2020: November election and beyond... (VIII)

Josh Marshall (TPM) @joshtpm | 12:17 AM · Mar 9, 2020:

I’m sure others have thought of this. But it seems not implausible now that next January a Democratic President & possibly a Democratic Congress come into power just in time to inherit an ongoing pandemic and a wrecked economy and face the job of fixing everything Trump broke ..

2/ while GOPs stand on the sidelines, explain they were always anti Trump and kick up Tea Party 2.0 to exploit whatever hard decisions Dem have to make to clean up their mess.

3/ It’s certainly true that President Trump didn’t create this virus. But he seems to have fumbled the response badly. Also important he’s poured gas on the economy with tax cut giveaways to the super rich and bullied the fed into keeping rates very low. All of which limits ...

4/ the tools available to weather a severe contraction. He’s also helped make the global relations low trust, high fear and without any credibility to draw on to craft some kind of international response. So yeah, Trump didn’t create the virus. But his three year ego trip ...

5/ has left us poorly positioned to grapple with it and all the collateral damage.

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https://twitter.com/Autarkh/status/1236869341267648512/photo/1

Looking forward to 7-8 months worth of this:

Joe Biden: “Turn this primary from a campaign that’s about negative attacks into one that’s about what we’re for, because we cannot get reelect — we cannot win this reelection — excuse me, we can only reelect Donald Trump if in fact we get engaged in this circular firing squad here.”

https://www.democracynow.org/2020/3/9/headlines/joe_biden_and_bernie_sanders_rac...

Biden can only "debate" sitting down:

Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders will debate Sunday in Phoenix, Arizona, ahead of the state’s primary next Tuesday. The Sanders campaign has criticized the format of the CNN/Univision debate, which will see both candidates seated and includes taking pre-approved questions from audience members. Jeff Weaver, Sanders’s senior adviser, said, “Why does Joe Biden not want to stand toe-to-toe with Sen. Sanders on the debate stage March 15 and have an opportunity to defend his record and articulate his vision for the future?”

Here we go:

https://www.businessinsider.com/who-joe-biden-will-appoint-to-top-cabinet-positi...

Everybody dropping out gets something? And also his big bank buddies? How's Warren going to work with Jamie Dimon and Michael Bloomberg?

Here is Biden's Corn Pop and hairy legs stories told with his own mouth on youtube. If the viewer can hang in there for 7 or 8 minutes anyway:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oihV9yrZRHg

For those who don't think that his brain is kind of fried I don't know what to tell you. I look at this and it makes me cringe. This is an old man and I mean old in every possible way and he's the definition of gormless. He is Don Quixote getting set to attack the windmills. He's at that stage....and the establishment in the Democratic Party are dead set to fall in line behind this guy as their nominee. They know he's fucked up and yeah he might still win but they know he's f-u-c-k-e-d u-p (and yeah I know I just repeated myself). He's almost as unfit for the office as the current POTUS--just for a different reason. Whoever is the VP will be the interesting one on the ticket---not him. That person IMO is likely to be doing the job for him before his term is up and in a way it's kind of like that brokered convention idea where someone gets the Presidency without having to win primaries and caucuses.

Robert Reich: Will Donald Trump Get Reelected?

>4 lriley:

Detroit auto worker: "You are actively trying to diminish our Second Amendment right and take away our guns."

Joe Biden: "You're full of shit."

Biden staffer: "Alright, thank you guys--"

Biden: "No, shush! Shush!"

0:58 ( https://twitter.com/MattWolking/status/1237390097407815687 )
Biden Confronted On Guns During Auto Plant Visit
From Bo Erickson CBS

- Matt Wolking @MattWolking | 10:49 AM · Mar 10, 2020

____________________________________________

Kind of amazing that anybody thinks this video makes Biden look anything other than terrific.
He shushes the aide who wants to lead him away - and then engages a hostile critic face to face, fact to fact. Impressive.

- David Frum @davidfrum | 11:36 AM · Mar 10, 2020

#6--that is funny.

>5 LolaWalser: Robert Reich:

... "Why am I telling you all this? I don't mean to scare you. And the last thing I want to do is to cause you to be hopeless and give up. To the contrary, I want you to be more determined than ever; despite all these attacks on democracy, we have what it takes to make Trump a one-term president—but only if we remain focused and united. It may seem daunting: we're up against a full-fledged attack on our democratic institutions. But there is a way forward. We can defeat Trump and his enablers, by building a multi-racial and multi-class coalition and we do that by supporting a true progressive with a bold vision for an economy and a democracy that work for all Americans. That way, enough voters will be inspired to show up to the polls and stop Trump's authoritarian machine for good. This isn't a pipe-dream. We already beat the liar-in-chief by two-point-eight million votes in 2016. And the 2018 elections had the highest turn-out of any mid-term election since 1914, handing House Republicans their most resounding defeat in decades. People are outraged. And we must keep fighting. If we come together we-will-prevail.” …

... (in other words) and, well, if not, then we may not prevail, huh? United—and voting, of course—we prevail. United or not,—"not voting," and we're not going to prevail. Or, in other words, if we win, we wn, while, if we don't win, then, you see, we don't win. Am I right? You see, I'm a graduate of Dartmouth and Yale Law School as well as a former professor who has taught at Harvard University so, please, trust me on this.

We really need to unite and win the election because, well, frankly, all our efforts to get Trump's election annulled, reversed, ruled illegitimate—these didn't work. We tried to convince people that he was mentally unfit. We tried to show that he knew a lot of people whose backgrounds we painted, with a certain amount of mixed justice, as shady. But that didn't do it either. We warned people years ago already that, unless we found something to permit us to undermine Trump's administration, he could possibly be re-elected. This point was made most clearly and famously by U.S. Representative Al Green, (D.-Tx. 9th Distr.), “I'm concerned that if we don't impeach this president, he will get re-elected.”

Plan “A” —that was to undo Trump's election. We tried. It didn't work. So we went the impeachment route. But Trump's Republican friends—who have a majority in the Senate, where his impeachment was heard at trial—they voted with Trump, against us. Actually, so did a few Democrats. Just as there was a Democrat or two who voted in the House against the Bill of Impeachment. Go figure! Huh? So, well, our attempts to distort the legal processes didn't work and now we're back at the electoral route and that's because, as you surely know, we really love, trust and believe in elections, in voting and in voters. It's just that, just in case, we thought we should do our best to make Trump a “No-term president” by using whatever laws we could scrape up to get him out of office before he could do a lot of us a lot of political harm.

Remember, now, it's our democracy itself at stake. Never mind that we weren't all that big on respecting the election result when we thought we had a good chance to shove this guy out of office. And, again, I don't mean to scare you. But, frankly, my friends and I have already peed ourselves over the prospect that, after losing one election to this maniac, this dangerous fool in the White House, we might actually see our party lose to him again. We need Sanders, Bernie Sanders. He's progressive and stopping Trump depends on him.

True, a good dozen other Democrat party candidates have spent the past year campaigning to stop Sanders from ever becoming the nominee. That's because each one of them wanted to be the nominee instead od Sanders, so I guess you could say they refused to unite, and, rather than do that, they easily convinced themselves of the chances of their own prospects for beating Trump; if that made them deluded, well, that's as may be, but, all through that period, other interests, such as coming together, uniting behind a single candidate, this came a distant second place in importance to them. But, well, as they say, "that's politics." Now, we're down to just Joe Biden—who's got loads of scandalous baggage dogging him and Bernie Sanders, Biden's age-peer and then there's a couple of other candidates we don't mention (Tulsi Gabbard, no old-age dementia, no particularly scandalous history in politics, but, and here's the main problem: the powerful and wealthy don't have her securely in their pockets, and, with that factor in their minds, they just don't like her from the start; so their media-elite have been magnificient in uniting to essentially ignore her and pretend that she isn't even there.)

That's why I and a lot of very wealthy people who've had long and illustrious careers in doing a lot of important and well-paid stuff in public life, we need your help now to unite with us. Go get out the vote in November. Because, if you don't, we won't win. And that's no fun for us. Really.

Friendly reminder that Jill Stein is helping Trump again. If you weren’t sure before the retweet from Trump should be clear for you.
Image ( https://twitter.com/davidmweissman/status/1237335039739920384/photo/1 )
Adam Parkhomenko and 8 others

- David Weissman @davidmweissman | 7:10 AM · Mar 10, 2020

>9 margd: So, I'm confused. Does the emperor have clothes on or not?

Gawd, I hope so!

It’s funny how #BernieSurge is trending when it’s the middle of the night in America, but the middle of the day in Russia.
For the record, Bernie isn’t surging (or even climbing) in a single poll in a single state. This hashtag is Kremlin disinformation, repeated by idiots.

- Palmer Report @PalmerReport | 6:05 AM · Mar 10, 2020

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#BernieSurge
https://twitter.com/hashtag/BernieSurge?src=hashtag_click

>11 margd: Would that hoping made it so.
Stop Calling It A ‘Stutter:’ Dozens of Examples Show Biden’s Dementia Symptoms
Caitlin Johnstone lines up video clips to show how narrative managers are applying the wrong word to the former vice president’s problem.
https://consortiumnews.com/2020/03/06/stop-calling-it-a-stutter-dozens-of-exampl...
What's quite inarguable is that the guy used to be sharp, and that that's no longer the case. Biden's is a placeholder candidacy.

Meanwhile...
‘Bernie Bros’ Were Invented as Sexist, Racist and Anti-Semitic
The Establishment uses identity politics to divide those who might otherwise find a united voice and a common cause, writes Jonathan Cook.
https://consortiumnews.com/2020/03/10/bernie-bros-were-invented-as-sexist-racist...

>13 davidgn: I think the smartest, best-prepared 2020 candidate was Elizabeth Warren--gasp--a woman.
2016's Hillary Clinton, too.

But Bros, bankers, Russians, mysogynists, evangelicals, etc. prefer old, white men--Trump or Biden/Sanders.

I couldn't bring myself to vote yesterday, but I will vote-blue-no-matter-who in November.
Sadly, a little resentfully, but hopefully.
What else can one do?

Sanders is faced with the issue of staying in and bloodying up Biden in the upcoming debate----because that's what happens when you're down to two left----and potentially be blamed for Biden's defeat if Biden comes off looking weak which invariably is going to happen or Bernie can drop out right now. I don't think Bernie can win at this point. The path is closed off. Biden is going to be a weak nominee and does Bernie want to be the one who exposes that to the public at the upcoming scheduled debate when Trump is going to do all that anyway.

If that happens the next question is should Bernie do 40 nights straight or more of campaigning for Biden like he did for Clinton only to get blamed and shit on later for a Biden defeat (if it happens) in November because a decent % of his voters don't turn out (which will happen and actually almost always happens)? The answer to that is he probably will and that % won't come out anyway but he'll get blamed nonetheless. This simple minded narrative that these voters 'belong' to him and for some Svengali like reason he's holding a portion of them back is something that the mainstream media would rather push than that Joe Biden is an awful choice by the Democratic Party.

People should also keep in mind that primaires and caucuses are different from general elections. The South which was Biden's strongest region in the primaries has long been the domain of the Republicans in a general election.

>15 lriley: If it is Biden, Sanders will have a whole lot more fun in a Dem Senate with a Prez who owes him, so would be worth his while to help make it happen.

Sanders has already influenced Dem policy, I think. Not a small accomplishment.
He can still make some of it happen if a Blue Wave in November.

#16--the public is fickle. The idea of winning is the main idea in a lot of minds. What happens afterwards--that's something else. The Sanders effect really now doesn't come down to much more than trying to politicize younger people into different directions. Good effort on his part but he is fucking done as a force and it's going to be up to people like AOC, Tlaib, Jayapal, Khanna and Omar to pick up his torch. Mostly women and all people of color by the way and that's representative of the working class and they are what democracy look like. For older voters fearful of Sanders if the root predictions that lay behind his candidacy (such as climate change, wealth disparity, issues related to the unaffordability of health care) worsen like I think they are inevitably trending and the Democratic leadership proves too weak and not capable of handling these problems then that's not a good look for those older democratic and democratic leaning voters. I think the time for people to ask themselves how Biden will handle catastrophic climate events is now past. We're going to have to live with the result of how either Biden or Trump is going to deal with that the next 4 years. I know Sanders considered it the greatest existential threat to mankind. He's said so many times. Biden--I really don't know how seriously he takes that issue. He's already signaled he would veto an M4A bill. He's not going to tax the rich so we can forget about any easing of the wealth disparity issue. Another TPP kind of trade bill on the horizon? It's a possibility--he's a corporate friendly guy with Republican friends and they like shit like that and Barack was pushing that in his last years. Biden's not left and he's not a progressive---no matter how many times he or the people around him or in the media parrot it. He's a center right conservative democrat.

I'm sure Sanders will help him out if asked. Not really sure that Biden will feel he needs him that much. Barack is not tied up in his presidency for one thing. The dynamic is entirely different from 2016--there are plenty of ex-presidential candidates running around and if the media is correct Biden's made or making deals with a lot of them.

Biden is nothing. Just "not-Trump".

It wasn't enough to make people vote for Clinton in 2016.

For me and this is my opinion to take for whatever it's worth. The two major parties are incapable of self reflection and self critique. Biden's campaign isn't to take us into the future--it's to reinvent the past--a so-called glorious past whether it's Bill or Barack which wasn't exactly as glorious as they would have you believe. Biden's campaign pretty much ran on the idea he can beat Trump and really there was no real new policy for his campaign---the only times policies come up in respect to him was defending some crap he played a part in back in his Senate days and the great majority of that is pretty bad.

But for older people who have some means and want to relive the past it's great--for younger people who see a bleak future ahead of climate crisis and massive student debt and unaffordable health care it's shit. Here's the thing if a political party can stake claim to the younger vote eventually it claims future power. The democratic party had a chance to grab that in this election cycle and they've left it on the table for (maybe or maybe not) next time. That's a mistake in my eyes. A big mistake. Their big tent idea includes billionaires like Jamie Dimon and Michael Bloomberg and never Trumper republicans--they're less concerned about college kids and high school dropouts. To me not being able to self reflect and look honestly at things is a sign of arrogance AFAIC. The Democratic Party only sees the here and now--it's not looking very far down the road.

>18 LolaWalser: Great segment, especially right now.

>18 LolaWalser: Great segment, especially right now.

There are still a lot of states left and my hope is that Sanders will show the country in the next one on one debate how weak a candidate Biden is. Then in a contested convention the delegates give it to Warren to save the party from a fatal split.

>23 jjwilson61: I'd actually back that. But I think that's a pipe dream.

>23 jjwilson61: >24 davidgn:

Doesn't even work as a pipe-dream.

Warren is pseudo-serious. She plays at trying to seem to act seriously. As one with a responsibility to understand, use, defend and protect the Constitution's terms and principles, Warren has demonstrated she is not up to the challenge. In this regard, she's a moron.

This article appeared more than a year ago and people have had that long to consider what it says and means about Warren. They thought it over and voted accordingly. She is not trusted and she does not deserve to be trusted. Her judgment is abysmal. She does enough damage to the country just being in the U.S. senate, FFS!

Warren calls for House to begin impeachment proceedings |
By Max Greenwood and Jesse Byrnes - 04/19/19 04:13 PM EDT
____________________________

"Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Friday called for the House to begin impeachment proceedings against President Trump, wading into a topic that other 2020 White House hopefuls have so far been wary of discussing.

"Warren issued the call one day after the release of special counsel Robert Mueller's report on his investigation into the 2016 election and the Trump campaign.

'The severity of this misconduct demands that elected officials in both parties set aside political considerations and do their constitutional duty. That means the House should initiate impeachment proceedings against the President of the United States.'
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) April 19, 2019

"Warren in particular cited a portion of Mueller's report in which he wrote that Congress has the authority to conduct obstruction of justice investigations, saying that such probes can provide a check if a president is corrupt.

"Mueller put the next step in the hands of Congress: 'Congress has authority to prohibit a President's corrupt use of his authority in order to protect the integrity of the administration of justice.' The correct process for exercising that authority is impeachment,' she said in an email announcing her position.

"Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel scoffed at Warren's comments, saying Trump 'was just exonerated after two years of Democrat lies.'

" 'Democrats' calls for impeachment have been bogus all along, but Elizabeth Warren is proving how truly desperate they are to appeal to their radical base,' McDaniel said."

________________________________

Related : "GOP strategist says Warren's call for impeachment proceedings helps Trump"

Republican strategist Jack Kingston said Monday that Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-Mass.) call for the House to begin impeachment proceedings against President Trump is politically beneficial for Trump.

"It's great for us politically," Kingston, a former senior adviser to the Trump campaign, told hosts Krystal Ball and Buck Sexton on "Rising."

“Politically, it will help the president more than anything,” he continued. “People got what they need from the Mueller report. No collusion. No obstruction.”

“Now we can argue about it inside the Beltway on the fine print, but the truth is, most people checked it off their box."

“Now the Democrats are kind of like a 4-year-old in the schoolyard saying ‘blah, blah, blah. I don’t want to hear it. I’m going to go after impeachment,’ ” Kingston added.

Warren, one of multiple Democratic senators running for the White House in 2020, on Friday called for the beginning of impeachment proceedings, citing a portion of special counsel Robert Mueller's report into Russia's election meddling in which he said that Congress has the authority to conduct obstruction of justice investigations.

Sanders Offers Biden A Path To Win Over His Movement
Arnie Seipel | March 12, 2020

..."Today, I say to the Democratic establishment, in order to win in the future, you need to win the voters who represent the future of our country," Sanders said. "And you must speak to the issues of concern to them."

Sanders promised to show up at the debate on Sunday in Arizona to face Biden one-on-one, and basically offered him a cheat sheet: "Let me be very frank as to the questions that I will be asking Joe."

Sanders listed off issues central to his campaign, which he says are very important to younger progressives: health care costs, climate change, income inequality, student debt, racial disparities in criminal justice, immigration and housing affordability.

So why tip Biden off to how you're going to challenge him on Sunday? Maybe Bernie Sanders wants Joe Biden to succeed.

...Sanders seemed to indicate that as he sees the presidential nomination slipping away, he wants the party to thrive by addressing the issues he cares about the most.

Sanders is not conceding. He'll be at the next debate and in the next contests. His allies say a good debate and a Biden gaffe could turn the tide, and Biden doesn't yet have even half the delegates he needs to secure the Democratic nomination.

But given the big losses this week, the question for Sanders had been: What is he going to do? Now he may have put the ball back in Biden's court: If he's running away with the nomination, what is the front-runner going to do if he wants to bring Sanders along and unify the party more quickly?...

https://www.npr.org/2020/03/12/814717480/sanders-offers-biden-a-path-to-win-over...

#26--I think it would be easy to beat Biden up in a debate and we're seeing him constantly these days trying to play tough guy with some random voter or other which happening again and again is just fucking bizarre. Biden needs to run on something though other than 'I'm the best guy to beat Trump' or 'I'm going to beat Trump like a drum'. Some actual policy proposals would be nice--whether or not the likes of Buttigieg, O'Rourke, Klobuchar, Bloomberg, Harris or Booker endorse him but could give a shit about what he's running on otherwise.

Really it's like everything needs to be done for this character and he's oblivious to it all. Sanders has always operated with the idea of what he thinks is best for the country. He's not some narcissistic glory hound. I have no doubt if need be he'd help hapless Joe to be as best a possible candidate that he could possibly be but there's a shitload of work to be done to get Joe there.

Why do we keep on electing all these elites that have always had everything handed to them though.

Here is an example of a regular person. We should elect more like her:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ql1OpY0zDo

#26--I think it would be easy to beat Biden up in a debate and we're seeing him constantly these days trying to play tough guy with some random voter or other which happening again and again is just fucking bizarre. Biden needs to run on something though other than 'I'm the best guy to beat Trump' or 'I'm going to beat Trump like a drum'. Some actual policy proposals would be nice--whether or not the likes of Buttigieg, O'Rourke, Klobuchar, Bloomberg, Harris or Booker endorse him but could give a shit about what he's running on otherwise.

Really it's like everything needs to be done for this character and he's oblivious to it all. Sanders has always operated with the idea of what he thinks is best for the country. He's not some narcissistic glory hound. I have no doubt if need be he'd help hapless Joe to be as best a possible candidate that he could possibly be but there's a shitload of work to be done to get Joe there.

Why do we keep on electing all these elites that have always had everything handed to them though.

Here is an example of a regular person. We should elect more like her:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ql1OpY0zDo

Well the link is not working. On youtube it's titled 'Let's talk about AOC the bartender'. By the way as the creator of the video points out she's a whole lot more than just a bartender.

Speaking of women candidates, I was thinking about Sen Pat Schroeder--and stumbled across this Bernie Sanders moment, I think from a Defense-of-Marriage debate:

" Duke Cunningham told then-Rep. Bernie Sanders to "sit down, you socialist," after he objected to Cunningham's homophobic comment, Schroeder asked "Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Chairman — do we have to call the Gentleman a gentleman if he's not one?"" (Wikipedia)

There should be seats reserved next to Trump in orange hell for whiny babies who don't vote-blue-no-matter-who this November:
Sanders, Biden, whomever. IMHO.

A 'Never Biden' movement vows not to vote for Joe
DAVID SIDERS and HOLLY OTTERBEIN | 03/13/2020
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/13/democrats-confront-a-never-biden-contin...

"Why do we keep on electing all these elites that have always had everything handed to them though."

Yeah. Good question--merits thinking about. If you ever get a fucking clue as to the answer, do get back to us. Meanwhile, for some of us, the answer is bloody obvious. Who put those hand-cuffs on you? Oh!? You put them on yourself!? And never minded about the key--just in case, one day, you wanted to take them off.

Oh, well, then...

#30--Biden's campaign would probably help itself by putting out a for real olive branch to the Sanders campaign. IMO this Covid 19 thing is good reason why people in the United States should have M4A. If Biden's campaign switched gears on that it would ratchet up enthusiasm for his candidacy. Just saying. Way back when in the 1930's FDR borrowed a few ideas from Eugene Debs that helped ease us out of the depression but also took quite a bit of wind out of the sails of the socialist movement at the time (not that was a good thing IMO but overall it was an astute political maneuver on FDR's part).

Anyway from the Guardian on the same issue:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/13/bernie-sanders-fans-joe-biden-de...

>32 lriley: Well, don't underestimate likelihood that Biden will put in a bad debate performance Sunday. It may yet be Sanders...
Also, Covid-19 may be making some of Sanders' priorities more likely, especially if followed by blue wave in fall:

Coronavirus updates: House passes aid package after Trump declares national emergency
March 14, 2020

...the House overwhelmingly approved legislation to give direct relief to Americans impacted by the spreading virus. Central to the aid package are free testing and sick pay guarantee for Americans affected.

People who are sick with the virus and have to be treated or quarantined would qualify for the sick pay benefit, which requires employers to offer 14 days of sick leave at "not less" than two-thirds of an employee's normal pay. Others who would qualify for paid sick leave are those who need to be home to care for a child whose school or childcare center has closed, and those who need to leave their jobs to take care of a family member infected with the virus.

The legislation offers three months of paid family and medical leave. And small and mid-sized employers would be reimbursed through tax credits.

Voting in the Senate is not yet set, but senators were scheduled to return Monday. Senate Leader Mitch McConnell said he expects most senators will want to "act swiftly."...

https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/coronavirus-updates-cases-fears-deaths-us-l...

#33--the Sanders voters do want certain things--they revolve around environmental issues, student debt, wages/wealth gap, health care for instance. If Biden's campaign is saying to them 'you've lost. We're not giving you anything. You have no choice but to vote for us anyway'--that's not really a unifying message. That's more like asking for unconditional surrender. The best path forward IMO for the Biden campaign is to compromise in some substantial way on at least something very important. If the Biden campaign won't I think they will lose a lot of voters. Keep in mind that younger people particularly are idealistic--they haven't gone all cynical like a lot of middle aged and older people are. Being idealistic rather than cynical IMO is a good thing.

Sanders and Biden need each other. Here’s how they can make peace.
E.J. Dionne Jr. | March 13, 2020

...Sanders has to acknowledge, quickly, that there is no way he is going to win the Democratic nomination he has spent five years fighting for. Biden has to reach out to a candidate who has regularly attacked him as a tool of the establishment and to a constituency of young voters who think he’s over the hill.

If they can’t do all these things, they will strengthen Trump in November. The difficult truth is staring them in the face: They need each other to win.

...It takes a coalition to save a country, and coalitions are hard. They succeed when their members focus on what they share rather than what pulls them apart. Starting with Sunday’s debate, Biden and Sanders have to begin a process of reconciliation that will send a message to their respective supporters, and the rest of the nation, that change begins with getting Trump out of office — but it won’t end there.

Two men in their late 70s should be especially mindful of how history will judge them. If they get this wrong, nothing else they have done will matter.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/bernie-sanders-and-joe-biden-can-unite-de...

State Takes on a Purple Hue; Partisans Divided Over Coronavirus
Monmouth University Polling Institute | 3/16/2020

West Long Branch, NJ – Arizona’s Electoral College votes could be in play in November, according to a Monmouth (“Mon-muth”) University Poll of registered voters in the state. Joe Biden has a slight lead over President Donald Trump, while Bernie Sanders is basically tied with the incumbent. In tomorrow’s Democratic primary election, Biden has a 20 point lead over Sanders. The poll also finds that the Arizona U.S. Senate race could start off with a Democratic edge as well, with Mark Kelly having a 6 point lead against Martha McSally. In other poll results, a majority of Arizona voters are concerned about coronavirus hitting their family, but the level of concern varies widely by party affiliation...

https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/reports/monmouthpoll_az_031620/

#36--the entire Southwest is turning away from the Republican party--I think Texas may be in play too. The demonizing of hispanics by this administration and at least a good portion of its congressional and Senate allies might help win you an election if you can suppress the demonized community enough but as a long term strategy it's a colossal loser even makes potentially losing an entire voting bloc very possible. Tactically on a very short term it can work but it's a stupid strategy. Chickens will be coming home to roost.

Pandemic Planning Should Ensure All Votes Can Be Cast by Mail in November, Experts Say
Robert Mackey | March 16 2020

As Ohio’s governor ordered that his state’s primary be delayed until June, citing the need for social distancing in response to the coronavirus pandemic, Senate Democrats and election experts pressed Congress to act immediately on legislation to ensure that voters in all 50 states will be able to cast ballots by mail or vote early in the general election if the public health emergency lasts into November.

That is particularly urgent because, as Marc Elias, a lawyer who represents the Democratic Party on voting rights issues, explains, while states can set their own primary days, “the federal general election is set by federal statute as the the Tuesday following the first Monday in November. This date cannot be changed by a state nor by the President.”

Democratic senators Ron Wyden, of Oregon, and Amy Klobuchar, of Minnesota, introduced legislation on Monday that would require all states to offer an option for voters to mail in or drop off hand-marked paper ballots if 25 percent of the states have declared a state of emergency related to an infectious disease, like Covid-19, or a natural disaster...

https://theintercept.com/2020/03/16/pandemic-planning-ensure-votes-can-cast-mail...

(And then there's the census... https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/03/23/will-this-years-census-be-the-last )

An analysis of the division within the democratic party:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/the-democrats-big-gamble-on-jo...

We really need to start growing a Democratic Socialist wing of the Democratic Party or take it somewhere else.

#38--yes got to get cracking. Problem for Senate Democrats though is Mitch McConnell and many Senate Republicans might like things just the way they are. That said older voters are more prone to voting Republican and older voters are much more susceptible to dying from Covid-19 and more fearful of getting it than younger voters--so I'm not convinced this is going to be the greatest turnout for Republicans in November. We're getting closer and closer but it's really impossible to tell how all sorts of variables are going to impact this at least at this point in time.

Could the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election Be Postponed?
David Mikkelson | 17 March 2020

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night — nor a pandemic — has much chance of delaying a presidential election.

Claim
The 2020 U.S. presidential election could be postponed if the coronavirus pandemic threatens to keep people from voting.

Rating
Mixture

About this rating
This rating indicates that a claim has significant elements of both truth and falsity to it such that it could not fairly be described by any other rating.

What's True
The date of a U.S. presidential election could theoretically be postponed with the approval of Congress and the president.

What's False
However, such a postponement would be extremely difficult to achieve in time for the 2020 presidential election and would not provide much temporal leeway for voters.

...

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/presidential-election-postponed/

>41 margd: things could be even more interesting than that. Depending on how long the election was delayed, bothe Trump and Pelosi could be out of office

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/03/heres-how-trump-delaying-the-2020-election-coul...

>42 rastaphrog: Whoa! My head hurts just thinking about it...
Would Governors name Senate and House replacements?
What R/D Guv ratio would there be in January 2021??

States HAVE to arrange for mail-in ballots!

Not happy that Biden is running away with the democratic nomination. IMO he could be on the verge of dementia and on his best days he is more of the same old same old and pretty much every lousy foreign or domestic policy of the last 30 years or so has his name in support attached to it. I'm also not altogether happy with Elizabeth Warren but.....if Joe isn't up to a job of handling this country during a major health pandemic and economic freefall I think that Warren as his VP is a person that could step in and steady things a lot so I'm kind of thinking she would be an excellent choice as VP for this moment.

On a brighter note Justice Democrat Marie Newman (a Sanders supporter) successfully primaried conservative Democrat Dan Lipinski and is almost a lock to take his Illinois congressional seat and join other Justice Democrats like AOC, Tlaib, Omar, Khanna and Jayapal. We need more people like her.

I'd like to see Warren as Biden's VP.
Thing is that person has to run in 2024, and Elizabeth will be 74 then.
A female 74 isn't the same as a male 74, but still...

>44 lriley:

Don't want a pathetic, doddering dementia-stricken Biden in office? Simple solution: vote for Trump.

A nation of Democrat-party fools who were incapable of appreciating Trump's positives richly deserves four years under Biden's confused serial gaffes.

The wind was sown....

Virus in the World (0:30)
The Lincoln Project • Mar 18, 2020

Echoing one of the most iconic political ads of all time, the Lincoln Project today released a new spot that poses the same kind of compelling question that the 1984 Reagan, "Bear in the Woods" ad ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpwdcmjBgNA ) asked Americans; in the face of a profound threat to America, what kind of leadership do we expect and deserve?

Just as "Bear" called into question those who treated the then-potent Soviet Union's military threat seriously, so too did Donald Trump and his allies behave as if the growing threat of Corona/COVID-19 wasn't serious for over six weeks. "Virus" is a successor to "Bear" and asks the same kind of tough questions."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPl7HghDcXc

Hey, Prox ~

Gabbard gone ~ endorses Biden!!!!!!!!!!!

Pelosi says she wants a national vote by mail provision for November for COVID19 contingency only.
Brennan Center estimates that will cost $982 million–$1.4 billion.

https://pcl.stanford.edu/research/2014/iyengar-ajps-group-polarization.pdf

- Katy Tur @KatyTurNBC | 9:58 AM · Mar 24, 2020

#49--if it works well maybe we should make that permanent. At the least it would standardize everything.

The Trump campaign seriously just issued a cease and desist for this ad so I'm doing my part and sharing it as widely as humanly possible.

0:30 From Priorities USA
( https://twitter.com/fred_guttenberg/status/1242976621247766540 )
( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkMwvmJLnc0 )

- Fred Guttenberg @fred_guttenberg | 8:48 PM · Mar 25, 2020
________________________________________________

Another Priorities USA ad, this one for Biden:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0-7EFmHArc

________________________________________________

Where are the tests???

0:22 ( https://twitter.com/PACRONYM/status/1242126692778487809 )

- PACRONYM @PACRONYM | 12:30 PM · Mar 23, 2020

________________________________________________

American Bridge USA:

1:03 Failed to Act
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuSVvzLPP34

0:30 Failed to Act
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dE_ZWVJqnAk

_______________________________________________

Unite the Country:

0:30 This One Failed
https://twitter.com/benjaminwittes/status/1242836157848829953

The Villages could look like a ghost town!

Spread of COVID-19 into 'Trump country' could pose problem for president's re-election hopes: David Frum
CBC Radio · Posted: Mar 26, 2020

Pandemic won’t stop U.S. elections in November, predicts political commentator

...He said states like Florida, Mississippi and Louisiana had "made it kind of an article of support for your president not to do the social distancing," but those states could become "the next wave of cases."

"They're less densely populated. They're less urban. So I think they're less connected to the rest of the world," he said.

"But viruses don't care. They just move slower."

Frum warned that when cases of the virus begin to spike in Republican states, their models of small government could hinder the response....

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-march-26-2020-1.5510576/spre...

DJT Jr post equating SARS-CoV with Biden

“Kung Flu Kid”
Paid for Donald J Trump for President
https://www.instagram.com/p/B-MkzW3FuoY/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

>51 margd: - that's a good ad. An even better one would have been the time plot of U.S. deaths from COVID-19 with a picture of Trump and his statement "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters." His inaction has aided and abetted U.S. deaths from this virus - the only question remaining is how many of those dead voted for him and won't be around for him next time?

>54 alco261:

Well, he gloated when a Republican opponent of his had to self-isolate, and he mob-talks to Cuomo and other governors as if they needed to do him "favours" before he'd stoop to doing the presidential duty of taking care of Americans, so I expect he's counting the New York losses as a personal win. Not that enough people could die to give him New York...

>54 alco261:

No. There's also the question of how many anti-Trump voters--people who voted for Hillary Clinton--are dead from the virus, and "and won't be around for (her successor candidate) next time?" right?

https://www.librarything.com/topic/317902#7104328

>55 LolaWalser:

... " Not that enough people could die to give him New York..."

that's "hilarious" coming from someone who spends as much of her time as you do wishing death on others. But, in fact, that's just what >54 alco261: is apparently hoping to come about in

Florida, where only about 120k (voters')-lives gave that state to Trump. alco261 apparently hopes for these people to be killed off by the virus. Well, Biden is probably going to need a "windfall" like that to get himself elected.

He'll also need, and alco261 shall apparently also cheer on the deaths of

~ 210k in Georgia

~ 430k in Indiana

In Pennsyvania, alco261 can be a real humanitarian, for, there, he need only hope for the deaths of some 55k Trump-voters.

I wonder: how would these comments do for an Elect-Joe-Biden campaign-ad?

"Attention, Trump-voters my backers hope you'll be dead from the Corona virus before election-day, November, 2020!"

How many votes would that win for Joe?

More abuse of power:

Laurence Tribe @tribelaw | 8:49 AM · Mar 28, 2020
Even threats that the First Amendment makes obviously unenforceable can have a dangerous chilling effect in deterring political criticism.
In that sense, Trump’s unlawful threats are far from empty.

Trump Campaign Threatens TV Stations That Air Ad Critical Of President*
Not removing the ad about rising U.S. coronavirus cases “could put your station’s license in jeopardy,” the Trump campaign warned.
David Moye | March 26, 2020

...At first, attorneys for America First Action, Trump’s official super PAC, were the ones who demanded that TV stations in key battleground states stop airing the anti-Trump commercial, claiming it was deceptive.

However, TV stations refused to pull the ad and Priorities USA pointed out that America First Action didn’t even have standing to make the demand, RawStory reported.

So attorneys for the Donald J. Trump for President campaign sent their own cease-and-desist letter (on website, one that suggested that not removing the ad “could put your station’s license in jeopardy” with the Federal Communications Commission...

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-campaign-threat-critical-ad_n_5e7d0365c5b62...

*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkMwvmJLnc0

>56 proximity1: I realize English as a second language can be a problem for people like you and it is clear you have very limited reading skills. There's no gloating in >54 alco261:.
Read it again proximity1

"that's a good ad. An even better one would have been the time plot of U.S. deaths from COVID-19 with a picture of Trump and his statement "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters." His inaction has aided and abetted U.S. deaths from this virus - the only question remaining is how many of those dead voted for him and won't be around for him next time?"

I'll try it a different way proximity1. Since his actions (or lack thereof) are killing people and viruses don't care about political affiliations how many of his own did he condemn to death? And the reason it is the only question is because he has made it very clear democratic deaths are no concern of his.

I'm sure you will either have some long rejoinder to this proximity1 or you will stoop to your usual level of tossing around swear words...or maybe both ...go for it.

Cuomo Postpones New York’s Primary Election to June 23 Because of Coronavirus
Stephanie Saul | March 28, 2020

New York will postpone its April 28 presidential primary until June 23, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced on Saturday, buying time for the state to administer an election as it struggles to respond to the escalating coronavirus outbreak...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/28/us/politics/ny-primary-voting-coronavirus.htm...

Joe Biden @JoeBiden | 7:52 PM · Mar 28, 2020:

Donald Trump’s ego will cost lives.
0:58 ( https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1244049631886970881 )

He is a monster like none we’ve seen in American politics.
And if you see that, it doesn’t matter who you are or what you do or what your political leanings are:
the only thing to do now is whatever it takes to defeat him in November.
We can argue about everything else later.
- Jon Favreau @jonfavs | 2:27 PM · Mar 29, 2020

>58 alco261:

None.

hot damn @JoeBiden's team did it again. check out this side-by-side comparison.
1:00 ( https://twitter.com/chrislongview/status/1244779995337232385 )
- Florida Chris @chrislongview | 8:14 PM · Mar 30, 2020

Imagine how we'd feel right now if someone with their sh*t on lockdown like Elizabeth Warren were president,
managing this historic crisis like an unbelievable badass
with useful skills like intelligence, wisdom, class, grace, experience, empathy, eloquence, compassion, integrity

- Seth Abramson @SethAbramson | 12:58 AM · Apr 1, 2020

You know those D governors that Trump wants to show appreciation for COVID help.
Two of them are featured in this election ad...

HOPE (1:00)
Donald J Trump • Mar 27, 2020

In times of struggle, we see the true greatness of the American character.
Americans from all walks of life are rallying together to defeat this unseen enemy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSSrimkmxzI&feature=youtu.be

CAP Action @CAPAction | 12:23 PM · Apr 3, 2020:

6,200+ deaths.
244,000+ confirmed coronavirus cases.
10,448,000+ unemployment claims in March.

This is the tragic cost of Trump's chaotic, incompetent coronavirus response.
0:30 (https://twitter.com/CAPAction/status/1246111164410576898 )

Republicans for the Rule of Law @ForTheRuleOfLaw | 8:00 AM · Apr 3, 2020:

New ad will run on Fox Tues.
These Republican voters share their disappointment in Trump’s leadership.
If you agree, sign up here and contribute to the next video.

https://ruleoflawrepublicans.com/join-project-2020/?utm_source=twitter&utm_m...
0:30 ( https://twitter.com/ForTheRuleOfLaw/status/1246044780158767104 )

I feel sick to my stomach. Over ten million aid seekers in the US so far. This is getting to be--you are in serious trouble, worse than ever, worse than in 2016, worse than in 2019, much much worse than when the Democrats first decided to torpedo Bernie Sanders no matter what. Did they calculate with THIS "what"?

No, they can't have. They can't have planned that Biden misery to take on a total crash of the system.

There has to be a change--will there be a change?

I realise many have thought that picking Biden was a disaster already. But this is beyond mere thinking now. You can't afford not just losing to the orange ape, you ALSO can't afford a Biden presidency, you can't afford to stick with that shitty neoliberal agenda. Ten million now will be fifty million by the end of the summer. Those propping Biden's sorry ass have no more chance of saving people than the Trumpist scum will bother to do.

#68--I think I saw something the other day that had 80% of Trump's base being very enthusiastic about voting for him again. In contrast Biden's numbers were 28% very enthusiastic and 55% somewhat enthusiastic. I think part of the future narrative if Trump wins reelection is that Sanders stayed in too long again and ruined Biden's chances or didn't fight hard enough for him or too many of his voters didn't vote for Biden.

I have to say something here though---my main thing has always been to vote on policy not on personality. I'd be a Sanders voter for such reasons as he gave me and he gives me quite a number of them. The only reason I would have for voting for Biden is he's not Trump because on policy issues Biden is garbage, garbage, garbage, garbage, garbage on everything and I'm not even sure there's even a minor exception in policy that's he's not garbage.

Then we add the personal issues---his son's unethical position with an Ukrainian energy company which I expect Trump will clobber him with to great effect. We also have now a sexual assault accusation which Trump will clobber him with to great effect and notwithstanding his own sexual assault and harassment issues I bet you he gets to stick it on Biden better than the other way around. Then we have Biden's cognitive decline issues--people should go look up his NYTimes endorsement interview---the NYTimes I don't think really wanted to endorse Warren or Klobuchar at all--they wanted to fall behind the presumptive front runner not Warren (who's too far to the left for them) or a long shot Klobuchar. They are an establishment get behind the front runner paper. The reason they ditched Biden is because his cognitive decline is all over their fucking interview. He couldn't answer a question without running off on all kinds of tangents along with the garbling and muttering and plenty of nonsensical add-ins. Biden can't give a speech longer than 10 minutes without completely blowing up in some way or other and his campaign would be smart to make sure there are no debates because he'll get clobbered. Trump isn't going to pull punches like pretty much the entire Democratic field has done including Sanders.

So how could Biden ratchet up some more enthusiasm? Medicare for all would be one way. Sometimes you have to give to get. So far what a Biden administration would give is pretty much shit, shit, shit. He's not going to do that though.

Biden's pathway to victory really is about economy tanking more and more people dying from the pandemic. Even that isn't guaranteed by a long shot. Right now even after destroying our economy and having a part in almost 7000 people dying from coronavirus Donald Trump can still win. That's pretty fucked up.

By the way when Joe Biden attacks Medicare for all these days he brings up the coronavirus pandemic in Italy as reason why such a system doesn't or wouldn't work for us--like it's the only government sponsored health care system in world. It's a lazy and stupid comparable. He doesn't bring up Iceland and he doesn't bring up our neighbor to the North--Canada which has something like 10,000 cases and less than 200 deaths nor does he bring up our neighbor to the South--Mexico which so far has had 4000+ cases. His campaign has lighted upon the worse case scenario 1000's of miles away in Southern Europe and not even bothered to look at our direct neighbors and in doing so he undermines his own case about the part that the Trump administration's inaction has played in our unfolding tragedy. Fact of the matter is Biden is a buffoon and doesn't care whether what he says to the public has a basis in truth or not and he's going to be an incompetent POTUS if he gets elected. He's a fuckhead.

>70 lriley:

Yes, that is such bollocks about Italy. First, they had the misfortune that the pandemic took hold in and spread through the hospitals, increasing the number of the infected like a match to the gasoline, while simultaneously hitting hard precisely the staff supposed to fight it. Second, whatever structural problems with the health system there are--and yes there are--can be traced to the cutbacks made in support since the neoliberal rampaging started in the nineties--and the same is true for France, where the capitalist attack on public institutions has been the worst in Europe (not counting Brexitannia, now on its own sweet way to wherever, but where the NHS has experienced a similar or even worse hollowing-out in the last couple decades).

Third, Italian demographics, being the oldest country in Europe and maybe the world, contributed crucially to the high death toll.

None of this has anything to do with health care being socialised. Socialised health care simply means that people don't bear a financial burden when they need it, and that therefore they can afford good preventive care and stay in better health longer in life.

No one is talking about what it means that Italy HAS that many oldsters running about--not just proportionally but in absolute numbers--that the virus could attack.

I have lots of family in Italy, many of whom are in their nineties. My cousin in Milan has a mother of 104, who still used to walk her dogs every morning before they grounded her. Yeah, if they become infected they run a huge risk of becoming one of Italy's pandemic statistic. But no one will notice how they came to live so long so well--and that's thanks to the superb doctors and care they had all their lives.

Anyway, as for Biden, I'm saying it's not even about winning anymore; UNLESS there is some essential redirection to what the US is doing, it will be catastrophic either way. The orange ape will drive you completely into fascism, and this will be one kind of catastrophe, especially for women and people of colour. Biden is already on record promising his donors that "nothing would change", and this too spells catastrophe because things ARE damn changing even if the Democrats' neoliberal agenda will not. Which means that millions are looking at existential disaster to which only bandaids will get applied, a la Obamacare and whatnot, a couple months lower interest rates here, some food stamps there... in short, rubbish.

Forget even about Sanders (it never was "about" Sanders anyway, as his slogan already said--not me, us), you still need that programme, that drift, that trend to systemic, structural, and LASTING change to the system. It doesn't matter who's the figurehead--you need the programme, the plan, action for this goal. It boggles my mind that anyone even at this point talks about this as if it were a mere contest of personalities.

Again, Biden could--his only chance--make himself more attractive if he chose well his VP, but then again, he can't actually promise to die or remove himself in their favour, so it's back to square one: he is a terrible, disastrous choice.

The Democrats fucked up in pushing Biden--clearly they didn't count on a global pandemic crashing everything--but it's still a fuck-up.

So what's the solution?--if they REALLY cared for the people and the country, as Republicans do not?

Withdraw Biden and offer a progressive choice. Be it Sanders, Sanders and Warren, Warren and some young decent person, or for freaking sake just ANYONE honest and energetic who would endorse and push this structural, LASTING change--Medicare for all, UBI, at least temporary or partial student debt forgiveness, mortgage deferrals for the low income, etc.

Withdraw Biden. Please for the love of everything that's good and fine in human life.

#71--this pandemic should be a wake up call but I don't think it's really woken the Democratic Party at all. To get to a govt. health care system it's probably going to take another pandemic and another economic meltdown.....and that sadly is probably going to happen too. The bulk of democratic party politicians are fine with 100 million or so Americans uninsured or underinsured and don't really see a problem. Given the choice of insuring everyone or offending their large donors from the health insurance or Pharma industries or billionaires in general they're going to come down on the side of the donors and billionaires. This is the milieu Biden is most comfortable in and this is where Obama ended up too. So we continue to take care of the Jamie Dimon's and all the uninsured and underinsured can fuck off.

Obamacare is flawed and fucked up. It needs to die so something better can be born and I don't care if this is Obama's legacy achievement---it wasn't good enough and this epidemic has made that more than clear.

The last two days the death toll in NYS has been 562 and 630 today. It's to be expected (and probably worse tomorrow)--people having been on ventilators for 15-20-25 days are starting to die in larger and larger numbers. No doubt there are many many uninsured and underinsured who are either asymptomatic or trying to fight off their illnesses at home rather than go to seek treatment and perhaps be hit with a bill that might take them a decade or so to pay off. Biden points to Italy and and their health system. He should pay attention to our own--Obamacare even stripped as it has been by the Trump administration is not and would not be making enough difference. I looked at the Wikipedia entry for Canada today--deaths for the entire nation are under 200. The entire case load for Canada is around 10,000. If Joe's looking for comparables he shouldn't cherry pick.

But really all the Democratic party narratives of why medicare for all won't work are false narratives. There's always bullshit behind every single one of them and they've gulled a large portion of their base into believing them. To illustrate that they are for the working class and defending unions when they claim that M4A would take away union members health care as if union members (and I belonged to two--APWU and Carpenters and Joiners) are some special class of workers who deserve more when it comes to health care than other ordinary working Americans. These same politicians (many of them democrats) had no issue undercutting unions along with non-union workers in their trade deals that they have been doing for decades and 'Working Class Joe' Biden is one of those politicians. He doesn't care and he never has. He lies. They'll continue their narrative that union workers worked hard for their health benefits and to take that away would be unfair. This is a general and not a specific argument. The health care options gained by one union to the next vary a great deal and the lesser ones tend to be shit. Also in general union workers just do their jobs and pay their dues which gives them benefits that other workers who also just do their jobs don't get--like higher pay, access to retirement accounts and health care but the actual work a worker does as far as a specific contract is to vote 'yes' or 'no'. The actual negotiation (or work of the contract) takes place by union officials and labor law experts. Should add that many democratic politicians have often been pro-corporation and anti-labor and fought against workers organizing. Biden is one of those--as well as Obama and the Clinton's. Now they worry about how unfair it is to take away their hard fought for health insurance? I don't buy it--and they all know the truth that people even if this is taxed are going to save more not paying health insurance premiums and higher pharmaceutical costs with the benefit that everyone will be covered. Politicians know this---they're just lying to protect all the campaign cash they've been soaking up from their donors.

With M4A we'd have a lot less than 630 dead today.

The Wisconsin primary:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WkRehGMKbw

>71 LolaWalser: virus in Italy: in November cases of odd pneumonia were seen in Bergamo, but not in such a concentrated way that called attention to itself as in China--apparently. The implication is that Italy was very unlucky in that the virus was probably spreading madly before anyone outside of China knew it existed.
2. While Italy has been a nightmare, the northeast has done okay because, for example, the mayor of Trieste, didn't wait for the central government to impose lockdown measures.
3. Basic difficulty recognizing danger: at one particular point in late February, I think, Milano had 2 or 3 cases known, while at least 5 countries has first cases who were people just returned from Milano.

The US has a case in January, and had an emergency meeting in January.

You've got Biden now because and only because, back when it mattered, too few people had the sense to stand up against the shit-hole job Obama was doing and the legacy-candidates with whom his two-terms were a deal:

"Hillary, your turn comes in 2016; we're allowing no one to usurp your place--Joe you wait until Hillary has had her shot; If she blows it, you're next in line. Power-Money are on board with us on this."

And fucking brain-dead identity-politics morons swooned at the sight of their feminist candidate finally arriving. Why? Because and only because she was born female. That's all that mattered. Her actual record in public office is one long series of disastrous fuck-ups.

But the system is now run in this utterly corrupt way. (The "Machine-Ward-heeler" politics of the late 19th and early 20th centuries actually produced better results than this!) And as long as that is the case, GET VERY USED TO SHIT CANDIDATES LIKE BIDEN. YOU EARNED HIM. YOU DESERVE HIM.

Nature's school of political awareness is remorseless and pitiless. Every act of stupidity, every lesson missed or faultily grasped in any detail is charged and paid in full,--no "ifs", "ands" or "buts."

As long as there are plenty of suckers who reason, "Oh! Dear God! No! Anything but (him) / (her)!" then they make themselves and the rest of us along with them a bunch of plump turkeys strutting aound the poultry-yard a week before Power-Money's Thanksgiving feast, just waiting to be plucked.

Fools!

And we need more worldwide plagues to teach us further fine-points? More Obama-bis administrations? Fuck it. We deserve this shit.

The stake that must go through these fiends' hearts and the mallet which drives it in are in the hands of Donald Trump. So, yeah, go right on shunning him and let these night-creatures keep rising from their crypts. That's the ticket!

>75 proximity1: We? Mouse in pocket?

Surprise twist in Wisconsin voting wars points to GOP plot to save Trump
Paul Waldman and Greg Sargent | April 6, 2020

...speculation that Wisconsin Republicans are actively hoping to carry through this election with lower turnout, because they believe that will benefit them in a big race: one that pits conservative Justice Daniel Kelly against liberal challenger Jill Karofsky, competing for a 10-year term in a coveted state supreme court seat.

As Ari Berman bluntly put it: “Republicans may be counting on low Democratic turnout to help them win.”

...underscores two important things about the battles to come with regard to this fall’s election.

First, it shows how brutally hard it will be to get Republicans to agree to a comprehensive effort to make voting easier and safer this fall (should the coronavirus still be with us), such as national vote by mail.

With negotiations looming over another economic rescue package, Democrats will be under pressure to draw a hard line to get something like universal vote by mail included. But the fact that Republicans are fighting measures to make voting safer with lives at stake shows how unlikely they are to buckle.

Wisconsin Republicans have employed justifications for this that are positively comical. As one of them told Cameron Joseph: “There’s serious concern on the conservative side that the liberals are changing the rules in the middle of the election and tilting them toward their favor,” said Brian Reisinger, a top Wisconsin GOP strategist. “There’s a major feeling that absentee and early voting are tools of the left to make up for the fact that they can’t win on election day.”

all of this has the feel of a dry run for this fall’s election. If the pandemic is still with us, it seems obvious that Wisconsin Republicans will again resist efforts to make voting safer and easier when the presidential race (as opposed to a spot on the state supreme court) is at stake.

(Ben Wikler, the chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party) posited that this fall, Republicans will again want to try to ensure the lowest possible turnout — with Democratic constituencies not showing up due to pandemic fears — just as they are now.

Given the centrality of Wisconsin to Trump’s chances of reelection, this has to be seen as plausible.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/06/surprise-twist-wisconsin-voti...

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(US) Supreme Court votes 5-4 to halt order extending absentee ballot deadline in Wisconsin
Tucker Higgins | Apr 6 20208:42 PM EDT
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/06/wisconsin-supreme-court-halts-absentee-ballot-de...

Statewide election back on after Wisconsin, U.S. supreme courts take action
Mitchell Schmidt, Riley Vetterkind | 4/7/2020
https://madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/statewide-election-back-on-...

Biden wants democrats to show up at their polling places today. Sanders has been telling voters not to risk it. Joe suggests the convention to be held in July in Milwaukee be done virtually though (or remotely I guess). So Biden is okay risking the health and well being of voters--he's not that okay risking his own:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/biden-voting-wisconsin-safe-locals-084911810.html

Biden may be better than Trump but all in all he's still a shitbird.

As far as Wisconsin--republicans have gerrymandered the fuck out of the state. It was a project of theirs during the Scott Walker years to make sure they could maintain control of both houses of the legislature and the judiciary if they were ever ousted from the governorship even if all they could muster was around 40% of the vote. They have accomplished that. For those democrats by the way who thought Buttigieg the winner in Iowa because he won the delegate count even if he didn't get the most votes it's the same idea---how to not let a plurality of voters decide an election and here we're back at the electoral college debate again. By the way Mayor Pete hypocritically still thinks what happened in Iowa was fine but then he gets on his high horse about the electoral college. It's the same fucking thing Pete except he thinks if it works for him it's okay.

White-hot angry and willing to crawl through COVID slime to cast my vote next November, I am:

Nick Knudsen @DemWrite | 10:15 AM · Apr 7, 2020

Polling place in Waukesha, Wisconsin.
This public health hazard is brought to you by the Republican Party.

This is sick & twisted. Never forget what the @GOP stands for.
Godspeed, Wisconsin.

0:07 ( https://twitter.com/DemWrite/status/1247528352862199808 )
From Matt Smith

_____________________________________

Steadman @AsteadWesley | 8:32 AM · Apr 7, 2020:

Lines forming just 30 minutes after polls open in Milwaukee, people trying to space. Almost everyone has a mask

0:07 ( https://twitter.com/AsteadWesley/status/1247502615430209541 )

____________________________________

Nick Corasaniti @NYTnickc | 8:56 AM · Apr 7, 2020:

A voter just sent me this video of the line outside a polling location at Riverside High School in Milwaukee

0:55 ( https://twitter.com/NYTnickc/status/1247508440051847172 )

______________________________________

ETA

In Milwaukee, the average wait time at polls was between 90 minutes and 2 1/2 hours, a top election officials reported midday.

https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/04/07/wisconsinites-...

______________________________________

ETA
Brian Riedl @Brian_Riedl | 11:11 AM · Apr 7, 2020

It is ridiculous that my beloved home state of Wisconsin is holding an election today.
Only 5 of Milwaukee's 180 polling places are open.
Voters and (especially) poll workers face real dangers.
Both the Governor and the State Legislature really failed their residents on this.

Brian Riedl @Brian_Riedl | 11:24 AM · Apr 7, 2020
Replying to @JPMH72

1) The Governor 100% opposed moving the election until just 4 days ago when he determined his candidates were doing poorly,
which made it more difficult to move

2) SCOWIS' job is to apply the state election law as written. If you believe they misapplied the law, make an argument

CAP Action @CAPAction | 9:00 AM · Apr 7, 2020:

PRIORITIES: Trump is picking fights on Twitter while Americans die from the coronavirus.

Chaos has a price.
0:15 ( https://twitter.com/CAPAction/status/1247509630873452551 )

It appears that the justice who Kavanaugh replaced did major
damage to the country's election system when he decided to bail
during the Trump era. It looks like another Gore V. Bush type
situation is going to be playing out this year. I wonder who the
majority of the Supremes will anoint in late November?????????

The Lincoln Project @ProjectLincoln | 6:07 PM · Apr 7, 2020:

Trump’s worst nightmare is Republican voters turning against him. It’s happening.
Image ( https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1247647312513576961/photo/1 )

Where's the outrage? This won't end with Wisconsin. The Supreme Court, people. What hope have you left? The rot will dismember you.

By a 5–4 Vote, SCOTUS Lets Wisconsin Throw Out Tens of Thousands of Ballots

On Monday, by a 5–4 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court approved one of the most brazen acts of voter suppression in modern history. The court will nullify the votes of citizens who mailed in their ballots late—not because they forgot, but because they did not receive ballots until after Election Day due to the coronavirus pandemic. As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in dissent, the court’s order “will result in massive disenfranchisement.”

#83--Wisconsin may be the most gerrymandered state. Republican legislators there will not care if people get sick or die so they can maintain their grip on power. These legislators and judges here are particularly sick people who have been pulling all kinds of stupid shit for years. Joe Biden played along with them here--the Sanders campaign wanted this primary postponed. When Biden comes out and says that the primary is alright to go ahead--that people can stand in line 6 feet apart and that the machines can be cleaned off after every use he played right into their hands.....and looking at pictures from this fucked up event and knowing that loads of people did not come out--that poll workers bowed out--that members of the National Guard did their work instead turns the whole thing into a shitshow of an event.

>79 margd: Wisconsin election, contd. And it got worse...

Trudy Harwood @TrudyandPierre | 9:12 PM · Apr 7, 2020:

I waited 2.5 hours today in rain and hail (and a mask and gloves) to vote in Milwaukee because
@wisgop and @scotus would rather risk lives than have a fair election.
Instead of 182 polling sites, we had 5. #VoterSuppression #WisconsinPrimary

0:12 ( https://twitter.com/TrudyandPierre/status/1247693757639770113 )

Why is Trump’s Inspector General Purge Not a National Scandal?
Benjamin Wittes | April 8, 2020

...If, three years ago, President Trump had removed two inspectors general from their posts within a week of each other for overtly self-interested reasons—as he has done over the past few days—it would have been a big scandal. Presidents don’t just fire inspectors general for doing their jobs, after all. And presidents who agree to have an oversight board composed of inspectors general don’t typically sack one of them to prevent him from leading the board’s monitoring of trillions of dollars of congressionally appropriated money.

...Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson

...Glenn Fine, the acting inspector general of the Pentagon, from his new role as the chair of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, which has an $80 million budget to monitor government spending under the new $2 trillion relief bill

...Time was, and it was not so long ago, that presidents couldn’t just remove unwanted oversight mechanisms with impunity, much less do so as retaliatory gestures for people doing their jobs or because aggressive oversight of two trillion dollars of emergency spending might be inconvenient. The impediment wasn’t legal. It was political—the fear of response by some other actor in the governmental system.

...Comey...Sessions...Lt. Colonel Alex Vindman—along with his brother, for good measure...the wave of firings that has recently crashed over the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which has included replacement of a DNI, an acting DNI, a deputy DNI, and a head of the National Counterterrorism Center.

...Ultimately, the only way to reestablish the norm that presidents submit to internal oversight mechanisms, that they don’t seek to control them for personal benefit, and that they allow the law enforcement and intelligence agencies to do their jobs without political interference is to insist on it in the political arena. That’s what political campaigns are for...In (Biden's) efforts to draw contrasts with Trump, it is an area that warrants his very public and consistent attention. It is about what—and whom—the presidency is for.

https://www.lawfareblog.com/why-trumps-inspector-general-purge-not-national-scan...

America's best hope dies.

#87--part of the reason for ending his campaign probably the fiasco last night in Wisconsin. Literally you're asking people to go out and risk their lives and their family's lives. I thought it was going to end today to be honest. I don't think he could in good conscience ask people to do that and both parties have been treating this very cynically.

>88 lriley:

No, I agree, I think it does Sanders credit. It's just going to be a pity forever that he hitched his horse to a party that hates him.

Light at the end of the tunnel

Every time GOPers ignore or make excuses for the presidential
actions/statements Trump takes/makes, they are digging a deeper
hole for the modern-day Grand Old Party's casket.

#89--once this is over whether or not Biden gets elected---the young activists on the left side of things (and there are lots and lots of them) should seriously think about creating their own political party. A lot of them have grass roots experience over the last 3 election cycles. To me when 2020 is over it's time for a real schism. Those in the center of the Democratic party then can decide what they want to do--they can hang with the likes of Joe Scarborough, Bill Kristol or George Conway if that's what they want but things shouldn't be made easy for the center right anymore and I would like to end this canard of the Democratic Party being the left because it's not.

>91 lriley:

To tell you the truth, I've no hope left for the US. Yeah, there's the youth (and the working poor and the rising tide of brown-Americans) and I don't doubt their need and will to change.

But I worry that there simply there is no time left. We're already late, globally, on so many necessary changes, that even with positive actors and good will success is seriously compromised.

And with actors like the US... the failure is guaranteed.

>92 LolaWalser: I believe the election of Reagan may have signalled global catastrophe would be inevitable.

#92--whoever wins in 2020 means 4 more years of earthquakes, forest fires and coastal flooding. 4 more years of neoliberal economics. 4 more years of belligerent foreign policy. 4 more years of medical bankruptcies. 4 more years of students getting killed with debt.

Biden's for a whole lot of the same stuff that Trump is for. He'll kowtow to donors and to religious zealots and bigots. Maybe he'll do something about the gun problem--maybe he won't. Maybe he'll do something positive on immigration--I'm guessing probably not. He has to have the vaguest political platform by a presidential candidate ever. The only thing to go on is his history which is fucking awful. He was Obama's VP--only a more conservative and paler version. He's old--he's low energy--he seems frail and stumbles all the time in his speech--runs off on will of the wisp tangents. In a couple years he could be a candidate for a walker and an assisted living home. And he can be hit on corruption--he can be hit with sexual assault allegations. This is who the democratic party decided to go all in for. Here's another thing Trump could easily run to the left of Biden on a bunch of things. There's room.

So there's going to be 4 more years of damage. I have no doubt about that. I'm hoping there will be something left when that is done.

>94 lriley:

Yes, that's the worry. Not just another four years wasted, which are desperately needed to start making things better (effort belated from last century), but another four years in which things will get WORSE.

Noam Chomsky: Bernie Sanders Campaign Didn’t Fail. It Energized Millions & Shifted U.S. Politics

"If Donald Trump is reelected it will be an indescribable disaster."

Dear Joe Biden (co-signed by Justice Democrats and the Sunrise Movement among others),

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/09/joe-biden-earn-our-support...

also:

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/bernie-sanders-showed-us-future-135433288.html

I particularly liked Iversen's comment on American exceptionalism. Anyone with any intellectual honesty should know that that idea is and has always been bullshit.

Can Rs have it both ways??

Trump campaign greets end of Democratic primary with two distinct campaigns against Biden
Michael Scherer and Toluse Olorunnipa | April 8, 2020

President Trump and his campaign greeted the ostensible end of the Democratic presidential primary process Wednesday with two conflicting but revealing messages.

Former vice president Joe Biden became the presumptive nominee, they argued, because he was the choice of his party’s embedded establishment that disrespected the populist movement behind rival Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont...

But Biden also pulled it off, they said, because he embraced the far-left policies of the anti-establishment Sanders and is indistinguishable from the self-described socialist...

...One is a competition for the ideological center of the country, run through the tony, tax-skeptical suburbs of key swing states that rejected the GOP in 2018. The second is a fight for the mostly working-class populism of the left, which has rejected the establishment politics of both national parties...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-campaign-greets-end-of-democratic-...

_________________________________________________

Trump: Absentee Voting Is Fraud Unless It’s My Supporters
Jonathan Chait | April 9, 2020
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/trump-mail-voting-fraud-coronavirus-vote...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Most Americans, unlike Trump, want mail-in ballots for November if coronavirus threatens: Reuters/Ipsos poll
Chris Kahn | April 7, 2020
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-poll-idUSKBN21P3G0

_________________________________________________

My health care is on the ballot.
My right to marry is on the ballot.
My civil rights are on the ballot.
My future is on the ballot.
I don’t have the luxury to sit out this election. I will vote for the democratic nominee in November.
- Matt Nowling @MatthewNowling | · Mar 10

The next SCOTUS seat is on the ballot.
A functioning government is on the ballot.
- Alternative HHS @AltHHS | 10:24 AM · Apr 9, 2020

__________________________________________________

@realDonaldTrump says his own impeachment “distracted” him from responding to #Coronavirus.
But he was never distracted.
He just didn’t care.

1:24 ( https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1248202711998357504 )
https://bit.ly/3aXdsOm

@gtconway3d
@reedgalen
@NHJennifer
@madrid_mike
@SteveSchmidtSES
@RonSteslow
@jwgop
@TheRickWilson
- The Lincoln Project @ProjectLincoln | 6:54 AM · Apr 9, 2020:
Television

---------------------------------------------------------

https://twitter.com/HelpUp5/status/1248297993687760897/photo/1
That timeline is good, but doesn’t show the dates when tRump held rallies:
Jan 9,
Jan 14,
Jan 28
Jan 30
Feb 10
Feb 19
Feb 20
Feb 21
*Feb 28 * Is the day he called the Coronavirus a democratic hoax. "this is their new hoax."

https://twitter.com/Rene_gadeCowboy/status/1248261529562017793/photo/2
https://twitter.com/Rene_gadeCowboy/status/1248261529562017793/photo/2
https://twitter.com/CindyNye1/status/1248207017342382081/photo/1

#96--I like Chomsky's point of view here. If Biden can get elected and that's a big if (because he's an awful candidate on a multiplicity of issues and for numerous other reasons) the critique is going to need to be constant and hard on him. No grace period and no time outs and no let up. He will need to be pushed all the time--the feel goody Obama years are over. If he thinks we're going back there then every minute of his life needs to be turned into a misery.

I'm well past Obama and see his presidency basically as a failure. Yeah--I know he's likable. So what. He accomplished very little in his 8 years that really benefited the population. The infatuation with him is quite like Republicans infatuation with Reagan. His presidency also led to who we have now and yeah some of that is racism but his time in office is way overrated still and that last year of his when he was pushing so hard for TPP--his Nafta on steroids did a lot of damage too.

#97--Klein and Amy Goodman are also treasures. Basically the Sanders campaign and what people like Klein and Goodman and Omar and AOC and tons of activists are about is equality and that's what young people and a good % of workers are about too. Medicare for all is meant for everyone across the board---a living wage is so that everyone can at least have a chance of affording to live. The Green New Deal is about everyone benefiting from a clean environment but also from the benefit of creating the technologies and other projects to bring that about. It's not about throwing money down the toilet--it's about creating a better world. If people want to talk about throwing trillions of $'s down the toilet they should start with our military industrial complex--go on to our regime changing ways. If that's not money flushed down the toilet I don't know what is.

>100 lriley:

... "(Obama) accomplished very little in his 8 years that really benefited the population."

Quite right. But, even worse, those eight years were precious and their waste on Obama's double tenure is a huge loss of opportunity. That time is gone and never coming back and that means opportunities for people which were lost and now never coming back because these people, eight years (now nearly twelve) on cannot recoup the potentials which they had then and which have been squandered in circumstances then and now beyond their control.

"The infatuation with him is quite like Republicans infatuation with Reagan."


That's exactly what it is! And that's quite an astute observation. It's also a rather good sign of how well or poorly one can see something: those who don't, who can't, see how their persistent reverence for Obama manifests what is simply an infatuation with him tell us something about their failure to see things clearly-- just as did Republicans when it came to Ronald Reagan.


I mean, think of it! What if some terribly serious world-wide calamity were to strike and catch millions of people unprepared? What if circumstances suddenly took a terrible and unexpected turn for the worse? What if economies around the world were at risk of collapse? What if decades of social development and cohesion were imperiled? What if such things happened and in places everywhere, the capacities to respond adequately had been seriously degraded through lost time and opportunities while Obama made so many feel a nice warm glow from having a handsome, young, dark-skinned man in the office of president of the United States?--as though it was some sort of celebrity racial beauty-contest?

>80 margd: Chaos has a price, contd. (!)

Other countries responded quickly and aggressively to combat the spread of coronavirus.
Trump failed to do the same—and now the U.S. has the most cases in the world.

0:30 ( https://twitter.com/CAPAction/status/1248287038580891649 )

- CAP Action @CAPAction | 12:29 PM · Apr 9, 2020
________________________________________

Trump Keeps Talking. Some Republicans Don’t Like What They’re Hearing.
Jonathan Martin and Maggie Haberman | April 9, 2020

...With only intermittent attempts to adapt to a moment of crisis, Mr. Trump is effectively wagering that he can win re-election in the midst of a national emergency on a platform of polarization...Public polls show he badly trails the nation’s governors and his own medical experts in terms of whom Americans trust most for guidance.

...Deep divisions remain in the White House and the Republican Party over how quickly to ease social distancing orders and urge Americans to return to school and work. Some who have Mr. Trump’s ear, like Mr. Graham, are urging prudence. But a number of Republican lawmakers and Fox News personalities are lobbying the president to reopen the economy as quickly as possible...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/09/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-press-briefing....

>85 margd: Wisconsin election.

Here’s the RNC sending mailers to voters in Pennsylvania urging them to request a mail-in ballot,
in part “to protect yourself from large crowds on Election Day”

Image ( https://twitter.com/PeterHamby/status/1248743044678971392/photo/1 )
Image ( https://twitter.com/PeterHamby/status/1248743044678971392/photo/2 )

- Peter Hamby @PeterHamby | 6:41 PM · Apr 10, 2020

__________________________________________________________

c.f.
Trump: Absentee Voting Is Fraud Unless It’s My Supporters
Jonathan Chait | April 9, 2020
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/trump-mail-voting-fraud-coronavirus-vote...

>79 margd:, 83, 85 WI election

Don’t like the Wisconsin election mess? Don’t blame the courts.
George T. Conway III and David Lat | April 11, 2020

...What happened last week in Wisconsin — citizens being forced to risk exposure to a deadly virus in order to vote — was an atrocious fiasco. Wisconsin’s GOP-controlled legislature deserves to be castigated for allowing it to happen.

Just don’t blame the courts....

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/11/dont-like-wisconsin-election-...

#104--it's way too dangerous to have people going down to polling places right now. I'm pretty sure that was a good part of Bernie's reasoning for getting out of the race. The DNC though could have shut it down just by getting out the message they weren't doing it and there's no point in anyone coming.

Upset Victory in Wisconsin Supreme Court Race Gives Democrats a Lift
Reid J. Epstein | April 13, 2020

...a liberal challenger (Jill Karofsky) upset a Trump-backed incumbent (Daniel Kelly) to win a State Supreme Court seat, a down-ballot race that illustrated strong turnout and vote-by-mail efforts in a presidential battleground state.

The victory, by upward of 120,000 votes as of Monday night, came as a shock to Republicans and Democrats alike in Wisconsin, where contests for president, governor and the state’s high court in the last four years have all been decided by about 30,000 votes or less. It followed weeks of Democratic anger over Republicans’ insistence on holding elections amid the coronavirus pandemic.

...officials from both parties cautioned against overinterpreting the Supreme Court results, given the bizarre circumstances surrounding the high court race.

The decisive Democratic win offered a signal that the party, highly energized and mobilized heading into 2020, could organize and execute a winning get-out-the-vote program against strident Republican efforts to limit voter turnout in a narrowly divided state widely expected to be crucial in this fall’s presidential election.

...If re-elected, Justice Kelly, who was appointed to the court by former Gov. Scott Walker, was poised to be the swing vote on a pending decision on whether to purge more than 200,000 people from Wisconsin’s voter rolls ahead of what is expected to be a tight presidential contest in the state. President Trump three times tweeted his support for Justice Kelly, including an Election Day missive urging supporters to “get out and vote NOW for Justice Daniel Kelly.”

With Ms. Karofsky’s victory, conservatives hold a four-to-three majority on the state’s high court. She will receive a 10-year term beginning Aug. 1.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/13/us/politics/wisconsin-primary-results.html

Barack Obama @BarackObama | 11:47 AM · Apr 14, 2020:
I’m proud to endorse my friend @JoeBiden for President of the United States. Let's go:

Endorsement of Joe Biden for President (12:21)
https://twitter.com/BarackObama/status/1250088269502709762

New video from ⁦@ForTheRuleOfLaw featuring Republican voters in WI cautioning,
“Don’t let what happened in Wisconsin happen in November.”

Will air on Fox this week.
1:00 ( https://twitter.com/SarahLongwell25/status/1250148351775039489 )
- Sarah Longwell @SarahLongwell25 | 3:46 PM · Apr 14, 2020

In time of COVID, I'd hate to lose Gov Whitmer to VP spot,
but she's done a good job in a state with Rs second only to Wisconsin's in partisanship.

Republicans take aim at Michigan governor over virus response
Michael Martina, Ben Klayman | April 14, 2020
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-michigan-governor-idUSKCN2...

Elizabeth Warren @ewarren | 9:00 AM · Apr 15, 2020:
In this moment of crisis, it’s more important than ever that the next president restores Americans’ faith in good, effective government—and I’ve seen Joe Biden help our nation rebuild. Today, I’m proud to endorse @JoeBiden as President of the United States.

3:34 ( https://twitter.com/ewarren/status/1250408560606969856 )

We’ve never backed a Democrat for president. But Trump must be defeated.
George T. Conway III, Reed Galen, Steve Schmidt, John Weaver and Rick Wilson | April 15, 2020

...(Biden) is an imperfect man, but a man who loves his country and its people with a broad smile and an open heart.

In this way, Trump is a photonegative of Joe Biden. While Trump has innumerable flaws and a lifetime of blaming others for them, Biden has long admitted his imperfections and in doing so has further illustrated his inherent goodness and his willingness to do the work necessary to help put the United States back on a path of health and prosperity...

...When we founded the Lincoln Project, we did so with a clear mission: to defeat President Trump in November. Publicly supporting a Democratic nominee for president is a first for all of us. We are in extraordinary times, and we have chosen to put country over party — and former vice president Joe Biden is the candidate who we believe will do the same.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/15/weve-never-backed-democrat-pr...

Michigan Gov Whitmer's COVID order has 70+% support.
There's understandable frustration, of course, frustration that partisan Rs are attempting to exploit...

A caravan of angry Michiganders exposes the complicated politics of the coronavirus shutdown
Philip Bump | April 15, 2020

As I write, streets in Michigan’s capital of Lansing are crowded with cars and pickup trucks. It’s a protest for the coronavirus era, with attendees encouraged to stay in their vehicles, expressing their displeasure with the state’s stay-at-home order by their presence and no small amount of horn-honking.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the focus of the protest, not everyone is adhering to that rule. Video from the scene shows people milling around the cars, many of them sporting signs and flags supporting President Trump.

...Michigan Freedom Fund is a listed host of the in-car rally and spent $250 to promote it on Facebook. It’s also sharing updates about the protest on social media... The group was founded by Greg McNeilly, political adviser to the DeVos family, a powerful name in Michigan Republican politics who’ve also contributed to the group financially.

...The DeVoses have focused on combating government interventions, particularly when the government is helmed by Democrats. In this case, they’ve targeted the Democratic governor — who’s enacting a policy that is broadly endorsed by a Republican president. The link between the DeVos family and this protest is indirect, though the political sentiment instilled in the Freedom Fund shines through. It’s similarly evident in the protesters themselves, a group broadly supportive of Trump but not of Whitmer. That despite the differences between the leaders being ones of scale and partisan identity.

This is precisely the line that Trump is trying to walk: encouraging skepticism of Democrats and boosting the idea that the shutdown should come to an end — but cognizant to at least some degree of what happens if the shutdown ends too early.

For all of his bluster about having the authority to decide what happens, the protest makes clear how the political position in which Trump finds himself is in at least one way lucky. He can advocate the policy — and see that governors get the blame.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/04/15/an-caravan-angry-michiganders...

The Case for Joe Biden to Pick Elizabeth Warren as His Running Mate
John Cassidy | April 15, 2020
https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-case-for-joe-biden-to-pick-eli...

Vote by Mail, Just This Once
Mona Charen | April 16, 2020

...In the midst of coronavirus, we simply cannot conduct elections in the usual way. In-person voting represents a threat to the health of poll volunteers (most of whom are over age 60) and to voters themselves. We cannot ask people to risk their lives to exercise the right to vote. Wisconsin’s recent mess — with thousands disenfranchised because they didn’t receive their mail-in ballots in time and people waiting in lines spaced out by six feet for multiple hours — is a flashing warning light.

...alternatives to in-person voting are not that difficult to achieve with a little advanced planning. Vote-by-mail

...To prevent fraud, states take a number of steps such as signature matching, requiring other identifying information such as the last four digits of the Social Security number, and using barcodes for each ballot.

...President Trump has thrust a stick into the spokes by suggesting that vote by mail disadvantages Republicans. But there are no data to support that and plenty of evidence to the contrary.

...Trump’s worry that a vote-by-mail option would mean “you’d never have another Republican elected in this country again” is misplaced.

...Voting by mail will require money (Congress already appropriated $400 million in the CARES Act), manpower, and time.

...Standing in line with your neighbors to vote in your local school or church is a civic ritual that ranks with fireworks on the Fourth of July. It’s part of the pageant of patriotism. But this year, we’ll need to make other arrangements. We cannot risk a crisis of political legitimacy on top of everything else we’re saddled with. The slogan for November should be: Mail it in!

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/04/coronavirus-2020-election-vote-by-mail-ju...

If it gins up his base, Trump doesn't seem to care if it sickens and kills some of them...
(Protesters on Michigan Legislature steps were NOT social distancing.)

Trump’s new ‘liberate’ meltdown appears to have been provoked by a Fox News segment
Sky Palma | April 17, 2020

A series of tweets fired off by President Trump this morning has some of his critics alarmed, considering how they bolster growing protest movements targeting Democratic governors for enacting lockdown orders to battle the coronavirus epidemic...

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/04/trumps-new-liberate-meltdown-appears-to-have-be...

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

https://twitter.com/waltshaub/status/1251175047320031233/photo/1

________________________________________________

Protests are popping up across the US over stay-at-home restrictions
Dakin Andone | April 17, 2020

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/16/us/protests-coronavirus-stay-home-orders/index.ht...

Joe Biden @JoeBiden | 2:44 PM · Apr 18, 2020:

Donald Trump left our country unprepared and unprotected
for the worst public health and economic crisis in our lifetime — and now we're paying the price.

1:43 ( https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1251582266251243525 )

Watching Trump defenders turn themselves into human pretzels defending his
actions has been a very entertaining 3+ year experience. They appear to believe
the fantasy "script" that Trump used to gain the presidency and hold on to his
clueless voters. Winning the presidency was the equivalent of winning an
Academy Award.

How Donald Trump Could Reward Governors Who Open Their Economies Early—or Punish Those Who Don't
Andrew Feinberg | 4/17/20
https://www.newsweek.com/how-donald-trump-could-reward-governors-who-open-their-...

------------------------------------------------------------

Very key to note that the White House is telling reporters they're refusing to vote funds to relieve state and local governments
because they want to hold it back as leverage to force them to "reopen" when the White House tells them to.

https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/1252065233390141440/photo/1

- Josh Marshall (TPM) @joshtpm6:36 PM · Apr 19, 2020

------------------------------------------------------------

Trump revs up for a state-by-state fight over coronavirus shutdowns
NANCY COOK | 04/20/2020

President Donald Trump is preparing for a long battle with America’s governors to save himself from the political fallout from coronavirus...

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/20/trump-revs-up-state-fight-coronavirus-s...

Trump’s Entire Coronavirus Response Is Massive Political Corruption
Jonathan Chait | Apr. 15, 2020

...Trump has never respected any meaningful distinction between the federal government and the Trump Organization. He expects every federal employee, especially its law-enforcement agents, to advance his personal political agenda. He has functionally mixed its budget with his own by having the government pour money into his properties, and he has treated its official powers as if they are his own personal chits. The authority he has gained through the emergency response to the coronavirus has vastly expanded the potential for corruption, and every sign indicates that Trump is already engaging in systemic abuse.

Some of the corruption is lingering just below the surface. Trump is speaking constantly with corporate leaders, who can position themselves at the front of the line for federal contracts or relief payments....

Trump has treated the distribution of the federal government’s supply of emergency medical equipment like he is walking around the neighborhood with a money clip, pulling out bills and patting grateful recipients on the cheek...

When Congress handed Trump control of half a trillion dollars in spending authority, it insisted on establishing some loose oversight requirements. Trump has diligently trashed them...

While it is a coincidence that the pandemic broke out as impeachment was winding down, it is not a coincidence that Trump is revisiting the pattern of abuse for which he was impeached...

Congressional Republicans are communicating their open willingness to help Trump cover up his corruption...

There are a handful of categories of behavior by President Trump that have drawn condemnation or even forceful pushback by at least some Republicans: Trump’s communication style, trade policy, and accommodation of Russia. Trump’s corruption of government and open intent to turn government power into a tool of regime control is not in that category. Republicans have calculated, perhaps correctly, that it is in their interest for Trump to use emergency funds as campaign spending. He is not letting the crisis go to waste.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/trump-coronavirus-checks-name-slush-fund...

Exhibiting no concern that people (including theirs) will die as result of criminal election strategy, some (most?) Republics have no shame:

The Quiet Hand of Conservative Groups in the Anti-Lockdown Protests
Kenneth P. Vogel, Jim Rutenberg and Lisa Lerer | April 21, 2020

WASHINGTON — An informal coalition of influential conservative leaders and groups, some with close connections to the White House, has been quietly working to nurture protests and apply political and legal pressure to overturn state and local orders intended to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

The groups have tapped their networks to drive up turnout at recent rallies in state capitals, dispatched their lawyers to file lawsuits, and paid for polling and research to undercut the arguments behind restrictions that have closed businesses and limited the movement of most Americans.

Among those fighting the orders are FreedomWorks and Tea Party Patriots, which played pivotal roles in the beginning of Tea Party protests starting more than a decade ago. Also involved are a law firm led partly by former Trump White House officials, a network of state-based conservative policy groups, and an ad hoc coalition of conservative leaders known as Save Our Country that has advised the White House on strategies for a tiered reopening of the economy.

The effort picked up some influential support on Tuesday, when Attorney General William P. Barr expressed concerns about state-level restrictions potentially infringing on constitutional rights, and suggested that, if that occurred, the Justice Department might weigh in, including by supporting legal challenges by others. Separately, in Wisconsin, Republicans in the state legislature sued to block the Democratic governor’s order extending stay-at-home rules through May 26.

Those helping orchestrate the fight against restrictions predict the effort could energize the right in the same way the Tea Party movement did in 2009 and 2010, and potentially be helpful to President Trump as he campaigns for re-election...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/21/us/politics/coronavirus-protests-trump.html

_________________________________________________________________
ETA

The anti-quarantine protests seem spontaneous. But behind the scenes, a powerful network is helping.
Anti-shutdown protests erupt across the U.S., as states remain closed for coronavirus
Isaac Stanley-Becker and Tony Romm | April 22, 2020

...A network of right-leaning individuals and groups, aided by nimble online outfits, has helped incubate the fervor erupting in state capitals across the country. The activism is often organic and the frustration deeply felt, but it is also being amplified, and in some cases coordinated, by longtime conservative activists, whose robust operations (e.g., Convention of States initiative, Citizens for Self-Governance) were initially set up with help from Republican megadonors...Robert Mercer, a billionaire hedge fund manager and Republican patron...Ken Cuccinelli, acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services....Ben Carson, secretary of housing and urban development...Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor of Florida and a close Trump ally who is pursuing an aggressive plan to reopen his state’s economy...Eric O’Keefe, board president of Citizens for Self-Governance,...a longtime associate of the conservative activist Koch family...Trump...attorney general, William P. Barr...(Trump ally) Stephen Moore, once considered for a top post at the Federal Reserve...Mark Meckler,...co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots...FreedomWorks, a libertarian advocacy group also active in the tea party movement...Meshawn Maddock, who sits on the Trump campaign’s advisory board and is a prominent figure in the “Women for Trump” coalition...Michigan Freedom Fund, which is headed by Greg McNeilly, a longtime adviser to the family of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos...Texas Public Policy Foundation, oil executive Tim Dunn, is also a founding board member of the group promoting the Convention of States initiative. And the foundation’s former president, Brooke Rollins, now works as an assistant to Trump in the Office of American Innovation...John Hancock Committee for the States...DonorsTrust, a tax-exempt financial conduit for right-wing causes that does not disclose its contributors...Idaho Freedom Foundation, which is encouraging protests of a stay-at-home order imposed by the state’s Republican governor, Brad Little....

...Many of the seemingly scattered, spontaneous outbursts of citizen activism reflect deeply interwoven networks of conservative and libertarian nonprofit organizations...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inside-the-conservative-networks-backing...

New ad: Are you better off than you were four years ago?

1:09 ( https://twitter.com/MeidasTouch/status/1253069920092303361 )
Are You Better Off?
https://meidastouch.com/are-you-better-off-than-you-were-four-years-ago/

- MeidasTouch.com @MeidasTouch | 5:15 PM · Apr 22, 2020

Trump owes tens of millions to the Bank of China — and the loan is due soon
MARC CAPUTO, MERIDITH MCGRAW and ANITA KUMAR | 04/24/2020 04:30 AM EDT

Donald Trump is warning “China will own the United States” if Joe Biden is elected president.

But Trump himself is tens of millions of dollars in debt to China: In 2012, his real estate partner refinanced one of Trump’s most prized New York buildings for almost $1 billion. The debt includes $211 million from the state-owned Bank of China — its first loan of this kind in the U.S. — which matures in the middle of what could be Trump’s second term, financial records show.

Steps away from Trump Tower in Manhattan, the 43-story 1290 Avenue of the Americas skyscraper spans an entire city block. Trump owns a 30 percent stake in the property valued at more than $1 billion, making it one of the priciest addresses in his portfolio...

...The revelation complicates one of Trump’s emerging campaign attacks against Biden: that the former vice president would be a gift to the Communist country and America’s chief economic rival.

...“While Trump is talking about the former vice president’s son financial dealings, in Trump’s case, it is the president himself who has a company he still owns and profits from that has financial relationships with the countries that he is supposed to be negotiating with on behalf of the American people,” said Robert Maguire, research director for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

“There are definitely legitimate questions that are raised by Hunter Biden’s actions,” Maguire said. “They are not even in the same ballpark as the conflict of interest questions raised by President Trump’s continued relationship with his own company.”...

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/24/trump-biden-china-debt-205475

An Early Look At Who Bernie Sanders Wants To Join Joe Biden’s Policy Task Forces
Tara Golshan | 4/20/2020

The campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) says it won’t appoint any “shrinking violets” to the joint task forces developing a compromise policy platform with presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.

Sanders and Biden are creating six task forces — on the economy, education, criminal justice, immigration, climate change and health care — as a core part of Biden’s outreach to the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, Sanders announced when he endorsed the former vice president last week.

The goal is to present a united platform before the convention, influence the kind of personnel who would fill a possible Biden administration and arm Biden with possible executive orders that he could enact quickly should he be elected president.

HuffPost obtained a preliminary list of some of the people Sanders is considering...

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/sanders-biden-policy-task-forces-experts_n_5e9d90...

Trump campaign lashes out over 'Don't defend Trump' memo

Earlier this month, the Senate Republican campaign arm circulated a memo with shocking advice to GOP candidates on responding to coronavirus: “Don’t defend Trump, other than the China Travel Ban — attack China.”

The Trump campaign was furious.

>125 2wonderY:

... "even as his (Trump's) poll numbers sag"...

Craven, dishonest ass-covering hind-sight for political hacks of the Republican Party-Anti-Trump variety.

LOL! If Trump's poll numbers are "sagging", what are Nancy Pelosi's, Charles Schumer's or Mitch McConnell's poll numbers doing?!

(in percentages; Averaged from several polls)

Trump: Favorable: 43.4 / Unfavorable: 51.1

Pelosi : Favorable: 36.3 / Unfavorable: 52.7

Schumer: Favorable: 29.0 / Unfavorable: 43.0

McConnell: Favorable: 27.3 / Unfavorable: 45.7
_______________________________________

Source: RealClearPolitics Polls. Data as of this posting (28/04/2020) )

#126--None of Pelosi, Schumer or McConnell are running for national office though and Schumer's not up for reelection this year. Pelosi is safely ensconced in her San Francisco congressional district. She'll either retire or die out of it. It looks real iffy whether McConnell is going to survive in his election this year though.

>127 lriley:

USA TODAY/Suffolk Poll: Six months out, Biden jumps to lead over Trump amid coronavirus concerns
Susan Page | 4/28/2020

Six months before Election Day, the coronavirus pandemic has done what impeachment did not: Cost President Donald Trump his advantage over Joe Biden in the 2020 campaign.

A new USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll shows the former vice president leading Trump nationwide by 6 percentage points, 44% to 38%, a shift from Trump's 3-point lead in the survey as he was being impeached by the House in December. In a contest without a third-party contender, Biden's margin jumps to 10 points, 50% to 40%.

In the previous poll, when Trump led 44% to 41%, Biden was in the middle of a fierce battle for the Democratic nomination. Now he is the party's presumptive nominee...

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/04/27/biden-leads-tr...

The Lincoln Project @ProjectLincoln | 7:17 AM · Apr 28, 2020

NEW VIDEO
Americans need a president upon whom they can rely for factual information regarding the state of the nation.
Instead, @realDonaldTrump delivers a daily dose of dangerous and ill-informed nonsense.
#CountryOverParty

0:30 ( https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1255093730283044864 )

#128--FWIW without this epidemic Trump might have been on his way to reelection and IMO he's not out of it yet. For a whole lot of people Biden remains a poor and uninspiring choice. All that said Trump's response to the Covid-19 epidemic has been somewhere below abysmal. The United States has more positive cases than the next 6 highest (Italy, Spain, United Kingdom, Germany, France and Turkey) countries combined. We have about a third of the world's deaths. We have arguably been the worst prepared to handle the virus country in the world. There's no real way of parsing that Trump has guided us through this at all well (still takes no responsibility either) and he's not doing himself any favors with his nightly press conferences.

I also would say that are health care system is woefully inadequate to dealing with this epidemic. That people who say that Obamacare (even before Trump) could have handled this are also out to lunch and that this crisis should move us towards a single payer government sponsored health care system so future pandemics don't catch us with our pants down again like this one did. This is one of the major lessons for us to take out of this but which Biden seems dead set against. Trump is a major part of the problem from this crisis but our health care system has failed us almost as badly.

Justin Amash explores third party (Libertarian) run:

Amash for America
WE'RE READY for an honest, principled president who will defend the Constitution and put individuals first.
amashforamerica.com

______________________________

ETA
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump | 10:55 AM · Apr 29, 2020:

No, I think Amash would make a wonderful candidate, especially since he is way behind in his district and has no chance of maintaining his Congressional seat.
He almost always votes for the Do Nothing Dems anyway. I like him even more than Jill Stein!

Joe Walsh: Justin Amash’s campaign will help Trump win - The Washington Post https://washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/04/29/amash-libertarian-reelect-trump/

______________________________

Ask him how much Betsy DeVos is paying him to do this to ensure Michigan, which Trump can't win without, goes to Trump.
Because that's what this is about.
Jesse Ventura is obviously hired to deliver Minnesota to Trump.
- Cheri Jacobus @CheriJacobus | 11:34 PM · Apr 28, 2020

______________________________

‘I’m Testing The Waters’: Fmr. Minn. Gov. Jesse Ventura Says He’s Considering Presidential Bid
April 27, 2020 at 12:48 pm

Former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura...tweeted (on Monday) that he’s “testing the waters” and if he were going to run for president, the Green party would be his first choice. He’d be up against President Donald Trump, a Republican, as well as Democratic challenger and former vice president Joe Biden...he clarified that he hasn’t filed anything, but did authorize a letter of interest that was sent on his behalf to the Green Party.

“I’m testing the waters for Green Party nomination. I’m an independent. I’m not a Democrat or a Republican because I know they’re not the solution,” Ventura said.

In late September, Ventura hinted at a possible 2020 run. At the time, he said if he were to join the race for the White House, he’d wait until the pool of candidates narrowed..

https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2020/04/27/im-testing-the-waters-fmr-minn-gov-jes...

DeSantis and Trump tout Florida a coronavirus success as state announces 83 new deaths
The Republican governor from the Oval Office took aim at governors issuing strict orders. ‘Florida’s done better,’ he said.
Steve Contorno | April 28, 2020. Updated April 29, 2020

Gov. Ron DeSantis has declared Florida a coronavirus success story, and on Tuesday, he brought that message to the White House for an audience of national reporters and President Donald Trump. (also attended by White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Deborah Birx, economic adviser Larry Kudlow, chief of staff Mark Meadows and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner)

...DeSantis took aim at (other governors, including some Republicans) for what he called their “draconian orders” and at the national media that projected Florida would fare worse than most anywhere in the country.

...grim news back home: Florida reported its deadliest day in the two months since the outbreak began.

...While certain coronavirus models have suggested Florida’s peak day has passed, concerns of a second wave linger as state leaders — chiefly DeSantis — consider the speed at which to reopen when the state’s stay-at-home orders expire Thursday...It will be a slow restart, DeSantis said, as the state focuses on “building confidence with the public that the next step will be done thoughtfully."

...A (FL) public health expert...said the state’s testing rate needed to more than double over the next month to spot a second wave of coronavirus cases. DeSantis told reporters at the White House that there’s an excess of tests and anyone in Florida can now get one, even if they don’t have symptoms. While that is true at three state-run testing sites in Orlando, Jacksonville and Miami, many health care providers and local testing sites are still following early U.S. Centers For Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, which require someone to have symptoms or a doctor referral before they can be tested.

... the country’s largest battleground state... DeSantis is one of just a handful of governors whose favorability has fallen during the coronavirus crisis. Meanwhile, Trump’s stock is down here too and he is now in a dead heat with former Vice President Joe Biden in the Sunshine State...

...Florida didn’t experience any trouble getting medical supplies from the national stockpile, DeSantis said, adding that he worked closely with Kushner to monitor which Florida hospitals needed ventilators. Most went unused, DeSantis said.

Trump on Monday urged states to consider reopening schools. It was only eight days ago that DeSantis reluctantly closed Florida’s K-12 schools for the rest of the academic year....

...Trump asked if they should ban flights from Brazil, a growing hot spot for the virus, but DeSantis wasn’t sure if it was needed...DeSantis said he would (let White House know if ban was needed).

https://www.tampabay.com/news/health/2020/04/28/desantis-and-trump-tout-florida-...

Looking forward to Michael Cohen's book...

Trump Teen Rape Allegation Resurfaces, Ronan Farrow Claims National Enquirer Tried to Protect Him in New Book
Tufayel Ahmed | 10/16/19
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-teen-rape-allegation-national-enquirer-ronan-farr...

---------------------------------------------------------------

Lawsuit Charges Donald Trump with Raping a 13-Year-Old Girl
David Mikkelson | 23 June 2016

A civil suit against Donald Trump alleging he raped a 13-year-old girl was dismissed in California in May 2016, refiled in New York in June 2016, and dropped again in November 2016...

https://www.snopes.com/news/2016/06/23/donald-trump-rape-lawsuit/

-------------------------------------------------------------

Donald Trump & Jeffrey Epstein Rape Lawsuit and Affidavits
Uploaded bydavidbix
Description:Filed June 20, 2016.
Full description...
https://www.scribd.com/doc/316341058/Donald-Trump-Jeffrey-Epstein-Rape-Lawsuit-a...

-------------------------------------------------------------

Kaivan Shroff @KaivanShroff, 26 tweets, 8 min read
https://twitter.com/KaivanShroff/status/1255101155039944704

PLEASE SHARE THIS THREAD.

Below I detail each credible sexual harassment and assault claim against Donald Trump.

Media has barely covered most of these despite some being incredibly recent.

People deserve to have this information....

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1255068774048378881.html

“There has been so much unnecessary death in this country. It could have been stopped...The whole world is suffering because of it.”

Trump’s own words say it all. More than 60,000 Americans are dead because of his failed coronavirus response.
0:15 ( https://twitter.com/CAPAction/status/1255844356533043202 )

- CAP (Center for American Progress) Action @CAPAction | 9:00 AM · Apr 30, 2020
https://twitter.com/CAPAction/status/1255844356533043202

NEW VIDEO (The Lincoln Project)

@SenatorCollins
, @CoryGardner
, @MarthaMcSally
, and @ThomTillis
put @realDonaldTrump
before their voters, every time.

So let’s help force these Trump sycophants into retirement later this year.
0:40 ( https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1255813952895963137 )

- The Lincoln Project @ProjectLincoln | 6:59 AM · Apr 30, 2020

One could tell brain-dead Democrats over and over and over again how and why they are their own goddamn worst enemies and they'd never "get it", by which I mean listen honestly, "take it to heart."

The Inevitable Coronavirus Censorship Crisis is Here | As the Covid-19 crisis progresses, censorship programs advance, amid calls for China-style control of the Internet | Matt Taibbi
(https://taibbi.substack.com/)


________________________________

... ...

"The tone of the many media reactions to Erickson, Carlson, Trump, Georgia governor Brian Kemp, and others who’ve suggested lockdowns and strict shelter-in-place laws are either unnecessary or do more harm than good, fits with what writer Thomas Frank describes as a new 'Utopia of Scolding':

Who needs to win elections when you can personally reestablish the social order every day on Twitter and Facebook? When you can scold, and scold, and scold. That’s their future, and it’s a satisfying one: a finger wagging in some vulgar proletarian’s face, forever.

"In the Trump years the sector of society we used to describe as liberal America became a giant finger-wagging machine. The news media, academia, the Democratic Party, show-business celebrities and masses of blue-checked Twitter virtuosos became a kind of umbrella agreement society, united by loathing of Trump and fury toward anyone who dissented with their preoccupations." ...

...

All of the pieces are already in place now to ensure that the Democrats lose the 2020 presidential election to Trump's campagn and there is simply no chance at all that they're going to figure this out and do something effective about it.

None.

43 more women have accused Trump of sexual misconduct, including 26 new claims of sexual assault, in an explosive new book

1:14 ( https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1182064111561183232 )
Trump Is Facing 43 New Allegations of Sexual Assault in Book
43 more women have accused Trump of sexual misconduct, including 26 new claims of sexual assault, in an explosive new book

- NowThis @nowthisnews | 6:43 PM · Oct 9, 201

President Trump's COVID approval rating is below that of every governor in every state:
https://twitter.com/dellavolpe/status/1255830722708934656/photo/1

_________________________________________________

Trump erupts at campaign team as his poll numbers slide
ZEKE MILLER and JONATHAN LEMIRE | April 30, 2020

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump erupted at his top political advisers last week when they presented him with worrisome polling data that showed his support eroding in a series of battleground states as his response to the coronavirus comes under criticism.

As the virus takes its deadly toll and much of the nation’s economy remains shuttered, new surveys by the Republican National Committee and Trump’s campaign pointed to a harrowing picture for the president as he faces reelection.

While Trump saw some of the best approval ratings of his presidency during the early weeks of the crisis, aides highlighted the growing political cost of the crisis and the unforced errors by Trump in his freewheeling press briefings.

...Echoing a number of White House aides and outside advisers, the political team urged Trump to curtail his daily coronavirus briefings, arguing that the combative sessions were costing him in the polls, particularly among seniors. Trump initially pushed back, pointing to high television ratings. But, at least temporarily, he agreed to scale back the briefings after drawing sharp criticism for raising the idea that Americans might get virus protection by injecting disinfectants.

...Even as Trump preaches optimism, the president has expressed frustration and even powerlessness as the dire economic statistics pile up. It’s been a whiplash-inducing moment for the president, who just two months ago planned to run for reelection on the strength of an economy that was experiencing unprecedented employment levels. Now, as the records mount in the opposite direction, Trump is feeling the pressure.

...Trump’s political team warned that the president’s path to reelection depends on how quickly he can bring about a recovery...

https://apnews.com/a7b3bde0888fdd84314c8502e23afbbc

>138 margd: I'm missing something on that twitter feed you cited. If you click on the image and enlarge it you will see you have a large number of percentages that add up to more than 100% (sum of approval and disapproval?) and you have some that don't come anywhere near summing to 100% so this doesn't seem to be the point of the graph. There is a note in the header with the cryptic statement "(Net: Approve) so maybe this is some kind of before/after summary - red being some time in the past and black being current or maybe something else. Do you have a citation for the source so one could understand just what is being illustrated?

>140 alco261: The chart is on page 9 of:

The COVID-19 Consortium for Understanding the Public’s Policy Preferences Across States
David Lazer (Northeastern U); Matthew A. Baum (Harvard U); Katherine Ognyanova (Rutgers U); John Della Volpe (Harvard U)
April 28th, 2020 (298 p)
http://www.kateto.net/COVID19%20CONSORTIUM%20REPORT%20April%202020.pdf

I think each number on the chart is % approval for President (red) and for governors (black) on COVID, but not % disapproval--so you're right the numbers won't necessarily add up to ~100%.

Other interesting stats:

More than 80% of Americans support closing non-essential businesses. Support for limiting restaurants, closing schools, canceling sporting and entertainment events, and group gatherings exceeds 90%.

Generally, Americans report adhering to social distancing, indicating that they had minimal social interactions with people outside of their households.

The most trusted groups and organizations regarding the crisis embody expertise, etc.

#137--keeping in mind the catch and kill stories locked away by the National Enquirer--keeping in mind his links to Jeffrey Epstein it's hardly a surprise. I wonder about Melania a bit here too---she must know some or even a lot or even all of it......and the kids all the way from Ivanka and Donald Jr. to Barron what do they know? Learning how to live with all that mendacity and dysfunction and it's got to be corrosive in some way or other to all of them. They must realize unless they're just as stupid that he's off his rocker and is dumber than a rock---that he really doesn't give a fuck about anybody but himself and about anything but his own pleasure. I suppose personal gain and celebrity is what they get out of it. Barron might not have much choice---the rest of them do.

The hypocrisy continues...
1:17 ( https://twitter.com/pattirandallen/status/1256355421553594370 )

- Patti Rand @pattirandallen | 6:50 PM · May 1, 2020

David Frum @davidfrum | 4:54 PM · May 2, 2020:

Watch it with the sound off.

First half: Almost every foreground figure is black or female.

Trump emerges from shadow at 0:28-and suddenly foreground is all white and male except for Kim Jong Un and a supportive Melania Trump holding a Bible

Quote Tweet
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump · 1h
0:59 ( https://twitter.com/davidfrum/status/1256688569005072384 )

MeidasTouch.com @MeidasTouch | 5:15 PM · Apr 22, 2020:

New ad: Are you better off than you were four years ago?
1:09 ( https://twitter.com/MeidasTouch/status/1253069920092303361 )

Are You Better Off?
Join our movement. Follow @MeidasTouch and visit MeidasTouch.com today.
From MeidasTouch.com

This is a very, very big change to her story.
- Malcolm Nance @MalcolmNance | 2:48 PM · May 2, 2020

Quote Tweet
The Associated Press @AP · 3h
Tara Reade says a Senate report she filed against Joe Biden didn’t refer to sexual harassment or assault. http://apne.ws/Wc2zvjx

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Reade: ‘I didn’t use sexual harassment’ in Biden complaint
ALEXANDRA JAFFE, DON THOMPSON and STEPHEN BRAUN | 5/2/2020

WASHINGTON (AP) — Tara Reade, the former Senate staffer who alleges Joe Biden sexually assaulted her 27 years ago, says she filed a limited report with a congressional personnel office that did not explicitly accuse him of sexual assault or harassment.

“I remember talking about him wanting me to serve drinks because he liked my legs and thought I was pretty and it made me uncomfortable,” Reade said in an interview Friday with The Associated Press. “I know that I was too scared to write about the sexual assault.”

Reade said she described her issues with Biden but “the main word I used — and I know I didn’t use sexual harassment — I used ‘uncomfortable.’ And I remember ‘retaliation.’”

Reade described the report after the AP discovered additional transcripts and notes from its interviews with Reade last year in which she says she “chickened out” after going to the Senate personnel office. The AP interviewed Reade in 2019 after she accused Biden of uncomfortable and inappropriate touching. She did not raise allegations of sexual assault against Biden until this year, around the time he became the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee...

https://apnews.com/aec7beb03e9e0e0e6e3c58111293e0ea

________________________________________________

NEWS - Tara Reade abruptly canceled the interview she was scheduled to record on Friday afternoon with Chris Wallace for @FoxNewsSunday, to air Sunday morning.

Reade told Fox on Friday, sometime after @JoeBiden's interview with @morningmika.

- Edward-Isaac Dovere @IsaacDovere | 12:47 PM · May 2, 2020

New ad: Patriotism is bipartisan.
“Trump does not represent my party,” or the ideals of this country. Don’t you agree, @LindseyGrahamSC?

1:38 ( https://twitter.com/MeidasTouch/status/1257064002972086274 )

Lindsey Graham on Donald Trump | Patriotism is Bipartisan
Join the movement! Follow @MeidasTouch and visit MeidasTouch.com.

- MeidasTouch.com @MeidasTouch | 5:46 PM · May 3, 2020

Trump makes push for seniors as COVID crisis erodes support

..,The Trump campaign tested the effectiveness of the Democratic ads last week, the first time the campaign has done so in either of Mr. Trump’s two races, according to a person familiar with the results. However, the data indicated that Mr. Trump’s drop was more directly related to his performance at the nightly task force briefings that he has since curtailed, according to the person. Mr. Trump’s news conferences, which often include political attacks, disputes with reporters and sometimes unreliable information about the pandemic, have drawn criticism from members of both parties…

Older citizens, already a politically attentive voting bloc, are the most at-risk of dying from Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. They are also closely watching the news conferences, said one Republican close to the campaign.

“I quit watching. I truly can’t stand it,” said Judy Hoffman, a 72-year-old Ohio retiree who said she had been considering supporting Mr. Trump until his handling of the pandemic. “I quit feeling like I was gaining any information. I started listening to podcasts.”

Joel Benenson, a top pollster for Mrs. Clinton’s 2016 campaign, said the recent movement among older voters in polling conducted in battleground states suggests the impact the pandemic is having on the elderly...

WSJ Posted at 11:50 am on May 1, 2020
wsj.com/articles/trump-makes-push-for-seniors-as-coronavirus-crisis-erodes-support-11588340018
https://hotair.com/headlines/archives/2020/05/trump-makes-push-seniors-covid-cri...

Democratic voters’ list of those who should be considered for Biden’s VP:

Elizabeth Warren (71%)
Kamala Harris (59%)
Amy Klobuchar (50%)
Stacey Abrams (49%).
Tammy Duckworth (30%)
Susan Rice (29%)
Gretchen Whitmer (29%) follow.
Sally Yates 21%
Val Demings 17%,
Tammy Baldwin 16%,
Catherine Cortez Masto 15%,
Michelle Lujan Grisham 10%

"familiarity is a big factor"
-------------------------------------------------------

CBS News poll: Elizabeth Warren tops Democrats' wish list for Biden's vice president
Anthony Salvanto, Jennifer De Pinto, Kabir Khanna and Fred Backus | May 4, 2020

...Economic expertise and crisis management skills are top qualities Democratic voters want to see in a vice-presidential pick for their party — even more so than executive or legislative experience — as concerns about the pandemic and the economy now become a lens through which voters see that selection process.

Those criteria become even more important to Democrats who are very concerned about either their own job losses, or contracting the coronavirus themselves.

...Warren is the top pick among white Democrats and liberals by large margins. Warren is among the top picks for black Democrats too, but they are more evenly split between Warren, Abrams and Harris. Warren is also among the top with moderate Democrats, for whom the top three picks are Warren, Klobuchar and Harris...

...Warren does very well among those who say economic expertise is a key criteria. She is especially appealing to Democrats who say Biden should pick a liberal or progressive, but even among those who would prefer a moderate running mate, most put her on the list.

Harris elicits as much consideration from white Democrats as she does from black Democrats. She also does better among those who prioritize a pick who motivates Democratic turnout than she does overall.

Abrams gets stronger consideration ratings from black Democrats than white Democrats and much higher consideration from liberal Democrats than moderates. Klobuchar is on the list of more older Democrats than younger ones, and somewhat more for white Democrats than black Democrats.

...More Democrats want a liberal or progressive vice president than a moderate one, but Democrats also feel a moderate would boost the ticket's chances of winning, more so than a liberal or progressive one.

...Democrats are more likely to prioritize a candidate who motivates traditional Democrats to turn out than one who could appeal to swing or Trump voters.

Above all, they prioritize picking someone ready to step in as president, if need be.

Overall, somewhat more Democratic voters think Biden should make a politically "bold" choice (55%) than a politically "safe" one (45%).

...by 7 to 1, (Dems) with a preference prefer the pick be a woman to a man. This pattern holds for both Democratic men and women voters....

...74% say they've no preference on (whether the selection is someone white or someone of color)

...White Democrats are a little more likely than black Democrats to think a black nominee would help the ticket's chances.

...Most Democrats (64%) would like to see (Michelle Obama) on the ticket if she were in the running.

...relatively few voters consider the vice presidential pick as very important to their vote — just a quarter do.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/elizabeth-warren-biden-vice-president-cbs-news-poll...

________________________________________________

(Massachusett's Governor is a moderate Republican, so)

For four months, Massachusetts w(ould) have Rep(ublican) Sen(ator) until special election.
Would love to see @RepJoeKennedy run for Sen Warren's seat.

- Bobby Z Trump is Putin's Apprentice !! | 6:53 PM · May 3, 2020

_________________________________________________

ETA

The less obvious running mate Joe Biden should pick
Neil H. Simon | May 3, 2020

...New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham...

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/03/opinions/michelle-lujan-grisham-biden-vp-pick-sim...

Television
NEW VIDEO
@realdonaldtrump’s failed presidency has left the nation weaker, sicker, and teetering on the verge of a new Great Depression.

There’s mourning in America.
1:00 ( https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1257264160213217285 )

- The Lincoln Project @ProjectLincoln | 7:01 AM · May 4, 2020

2020 Presidential Election Interactive Map

Dems 294
Repubs 125
Tossup 119

https://www.270towin.com/maps/B8783

(this post moved to the latest portion of this thread.)

>150 margd: Lincoln Project ad gets more Trumpian attention than COVID dead...

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump | 12:46 AM · May 5, 2020:
A group of RINO Republicans who failed badly 12 years ago, then again 8 years ago, and then got BADLY beaten by me, a political first timer, 4 years ago, have copied (no imagination) the concept of an ad from Ronald Reagan, “Morning in America”, doing everything possible to....

....get even for all of their many failures. You see, these loser types don’t care about 252 new Federal Judges, 2 great Supreme Court Justices, a rebuilt military, a protected 2nd Amendment, biggest EVER Tax & Regulation cuts, and much more. I didn’t use any of them....

....because they don’t know how to win, and their so-called Lincoln Project is a disgrace to Honest Abe. I don’t know what Kellyanne did to her deranged loser of a husband, Moonface, but it must have been really bad. John Weaver lost big for Kasich (to me). Crazed Rick Wilson....

....lost for Evan “McMuffin” McMullin (to me). Steve Schmidt & Reed Galvin lost for John McCain, Romney’s campaign manager (?) lost big to “O”, & Jennifer Horn got thrown out of the New Hampshire Republican Party. They’re all LOSERS, but Abe Lincoln, Republican, is all smiles!
___________________________________________________

It’s so Donald Trump that his reaction to this @ProjectLincoln ad
had nothing to do w/ the human suffering it so vividly captures & everything to do w/Donald Trump.

- Joshua A. Geltzer @jgeltzer | 7:11 AM · May 5, 2020
__________________________________________________

The best part is that this video will now get viewed a million more times because of Trump's 1am tweetstorm.

- Brian Tyler Cohen @briantylercohen | 1:21 AM · May 5, 2020
___________________________________________________

That Lincoln Project ad aired during Tucker Carlson Tonight last night, if you're wondering why Trump lost his mind over it.

- Matthew Gertz @MattGertz | 7:57 AM · May 5, 2020

>150 margd:

Lincoln Project stated on May 5, 2020 in an ad:
"Trump bailed out Wall Street, but not Main Street."

...Our ruling

The Lincoln Project ad says, "Trump bailed out Wall Street, but not Main Street."

This is wrong on several levels. First, Trump doesn’t solely get the credit, or the blame, for anything in the CARES Act; it was supported by virtually all congressional Democrats as well.

The financial firms criticized for benefiting from the Great Recession bailouts do receive some ancillary benefits from the act, but the loan-accepting companies are the primary target of such largesse, not the banks.

The clearest problem with the claim is the notion in the ad that "Main Street" is not being aided. About three-quarters of the loans in the Paycheck Protection Program were made in the smallest loan size category, one that would support a business of roughly seven to 10 people.

We rate the statement False.

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/may/07/lincoln-project/mourning-ameri...

_____________________________________________
ETA

EXCLUSIVE: Rick Wilson Blasts ‘Typical F*ckery’ After Facebook Slaps Warning Label on Lincoln Project’s Anti-Trump Ad
Sarah Rumpf | May 7th, 2020

...After PolitiFact’s rating, Facebook began taking punitive action against the Lincoln Project video, placing warning labels on the video, marking it as “Partly False.”

This is a uniquely aggressive stance by Facebook. The social networking behemoth has previously taken a much more hands-off approach to political ads, with their own stated policy saying that “people should be able to hear from those who wish to lead them, warts and all, and that what they say should be scrutinized and debated in public.”

Unsurprisingly, Wilson was displeased with Facebook’s move.

Speaking exclusively to Mediaite, Wilson called the decision “the typical fuckery we’ve come to expect from both the Trump camp and their tame Facebook allies.”

“Facebook is perfectly content to allow content from QAnon lunatics, anti-vaxxers, alt-righters, and every form of Trump/Russian — but I repeat myself — disinformation,” he pointed out. “This is a sign of just how powerfully ‘Mourning In America’ shook Donald Trump and his allies. Their attempt to censor our ad isn’t a setback for us; it’s a declaration of an information war we will win.”...

https://www.mediaite.com/uncategorized/exclusive-rick-wilson-blasts-typical-fcke...