center's Voting Rights and Elections Program.

Even before the pandemic, Richard L. Hasen, a professor of law and political science at the University of California, Irvine, said he was worried about the state of U.S. elections. He warned in his recent book Election Meltdown about the effects that misinformation, administrative incompetence and voter suppression efforts would have on the 2020 presidential election.

Now, to add to all those problems, there is COVID-19, which further destabilizes voting. He, like many other election experts interviewed by Stateline, said he is worried about November.

"The best-case scenario for us is that key elections are not close," he said, "because we are going to have problems."

The troubles ahead of the presidential election include the inconsistent mail-in ballot system, voter safety at polling locations and lingering security gaps targeted by malicious foreign and domestic groups emboldened by the 2016 presidential election.

Mail-In Ballot Issues

Millions of voters turned to mail-in ballots as a safe alternative to voting in person during the pandemic-riddled primary. But in states such as Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and in the District of Columbia, thousands of voters requested absentee ballots from local election officials and never received them.

Stateline StoryJune 3, 2020

Trump's Attacks on Vote-by-Mail Worry Some Election Officials

States were unprepared for the record numbers of absentee ballot requests, said Hannah Fried, national campaign director of All Voting is Local, a project of the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Leadership Conference Education Fund that helps register people of color and young people.

In many of those states, officials found it difficult to go from producing and processing thousands of mail-in ballots to contending with millions of them because of COVID-19. They lacked the training, equipment, supply chain and staff to handle the increase, she said.

Local officials must set up ways to get ballots to voters, provide for their easy return and allow voters to know their ballots will be counted, she said.

"It was overwhelming for officials and voters alike in the beginning," Fried said. "But November is different, and we have time."

But training and equipment cost money, said Cris Landa, program director at the election security group Verified Voting. While Congress allocated $400 million under the CARES Act for election administration earlier this year, it is unclear whether it will allocate more funds before the presidential election. But money must come soon, Landa said, or jurisdictions won't have time to implement changes.

"Elections are woefully underfunded as is," she said. "The need is there for more election funding. It's hard not to paint such a stark, worrisome picture."

Voters in some states had to contend with other barriers to voting by mail, such as requirements for a witness signature or voter ID - difficult tasks during a pandemic when people are confined to their homes. Proponents say these measures prevent voter fraud.

In Oklahoma, Republican leaders enacted a law that requires absentee ballots be notarized, while Republican leaders in Tennessee and Texas have fought efforts to make the coronavirus pandemic a legitimate excuse for requesting an absentee ballot.

Stateline UpdateJune 10, 2020

Georgia Primary a "˜Catastrophe,' Voting Rights Advocates Say

County clerks have rejected absentee ballots at higher rates this election season in some communities of color, sometimes for reasons as simple as a mismatched or absent signature on the ballot envelope, said Kristen Clark, president and executive director of the National Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. She's trying to figure out why.

"Something is not right," she said.

Voters unable or unwilling to vote by mail turned to traditional polling places. And when they got there, many were met by more barriers.

Polling Place Problems

The lines in the Atlanta area stretched for more than four hours in some majority-Black locations on the June 9 primary day. New voting machines were not working, poll workers had not been trained to use the new equipment, polling locations opened late and precincts ran out of paper backups.

In the middle of the coronavirus outbreak, voters with disabilities, limited English proficiency and unreliable mail service rely on polling places to cast their ballots.

But polling locations were cut throughout the country, while thousands of poll workers refused to serve because of health concerns.

In Wisconsin, local election officials drastically reduced the number of polling locations across the state. The city of Milwaukee had five polling locations - down from 182 in 2016. A Brennan Center analysis shows this contributed to reduced voter turnout.

Like Georgia, many states also debuted new voting systems this year, which led to confusion when poll workers, untrained because of the pandemic, had to navigate unfamiliar voting machines. Already before the pandemic, equipment issues caused massive disruptions in this year's Iowa caucuses and California primary.

And then there's the issue of safety: How do election officials keep polling places clean during a pandemic, especially as protective equipment is often hard to come by as states and businesses reopen across the country?

Some election officials have gotten creative. Harris County, Texas, will provide each voter with a finger cover to use on voting machines and a face mask if they need one. The Houston-area county of 2.4 million registered voters also will equip poll workers with masks, face shields and disinfectant wipes.

"Putting these safeguards in place has been no simple task," said Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins, "but they're necessary."

Hollins is one of several local and state election officials backing a new report by the nonprofit Voter Protection Corps on how to run safe in-person voting options ahead of November. It recommends not consolidating neighborhood polling places, recruiting and training poll workers and expanding early voting.

Safeguarding the health of voters isn't the only security issue facing elections, however.
Election Security Issues

The threat of foreign interference in U.S. elections remains, including disinformation and hacking campaigns by the Russian government and others. Local election offices remain susceptible to email phishing attempts and website hacks that could penetrate state voter registration databases and other critical systems.

And the coronavirus adds security challenges. New online state systems for requesting absentee ballots could be vulnerable without proper protections, said Benjamin Hovland, chairman of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.

Meanwhile, most election officials have been working remotely since the outbreak, using home networks that lack the firewalls of their offices and are more exposed to cybersecurity threats.

Stateline StoryMay 8, 2020
Postal Service's Struggles Could Hurt Mail-In Election

Federal security officials, from the National Security Agency to the National Guard, will work with state and local election officials throughout the coming months, providing on-the-ground assistance and recommending practices to avoid a potentially disastrous security breach.

Misinformation remains one of the biggest threats to U.S. elections, Hovland said. Clever editing of an online video or false information spread throughout social media could reach vast audiences.

"Any of those situations is ripe for disinformation or misinformation," he said. "Unfortunately, 2020 was never going to be an easy election year. And now with COVID, we're facing unprecedented challenges."

Another factor that could damage voter confidence is a delay in reporting election results. Because of the expected volume of absentee ballots, voters should not expect complete race results on Election Night; it will take much longer to process and count votes. Election Night might turn into Election Week.

Delays in election results are not necessarily troublesome or nefarious, said U.C. Irvine's Hasen. It shows election officials take the count seriously, he said. The question is how voters will react to those delays.

Hasen worries both domestic and foreign groups will try to undermine legitimacy and take advantage of delays. Malicious actors may spread false information about polling place locations, ways to register to vote, voting hours and the ability to vote online.

A candidate may, for example, declare victory before results are completely counted, he said, potentially delegitimizing the eventual results of the election among supporters.

Disinformation and misinformation targeted communities of color during the 2016 presidential campaign, and as much is expected again this year, said LaShawn Warren, executive vice president of government affairs at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

In anticipation of this threat, several organizations like hers have pressured social media companies to add new warnings and labels on malicious or false election-related content. It is the responsibility of these companies, she said, to oversee what is being placed on their platforms.

"You don't want to add to confusion," she said. "You want to add a level of transparency and clarity. The way they have rolled out these policies is not thoughtful and rooted in truth."

While Twitter has begun labeling false tweets, Facebook recently announced it would label all election-related content, without noting whether the content is false. Facebook says its policies protect free speech, but Warren said the company does not do enough to quell falsehoods, potentially keeping people from voting.

President Donald Trump's continued and unsubstantiated attacks on mail-in voting, claiming without evidence that it would lead to massive voter fraud, also sows doubt in the election, she said.

While election experts are sounding the alarm ahead of November, they say there is still time for federal, state and local election authorities to prevent a disastrous presidential election.

U.S. elections are fragile, said Pérez at the Brennan Center. It will take the election administrators hustling for resources, planning and looking for solutions. It will take residents offering their storefronts for polling places, volunteering to be poll workers and helping register their neighbors to vote, she said.

"We are in the middle of a real challenge," she said, "but there is a lot we can do between now and November to minimize harmful outcomes."

Joe Biden to air first general-election TV ads in Texas as polls show increasingly close race against President Donald Trump

on July 14, 2020
By Texas Tribune

Joe Biden is launching his first general-election TV ads in Texas as a growing number of polls show a close presidential race here.

As part of a four-state ad buy that Biden's campaign is announcing Tuesday, the presumptive Democratic nominee is going up with a 60-second spot in Texas that addresses the increasingly dire coronavirus situation here.

"I'm thinking all of you today across Texas," Biden says in the ad, which opens with a shot of Marfa. "I know the rise in case numbers is causing fear and apprehension."
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"The virus is tough, but Texas is tougher," Biden later says, telling Americans to follow guidelines to slow the spread of the virus - and that he wants them to know: "I will not abandon you. We're all in this together."

The buy, which also features digital ads, is across Texas, Arizona, Florida and North Carolina - and it marks the campaign's first TV and digital ad spending in Texas since Biden secured the nomination. A Biden campaign official described the size of the four-state buy as "mid-six figures."

There have been a series of polls in recent weeks finding a tight contest between Biden and President Donald Trump in historically red Texas. One poll released Sunday found Biden leading Trump by 5 percentage points among likely voters, while another survey that came out the same day gave Trump a 1-point lead among likely voters, well within the margin of error.

At the same time, the campaign season in Texas has been upended by the coronavirus, especially as it has surged here in recent weeks. The spike prompted Gov. Greg Abbott to issue a statewide mask requirement earlier this month, despite previously resisting calls to issue such a mandate.

In the ad, Biden encourages Texans to wear masks, wash their hands, stay home if they can and socially distance when they go out. The spot ends with an image of Biden in a mask, along with the words, "Stay Safe, Wear a Mask."

Biden has promised to contend Texas, which Trump won by 9 percentage points in 2016, the smallest margin for a GOP nominee in the state since 1996. The 2016 Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, ran TV ads in the state, though she did not do so until less than a month out from the election and made a relatively small investment.

While the Biden campaign did not detail how much it is spending specifically in Texas, the official said the four-state buy "will run in each state's top markets, on local cable, and on Sunday cable shows." In Texas and two of the other states, the campaign is running Spanish-language versions of the spots, with captions, on YouTube, Facebook and Univision.

Trump has brushed off the threat of Biden in Texas, casting doubt on the polls.

"I think Texas is going to be very strong for us - all of us - as it was in the past election, 2016," Trump said during a tele-town hall Monday evening with a congressional candidate here.

Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRVQ6layb5A&feature=youtu.be

Biden unveils ambitious climate plan in new contrast with Trump

on July 15, 2020
By Agence France-Presse

White House hopeful Joe Biden on Tuesday unveiled an ambitious climate change plan that would revamp the US energy sector and seek to achieve carbon pollution-free power in just 15 years.

The clean energy proposal was fleshed out in a speech in Wilmington as the veteran Democrat aimed to draw a contrast with President Donald Trump ahead of November's election by arguing that fighting climate change would be a massive job creator under a Biden administration.

"Transforming the American electrical sector to produce power without producing carbon pollution"¦ will be the greatest spurring of job creation and economic competitiveness in the 21st century," Biden said.
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"That's why we're going to achieve a carbon pollution-free electric sector by the year 2035."

The plan includes more ambitious goals than the climate proposal he rolled out months ago when he ran as one of the more moderate Democratic candidates in the party's nomination race.

By embracing some of the ideas of his more liberal rivals at the time, including Senator Bernie Sanders and Washington Governor Jay Inslee, Biden appears intent on winning over progressive voters who might be wary of the former vice president and longtime Washington staple.

Biden pledged to spend $2 trillion over four years to promote his plan, according to The Washington Post, a dramatic acceleration of the $1.7 trillion he had proposed to spend over 10 years in his climate plan during the primary race.

He also said he would rejoin the Paris climate agreement that Trump pulled the US out of in 2017, fund the construction of 1.5 million new energy efficient homes, upgrade appliance standards and prioritize renewable energy.

"We're not just going to tinker around the edges," Biden said.

"I know meeting the challenge will be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to jolt new life into our economy."

Biden said he would reverse some 100 steps taken by Trump to roll back environmental regulations.

He also reiterated parts of his earlier climate proposal, one with goals shared by House Democratic leaders including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, that would put the nation on the road to net zero emissions economy-wide no later than 2050.

And aside from attacking Trump on his failure to contain the coronavirus pandemic, he savaged the president and his party for lacking vision and focusing on old technologies like oil.

"This is all that Donald Trump and the Republicans offer: backward-looking policies that will harm the environment, make communities less healthy, hold back economic promise while other countries race ahead," Biden said.

Biden leads Trump on most issues, according to polling, but voters still see the president as stronger on steering the US economy.

© 2020 AFP

"˜Attempted murder of your post office': Outrage as Trump crony now heading USPS moves to slow mail delivery

on July 15, 2020
By Jake Johnson, Common Dreams

"The deliberate delaying of Americans' mail delivery would be a stunning act of sabotage against our Postal Service."

Postal workers and their allies in Congress are vowing to fight back after the new head of the U.S. Postal Service-a major donor to President Donald Trump and the Republican Party-moved this week to impose sweeping changes to the popular government agency as it faces a financial crisis manufactured by lawmakers and exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Washington Post reported late Tuesday that Postmaster General (PMG) Louis DeJoy, who took charge last month, issued memos announcing "major operational changes" to the USPS "that could slow down mail delivery, warning employees the agency would not survive unless it made "˜difficult' changes to cut costs."

"With our states now reliant on mail voting to continue elections during the pandemic, the destabilizing of the post office is a direct attack on American democracy itself."
-Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr.

"Analysts say the documents present a stark reimagining of the USPS that could chase away customers-especially if the White House gets the steep package rate increases it wants-and put the already beleaguered agency in deeper financial peril as private-sector competitors embark on hiring sprees to build out their own delivery networks," the Post noted.

According to the internal USPS memos (pdf) obtained by the Post, "DeJoy told employees to leave mail behind at distribution centers if it delayed letter carriers from their routes," a change critics said could threaten access to absentee ballots at a time when vote-by-mail is more important than ever.

"If the plants run late, they will keep the mail for the next day," reads a document titled, "New PMG's expectations and plan."

"The deliberate delaying of Americans' mail delivery would be a stunning act of sabotage against our Postal Service," Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-N.J.) said in a statement. "If these reports are accurate, Trump and his cronies are openly seeking to destroy the Post Office during the worst public health crisis in a century."

"With our states now reliant on mail voting to continue elections during the pandemic, the destabilizing of the post office is a direct attack on American democracy itself," Pascrell added. "It has been 59 days since the House passed $25 billion to keep USPS alive. The Senate must pass it now. Democracy hangs in the balance."

    Trump's attempted murder of your post office is titanic scandal.

    The post office is a public utility Americans rely on absolutely.

    If trump and his stooges have their way you'll be paying much more to send ✉️ and ðŸ"¦ much slower. https://t.co/ENdUBijm6p

    - Bill Pascrell, Jr. (@BillPascrell) July 14, 2020

With the USPS at risk of completely running out of cash by the end of September without an infusion of emergency funding, postal workers and members of Congress have warned that the Trump administration could attempt to exploit the agency's financial struggles to advance the longstanding right-wing goal of privatizing USPS.

"This is not something that as postal workers we should accept."
-Mark Dimondstein, American Postal Workers Union

In March, Congress approved a $10 billion emergency USPS loan, but the Treasury Department has yet to release the funds as the Trump administration attempts to use the money as leverage to force changes to the agency's finances and operations.

Mark Dimondstein, president of the 200,000-member American Postal Workers Union, said in response to the Post"˜s reporting that his organization will vigorously oppose the new operational changes sought by DeJoy.

"I would tell our members that this is not something that as postal workers we should accept," Dimondstein said. "It's not something that the union you belong to is going to accept."

U.S. Mail Not for Sale, a worker-led coalition dedicated to protecting the Postal Service from right-wing privatization efforts, is urging Americans to take part in a June 23 call-in day of action urging the Senate to approve desperately needed financial relief for USPS.

    Using the USPS financial crisis to slow down the mail is unacceptable. We need to act now! Join the Senate call-in day of action on July 23. We must #SaveThePostOffice before it's too late! https://t.co/C2RGQerSbn pic.twitter.com/MP76gLcZPR

    - usmailnotforsale (@usmailnot4sale) July 14, 2020

"Our movement is growing. Together we can save the Post Office and convince lawmakers to do their jobs," the coalition said. "Multiple bills have been introduced that would provide $25 billion in Covid-19 related relief for the Postal Service. The Senate comes back from recess in less than two weeks' time. We need to keep up the pressure to make them vote to end this crisis.

********

Wisconsin GOP official terrified Trump's attack on mail-in voting will torpedo the party: "˜He's wrong on this one'

on July 15, 2020
Raw Story
By Matthew Chapman

On Wednesday, Rohn Bishop, the chairman of the Republican Party of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, sounded the alarm about President Donald Trump's attacks on mail-in voting, saying that the policy has been "to the GOP's advantage" and the dropoff of Republican voters' interest in using the voting method could sink the party's overall turnout in November.

    Again- it's such a bad idea to scare our own voters away from a legit way to cast their ballot. Why surrender this to Democrats when it's been to the GOP's advantage? I know Trump doesn't like it, but I just think he's wrong on this one! https://t.co/vzpvGyyLyP

    - Rohn W. Bishop (@RohnWBishop) July 15, 2020

The president, despite he and many members of his inner circle voting by mail themselves, has attacked mail-in voting as "corrupt" and a cause of widespread fraud. Studies are clear that this kind of fraud is too rare to have any meaningful impact on elections.

But Trump's rhetoric is already turning off Republicans from applying for mail-in ballots, including in states like Arizona and Florida where Republicans have traditionally held an advantage in the practice.

GOP to Trump: Change tune on mail-in voting or risk ugly November

By Manu Raju and Jeremy Herb,
CNN
7/17/2020

(CNN)Republican officials throughout the country are reacting with growing alarm to President Donald Trump's attacks on mail-in ballots, saying his unsubstantiated claims of mass voting fraud are already corroding the views of GOP voters, who may ultimately choose not to vote at all if they can't make it to the polls come November.

Behind the scenes, top Republicans are urging senior Trump campaign officials to press the President to change his messaging and embrace mail-in voting, warning that the party could lose the battle for control of Congress and the White House if he doesn't change his tune, according to multiple GOP sources. Trump officials, sources said, are fully aware of the concerns.

The impact could be detrimental to the GOP up and down the ticket, according to a bevy of Republican election officials, field operatives, pollsters and lawmakers who are watching the matter closely. Every vote will count in critical battleground states, they argue, fearful that deterring GOP voters from choosing a convenient option to cast their ballots could ultimately sway the outcome of races that are decided by a couple of percentage points.

And with the coronavirus pandemic potentially bound to get worse in the fall, voting by mail is becoming an increasingly popular option since many voters may prefer not to wait in long lines at polling stations. That will leave Democrats with a major advantage if their voters send their ballots by mail while Republican voters forgo that option simply because they are listening to the concerns of the President.
In Wisconsin, a state that was central to Trump's narrow 2016 victory, Republicans were "begging our voters" to vote absentee when the pandemic first hit, said Rohn Bishop, Republican Party chairman in Fond du Lac County, where Trump will need to drive up GOP turnout in November."Then the President has some tweets and gets upset with mail-in balloting and we dropped the issue like a hot potato, and that's where I think we're making a mistake," Bishop said. "Our voters are running away from it. That kind of terrifies me."

Bishop added bluntly: "I'm getting aggravated because I think we're only hurting ourselves. ... Anything that ties an arm behind my back, I don't like that." Bishop's concerns are shared by Republican officials at the county and state level -- as well as ones who are deeply involved with the national party.Glen Bolger, a top Republican pollster, told CNN he had just surveyed a battleground state and found that three-quarters of voters who plan to vote by mail or absentee vote intend to support former Vice President Joe Biden; just 15% of mail-in voters in that survey planned to use the mail option to vote for Trump. Bolger declined to name the state, but said it exemplified the real problems for Republicans if the trend continues.

"It could have a corrosive impact if some voters who would have voted don't get to vote on Election Day -- a bunch of votes would have been left on the table," Bolger said. "If he changed his message on this, he could have a positive impact," referring to Trump. Former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, a Republican who was a Cabinet secretary under President George W. Bush, said discouraging mail-in voting is "very perilous for the Republican Party" and puts his party at "an incredible disadvantage."

"There's no inherent advantage to one party or the other," said Ridge, who chairs the bipartisan group VoteSafe, which advocates for expanded voting access. "The advantage goes to the party that utilizes that method -- that option of maximizing participation -- on Election Day. So if you have a Republican President undermining his own base, and suggesting they don't use absentee ballots, while the Democrats have demonstrated, particularly thus far in the primary season, they understand its value ... then he puts his own party as a decided disadvantage because it discourages Republicans from using it." And Republicans, too, are concerned that Trump's criticism of the process could cast doubt on the integrity of the election, particularly in closely contested states like Ohio.

"It is irresponsible -- whether it's a Republican or Democrat -- for people to create a sense, incorrectly, in the minds of voters that they can't trust their elections," said Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican, referring to both the President's claims and Biden's recent suggestion that Trump might not leave office if he loses.

In Ohio, nearly 8 million registered voters will get absentee ballot requests after Labor Day, and LaRose predicts that roughly 35%-40% of the ballots will ultimately come by mail in November, up from roughly 20%-25% in past elections, amounting to the "highest level of vote-by-mail that we've ever seen in our state's history."

"When people try to say that voting by mail or absentee mailing benefits one party -- it just doesn't bear out in Ohio. People want to vote," LaRose said. But asked if fewer Republican voters may choose to vote absentee in November because of the President's criticisms, he said: "That's absolutely a possibility."
GOP leaders in the House and Senate have publicly and privately called for more resources for mail-in voting -- and hope the President changes his tune.

"A lot of people are going to vote by mail, and we need to do what we can to both see that is done safely and encourage people to believe and ensure people that it is going to be done safely," Senate Rules Chairman Roy Blunt, a Missouri Republican, said Thursday.

New York's 27th Congressional District special election last month illustrated the potential dangers for Republicans if their voters swear off mail-in voting. The state, which has several closely contested House races, expanded mail-in voting this year after Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed an executive order in April to mail all residents applications for absentee ballots.

In the solidly Republican district, GOP state Sen. Chris Jacobs was leading Democrat Nate McMurray 64%-27% after election night -- but before absentee ballots were counted, according to the state's unofficial results. After the district's absentee ballots were tallied, the margin shrank to 55%-44%.
Trump tries to make a distinction over mailed ballots Republicans on Capitol Hill, worry the trend will continue if Trump keeps up his rhetoric, have tried to push the President to change his message. Sources said the issue has been raised repeatedly with Trump campaign officials, who have acknowledged the potential problems for the GOP.

After prodding from campaign officials, the President has tried to massage his messaging in recent days. Indeed, campaign officials were successful in getting him to try to make a distinction during his speech in the White House Rose Garden on Tuesday evening. Trump argued that it's perfectly acceptable for voters to request absentee ballots. But he argued that states that proactively send out ballots to voters are creating a system rife with fraud.

"You'll have tremendous fraud if you do these mail-in ballots," Trump told reporters. "Now, absentee ballots are OK, because absentee ballots -- you have to get applications. You have to go through a process."

Trump has been railing about mail-in voting for months as states expand vote-by-mail options, repeating numerous false claims about voter fraud. There's no widespread fraud in US elections.
Absentee voting, of course, is conducted by mail, and experts say Trump is creating a distinction where none exists. It's true that some states require voters to request absentee ballots, and some require voters to have excuses for absentee ballots, while others do not. And some states require ballots to be sent unsolicited to all registered voters.

But in every case, the ballots are returned the same way: through the mail. Asked if most voters would understand the distinction Trump is trying to make between absentee ballots and ones sent proactively in the mail, Matt Mashburn, who serves on Georgia's State Elections Board, said: "No." He added: "I think Georgia has a wise system."

The June primary in Georgia saw an explosion of interest in absentee ballots in a state where voters must request absentee ballots after their applications are verified and their signatures are matched by county officials.

In typical Georgia elections, about 5% of ballots are returned by absentee; in the June primary, however, roughly 49% of the ballots were absentee -- which amounted to 1.15 million, according to Gabriel Sterling, who is the statewide voting implementation manager in Georgia. Democrats outpaced Republicans on absentee voting, but they had a competitive Senate primary, which the GOP did not.
"There is a weaponizing of election administration from the left and right -- and it's not helpful to how elections are supposed to run," Sterling said, referring to concerns from Democrats about voter suppression and from Republicans about claims of voter fraud.

And as Trump tries to make a distinction between ballots mailed proactively and absentee ballots, voters "probably" don't see much of a difference, Sterling said. "Most people think voting is voting," he said.
While Trump has claimed that vote-by-mail will be a disaster for Republicans, recent election results suggest that's not necessarily the case. In California's 25th District, a special election to fill former Democratic Rep. Katie Hill's seat was conducted almost entirely by mail, with Republican Mike Garcia easily winning the seat over Democrat Christ Smith, 54%-46%. Still, Republican legislators in states across the country are introducing bills to limit mail-in voting in November. And lawsuits have emerged as well.

LaRose, the Ohio secretary of state, has wanted to make it even easier to request absentee ballots by allowing voters to go online and request them -- rather than doing it by mail. But he has faced opposition in the state Legislature, and he said the President's criticism of the process is "a factor."

In Florida, Democrats held a 300,000-voter advantage last month in the number of people who had applied to vote by mail.

"It just means that we have work to do, and we're going to do the work and we'll take care of it," said Dean Black, chairman of the Republican Party in Duval County, which encompasses Jacksonville. "Historically, vote-by-mail works in Republicans' favor. And so that would tend to be a net positive for President Trump."

CNN's Kaitlan Collins and Marshall Cohen contributed to this report.

Get Ready for the 2020 Election Recount

Trump is already questioning mail-in ballots, what do you think he'll do next?

by Amanda Carpenter
Bulwark
July 18, 2020 7:15 am

If you thought the 36-day national agony over "hanging chads" in the 2000 presidential election was bad, imagine what President Trump might do if the 2020 election is too close to call on Election Night. He's already preparing the script for a remake of the 2000 election with his own authoritarian twist.

By now, it's easy to ignore Trump's angry, conspiracy-laced tweets about a rigged election. We shouldn't, though, because it very well could be a preview of what's to come. For example, here's a tweet from last Friday:

    Mail-In Ballot fraud found in many elections. People are just now seeing how bad, dishonest and slow it is. Election results could be delayed for months. No more big election night answers? 1% not even counted in 2016. Ridiculous! Just a formula for RIGGING an Election"¦.

    - Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 10, 2020

He's right about one thing. Election results are likely to be delayed this year. Coronavirus concerns have prompted states to expand mail-in voting options, and millions of Americans have taken up the offer. Those ballots take much longer to count than in-person votes. When the 2000 election became "too close to call," everything came down to a trio of Florida counties where lawyers wrangled over butterfly ballots, miscounts, undervotes, overvotes, hanging chad, swinging chad, tri chad, dimpled chad, and pregnant chad, too. This time, President Trump is already questioning ballots three months before a single vote is cast.

So, go on and get your anti-anxiety meds ready because the stage is set for a democratic crisis far worse than what we lived through in 2000. This time around, Trump has every lever of the federal government at his disposal. Smear merchants and bots will drive social media discussion, not James Baker and Warren Christopher in the courtrooms. Forget the so-called "Brooks Brothers riot" by a bunch of GOP staffers on a floor of a drab bureaucratic building in Miami. This time around, the Proud Boys and Antifa will be warring in the streets. Do you feel the walls closing in yet?

The 2020 stage is a tinderbox compared to 2000. As of today, over 138,000 Americans have died from COVID-19. The commander-in-chief Republican candidate is egging on his base in speeches and tweets depicting his opponents as radical left mobsters hell-bent on destroying the country. Pro-gun activists have swarmed state capitols to protest pandemic lockdowns. Mass protests and violence have broken out in cities across America in the wake of the killing of George Floyd. To top it all off, President Trump deployed soldiers to gas peaceful protesters in Lafayette Square. And for what? A freaking photo op.

Even if one took Trump's thuggery out of the question, the 2020 election would look different from normal elections, given the widespread use of mail-in ballots. In 2016, nearly a quarter of America's votes were cast by mail. This year, some observers have estimated that as much as half of the electorate will vote by mail in November. Certainly the rate of voting by mail shot up during the primaries.

Despite Trump's criticisms of vote-by-mail efforts, Democrats are pushing them to great success.

In Florida, a state where Trump only beat Clinton by just 112,911 votes-49 to 48 percent-to notch 29 electoral votes, Democrats currently have a 400,000-voter advantage over Republicans when it comes to vote-by-mail enrollment ahead of the state's August primary.

Don't look now, but the president is already questioning the results from Pennsylvania, another state where the number of mail-in ballots skyrocketed and Trump won by a slim 44,292 vote margin (48 to 47 percent) in 2016.

During the Keystone State's primary, Democratic Governor Tom Wolf expanded vote-by-mail options to allow no-excuse absentee voting. As a result, 1.5 million people voted by mail last month. That's 17 times the number of voters (about 84,000) who voted absentee in 2016.

The Trump campaign, along with the Republican National Committee and four Republican members of Congress representing western Pennsylvania districts, filed a lawsuit arguing that ballots dropped off at collection sites, rather than sent through the post office or delivered by hand to county elections offices, should be disqualified. The lawsuit stated that the Pennsylvania system gives "fraudsters an easy opportunity to engage in ballot harvesting, manipulate or destroy ballots, manufacture duplicitous votes, and sow chaos."

The primary lesson of the 2000 presidential contest is that campaigns don't necessarily end on Election Night.

Say what you want about Al Gore's pathetic scattershot search for more votes after the news networks blew their calls on Election Night. Bush could have rested on his laurels as the declared winner. He secured his victory because his team didn't stop their campaign after the ballots were cast. The Bush campaign's three-pronged efforts to mount a full-fledged political, legal, and persuasion offensive is why he became president. The final Supreme Court decision was only the climax.

If put in a similar position to fight for the presidency, it's safe to predict that Trump would act far more aggressively than either Bush or Gore ever dreamed.

One of the more memorable aspects of the 2000 recount was the "Brooks Brothers riot" where the Bush campaign flew GOP staffers to protest the recount proceedings in Miami-Dade County, Florida. At issue was whether there would be a new standard for counting "undervotes," and local officials sought to take discussions to an upper floor of the building, where the protesters would not be able to observe. At that point, the Republicans erupted and followed them up. Crammed into the smaller space, unable to see what was happening, they got angry. They yelled that Democrats were stealing the election. They banged doors. They roughed up a Democratic staffer in possession of a sample ballot.

And it worked. Hours later, the officials surrendered. Canvassing board chairman Lawrence King Jr., a circuit court judge, said that when the board agreed to count votes, "It became evidently clear that we were in a different situation . . . than we were this morning when we made that decision. . . . A radically different situation."

Whether one agrees with the recount or not, it's stunning to consider that a mild protest was all it took for protesters to shut it down in Miami.

Rory Cooper, a GOP staffer who participated in the so-called "riot," said to watch out for "flashpoints" where lawyers and protesters can descend, as they did in Miami-Dade. "There are going to be performative acts on each side to show who is winning and losing," he told me. Like everything with Trump, though, it would be far more jarring. He predicted "mini earthquakes every day, rather than the ongoing rumble of a recount."

But could things actually turn violent this time?

For answers on that, I spoke to Rachel Brown, the founder and director of Over Zero, a non-profit dedicated to preventing identity-based violence and other forms of group-based harm, who studies how communication can increase or decrease the chances of violence. She said that with the type of rhetoric we see around this election, we need to be proactive about preventing violence-both pre-election and post-election. When it comes to post-election violence, she said, "there will be a results waiting period and it will be important to see how politicians handle themselves and how this period is discussed in the media."

"Do they question the results in broad, big terms or specific complaints that can be remedied?" Brown said. "There will be real grievances if there are procedural challenges, and it's important that those issues are addressed through proper legal channels quickly. For this to work, there has to be lots of communication about what has happened and how it gets resolved."

"Media needs to be educated on state-by-state procedures and have the knowledge about how to manage expectations and help people be patient through such a new process," Brown cautioned. "Be aware of any preemptive declarations the election is illegitimate, preemptive declarations of victory, and any excessive use of state force-for example, if peaceful protesters are met with force." And the propensity for violence can rise, she added, when "voters feel like the stakes are zero sum."

Uh-oh. That sounds exactly like President Trump and his supporters.

If you are feeling masochistic, imagine how Trump will act if he's in a position to question the results on Election Night, whether he be trying to close a tight gap or disqualify votes and maintain a lead. Governor George Bush would have never tweeted: "The lyin' fake news tried to steal the election from me and then Democrats invented a HOAX about uncounted ballots. I WON. SHUT DOWN THE FRAUD." But, President Trump sure would.

And just think of what else he could do.

If he was ahead would he find a way, through mass revolt and state intervention to stop counting the mailed-in ballots he told us were "rigged" all along? Might an allied Republican governor confiscate them and plunge them into "circular files" never to be seen? If Trump is down, could he convince Republican state legislators to preemptively certify him the winner, even in defiance of a Democratic governor, to notch Electoral College votes? Would President Trump and Attorney General Bill Barr invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy active duty military to help them do it?

Given the possible scenarios, a contentious Supreme Court ruling may be the least of our worries.

The 2020 election is our country's last, best hope to stop President Trump. Still, there are no guarantees if he contests the outcome. Those who wish to defeat Trump need to make it a blowout. This election can't be too close to call.

Amanda Carpenter
Bulwark political columnist Amanda Carpenter is a CNN contributor, author, and former communications director to Sen. Ted Cruz and speechwriter to Sen. Jim DeMint.

*****************

The unmasking of Donald Trump

Adnan R. Khan: As Trump's poll numbers plummet, a desperate U.S. president reveals his true colours, and finds theatrics can only take him so far

By Adnan R. Khan July 17, 2020
MCCLEANS
7/18/2020

In 1997, Mark Singer, a staff writer at New Yorker magazine specializing in profiles, was tasked with what many today would chalk up as a literary suicide mission: Follow Donald Trump and find out what makes him tick.

At the time, Trump was, at least according to his own accounts, at the top of his real estate mogul game, which is likely why he agreed to the profile in the first place. A few years earlier it likely would never have happened: the Trump Organization was on the verge of collapse, mired in debt and facing bankruptcy.

By 1997, it had not only survived, but Trump was doing better (which in his mind can only mean richer) than ever. He'd re-financed his failing hotels and casinos division with a successful public offering, netting himself $7 million in 1996 in salary and bonuses (even while the value of the shares was tanking).

Singer, not known to shy away from challenges, embarked on weeks of research, shadowing Trump in what ultimately reads like an otherworldly jaunt through the crass Wonderland that is Trumpworld, complete with mobsters, Hollywood stars and shady businesspeople.

At the centre of the story, of course, is the shadiest of them all, Donald Trump who, among other pulp fiction character traits, Singer describes as "the hyperbole addict who prevaricates for fun and profit" and "the perpetual seventeen-year-old who lives in a zero-sum world of winners and "˜total losers," loyal friends and "˜complete scumbags'." Trump, Singer concludes, is "a fellow both slippery and naïve, artfully calculating and recklessly heedless of consequences."
 
Somewhere in that riot of egos, one must assume, was the real Trump, though Singer conceded in the end that he had failed in his mission to find him. He did claim, however, to have unearthed something even more astonishing and rare: "an existence unmolested by the rumblings of a soul."

In some ways, Singer's profile aligns neatly with the Trump we've all come to know as the American president. His penchant for exaggeration and outright lies, his visceral loathing for journalists who write stories he doesn't like-this is just Trump, and he hasn't changed, even after a quarter of a century.

But in other ways, something has changed. The "artfully calculating" Trump of 1997 has gone missing, replaced by a clumsy, sometimes pitiful novice who can't seem to formulate any cohesive strategy. Singer's "slippery" Trump, the man who has dodged bankruptcy and the IRS for decades, who has shifted his political position so often that his politics resembles a mosaic cobbled together by a 4-year old, is now noticeably stickier, more ranting Republican of the deep south Confederate variety than the slick Wall Street free marketer he pretends to be.

As a businessman, even as incompetent as he was, Trump had been able to maintain the illusion of invincibility. The masks never came off. Even when it seemed like he was on the verge of being outed as a shyster, he stayed in character, forever the bigwig blessed with a golden touch. But as president, the opposite has happened: he has been steadily unmasked.

Is it a function of increased scrutiny? Despite his enablers-Attorney General Bill Barr and Republican members of Congress who continue to throw up smoke screens to protect a man they see as their best chance to reverse the tide of liberalism they believe is threatening to destroy America-Trump can't completely avoid the oversight that comes with being president, particularly with a Democratic-controlled House of Representatives. Or maybe it's just plain old age. Trump's lifestyle, his eating habits, lack of exercise and any meaningful intellectual stimulation is a perfect recipe for cognitive decline.

Whatever it might be, what we're seeing now is not the same fit and agile Trump who is pictured in the 1997 New Yorker profile. We're seeing past that glittery veneer at an angry man-child, the inevitable outcome of an upbringing poisoned by privilege and racism. The more he fails- against the pandemic, against America's racial reckoning, against the polls-the more desperate he appears to become, and the more transparent.

The fact is, Trump has always been a racist. We've seen glimpses of it over the years, for instance in the early 1970s when the U.S. Justice Department filed a lawsuit against Trump, his father and the property management company they co-owned for allegedly discriminating against prospective Black and Latin American tenants. It was not the first time the Trumps had been called out on their racial bias and, unsurprisingly, they not only denied the charges but countersued, enlisting Roy Cohn, Senator Joseph McCarthy's infamous legal attack dog during the anti-Communist purges in 1954. After the presiding judge rejected the countersuit and ruled that there was enough evidence to proceed on the charges of discrimination the Trumps decided to settle.

Somehow, that history has been largely buried, though David Cay Johnston, an investigative journalist who has covered Trump and his business dealings since the 1970s, re-hashed it in his 2016 book, The Making of Donald Trump. Over the years of his presidency, major news outlets like the New York Times and Washington Post have also dug deep into Trump's history and uncovered piles of past wrongdoings.

Johnston, however, with some justification, still blames the media for failing to properly report on Trump in 2016, ultimately helping him win the White House.

"Donald Trump knows that so long as he never corrects himself or acknowledges error, journalists will quote what he says," Johnston told me recently. "That's why George Lakoff, the cognitive research professor at UC Berkeley argues journalists who cover Trump should use what he calls a truth sandwich. Instead of quoting Trump and then taking it apart, you should say: "˜We're about to tell you something Donald Trump said that is' -depending on the appropriate word-'dubious' or "˜a flat out lie', etc. Then you quote him and after that, you take it apart. That way, people are psychologically set up to understand that what you're hearing is not revealed truth."

Indeed, journalists themselves now admit they dropped the ball in dealing with the deluge of misinformation that poured out of Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign. This time around, they seem better prepared, challenging Trump whenever he makes himself available to the media.

Typically, Trump has responded by making himself less available. His most recent appearance, a press conference on July 14 where he was supposed to announce additional sanctions against China, devolved into an hour-long incoherent rant on everything from Joe Biden's alleged lack of mental acuity to a redux of his 2016 claim that killer immigrants are crossing into the U.S. from Mexico. He answered questions for all of six minutes before abruptly walking off the stage.

Increasingly, a cornered Trump is turning to those people most like him, a segment of the American population lashing out at the prospect of losing its privileged position, of having to compete on an equal footing with immigrants and people of colour, with homosexuals, queers and the gender fluid. The dream for most of us-a world where the colour of your skin or the clothes you wear has nothing to do with your life prospects-is a nightmare for them.

What's frightening is that this is still such a large segment of American society-somewhere around one-third of voters. But despite its size, it's not going to be enough to hand Trump a victory in November, and it seems to be dwindling. The latest Gallup poll reinforces what we suspected all along: In the 2016 election, Trump relied on a sizeable cohort of voters who, after the 2009 financial crisis, had lost faith in the American political system. They were tired of politicians-Barack Obama included-who promised to revive the American Dream but then, in times of crisis, went on to dole out sweetheart deals to corporations and their CEOs.

For a wide range of regional and idiosyncratic reasons, those people, including some Obama voters, decided to give an outsider like Trump a shot. Now that Trump has been unmasked, these same people are fleeing Trump's dystopia in droves. In every demographic-gender, age, race, education or region-the percentage change in support for the U.S. president from January to July is negative. Trump has alienated nearly everyone who can be alienated.

Instead of shifting tactics, Trump has decided to double down on those core supporters, the people he himself most identifies with. As a businessman, he was able to dissemble his way out of most tight spots. But as a politician, Trump is quickly discovering that theatrics can only take him so far. With all of the hustling stripped away, what's left is a hollow ideologue grasping for approval from those who see the world the way he does.

Finally, we are seeing the real Donald Trump, and it is a sad, frightening, unhinged image indeed.

*************

What Americans don't know... should worry us

Bruce Anderson: Our polling suggests that Trump's leadership has made many Americans less aware of America's standing in the world, and more open to off-the-wall ideas

By Bruce Anderson June 22, 2020
Bruce Anderson Chairman of Abacus Data and Summa Communications and Partner in Spark Advocacy
MCCLEANS
7/18/2020

In 38 years polling public opinion you don't only learn what people think.  You learn a lot about what people don't know.

Our survey of Americans was fascinating but troubling.  Many Americans know remarkably little about the world beyond their borders.  Now you might say this isn't new. But here's what is new.

Knowledge of the world seems to be deteriorating in America, abetted by a president-ignorant of the world himself-whose formula for political success depends on more people becoming less informed.

Democracies turn into something else when the media is controlled so that people only hear one version of reality. In the past, that often required a physical action to shut down a free press. But today, there's an easier route-more subtle but highly effective. Let America's adversaries use social media platforms to make "friends" and spread falsehoods among American voters. And find and nurture news organizations willing to trade objectivity and integrity for eyeballs and dollars.  .

In 2016 many were shocked to learn how Russian hackers compromised the presidential election using Facebook. Many were appalled at how Fox News became a cheerleader for the least qualified of 17 Republican nominees and became his house organ once he was installed as president. If Trump lied, a daily, sometimes hourly occurrence, he knew he could do it on Fox without being challenged.

Four years later, how mixed up has this left people?  Our poll leaves some clues:

If Trump loses, most Republican voters say they will believe the election was rigged. If he tries to stay in office after losing, they wouldn't want the military to enforce the election results. In other words, their trust in or need for him is so powerful they don't stop to think what sort of precedent it would set to leave the country in a state of impasse.

As many Americans think Russia is America's best friend as think France, Italy or Germany is. This despite America having spent decades in a military alliance with France, Italy and Germany to protect against Russian military ambition, despite proven Russian use of cyberwarfare to disrupt American social peace and elections.

Under Trump's time in office, Republicans are four times more likely to say relations with Canada have improved (41 per cent), than think they have worsened (8 per cent).  This is mindless partisanship-the facts of the last few years were almost constant tension around NAFTA, dairy subsidies, steel and aluminum tariffs, the idea of Canada as a security risk, the G7 Charlevoix summit friction. But for Republican voters everything seems to be going swimmingly.  Eighty-five per cent say Trump has done a good job with Canada, and 78 per cent say Trudeau has done a good job managing the relationship with the U.S. Three out of four GOP voters want trade, co-operation and friendship with Canada-amazingly they believe Trump does too.

Less than 12 per cent of Republican voters think U.S. relations have soured with Great Britain, France or Germany. This despite almost constant friction in these relationships, on topics from trade to NATO to climate change to refugee and immigration policy.  Trump has by all accounts a terrible relationship with President Emmanuel Macron of France and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany. He was on bad terms with U.K. Conservative Prime Minister Teresa May and launched scathing attacks on London's Mayor. It's too soon to tell whether his rapport with Prime Minister Boris Johnson will take things in a better direction.

The lack of a common fact base makes it easy for people to imagine what they want to imagine. Right now, with racial divides widening, America feuding with most of its allies, an economy stumbling, a deficit at unprecedented levels, and a pandemic that has killed 120,000 and remains out of control in many areas"¦80 per cent of Republicans think Trump has made America greater.

A majority of Republican voters believe their country has better controls against the spread of coronavirus than Canada does. But the virus has killed 361 people for every million Americans. In Canada, the mortality rate is 225 per million people.

It's tempting to wonder what's the big problem if American pride and narcissism make people less aware of the facts of the world around them.

But if you live in Canada, once likened to being a mouse in bed beside an elephant the risks are not so easy to joke about as they once were. A similar but more apt metaphor of Trump's America is John Mullaney's horse running free in a hospital.

The mood in America has worsened. America has become richer but angrier. More limited in its understanding of the world and more divided internally. Half see a serious chance of another civil war.

What could go wrong for Canada? Half of Republican voters would go along with abandoning NORAD, roughly a third would support building a wall and putting troops along the Canadian border. Happily, most Americans are against invading Canada to get at our resources. But stop and think about the fact that only 56 per cent of Americans strongly oppose the idea.

These findings can't properly be interpreted as hostility to Canada. Instead they are a glimpse at what happens when a sizeable proportion of the population stop thinking much about the consequence of the choices their country makes.

Party over Country and Leader over Party have cast a shadow on the "shining city on a hill".  And in a little more than 100 days from now the rest of the world will find out if the next four years will see more of the same.

Hi Rad,

Thanks for all the great articles you've been posting, especially:

1. "Donald Trump is the most successful bio-terrorist in human history":

I wish the mainstream media would have the guts to say this stuff out loud, because as long as they continue to normalize him, he may be able to get re-elected:

"Because of his extreme malignant narcissism, Donald Trump can and should be compared to leaders such as Adolf Hitler....Donald Trump is not just incompetent. He's not just delusional. He is not just narcissistic and doesn't care about others. Donald Trump's behavior with the coronavirus pandemic is intentional. He is malevolent. He is a first-degree mass murderer. This is a plan."..."To the extent that they (leaders) are not feeling great enough about themselves, they need someone to punish. One of the ways that a Trump or Hitler-type leader does that is to try to make people show loyalty by doing things where they knowingly harm themselves."

"Of course, the American news media is also unable to accept such a reality, that there are leaders who would actively hurt their own followers and others."

"Trump is going to find a way to steal the 2020 election. And even if defeated at the polls, he still has two months between Election Day and supposedly stepping down in January. These months up to Election Day and then to January will be some of the most dangerous in the country's history. Trump is capable of anything."

2. "The unmasking of Donald Trump":

"(David Cay) Johnston...still blames the media for failing to properly report on Trump in 2016, ultimately helping him win the White House."

Exactly right. Those in the mainstream media are still tip-toeing around Trump, refusing to be blunt about what we all see and have seen for years----that this guy is malevolent, existentially dangerous to the country, mentally disturbed, and MUST be stopped for the good of us all.

3.  "Attempted murder of your post office': Outrage as Trump crony now heading USPS moves to slow mail delivery":

There are also reports that many ballots have already been thrown out. See:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/tens-of-thousands-of-mail-ballots-have-been-tossed-out-in-this-years-primaries-what-will-happen-in-november/2020/07/16/fa5d7e96-c527-11ea-b037-f9711f89ee46_story.html

https://theintercept.com/2020/07/16/new-york-mail-in-ballots-thrown-out/

Thanks again for bringing to light important pieces of journalism that speak the truth and are an alternative to the whitewashed pieces in the mainstream media.

Regards,

Soleil

Trump's 2020 strategy: paint Joe Biden as a puppet for the 'radical left'

As Biden builds an impressive coalition of supporters, the Trump campaign hopes to link the candidate to high taxes and socialism

David Smith in Washington
Guardian
Sun 19 Jul 2020 08.00 BST

Donald Trump's new campaign manager began his tenure this week with a declaration of intent. "If we win more days than Joe Biden wins, President Trump will be re-elected," Bill Stepien said in his first public statement.

"We will expose Joe Biden as a hapless tool of the extreme left and contrast his failures with the undeniable successes of President Trump."

Expect to hear a lot more over the next 100 days or so about Biden, the former US vice-president, being "a hapless tool of the extreme left". It is a classic Republican argument that seeks to peel off moderates and independents by linking Democrats to high taxes and big government socialism. With other attack lines against Biden failing to stick, the Trump campaign appears to have concluded that this is their best shot.

It comes as Biden builds a coalition that spans military generals and Black Lives Matter activists, disenchanted Republicans and democratic socialists. His platform has been described as the most progressive of any presidential candidate in history, unfolding in a year that has seen the coronavirus pandemic and mass protests against racial injustice smash old certainties.

Should Democrats control the White House and both chambers of Congress, America could experience a paradigm shift in what is defined as the left, right and centre ground.

One of the last gasps of the pre-pandemic era was the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the National Harbor near Washington in February. Its official theme was "America v socialism" and the agenda included sessions such as "Socialism: Wrecker of Nations and Destroyer of Societies" and "Prescription for Failure: The Ills of Socialised Medicine". Trump, the star speaker, warned darkly of Democrats as "radical-left socialists".

Much has happened since then and Trump has struggled to respond with an election strategy. In late April, he went for xenophobia with an immigration ban; in May, he brushed aside the coronavirus pandemic to focus on rebuilding the economy and pushed a conspiracy theory about Biden's role in the Russia investigation; in June, he responded to Black Lives Matter protests by promising a law and order crackdown; and in July, he embraced a culture war over Confederate symbols from the civil war.

Each time, Trump has been reacting to events and playing catch-up, and opinion polls suggest that none of it has worked, culminating in Wednesday's demotion of the campaign manager Brad Parscale. His successor, Stepien, is a more traditional Republican operator who looks set to revert to a more traditional Republican game plan. In 2008, the party derided Barack Obama for suggesting it's good to "spread the wealth around"; now it will attempt to define Biden in similar terms.

Lanhee Chen, the former policy director for Republican Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign, said: "It is the best possible strategy they can employ given the fact that the far left has been such an ascendent part of the progressive coalition and given how vocal they have been about a number of policy proposals, which I think most Americans find completely distasteful."

Chen, a fellow at the Hoover Institution thinktank at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, added: "The idea of trying to portray Joe Biden as somebody who is either an empty vessel for the left or in cahoots with the far left makes a lot of sense to me. We'll have to see how effective the attack is, but I think it is the best available play in the playbook."

The play is under way. On Tuesday Trump held a 63-minute press conference that proved a thinly disguised campaign rally in the White House rose garden. Ostensibly about China and Hong Kong, the president's rambling speech mentioned Biden almost 30 times.

These included: "Joe Biden's entire career has been a gift to the Chinese Communist Party"; "Today, Joe Biden gave a speech in which he said that the core of his economic agenda is a hard-left crusade against American energy"; "Biden has gone radical left"; and "The Biden-Sanders agenda is the most extreme platform of any major party nominee, by far, in American history" - a reference to Senator Bernie Sanders, a democratic socialist who finished second to Biden in the Democratic primary.

It was backed up by a fusillade from the Trump campaign across various platforms. The "Trump War Room" tweeted: "Bernie Sanders admits he forced Joe Biden to move "˜a whole lot' to the left on healthcare." A campaign email noted how Biden has praised leftwing congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, adding: "Biden is too weak to stand up to the radical left, so he's completely surrendered to them.."

A TV ad claimed: "The radical leftwing mob's agenda? Take over our cities. Defund the police. Pressure more towns to follow. And Joe Biden stands with them." And the vice-president, Mike Pence, speaking in the battleground state of Wisconsin on Friday, described Biden as a "Trojan horse for a radical agenda", adding: "I thought Joe Biden won the Democratic primaries but, looking at their unity agenda, it looks to me like Bernie won."

Such attacks contend that Biden will be soft on immigration, sacrifice hundreds of thousands of blue-collar energy jobs, raise taxes on middle-class families, shut down charter schools and cut funding for police. The Biden campaign dismisses such criticisms as false and desperate scaremongering.

Indeed, Biden is an improbable target for a red scare. Obama's former vice-president spent much of the Democratic primary fending off challenges from the left over everything from his links to the financial services industry to his incremental healthcare plan to his past shortcomings on racial equality. He ultimately won a comprehensive victory over Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, the left's standard bearers.

Yet so far he has seemed able to bring the left with him. Biden's six policy task forces - on climate, healthcare, immigration, education, the economy and criminal-justice reform - have shown a humility that critics say Hillary Clinton lacked in 2016, giving Ocasio-Cortez and other progressives a seat at the table.
Joe Biden speaks during a campaign rally at Renaissance High School in Detroit on 9 March 2020.

Last week Biden launched a $700bn plan to revive American industry and tackle inequality, part of an ambitious economic restructuring that has earned comparisons with President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal in the 1930s. This week he added a proposal to invest $2tn in clean energy infrastructure and climate solutions.

María Urbina, the national political director of the progressive grassroots group Indivisible, said: "In terms of how is he doing in engaging and consolidating support from progressive communities, I got to say he's doing a really good job. When you look at his rollout this week of his climate plan, not only is he getting praised by grassroots communities who have spent a lot of time organising around changes to these bold new standards, but you're also seeing key leaders expressing support, from Jay Inslee to Bernie Sanders to Elizabeth Warren."

But could such a unity platform create an opening for Trump to exploit with his "vote Biden, get Sanders" attacks? Urbina thinks not. "It just doesn't add up. If you look at where Trump is starting to lose support and where Biden is gaining it, Biden is creating a continuum of support that is deep and wide as you can imagine in the kind of voting blocs you'd want to bring in. It's a distraction. Joe Biden has support from Angela Davis and he has support from Republicans, so that's not landing."

A party notorious for infighting, and for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, appears to have a struck a truce between centrists and progressives, uniting against the existential threat of Trump, at least for now. Al From, the founder of the Democratic Leadership Council and the man who in 1989 chose Bill Clinton to lead the party's revival with "third way" politics, agreed that Trump's effort to cast Biden as a handmaiden to socialism will fall flat.

"They're slinging mud wherever they can and the problem is it sticks to the president's hand and always winds up hitting him back in his own face," From said. "Joe Biden has a long record. It's pretty clear he's not Bernie Sanders. People know what he stands for. He's a good, decent, honest, empathetic man and people are looking for that.

"This election is a referendum on Trump. He's running against himself and he's doing a really good job of beating himself."

The seismic events of 2020 have shaken the political kaleidoscope. The jobless rate stood at 3.6% when Biden launched his campaign in April last year; now it is well above 10% in the thick of a pandemic that has claimed 140,000 lives. The police killing of George Floyd provoked the biggest mass protests for racial justice in half a century and sweeping transformation from corporate boardrooms to public squares.

What have been multiple crises for Trump could be multiple opportunities for his successor, especially if Democrats regain control of the Senate and thereby avoid Republican obstruction. Could Biden do something big and historic?

From, who has known him for about 50 years, said: "Biden is going to have a good centre-left New Democrat New Labour agenda that's modernised to meet today's challenges. I think the whole political spectrum is going to change. Both parties probably will see big changes. There will be a realignment. I can't tell you now what it's going to be like."

Neil Sroka, a spokesperson for Democracy for America, a political action committee that endorsed Sanders in the Democratic primary, said: "The realigning of the left and centre has actually already happened. Joe Biden, if he wins in November, will be elected on the most progressive agenda a Democrat has ever been elected on in the history of the country. Period. End of story.

"The movement behind Senator Sanders in 2016 and the response to Trump and the movement that grew behind Senator Sanders again in 2020 has fundamentally altered the trajectory of the Democratic party in a way that's hard to really grasp looking at it from where we were in January 2015."

America has a worldwide reputation as a conservative nation that values private enterprise above public services, with Democrats well to the right of Britain's Labour party and little prospect of European-style universal healthcare. But it may also have been awoken to new imperatives and possibilities by a historic convergence of health, economic and racial crises.

Sroka added: "While Joe Biden and perhaps his primary supporters might have thought we needed to go slower, outside events are showing that can change. Progressives are there to ensure that we get change that is big enough and delivered fas

"˜Give a direct answer': Chris Wallace grills Trump for suggesting he won't accept election results

on July 19, 2020
Raw Story
By David Edwards

President Donald Trump suggested that he may not accept the results of the 2020 election because he's not a "good loser."

In an interview that aired on Sunday, Chris Wallace asked the president if he is a "good loser."

"I'm not a good loser," Trump replied. "I don't like to lose. I don't lose too often."

"So, are you gracious?" Wallace pressed.

"You don't know until you see, it depends," Trump insisted. "I think mail-in voting is going to rig the election."

"Are you suggesting that you might not accept the results of the election?" Wallace wondered.

"I have to see," Trump remarked.

"Can you give a direct answer?" Wallace asked again.

"I have to see! Look, no, I'm not going to just say yes," Trump complained.

Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=copt7hxZg70&feature=emb_title

"˜This is how it starts': Lincoln Project releases new attack calling out Trump for sending "˜unmarked agents into our streets'

July 20, 2020
Raw Story
By Sarah K. Burris

A brutal new takedown of President Donald Trump's attacks on American citizens protesting peacefully was released by the Lincoln Project Sunday.

"The videos of masked, anonymous government officers attacking American citizens who pose no threat is shocking to watch. Federal agents with no badge are kidnapping civilians into unmarked vans. How is this America?" said LP co-founder Reed Galen in a release. "All Americans must be vigilant."

While Trump's polling numbers are tanking, LP said that the president is losing control. The state of Oregon asked the Department of Homeland Security not to intervene with their protests, saying that things were dying down and had grown much more peaceful. Trump and the DHS ignored the governor's pleas to stop and made things worse, according to the Portland mayor.

Like a scene out of "V for Vendetta," The video describes how Trump's federal agents, "deputized by a rogue attorney general," snatched protesters off the streets, threw them into unmarked cars, and took them away somewhere.

"This is how it starts, and freedom dies," the ad closes.

See the shocking video from the Lincoln Project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzHE_SY334o&feature=emb_title

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Military and Secret Service need to start making serious plans in case Trump refuses to leave office: Joe Scarborough

on July 20, 2020
Raw Story
By Tom Boggioni

Responding to Donald Trump's comments on Fox News that he might not accept the results of the November election should he lose, MSNBC "Morning Joe" co-host Joe Scarborough issued a dark warning that the "brightest minds" in Washington D.C. better start making serious plans on how to seize control of the government should the president balk at stepping down.

During his interview with Fox News host Chris Wallace, the president refused to say whether he would accept the will of the voters, which led the frustrated Wallace to demand a "direct answer" which he did not get from the hedging president.

After sharing the clip, Scarborough said Trump's hint that he may fight leaving should be taken with utmost seriousness.

"˜He has proven over the past three and a half years that he's capable of doing anything and, most importantly. he will do whatever he can get away with," the MSNBC host began. "That's why I think people in government, people out of government, the brightest minds in this country have a new task."

"This is a time when the candidates, both major candidates start talking about transition teams and talking about who's going to be running operations inside the White House," he continued. "I think the best and brightest minds in government and out of government now have to start using their imagination, now have to start thinking outside the box, now have to start preparing for something that we haven't had to prepare for. and that is: how does our government, how does our military, how does the Secret Service, how quickly do the courts respond to a sitting president who is defeated at the ballot box and refuses to leave?"

"If you take the president at his own words from yesterday, "˜doesn't know not so sure,' you look at what happened on June 1st in Lafayette Park and look at what's happening in Portland right now, and this is a president who is pushing the boundaries of his power in ways that few presidents have ever before," he concluded.

Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GPq18xChTc&feature=emb_title

Trump's vow to send federal officers to US cities is election ploy, critics say

Opponents warn of grave threat to civil liberties as observers say president seeks to build "˜law and order' credentials

David Smith in Washington
Guardian
Tue 21 Jul 2020 06.00 BST

Donald Trump has vowed to send federal officers to several American cities led by Democrats in what critics say is an attempt to play the "law and order" card to boost his bid for re-election.

The president's threat came after a federal crackdown on anti-racism protests in Portland, Oregon, that involved unmarked cars and unidentified forces in camouflage.

Speaking to reporters at the White House on Monday, Trump identified New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, Baltimore and Oakland as places in need of federal agents, describing those cities' mayors as "liberal Democrats".

"We're sending law enforcement," he said. "We can't let this happen to the cities."

Singling out Chicago, where more than 63 people were shot, 12 fatally, over the weekend, Trump pivoted to an attack on his election rival, Joe Biden. "And you add it up over the summer - this is worse than Afghanistan, by far. This is worse than anything anyone has ever seen. All run by the same liberal Democrats. And you know what? If Biden got in, that would be true for the country. The whole country would go to hell. And we're not going to let it go to hell."

Struggling against Biden in the opinion polls, Trump has leaned into a dark and divisive theme reminiscent of his fellow Republican Richard Nixon in 1968. "I am your president of law and order," he declared in the White House Rose Garden on 1 June, shortly before park police and national guard troops fired teargas and chased peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square so he could stage a photo op outside a historic church.

Since then he has repeatedly - and falsely - accused Biden of planning to "defund the police" and effectively surrender cities and suburbs to violent criminals. The conservative Fox News network, meanwhile, has been giving emphasis to coverage of inner-city violence rather the coronavirus pandemic.

Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said: "He took longer than I thought he would to start emphasising law and order. But I bet he starts at the convention. It's going to be one of the key themes of the convention. "˜These crazy liberals are causing problems again.'"

Such a strategy is "certainly a candidate" for explaining the fresh crackdown in major cities, Sabato added. "I'll tell you what it really is, though. It is an unmistakeable hint of what a second Trump term will be like. There'll be no hesitation to do any of this."

The Trump administration sent federal officers into Portland after weeks of protests there over police brutality and racial injustice that followed the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May. Last week, videos showed unidentified federal personnel taking people off the street and driving them away in black minivans.

Mark Morgan, acting commissioner of US Customs and Border Protection, defended the actions in a tweet on Sunday: "Law and Order - a cornerstone of American society - is under siege in Portland."

On Monday the Chicago Tribune newspaper reported that the Department of Homeland Security was making plans to deploy about 150 agents in the city where police defending a statue clashed with demonstrators on Friday.

Lori Lightfoot, the mayor of Chicago and a Democrat, told the Associated Press: "I have great concerns about that in particular, given the track record in the city of Portland. I have talked to the mayor of Portland [and] we don't need federal agents without any insignia taking people off the street and holding them, I think, unlawfully."

The issue has laid bare the binary choice for voters in November. Democrats, warning of a threat to civil liberties, called for Chad Wolf, acting secretary of Homeland Security, to quit. Congressman Don Beyer of Virginia said Wolf was "overseeing authoritarian abuses that betray our bedrock principles and would horrify our nation's Founders".

He added: "Ordering the occupation of US cities, seeking the escalation of violence, and intentionally risking American lives over peaceful protests and graffiti is unfathomable and unacceptable. Secretary Wolf must resign immediately or be fired."

The House committee chairmen Jerry Nadler, Adam Smith and Bennie Thompson said in a joint statement: "The Trump administration continues to weaponize federal law enforcement for its own agenda. Like we saw in Lafayette Square, rather than supporting and protecting the American people, we are witnessing the oppression of peaceful protesters by our own government.

"Not only do their actions undermine civil rights and sow fear and discord across the country, but in this case, they sully the reputation of members of our armed forces who were not involved."

And the congresswoman Rashida Tlaib of Michigan wrote on Twitter: "They'll have to arrest me first if they think they're going to illegally lay their hands on my residents."

The sinister events in Portland have renewed fears about creeping authoritarianism from Trump's White House.

Laurence Tribe, a constitutional law professor at Harvard University, has called for peaceful civil disobedience. "Stormtrooper tactics have no place in a free society," he said. "The apparent deployment of the military for domestic law enforcement violates the Posse Comitatus Act in the absence of a genuine insurrection, and the claim that such deployment is genuinely necessary to preserve order does not meet the laugh test.

"The administration is violating the first amendment on a regular basis now, thereby endangering all our liberties."

*************

Democrats warn the FBI that a GOP senator is "˜laundering' a foreign operation to attack Biden: report

on July 21, 2020
Raw Story
By Matthew Chapman

On Monday, Politico reported that Democratic congressional leaders have sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray demanding a briefing on foreign efforts to target members of Congress as part of an influence campaign.

"Among the Democrats' concerns is that a Senate investigation being led by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) has become a vehicle for "˜laundering' a foreign influence campaign to damage Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, according to two people familiar with the demand," reported Natasha Bertrand. "Though the letter did not mention the Johnson investigation, it included a classified addendum that the two sources say identified the probe as one of the sources of their concern."

The letter was signed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA), and Senate Intelligence Committee ranking member Mark Warner (D-VA).

Johnson, who chairs the Senate Homeland Security Committee, opened the investigation ostensibly to audit the origins of the Russia investigation in the previous administration. But even some Republicans have raised concerns that the overly political nature of the probe will backfire on them.

*************

Trump consults Bush torture lawyer on how to skirt law and rule by decree

   John Yoo wrote memo used to justify waterboarding
   Trump keen to use executive orders and circumvent Congress

Julian Borger in Washington
Guardian
21 Jul 2020 21.53 BST

The Trump administration has been consulting the former government lawyer who wrote the legal justification for waterboarding on how the president might try to rule by decree.

John Yoo told the Guardian he has been talking to White House officials about his view that a recent supreme court ruling on immigration would allow Trump to issue executive orders on whether to apply existing federal laws.

"If the court really believes what it just did, then it just handed President Trump a great deal of power, too," Yoo, a professor at Berkeley Law, said.

"The supreme court has said President Obama could [choose not to] enforce immigration laws for about 2 million cases. And why can't the Trump administration do something similar with immigration - create its own "¦ program, but it could do it in areas beyond that, like healthcare, tax policy, criminal justice, inner city policy. I talked to them a fair amount about cities, because of the disorder."

In a Fox News Sunday interview, Trump declared he would try to use that interpretation to try to force through decrees on healthcare, immigration and "various other plans" over the coming month. The White House consultations with Yoo were first reported by the Axios news website.

Constitutional scholars and human rights activists have also pointed to the deployment of paramilitary federal forces against protesters in Portland as a sign that Trump is ready to use this broad interpretation of presidential powers as a means to suppress basic constitutional rights.

"This is how it begins," Laurence Tribe, a Harvard constitutional law professor, wrote on Twitter. "The dictatorial hunger for power is insatiable. If ever there was a time for peaceful civil disobedience, that time is upon us."

Yoo became notorious for a legal memo he drafted in August 2002, when he was deputy assistant attorney general in the justice department's office of legal counsel.

It stated: "Necessity or self-defense may justify interrogation methods that might violate" the criminal prohibition on torture.

Memos drafted by Yoo were used for justifying waterboarding and other forms of torture on terrorism suspects at CIA "black sites" around the world.

Asked if he now regretted his memos, Yoo replied: "I'm still not exactly sure about how far the CIA took its interrogation methods but I think if they stayed within the outlines of the legal memos, I think they weren't violating American law."

In a book titled Defender in Chief, due to be published next week, Yoo argues that Trump was fighting to restore the powers of the presidency, in a way that would have been approved by the framers of the US constitution.

"They wanted each branch to have certain constitutional weapons and then they wanted them to fight. And so they wanted the president to try to expand his powers but they expected also Congress to keep fighting with the President," he said.

In a June article in the National Review, he wrote that a supreme court decision that blocked Trump's attempt to repeal Barack Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals programme, known as Daca and established by executive order, meant Trump could do the same thing to achieve his policy goals.

Daca suspended deportations of undocumented migrants who arrived in the US as children. As an example of what Trump might achieve in the same way, Yoo suggested the president could declare a national right to carry firearms openly, in conflict with many state laws.

"He could declare that he would not enforce federal firearms laws," Yoo wrote, "and that a new "˜Trump permit' would free any holder of state and local gun-control restrictions.

"Even if Trump knew that his scheme lacked legal authority, he could get away with it for the length of his presidency," he said. In a telephone interview, he added: "According to the supreme court, the president can now choose to under-enforce the law in certain areas and it can't be undone by his successor unless that successor goes through this onerous thing called the Administrative Procedure Act, which usually takes one to two years."

Constitutional scholars have rejected Yoo's arguments as ignoring limits on the executive powers of the president imposed by the founders, who were determined to prevent the rise of a tyrant.

Tribe called Yoo's interpretation of the Daca ruling "indefensible".

He added: "I fear that this lawless administration will take full advantage of the fact that judicial wheels grind slowly and that it will be difficult to keep up with the many ways Trump, aided and abetted by Bill Barr as attorney general and Chad Wolf as acting head of homeland security, can usurp congressional powers and abridge fundamental rights in the immigration space in particular but also in matters of public health and safety."

On the deployment of federal paramilitary units against Portland, Yoo said he did not know enough of the facts to deem whether it was an abuse of executive power.

"It has to be really reasonably related to protecting federal buildings," he said. "If it's just graffiti, that's not enough. It really depends on what the facts are."

Alka Pradhan, a defence counsel in the 9/11 terrorism cases against inmates in the Guantánamo Bay prison camp, said: "John Yoo's so-called reasoning has always been based on "˜What can the president get away with?' rather than "˜What is the purpose and letter of the law?'

"That is not legal reasoning, it's inherently tyrannical and anti-democratic."

Pradhan and other defence lawyers in the pre-trial hearings at the Guantánamo Bay military tribunal have argued that the use of torture against their clients, made possible by Yoo's 2002 memo, invalidated much of the case against them.

"The fact that John Yoo is employed and free to opine on legal matters is an example of the culture of impunity in the United States," she said.

Biden Announces $775 Billion Plan to Help Working Parents and Caregivers

In a speech in Delaware, Joseph R. Biden Jr. outlined proposals covering care for small children, older adults and family members with disabilities.

By Claire Cain Miller, Shane Goldmacher and Thomas Kaplan
NY Times
July 22, 2020

Joseph R. Biden Jr. announced a sweeping new $775 billion investment in caregiving programs on Tuesday, with a series of proposals covering care for small children, older adults and family members with disabilities. His campaign hopes the plan will land with particular resonance during a pandemic that has severely affected the caregiving needs of millions of American families.

The proposals, outlined in a speech near his home in Delaware, were the third of four economic rollouts that Mr. Biden, the former vice president and presumptive Democratic nominee, is doing before the Democratic National Convention next month. He is seeking to blunt one of the few areas of advantage - the economy - that President Trump maintains even as Mr. Trump's overall standing has dipped.

"Families are squeezed emotionally and financially," Mr. Biden said in the speech. "They need help, but too often they can't afford it."

Professional caregivers, he added, "are too often underpaid, unseen and undervalued."

Mr. Biden's proposals are intended to appeal to voters who are now more acutely aware of how essential caregivers are, as the health crisis has shuttered schools - a source of child care for many Americans - and limited the options to care for older relatives who are more vulnerable to the coronavirus.

But they are also aimed at the caregivers themselves, promising more jobs and higher pay. His campaign estimated that the new spending would create three million new jobs in the next decade, and even more after accounting for people able to enter the work force instead of serving as unpaid, at-home caregivers.

Mr. Biden's ideas are in line with what other Democrats have proposed and what researchers have demonstrated could help working families, but it is notable to make caregiving a central issue in a presidential campaign. 

"Care has largely been ignored, certainly in presidential elections, so it's really exciting to see specific plans that would really move the needle," said Taryn Morrissey, who studies child and family policies at American University. "This would change families' finances."

In a conference call outlining the plan on Monday night, the Biden campaign framed caregiving help as an economic imperative to keep the country competitive globally, and to enable it to recover from the economic crisis brought on by the pandemic. The United States is the only rich country without paid family leave and has no universal child care; research has shown that labor force participation has stalled because of that.

But advisers to Mr. Biden, whose campaign has made empathy a central component of his 2020 candidacy, also repeatedly invoked the former vice president's own history as a single father. Mr. Biden's first wife and his 1-year-old daughter died in a car accident in 1972, shortly before he was first sworn into the United States Senate. His two sons survived the accident.

In his speech, Mr. Biden recalled the years after the accident and other difficult periods in his life, like when his son Beau Biden had brain cancer.

"We know what it's like," Mr. Biden said. "We know so many of you are going through the same thing without the kind of help I had."

To address care for older people and people with disabilities, the Biden campaign announced proposals to eliminate the waiting list for home and community care under Medicaid, which has roughly 800,000 people on it; provide fresh funding to states and groups that explore alternatives to institutional care; and add 150,000 new community health workers. The campaign said that coronavirus outbreaks in nursing homes had highlighted the necessity of providing care for aging adults at home.

For young children, Mr. Biden is proposing to start with a bailout for child care centers, many of which are at risk of closing amid the pandemic because they are financed almost entirely by private payments. Even before lockdowns began, they operated on very small profit margins.

Mr. Biden also proposed national pre-K for all children ages 3 and 4, and his campaign pointed to research that has shown that such programs help women work and shrink racial and socioeconomic achievement gaps.

For parents of younger children, he proposed an $8,000 child care tax credit per child, up to $16,000, for families earning less than $125,000. It would be refundable so parents who did not pay much in taxes could still collect it. Or families earning less than 1.5 times the median income in their state could choose subsidized child care, so they would pay no more than 7 percent of their income. The lowest earners would pay nothing.

The plan would address the dearth of child care by providing financing for the construction of new child care facilities, including at workplaces and in rural areas, and expanding after-school and summer options and care for people who work nontraditional hours.

Mr. Biden's plan also calls for increased pay for child care workers - who are disproportionately women and minorities - along with health benefits, career training and the ability to unionize. On average, preschool teachers in the United States earn less than $30,000 a year, while kindergarten teachers earn over $50,000, according to researchers at the University of California, Berkeley.

The plan follows earlier proposals from Mr. Biden to provide benefits for people who care for family members instead of working for pay, an idea that has recently gained support from both parties. He would give unpaid caregivers a $5,000 tax credit as well as Social Security credits.

Though Mr. Biden had previously called for public pre-K, paid family leave and elder care, his announcement on Tuesday was the most detail he has given about what those plans would look like and about additional ideas he has for helping caregivers. During the Democratic primary, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders were at the forefront of family policies, and each proposed universal child care, beginning at birth. Even now, Mr. Biden has not gone that far. Other of the senators' ideas, like raising preschool teachers' pay, are included in his new proposals.

The Trump administration has also proposed policies for items like paid family leave and affordable child care, an effort led by the president's daughter Ivanka Trump, who has framed the initiatives as economic ones. Politically, family policies appeal to a group that both parties are trying to court, suburban women.

Yet very few family policies have been put into place while Mr. Trump has been in office, and the ones that have, like an expanded child tax credit and more money for child care for low-income families, have been minimal and have not reached all the families that need help.

In response to the pandemic caregiving crisis, Democrats have introduced bills to provide more parents with paid leave while schools are closed and to invest billions to save the child care industry, but most Republicans have not supported them.

In general, Republicans have resisted any caregiving policy that would be paid for through a tax increase, which most of the Democratic plans would. For example, Mr. Trump has endorsed a bipartisan bill that would provide leave for new parents by letting them collect their own future child tax credits early and receive smaller credits later.

Mr. Biden's campaign said the newly proposed programs, some of which would be operated with state and local officials, would be paid for by rolling back some taxes on real estate investors with incomes over $400,000, as well as by increasing tax enforcement on the wealthy.

In response, the Trump campaign tried to draw attention to the cost of Mr. Biden's plan. "Instead of pro-job and pro-growth policies, Biden is turning to an old friend - tax hikes and big government," an email from the campaign said.

Mr. Biden delivered his speech in New Castle, Del., not far from his home in Wilmington, where he has mostly stayed put since the coronavirus began shutting down the country in March. His first economic rollout was focused on reinvigorating manufacturing and strengthening "Buy American" rules; the second was on building the infrastructure of a new, greener economy; and the final one will be about advancing "racial equity," the campaign has said.

Trump has inadvertently punched himself in the face with his politically-driven war on cities

on July 23, 2020
By Amanda Marcotte, Salon
- Commentary

On June 1, Donald Trump, the failed businessman who became president by pretending to be a successful businessman on reality TV, decided to tear-gas peaceful protesters in search of a photo op. With no apparent provocation, federal police assaulted a crowd of people staging a nonviolent protest in Lafayette Park, adjacent to the White House, unleashing tear gas on the crowd and laying into them with batons and rubber bullets. Soon it became clear why this was happening: Trump wanted his picture taken in front of St. John's Episcopal Church, and wanted a clear path to walk across the park.

But it was more than that: Trump also wanted images of people fleeing from paramilitary cops to air directly opposite the speech he gave just before his stroll, one in which the president claimed that "our nation has been gripped by professional anarchists, violent mobs or arsonists, looters, criminals, rioters, antifa and others" and that he was "mobilizing all federal resources, civilian and military, to stop the rioting and looting."

In other words, Trump and his aides apparently believed that chaotic images of cops crushing a peaceful protest would look, at least on TV, like proof of Trump's characterization of the largely peaceful protests as "riots" being run by dangerous "anarchists."

This gambit grossly backfired. Reporters on the scene saw with their own eyes that the protest had been peaceful, and the only people who could legitimately said to be "rioting" were the cops. Trump wanted to look tough but wound up looking weak and cowardly, a man so afraid of being heckled he hides behind a phalanx of RoboCops. Even the photo-op went sideways: Trump looked especially awkward with a Bible perched precipitously on his stubby fingers, in a manner suggesting he'd never seen or held a book before.

But Trump, never one to admit a mistake, has not given up on his belief that unleashing military-style assaults on peaceful protesters is just the thing needed to reinvigorate his campaign. He's sent federal police - armed to the hilt and clad in camo, to maximize the appearance of being in invading army - into Portland, Oregon, to terrorize and assault people gathered peacefully in the streets. (Even the mayor of Portland, Ted Wheeler, got tear-gassed while doing nothing more sinister than standing in a peaceful crowd, chatting with protesters.) Now Trump has said he'll send more federal goons to Chicago and Albuquerque, New Mexico, all against the express wishes of local and state leaders, who point out that  federal police, not protesters, are staging confrontations that become violent. He has suggested he may expand this domestic invasion to other cities across the country.

In a press conference on Wednesday, Trump tried to justify all this by claiming we're witnessing "a shocking explosion of shootings, killings, murders and heinous crimes of violence."

Like most things Trump says, this is an outright lie. FBI crime statistics show that overall crime is down by 5.3% since last year. It's true that murder rates have ticked upward in many places from the historic lows of the last few years. Experts interviewed by the New York Times suggest that the protests have nothing to do with it, and that it's a result of the enormous disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic, which has heightened stress, leading both to increased domestic violence and more heated disputes within the illegal drug trade.

As usual, Trump is lying about more than just the statistics. He's also lying about his intentions. He isn't doing any of this to keep people safe. If he cared one whit about the safety of Americans, he would focus his energy on fighting the coronavirus, not on staging violent confrontations with largely peaceful protesters. If he cared about reducing violence, he wouldn't be causing more of it by sending cops to attack demonstrators. If he really cared about "law and order," he wouldn't be deliberately inducing chaos in the streets.

No, all this is about one thing and one thing only: The reality-TV president wants to create a spectacle for the cameras, one he thinks will get him re-elected.

That's why Trump went to Tulsa to hold a rally near the site of one of worst racial pogroms in American history, on a weekend usually known for celebrating Black people's emancipation from slavery: He hoped the provocation would lead to a violent clash between protesters and police. (It didn't.)

Trump is playing the role of the world's worst TV director, one who is using taxpayer money to inflict real pain and suffering on people who didn't consent to play a part in his BDSM-themed cable drama aimed at viewers with a tear-gas kink. All for the purpose of generating B-roll footage of flash-bangs and clouds of gas and armored police and black-clad protesters to be featured in heavy rotation on Fox News and in campaign ads.

As Oregon Gov. Kate Brown explained on MSNBC, when Chad Wolf, the acting Homeland Security secretary, visited Portland recently, "he brought a Fox News team with him for a photo opportunity." Unsurprisingly, that network is playing the role of Trump's eager editor, presenting the Portland footage in misleading ways, and amplifying his lies about the protesters.

The one sticky problem for Trump's artistic vision is that everyone outside the Fox News bubble can see that the protests have been overwhelmingly peaceful, and that the president who's sending in poorly trained, amped-up federal cops is the one stoking violence and chaos. Trump is doing all this to get images of "violent" protests, but what he's mostly getting is images of cops attacking a row of middle-aged women who are singing lullabies (that's no exaggeration). As with the Lafayette Park incident back in early June, it's obvious who the real instigator of violence is.

Trump's campaign is so desperate for images of street violence that it literally borrowed a photo of protesters attacking a uniformed soldier - a photo taken in Ukraine in 2014 - and tried to pass it off as an image from recent American protests.

Trump's gut-level certainty that (white) Americans yearn for more images of cops beating or attacking protesters is, like most things Trump feels sure about, entirely wrong. The most recent polling data from earlier this month shows that 62% of Americans believe that Trump's handling of the protests has made the situation worse. When it comes to non-Republicans, that figure rises to 8 in 10 Americans. Trump is wasting taxpayer money and unleashing harm on U.S. citizens solely for the purpose of activating the worst impulses of the most racist and paranoid members of his base - people who were already going to vote for him, no matter.

Of course, Fox News - whose hysterical coverage no doubt inspired Trump to ramp up his autocratic crackdown in the first place - is backing him to the hilt, as are many of the Republicans running for election down-ballot from this historically unpopular president. That seems like a dumb move, likely to alienate any voters who weren't already on board, but then again, what else do they have? With the coronavirus pandemic raging out of control and the economy in the toilet, Republicans certainly can't claim they've done a competent job and deserve to keep on doing it. Violence and racism may not be a winning message in this year of historic turmoil and change, but at this point, it's all Trump and his party have left.

*********


Devastating ad depicts Trump's America in #GestapoTrump

on July 23, 2020
By David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement

A devastating new ad from Really American PAC depicts what life in Trump's America has become: the President's secret police SWAT teams physically attacking U.S. citizens protesting against police violence, beating them with bats and batons, tear gassing them, and shoving them to the ground.

The sharply-edited video includes audio of Trump calling protestors "animals," and his infamous remarks, bragging to police, telling them, "please don't be too nice" to suspects when they are arresting them.

And also:

"It was like a knife cutting through butter."
Defend democracy. Click to invest in courageous progressive journalism today.

"You have to dominate the streets."

The video is so disturbing because it's real.

Take a look: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5p0xBNOvPo&feature=emb_title

Mitch McConnell accused of "˜doing everything he can to suppress the vote' by proposing $0 in election assistance

on July 24, 2020
By Jake Johnson, Common Dreams

Progressives are accusing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and President Donald Trump of pulling out all the stops to suppress the vote in November after new details of the Republican coronavirus stimulus plan revealed it does not propose a single dollar in election assistance funding.

"It seems Mitch McConnell is doing everything he can to suppress the vote by putting voters in danger."
-Sean Eldridge, Stand Up America

A summary (pdf) of the Republican plan obtained by the New York Times Thursday doesn't mention election funding directly, but it does note that the GOP relief package will propose "no additional money for state/local governments."

The draft adds in a parenthetical, "Certainly expect to get some [funding] added in negotiations with the Dems."

"It is outrageous that this proposal contains not one penny to help states conduct safe elections during a global pandemic," Sean Eldridge, founder and president of Stand Up America, said in a statement. "Policymakers should be doing everything they can to ensure voters are not forced to risk their health to cast their ballot."

"Instead," Eldridge said, "it seems Mitch McConnell is doing everything he can to suppress the vote by putting voters in danger."

Stand Up America and other voting rights groups are demanding that Congress approve $3.6 billion in election assistance funding-a fraction of the $21.3 billion the GOP plan proposes handing to the Pentagon on top of the agency's likely $740.5 billion budget for fiscal year 2021.

The Republican plan, which is being crafted in McConnell's office in partnership with the Trump White House, has not yet been finalized and the details could still change.

    BREAKING: The new GOP coronavirus bill includes ANOTHER $21,300,000,000 for the Pentagon.

    The Pentagon already got $10,500,000,000 in the CARES Act.

    This is all on top of an existing $740,000,000,000 military budget.

    Meanwhile, struggling Americans get next to nothing. pic.twitter.com/2oD55w2jTc

    - Public Citizen (@Public_Citizen) July 23, 2020

Voting rights advocates say the election assistance money is necessary to help states expand vote-by-mail and ensure that in-person polling places are adequately equipped and prepared to safely hold a general election amid a pandemic.

Failing to approve election funding, progressives warn, could drive down turnout in November by limiting voters' ballot options in an environment where it is potentially dangerous to vote in person.

    Want to feel your health is being prioritized when you vote this November?

    Call your senator.

    The Senate is coming up with a coronavirus response bill & reports are saying McConnell wants to allocate $0 in election funding for the states.

    Text MAIL to 21333 to be connected.

    - Stand Up America (@StandUpAmerica) July 23, 2020

Trump's repeated and baseless attacks on mail-in voting as well as his refusal to commit to accepting the results of the 2020 election have added urgency to progressive efforts to ensure a safe and fair contest. On Thursday, Stand Up America and Indivisible announced that 30 new advocacy groups have joined the grassroots campaign preparing to mobilize should Trump refuse to leave office.

"Together, we will ensure that every vote is counted and that we protect our democracy," said Cristina Jimenez, executive director and co-founder of United We Dream Action, an immigrant rights group.

In May, House Democrats passed legislation that would provide more than $1 trillion in funding for state and local governments-including billions in election assistance money-as they face pandemic-induced budgetary crises.

Eldridge said Democratic lawmakers must do everything in their power to ensure that adequate election assistance funding is included in the stimulus package that eventually makes its way through Congress.

"Democrats in both chambers cannot allow Republicans to threaten the foundation of our democracy-and they must use every piece of available leverage to ensure election funding is included in a final brokered deal," said Eldridge. "Nothing less than our democracy is at stake."

All Your Most Paranoid Transfer of Power Questions, Answered

What happens if Donald Trump refuses to accept the results of the election?

Ben Jacobs
Jul 24 2020
GEN

Can Donald Trump continue as president even if he loses the election in November?

Trump's refusal to say that he would accept the results of the election during an interview with Chris Wallace of Fox News comes as the president continues to fearmonger about the use of vote by mail in the 2020 election and raise questions about its legitimacy.

This rhetoric is not new from Trump. He falsely claimed in 2016 that Ted Cruz "stole" the Iowa caucuses and refused to commit in advance to accepting the result of the general election against Hillary Clinton. Now that he's in the White House, can Trump thwart the will of the American electorate if he loses in November? Let's look at what's actually possible - and what isn't.

Can Trump do anything if it's a Biden landslide?

No. In this case, only the most outlandish scenarios would be available to a president seeking to stay in office. Peter Feaver, a professor at Duke University who served on George W. Bush's National Security Council, said Trump "would have to persuade many, many people who are currently in government, most of whom are civil servants, they have to go along" with any effort. Further, the constitutional process of transfer of power does not require any "pomp and circumstance"; if Trump loses, he is no longer president as of noon on January 20, 2021, regardless of where he remains physically. Even if he bunkers down in the White House and tweets orders at government officials, he will lack any legal power.

What if it's a close election?

The constitutional procedures don't change if it's a close election, but there are more opportunities to weaponize them for political advantage. Even though Election Day is November 3, the presidential election is not finalized until January 6, 2021. In between, there is a two-month process with a number of choke points in a normal election year, to say nothing of one where the coronavirus pandemic sparks the unprecedented use of vote by mail.

Wait, the president isn't elected in November?

Nope. Remember, voters don't directly vote for the president. They vote for electors in the Electoral College. The electors convene to cast their ballots on December 14, 2020, in their respective state capitals. The ballots are then counted during a joint session of Congress on January 6, 2021, which is presided over by the vice president. Only then do we officially have a president-elect. In between, a lot of things can go wrong, ranging from fundamental election administration issues to a parade of constitutional horribles.

What's the biggest potential problem?

The big one is absentee ballots and the issues with counting them. Throughout 2020, elections have required extended periods to count absentee ballots and produce final results. Because of this, there is already a broad expectation on both sides that there may not be a clear winner of the presidential election on election night or even in the days after that.

The issue here is not just the lag in counting votes, but also that there is a partisan bias in the modality people use to vote. In recent elections, late-arriving ballots have trended toward Democrats. In 2018, mailed-in votes not counted until after Election Day tipped the balance and delivered victories in a number of races in California and in the Arizona Senate race. This Democratic-leaning trend is likely to be further amplified by Trump's rhetoric against absentee ballots, which has discouraged Republican primary voters from requesting them.

This creates a potential scenario where, on election night, Trump is ahead in states that have the 270 or more electoral votes needed to claim victory, while Biden wins in the final tally days or weeks later, once all the votes are counted.

But isn't the final count the one that matters?

It all depends. The three closest states in the 2016 election-Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan-all have Democratic governors but Republican legislatures. It's conceivable in a close race that the Democratic governor certifies one result and one set of electors, but the Republican legislature certifies an entirely different result and set of electors. That's where all these scenarios can start to go haywire.

However, they require one other precondition: a divided Congress in 2021.

Any conflict over the 2020 election results, including competing returns, would be decided by the next Congress, the one elected in November and seated on January 3, 2021. (Yes, the new Congress is sworn in almost three weeks before the president and three days before the presidential election is certified by Congress.) If Capitol Hill continues to be divided, with Democrats controlling the House and Republicans controlling the Senate, these scenarios come into play. It is unlikely to be an issue, however, if Democrats control both chambers.

There is precedent for this. In 1876, three different Southern states sent two sets of returns and two sets of electors to Congress. The result sparked a national crisis, and Congress created a special electoral commission to resolve the election, which was eventually awarded to Republican Rutherford B. Hayes. Democrats then controlled the House, but Republicans controlled the Senate.

Things have gotten better since 1876, right?

Not really. Although Congress passed the Electoral Count Act of 1887 to try to clarify the situation in the future, it is "gibberish," in the words of Lawrence Douglas, a professor at Amherst College who has written a book about potential nightmare scenarios for the 2020 election. There are broad questions about whether it should even be considered a law, or whether it is merely a rule of congressional procedure that can be overturned.

The Electoral Count Act does provide that in the case of conflicting returns, the set of election returns "certified by the executive of the State, under the seal thereof, shall be counted." That means the governors. Because of the ambiguous legal standing of the law, however, a divided Congress could still raise issues about whether this resolves the dispute, and Republicans in the Senate could still try to force a stalemate.

This creates a whole new set of issues. If there is a stalemate over a conflicting set of returns from a state, its electoral votes could get thrown out. But there's no clear method of determining what happens next. Currently, to win the Electoral College, a candidate has to win a majority of the electoral votes: 270 out of 538 available. But there is no literature or precedent for what happens if electoral votes get thrown out. Do candidates still need to win 270 - or merely a simple majority of the electoral votes cast? Electoral votes have been rejected only once, in the election of 1872, when Ulysses Grant cruised to victory against Horace Greeley, a newspaper publisher who died shortly after the election. Grant won by such an overwhelming margin that this issue was not addressed.

So, what happens then?

The short answer is "human sacrifice, dogs, and cats living together"¦ mass hysteria." The long answer is a political fight that will be entirely results-oriented. Under the 12th Amendment, if no candidate wins a majority of the electoral votes, the election goes to the House of Representatives (the Veep Season 5 scenario), where each state delegation then casts a single vote. California gets one vote, Wyoming gets one vote, and the presidential candidate who gets 26 states' votes wins. Currently, Republicans control 26 state delegations in the House, Democrats control 23, and one is split. Even though the House has an elected Democratic majority, Republicans continue to narrowly control the majority of state delegations, just as they hold the majority of Senate seats.

This could lead to a scenario where Republicans try to force the election to the House, arguing that Biden has not received 270 votes, and attempt a last-ditch effort to elect Trump through their majority at the state delegation level.

Is any of this likely?

Probably not. It requires a very specific set of circumstances where Trump loses, challenges the validity of the election, and then still has enough allies in state legislatures and Washington, D.C., to be able to formally overturn the Electoral College results-to say nothing of the popular vote-under color of law. That said, the convoluted and arcane nature of the American electoral system still presents a number of choke points that create openings for a sore and resourceful loser to attempt to force a different result.

Operation Diligent Valor: Trump showcased federal power in Portland, making a culture war campaign pitch

By Marissa J. Lang,  Josh Dawsey,  Devlin Barrett and Nick Miroff
WA Post
July 25, 2020

PORTLAND, Ore. - As statues of Confederate generals, enslavers and other icons tumbled from their pedestals amid protests last month, President Trump issued an executive order meant to break the cascade. It enlisted the Department of Homeland Security, created in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks to protect the country against external threats, to defend U.S. monuments and federal property against "anarchists and left-wing extremists" who he said are advancing "a fringe ideology."

The order signaled Trump's eagerness to mobilize federal power against the societal upheaval that has coursed through America since George Floyd's death. He sought to frame and create a culture war - right vs. left, right vs. wrong - and was taking a stand at the monuments that some view as historical homages and many others view as symbols of oppression.

But Trump's June 26 declaration came too late. The momentum of the protests was fading in many U.S. cities, and confrontations between federal authorities and civilians were becoming less frequent. Then Trump found Portland, according to administration and campaign officials.

Still restive, the West Coast city with a long tradition of protest as a subculture of anarchism was staging peaceful mobilizations as well as smaller nightly clashes with authorities. Militant black-clad demonstrators were directing their anger at a large federal courthouse downtown.

Sinking in the polls over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, Trump seized a chance to appear as a field general in a wider American cultural conflict over racial justice, police misconduct and the reexamination of American history and monuments. In Portland, he found a theater for his fight.

The Federal Protective Service officers responsible for guarding the courthouse were worn down and outnumbered, DHS officials say, and they sent teams of federal border and immigration officers to shore up their ranks in anticipation of larger protests on the July 4 holiday weekend.

"What is occurring in Portland in the early hours of every morning is not peaceful protesting," acting DHS secretary Chad Wolf said this week. "These individuals are organized and they have one mission in mind: to burn down or cause extreme damage to the federal courthouse and to law enforcement officers."

Trump has taken a keen interest in tactical operations against the protesters in recent weeks, according to White House and administration officials at the center of the response, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. When the fog of tear gas is thickest here in the wee hours of the morning, the president is sometimes up early on the other side of the country, calling Wolf for real-time updates from the front.

The scenes of militarized federal forces on the city's streets have stunned many Americans and unnerved former Homeland Security officials, but they have not quieted the protests. In many ways, the agents and the barricades they have erected have re-energized the demonstrators and have converted the courthouse into a proxy for the Trump administration itself.

The fortified, battle-scarred building has resembled a beehive on recent nights, as protesters prod it with fireworks and other projectiles until a door swings open and federal agents burst forth with volleys of tear gas and stinging munitions. Then they retreat inside. The pattern repeats.

Trump's campaign officials say that the president wants to amplify his law-and-order message to show he is a last bastion of safety for a reeling American public, and that U.S. cities ravaged by crime and unrest - which also happen to be heavily Democratic - are the right venue.

"Not only are the big-city mayors turning a blind eye, they are actively working against their own law enforcement and police forces who want to keep people safe," Trump senior adviser Jason Miller said. "The first rule of government is to keep people safe. That's what the president is doing."

Trump announced a plan this week to deploy federal agents to Chicago, Albuquerque and other cities where violent crime has spiked, and he later told Fox News that he is ready to deploy 50,000 to 75,000 officers if welcomed by local authorities. While DHS and Justice Department officials have tried to emphasize their defensive operation in Portland is different, Trump calls it part of the same "chaos" he blames on "the radical left" amid their calls to defund police departments.


White House officials have been frustrated with news coverage depicting federal agents as aggressors, and on Friday, press secretary Kayleigh McEnany opened her briefing with a video montage of mayhem in Portland that segued into toppled statues and damaged monuments elsewhere. The footage was graphic, and Fox News cut away.

Trump's "˜Operation Legend' was supposed to combat crime. It's produced one arrest, and some see a political stunt.

Trump has pushed for a Portland-style deployment in Chicago, one official said, but city officials made clear they prefer working with the FBI and other Justice Department agencies over DHS, whose reputation has suffered from its central role in Trump's domestic policy agenda.

Three and a half years into his presidency, the standoff in Portland is also the culmination of Trump's long-running battle against jurisdictions whose "sanctuary" polices have undermined his immigration agenda. The president's use of highly trained Homeland Security agents in a domestic policing role was preceded by his willingness to employ a show of force along the Mexico border to stop migrant caravans.

In a meeting last week with advisers, Trump said that what has been happening in the nation's largest cities is "ridiculous" and that "something has to be done about it," according to a person who attended the meeting but was not authorized to publicly discuss the strategy session.

Stephen Miller, one of the president's top aides, has regularly argued for more muscular action in U.S. cities, drafting talking points that say they are failing and that Trump will fix them.

"We will not let that courthouse be burned to the ground," Miller said Thursday night on Tucker Carlson's show, depicting the building as a kind of Trump citadel. "This is about the survival of this country, and we will not back down."

DHS officials have reported dozens of vandalism attempts and attacks on Portland federal buildings since May, and a timeline of those acts shows an escalation. Early graffiti rose to more serious recent incidents targeting the federal courthouse and the agents guarding it.

By the first week of July, protesters were trying to tear off the building's plywood defenses, shooting fireworks at the structure and smashing glass. The officers defending the building have been attacked with rocks, bottles, ball bearings and balloons filled with paint and feces, according to DHS, and officials said three agents have sustained serious ocular injuries from lasers pointed at their eyes. Arson smoke merges with tear gas to produce scenes of bedlam.

The responsibility for guarding the building during protests usually falls to the FPS and the U.S. Marshals Service, but the agencies asked for reinforcements ahead of the July 4 holiday, fearing an uptick in vandalism and violence, according to Homeland Security and Justice Department officials.

Wolf called up the country's most highly trained border and immigration agents, including units that typically focus on drug traffickers and powerful cartels.

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D), one of the administration's fiercest critics, said she had no idea federal agents were being sent to her state to police protesters until photos of unidentified officers in tactical gear at the Portland federal courthouse began circulating on social media around July 4.

In the days that followed, the governor's office began to look into what was going on in Portland, spokeswoman Liz Merah said, and discovered the Trump administration had increased the number of agents in Oregon's largest city without letting anyone know.

"This is a democracy, not a dictatorship," Brown said in a statement. "We cannot have secret police abducting people in unmarked vehicles. I can't believe I have to say that to the President of the United States."

Brown acknowledged that state authorities have declined to coordinate with federal officials and have only contacted DHS to ask them to stand down.

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler (D) first heard about increased federal presence from officials in the Portland Police Bureau as the agency began its preparations to secure protests and events around July 4, spokeswoman Eileen Park said. Though Wheeler also serves as the city's police commissioner, he said he was not consulted by Trump or Homeland Security officials before the federal government deployed agents to the city.

Despite Trump's assertions that city officials were overwhelmed by nonstop protests, Wheeler has compared the presence of federal officers to gasoline being thrown onto an open flame.

"We had heard about it first when they were already here," Wheeler said. "What we had been seeing on our streets was a de-escalation of the criminal activity, the violence, the vandalism that was being engaged in by a handful of people - we were seeing that tail off significantly."

By mid-July, there were more than 100 officers from the FPS and other DHS agencies, including tactical teams from U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a deployment DHS dubbed Operation Diligent Valor.

There weren't enough government vehicles for all the CBP agents in Portland, so officials decided to rent minivans, according to officials familiar with the effort. The rental vehicles soon appeared in cellphone videos that showed federal agents in military-style uniforms grabbing protesters off the streets using unmarked cars.

CBP also began using some of the detention cell space inside the courthouse - jail cells normally run by the Marshals Service - to detain and question suspects, according to officials familiar with the matter. At least 43 suspects have been arrested by federal agents in Portland so far, Wolf said this week.

Wolf speaks to the president several times a day, according to White House officials, one of whom said Trump is "deeply involved" in monitoring crime in U.S. cities and suggesting responses, particularly while watching news coverage of the protests.

Wolf also is at the White House several times a week, including a meeting this week with Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. Though Trump wanted more ardent DHS officials like Ken Cuccinelli and CBP acting chief Mark Morgan for the top job, Wolf has become one of Trump's favorite Cabinet secretaries, according to senior officials. He has told aides he likes Wolf far more than his predecessors, who sometimes resisted the president's expansive views of federal power.

One of the officials said the White House had long wanted to amplify strife in cities, encouraging DHS officials to talk about arrests of violent criminals in sanctuary cities and repeatedly urging ICE to disclose more details of raids than some in the agency were comfortable doing. "It was about getting viral online content," one of the officials said.

U.S. Rep. Peter T. King, a New York Republican and Trump ally, said he understands why federal reinforcements are in many of the cities and argued that the "mayors are embarrassing themselves."

"I understand why the feds are in there. Something has to be done," King said, noting that he believes any action should only be in certain places. "You have to be careful how far you go and what you do."

Federal agents have struggled to identify, isolate and arrest the protesters engaged in violence or graffiti, stymied at times by confusion about who in the crowd is who. Agents have had difficulty distinguishing individuals among dozens of people who are clad in all black and who are frequently wearing masks, law enforcement officials said. So at times they have grabbed an individual and taken them inside the courthouse for questioning before determining that they had no probable cause to charge them with any crime, the officials said.

"˜What choice do we have?': Portland's "˜Wall of Moms' faces off with federal officers at tense protests

The protests have swelled in size this week, mostly with peaceful demonstrators, including columns of parents known as the "Wall of Moms," who lock arms to shield protesters, and "Leafblower Dads," who use the landscaping tools to dissipate tear gas and blow it back at federal agents.

Two incidents captured on video have highlighted the ugly nature of the clashes, and what some protesters have said is the more forceful approach taken by deputy U.S. marshals. In the early hours of July 12, a protester holding what appeared to be a speaker across the street from the courthouse was struck in the head by a projectile fired from one of the people guarding the courthouse.

The man, Donavan La Bella, 26, has needed surgery for skull fractures, according to his family. Since the incident, the marshals have declined to say which agency fired on La Bella. On Friday, officials said they believe it was a deputy U.S. marshal, adding that they would not release the names of any of personnel involved in use-of-force incidents.

In a statement, the agency said its personnel guarding the courthouse "have shown incredible restraint under nightly threat by violent protesters while protecting lawful demonstrations."

A week after La Bella was struck, 53-year-old Navy veteran Christopher David was beaten with a baton and pepper-sprayed by marshals outside the courthouse. David suffered broken bones in his hand, and marshals said the force was justified because he presented a threat to officers "by continuing to approach them and failing to comply with lawful commands to withdraw as they proceeded to reenter the courthouse."

David has said he was trying to ask the federal agents why they were there. "Why are you not honoring your oath to the Constitution?" he yelled.

The agency also said it is not participating in Operation Diligent Valor, which is a DHS effort. "The US Marshals do not have the option of leaving Portland, as some have called for," the agency said, noting that marshals' duties include protecting the federal judiciary and courthouses.

On Thursday, the inspectors general at DHS and the Justice Department announced they would investigate how federal agents have used force, made arrests and conducted themselves in confrontations with protesters in Portland, Ore., and Washington, D.C.

Inspectors general to examine law enforcement actions at Portland, D.C. protests

Mac Smiff, 39, a Portland artist and editor in chief of a hip-hop magazine, said demonstrators have learned how to better prepare for the tear gas and munitions federal agents are using. Some have crafted homespun armor out of plastic. Others hold shields made from trash can lids, cut up plastic bins or plywood nailed behind a picture frame. They carry swim goggles, lab goggles, snowboarding goggles. Helmets, gas masks and half-face respirator masks abound.

"We're out here trying to have a peaceful protest and I almost got hit in the face - just last night - with something that flew just inches from my face and hit a barrier. I'm not sure if it was a rubber bullet, a gas canister or what," Smiff said, adding that he has gone online trying to buy a gas mask so he can take photographs of the protests. "We're buying motorcycle armor so we can go out there. This is not Fallujah, this is Portland, Oregon, and it's like war games out here."

Wolf this week laid blame on the city and state officials who have asked him to pull federal agents out of Portland, and the breakdown in cooperation has left DHS even more dug in.

Wolf described the deployment as part of DHS's legal mandate to protect federal property, rather than a response to the president's June 26 executive order. Trump administration officials say the president has the authority to order such deployments without such an order.

"We still have a job to do. We will continue to protect that facility," Wolf said. "What we know is if we left tomorrow, they would burn that building down. ."‰."‰. We know they have tried."

Relations between Oregon authorities and Trump officials turned more acrimonious after Wolf visited Portland last week. Spurned by city and state officials, he met with the police union and rejected calls to pull back DHS agents.

On Wednesday night, Wheeler, the mayor, joined protesters at a fence line outside the courthouse, but he was pelted with objects and heckled for the past use of tear gas against protesters by Portland police.

After some in the crowd shot fireworks at the building and attempted to light fires along the fence, federal agents unleashed tear gas. Wheeler was enveloped, and left the streets choking and gasping for air.

*************

America 'staring down the barrel of martial law', Oregon senator warns

    Ron Wyden says Portland tactics threaten democracy
    Senator Jeff Merkley deplores "˜military-style assault'
    Former Ice head: Trump is using agents as his "˜goon squad': https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/24/trump-goon-squad-john-sandweg-homeland-security-ice

David Smith and Daniel Strauss in Washington
Guardian
Sat 25 Jul 2020 07.00 BST

America is "staring down the barrel of martial law" as it approaches the presidential election, a US senator from Oregon has warned as Donald Trump cracks down on protests in Portland, the state's biggest city.

In interviews with the Guardian, Democrat Ron Wyden said the federal government's authoritarian tactics in Portland and other cities posed an "enormous" threat to democracy, while his fellow senator Jeff Merkley described it as "an all-out assault in military-style fashion".

The independent watchdogs for the US justice and homeland security departments said on Thursday they were launching investigations into the use of force by federal agents in Portland, where unidentified officers in camouflage gear have snatched demonstrators off the streets and spirited them away in unmarked vehicles.

But Trump this week announced a "surge" of federal law enforcement to Chicago and Albuquerque, in addition to a contingent already in Kansas City. The move fuelled critics' suspicions that the president was stressing a "law and order" campaign theme at the expense of civil liberties.

Wyden said in a written statement on Thursday: "The violent tactics deployed by Donald Trump and his paramilitary forces against peaceful protesters are those of a fascist regime, not a democratic nation."

    I wish the president would fight the coronavirus half as hard as he attacks my home town
    Senator Ron Wyden

Speaking by phone, he said: "Unless America draws a line in the sand right now, I think we could be staring down the barrel of martial law in the middle of a presidential election."

Military control of government was last imposed in the US in 1941, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that triggered entry into the second world war. In current circumstances it would entail "trashing the constitution and trashing people's individual rights", Wyden warned.

The Oregon senator recalled a recent conversation with a legal adviser for the head of national intelligence.

"I asked him again and again what was the constitutional justification for what the Trump administration is doing in my home town and he completely ducked the questions and several times said, "˜Well, I just want to extend my best wishes to your constituents.'

"After I heard him say it several times, I said my constituents don't want your best wishes. They want to know when you're going to stop trashing their constitutional rights."

The White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, began a briefing on Friday with a selectively edited video montage depicting protests, flames, graffiti and chaos in Portland.

"The Trump administration will not stand by and allow anarchy in our streets," she said. "Law and order will prevail."

Trump has falsely accused his election rival, Joe Biden, of pledging to "defund the police" so violent crime will flourish. Democrats condemn Trump for a made-for-TV attempt to distract both from Black Lives Matter protests and his mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic, now killing more than 1,000 Americans a day.

"I wish the president would fight the coronavirus half as hard as he attacks my home town," Wyden said. "I think he's setting up an us-against-them kind of strategy. He's trying to create his narrative that my constituents, who are peaceful protesters, are basically anarchists, sympathisers of anarchists and, as he does so often, just fabricate it.

"Trump knows that his [coronavirus] strategy has been an unmitigated disaster. The coronavirus is spiking in various places and he's trying to play to rightwing media and play to his base and see if he can kind of create a narrative that gives him some traction."

The Portland deployment, known as Operation Diligent Valor, involves 114 officers from homeland security and the US Marshals Service, according to court documents. Local officials say their heavy-handed approach, including teargas and flash grenades, has merely enflamed demonstrations against police brutality and racial injustice. The justice department-led Operation Legend involves more than 200 agents each in Kansas City and Chicago as well as 35 in Albuquerque. It is targeted at violent crime.

Lori Lightfoot, the mayor of Chicago, has vowed to resist the federal intervention.

    It's very clear what the president is trying to do is incite violence and then display that violence in campaign ads
    Senator Jeff Merkley

"We're not going to allow the unconstitutional, state-sanctioned lawlessness we saw brought to Portland here in Chicago," she said on Thursday.

Merkley offered warning words of advice based on Oregon's current experience.

"I would say that you probably don't believe that these federal forces will attack protesters if the protesters are peaceful and you will be wrong because that's exactly what they're doing in Portland," he told the Guardian.

"This is an all-out assault in military-style fashion on a peaceful-style protest. The way to handle graffiti is put up a fence or come out and ask people to stop doing it, not to attack a peaceful protest but that's exactly what happened. It's very clear what the president is trying to do is incite violence and then display that violence in campaign ads. And I say this because that's exactly what he's doing right now. This is not some theory."

The senator added: "This is just an absolute assault on people's civil rights to speak and to assemble."

Merkley argued that with past targets such as Islamic State and undocumented migrants losing their potency, Trump has settled on African American communities in inner cities to be his latest scapegoats.

"I think it's also important to note the president we've always known has this intense authoritarian streak," he said. "He loved and had so much affection for the leader of North Korea, Putin in Russia. Just admiration for some of the tactics in the Philippines with Duterte and ErdoÄŸan in Turkey, by the crown prince in Saudi Arabia."

On Friday the United Nations warned against the use of excessive force against demonstrators and media in the US.

"Peaceful demonstrations that have been taking place in cities in the US, such as Portland, really must be able to continue," the UN human rights office spokeswoman, Elizabeth Throssell, told reporters in Geneva.

Trump is gearing up to create an "˜extraordinarily dangerous crisis' that only happens in broken countries: professor

Raw Story
7/28/2020
By Sky Palma

According to Washington Post columnist Brian Klass, President Trump is "laying the groundwork to do something that no previous president has ever done: falsely claim that an election was fixed against him in order to discredit the vote."

Klaas writes that Trump's ongoing attempts to cast doubts in the integrity of the 2020 election challenges the "flagship event of our republic" - namely the peaceful transfer of power that should be accepted by all candidates. "With about 100 days to go, we are careening toward an extraordinarily dangerous crisis of American democracy," he writes.

"Such crises never happen in other functioning democracies," Klaas writes. "But they happen all the time in broken countries around the world. In contentious elections from Africa to southeast Asia, incumbents who lose often refuse to accept defeat. Welcome to the club, America!"

While Trump potential win in 2o2o poses a list of threats to America, a potential Trump loss could cause "the period between Nov. 4 and Jan. 20, 2021 to be particularly dangerous as well.

Read the full op-ed:

Here's how to prepare for Trump rejecting the election results in November

Opinion by Brian Klaas
Global Opinions contributor
WA Post
July 27, 2020 at 6:45 p.m. GMT+3

President Trump is laying the groundwork to do something that no previous president has ever done: falsely claim that an election was fixed against him in order to discredit the vote. Trump has repeatedly - and incorrectly - claimed the election will be "rigged" against him. By promoting a series of wacky, debunked conspiracy theories, he has primed his supporters to wrongly believe he is the victim of some unknown, shadowy "deep state" plot. In an interview that aired last week, he refused to commit to accepting the results in November.

His actions challenge the flagship event of our republic: the peaceful transfer of power after an election, accepted by all candidates. (It's worth noting that in 2016, Hillary Clinton quickly accepted the results and congratulated her opponent, while also criticizing the election's integrity based on verified instances of Russian information warfare - a far cry from Trump peddling the debunked myth of widespread voter fraud.) With about 100 days to go, we are careening toward an extraordinarily dangerous crisis of American democracy.

Democratic Party lawyer Marc Elias says states and Congress need to act now to ensure all votes count during the general election. These changes are overdue.

Such crises never happen in other functioning democracies. But they happen all the time in broken countries around the world. In contentious elections from Africa to southeast Asia, incumbents who lose often refuse to accept defeat. Welcome to the club, America!

All the warning lights are blinking red. University of Birmingham professor Nic Cheeseman , an expert on contentious elections and political violence with whom I co-authored the book "How to Rig an Election," normally worries when contested votes happen in Kenya or Zimbabwe. Now, he's worried about the United States. "There are five warning I always look for," he told me. "Organized militias, a leader who is not prepared to lose, distrust of the political system, disinformation, and a potentially close contest. Right now, the U.S. has all five."

Consider ourselves warned. The question, then, is: What do we do about it? If Trump ends up trying to torch crucial norms of democracy in order to save face, how can we prepare? Other countries offer a series of lessons we should urgently learn from, so that if (or when) the worst happens, Trump's matches don't light.

First, we need a bipartisan pact endorsing the results. Incumbents who reject results solely because they lost tend to get more traction when their party backs them uniformly. When cracks show, the self-serving farce falls apart. Democrats and Republicans who believe in democracy should agree to immediately and publicly accept the election results (barring any major irregularities).

All living former presidents should be involved. It would also be particularly helpful to ensure that former members of the Trump administration - such as John Kelly, H.R. McMaster and Jim Mattis - are on board. The broader the coalition, the more Trump's desperate ploy would be exposed for what it is.

Second, shore up public confidence with oversight. State election officials can conduct quick randomized audits and release results that demonstrate the integrity of the process. Many states do not automatically mandate such audits, but there is still time to expand them before November. And while some states have put up roadblocks to independent international election observers in the past, now would be a good time to welcome them with open arms. They might shine an embarrassing light on any state's electoral failings, but can quickly debunk false claims of manipulation made by losers.

Third, the media should do more to educate voters about election administration. Trump's lies about election procedures work when people don't understand the process. For example, Trump tried to attack mail-in ballots while saying that he has no issue with absentee ballots, even though no-fault absentee ballots and mail-in voting are exactly the same thing. Just as it's easier to scare people with the risks of dihydrogen monoxide until people realize that it is water, educating voters will make it harder for Trump to get away with lying about how elections are held.

Fourth, state and local election officials should do more contingency planning for a pandemic election. Things will go wrong. The more preparations are done now, the fewer examples Trump and his allies can cherry-pick to make false claims of being the victim of an unfair vote. Again, the media can help expose states that aren't ready, to help kick them into gear.

Finally, it would help if the margin was clear and court rulings were swift and decisive to uphold democracy. As professor Sarah Birch, author of "Electoral Violence, Corruption, and Political Order," told me: "Malawi provides a good example of a country that recently weathered a contentious election more successfully than many observers had expected." Even though the president tried to manipulate the vote - and even tried to cancel it - "the clear margin of victory of the winner together with the resoluteness of the courts in insisting on adhering to democratic electoral norms" blunted the damage done by the losing incumbent.

If Trump's authoritarian populism wins in November, the United States faces an existential threat to its democracy. But if he loses, the period between Nov. 4 and Jan. 20, 2021, will be particularly dangerous, too. It's not too late. But we must get ready.

Joe Biden's climate bet - putting jobs first will bring historic change

The presumptive Democrat presidential nominee is picking a path through the perilous politics of the economy and the climate crisis

Emily Holden in Washington
Published on Wed 29 Jul 2020 10.22 BST
Guardian

Faced with a disgruntled climate voter during the primary season who wanted him to be tougher on the oil and gas industry, Joe Biden shot him one of his infamous "why don't you go vote for someone else" responses.

But that was six months ago.

Now, as the presumptive Democratic nominee, Biden's environmental credentials are on the upswing, and not just because his presidential opponent is a risk to the global climate fight.

The US is headed for climate disaster - but Joe Biden's green plan might just work..Art Cullen...Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/16/joe-biden-green-plan-democrats-climate-crisis

Major environmental groups were delighted by Biden's recent announcement of pledges, unimaginable in US politics just a few years ago, including to clean up electricity by 2035 and spend $2tn on clean energy as quickly as possible within four years.

Some campaigners remain unconvinced that he could be as aggressive as necessary with the fossil fuel industry, but his campaign believes they are on the winning path by connecting the environment with jobs.

"We really do see these as interlinked," Biden's campaign policy director, Stef Feldman, told the Guardian. "The climate plan is a jobs plan. Our jobs plan is, in part, a climate plan."

As the coronavirus pandemic has devastated the US economy and forced millions into unemployment, it has also cleared the way for the next president to rebuild greener.

The Biden message: vote to put Americans back to work installing millions of solar panels and tens of thousands of wind turbines, making the steel for those projects, manufacturing electric vehicles for the world and shipping them from US ports.

But Biden's plan, while significant and historic, would be just the beginning of a brutal slog to transform the way the nation operates. That's even without calling for an end to fossil fuels, which science demands but Biden has been careful to avoid overtly doing.

Climate plans need Democrats to win big

Democrats would need to gain control of the Senate and put more progressives into Congress if they expect to pass Biden's climate measures. In a nod to the party's left flank, and as a salve to the pandemic's crushing economic blows, Biden has revised his proposal in order to spend more money, faster. He wants to essentially eliminate US climate emissions by 2050.

"What's going to be possible for President Biden is going to be partially determined by what happens in the other races," said Tom Steyer, the Democrat philanthropist who ran against Biden in the primary and is now on his climate advisory council. "We're working as hard as possible to push climate champions up and down the ballot."

Andrew Light, an Obama climate negotiator and fellow at the World Resources Institute, said the world will be closely observing Biden's congressional support, including how Republicans react if he wins. "Is it like Obama in 2009, where the Republicans were just absolutely uniformly saying no to the new president? Or is it something where people kind of look at what Trump has done to the Republican party and then go, "˜right, well, we've now got to really take this seriously,'" Light said.

Trump's exit from the Paris climate agreement will happen automatically on 4 November, the day after the election. It will be the second time the US has led the way on negotiations and then pulled out or declined to join. The US also pushed for the Kyoto protocol, an international treaty in 1997, but it never ratified its commitments. To believe the US for a third time, the world will need evidence that Congress is engaged, Light said.

The Biden campaign says that's where he will excel.

"The vice-president has tremendous experience getting big legislative packages done," said Feldman, pointing to Biden's support from both major environmental groups and big labor unions.

He has had to walk a fine line to maintain that backing, political observers note.

"I think it is probably near unprecedented to have a climate and infrastructure plan that receives rave reviews from the League of Conservation Voters and the Sierra Club and the electrical workers union and the auto workers union at the same time," she said. "That's really the coalition that is needed in order to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and create good jobs at the same time."

Biden's campaign has said his first priority with Congress will be economic recovery, which will include large-scale spending on clean energy jobs.

Green stimulus

Climate investments will probably be easier to pass as lawmakers hear from constituents about high unemployment because of the coronavirus. Polling from the group Data for Progress finds 49% of voters support a green stimulus. The idea is less popular with Republicans, with 52% in opposition.

Jamal Raad, the co-founder of Evergreen Action who worked for Governor Jay Inslee of Washington in his presidential run, said "a successful package will have jobs in every community and will have something for every senator to tell a story back home about".

Biden may be hoping that moderate Democrats whose support he will need will be encouraged by his support from major unions.

Lonnie Stephenson, president of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, said he expects to lose some members over endorsing Biden, but the world is changing and workers are already losing jobs as coal plants close around the country.

"We're not climate deniers. We know that climate change is real and there needs to be some progressive action taken to try to address it," Stephenson said. "At the same time while we're making this transition to new renewables, we've got thousands of members that work in [fossil fuel] generation."

Stephenson said his group can support Biden because he doesn't want to ban fracking for natural gas or to quickly shut down coal and nuclear plants. Instead he wants to create jobs in clean energy, including in manufacturing - where Stephenson's members could be employed. Not all organized labor is as positive about Biden, however.

The measures that draw electrical workers to Biden's plan are the same ones that push more vocal climate activists away. Biden doesn't set a date to phase out drilling for oil and gas - although he would prohibit new drilling on public lands. He doesn't lay out a timeline for shifting away from gasoline-reliant cars. And he is mum on limiting fossil fuel exports, which would still cause climate damage, even if they are being burned outside the US.

"This is good, it just needs some improvements," said RL Miller, the founder of Climate Hawks Vote who has a seat on the Democratic National Committee. "But the places where it needs improvements are, to me, really important."

Collin Rees, a senior campaigner at Oil Change International, said the environmental community hasn't pressured Biden hard enough on the future of fossil fuels.

"Biden has made large strides on environmental justice, made large strides on clean energy and said absolutely nothing more on fossil fuels recently," Rees said. "There's a political decision here in which people are afraid of a very small portion of the white working class in Pennsylvania, for instance. They're using outdated information."

The world would need to cut emissions 7% every year this decade to have a hope of keeping temperatures from rising more than 1.5C. Scientists increasingly warn that the goal is slipping out of reach.

Miller said that to achieve it, Biden needs to call for even faster growth in solar and wind power, set specific goals for when new vehicles can no longer emit climate pollution, and move to ban exports of oil and gas.

Those absent elements will be key if Biden wins and the US seeks to reshape how the world perceives the country on climate.

Just re-entering the Paris agreement won't be enough to spur the strong global action that is needed, not now that so many nations have been snubbed by the US repeatedly.

Al Gore, the former Democratic vice-president who founded the Climate Reality Project, said the US must "re-establish its historic role as a leader in the international community".

"It's still true we're in a period of history when the US is the only nation that can play that kind of leadership role," Gore said.

**************

"˜This Is About Justice': Biden Ties Economic Revival to Racial Equity

In the last of four proposals laying out his vision for economic recovery, Joseph R. Biden Jr. pledged to lift up minority-owned businesses and to award them more federal contracts.

By Thomas Kaplan and Katie Glueck
NY Times
July 29, 2020

WILMINGTON, Del. - Joseph R. Biden Jr. unveiled wide-ranging plans on Tuesday to address systemic racism in the nation's economy, saying this year's election was about "understanding people's struggles" and pledging to tear down barriers for minority-owned businesses.

In an address near his home in Wilmington, Mr. Biden made the argument that racial justice is central to his overall policy vision in areas like housing, infrastructure and support for small businesses, while aiming to draw a stark contrast with a president who has regularly inflamed racial tensions.

"This election is not just about voting against Donald Trump," Mr. Biden said, standing before four American flags in a community center gym. "It's about rising to this moment of crisis, understanding people's struggles and building a future worthy of their courage and their ambition to overcome."

Mr. Biden's plan is the fourth piece of his "Build Back Better" proposal, an economic agenda that also encompasses manufacturing, climate and infrastructure, and caregiving plans. It takes aim at Mr. Trump's stewardship of the economy and his impact on working families, a potential vulnerability that has emerged during the coronavirus crisis.

The speech on Tuesday came with just under 100 days until Election Day, amid a searing national debate over racism in American society. Mr. Biden continues to hold a substantial lead over President Trump in national polls, and with each successive economic rollout, he has been trying to counter one of Mr. Trump's enduring sources of voter support.

The plan fell short of some of the most ambitious proposals promoted by the left wing of the Democratic Party. Mr. Biden, for instance, did not embrace reparations for slavery or endorse "baby bonds," a government-run savings program for children championed during the primary by Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey. Campaign officials said Mr. Biden had not ruled out eventually accepting such a plan, and that he was not opposed to a study of reparations.

But the proposal he released on Tuesday did emphasize the importance of closing the racial wealth gap, and outlined multiple prescriptions for doing so. Mr. Biden laid out plans for a small-business opportunity fund to help make capital available to minority business owners, and he proposed to triple the goal for awarding federal contracts to small disadvantaged businesses, to at least 15 percent of the money doled out from 5 percent. The plan also seeks to improve the opportunity zone program that was created as part of the 2017 tax overhaul.

"In good times, communities of color still lag," Mr. Biden said. "In bad times, they get hit first, and the hardest. And in recovery, they take the longest to bounce back. This is about justice."

In recent months, as the country has grappled with devastating public health and economic problems and a growing outcry over racial injustice, Mr. Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, has increasingly called for ambitious measures to address the nation's challenges. He has sometimes gone far beyond the instincts toward relatively incremental change that guided him in the primary campaign, at least compared with many of his Democratic opponents.

As he seeks to unite and energize his party around his candidacy, he has sought input from a broad range of experts and officials, including from a series of task forces assembled with Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, his liberal primary rival.

But Mr. Biden, the former vice president, continues to confront a lack of enthusiasm from some progressive voters, and while he won the primary with strong support from African-American voters - in particular, older ones - he faces challenges generating excitement among some younger voters of color. In the primary campaign, he was not the choice of many liberal activists of color, and he still faces skepticism from some of them about whether he can sufficiently address their concerns.

Mr. Trump, for his part, has sought to portray Mr. Biden as hostage to an extreme left wing of the Democratic Party, whose extravagant spending would wreck the nation's economy.

The plan Mr. Biden unveiled touched on a wide range of economic issues. It emphasizes support for small-business owners of color, promising that he will "leverage more than $150 billion in new capital and opportunities for small businesses that have been structurally excluded for generations," including by increasing access to venture capital and low-interest business loans.

Mr. Biden, who has long faced anger from some voters over his leading role in the 1994 crime bill, which many experts link to mass incarceration, also addressed some criminal justice matters in the plan. He would aim to help states improve their criminal justice data infrastructure so they can automatically seal criminal records for certain nonviolent offenders.

The plan also said that he would try to amend the Federal Reserve Act "to require the Fed to regularly report on current data and trends in racial economic gaps - and what actions the Fed is taking through its monetary and regulatory policies to close these gaps."

The Fed, which influences the speed of economic growth and the unemployment rate with its interest rate policies, already regularly discusses racial and ethnic economic outcomes in its reports and testimonies. It has shied away from targeting any specific group's unemployment rate when setting monetary policy, despite a growing chorus suggesting that it ought to consider targeting the Black jobless rate, which has historically remained higher for longer.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, the civil rights leader, called Mr. Biden's overarching proposal promising, but said he wanted to see Mr. Biden call for more far-reaching proposals to ensure that Black Americans frequently do business with the government.

"It's the right direction," he said. "I just want to see more, and I intend to push for more."

Aimee Allison, the founder of She the People, a political advocacy group focused on women of color, said that the Biden campaign was taking encouraging steps on issues of economic, racial and gender "justice," as she put it.

"Progressives, we had other candidates in the primary that we would look at as carrying some of these messages," said Ms. Allison, who was often a Biden critic in the primary and said there are still issues he must address. "Now, the Biden campaign has showed an openness and willingness."

A number of the policies highlighted in Mr. Biden's proposal were already announced as part of other plans, like a housing proposal that would provide a tax credit of up to $15,000 for first-time home buyers, and a goal that disadvantaged communities receive 40 percent of the benefits of spending on clean energy infrastructure.

In contrast to the previous economic plans Mr. Biden outlined, which focused on major, transformational changes to certain sectors of the American economy, the proposal he unveiled on Tuesday was a broader effort seeking to emphasize the idea that racial justice is integral to his policy vision.

He began his address by invoking two icons of the civil rights era who recently died, Representative John Lewis and the Rev. C.T. Vivian, recounting the time he walked over the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., with Mr. Lewis, and a conversation the two men had before Mr. Lewis died.

"He asked that we stay focused on the work left undone to heal this nation," Mr. Biden said. "To remain undaunted by the public health crisis and the economic crisis that's taken the blinders off in this crisis and showed the systemic racism for what it is that plagues this nation."

In his speech and in a subsequent question-and-answer session with reporters, Mr. Biden repeatedly lashed out at his opponent's stewardship of the crises facing the country.

He also forcefully rebuffed Mr. Trump's attempts to cast him as soft on law enforcement, as protesters clash with federal agents in Portland, Ore. "Peaceful protesters should be protected, and arsonists and anarchists should be prosecuted, and local law enforcement can do that," Mr. Biden said.

And Mr. Biden accused Mr. Trump of "trying to scare the hell out of the suburbs" by suggesting that Obama-era policies were "causing you to end up, by implication, having those Black neighbors next to you."

"That's supposed to scare people," Mr. Biden said.

Asked about his vice-presidential selection process, Mr. Biden revealed little, saying he would have a choice next week.

But handwritten notes that Mr. Biden held at the event - which were captured by an Associated Press photographer - touched on the subject in more detail. They included talking points about Senator Kamala Harris of California, who is considered a top-tier vice-presidential contender.

"Do not hold grudges," the notes said. A few lines down, they read, "Great respect for her."

Hi rad!

I'm not sure but I kind of remember you saying months ago that trump could change the date or do whatever is possible to canceling the election.

How do you saw it? Which combination of arquetype was it?
Thank you

Hi Sunya,

No, I did not say that Trump would cancel the elections. I have been posting articles about the election in which others have been saying that he would try to cancel the elections as one of the ways of creating crisis that threaten the elections in the U.S. Very recently in the past days he has begun to make remarks to that affect. But others have pointed out that this is not possible because he does not have the power by U.S law to do that.

God Bless, Rad

"˜A catastrophe': Postal workers warn Trump sabotage of USPS could delay mail-in ballots and distort election

on July 31, 2020
By Jake Johnson, Common Dreams

"I'm actually terrified to see election season under the new procedure," said one New York mail carrier.

Letter carriers and voting rights advocates are warning that sabotage of the U.S. Postal Service by the Trump administration and new Postmaster General Louis DeJoy-a major Republican donor to the president-could imperil the agency's ability to deliver mail-in ballots on time, potentially impacting the results of the November elections.

"Slowing down our Postal Service could interfere with this year's election. Voting by mail has become more popular than ever-and 34 states require ballots to be received-not just postmarked-by Election Day."
-Wendy Fields, Democracy Initiative

"I'm actually terrified to see election season under the new procedure," Lori Cash, president of the American Postal Workers Union (APWU) Local 183 in Western New York, told the Washington Post.

The Post reported Thursday that key battleground states like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania are already experiencing significant mail delays due to DeJoy's changes, which include overtime cuts and a new pilot program that bars postal workers from sorting mail in the morning.

"The cardinal rule is, "˜don't delay the mail,' and we're in a 180-degree switch where we're delaying mail every day," said Cash. If DeJoy's system isn't fixed before election season, Cash warned, "it's going to be a catastrophe at the Post Office."

The Post noted that any delay in "delivering ballots to voters and then returning them to election officials could cause people to be disenfranchised-especially in states that require ballots to be returned by Election Day."

"Already, tens of thousands of ballots across the country have been disqualified in this year's primaries, many because they did not arrive in time," the Post reported. "In Wisconsin, 2,659 ballots that were returned after the April 13 deadline for the spring primary were not counted due to their late arrival."

Wendy Fields, executive director of the Democracy Initiative, a coalition of voting rights organizations, said in a statement earlier this month that "slower mail service is unfair-and dangerous-for the millions of Americans who rely on the mail for food, medicine, medical supplies, unemployment checks and other critical mail and packages."

"Slowing down our Postal Service also could interfere with this year's election," Fields said. "Voting by mail has become more popular than ever-and 34 states require ballots to be received-not just postmarked-by Election Day."

    Trump is attacking the very machinery of government that makes legitimate elections possible in a pandemic. https://t.co/e32GkVGRIc

    - Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) July 31, 2020

An anonymous postal worker from California told the Post that if major mail backlogs persist, "there's no telling how many days-worth of delays there could be" come election time.

"I mean, we'll be delivering political mail days after the election," the worker said.

Anticipating that mail delays are likely to continue, the USPS recommended in a statement this week that localities "immediately communicate and advise voters to request ballots at the earliest point allowable but no later than 15 days prior to election date."

"Trump's unprecedented politicization and gutting of USPS is a much greater threat to American democracy than his bogus call to delay the election."
-Ari Berman, Mother Jones

Warnings from postal workers come as President Donald Trump continues to peddle unfounded claims about the prevalence of vote-by-mail fraud. On Thursday, as Common Dreams reported, Trump floated the possibility of the delaying the November election, claiming without evidence that the surge in mail-in ballots will cause "the most inaccurate and fraudulent election in history."

While the president does not have the authority to delay elections, critics said Trump's comments represent yet another insidious attempt to undermine trust in the electoral process.

The New Yorker"˜s Steve Coll wrote Wednesday that Trump's attacks on the legitimacy of the November election combined with his administration's undermining of the U.S. Postal Service "raise obvious questions about whether the management of voting by mail will be manipulated in service of Trump's reelection."

In a tweet Friday, Mother Jones reporter Ari Berman wrote that "Trump's unprecedented politicization and gutting of USPS is a much greater threat to American democracy than his bogus call to delay the election."

    Trump's gutting of USPS could lead to 1000s of ballots thrown out. "If they keep this up until the election, there's no telling how many days-worth of delays there could be. I mean, we'll be delivering political mail days after the election" a postal worker from California said pic.twitter.com/8F8oN0APU1

    - Ari Berman (@AriBerman) July 31, 2020

In April, Trump called the USPS "a joke" and demanded that the agency dramatically raise package prices during the Covid-19 pandemic.

With the USPS at risk of running out of cash by the end of September, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin announced Thursday that he reached a deal with DeJoy to give the Postal Service access to $10 billion in funding approved by Congress in March.

Democratic lawmakers warned in a joint statement late Thursday that the terms of the agreement would "would inappropriately insert the Treasury into the internal operations of the Postal Service."

"Secretary Mnuchin and the leadership of the U.S. Postal Service appear to be exploiting this public health pandemic to hold the Postal Service to unreasonable loan terms without even consulting Congress," said Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), and Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.). "We will not stop fighting to protect this critical service that communities depend on and to ensure that every American can safely participate in the November elections."

Thanks Rad, maybe it was not directly sayed but this was what I interpreted at that time when I read it

This is from the Impeachment thread:


My feeling is that Trump will loose the popular vote from anywhere between 3 to 5 million votes. It will come down to the Electoral College in America yet again. And, because of that, like before, it is possible the 'election' will end up with the minority controlling the majority. The Republicans will do anything to hold onto power: period. And that includes destroying what is left of 'democracy' in America itself.


I calculated the election day chart for all time zones in America and all of them have Mercury stationing on that day. That Mercury of course will be squaring the natal Mercury in the USA natal chart: 24 Cancer, retrograde, and squaring it's natal Pluto as well as the transiting Saturn, Pluto, and Pallas. At the same time is will be trining the natal retrograde Lucifer in the USA chart which is at 22 Aquarius which is conjunct it's natal Moon at 18 Aquarius.

*********

"i don't even know how we can look at this charts. For someone like this soul (Trump), what can we take of a nodal return? Where is he going, what is his evolutionary future? Under natural law it would mean him taking responsibility for his actions but he does not follow that law. Isn't that since he is but a reflection of how much us too, as society, have moved away from this law, it will take the time for individual and collective re-alignment with the earth and each other so this reflection fades away?"

************

To look at Trump's chart in order to understand it one must first come to grips with the fact that this is a Soul who has made a contract with Evil. Thus, the normal natural laws that apply to all Souls who have not made that contract do not apply in normal ways, remembering that one of the intentions of Evil, Lucifer, is to create the opposite reality intended. The Nodal return in his chart is also being met with the transiting Neptune also squaring those Nodes, his Sun, Uranus, and his natal Moon. The natal Neptune for the USA chart is also squaring his Lunar Nodal Axis.

The underlying desire within his evil Soul that is being mirrored by, sadly and tragically, so many in America is to be a monarch or a king that dictates everything. He is a sick example of what Friedrich Nietzsche called 'zarathustras' or super humans that are special and are meant to rule over all others that are not zarathustras. Trump considers himself a zarathustra who can do, in his own words, 'what i want to do'. That, indeed, is the very basis of the contract he made with evil: to do whatever he wants. This is then mirrored in other evil Souls like Putin who desires to destroy democracies in all countries, and to replace them all with zarathustras, oligarchs, who control everything. This is, at it's core, the connecting point between Trump and Putin. 

The current republican party is comprised by so many white nationalists who consider themselves superior to all other races, and who desire to be in power at all costs in order to create a reality based on that white nationalism. The current power structure of the republican party has been been for many years now doing all they can to inhibit and block the voting rights of all the people that live in America in order to keep themselves in power. This is why the current republican party has no more actual principles that used to define what the republican party was. Now all's they care about is power and control, and doing whatever to sustain that power and control. All of this is occurring because of the progressive demographic changes underway in America wherein by around 2040 or so the white people will be a minority in 'their' own country.  In essence, the republicans do not want a democracy at all, they want a monarchy. Check this: https://www.rawstory.com/2019/12/republicans-arent-afraid-of-trump-he-freed-them-to-pursue-their-long-buried-dream-of-crushing-democracy/

So this then perfectly aligns with the evil Trump and his desires, which is why they are now so perfectly aligned. Within this are the utter delusional  white evangelical 'christens' who pretend to themselves that Trump 'is the chosen one'. And, of course, the ever evil Trump pretends to himself that his is the chosen one by 'god' versus reality: the chosen one by Evil, Lucifer, itself. The opposite of the actual truth is the issue here. Trump's inner reality is one of total and complete delusions, fictions, that he convinces himself almost minute to minute are actually true. In turn, he needs and attempts to make others 'believe' in those very same delusions and fictions in order to continue his own inner convincing of himself that those delusions and fictions are real: 'see they all believe it'. So he will do anything in order to convince others the the opposite of the truth is real.

In the election chart this is one of the actual meanings of the transiting Neptune in Pisces in opposition to the natal USA Neptune in Virgo: factual reality vs delusions and fictions. So in many ways the election will determine who and what prevails.

So the next election is America of course reflects this tremendous conflict wherein a 'minority' of Americans are these white nationalists who want to maintain control at all costs who live in an utterly delusional reality that, for them is real, the republican party who wants the same thing, their 'chosen one' to lead the way for them, and all other Americans, the majority, who are defined by actual factual reality who want a social and political system that is equitable for all.

The election day chart relative to the natal  USA chart symbolizes all of this.

________________

Anyway my question on arquetypes was not necessary because here is well explained.

Laurence Tribe explains the constitutional "˜fail-safe' - that could result in President Nancy Pelosi

By Bob Brigham
Raw Story
8/1/2020

Constitutional law expert Laurence Tribe was interviewed on Friday by MSNBC's Joy Reid on "The ReidOut."

Tribe, who has taught at Harvard Law for fifty years and argued dozens of cases before the U.S. Supreme Court offered an intriguing theory Reid suggested had cheered up many of her viewers.

Reid asked Tribe about President Donald Trump talking about trying to delay the November election as he trails former Vice President Joe Biden in the polls.

"They're trying to make it look chaotic but there's a fail-safe mechanism built into the constitution itself," Tribe said. "No matter how much dust he throws into the gears, at high noon on January 20th, 2021, if there has not been a new president elected, at that point, Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House become president of the United States."

Tribe explained that "all of the enablers at that point would risk committing federal felonies if they were to exercise power, which they no longer have, because Trump would no longer be president."

"That's the fail-safe. The constitution is not designed to self-destroy but it's designed to self-preserve," he explained.

"There's every reason to believe that the new Congress is going to be in Democratic hands. So I wouldn't, at this point, play Trump's game of throwing up our hands and saying "˜there will be no winner, Trump is going to win by default.' He can't really do it," Tribe noted. "The default solution in our system is President Nancy Pelosi - and I can think of worst things than that."

*************

Trump Might Try to Postpone the Election. That's Unconstitutional.

He should be removed unless he relents.

By Steven G. Calabresi
Mr. Calabresi is a co-founder of the Federalist Society and a professor at Northwestern University's Pritzker School of Law.
NY Times
8/1/2020 

The president on Thursday tweeted that the 2020 election would be "fraudulent" if there is universal mail-in voting.

I have voted Republican in every presidential election since 1980, including voting for Donald Trump in 2016. I wrote op-eds and a law review article protesting what I believe was an unconstitutional investigation by Robert Mueller. I also wrote an op-ed opposing President Trump's impeachment.

But I am frankly appalled by the president's recent tweet seeking to postpone the November election. Until recently, I had taken as political hyperbole the Democrats' assertion that President Trump is a fascist. But this latest tweet is fascistic and is itself grounds for the president's immediate impeachment again by the House of Representatives and his removal from office by the Senate.

Here is what President Trump tweeted:

    With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???
    - Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2020

The nation has faced grave challenges before, just as it does today with the spread of the coronavirus. But it has never canceled or delayed a presidential election. Not in 1864, when President Abraham Lincoln was expected to lose and the South looked as if it might defeat the North. Not in 1932 in the depths of the Great Depression. Not in 1944 during World War II.

So we certainly should not even consider canceling this fall's election because of the president's concern about mail-in voting, which is likely to increase because of fears about Covid-19. It is up to each of the 50 states whether to allow universal mail-in voting  for presidential elections, and Article II of the Constitution explicitly gives the states total power over the selection of presidential electors.
ImageIt is up to each of the 50 states whether to allow universal mail-in voting.

Election Day was fixed by a federal law passed in 1845, and the Constitution itself in the 20th Amendment specifies that the newly elected Congress meet at noon on Jan. 3, 2021, and that the terms of the president and vice president end at noon on Jan. 20, 2021. Even if President Trump disputed an election he lost, his term would still be over on that day. And if no newly elected president is available, the speaker of the House of Representatives becomes acting president.

President Trump needs to be told by every Republican in Congress that he cannot postpone the federal election. Doing so would be illegal, unconstitutional and without precedent in American history. Anyone who says otherwise should never be elected to Congress again.

Trump's mail voting lies debunked by his own lawyers

on August 1, 2020
By Igor Derysh, Salon
- Commentary

President Donald Trump on Thursday tried to draw a distinction between "mail voting" and "absentee voting," but his own lawyers acknowledged in court documents the two are the same thing.

This article first appeared in Salon.

Trump suggested delaying the election on Thursday amid plummeting poll numbers and the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 150,000 people and caused the largest GDP drop in U.S. history. Trump has no power to postpone the election, and the idea was roundly rejected by Republican lawmakers. At the same time, many members of the GOP have expressed similar concerns about mail-in voting as the president.

"With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history," Trump claimed without evidence.

Some states have long used all-mail elections. There have been more than 250 million ballots cast by mail in the last 20 years, and only 143 prosecutions related to mail ballot fraud, or a rate of about 0.00006%.

Trump later reiterated that he opposed "mail-in-voting" but "totally" supports "absentee voting," even though they are the same thing. Trump and many of his aides have repeatedly voted by mail themselves.

Trump and White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, for example, have claimed that they voted "absentee" in Florida. But there is no "absentee" voting in Florida. Instead, the state has a "no excuse" vote-by-mail system that allows anyone to cast a ballot by mail for any reason.

Trump's own lawyers acknowledged that there is no difference between "mail-in voting" and "absentee voting" in a lawsuit challenging Pennsylvania's mail voting rules last month.

Attorneys for the Trump campaign noted that while some states have different wording regarding the terminology, "the terms "˜mail-in' and "˜absentee' are used interchangeably to discuss the use of the United States Postal Service to deliver ballots to and from electors" in a lawsuit available in full on the president's website.

    On @maddow tonight, I told @AliVelshi that Trump's own lawyers admitted in federal court that "the terms 'mail-in' and 'absentee' are used interchangeably."

    Here are the receipts. pic.twitter.com/wJILzX7FKk

    - Marc E. Elias (@marceelias) July 31, 2020

Marc Elias, a lawyer for the Democratic Party who frequently argues election cases in court, told MSNBC on Thursday that "there is no distinction" between the two terms.

"They are synonyms," he said. "Some states tend to use the term "˜mail-in.' Some states tend to use the term "˜absentee.' Sometimes, within a state, the statutes will refer to both. But they are both the same. They are both processes by which people who don't want to show up to the polls in person can receive in the mail a ballot . . . that they either mail back or deliver through some other mechanism to election officials. There is no difference."

Trump's complaints appear to be based on the premise that mail voters typically have to request and fill out a form in order to obtain a mail-in ballot, but some states are sending every eligible voter an application in anticipation of a surge in mail voting due to the pandemic.

The president falsely claimed on Thursday that states were sending out "hundreds of millions of universal mail-in ballots."

Aside from the fact that there are not "hundreds of millions" of voters in the country, only California, which Trump lost by 31 points in 2016, plans to send absentee ballots to voters. Though Trump has falsely accused other states like Michigan of sending everyone a ballot, Michigan is one of a handful of states that is sending applications - not ballots - to eligible voters. There is not a single state that is sending ballots or applications to anyone who is not registered to vote.

Trump and Attorney General William Barr have also floated conspiracy theories that these ballots could possibly be tampered with or forged, but these baseless claims have been refuted by Republican state officials. There are numerous safeguards in place, including bar codes and signature verification.

Beverly Clarno, Oregon's Republican secretary of state, told CBS News that the state's system uses unique barcodes for each ballot it sends out. Kim Wyman, Washington's Republican secretary of state, told The New York Times that "vote-by-mail has a lot of security measures."

"At the end of the day, all voting systems are like banks," she said. "You build a lot of things in to protect from fraud. You build in a lot of measures to detect it. But ultimately, if somebody wants to commit fraud, or if someone wants to rob a bank, they can. And then we have measures on the back end to prosecute that criminal activity. So you hope to deter it, and you hope it doesn't happen. But if it does, you have ways to deal with it."

Pressed on his false claims about mail voting on Thursday, Trump spun a new narrative arguing that he does not want election results to be delayed.

"I don't want to see an election - you know, so many years, I've been watching elections. And they say the "˜projected winner' or the "˜winner of the election' - I don't want to see that take place in a week after Nov. 3, or a month or frankly - with litigation and everything else that can happen - years," Trump claimed. "Years. Or you never even know who won the election."

Election experts rejected the idea that counting mailed-in ballots, which happens in every election, would delay the election for years.

"That's not new. We've had absentee voting in this country for a long time," Elias told MSNBC. "We regularly don't have all the ballots counted on election night."

"Any state should be able to count votes-by-mail and verify it within a month unless something derails the system," Edward Foley, a law professor at Ohio State University, told The Hill.

"We should get ready for the fact that we may not know who won on Election Night," added Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School. "But there's a process for counting and a process for fighting over the count. And the Constitution says that all of that is over - full stop - well before noon on Jan. 20."

Obama and Trump highlight two Americas as election draws nearer

Analysis: as the former president eulogized a civil rights hero, his beleaguered successor seemed intent on undermining faith in democracy

David Smith in Washington
Guardian
2 Aug 2020

They were six hours that defined two Americas as well as exposing the magnitude of the decision facing voters in November.

At 8.30am on Thursday, the US government announced that gross domestic product had suffered the biggest decline on record because of a coronavirus-induced shutdown. Minutes later, Donald Trump warned on Twitter that "2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history" - and suggested that it should be postponed.

As the morning wore on, it was announced that Herman Cain, a former presidential candidate who attended a recent Trump rally without a face mask, had died from Covid-19. And in Atlanta, Georgia, at the funeral of the civil rights giant and congressman John Lewis, George W Bush and Bill Clinton paid tribute and the frail Jimmy Carter sent a message of condolence.

Then came a soaring eulogy from Barack Obama ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9K7VFkdyX9E&feature=emb_logo ), drawing pungent comparisons between notorious racists of the 1960s and the America of today. "Bull Connor may be gone," he said. "But today we witness with our own eyes police officers kneeling on the necks of Black Americans.

"George Wallace may be gone. But we can witness our federal government sending agents to use teargas and batons against peaceful demonstrators. We may no longer have to guess the number of jellybeans in a jar in order to cast a ballot. But even as we sit here, there are those in power are doing their darnedest to discourage people from voting."

Soon after the predominantly African American congregation stood and applauded Obama at a pulpit once graced by Martin Luther King Jr, Trump headed to the Red Cross in Washington where Jerome Adams, the surgeon general, told him: "I was in Trump country and they told me to deliver you a message, Mr President. They told me to tell you, you look badass in a face mask."

The collision of these two worlds, so radically opposed in style and substance, played out live on cable news. In Washington, Trump, under siege from a coronavirus death toll exceeding 150,000, with an economy in free fall and poll numbers to match, was discrediting the legitimacy of the election and drawing a bipartisan backlash that left him isolated as never before.

In Atlanta, four presidents from less polarized times were joining to pay homage to a man who, from his early 20s, had put his life on the line for voting rights and faith in democracy. For Democrats, the sight and sound of Obama at the top of his game provoked a rush of nostalgia - and resolve to turn back the clock by electing his vice-president, Joe Biden, as the next president.

Moe Vela, a former senior adviser to Biden at the White House, said: "" To me, the whole day was almost a dichotomy. It heightened the choice that we as Americans get in this election. This completely failed leader is playing political games with a legally baseless suggestion about delaying the election. It's worked for him his whole life but it's not working any more. I am confident he is in a panic because his old playbook isn't working."

Trump spent much of 2016 claiming the election was "rigged" until he narrowly won it. He has made numerous statements casting doubt on the 2020 version, insisting that an expansion of mail-in voting due to the pandemic will lead to widespread fraud - a claim debunked by studies. Even so, his questioning of whether 3 November should remain as the election date still drew sharp intakes of breath and cries of fascism.

On one level, it was classic Trump and remarkably effective: the media furore did dull the impact of the shocking economic numbers that showed a 32.9% contraction in annualized GDP last quarter. But as the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, and others shot down the idea, noting that elections continued through the civil war and second world war, and that the president has no power to change the date, it seemed Republicans had finally drawn a line not even Trump could cross.

On Thursday afternoon, at a White House press briefing, the president sought to clarify: "Do I want to see a date change? No. But I don't want to see a crooked election. This election will be the most rigged election in history."

That, many commentators said, was the true intention: to make Americans distrust their own democracy. The coronavirus pandemic and expected surge in mail-in voting does raise the spectre of a chaotic election riddled with delays, disputes and myriad legal challenges - all fertile territory for Trump's conspiracy theories. He may choose to declare victory long before the last vote is counted and rely on conservative media to weaponise the message.

Tara Setmayer, a former Republican communications director on Capitol Hill, said: "All indicators point to Donald Trump losing but this is not 2016 and Biden is not Hillary Clinton. But who knows? Look at what Trump is doing.

"That tweet about delaying the election, even though constitutionally and under the law he cannot do that, is planting the seeds to get people to question the integrity of the election, which is more dangerous because the peaceful transfer of power is partially what has allowed this constitutional republic to thrive for the last 240 years. When you start chipping away at that, it's very banana republic to dictatorish and that worries me about what happens in November. There's no telling what this freakin' lunatic is willing to do to sully the election."

"˜See you in Court!' Trump threatens to sue Nevada's Democratic governor over mail-in voting

on August 3, 2020
Raw Story
By Travis Gettys

President Donald Trump threatened to sue Nevada's Democratic governor after the state legislature approved a measure to mail ballots to all active voters.

The Democratic-led legislature voted to expand mail-in voting for November's election due to the coronavirus pandemic, which Gov. Steve Sisolak is expected to sign, but Trump and other Republicans have strongly rejected those measures.

"In an illegal late night coup, Nevada's clubhouse Governor made it impossible for Republicans to win the state," Trump tweeted. "Post Office could never handle the Traffic of Mail-In Votes without preparation. Using Covid to steal the state. See you in Court!"

Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, the only Republican to hold statewide office in Nevada, admitted she wasn't aware of any fraud in June's primary, when the state mailed all active voters absentee ballots and opened a limited number of polling places.

But she still complained about the process for passing the measure, which she claims to have seen as a draft only a day before lawmakers voted on it.

"We were not involved in this bill's writing at all," said Cegavske. "I wish somebody would have asked us about because we could have told you what we had planned."

    In an illegal late night coup, Nevada's clubhouse Governor made it impossible for Republicans to win the state. Post Office could never handle the Traffic of Mail-In Votes without preparation. Using Covid to steal the state. See you in Court! https://t.co/cNSPINgCY7

    - Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 3, 2020

*************

"˜Will stop at nothing': Trump slammed for calling Nevada move to expand mail-in voting an "˜illegal late night coup'

on August 3, 2020
By David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement

President Donald Trump is furious that lawmakers in Nevada approved legislation to expand mail-in voting by sending all registered voters a ballot. Monday morning Trump falsely called the move an "illegal late night coup" that would make it "impossible for Republicans to win the state" and accused the governor of using the coronavirus pandemic to "to steal the state."

There is no evidence his claims are valid.

On social media Trump was mocked, lambasted, and ridiculed.

    President afraid of losing election resorts to cherry picking states where he can use the courts to prevent voting by people who might vote against him. Nice.

    - (((Howard Forman))) (@thehowie) August 3, 2020

    in which our president admits that Republicans can't win without suppressing the vote

    - Jeff Tiedrich (@itsJeffTiedrich) August 3, 2020

    You dumb fuck. @GovSisolak and the NVLEG passed it in the early afternoon and we're a state of above 3 million. If Florida can do mostly mail in (which is how you voted) I'm fairly confident we can handle it. Now go back to watching TV. https://t.co/0rmIQNbrIc

    - Matt Johnson (@VivaMattyVegas) August 3, 2020

    Weird for Trump of all people to use "clubhouse" as an epithet https://t.co/MrHjrOYFeO

    - ryan teague beckwith (@ryanbeckwith) August 3, 2020

    In an illegal foreign assisted coup, a racist game show host stole the presidency via the 2016 election. He's now crying because he knows his time is up. https://t.co/lUz5fgRTfF

    - Bishop Talbert Swan (@TalbertSwan) August 3, 2020

    The President will stop at nothing to prevent people from voting easily. He needs a low turnout and he will use the courts to get it. https://t.co/ArqhFH0Czg

    - (((Howard Forman))) (@thehowie) August 3, 2020

    Or, this was a legitimate legislative effort by an independent state over which your authority amounts to precisely fuckall. https://t.co/3DCD7BKLzx

    - Ben. No More, No Less. (@BJS_quire) August 3, 2020

    Not a great sign when normal democratic processes to expand voting rights are described as a "coup" https://t.co/kGYPmdJi2O

    - Matt Novak (@paleofuture) August 3, 2020

    "Post Office could never handle the traffic of mail-in votes without preparation"

    - says @realDonaldTrump who defunded and decimated the Post Office, put a donor in charge of it (a man who told letter carriers to slow down deliveries), and won't let it access $ it was loaned. https://t.co/V0KaTuB2ON

    - Adrienne Watson (@Adrienne_DNC) August 3, 2020

    You are deliberately hobbling the United States Postal Service to try and steal the election. We will remove you. Your time is up. #TrumpShitShow https://t.co/uKuZYR7AE2

    - Rep Richard Dangler (@RDangler) August 3, 2020

    A Presidential admission that if everyone is allowed to vote and all the votes are counted, Republicans can't win. See you in court -courtesy of the New York AG. https://t.co/lphOE2Ttnp

    - Joe Lockhart (@joelockhart) August 3, 2020

    RESIGN and escape to Moscow while you can. https://t.co/Hy8vDRnpTU

    - Rosie Punch (@RosiePunch) August 3, 2020

"˜No he doesn't': Experts shoot down Trump claims that he has authority to stop mail-in voting with an executive order

on August 4, 2020
By Jake Johnson, Common Dreams

"This is just about him trying to set up a situation to sow seeds of confusion and fear so that if he loses in November, he can try to delegitimize a completely valid election."

President Donald Trump ramped up his baseless attacks on mail-in voting late Monday by threatening to issue an executive order curbing the practice ahead of the November elections, a move rights groups and experts said would be a flagrant violation of the U.S. Constitution.

"I have the right to do it," Trump said during a Covid-19 press briefing Monday evening. "We haven't gotten there yet, but we'll see what happens."

"No, he doesn't," responded attorney Daniel Jacobson. "As the Supreme Court has explained: "˜the Framers of the Constitution intended the States to keep for themselves, as provided in the Tenth Amendment, the power to regulate elections.'"

Steve Vladeck, a professor of law at the University of Texas at Austin, also weighed in:

    The President has no power-none-to change individual *state* rules regarding mail-in voting by Executive Order.

    As usual, this is just bluster-designed not to lead to any actual action, but only to further create a cloud around an election potentially decided by mail-in ballots. https://t.co/kQleqAGRxm

    - Steve Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) August 3, 2020

The president's remarks came just hours after he called the Nevada legislature's expansion of mail-in ballot access "an illegal late night coup" that would make it "impossible" for Republicans to win the state.

During his press briefing Monday, Trump fired off a barrage of lies about Nevada's efforts to provide a safe alternative to in-person voting amid the coronavirus pandemic and said his administration "will be suing" the state. Trump also continued to make a false distinction between absentee voting-which he claims to support-and vote-by-mail.

"You have to look at what they've done," the president said, referring to Nevada. "You can have two ballots, you can harvest-it's harvesting. So you can take thousands of ballots, put them together, and just dump them down on somebody's desk after a certain period of time."

    President Trump: "Absentee [voting] is great. It works. Like in Florida, they'll do absentee. It really works. But universal mail-in ballots is going to be a great embarrassment to our country." pic.twitter.com/ZsTJxmxcl8

    - The Hill (@thehill) August 3, 2020

Vanita Gupta, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, said in an appearance on MSNBC late Monday that any effort by Trump to stop state expansions of vote-by-mail through executive action would be "shot down in court."

"This is just about him trying to set up a situation to sow seeds of confusion and fear so that if he loses in November, he can try to delegitimize a completely valid election," said Gupta.

Trump went on to say the U.S. Postal Service won't be able to handle the unprecedented surge of mail-in ballots-a claim the USPS contradicted in a statement Monday night.

"The Postal Service has ample capacity to adjust our nationwide processing and delivery network to meet projected Election and Political Mail volume, including any additional volume that may result as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic," the agency said.

As Common Dreams reported last week, postal workers and voting rights advocates are growing increasingly concerned that policies implemented at USPS in recent days by Republican Postmaster General Louis DeJoy-a major Trump donor-could threaten the Postal Service's ability to deliver mail-in ballots on time in November.

"Trump's assault on the Post Office follows the playbook the gop has used for decades," Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-N.J.) tweeted Monday. "Deliberately sabotage an institution and then claim it's broken and must be destroyed."

Trump backtracks on Florida mail-in voting: "˜I encourage all to request a Ballot & Vote by Mail'

Raw Story
8/5/2020
By David Edwards

President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that he wanted "all" people to vote by mail in Florida.

"Whether you call it Vote by Mail or Absentee Voting, in Florida the election system is Safe and Secure, Tried and True," Trump wrote on Twitter. "Florida's Voting system has been cleaned up (we defeated Democrats attempts at change), so in Florida I encourage all to request a Ballot & Vote by Mail!"

    Whether you call it Vote by Mail or Absentee Voting, in Florida the election system is Safe and Secure, Tried and True. Florida's Voting system has been cleaned up (we defeated Democrats attempts at change), so in Florida I encourage all to request a Ballot & Vote by Mail! #MAGA

    - Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 4, 2020

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The president's tweet comes after he spent weeks attacking mail-in voting. Florida is the state where Trump is expected to vote.

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Trump abruptly flip-flopped on voting by mail - here's why

on August 5, 2020
By Cody Fenwick, AlterNet

President Donald Trump and his allies have been waging a disinformation campaign about mail-in voting, aggressively trying to delegitimize the practice that has a history in the United States dating back to the Civil War. The plan, as I've argued, seems to be to lay the groundwork for challenging mail-in votes or stopping them from being counted if it looks like he's ahead with in-person ballots on Election Day.

But on Tuesday afternoon, the president suddenly changed his tune on the matter in one key state: Florida. He sent the following tweet:

    Whether you call it Vote by Mail or Absentee Voting, in Florida the election system is Safe and Secure, Tried and True. Florida's Voting system has been cleaned up (we defeated Democrats attempts at change), so in Florida I encourage all to request a Ballot & Vote by Mail! #MAGA

    - Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 4, 2020

The tweet references a dubious distinction that Trump has himself been trying to draw between absentee and mail-in ballots. In many jurisdictions, they're the same thing, though absentee ballots can refer to a subset of mail-in ballots that require the voter to provide an excuse for not voting in person, such as being out of town on Election. But any concerns about mail-in ballots would apply to absentee ballots, so the president's attempt to draw a distinction makes little sense.

It made even less sense in Florida - where, as it happens, the president votes by mail under suspicious circumstances - because Florida doesn't have a special category of "absentee" ballots. Anyone who wants to vote by mail can do so.

So why has the president changed his tune and given the green light to mail-in voting in Florida? MSNBC's Chris Hayes had a plausible answer:

    Allow me to translate: someone told him that he's scaring his elderly supporters in Florida away from vote-by-mail and it's gonna hurt him so hence this. https://t.co/mPAlUlfpiV

    - Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) August 4, 2020

Brian Beutler of Crooked Media added:

    1) Florida is fast at counting mail ballots.

    2) Florida is filled with seniors.

    3) If Trump discourages Republicans from voting absentee there during a pandemic, Biden wins the state, and thus the whole election, ON ELECTION NIGHT.

    4) Ergo, the below tweet. https://t.co/Uben7QTbs8

    - Brian Beutler (@brianbeutler) August 4, 2020

As NPR reported Monday, Joe Biden's prospects in Florida look promising. If Trump loses there, he's almost certainly lost the entire race:

    "¦Biden has gone from a 49% to 48% polling advantage in early February to 50% to 44%, with some reputable surveys showing Biden with a double-digit lead. This is one state we expect to snap back to toss-up, but right now it's leaning in Biden's direction.

So abandoning the supposedly principled objection he's had to mail-in voting for months, Trump has decided to encourage his voters to drop their ballots in the post. It may be the tactically correct move - it just comes at the cost of completely undermining his attempt to delegitimize the process. He began with such little credibility outside his support base that he may not care.

But the Washington Post's Greg Sergent noted that Trump's tweet almost certainly doesn't signal an end to his war against mail-in votes - at least not in any state where he thinks it works to his advantage. Republican lawyers will continue to fight to restrict access to mail-in voting on his behalf:

    Please don't be lulled by this. Even as Trump tells his own voters to vote by mail, GOP lawyers are fighting in court to ensure that mail ballots that arrive after election day are not counted in all the swing states: https://t.co/QwC9ed16cv https://t.co/nplB5OUz96

    - Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) August 4, 2020

Historian who predicted Trump's upset 2016 win now says he's going to crash and burn in 2020

on August 5, 2020
Raw Story
By Brad Reed

Allan Lichtman, a political historian who teaches at American University in Washington, D.C., became famous for correctly predicting President Donald Trump's upset win four years ago.

But in a new interview with The New York Times, Lichtman makes the case that Trump appears very unlikely to win a second term as the country has been racked for months by the coronavirus pandemic, high unemployment, and civil unrest.

Lichtman goes through multiple factors that he says are "keys" to predicting outcomes of presidential races, including the fact that Trump's party lost the House of Representatives in 2018, the economy has entered into a recession, and there has been "considerable" social unrest over the past three months.
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While the president does have some things going in his favor, including the avoidance of major foreign policy disasters and having an opponent who is not particularly charismatic, Lichtman argues that those aren't enough to outweigh the other hurdles the president is facing.

"The keys predict that Trump will lose the White House," he said.

Watch:
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He Predicted Trump's Win in 2016. Now He's Ready to Call 2020

Most historians just study the past. But Allan Lichtman has successfully predicted the future.

Featuring Allan Lichtman
NY Times
Aug. 5, 2020, 5:00 a.m. ET

This is professor Allan Lichtman. He's taught history at American University for almost 50 years. He's a former steeplechase champion. "It's a race designed for horses but run by people." "Tic-Tac-Dough." And a former quiz show winner. "I had a 16-show winning streak. Won four cars." But we're not here to talk about any of that. We're here because "Allan Lichtman" "Allan Lichtman" "Allan Lichtman" is the Nostradamus of presidential elections. He's accurately predicted them for four decades. Yes, even that one. "Donald Trump sent me a note. Congrats professor. Good call. In his big Sharpie letters." Now Allan's ready to tell us who will win in 2020. But we'll come back to that. Allan Lichtman is certain we've been thinking about elections all wrong. "The pollsters and the pundits cover elections as though they were horse races. But history tells us voters are not fooled by the tricks of the campaign. Voters vote pragmatically according to how well the party holding the White House has governed the country." So polls are worthless?

"They are snapshots in time. None of this in the end has any impact whatsoever on the outcome of a presidential election." So Allan Lichtman designed a better system to predict presidential winners. He calls it "The Keys to the White House." And like some other politics these days, there's a Russian involved. "In 1981, I met Vladimir Keilis-Borok. Vladimir turned to me and said, we are going to collaborate." By the way, Vladimir wasn't a historian or a politician. He was a leading expert in predicting earthquakes. "This point, I thought the guy was either nuts or KGB." He wasn't.

"We recast American presidential elections as stability, the party holding the White House keeps the White House. And earthquake, the White House party is turned out of power." So they got to work. "We looked at every presidential election from 1860 to 1980." What they found were 13 keys. Only two of which have anything to do with the traits of the candidates. Allan has used the keys to accurately predict every election. First in 1984, calling it two years early before anyone even knew who Reagan's contender would be. In 1988, calling it in spring when Bush was trailing Dukakis. Again in "˜92, "˜96 and in 2000, when he called it for Al Gore? Hey, Allan. "No, no, I wasn't wrong. I correctly predicted that Al Gore would win the popular vote. When I first developed the system in "˜81, you had to go all the way back to 1888 to find a divergence between the popular vote and the Electoral College vote." So Allan eventually started calling the winner, not just the popular vote, which was useful 16 years later when, well, you know.

"I'm a Democrat. And the toughest thing in being a forecaster is to keep your own politics out of it." But that's enough history, professor. Let's get to it. What do Allan's 13 keys predict for 2020? "And remember, an answer of "˜true' always favors the re-election of the White House party. If six or more of the keys are false, you get a political earthquake." OK, No. 1: The White House party gained House seats between midterm elections. "Republicans lost the U.S. House midterms in 2018. So false." No. 2: There is no primary contest for the White House party. "No Republicans challenged Trump for his renomination. So true." No. 3: The incumbent seeking. The sitting president is running for re-election. "Doesn't look like he's stepping down, so true." Four: There is no third-party challenger. "Despite claims by Kanye West to be running, this is a two-party race." This is looking pretty good for Trump so far. No. 5: The short-term economy is strong. "The pandemic has pushed the economy into recession. False." Six: Long-term economic growth during this presidential term has been as good as the past two terms. "The pandemic has caused such negative G.D.P. growth in 2020 that the key has turned false." No. 7: The White House has made major changes to national policy. "Through his big tax cut, but mostly through his executive orders, Trump has fundamentally changed the policies of the Obama era. So true." No. 8: There is no social unrest during the term. "There has been considerable social unrest on the streets, with enough violence to threaten the social order. So false." No. 9: The White House is untainted by scandal. "My favorite key. As I predicted, Trump was impeached. Plus he has plenty of other scandals. So false." No. 10: The White House has no major foreign or military failures abroad. "We've had some very difficult moments with Donald Trump. But so far, true." 11: The White House has a major success abroad. "While Trump hasn't had any big splashy failures, he hasn't had any major successes either. So false." 12: The incumbent-party candidate is charismatic. "Donald Trump is a great showman. But he only appeals to a narrow slice of the American people. And as a result, false." 13: The challenger is uncharismatic. "Biden is a decent empathetic person, but he's not inspirational or charismatic. So true." That means - "The keys predict that Trump will lose the White House." That's Allan Lichtman's prediction. And Allan Lichtman is always right. "Don't just take my word for it. There are forces at play outside the keys - voter suppression, Russian meddling. It's up to you the voters to decide the future of our democracy. So get out and vote. Vote in person. Vote by mail. As Abraham Lincoln said, the best way to predict the future is to choose it."

Right now, polls say Joe Biden has a healthy lead over President Trump. But we've been here before (cue 2016), and the polls were, frankly, wrong. One man, however, was not. The historian Allan Lichtman was the lonely forecaster who predicted Mr. Trump's victory in 2016 - and also prophesied the president would be impeached. That's two for two. But Professor Lichtman's record goes much deeper. In 1980, he developed a presidential prediction model that retrospectively accounted for 120 years of U.S. election history. Over the past four decades, his system has accurately called presidential victors, from Ronald Reagan in '84 to, well, Mr. Trump in 2016.

In the video Op-Ed above, Professor Lichtman walks us through his system, which identifies 13 "keys" to winning the White House. Each key is a binary statement: true or false. And if six or more keys are false, the party in the White House is on its way out.

So what do the keys predict for 2020? To learn that, you'll have to watch the video.

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Pence brags about plan to fight mail-in votes: Trump will "˜head straight to the courthouse' - hints at using SCOTUS to win

on August 6, 2020
By David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement

Vice President Mike Pence let down his guard in an interview with David Brody, telling the Christian Broadcasting Network reporter in a just-released video about the Trump administration's plan to fight the mail-in voting process to win the election - and possibly to use the Supreme Court to win.

Pence bragged that the Trump administration - not the Trump campaign, which shows there is no line between the two - has plans to challenge mail-in ballots in court.

"You're going to see this president and our administration head straight to the courthouse," Pence declared, proudly. "We're going to oppose universal mail-in voting."

"We're going to lean into the courts at every level," he added, suggesting they already have a plan to take the battle to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Earlier this week one noted author claimed Jared Kushner is "in charge of planning [a] last ditch try at disqualifying Biden ballots on election night, urging Republican state legislatures to "˜send competing slates of electors,' and then seeking a Supreme Court ruling in Trump's favor."

Watch the vice president's remarks:

    JUST RELEASED: VP Mike Pence on fighting Democrats' plan for massive mail-in balloting in 2020: "You're going to see this president and our administration head straight to the courthouse"¦We're going to lean into the courts at every level." @Mike_Pence @VP @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/lQeOnz5FnE

    - David Brody (@DavidBrodyCBN) August 6, 2020

Watch: https://twitter.com/DavidBrodyCBN/status/1291362177237090305

Brace yourself for months of lawlessness - "˜Election Night' likely will not end until 2021

on August 7, 2020
By John Stoehr, The Editorial Board
- Commentary

There's nothing wrong with treating American politics like a sport as long as everyone involved in the competition is playing the same sport by the same rules. There's nothing wrong as long as both sides agree the rules are legitimate, both commit to obeying them and both accept the consequences when they break them.

But there is a problem with treating American politics like a sport when one side is playing soccer and the other is playing football while neither can agree to the rules, because one side won't commit to obeying them. There is something wrong when one side not only refuses to accept the consequences of rule-breaking but sets out to undermine the idea of rules altogether. In that case, treating politics like a sport, as the Washington press corps habitually does, isn't helpful. It's harmful. Even dangerous.
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The biggest problem with the upcoming election, from the point of view of Americans who want to see the incumbent gone, is something that would not normally be a problem. Indeed, it has never been a problem in our lifetimes. It has been a civic good. What I'm talking about is blind institutional faith. Most of us, even the great cynics among us, still believe the system is fundamentally sound. We believe the rules are inviolate. Little appears to be standing in the way of a 2020 Democratic landslide.

Before explaining why blind institutional faith is a problem, let me add that it feels so good to have blind faith in our institutions. All of us want to believe the only thing threatening Joe Biden's victory is voter apathy, and many of us want to believe that voter apathy is moot after the trauma that was the 2016 election. Blind institutional faith is moreover affirmed, and that good feeling compounded, by a Washington press corps that habitually treats American politics like a sport. If all the major polls show Biden ahead of the president by double digits in critical swing states, then surely this nightmare is about to end. Good will triumph over evil, and everything will be fine.

Everything won't be fine, though, and good might not triumph over evil if recent findings by Nils Gilman and Rosa Brooks are any indication. Together with about 70 expects-legal scholars, retired military officers, former US officials, strategists and attorneys-they oversaw a series of "war games" that "peered ahead to the Nov. 3 election, now less than 90 days away, and explored how the race between Trump and Joe Biden could turn into a post-election crisis," wrote USA Today's Joey Garrison. In the process, they demonstrated, I think, how blind institutional faith is problematic.

Called the Transition Integrity Project, the group gamed out, in June, a series of plausible and possible scenarios. Its findings are frightening. "In an election taking place amid a pandemic, a recession and rising political polarization, the group found a substantial risk of legal battles, a contested outcome, violent street clashes and even a constitutional impasse," Garrison wrote. Here are the key points of group's report:

The election won't end on Election Day: "We face a period of contestation," the report said. "The winner may not, and we assess likely will not, be known on "˜election night' as officials count mail-in ballots." "An unscrupulous candidate"-meaning Trump-will cast doubt on the election's legitimacy and "set up an unprecedented assault on the outcome." Everyone must be "educated to adjust expectations" starting now.

The election will be contested well into January 2021: "We anticipate lawsuits, divergent media narratives, attempts to stop the counting of ballots, and protests drawing people from both sides." The president "will very likely use the executive branch to aid his campaign strategy, including through the Department of Justice. There's a chance the president will try convincing red-state officials "to take actions-including illegal actions-to defy the popular vote." Of particular concern, the report said, is "how the military would respond in the context of uncertain election results."

The transition will be highly disrupted: Instead of handing off power, "Trump would prioritize personal gain and self-protection," the report said. He "may use pardons to thwart future criminal prosecution, arrange business deals with foreign governments that benefit him financially, attempt to bribe and silence associates, declassify sensitive documents, and attempt to divert federal funds to his own businesses."

The report offers recommendations. They boil down to getting ready. This is not a normal president. This won't be a normal transition. We are entering a period of historic uncertainty in which none of us can take anything for granted, not even the rules-laws, norms, institutions-that many of us place our trust in. There's still time to re-balance expecting the worst with hoping for the best. That's fortunate, because most of us are still expecting the best to happen while praying the worst won't.

John Stoehr is the editor and publisher of the Editorial Board, a newsletter about politics in plain English for normal people and the common good. He's a visiting assistant professor of public policy at Wesleyan University, a fellow at the Yale Journalism Initiative, a contributing writer for the Washington Monthly, and a contributing editor for Religion Dispatches.

"˜Friday Night Massacre' at US Postal Service as Postmaster General-a major Trump donor-ousts top officials

on August 8, 2020
By Common Dreams

Government watchdogs, Democratic lawmakers, and pro-democracy advocates declared it a "Friday Night Massacre" for the U.S. Postal Service after news broke in a classic end-of-the-week dump that Louis DeJoy-a major GOP donor to President Donald Trump and the recently appointed Postmaster General-had issued a sweeping overhaul of the agency, including the ouster of top executives from key posts and the reshuffling of more than two dozen other officials and operational managers.

According to the Washington Post:

    The shake-up came as congressional Democrats called for an investigation of DeJoy and the cost-cutting measures that have slowed mail delivery and ensnared ballots in recent primary elections.

    Twenty-three postal executives were reassigned or displaced, the new organizational chart shows. Analysts say the structure centralizes power around DeJoy, a former logistics executive and major ally of President Trump, and de-emphasizes decades of institutional postal knowledge. All told, 33 staffers included in the old postal hierarchy either kept their jobs or were reassigned in the restructuring, with five more staffers joining the leadership from other roles.

Already under fire for recent policy changes at the USPS that mail carriers from within and outside critics have denounced as a sabotage effort to undermine the Postal Service broadly as well as disrupt efforts to carry out mail-in voting for November's election amid the Covid-19 pandemic, the moves unveiled late Friday were viewed as an overt assault on democracy and a calculated opportunity to boost Republican's long-held dream of undercutting or privatizing the government-run mail service while also boosting their election prospects in the process.

"Another Friday night massacre by this administration-and this time dealing another devastating blow to our postal service," said Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Pa.) "The American people deserve answers and we're going to keep fighting for them."

Scanlon was among more than 80 congressional lawmakers who sent a letter to DeJoy earlier in the day expressing "deep concerns" about operational changes he has made for mail carriers that have delayed deliveries and lowered standards.

"It is vital that the U.S. Postal Service not reduce mail delivery times, which could harm rural communities, seniors, small businesses, and millions of Americans who rely on the mail for critical letters and packages," the letter stated. "Eliminating overtime and directing postal workers to leave mail on the floor of postal facilities will erode confidence in the Postal Service and drive customers away, resulting in even worse financial conditions in the future."

As Common Dreams reported earlier Friday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren was among those who signed the letter and also called for DeJoy's efforts to be investigated by the Inspector General of the USPS. Since 2016 alone, DeJoy has donated more than $2.5 million to the Republican Party and candidates. In 2020, prior to his appointment as Postmaster General by the GOP-controlled board of governors, DeJoy had already given approximately $360,000 to a Super PAC supporting Trump's reelection.

As the Post notes in its reporting, the reshuffling of top managers and executives-as well as a hiring freeze and push for early retirements-"worried postal analysts, who say the tone of DeJoy's first eight weeks and his restructuring have recast the nation's mail service as a for-profit arm of the government, rather than an essential service."

In a video posted to Twitter, Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Oreg.) characterized DeJoy as a "political crony" of the president's and also denounced the brazen efforts now on display as a "Friday Night Massacre" scenario:

Appearing Friday afternoon on Capitol Hill, DeJoy brushed off accusations that he is acting as a political bag man for Trump. "While I certainly have a good relationship with the president of the United States, the notion that I would ever make decisions concerning the Postal Service at the direction of the president or anyone else in the administration is wholly off-base," DeJoy said.

But outside critics like Walter Shaub, former head of the Office of Government Ethics and a fierce critic of Trump's behavior as president, said the latest move should be seen as nothing less than a direct effort by DeJoy to exploit his authority at the Postal Service to further the president's political interests and reelection prospects.

According to Brian Tyler Cohen, a liberal commentator and podcast host, "Congressional Democrats need to do something about this" immediately.

"If we wait until October/November, it'll be too late," said Cohen. "Trump is actively sabotaging the election under our noses-this isn't theoretical, it's happening RIGHT NOW." Cohen said this situation should be treated like a "fucking five-alarm fire" and said action must be taken by both lawmakers and the U.S. public without delay.

Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.), chair of the House subcommittee which has oversight for the USPS, said what DeJoy is trying to pass off as simple organizational restructuring is actually "a Trojan Horse" designed to destroy one of the nation's most trusted and valued institutions from within.

Connolly on Friday night called it, "Deliberate sabotage to disrupt mail service on the eve of the election-an election that hinges on mail-in ballots."

Trump Has Launched a Three-Pronged Attack on the Election

And it starts with undermining the U.S. Postal Service.

August 7, 2020
Laurence H. Tribe
University professor of constitutional law emeritus at Harvard Law School
Jennifer Taub
Professor of law at the Western New England University School of Law
Joshua A. Geltzer
Executive director of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection
The Atlantic

As President Donald Trump reflects on his sinking approval ratings and grows more desperate by the day, he's been floating a dictator's dream: postponing the November election. Even Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other Trump loyalists, including the Federalist Society co-founder Steven Calabresi, swiftly rejected this authoritarian fantasy. So Trump has retreated to a fallback position: casting doubt on the legitimacy of any election he doesn't win. That starts by inventing fables about how voting by mail invites massive fraud and interminable delay-except, Trump now tells us, in Florida, where Trump's elderly supporters will surely rely on it.

Trump's attack on voting by mail has several fronts, but one is by far the most serious: his attempt to slow down mail service, perhaps in a targeted way, while also insisting that only ballots counted on November 3 are valid. In addition to casting doubt on the entire election, another purpose of this scheme is to engineer a scenario in which Trump can pressure Republican-controlled legislatures to ignore the popular vote in their Democratic-leaning swing state (think Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin) and instead select an Electoral College slate that supports him. Trump's attempt to cut short the counting of valid votes is flatly contrary to constitutional law and federal statutes. Even so, states can and should do more to protect American's mailed-in votes. States should immediately enact new legislation or take other legal steps clarifying that they intend for Congress to honor electors they choose, and that they may need a bit of time to finalize choosing them-ideally doing so by December 23 and no later than January 6, 2021, when Congress meets in special session to certify the election results. Through state-level action, Trump's efforts can be neutralized.

We can see glimmers of Trump's approach in what he said about Florida's tight 2018 gubernatorial and Senate races, and he'll say it again to delegitimize the counting of mail-in ballots that might cost him reelection. We've received a frightening preview in the Census Bureau's recent announcement that it plans to cut off population-counting efforts one month early, well before needed to meet the December 31 deadline for delivering census results to Congress.. This decision was made after the Trump administration itself had asked for more time, not less. It's the same play: When Trump doesn't like the numbers coming in, he stops counting.

Quinta Jurecic and Benjamin Wittes: Trump is terrified of losing

Halting vote-counting after Election Day requires Trump to stage a three-pronged attack: slowing mail delivery, then urging Republican state legislatures to deem Election Day "failed" because of the many uncounted votes, and finally denouncing as illegitimate all vote-counting that continues after Election Day-even as slowly delivered mail-in ballots keep arriving. Leading the first step is Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who's reportedly shutting down post offices and slowing mail delivery under the guise of cost-cutting. Employees say that piles upon piles of letters and packages remain undelivered, stranded for weeks on end. These efforts undermine public confidence in the Postal Service and threaten to slow the distribution of blank ballots to voters and the return of completed ballots to state officials-with a likely disproportionate effect on Democratic-leaning urban voters, for whom the coronavirus's circulation in cities makes mail-in voting particularly appealing. The likely surge in mail-in ballots that the pandemic will encourage suggests that tallying the election results won't be completed on November 3 but will take days, possibly weeks, to complete accurately.

Trump will almost certainly use this delay as an opportunity to cast doubt on the whole election. He may even try to urge Republican-controlled legislatures in states that tend to vote blue but supported him in 2016 to deem Election Day "failed" given the uncounted votes, as well as pressure those legislatures to then exploit a federal law that allows them to come up with a new way to appoint presidential electors-such as handpicking a slate committed to Trump.

Trump may additionally think his hand is strengthened by another federal law that tells Congress to respect each state's final resolution of ballot disputes if made by December 8. This date may well be too soon for all mail-in ballots to be counted when the pandemic is sure to increase the number of such ballots cast. But that provision is a mere "safe harbor": It doesn't require that states resolve ballot disputes by December 8. The only statutory deadline for a state to send its tally is December 23, and the only deadline for receiving a state's tally-the true constitutional deadline-is January 6, when Congress meets in special session to certify the election results. So there's no excuse for a state to call its election a failure or for Congress to disregard the results so long as they're resolved ideally by December 23 but ultimately no later than January 6-not December 8.

Here's why: Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution gives Congress the power to set the date for the states to "give their votes." Congress chose the "first Monday after the second Wednesday in December," which this year is December 14. However, Congress also provided a backup date, the "fourth Wednesday in December," which this year is December 23. This is the day when the president of the Senate requests any state from which no certified vote has been received to send one "by the most expeditious method possible." The law requires any such state to transmit its vote count by registered mail to the Senate president (or if the president is not present, the archivist). Insisting on December 8, rather than December 23, cuts short by nearly one-third the time available to make sure that every legitimate vote is counted-and it plays into the absurd claim Trump seems prepared to make: Because there might not be time to count all mail-in ballots this year, none should be counted.

Nathaniel Persily and Charles Stewart III: The looming threat to voting in person

In its infamous Bush v. Gore decision, the Supreme Court's five-justice majority treated the early-December "safe harbor" date as a firm deadline for Florida to stop its recount-but only because of the majority's view of Florida law. The Court pointed to language from Florida's Supreme Court suggesting that the Florida legislature, by trying to meet the safe-harbor date, intended to sink all ballots that failed to be recounted by then. And the Florida legislature, to be fair, hadn't made it as clear as it might that it had no such perverse intention.

States can and should act now to avoid Bush v. Gore treatment. Before November 3, they should pass new laws or enact new policies through their executive branch that make a commitment to democracy, regardless of political party (or seek definitive rulings from their highest court before that date). Such efforts wipe off the table Trump's potential election-tampering tactics.

First, states should pass statutes making clear that vote-counting must be done not by December 8, but by January 6-and ideally by December 23, which still provides crucial additional time. This will ensure that a state legislature can't claim voters "failed to make a choice" simply because vote-counting necessarily continued past Election Day, and that Congress can't disregard results from states simply because they arrive after December 8, or after December 14, the statutory (but not constitutional) date set for the Electoral College to meet and to send vote counts to the Senate and archivist.

Second, states should adopt a postmark rule, whereby every ballot postmarked on or before November 3 is included in the tally. If the question isn't whether ballots are received by November 3 but instead whether they're sent by that date, a deliberately tardy Postal Service no longer poses the same threat. Of course, not all states may be able to accomplish this through legislation, but state courts may provide another promising path. One example is the set of voters in Minnesota who sued their secretary of state to challenge the state law that said absentee ballots would be counted only if received by 8 p.m. on Election Day. A Minnesota court approved a settlement with the voters that requires all absentee ballots to be postmarked on or before November 3 and arrive no more than seven days after Election Day to be counted. This decision indicates that any rule to count only ballots received by Election Day during this pandemic is an unlawful burden on voting rights, in violation of the equal-protection provisions of state constitutions and the U.S. Constitution.

Norm Ornstein: The November election is going to be a mess

Third, states should start the mail-in and early-voting processes well before November 3, and as soon as the candidates up and down the ballot are known. This will help states count the unprecedented wave of mail-in ballots they're about to receive.

Fourth, states should invest in vote-by-mail infrastructure, such as what Colorado has in place, including dedicated drop boxes for ballots that bypass the postal system entirely. What's more, states should urge loudly that federal money to help with this task be included in the next coronavirus-relief package.

And fifth, states should, in every way possible-including by litigation-erase any doubt that they mean to count every legitimate ballot, even if counting needs to continue not just until December 8 but until December 23 and, if necessary, until January 6. The difference could be between losing American democracy and saving it.

Trump thinks he has a trio of tricks up his sleeve for November: Slow the mail, rely on Republican state legislatures to deem Election Day a failure with so many votes still uncounted, and decry as illegitimate all vote-counting that persists past Election Day, and certainly past December 8. State legislatures and courts should act now to show just how futile this strategy would be for Trump. In so doing, they would be shoring up the electorate's confidence in our voting system's integrity, and would be reinforcing the foundations of a great democracy by reaffirming a simple principle: If we believe in one person, one vote, then every American's lawfully cast vote should be counted.

Trump campaign conspiring with GOP leaders to disrupt the November election: report

on August 9, 2020
By Matthew Chapman
Raw Story

On Saturday, Politico reported that President Donald Trump has been brainstorming with GOP officials on how to curb mail-in voting ahead of the 2020 election.

"Trump's campaign and the Republican National Committee have taken to the courts dozens of times as part of a $20 million effort to challenge voting rules, including filing their own lawsuits in several battleground states, including Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Nevada," reported Anita Kumar. "And around the time Trump started musing about delaying the election last week, aides and outside advisers began scrambling to ponder possible executive actions he could take to curb mail-in voting - everything from directing the postal service to not deliver certain ballots to stopping local officials from counting them after Election Day."

There is no clear legal basis for most of these schemes, as elections are predominantly run at the state level.

Alarm has risen in recent weeks about changes in postal service by the president's new postmaster general and longtime donor, Louis DeJoy. Under DeJoy's directive, several senior postal officials have been reassigned or fired, and the postal service has made policy changes that are slowing down delivery.

Lawmakers demand removal of Postmaster General DeJoy over "˜nefarious' efforts to "˜aid Trump re-election'

on August 10, 2020
By Jake Johnson, Common Dreams

"He is working to dismantle a fundamental institution of our democracy. He needs to resign or be removed, now."

On the heels of a "Friday Night Massacre" at the U.S. Postal Service that deeply alarmed lawmakers, activists, and ordinary citizens nationwide, two House Democrats are demanding the immediate removal of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy over his sweeping operational changes to the beloved government service that have slowed the delivery of essential packages and jeopardized mail-in voting.

"DeJoy's nefarious collective efforts will suppress millions of mail-in ballots and threaten the voting rights of millions of Americans, setting the stage for breach of our Constitution."
-Rep. Peter DeFazio

In a statement over the weekend, Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) accused DeJoy-a major GOP donor to President Donald Trump with millions invested in USPS competitors-of doing the president's bidding by sabotaging mail delivery with the November election less than 90 days away.

"DeJoy's baseless operational changes have already crippled a beloved and essential agency, delaying mail, critical prescription drug shipments for veterans, and seniors and other essential goods," said DeFazio.

The Oregon Democrat warned that the latest change imposed by DeJoy-the ouster of two top officials and reshuffling of nearly two dozen others-lay bare his "mission to centralize power, dismantle the agency, and degrade service in order to thwart vote-by-mail across the nation to aid Trump's reelection efforts."

"This November, an historic number of citizens will vote by mail in order to protect their health and safety during the Covid-19 pandemic," said DeFazio. "DeJoy's nefarious collective efforts will suppress millions of mail-in ballots and threaten the voting rights of millions of Americans, setting the stage for breach of our Constitution. It is imperative that we remove him from his post and immediately replace him with an experienced leader who is committed to sustaining a critical service for all Americans."

DeJoy, a former North Carolina logistics executive, was appointed to lead USPS by the agency's Board of Governors in May despite his complete lack of experience at the Postal Service and his potential conflicts of interest, which have drawn scrutiny from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and other lawmakers. After taking charge in mid-June, the new Postmaster General wasted little time rolling out changes to USPS that postal workers said undermine the agency's core mission and potentially set the stage for privatization.

During an open session last week with the Board of Governors, DeJoy rebuked lawmakers for "sensationalizing" major mail backlogs reported in states across the nation and downplayed the resulting delays as "isolated, operational incidents." Postal workers, for their part, have warned that the delays appear to be a direct consequence of DeJoy's policies barring overtime and prohibiting the sorting of mail ahead of morning deliveries.

As the American Prospect"˜s David Dayen noted, the Postal Service under DeJoy's leadership has also "informed states that they'll need to pay first-class 55-cent postage to mail ballots to voters, rather than the normal 20-cent bulk rate."

"That nearly triples the per-ballot cost at a time when tens of millions more will be delivered," Dayen noted. "The rate change would have to go through the Postal Regulatory Commission and, undoubtedly, litigation. But the time frame for that is incredibly short, as ballots go out very soon. A side benefit of this money grab is that states and cities may decide they don't have the money to mail absentee ballots, and will make them harder to get. Which is exactly the worst-case scenario everyone fears."

    This is the clearest example yet of Trump and his puppet Postmaster General's attempts to sabotage the USPS before November's election.

    This kind of behavior is why we're demanding an investigation into Trump's USPS-the Inspector General should add this to their list. https://t.co/2aXcLeZsF9

    - Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) August 8, 2020

Rep. Alma Adams (D-N.C.) said in a statement issued alongside DeFazio's that DeJoy is guilty of "unconstitutional sabotage of our Postal Service with complete disregard for the institution's promise of the "˜safe and speedy transit of the mail' and the "˜prompt delivery of its contents.'"

"My friend Maya Angelou used to say, "˜when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time,'" Adams added. "The Postmaster General has shown us on multiple occasions he is working to dismantle a fundamental institution of our democracy. He needs to resign or be removed, now."

Kamala Harris will join Joe Biden on the Democratic Party ticket as the VP nominee to defeat Donald Trump and Mike Pence in November

on August 11, 2020
Raw Story
By Roxanne Cooper

Joe Biden, the Democratic Party's presumptive 2020 nominee for president, will be joined on the ticket by Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA), who will serve as his running mate.

The choice of a running mate has added significance this year because of Biden's age. He turns 78 on November 20 and would be the oldest man ever to assume the office if he defeats Trump, as polls predict.

"The vice-presidential pick this year is so much more important than it normally is because people expect Biden to only serve one term," said David Barker, a professor of government at American University.
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"And so whomever he picks as vice president is likely to be the next Democratic candidate for president in four years," Barker said.

Harris, the daughter of a Jamaican-born father and Indian-born mother, served as a district attorney in San Francisco before becoming attorney general of California, the first woman to hold the post in the most populous US state.

She was elected to the Senate in 2016, just the second black woman elected to the body and the first woman of South Asian heritage.

Harris challenged Biden for the Democratic nomination but dropped out of the race in December 2019 and threw her support behind Biden, the former vice president and senator from Delaware, in March.

Biden and Harris clashed during an early Democratic primary debate but he appears not to hold it against her.

Rapper Sean "Diddy" Combs led more than 100 prominent African-American men Monday in penning an open letter urging presidential candidate Joe Biden to choose a woman of color as his running mate.

President Donald Trump said earlier on Tuesday that some men may feel "insulted" by his Democratic rival Joe Biden's commitment to choose a woman as his vice presidential candidate.

"He roped himself into a certain group of people," Trump told Fox Sports Radio in an early morning phone-in interview.

"Some people would say men are insulted by that and some people would say it is fine," Trump said.

Declaring that he wants a government as diverse as the country itself, Biden committed early in his campaign, in March, that he would name a woman on the ticket.

Only two other women have been nominated vice presidential candidates - Sarah Palin by the Republican party in 2008 and Geraldine Ferraro by the Democrats in 1984 - and neither made it into the White House. No woman has won the presidency either.

In the radio interview, Trump praised his own vice president, Mike Pence, but said bluntly: "people don't vote for the vice president, they really don't."

"You can pick a George Washington to be a vice president. Let's pick up Abraham Lincoln, coming back from the dead. They just don't seem to vote for the vice president."

*******

Below:

1. Natal Chart for Kamala Harris
2. Harris natal chart with the outer ring of the transits to it on election day
3. Synastry chart with Joe Biden: Biden's natal chart is the inner wheel

To enlarge the chart simply put your cursor on the 'jpg' for the chart and click it

"˜A conspiracy': Alarms sound after postal worker reports removal of sorting machines

on August 12, 2020
By Jake Johnson, Common Dreams

The removal of key equipment from Post Offices should be viewed as nothing less than "sabotage," said one observer.

The head of the Iowa Postal Workers Union alleged Tuesday that mail sorting machines are "being removed" from Post Offices in her state due to new policies imposed by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a major GOP donor to President Donald Trump whose operational changes have resulted in dramatic mail slowdowns across the nation.

Asked by NPR"˜s Noel King whether she has felt the impact of DeJoy's changes, Iowa Postal Workers Union President Kimberly Karol-a 30-year Postal Service veteran-answered in the affirmative, saying "mail is beginning to pile up in our offices, and we're seeing equipment being removed."

"I don't see this as cost-saving measures. I see this as a way to undermine the public confidence in the mail service."
-Kimberly Karol, Iowa Postal Workers Union

Karol went on to specify that "equipment that we use to process mail for delivery"-including sorting machines-is being removed from Postal Service facilities in Iowa as DeJoy rushes ahead with policies that, according to critics, are sabotaging the Postal Service's day-to-day operations less than 90 days before an election that could hinge on mail-in ballots.

"In Iowa, we are losing machines. And they already in Waterloo were losing one of those machines. So that also hinders our ability to process mail in the way that we had in the past," added Karol, who said she is "not a fan" of the postmaster general. Washington state election officials have also raised concerns about the removal of mail sorting machines.

"I grew up in a culture of service, where every piece was to be delivered every day. And his policies, although they've only been in place for a few weeks, are now affecting the way that we do business and not allowing us to deliver every piece every day, as we've done in the past," said Karol. "I don't see this as cost-saving measures. I see this as a way to undermine the public confidence in the mail service. It's not saving costs. We're spending more time trying to implement these policy changes. And it's, in our offices, costing more over time."

Observers reacted with alarm to Karol's comments, viewing them as further confirmation that DeJoy is deliberately attempting to damage the Postal Service with the goal of helping Trump win reelection in November.

"It's a conspiracy to steal the election, folks," tweeted The Week"˜s political columnist Ryan Cooper.

Freelance journalist Erin Biba said there's "absolutely no way to see" the removal of mail sorting machines from Post Offices as anything other than "sabotage" of the most popular government institution in the U.S.

"It's so blatant," added Biba.

Mail Delays Fuel Concern Trump Is Undercutting Postal System Ahead of Voting

The president's long campaign against the Postal Service is intersecting with his assault on mail-in voting amid concerns that he has politicized oversight of the agency.

By Michael D. Shear, Hailey Fuchs and Kenneth P. Vogel
NY Times
8/13/2020

WASHINGTON - Welcome to the next election battleground: the post office.

President Trump's yearslong assault on the Postal Service and his increasingly dire warnings about the dangers of voting by mail are colliding as the presidential campaign enters its final months. The result has been to generate new concerns about how he could influence an election conducted during a pandemic in which greater-than-ever numbers of voters will submit their ballots by mail.

In tweet after all-caps tweet, Mr. Trump has warned that allowing people to vote by mail will result in a "CORRUPT ELECTION" that will "LEAD TO THE END OF OUR GREAT REPUBLICAN PARTY" and become the "SCANDAL OF OUR TIMES." He has predicted that children will steal ballots out of mailboxes. On Thursday, he dangled the idea of delaying the election instead.

Members of Congress and state officials in both parties rejected the president's suggestion and his claim that mail-in ballots would result in widespread fraud. But they are warning that a huge wave of ballots could overwhelm mail carriers unless the Postal Service, in financial difficulty for years, receives emergency funding that Republicans are blocking during negotiations over another pandemic relief bill.

At the same time, the mail system is being undercut in ways set in motion by Mr. Trump. Fueled by animus for Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, and surrounded by advisers who have long called for privatizing the post office, Mr. Trump and his appointees have begun taking cost-cutting steps that appear to have led to slower and less reliable delivery.

In recent weeks, at the direction of a Trump campaign megadonor who was recently named the postmaster general, the service has stopped paying mail carriers and clerks the overtime necessary to ensure that deliveries can be completed each day. That and other changes have led to reports of letters and packages being delayed by as many as several days.

Voting rights groups say it is a recipe for disaster.

"We have an underfunded state and local election system and a deliberate slowdown in the Postal Service," said Wendy Fields, the executive director of the Democracy Initiative, a coalition of voting and civil rights groups. She said the president was "deliberately orchestrating suppression and using the post office as a tool to do it."

Kim Wyman, the Republican secretary of state in Washington, one of five states where mail-in balloting is universal, said Wednesday on NPR's "1A" program that "election officials are very concerned, if the post office is reducing service, that we will be able to get ballots to people in time."

During his eulogy on Thursday for Representative John Lewis, former President Barack Obama lamented what he said was a continuing effort to attack voting rights "with surgical precision, even undermining the Postal Service in the run-up to an election that is going to be dependent on mailed-in ballots so people don't get sick."

Louis DeJoy, the postmaster general, defended the changes, saying in a statement that the ban on overtime was intended to "improve operational efficiency" and to "ensure that we meet our service standards."

Mr. DeJoy declined to be interviewed. David Partenheimer, a spokesman for the Postal Service, said that the nation's post offices had "ample capacity to adjust our nationwide processing and delivery network to meet projected election and political mail volume, including any additional volume that may result as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic."

A plunge in the amount of mail because of a recession - which the United States entered into in February - has cost the Postal Service billions of dollars in revenue, with some analysts predicting that the agency will run out of money by spring. Democrats have proposed an infusion of $25 billion. On Friday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused Republicans, who are opposed to the funding, of wanting to "diminish the capacity of the Postal System to work in a timely fashion."

Arthur B. Sackler, who runs the Coalition for a 21st Century Postal Service, a group representing the biggest bulk mailers, said the changes were concerning even though his organization did not take a position on voting by mail.

"Like any other mail, this could complicate what is already going to be a complicated process," Mr. Sackler said. "A huge number of jurisdictions are totally inexperienced in vote by mail. They have never had the avalanche of interest that they have this year."

Many states have already loosened restrictions on who can vote by mail: In Kentucky, mail-in ballots accounted for 85 percent of the vote in June's primary. In Vermont, requests for mail-in ballots are up 1,000 percent over 2018.

Michigan voters had requested nearly 1.8 million mail-in ballots by the end of July, compared with about 500,000 by the similar time four years ago, after the secretary of state mailed absentee ballot applications to all 7.7 million registered voters.

In the suburban Virginia district of Representative Gerald E. Connolly, a Democrat who leads the House subcommittee that oversees the Postal Service, 1,300 people voted by mail in a 2019 primary - last month, more than 34,000 did.

"We are worried about new management at the Postal Service that is carrying out Trump's avowed opposition to voting by mail," Mr. Connolly said. "I don't think that's speculation. I think we are witnessing that in front of our own eyes."

Erratic service could delay the delivery of blank ballots to people who request them. And in 34 states, completed ballots that are not received by Election Day - this year it is Nov. 3 - are invalidated, raising the prospect that some voters could be disenfranchised if the mail system buckles.

In other states, ballots can be tallied as long as they are postmarked by Election Day, but voting rights groups say ballots are often erroneously delivered without a postmark, which prevents them from being counted.

The ability of the Postal Service "to timely deliver and return absentee ballots and their work to postmark those ballots will literally determine whether or not voters are disenfranchised during the pandemic," said Kristen Clarke, the president of the National Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

In New York, where officials urged people not to cast ballots in person during June's primary, counting of mail-in ballots is still underway weeks later, leaving some crucial races undecided. In some cases, ballots received without postmarks are being discarded.

Making the problem worse, New York law requires that election officials wait to begin counting mail-in ballots until the polls close on Election Day. Other states allow counting to begin earlier, though most insist that no results be revealed until after voting ends. In Arizona, officials can begin tallying votes 14 days early. In Florida, officials can begin verifying signatures on ballots 22 days before the election.

Mr. Trump and his allies have seized upon the New York debacle as evidence that he is right to oppose mail-in ballots. Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary, called it an "absolute catastrophe," and the president referred to New York in a tweet that said, "Rigged Election, and EVERYONE knows it!"

But Mr. Trump - who himself has repeatedly voted by mail in recent elections - has set in motion changes at the Postal Service that could make the problem worse.

A series of Postal Service documents titled "PMGs expectations," a reference to the postmaster general, describe how Mr. Trump's new leadership team is trying to cut costs.

"Overtime will be eliminated," says the document, which was first reported by The Washington Post. "Again, we are paying too much overtime, and it is not cost effective and will soon be taken off the table. More to come on this."

The document continues: "The U.S.P.S. will no longer use excessive cost to get the basic job done. If the plants run late, they will keep the mail for the next day."

Another document, dated July 10, says, "One aspect of these changes that may be difficult for employees is that - temporarily - we may see mail left behind or on the workroom floor or docks."

With the agency under financial pressure, some offices have also begun to cut back on hours. The result, according to postal workers, members of Congress and major post office customers, is a noticeable slowdown in delivery.

"The policies that the new postmaster general is putting into place - they couldn't lead to anything but degradation of service," said Mark Dimondstein, the president of the American Postal Workers Union. "Anything that slows down the mail could have a negative impact on everything we do, including vote by mail."

The Postal Service, which runs more than 31,000 post offices in the United States, has struggled financially for years, in part because of its legal obligation to deliver mail everywhere, even remote locations that would be unprofitable for a private company.

A 2018 report by the Treasury Department recommended an overhaul of the Postal Service, which the report said accumulated losses of $69 billion from 2007 to 2018.

But the administration's critics say the changes being put in place by Mr. DeJoy are part of a political agenda to move toward privatization of the Postal Service.

In mid-July, Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, Democrat of New York and the chairwoman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, and Mr. Connolly wrote a letter to Mr. DeJoy raising questions about the ban on overtime and the other changes.

"While these changes in a normal year would be drastic," the lawmakers wrote, "in a presidential election year when many states are relying heavily on absentee mail-in ballots, increases in mail delivery timing would impair the ability of ballots to be received and counted in a timely manner - an unacceptable outcome for a free and fair election."

Mr. Trump has been assailing the Postal Service since early in his presidency, tweeting in 2017 that the agency was becoming "dumber and poorer" because it charged big companies too little for delivering their packages.

The president has repeatedly blamed Mr. Bezos, who is also the owner of The Washington Post, for the financial plight of the Postal Service, insisting that the post office charges Amazon too little, an assertion that many experts have rejected as false.

In the past three years, the president has replaced all six members of the Postal Service Board of Governors.

In May, the board, which includes two Democrats, selected Mr. DeJoy, a longtime Republican fund-raiser who has contributed more than $1.5 million to Mr. Trump's 2016 and 2020 campaigns, to be postmaster general. According to financial disclosures, Mr. DeJoy and his wife, Aldona Wos, who has been nominated to be the ambassador to Canada, have $115,002 to $300,000 invested in the Postal Service's major competitor, UPS.

Two board members have since departed. David C. Williams, the vice chairman, left in April over concerns that the Postal Service was becoming increasingly politicized by the Trump administration, according to two people familiar with his thinking. Ronald Stroman, who oversaw mail-in voting and relations with election officials, resigned in May.

One of the remaining members, Robert M. Duncan, is a former Republican National Committee chairman who has been a campaign donor to Mr. Trump.

In accusing the administration of politicizing the Postal Service, the president's critics point to a recent decision to send a mailer detailing guidelines to protect against the coronavirus. The mailer, which featured Mr. Trump's name in a campaignlike style, was sent in March to 130 million American households at a reported cost of $28 million.

According to Postal Service emails obtained by The New York Times under the Freedom of Information Act, Mr. Trump was personally involved.

"I know that POTUS personally approved this postcard and is aware of the USPS effort in service to the nation - pushing information out to every household, urban and rural," John M. Barger, a governor of the postal system, wrote in an email to the postmaster general at the time.

In another email, Dr. Deborah L. Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, told a member of the board that Dr. Stephen C. Redd, a deputy director at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "will make this happen." The mailer received a go-ahead from the White House before it was sent out, the emails show.

S. David Fineman, who served on the board under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, said that during his time, the board rarely if ever had contact with the White House.

"I've never seen anything quite like this," he said. "No one would have thought that we would have sought the input of the administration."