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arizonaconservativegal · 4 years

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Hi, I was wondering if you could explain to a non-American what is happening/has happened with this whole impeachment stuff? I’ve tried looking through new reports, but they’re all heavily left-wing biased.

Ah heck, I really haven't been following it because there is zero chance they are going to remove the president but I'll do my best. Also I apologize if this is over explained but I'm not sure if it's the process you're confused about or the details of this specific case so I'm going to try to explain both.

Alright so Congress is made up of two bodies of elected officials, the House of Representatives and the Senate. The president is entirely separate from Congress, but the two oversee each other. Impeachment is one of Congress's options for handling a president who has violated his oath of office and it functions a little like a criminal trial.

The House of Representatives investigates and determines if there is enough evidence to suggest there might have been a crime (kind of like how a grand jury would decide if a case would move to an actual trial). They hold investigative hearings and call witnesses to help them determine if a crime has been committed and if so, what that crime was. This has been going on for several weeks now and if you hear the term "impeachment inquiry," this is what it refers to.

The House then draws up the Articles of Impeachment, which you can think of as an indictment in a criminal trial. They lay out all of the charges the president is facing and a simple majority (50% plus one) must approve each of them. This vote happened last week.

In this case, Trump is facing charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Allegedly, he abused his power by threatening to withhold aid from Ukraine if they did not investigate a political rival (Joe Biden) and he may have obstructed Congress by instructing his staff not to comply with Congressional subpoenas.

If I can insert my own commentary here, these charges are excuses rather than reasons for impeachment. House Democrats have been looking for anything they can possibly use against Trump since before he was even inaugurated. This whole thing is flimsy at best and a mockery of our constitution with unconsidered consequences at worst.

Once the House votes to approve the Articles of Impeachment, the president is officially considered "impeached" but not yet removed from office. The paperwork is sent over to the Senate where the president will stand trial and it is up to the Senate to determine if the president should be convicted and "sentenced" to removal from office. This requires a two-thirds majority vote of the Senate. I should note that although this functions like a criminal trial, it is not technically a true criminal trial so if the president is convicted, he could still face actual criminal charges and potential jail time later on after he has been removed from office.

The hang up right now is that the House of Representatives is controlled by the Democrats who hate the president, but the Senate is controlled by the Republicans who are generally more fond of the president because he is also a Republican. The House has voted to approve the Articles of Impeachment, but they are currently refusing to deliver the documents to the Senate because the president's allies there are not likely to convict him.

I have to be honest, I have no idea if the House Democrats will be able to avoid delivering those papers to the Senate and I'm not really clear on what happens if the Senate never officially receives them. As far as I know, this has never happened before. I'm actually more interested in how that piece of the fight plays out than anything else so far.

But if the Senate trial does get started, Mitch McConnell (as the head of the majority party in the Senate) gets to decide what happens next. And if there is one thing you should know about Mitch McConnell it is that he is one devious son of a bitch and he knows every single Senate rule backwards and forwards and isn't afraid to exploit them especially if he feels the Democrats have already been playing unfairly. I have to say I respect and fear him immensely for it.

So basically there are two options for McConnell once he receives the paperwork:

#1: he can table it in favor of working on more pressing matters and the entire thing stalls. No hearings are held, no votes are taken, no one is removed from office. Trump is still technically impeached but who cares because nothing ever comes of it (at least until the Democrats take control of the Senate but let's be honest, if they manage that in 2020, Trump's done for anyway)

Or #2: he can proceed to trial. I think he will pick this route. There are very few rules in a Senate impeachment trial. McConnell gets to call any witness he likes, bar anyone from testifying that he wants (which is something the Democrats already did on the House side so you can bet McConnell feels this is a completely fair strategy at this point), ask any questions he wants, and drag the whole thing out as long as he pleases. Sure, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court gets to preside over the whole circus, but that guy is a Republican too so I wouldn't count on him to be much help to the Democrats.

Now the thing to remember here is that Democrats currently have 5 presidential candidates who are members of the Senate, plus Joe Biden who is very much at the center of all the allegations against Trump. So McConnell can tie up every single one of these people in months and months of hearings during election season, meaning they can't be out on the campaign trail. In fact, federal law prohibits them from doing any campaign activities while on the premises. No fundraising calls, no strategy meetings with staff, no checking email even. Nothing. They can grandstand as much as McConnell lets them during the trial, but it's not like C-SPAN is a popular channel these days. Every hour he has these guys in a hearing is an hour that is completely wasted for them during the most critical point in their campaign.

But there is something else here. Joe Biden is looking at least as guilty as Donald Trump in all of this. There is not a single thing to prohibit McConnell from calling ol' Joe and even Hunter Biden to testify. Defying his subpoena would be Obstruction of Congress (the very same thing Trump is charged with). If they do respond to a subpoena and testify, any crime they implicate themselves in would be fair game for a criminal trial. They would have little choice but to plead the fifth (constitutional protection against self-incrimination) and how do you think that would look to American voters? "Uh sorry, I can't answer that because it will make me look really guilty..."

If this thing ever came to a vote in the Senate (and that is a big if), a two-thirds majority would be required to convinct and remove the president from office. Two-thirds of the Senate is 67 Senators out of 100. There is no separate vote to acquit. If the vote to convinct fails to get the necessary 67 votes, the president is automatically considered acquitted and gets to stay in office.

The current Senate is made up of 45 Democrats, 53 Republicans and 2 Independents (although I think one of those two is Bernie Sanders who is running for president as a Democrat). Even if Democrats managed to pull a couple of Republican votes to their side, they wouldn't come close to that magic number of 67.

But just for fun, let's pretend this is Democrat Fantasy World and they do get 67 votes. What happens next? The US Constitution says that the president is then removed from office and the vice president takes his place. Which means Mike Pence would be the president. Mike Pence, the only person Democrats fear more than Trump because he is far more conservative and actually knows how to get things done in government. By the way, it's late enough in Trump's term that Pence could serve out the remaining few months of this term, run for the seat in 2020, and then run for re-election again in 2024 (constitution technically says a president may serve 10 years, this would put him at about 9). Do you hear that sound? That is the sound of me laughing until my sides hurt because if this happens, Democrats will have no one to blame but themselves.

Oh and if they want to impeach Pence too? The entire process starts over. Good luck guys.

TL;DR: Congress got tired of actually doing its job and decided to waste a lot of time and resources on a dog and pony show. Nothing is actually going to come of it.

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somerandomg33k · 4 years

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I still don’t know who to vote for?

This election is going to be a weird and frustrating one. It is the first presidential general election where I am an Anarcho-Syndicalist. And this election in the darkest timeline has a Fascist as the incumbent. But the candidate that is opposing Donald Trump is Joe Biden. Almost everyone's last pick in the primary. The only worst candidate during this primary was Michael Bloomberg, who was trying to buy his way into the election. Possible to take votes away from Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, but that is damning with faint praise that Joe Biden is better than Michael Bloomberg.

The most likely results of this election are either the continued reign of a dictatorial Fascist, causes and continuing chaos and mayhem, or just straight up Neo-Liberalism. We are going back to a normal under Obama, which was terrible as well. Just not as awful as under Fascism. And we won't fix the problems that allowed Trump to rise to power. Since those are core systematic problems that the current Democratic Establishment is not interested in correcting. And the Republican party is just worse as they are OK with Fascism. Some of them want Fascism.

And let's not forget, serval people have very good personal reasons not to vote for Joe Biden. Joe Biden helped co-wrote the 1994 crime bill. In some issues, he was to the right of Regan on drug enforcement of the Drug war. He was always the most conservative Democrat in the Senate during his time there. He voted against busing 19 times. That is why many Leftists say that Joe Biden is Republican-lite. He is just the 'correct' color for Liberals and is the candidate the Democratic party chooses. So yea, there are two Republican tickets this election. The difference is one is not Fascist. Liberals know this. They are just in denial or flat out refuse to believe it. Because boy, don't say that Joe Biden and his running mate are anything but Progressive to them. Because they really hate that. "I think it is unfair to Joe Biden to judge him by International standards. I would prefer that he is judge by American Political standards," one Liberal said. Why can't Liberals admit that America's Political standards are shit?

Liberals have to believe that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are progressives because they can only think of voting for progressives and progressive causes. They can't accept they are voting for a Conservative on the Democrat ticket, because they would have to admit that the Democratic party has moved towards the right as has American's Overton Window. Joe Biden is against Medicare 4 All. On that issue, he is to the right of Boris Johnson and other conservatives of the UK and Canada. Liberals have to believe they are voting for progressives on the Democrat ticket. Because if they didn't, they would lose faith in the whole Ameican Electoral system as well as Reform. It is almost like Capitalist Realism. People can imagine the end of the World before they can imagine the End of Capitalism. Liberals probably have an easier time visualizing the end of the World before they could imagine a different system than the current governance of Liberal Capitalist Democracy.

Let's not forget, something we already know, that Joe Biden is a bit creepy. He is a Patriarch and treats women differently than men. Whenever he meets families at the White House who have sons and daughters, he would say to the sons, "You have a critical job. You got to protect your sister from all of the boys. That is something my Dad told me." The women must be protected, and it is the men who must do the protecting. Joe Biden has a habit of creepily smelling women and girls' hair and touching their bodies on the waist and shoulders. Serval women have said that Joe made them feel uncomfortable. And this was all before Tara Reade allocations. #IBelieveTaraReade.

As for Kamala Harris, she did put trans women in men's prison, which resulted in one of them getting killed. "Kamala Harris couldn't do a thing." Is something Liberals need to stop saying. What they really mean is, "Kamala Harris choose to uphold an unjust system by blindly following rules instead of using her power and influence to change them." She attempted to block two Trans women's requests to get gender confirmation surgeries. Which, as far as I know, she hasn't really made amendments for. She wasn't good about slowing down The New Jim Crow. She was fierce to Sex Workers too. One of my comrades said, "As a trans woman and a Sex Worker, how should I feel about voting for Kamala Harris." She increased convictions for things like merely drug procession. She also wanted to jail parents for truancy. She has been called the Democrats Top Cop. Someone who is "Tough on Crime." Just like how Bill Clinton and Joe Biden were in the 90s. And that still has devastating effects on Black and Brown communities.

So many people have many good reasons not to want to vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. And Liberals want to think that they simply "have their flaws." Again, I think it is just all to make it easier for them to be excited to vote for them. All of those issues, including their voting record on increasing Military spending too, are "merely flaws." And they will also shame people into voting for Biden/Harris with, "It is the lesser of two evils." Which again, is more of an indictment of the system we have. "But we have an election, and we should all vote." So we can't talk about changing the system right now during an election. So when can we talk about change this entire system? And Just like with 2016, "A vote for a third party or a no vote is a vote for Trump."

Further shaming us into voting for Biden/Harris. "Do you want four more years of Trump?" FUCK YOU AND SHOVE THAT DISINGENUOUS QUESTION UP YOUR ASS!!

Merely bringing up all of these complaints are being associated with supporting Trump. Another by-product of the binary way of thinking with the Two-Party system and First Past the Post voting. Liberals have 'accepted' Biden/Harris is the ticket. And they honestly wish we do too. And since we are vocal with our complaints, they hate us for not 'accepting' Biden/Harris is the ticket. They hate us for not 'accepting' the way the system is as it is. "I have accepted all of this. Why haven't you?" This can explain how so many Liberals would go "URG" at the thought of Joe Biden as President back in January during the Primaries to skipping to the polls to vote for Biden for the General Election. "Well, he won the primary." "I get to vote Trump out of Office" is more what it is about and not how great Biden is. They tell themselves how great Biden and Harris will be as a recon.

And with all of the shaming us into voting for Biden/Harris, instead of voting for the Green Party or not voting, it completely ignores the fact we did vote for Hillary in 2016. She 2.8 million more votes. But it is the Electoral College that gave Donald Trump in the win. Plus, in Washington State, my state, four of the Electors didn't vote for Hillary Clinton when they were 'supposed to.' Washington State is likely to go blue again. So I don't know if it is essential for Me to vote for Biden/Harris. The fivethirtyeight poll from Sept. 22 shows Washington voting for Biden at 58% vs Trump at 36%. A 22 point difference. I think I can safely vote for Howard Hawkins and feel like I didn't help Trump win. But that won't be what Liberals think.

Now with all that said, Donald Trump is still a Fascist wannabe Dictator. He is almost the worst. His administration is just letting massive amounts of people died because of Covid-19. He is encouraging people to shoot BLM protestors. He told the Proud Boys to "stand back and stand by," at the first Presidential Debate. He said there wouldn't be a peaceful transferal of power because there won't be a transferal, but a continuation. Donald Trump has sewn doubts about voting by mail. He will doubt any kind of election results where he doesn't win. So Liberals argue we most vote in such high numbers to show that it is the will of the people they want him out of office. To which he can easily say "Fake News." He did doubt the 2016 popular vote results claiming 3 million "illegals" cast fraudulent votes.

Another convincing argument is we most show that Trump's ideas can't win elections. Because if it continues to win elections, more people will adopt Trump's views and policies. It is sort of convincing. But since a Qanon supporter will win a seat in the House of Representatives, becoming a rising star in the GOP Party. The GOP Party has backed Trump throughout his time in office, Trump's views and policies will continue whether he wins or not. Even if Trump loses, we are not out of the woods yet. Not by a long shot. Trump base will still be here in this White Supremacist CisHetro Patriarchal Ableist country of the United Corporations of Imperialism. Who will always vote for the GOP and are not going away. Many Democrats will even speak highly of them. Nancy Pelosi prays for the Republicans. Liberals believe having an opposition is part of a functioning Democracy. Will the GOP no longer be Fascist? I doubt it.

"We have to get rid of Trump at all costs." I understand that urge. But the system gave us Trump and protected him. So how is voting and participating within the same system supposed to help? I know that Liberals think voting is very powerful because "So many people had to fight for their basic right to vote." And that is all true. The GOP only wins because of dirty tricks like gerrymandering and voter suppression. Hence, Trump is encouraging his base to watch the polling stations for "suspicious people wanting to commit voter fraud" and "rig" the election. It is straight voter intimidation and is happening already in Virginia. Part of the convincing reason to get Trump out of the White House. Biden will not encourage White Supremacist of all types to commit acts of violence against "The Radical Left terrorists" and "Antifa." Antifa is not an organization; it is an idea. Even Biden got that right.

Knowing how terrible Trump is, brings me back to Biden and how bad he is. Not as bad. Trump and Biden aren't the same. Trump is a Fascist while Biden is a Neo-Liberal, and Neo-Liberalism isn't Fascism. Neo-Liberalism just leads to Fascism, as we have already seen with Trump. I simply see Neo-Liberalism worse than how Liberals see it. Not enough to make a false equivalent, but still. Remember, if Trump loses, he could pull a Grover Cleaveland and run again in 2024. Imagine that.

What bothers me the most about Liberals changing their opinion of Biden, by the mere fact he won the primary, is that Biden is granted votes from Democrats and Leftists. I am sure Democrats do love old Uncle Joe. There were a lot of memes from the Obama years. And many Liberals just love Obama. Even though they fully well know about his War Crimes. It is that acceptance that I don't have in me. "Well, he is the candidate. So I will support him to get rid of Trump." And what makes it worse, Biden isn't really offering anything as well. He is against the Green New Deal. He is against Medicare-4-all, even during a Pandemic. What is Biden/Harris offering? Even Biden, when asking these questions and about his record, says, "If you are questioning whether to vote for me or not, you ain't black."

So Leftists will get nothing and will receive all of the blame for of Trump winning if we don't vote for Biden. "If you are questioning whether to vote for Biden or not, you must want Trump for four more years."

Remember, I live in Washington State. A super blue State. If I live in any battleground state, even within a ten points difference, I would vote for Biden/Harris. But since Biden is ahead by 22 points in my state, and I don't see that changing anytime soon, I am considering voting for a third party. Howard Hawkins of the Green and Socialist party is closer to my position. I would prefer there is no State at all and no President at all. Especially no single person having that much power, especially being the 'leader of the "Free" world' by virtue of being the President of the United Corporations of Imperialism. If the President of the United Corporations of Imperialism is the 'leader' of the 'free world,' then how come the World doesn't get to vote in this election. The UCI, Imperialtopia bombs the hell out of the middle east so much, I think the middle east has a right to have a say in our elections.

I do have to acknowledge those platform holders, people with a Youtube channel, a Podcast, or have a large following on Social Media, feel the need to tell people to "to out and vote. Vote as if your life depends on it because for some, it actually does matter." Although for some people, much won't change materially for their lives, like the impoverished and the disabled. For some, it is life or death. For others, it is a shit show, regardless. But platform holders want Trump out of the White House. They don't know who lives in what state. They don't know if their audience's votes matter or not. Since they are speaking to a vast audience, and they must keep it simple, they have to say, "VOTE! VOTE! VOTE!"

But, I am thinking, if they acknowledge that some votes are more important in some states than others, they will have to admit the whole in the United Corporations of Imperialism is unjust. Votes are weight more heavily in some states than in others. The whole system has to change. But that can't happen in a year. However, folks can vote on Election Day. So, it is easy to encourage people to vote instead of organizing to abolish the Electoral College. It would take too long to do it. It would take a lot of effort. So even bother trying. Liberals would rather pretend that isn't the case and just badger and shame people into voting for a candidate they have 'accepted' won the primary, even though Biden was one of the worse candidates in that field. Everyone's tenth or so pick.

With all that said, vote for whoever you want to or whoever you feel comfortable voting for. I won't vote shame anyone. Except if you vote for Trump and the GOP. Then you are a Fascist because you are voting for a Fascist and the Fascist party. Pure and simple.

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beinglibertarian · 6 years

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An Overview of the 2018 Brazilian Elections

Igor V. Teixeira

An overview of Brazilian Elections

As most of you know, Brazilian Elections are upon us.

By “you,” I mean the incredibly divided population of Brazil which currently engages in a fight that greatly resembles the recent US election.

This is not the only parallel this article will attempt to point out between both elections. There are also plenty of differences between both situations and a close background analysis is needed in order to understand how things came to be the way they are.

One of the main differences is in the system itself.

TV stations are forced to show an ad for each candidate, for a set amount of time, and the bigger the coalition the more time they have, which tends to result in parties creating huge alliances.

There is also a party fund, provided by the state, with tax money, which every party receives, numbering in the millions of dollars to campaign. You read it correctly – millions of dollars!

To give you an idea, the highest sum a party receives is 58 million dollars, with the total amounting to almost 430 million dollars; this not only favors corruption, but also strengthen parties already in power since they receive the biggest share. It’s almost as if the system was rigged from the start.

Another difference is that we have 13 official candidates to presidency.

The last one is that we have a 2-phase election system, with the 2 most voted candidates (after a direct vote) facing each other on another date to settle who becomes the next president.

I have no idea why Brazil is not put forward more often as an example of how bad socialism or statist politics are.

Brazil has one of the largest most expensive and ineffective universal healthcare systems in the world and has a very strict gun control in place, banning most citizens from carrying even handguns on them or having one home. It has strict minimum wage laws controlled by the federal government, monopoly over oil extraction, and labor laws partially imported directly from Fascist Italy.

It offers “free” public universities, which are the biggest in the country and it has all sorts of affirmative action policies in place, having social, gender and racial quotas for spots not only in those universities but also in the public sector. The public sector is where Brazil concentrates the best-paid jobs of the entire country and since public agents of all sorts cannot be fired under almost any circumstance, have high salaries, and almost no responsibility over consequences of their jobs and actions.

All of that works for the worst, with no public service being effective and corruption cases popping so frequently that it made the population numb to its dire consequences.

In 2015, and Dilma Rousseff, Lula’s successor from the Worker’s Party, became the target of a corruption scandal that would culminate with her impeachment the following year.

Operation Car Wash (“Lava Jato” as it was called by the ever so creative Brazilian Federal Police) was already following and catching big names in pretty much every Brazilian party; tracing connections between politicians, especially those who were candidates during the 2014 election and their campaign lobbyists, who injected tons of money in order to get advantages and huge contract deals from the State.

It was then that Petrobras, Brazil’s State owned oil company, became the target of the operation, and Rousseff was part of the board of directors of that company during Lula’s administration. It was also revealed that SBM Offshore had paid a hundreds of millions of dollars during Rousseff’s first presidential run, whilst she chaired the oil company. All of that peaked with Brazil’s second impeachment.

When Vice-President Temer (MDB) assumed the presidency for the following years, Brazil’s economic situation was already dreadful, and that only increased, which is amazing because you would think a ship could only sink so far, but you would be wrong.

2018 has come, and here are some of the main names worth noting, since Brazil has 13 running for the presidency, currently.

The Social-Liberal Party

Jair Bolsonaro (Social-Liberal Party), is an ex-military captain, and has been a federal congressman for 4 consecutive terms, being the most voted congressman of Rio de Janeiro during the 2014 election. Here is where comparisons with Trump begin.

Bolsonaro is not Trump, that’s for sure. He is not an entrepreneur, or even a civilian with no political background. He gained notoriety for being conservative and making homophobic remarks on public television. That appealed to a younger audience, and to the traditional Brazilian family, which he swears to defend against communism.

Every appearance he’s made has caused outrage and has been met with intense resistance, putting him on top of the polls for both vote intention and rejection rates at once. A “Women’s March” against Bolsonaro was organized two weeks before election and an #Elenão (“not him”) hashtag was trending on Brazilian social networks over the last month.

Nonetheless, his overall “No BS” attitude has awarded him plenty of comparisons with the current American president, and his campaign specifically addresses him as a breath of fresh air into an old and corrupted institution.

While no concrete evidence of corruption has been put forward to incriminate him, he is definitely far from a fresh change. That has not stopped his run from being impressive however. While he has very little support outside of his own party (and a small alliance), compared to his counterparts, his main points as a candidate are defending the end of gun control and a resistance to what he calls a “communist wave” that contaminates life in Brazil. Bolsonaro defends free market, and his Economic advisor is Paulo Guedes, an economist who graduated from the University of Chicago.

Despite that, the candidate has a bad stance on individual liberties. He is against marijuana legalization and publicly defended a known military torturer active under the dictatorship period, during Rousseff’s impeachment voting session, for the entire country to see.

For that and other reasons, he has constantly been called a fascist, compared to Hitler, was spat on by another congressman and was even stabbed last month by a man who opposed his views during an election rally in Minas Gerais.

Despite all of this, he has gained plenty of momentum and is the most likely to win the election’s 1st phase. He currently has 32% of vote intention.

The Workers Party

Bolsonaro’s biggest threat on his way to the election is Fernando Haddad (Worker’s Party), who gained notoriety as the Minister of Education during Lula’s and part of Rousseff’s administrations.

He was the elected mayor of São Paulo until 2017, when he lost his reelection to João Dória on the 1st phase of the run.

Haddad was a big name of MEC, the Ministry of Education and Culture, which controls every level of education in Brazil and the contents of what is taught there, even inside private institutions.

Haddad’s run has been riddled with controversy, since the Worker’s Party’s original plan was to have Lula as the candidate, but he is currently unable to do so, due to his arrest for numerous corruption charges.

Nonetheless, Lula has been present and cited even in the party’s jingle, and the effect of that can be seen in the election numbers, which show Haddad in close second to Bolsonaro.

Funnily enough, the biggest support and ally in this run is MDB, the party who orchestrated Rousseff’s impeachment so that Temer could take her place as president.

Haddad supports taxes on the rich, gun control, more presence of the state in the private life, bigger government and an overall structure that results in increasing spending and bureaucracy by the state. He currently holds 23% of vote intention.

Did I mention that he plans to rewrite the Constitution? Cause he does.

The Worker’s Democratic Party

Close third comes Ciro Gomes (Worker’s Democratic Party), who just recently lost the second spot on all surveys to Haddad. He is no newcomer to politics, since the Gomes family has been in power in the poorest region of Brazil for almost 100 years. He was Mayor of Fortaleza, Governor of Ceará, Minister of Finance under Itamar Franco’s term, a federal congressman, and the Minister of National Integration during Lula’s administration.

Ciro’s most recent presidential run has been one where he’s positioned himself as an eloquent option for both the left and the right. He has promised to take millions of people out of debt with a system where some people would pay for lack of payment for loans other people took, a kind of a trust circle, where every 10 people afford mistakes made by others, in a Keynesian nightmare.

Ciro has somehow attracted tons of youngsters to his side, he was very close to going into the 2nd phase of the election against Bolsonaro, according to surveys. That chance has been stained by the candidate’s overall macho posture, constantly filmed fighting protesters during his rallies and even assaulting journalists on two occasions, demanding that one of them be arrested for asking him something he surely did not like.

He has gained millions of dollars for his campaigns during the last 30 years, and most of the companies that financed him became extremely wealthy throughout his mandates.

He believes that the State should control most of the economy and went as far as to say that Uber would be prohibited in the country once he was president.

He once stated that would receive justice officers with lead if they came to arrest any of his party members, and that even though socialism’s implementation killed millions of people, he was willing to take that risk. Last survey showed Ciro Gomes grabbing 10% of vote intention.

The Others

Other candidates have struggled to grab more than 5 % of votes according to recent surveys, with Geraldo Alckmin being the top of those.

The physician is a member of the biggest opposition party in Brasil, PSDB, a Social-Democratic party (funnily enough considered right-wing for Brazilian standards), and not far behind him is Marina Silva (Rede), Former Senator and Minister of the Environment under Lula’s term as president.

Lower in the ranks are Henrique Meirelles (Former Central Bank chairman under Lula’s government), Guilherme Boulos (Socialist and Liberty Party), whose main proposition is to support Venezuela’s government and free Lula from prison, and Alvaro Dias (Social Christian Party), a former Senator.

All of them can be connected to Lula one way or another.

I wouldn’t be a proper Libertarian if I didn’t mention the first time runner João Almoêdo, from Novo (New in Portuguese). His run has been noticeable, as it was his party’s first time ever on the ballot. He managed to grab quite the attention considering that, hitting close to 6% of intentions, and making a name despite not having any TV time to showcase his propositions as a president candidate. Using the internet as his main platform, he supports free market and a voucher system slowly replacing the current universal health and education systems; giving the population more freedom to decide where to spend the money they pay in taxes, and to drastically reduce government costs with staff and bureaucracy, allowing the private sector to compete for that instead.

Even though he will most likely not be featured in the second phase of the election, where the top 2 most voted candidates will face each other, Almoêdo has shown a country that long ago forgot about freedom, if it ever knew about it at all, how responsibility can be more gratifying and rewarding than having a Big Brother to take care of you.

His party is the only one which refused to receive State Party Funding. Not only that, but plenty of candidates from his party are using his notoriety to try to grab seats in every level of the election, from Congress all the way to Governors, and hopefully they will do a good job once they get those spots for themselves.

That is not to say that he is a libertarian all the way. He refuses to talk about marijuana legalization, abortion and other sensitive topics, and has made a few conservative remarks, despite those believes not appearing in his policies so far.

Brazilians elections are ones to be looked upon closely by the rest of the world, because they are another case of how right-wing candidates have gained momentum in response to years of left-wing governments.

This doesn’t mean this is good, from the Libertarian point of view, since conservatives tend to interfere in the private life of citizens and love protectionism; something which might be construed as “true Capitalism” and, once it fails, leave a spot on free market when really there was none to begin with.

That has happened before; especially in South America, and it would be a shame for it to be repeated so soon in history.

Bolsonaro appeared close to losing in every projection during the 2nd phase of the election, but I personally would not count him out yet.

During Trump’s election, people were chastised for voting Republican, and in Brazil it is no different. Voting for Bolsonaro automatically puts you in the group of “deplorables,” and being called fascist, homophobic, and all types of “isms” is the basic MO in that situation which makes people resentful and silent. That turns into something else once you are alone to vote though, and people tend to express themselves more freely then.

All that resentment and disillusion might bite the left in the ass big time in this election, and as much as I love watching them lose, I cannot say that it looks any brighter for democracy in Brazil.

* Igor V. Teixeira is a member of the Being Libertarian social media team.

The post An Overview of the 2018 Brazilian Elections appeared first on Being Libertarian.

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patriotsnet · 3 years

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What Caused Republicans To Gain Power In Congress In 1938

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What Caused Republicans To Gain Power In Congress In 1938

Who Benefited From The Social Security Act

The Social Security Act was signed into law by President Roosevelt on August 14, 1935. In addition to several provisions for general welfare, the new Act created a social insurance program designed to pay retired workers age 65 or older a continuing income after retirement.

READ: Why was gunpowder important?

Fdr And Organized Labor

Around the time when Franklin Delano Roosevelt took over the presidential office in 1933, union membership recorded a decrease from over 3 million in 1932 to around 2.7 million a year later. That number constituted around 7 percent of all employed workers at the time when the most likely underestimated unemployment rate reached a quarter of the labor force. Extremely limited job opportunities and a huge number of individuals ready to secure any kind of employment created an environment where workers could be easily abused. Despite some attempts of the Hoover administration to empower organized labor , union membership resulted in limited protection of the workers who were willing and able to pay membership fees. However, the declining trend reversed in 1934, and unions would consistently grow during Roosevelt’s presidency, a phenomenon that reflected first, the protective and regulative labor provisions of the New Deal and later, the massive industrial growth during World War II. By the time Roosevelt died, shortly after he was elected to his fourth term, union membership in the United States reached its high peak. In 1945, over 14 million workers belonged to unions, which constituted over 35 percent of non-agricultural workers and over 27 percent of all employed workers.

Consequences Of The Court

Facing strong political opposition and decreasing popular support, the Judicial Procedures Reform Bill was doomed to fail. While Burton Wheeler, a progressive Democrat from Montana, played the role of the public voice of the alliance that formed in opposition to “the court-packing plan,” conservative Democratic senators Carter Glass, Harry Flood Byrd, and Josiah Bailey, were critical to collecting enough opposing votes in Congress. Roosevelt realized that the bill had no chance of being passed and a compromise that did not alter the existing balance in the court was negotiated. The controversy, which historians consider to be one of the most questionable moments in Roosevelt’s career, strengthened conservative opposition to the New Deal. By 1937, an informal yet strong group of congressmen and representatives opposing the New Deal formed in Congress. Known as the Conservative Coalition , it initiated a conservative alliance that, with modifications, shaped Congress until the 1960s.

Also in 1937, Willis Van Devanter, a justice nominated by Republican Theodore Roosevelt, retired and thus, FDR could nominate his first Supreme Court justice. By the end of his presidency, Roosevelt nominated eight Supreme Court justices—more than any other president.

The New Deal Comes To A Screeching Halt In 1938

Andrew E. Busch

May 1, 2006

This article is the fourth in a series on midterm elections in America.

When Republicans and Democrats faced off for the 1938 midterm elections, it had been a decade since Republicans had done well in congressional elections. They had lost seats in both houses of Congress in 1930, 1932, 1934, and 1936, bringing their totals to a mere 88 in the House and 16 in the Senate. In the wake of Franklin Roosevelt’s landslide reelection victory in 1936, it was an open question whether the Republican Party was capable of serving as a viable opposition party.

As FDR began his second term, his program was hardly complete. He aimed for a “Third New Deal” of further government economic controls and redistributionism, and seemed to have the votes in Congress to push it through.

Then, a series of events damaged Roosevelt’s standing and rejuvenated the GOP’s chances.

First, overestimating his popularity and persuasive powers, Roosevelt embarked on his “court packing” scheme, bringing a backlash even among many Democrats in Congress. The attempt seemed to verify Republican charges that the President was engaged in a campaign for one-man rule.

During 1937-38, America was also rocked with a series of sit-down strikes and instances of union violence, mostly instigated by the Congress of Industrial Organizations . Many Americans associated the surge in aggressive unionism with Roosevelt’s encouragement of unions in the 1935 National Labor Relations Act.

Franklin D Roosevelt: Domestic Affairs

FDR’s mandate as a first-term President was clear and challenging: rescue the United States from the throes of its worst depression in history. Economic conditions had deteriorated in the four months between FDR’s election and his inauguration. Unemployment grew to over twenty-five percent of the nation’s workforce, with more than twelve million Americans out of work. A new wave of bank failures hit in February 1933. Upon accepting the Democratic nomination, FDR had promised a “New Deal” to help America out of the Depression, though the meaning of that program was far from clear.

In trying to make sense of FDR’s domestic policies, historians and political scientists have referred to a “First New Deal,” which lasted from 1933 to 1935, and a “Second New Deal,” which stretched from 1935 to 1938. These terms, it should be remembered, are the creations of scholars trying to impose order and organization on the Roosevelt administration’s often chaotic, confusing, and contradictory attempts to combat the depression; Roosevelt himself never used them. The idea of a “first “and “second” New Deal is useful insofar as it reflects important shifts in the Roosevelt administration’s approach to the nation’s economic and social woes. But the boundaries between the first and second New Deals should be viewed as porous rather than concrete. In other words, significant continuities existed between the first and second New Deals that should not be overlooked.

Banking and Finance

The War Years

End Of The Democratic Coalition

Frustrated and exhausted by the turn of events, Johnson stunned the nation by deciding not to run for reelection in 1968. The assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy in early 1968 also greatly set back Democratic hopes of renewing efforts to press social issues. In fact, the tumultuous events of 1967 and 1968 would spell the end of the long domination of U.S. politics by the Democratic Party that had begun in 1932. For 28 out of 36 years, the Democrats held the White House, and even during the eight years they did not, they still controlled Congress for much of that time.

With the Democratic Party in turmoil and split over the Vietnam War, the Republicans, behind Richard Nixon, swept into office in 1968. The Democrats had chosen Hubert Humphrey from Minnesota, a New Dealer and vice-president under Johnson, as its presidential candidate. The Democratic Coalition, however, could not be revived. Labor had been ignored by the Great Society programs, black Americans were disheartened by the slow pace of integration, youth and liberals were staunchly opposed to the Vietnam War—which many called “Johnson’s War”—and the southerners were dissatisfied with the Democratic liberal social agenda.

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What Caused Republicans To Gain Power In Congress In 1938

They didn’t take power.

Explanation:

While the Republicans did make huge gains in the 1938 Congressional elections, it wasn’t enough to hand them power in either the House of Representatives or the Senate.

Republicans used the Recession of 1937 to say that Roosevelt’s policies weren’t working and weren’t ending the Great Depression. Also there was some infighting in the Democratic Party between the main-base and the conservative faction within the Democrats. Unions were also fighting over leadership, which weakened the Democratic stronghold with them.

In the House of Reps. the Republicans netted 81 seats, most of them in the northern states. The Republicans gained seats in states like Indiana , Michigan , and South Dakota

They also got hit hard in the Senate. Republicans gained 7 seats using the same message they did in the House races above. Republicans won races in Kansas, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Ohio, New Jersey, Connecticut, and New Hampshire.Light Red- Republican Gain

The End Of The New Deal

Roosevelt intended to introduce more legislation during his second term , but two main factors made this a much more challenging task than during his first term: the lack of political support and the threat of war. In 1938, Republicans gained seven Senate seats and 81 House seats. In the aftermath of the failure of the 1937 court-packing plan and the 1938 election, the bipartisan Conservative Coalition solidified and strengthened in Congress and many liberal proposals were defeated. A handful of liberal measures did pass when the Conservative Coalition was divided .

The Depression continued with decreasing effect until the United States entered World War II in December 1941. Under the special circumstances of war mobilization, massive war spending doubled the GNP. Civilian unemployment was reduced from 14 percent in 1940 to less than 2 percent by the end of 1943.

Historians and economists disagree whether and, if yes, to what extent the New Deal helped the U.S. economy recover from the Great Depression. However, they all agree that the primary factor of the eventual economic growth that followed the New Deal was driven by the demands of the war effort.

Birth Of A Strong Party

The Democratic-Republican Party successfully promoted the candidacy of Andrew Jackson for president in 1828. Jackson was the first actual populist, or “man of the people,” to represent the party and was called the first westerner since he was from Tennessee which was considered the western frontier at that time. Serving as the party’s leader, Jackson was the national symbol against greed and unfairness. During Jackson’s presidency in the 1830s the party switched its name from Democratic-Republicans to simply Democrats. The Democrats controlled the White House, Congress, and state offices from the mid-1830s to the Civil War. Democrats Van Buren, James K. Polk , Franklin Pierce , and James Buchanan followed Jackson to the White House. Democrats only lost the presidential elections of 1840 and 1848 during that lengthy period.

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Midterm Elections Of 1938

The road was not always smooth in these first years of the Coalition. The midterm election of 1938 showed how the loose-knit coalition of interest groups, though destined to be long lasting, could also be vulnerable. A series of events in 1937 greatly undercut Roosevelt’s popularity. In an effort to gain support for his New Deal reforms, Roosevelt pursued a highly unpopular proposal to add seats to the U.S. Supreme Court in early 1937. That was followed by a major economic downturn, leading to increased unemployment and decreasing farm produce prices. In addition, fighting between two labor unions, the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations , following the CIO’s split from the AFL the previous year, further heightened labor unrest. The New Deal appeared to be in disarray. To make matters even worse, Roosevelt decided to personally campaign against certain conservative Democratic congressmen running for reelection. The president had become weary of conservative Democrats joining with northern Republicans to block NewDeal legislation. Known as the “purge of 1938,” Roosevelt’s political involvement in local elections was very unpopular with the public.

The Democratic Party Organization

Although by the mid-1930s the Democratic Party was a long-standing major political party, it had little structure. It was actually more of a hodgepodge of informally linked small organizations. The national party leadership had become disorganized and weakened from the election failures of the 1920s. By 1936 the main support for Democratic candidates, including Roosevelt, came from masses of unorganized voters—the poor in the cities and countryside, farmers, youth, black Americans, ethnic minorities, labor, and the college educated. As a result, support for the Democratic Party greatly expanded but the party itself changing very little. It was the Roosevelt administration and the various motives of the Democratic Coalition, not the Democratic Party, which led to political changes in the 1930s.

A Mass Political Movement

Prior to the 1930s political involvement had been out of reach to many in the nation. Through their laissez faire policies, Republican administrations during the 1920s had encouraged the growth of large corporations that increasingly controlled the economy and society. These corporations were in turn controlled by a small group of business elites. The social base for the Republican Party was strongly linked to the Anglo-American segment of society and Protestant religious association. Adding to this white, Protestant domination, state laws and cultural traditions in the South hindered most black Americans from voting. Companies used various means, including violence, to limit labor union development and keep power away from lower-class workers, many of whom were recent immigrants. Lower and middle class urban workers and ethnic groups could find no place in the dominant political parties. The economic crisis of the early 1930s and the arrival of the New Deal brought this form of social and political domination to an end.

Judicial Procedures Reform Bill Of 1937

In February 1937, Roosevelt introduced the Judicial Procedures Reform Bill, frequently called the “court-packing plan.” This legislative initiative proposed to add up to six more justices to the U.S. Supreme Court—for each judge over the age of 70 and six months who served more than 10 years, the president would appoint a new judge . The controversial plan did not violate the Constitution as it did not specify the number of Supreme Court justices. However, political opposition to the bill emerged immediately—and not only among anti-New Deal conservatives. Even Roosevelt’s own vice president was critical of the idea. Hardly any politician believed that the president was driven by motives other than being able to appoint pro-New Deal judges who would make the execution of his agenda possible.

Upsurge In World War Ii

Both the AFL and the CIO supported Roosevelt in 1940 and 1944. However, Lewis, a devoted neutralist, opposed Roosevelt on foreign policy grounds and questioned Roosevelt’s decision to run for a third term in 1940. In the end, all unions strongly supported the war effort after June 1941, when Germany invaded the Soviet Union.

While in the two decades following World War II union membership remained high, never again would it grow and be as popular as during Roosevelt’s presidency.

John L. Lewis: John L. Lewis, president of the United Mine Workers of America and founder of the CIO, photographed at the Capitol in 1922.

Craft Unionism V Industrial Unionism

The American Federation of Labor , the largest union grouping in the contemporary United States, was growing rapidly after 1933, reaching a membership of 3.4 million in 1936. However, hundreds of thousands of workers chose membership in unions that did not belong to the AFL that was at the time facing severe internal tensions and outside criticism. Traditionally, the AFL organized unions by craft rather than industry; for example, electricians or stationary engineers would form their own skill-oriented unions rather than join a large automobile-making union. This model excluded the so-called unskilled workers, employed most commonly in mass production. Most AFL leaders, including President William Green, were reluctant to shift from the organization’s longstanding tradition of craft unionism and started to clash with other leaders within the organization, such as John L. Lewis, the president of the United Mine Workers of America . The issue came up at the annual AFL conventions in 1934 and 1935, but the majority voted against a shift to industrial unionism .

American Federation of Labor: Label of the American Federation of Labor.

More About Elections Of 1940 And 1944

As the 1940 Democratic nominating convention approached, President Franklin Roosevelt did not express a strong desire to run for a third term. Secretary of StateCordell Hull appeared to be the front runner for the nomination. But Roosevelt and other party leaders did not feel Hull was sufficiently supportive of New Deal policies. With world war looming, Roosevelt decided to run for an unprecedented third consecutive term and received the party’s nomination. The public was greatly alarmed by Germany’s defeat of France, and a sense of emergency was rising concerning foreign issues. The Republicans nominated Wendell Willkie, a Wall Street lawyer who represented the unpopular utility industry. Willkie actually supported some New Deal accomplishments and took an internationalist position not too different from Roosevelt’s. Given the lack of a dramatic difference between Willkie and Roosevelt on a number of issues, the nation chose to stay with whom they knew best. In addition Roosevelt had boosted defense spending, creating thousands of jobs and turning the economy around once again. Roosevelt defeated Republican Wendell Willkie handily with a 449 to 82 electoral vote tally. Roosevelt drew almost 55 percent of the popular vote and carried every region of the country except the Midwest. The Democratic Coalition held together with southern Democrats and labor joined by ethnic populations. The 1940 election had further solidified the Democratic Coalition.

Th United States Congress

January 3, 1935 – January 3, 1937 Members 1st: January 3, 1935 – August 26, 19352nd: January 3, 1936 – June 20, 1936

The 74th United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, composed of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, DC from January 3, 1935, to January 3, 1937, during the third and fourth years of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency. The apportionment of seats in the House of Representatives was based on the Fifteenth Census of the United States in 1930.

The increased their majorities in both the House and Senate, resulting in a in both chambers, and along with Franklin D. Roosevelt maintained an overall federal government .

Transition To The Fair Deal

With Roosevelt naming Republicans Henry Stimson secretary of war and Frank Knox secretary of the navy, the Republican Party continued to be stymied in making political gains through the war years. A number of New Deal programs persisted beyond World War II . Much of the general public remained largely satisfied into the 1960s with the benefits they were receiving from social security and other programs. Many southern whites remained loyal Democrats. The lower-and working-class Americans in all regions still supported government welfare programs and maintained a strong support for Democratic Party candidates following World War II.

In addition, a wave of labor strikes in the auto and steel industries increased public sentiment against unions. In response, a conservative Congress passed a series of antilabor bills, including the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947. That act, passed over Truman’s veto, prohibited some forms of union activity and expanded the rights of management.

Truman’s campaign faced another obstacle as well. Henry Wallace, Roosevelt’s former secretary of agriculture in the New Deal and vice-president during the early part of World War II, formed the ultraliberal Progressive Party to run for president. The Progressive Party posed a political threat to Truman by attracting votes of Democratic Coalition members away from the Democratic Party ticket. The Democrats were badly fragmented among Progressives, southerners, and the mainstream party.

More About Black Americans Switch

Even with Roosevelt handily winning the 1932 presidential election, 66 percent of the black vote still went to Hoover. This represented a long-term voting pattern of black Americans since the days of President Abraham Lincoln and the 1870s Reconstruction period. Reconstruction was a federal government program under Republican Party influence formed to create social and economic change in the South. But the increasing interest of President Roosevelt’s wife, Eleanor, and the president’s growing awareness of the importance of the black vote in national politics inspired a major change in blacks’ political allegiance. During this time blacks were becoming more politically organized, and public attitudes toward race were changing outside the South. The 1934 midterm elections had indicated that blacks were beginning to turn away from the Republican Party after 75 years of strong support.

Although Roosevelt did not support civil rights issues because he did not want to lose the southern Democrats’ support, some New Deal programs provided assistance to blacks. Secretary of Interior Harold Ickes directed the hiring of black workers on Public Works Administration projects in proportion to their presence in the local workforce. The PWA also provided some public housing for black tenants, even constructing some racially integrated housing projects. In addition, 31 percent of PWA wages went to black workers in 1936.

Lack Of International Pressure

As the Democratic Coalition first began emerging, the international picture was grim. By the mid-1930s the Great Depression had spread globally. Political turmoil in Europe was increasing as aggressive fascist movements gained strength. In Russia a violent communist government had become wellestablished. Because of the disorder abroad few international pressures were being placed on the United States by other nations that were too preoccupied with their own problems. The time was ripe in the United States for political experimentation. President Roosevelt and the New Dealers knew they had a unique opportunity to try something new while not being distracted by international events.

More About Origins Of The Republican Party

The Republican Party was born in 1853 and 1854, through two organizational meetings held in New Hampshire and Wisconsin, and its first convention in Jackson, Michigan. People forming the party shared a common antislavery viewpoint that other political parties would not embrace. They were especially opposed to the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. The act opened the door to slavery in the two newly established U.S. territories. Success at the polls came quickly for the Republicans as their first presidential nominee, John C. Fremont, carried 11 states in the 1856 presidential elections. The Republicans were almost instantly the key challenger to the Democratic Party in the North. Their next candidate, Abraham Lincoln, won 18 northern states in the 1860 presidential elections, enough to win the election against a Democratic Party that was in turmoil.

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The New Dealers Arrive

Roosevelt and the New Dealers came from the urban progressive wing of the party. Progressivism called for using the powers of government to solve social and economic problems. Progressives believedthe government should take a more aggressive role in relieving people’s hardships and overseeing business activities. Roosevelt’s first one hundred days of office, beginning on March 4, 1933, were filled with an incredible amount of social and economic legislation. The legislation that became collectively known as the New Deal included bank reform, regulation of the stock market, farm bills, public works programs, and low-interest loans for homeowners. These new pathways quickly labeled Roosevelt’s administration as the most daring in U.S. history. In their flurry of activity New Dealers sought to make everyone satisfied, and for the first six months they were fairly successful. Even most businessmen, who had historically supported Republican candidates, refrained from criticizing the Democratic president.

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statetalks · 3 years

Text

What Caused Republicans To Gain Power In Congress In 1938

Who Benefited From The Social Security Act

youtube

READ: Why was gunpowder important?

Fdr And Organized Labor

Consequences Of The Court

The New Deal Comes To A Screeching Halt In 1938

Andrew E. Busch

May 1, 2006

This article is the fourth in a series on midterm elections in America.

Then, a series of events damaged Roosevelt’s standing and rejuvenated the GOP’s chances.

Franklin D Roosevelt: Domestic Affairs

Banking and Finance

The War Years

End Of The Democratic Coalition

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the simple interest on a loan of $200 at 10 percent interest per year is

which of the following best describes the concept of federalism?

what characteristic marked american mainstream society in the 1950s

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See The Difference Between Good Ideas And Bad Ones

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What Caused Republicans To Gain Power In Congress In 1938

youtube

They didn’t take power.

Explanation:

While the Republicans did make huge gains in the 1938 Congressional elections, it wasn’t enough to hand them power in either the House of Representatives or the Senate.

In the House of Reps. the Republicans netted 81 seats, most of them in the northern states. The Republicans gained seats in states like Indiana , Michigan , and South Dakota

The End Of The New Deal

Birth Of A Strong Party

The Class A Power Amplifier: For The 04 Vppinput: 1 What Is The Input Power The Output Power The Power Gain

Midterm Elections Of 1938

The Democratic Party Organization

A Mass Political Movement

Judicial Procedures Reform Bill Of 1937

Upsurge In World War Ii

youtube

While in the two decades following World War II union membership remained high, never again would it grow and be as popular as during Roosevelt’s presidency.

John L. Lewis: John L. Lewis, president of the United Mine Workers of America and founder of the CIO, photographed at the Capitol in 1922.

Craft Unionism V Industrial Unionism

American Federation of Labor: Label of the American Federation of Labor.

More About Elections Of 1940 And 1944

Th United States Congress

January 3, 1935 – January 3, 1937 Members 1st: January 3, 1935 – August 26, 19352nd: January 3, 1936 – June 20, 1936

The increased their majorities in both the House and Senate, resulting in a in both chambers, and along with Franklin D. Roosevelt maintained an overall federal government .

Transition To The Fair Deal

More About Black Americans Switch

Lack Of International Pressure

More About Origins Of The Republican Party

Boost Your Grades With Tutorsonspotcom

youtube

The New Dealers Arrive

source https://www.patriotsnet.com/what-caused-republicans-to-gain-power-in-congress-in-1938/

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orbemnews · 3 years

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'An existential threat': The Republicans calling for their party to reject QAnon conspiracy theories “When we say QAnon, you have the sort of extreme forms, but you also just have this softer, gradual undermining of any shared, collective sense of truth,” Meijer said. The Michigan freshman believes conspiracy theories fuel “incredibly unrealistic and unachievable expectations” and “a cycle of disillusionment and alienation” that could lead conservative voters to sit out elections or, in a worst-case scenario, turn to political violence, like what happened on January 6. How deeply far-right conspiracy theories take hold within the Republican Party, and what the party does to either embrace or reject them, will have major consequences for the future of the GOP and American politics. Meijer is far from the only Republican in Congress disturbed by the rise of QAnon, but he is one of a rare few willing to publicly and repeatedly denounce it. Republicans who speak out risk a backlash, and many would rather dismiss, downplay or ignore the issue. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, famously signaled outright support for the conspiracy theory before she was elected to office, though she has recently attempted to distance herself from it. CNN reached out to the offices of more than a dozen GOP members of Congress to request interviews for this story, and only two agreed to participate. The lonely voices within the GOP who continue to take a stand must now grapple with what it would take for the party to turn away from conspiracy theories. Most recognize they face a difficult fight, but some hope they may be able to grow their ranks in Congress in the future, and one upcoming congressional election in Texas will serve as an early test of whether an anti-conspiracy theory message can resonate in a red district. ‘A long-term battle for the soul of the party’ Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who also voted to impeach Trump, may be the loudest voice within the Republican Party taking on QAnon. He recently launched a political action committee as part of an effort he’s calling “Country First” that seeks to counter the GOP’s embrace of conspiracy theories and the former President. The congressman has endorsed the nine other House Republicans who voted to impeach over the Capitol attack as they now face down the potential threat of primary challenges. He has also endorsed a Texas GOP congressional candidate, Michael Wood, who is running in a crowded field in the state’s sixth district on a platform calling for Republicans to turn away from Trump and reject conspiracy theories. Wood is running in a special election taking place on May 1 to fill the House seat previously held by the late Republican Rep. Ron Wright, who died in February after contracting Covid. “We are not the party of conspiracy theories and QAnon. We can be again the party of ideas,” Wood says in a video on his campaign website. Wood blames Trump for the spread of conspiracy theories within the party, and believes Republicans must repudiate Trump to defeat QAnon. Trump has long embraced conspiracy theories, including birtherism. He forcefully pushed the lie that the election was stolen from him and while he was in office, he praised QAnon followers for supporting him and refused to denounce the conspiracy theory. “I think he bears direct responsibility for the rise of conspiratorial thinking in the Republican Party and the conservative movement as a whole,” Wood said in an interview. “The big lie that he promulgated after Election Day did a whole lot of harm to our civic institutions.” Kinzinger hopes that whatever the outcome in the special election, his endorsement will show like-minded Republicans they’re not alone and encourage others to run for office on a similar platform. “I think what’s important is that people see there are people out there that support you, that will back you if you do the right thing,” he said. “It’s a long-term battle for the soul of the party.” The Illinois congressman describes the danger he believes QAnon poses in stark terms, saying he’s concerned its corrosive impact threatens to pull apart the very fabric of American democracy. “Do I think there’s going to be a civil war? No. Do I rule it out? No. Do I think it’s a concern, do I think it’s something we have to be worried about? Yeah,” he said. ‘We’re facts-based pariahs’ Former GOP Rep. Denver Riggleman of Virginia is outspoken in his opposition to QAnon, and he believes that is part of the reason he was voted out of office. While serving in Congress, Riggleman co-sponsored a bipartisan resolution condemning QAnon that passed in the House overwhelmingly, though seventeen Republicans voted in opposition and 34 didn’t vote at all. But he thinks most Republican lawmakers “want to have it both ways” when it comes to the issue of conspiracy theories. The former congressman said Republicans frequently try to make it look like they’re standing up for principle, while at the same time “winking and nodding” at conspiracy theories in an effort to get more votes. It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly how widespread belief in QAnon is in the Republican Party. According to the Pew Research Center, roughly a quarter of Republicans who know about QAnon view its supporters favorably, though nearly half of Republicans say they know nothing at all about the conspiracy theory. Riggleman believes a major problem right now is that there’s a strong “contingent of GOP voters who have completely lost themselves in the rabbit hole of conspiracies, disinformation and grievance politics,” and most Republican lawmakers “want to get re-elected so they would rather have people like me shut the hell up, even though they know I’m right.” “It’s almost like we’re facts-based pariahs that are trying to sort of rein in this insanity that’s gone on,” he said. “It does feel lonely sometimes in terms of being the outspoken voice,” Kinzinger said. “The reality is I think if you’re a sitting member of Congress it’s easy to say, I’m going to ignore this.” Wood, the Texas congressional candidate, is frustrated that, in his view, most GOP congressional leaders have not done enough to denounce QAnon conspiracy theories. “I’ve been incredibly disappointed by Republican leadership both in the House of Representatives and in the Senate,” he said, though he praised Rep. Liz Cheney, the No. 3 House Republican, who voted to impeach Trump over the attack on the Capitol and has said the GOP “cannot become the party of QAnon.” CNN reached out to House and Senate GOP leadership offices for comment. McConnell’s office pointed to the Senate Minority Leader’s past criticism of Greene where he said earlier this year that “looney lies and conspiracy theories are cancer for the Republican party and our country.” Wood specifically takes issue with House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy’s decision to meet with Trump to discuss efforts to take back the House majority after the riots, and believes the move demonstrated both a lack of courage and a losing strategy. “Kevin McCarthy has been a giant disappointment. He was elected leader for a reason and he hasn’t acted like a leader at all over the past few months,” he said. ‘An apocalyptic, messianic conspiracy theory’ As the GOP charts a path forward after Trump lost the White House, Kinzinger said he does not want to see Republicans push voting laws based on false claims of widespread election fraud. “The narrative is almost we have to tighten our election system so that the next election isn’t stolen again, and that is garbage,” he said. Republicans in Georgia recently sped a sweeping elections bill into law, making it the first presidential battleground to impose new voting restrictions following Biden’s victory in the state. Republicans cast the measure, which has sparked intense national controversy, as necessary to boost confidence in elections after the 2020 election saw Trump make repeated and unsubstantiated claims of fraud. The Illinois congressman said that he hasn’t followed the details of the Georgia law closely and thinks that some of the Democratic pushback has been “overblown,” but he also believes there is valid criticism that it was enacted in reaction to false claims of widespread voter fraud. Kinzinger hopes that the January 6 Capitol attack will ultimately prove to be a “turning point” for the Republican Party, but thinks it may take quite some time to undo the damage that was done. “I think it will be a turning point in the long run. I think in the short-term there were a number of people who have kind of woken up to it, but there’s a number who haven’t,” he said. Riggleman thinks QAnon has taken hold because it gives people something to believe in. “It’s an apocalyptic, messianic conspiracy theory that allows people to almost play act in this good versus evil battle against the global forces of evil,” he said, adding that people become “wrapped up in that” and it becomes “difficult to disentangle them from those theories.” Meijer is concerned that embracing conspiracy theories like QAnon could make it harder for the GOP to recalibrate and rebuild after losing the White House and being in the minority in both chambers. “I think it’s all part of this broader trend of blame casting,” the congressman said. “In the case of QAnon, it’s well, why am I in the position I’m in? Well, it’s because others are holding me down. Why did we lose this election? Well, it wasn’t because our candidate wasn’t the best or had made mistakes, it was because it was stolen. It’s these ways of distancing oneself from responsibility and accountability.” As one of the Republicans warning about the dangers of QAnon and conspiracy theory thinking, Meijer understands what he’s up against, but he says he’s determined to keep speaking out. “It’s important to not let the record go uncorrected and to continue to speak the truth,” Meijer said. “It’s something I definitely do at my peril, both politically and otherwise, but I didn’t run for office to seek the easy path and I’m certainly not going to cower away from what I think is an important responsibility.” CNN’s Kelly Mena contributed to this report. Source link Orbem News #'Anexistentialthreat':TheRepublicanscallingfortheirpartytorejectQAnonconspiracytheories-CNNPolitics #calling #conspiracy #Existential #party #Politics #QAnon #reject #Republicans #theories #threat

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dipulb3 · 3 years

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'An existential threat': The Republicans calling for their party to reject QAnon conspiracy theories

New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/an-existential-threat-the-republicans-calling-for-their-party-to-reject-qanon-conspiracy-theories/

'An existential threat': The Republicans calling for their party to reject QAnon conspiracy theories

“When we say QAnon, you have the sort of extreme forms, but you also just have this softer, gradual undermining of any shared, collective sense of truth,” Meijer said. The Michigan freshman believes conspiracy theories fuel “incredibly unrealistic and unachievable expectations” and “a cycle of disillusionment and alienation” that could lead conservative voters to sit out elections or, in a worst-case scenario, turn to political violence, like what happened on January 6.

How deeply far-right conspiracy theories take hold within the Republican Party, and what the party does to either embrace or reject them, will have major consequences for the future of the GOP and American politics.

Meijer is far from the only Republican in Congress disturbed by the rise of QAnon, but he is one of a rare few willing to publicly and repeatedly denounce it.

Republicans who speak out risk a backlash, and many would rather dismiss, downplay or ignore the issue. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, famously signaled outright support for the conspiracy theory before she was elected to office, though she has recently attempted to distance herself from it.

Appradab reached out to the offices of more than a dozen GOP members of Congress to request interviews for this story, and only two agreed to participate.

The lonely voices within the GOP who continue to take a stand must now grapple with what it would take for the party to turn away from conspiracy theories.

Most recognize they face a difficult fight, but some hope they may be able to grow their ranks in Congress in the future, and one upcoming congressional election in Texas will serve as an early test of whether an anti-conspiracy theory message can resonate in a red district.

‘A long-term battle for the soul of the party’

Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who also voted to impeach Trump, may be the loudest voice within the Republican Party taking on QAnon.

He recently launched a political action committee as part of an effort he’s calling “Country First” that seeks to counter the GOP’s embrace of conspiracy theories and the former President. The congressman has endorsed the nine other House Republicans who voted to impeach over the Capitol attack as they now face down the potential threat of primary challenges.

He has also endorsed a Texas GOP congressional candidate, Michael Wood, who is running in a crowded field in the state’s sixth district on a platform calling for Republicans to turn away from Trump and reject conspiracy theories. Wood is running in a special election taking place on May 1 to fill the House seat previously held by the late Republican Rep. Ron Wright, who died in February after contracting Covid.

“We are not the party of conspiracy theories and QAnon. We can be again the party of ideas,” Wood says in a video on his campaign website.

Wood blames Trump for the spread of conspiracy theories within the party, and believes Republicans must repudiate Trump to defeat QAnon. Trump has long embraced conspiracy theories, including birtherism. He forcefully pushed the lie that the election was stolen from him and while he was in office, he praised QAnon followers for supporting him and refused to denounce the conspiracy theory.

“I think he bears direct responsibility for the rise of conspiratorial thinking in the Republican Party and the conservative movement as a whole,” Wood said in an interview. “The big lie that he promulgated after Election Day did a whole lot of harm to our civic institutions.”

Kinzinger hopes that whatever the outcome in the special election, his endorsement will show like-minded Republicans they’re not alone and encourage others to run for office on a similar platform.

“I think what’s important is that people see there are people out there that support you, that will back you if you do the right thing,” he said. “It’s a long-term battle for the soul of the party.”

The Illinois congressman describes the danger he believes QAnon poses in stark terms, saying he’s concerned its corrosive impact threatens to pull apart the very fabric of American democracy.

“Do I think there’s going to be a civil war? No. Do I rule it out? No. Do I think it’s a concern, do I think it’s something we have to be worried about? Yeah,” he said.

‘We’re facts-based pariahs’

Former GOP Rep. Denver Riggleman of Virginia is outspoken in his opposition to QAnon, and he believes that is part of the reason he was voted out of office.

While serving in Congress, Riggleman co-sponsored a bipartisan resolution condemning QAnon that passed in the House overwhelmingly, though seventeen Republicans voted in opposition and 34 didn’t vote at all. But he thinks most Republican lawmakers “want to have it both ways” when it comes to the issue of conspiracy theories.

The former congressman said Republicans frequently try to make it look like they’re standing up for principle, while at the same time “winking and nodding” at conspiracy theories in an effort to get more votes.

It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly how widespread belief in QAnon is in the Republican Party. According to the Pew Research Center, roughly a quarter of Republicans who know about QAnon view its supporters favorably, though nearly half of Republicans say they know nothing at all about the conspiracy theory.

Riggleman believes a major problem right now is that there’s a strong “contingent of GOP voters who have completely lost themselves in the rabbit hole of conspiracies, disinformation and grievance politics,” and most Republican lawmakers “want to get re-elected so they would rather have people like me shut the hell up, even though they know I’m right.”

“It’s almost like we’re facts-based pariahs that are trying to sort of rein in this insanity that’s gone on,” he said.

“It does feel lonely sometimes in terms of being the outspoken voice,” Kinzinger said. “The reality is I think if you’re a sitting member of Congress it’s easy to say, I’m going to ignore this.”

Wood, the Texas congressional candidate, is frustrated that, in his view, most GOP congressional leaders have not done enough to denounce QAnon conspiracy theories.

“I’ve been incredibly disappointed by Republican leadership both in the House of Representatives and in the Senate,” he said, though he praised Rep. Liz Cheney, the No. 3 House Republican, who voted to impeach Trump over the attack on the Capitol and has said the GOP “cannot become the party of QAnon.”

Appradab reached out to House and Senate GOP leadership offices for comment. McConnell’s office pointed to the Senate Minority Leader’s past criticism of Greene where he said earlier this year that “looney lies and conspiracy theories are cancer for the Republican party and our country.”

Wood specifically takes issue with House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy’s decision to meet with Trump to discuss efforts to take back the House majority after the riots, and believes the move demonstrated both a lack of courage and a losing strategy.

“Kevin McCarthy has been a giant disappointment. He was elected leader for a reason and he hasn’t acted like a leader at all over the past few months,” he said.

‘An apocalyptic, messianic conspiracy theory’

As the GOP charts a path forward after Trump lost the White House, Kinzinger said he does not want to see Republicans push voting laws based on false claims of widespread election fraud.

“The narrative is almost we have to tighten our election system so that the next election isn’t stolen again, and that is garbage,” he said.

Republicans in Georgia recently sped a sweeping elections bill into law, making it the first presidential battleground to impose new voting restrictions following Biden’s victory in the state. Republicans cast the measure, which has sparked intense national controversy, as necessary to boost confidence in elections after the 2020 election saw Trump make repeated and unsubstantiated claims of fraud.

The Illinois congressman said that he hasn’t followed the details of the Georgia law closely and thinks that some of the Democratic pushback has been “overblown,” but he also believes there is valid criticism that it was enacted in reaction to false claims of widespread voter fraud.

Kinzinger hopes that the January 6 Capitol attack will ultimately prove to be a “turning point” for the Republican Party, but thinks it may take quite some time to undo the damage that was done.

“I think it will be a turning point in the long run. I think in the short-term there were a number of people who have kind of woken up to it, but there’s a number who haven’t,” he said.

Riggleman thinks QAnon has taken hold because it gives people something to believe in. “It’s an apocalyptic, messianic conspiracy theory that allows people to almost play act in this good versus evil battle against the global forces of evil,” he said, adding that people become “wrapped up in that” and it becomes “difficult to disentangle them from those theories.”

Meijer is concerned that embracing conspiracy theories like QAnon could make it harder for the GOP to recalibrate and rebuild after losing the White House and being in the minority in both chambers.

“I think it’s all part of this broader trend of blame casting,” the congressman said. “In the case of QAnon, it’s well, why am I in the position I’m in? Well, it’s because others are holding me down. Why did we lose this election? Well, it wasn’t because our candidate wasn’t the best or had made mistakes, it was because it was stolen. It’s these ways of distancing oneself from responsibility and accountability.”

As one of the Republicans warning about the dangers of QAnon and conspiracy theory thinking, Meijer understands what he’s up against, but he says he’s determined to keep speaking out.

“It’s important to not let the record go uncorrected and to continue to speak the truth,” Meijer said. “It’s something I definitely do at my peril, both politically and otherwise, but I didn’t run for office to seek the easy path and I’m certainly not going to cower away from what I think is an important responsibility.”

Appradab’s Kelly Mena contributed to this report.

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techcrunchappcom · 3 years

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New Post has been published on https://techcrunchapp.com/these-are-the-13-members-of-bidens-coronavirus-task-force-national-news/

These are the 13 members of Biden's coronavirus task force | National News

Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden leaves after speaking at Mountain Top Inn & Resort, Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2020, in Warm Springs, Ga.

Andrew Harnik

BOSTON (AP) — As he begins his transition to the presidency, Joe Biden is pivoting from a bitter campaign battle to another, more pressing fight: reining in the pandemic that has hit the world’s most powerful nation harder than any other.

On Monday, Biden announced the members of his coronavirus task force that will develop a blueprint for fighting the pandemic. It includes doctors and scientists who have served in previous administrations, many of them experts in public health, vaccines and infectious diseases.

Notable among the members is Rick Bright, a vaccine expert and former head of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority. He had filed a whistleblower complaint alleging he was reassigned to a lesser job because he resisted political pressure to allow widespread use of hydroxychloroquine, a malaria drug pushed by President Donald Trump as a COVID-19 treatment.

Public health officials warn that the nation is entering the worst stretch yet for COVID-19 as winter sets in and the holiday season approaches, increasing the risk of rapid transmission as Americans travel, shop and celebrate with loved ones.

“The next two months are going to be rough, difficult ones,” said Dr. Albert Ko, an infectious disease specialist and department chairman at the Yale School of Public Health. “We could see another 100,000 deaths by January.”

The U.S. is now averaging more than 100,000 new coronavirus infections a day, frequently breaking records for daily cases. Hospitals in several states are running out of space and staff, and the death toll is soaring. So far, the U.S. has recorded more than 9.8 million infections and more than 237,000 deaths from COVID-19.

“Dealing with the coronavirus pandemic is one of the most important battles our administration will face, and I will be informed by science and by experts,” Biden said in a statement Monday.

He pledged during the campaign to make testing free and widely available; to hire thousands of health workers to help implement contact-tracing programs; and to instruct the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to provide clear, expert-informed guidelines, among other proposals.

As the Democratic nominee, Biden made Trump’s mishandling of the pandemic a central focus of his campaign. But much of what Biden has proposed will take congressional action, and he’s certain to face challenges in a closely divided House and Senate.

“I’m not running on the false promises of being able to end this pandemic by flipping a switch. But I do promise this: We will start on day one doing the right things,” he said during a campaign event last month.

Dr. Phillip Coule, chief medical officer at Augusta University Medical Center in Georgia, said he hopes the nation can get past the political divisions that have complicated the response to the virus now that the election is over.

“Now that we are post election, let’s just handle this based on the science and not the politics of this disease and the pandemic,” he said.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, said he believes even the most ardent COVID-19 deniers will strike a more conciliatory tone as Trump’s election defeat sinks in.

“I think the political pressure of denying COVID is gone,” he said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” “I think you’ll see scientists speak with an unmuzzled voice now. And I think the numbers are going to go up, and Americans are going to get how serious this is.”

The president-elect is limited in what he can legally do before he’s sworn in, but he and his transition team should begin laying the groundwork immediately, said Dr. Leana Wen, a public health professor at George Washington University and former health commissioner for Baltimore.

Establishing some consensus with state leaders on a national response, including a nationwide mask mandate, should be a top priority, she said. Opposition to wearing masks remains a stubborn issue, particularly in some of the hardest-hit states.

“Each state is acting fairly autonomously on their own policies, and we’ve seen how that’s played out,” said Ko, the Yale expert. “This disease needs national and global responses.”

Overcoming months of mixed messaging on the pandemic is another uphill climb that Biden must start addressing during his transition, said Angela Rasmussen, a virus researcher at Columbia University in New York.

“The past year of misinformation, confusion and gaslighting from the White House has really left people without any trust that our government is capable of handling this,” she said. “It’s going to be critical to begin communicating that, yes, this administration will be led by the science.”

During his first remarks as president-elect, Biden said Saturday that his COVID-19 task force will create a plan “built on bedrock science” and “constructed out of compassion, empathy and concern.”

His surrogates, meanwhile, have spent the days since the election assuring the public the administration will be ready to respond to the pandemic.

“I think there’s a sense of urgency throughout,” Pete Buttigieg, a former Democratic presidential hopeful who is now on Biden’s transition team, said on Fox News Channel’s “Fox News Sunday.” “We know that every day is bringing more loss, more pain and more danger to the American people, and it’s why he’s not waiting until he’s taking office to begin immediately assembling people who have the right kind of expertise and planning to actually listen to them.”

There’s also hope in the wider medical community that a Biden presidency will help restore U.S. leadership on global public health challenges, including the development and distribution of a vaccine when it becomes available.

Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, the chief scientist of the World Health Organization, said she was more optimistic that a Biden administration would join Covax, a WHO-led project aimed to help deploy vaccines to the neediest people worldwide, whether they live in rich or poor countries.

“Everyone recognizes that for a pandemic, you cannot have a country-by-country approach. You need a global approach,” Swaminathan said.

But in Kansas, one of the states seeing a significant surge in virus cases in recent weeks, at least one hospital official remains skeptical about what a new president can do to turn the tide of the pandemic in the U.S.

“I think the damage is done,” said Kris Mathews, the administrator of Decatur Health, a small hospital in the rural northwest part of the state. “People have made up their minds about how they react to it.”

Associated Press writers Heather Hollingsworth in Kansas, Alexandra Jaffe and Thomas Strong in Washington and Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed to this story.

#biden #coronavirus #force #members #these #National

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livinginlandmarketing · 3 years

Link

Debbie Reaves had settled in for a routine viewing of “The Daily Show” at her Trabuco Canyon home several months ago when she heard host Trevor Noah voice concern about whether there would be enough polling place workers come Election Day.

The fear was that seniors, who historically have often volunteered to work the polls, wouldn’t be comfortable coming out due to the coronavirus pandemic, which poses a greater risk for anyone 65 or older. Combine that with the distrust President Donald Trump and others on the right have sown about mail-in voting, plus expected record-breaking turnout, and the situation appeared ripe for potential voter suppression in the form of long lines to cast in-person ballots.

She’d never been politically active before. But Reaves, who’s 62 and healthy, decided to request for time off from her job as a project manager for a healthcare company and sign up for what she thought would be one day of volunteer work.

“Our voices need to be heard,” Reaves said, “and a safe, convenient voting environment is essential.”

Looking back, Reaves acknowledges she had no idea what she was getting herself into.

Forget tiny designated polling places in someone’s garage or a local church, monitored for a day largely by retired volunteers. In-person voting in Orange County is now a multiday event overseen at large vote centers by some 1,500 paid staffers who go through a thorough vetting process and extensive training.

This cycle, OC Registrar Neal Kelley said that includes additional training on pandemic safety measures and conflict management, such as how to handle people refusing to wear masks or otherwise disrupting the democratic process.

OC and a handful of other California counties had already moved to the vote center model and to professionalize election workers before the March primary. Since the pandemic struck, other Southern California counties have been forced to go that route because they quickly discovered the old model wasn’t going to work this fall.

Still, there are significant differences in how election worker programs are run from one county to the next.

In prior election cycles, Riverside County Registrar Rebecca Spencer said her office would recruit 3,500 people to staff 600 polling places across the county. They’d receive a stipend for one day of work plus another small payment for one three-hour in-person training.

But when they went to start putting that plan together for this cycle, Spencer said they discovered many seniors on their volunteer list weren’t comfortable working a polling place this cycle. Locations that had hosted polling stations in the past also were backing out.

Now Riverside County has hired 600 election workers to staff 130 voter assistance centers that are open for four days, Saturday, Oct. 31 through Election Day. Most of those workers are paid $15 an hour and go through two hours of virtual training. There also is one lead and one assistant lead worker assigned to each vote center.

Those workers have spent 40 hours a week for the past four weeks attending an “election officer academy” that takes them through everything from how to set up the voting equipment to how to guard against COVID-19 to how to de-escalate difficult situations.

Under this model, Spencer said they’ve had no trouble filling all 600 election worker slots, with a waiting list ready to go in case anyone drops out last minute.

San Bernardino County also moved to the vote center model for the same reason, county spokesman David Wert said. After initially having trouble recruiting from the usual pool of volunteers to staff those centers, he said they’re now relying largely on existing county workers who’ve been trained to work elections.

Two San Bernardino County workers tested positive for the coronavirus after a week-long training at the National Orange Show Event Center. But Wert said county health experts don’t believe those workers contracted the virus at the event because organizers had taken precautions such as requiring all of the roughly 400 workers to wear masks and face shields, frequent sanitization and temperature checks each day.

San Bernardino County did virtual trainings whenever possible, Wert said. But he said they needed to do some in-person training to show supervisors how to use new equipment and to do a dress rehearsal for a system that’s being rolled out locally for the first time this cycle.

Wert said they notified everyone who’d been at the training about the two positive cases, encouraging them all to get tested and telling them not to report to work if they had any symptoms. So far, Wert said no other election workers have reported feeling sick.

Orange County didn’t have any trouble with initial recruitment for its 1,500 election workers to staff 168 vote centers, Kelley said. “But as we get closer to the election,” he said, “more people cancel each day. It’s a challenge but we have been keeping up.”

The training process was a bit daunting, and the pandemic and heightened worries of violence did cause some additional concern for Linda Chezar, a Newport Beach resident who’s serving as a lead election worker at a vote center in Orange County. But at 61, Chezar said she doesn’t scare easily. And she didn’t want to let fear hold her back from participating in what she feels is the most important presidential election in her lifetime.

Chezar said seeing the process up close for the first time – with precautions such as computers that aren’t connected to the internet, to prevent any chance of hacking, and completed ballots always monitored by at least two people – has made her more confident in the security of our election systems.

“I’m really proud of what Orange County has done,” she said. “I think they have done everything humanely possible to make it easy to vote, to secure your vote and to minimize any kind of hassle.”

Just to get the OC job, Reaves said she invested four hours of her time. That included a full job application and an hour-long online test, which Reaves equated to a “mini-SAT.” She did a Zoom interview with two people and a Live Scan background check. Then she attended an on-site onboarding in Santa Ana, where she had to sign forms attesting she’d read 200-plus pages of documents and would read a 150-page Vote Center Handbook.

Once they’re hired, Reaves said election workers in Orange County have to commit to 10 days of work. That includes two days of online training, one day of on-site training, one day of set up at the voting center, five days of live voting for up to 13-plus hours and one day of helping tear down the voting center.

Given the pandemic and the commitment now involved, Kelley said OC has seen the average age of its election workers drop substantially. Some younger workers told Reaves they had been out of work due to the pandemic, so they jumped at the chance to work for a week making $19 to $21 an hour, plus some overtime until the last voter clears out on election night.

In the first hour her vote center was open Friday morning, Chezar said they processed 60 ballots without problems.

If anything does go sideways, Chezar said the county provided solid training and has good systems in place for backup. And if all else fails, she said, “I know how to dial 911.”

While Chezar knows everyone is fired up right now, she said she plans to channel her dad, who had strong political beliefs but could have respectful debates with anyone and still remain friends.

“I’m going to try to dial down the rhetoric and the fear, be reassuring and make it more of a celebration of who we are as Americans,” she said.

“We’re not red, we’re not blue – we’re American at voting time.”

Poll workers Debbie Reaves attaches a security tab—one of three—on a piece of voting equipment to ensure the machine is not tampered with. “People don’t know about all the security measures that are in place,” she said while preparing for Friday’s vote center opening at Lake Forest Sports Park on Wednesday, October 28, 2020. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Poll workers prepare the voting center at Lake Forest Sports Park for Friday’s opening on Wednesday, October 28, 2020. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Overwhelmed computers cause hours-long delays at some Riverside County voting sites

Proposition 25: Future of cash bail system in voters’ hands

Who’s knocking on my door? Coronavirus changes Inland candidates’ campaign tactics

42,000 Inland voters got more than one ballot for November election

Voters undaunted by 3-hour wait, power outage as San Bernardino County begins early voting

-on November 01, 2020 at 12:00AM by Brooke Staggs

#riversidenews

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thisdaynews · 4 years

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DOWN-FALL OF NIGERIA: How Tinubu, Others Packaged Buhari For Nigerians---Babachir Lawal

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/down-fall-of-nigeria-how-tinubu-others-packaged-buhari-for-nigerians-babachir-lawal/

DOWN-FALL OF NIGERIA: How Tinubu, Others Packaged Buhari For Nigerians---Babachir Lawal

A former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, who was sacked from office over allegations that he misappropriated funds, Babachir Lawal, tells HINDI LIVINUS that the party risks losing the next presidential election if some things are not done

Some members of the All Progressives Congress, including Mamman Daura, a nephew of the President, Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), have said competence and not zoning should be the key determinant for the President’s successor in 2023. What do you think about it?

You said some senior members of our party, but I am not aware that Mamman Daura is a card-carrying member of our party. Ideally, Daura is supposed to be considered as an elder in the North on account of his age and achievements in public service. On that basis, we accord him a level of respect to the extent that his comments will carry weight.

But since he has never contested any position, either in the party or in government, we will not take his comments on zoning very seriously. My own inclination is to take it as a personal opinion. The issue of zoning is a very critical component of the Nigerian entity. Zoning is not entrenched in the APC constitution nor is it in our (Nigerian) constitution but a political party is in the business of politics to win elections.

And for any political party to be successful, it has to take into consideration the diverse demography and political structure of its constituents. Don’t forget that our politics is built on some fundamental understanding, though not legal. First, there is the issue of religious balance. We want a country in which every Nigeria feels secure to live their life in a peaceful and prosperous manner in an environment created by the government. Any political party that ignores this is obviously digging its grave. Nigerians like to count the numbers of Muslims and Christians in the Federal Executive Council to see if there is balance.

And one of the things Nigerians have criticised about the security architecture is the fact that they see the top echelons of the security service as being predominantly dominated by Muslims. To that extent, Christians find faults in whatever they do. I suspect that most of the calls that the leadership of the security agencies should be rejigged is because Christians don’t feel comfortable with the dominance of one religion, especially as cases of insurgency, banditry, kidnapping, and so on, have soared and Nigerians have factored in the religious orientation of the perpetrators.

Two, politically, Nigerians want zoning in the polity. In states where the people are homogenous on the basis of religion and tribe, they tend to rotate power across the zones or blocs within the state. At the national level, it translates into North and South; that is the understanding and every Nigerian has come to accept it. That, however, does not mean that Nigerians do not believe that merits should count. But people who have merits are available in all parts of the country and are not localised to any geopolitical zone.

There are fears that the Peoples Democratic Party may field a northerner in 2023 and that it may give them an advantage if your party picks a southerner…

No! The PDP introduced the principle of zoning. Even the All Nigerian Peoples Party, the Congress for Progressive Change, and the Action Congress of Nigeria, which existed then but now defunct, never discussed zoning. The concept was largely successful because the party had elder statesmen like Adamu Ciroma, Alex Ekwueme, and Solomon Lar who could come up with a workable political structure acceptable to the generality of their party members when things got hot. Now, the APC has found itself in the same situation and has to toe that path, or else it will not win the next presidential election. To win the next election, the APC must apply the principle of zoning, though not clearly stated in the APC constitution. We believe by 2023, after the North has produced the President for eight years, the South should have a go at it.

Do you think that will be practical if the former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, is again put forward by the PDP as its candidate? Don’t you think he will win by securing the majority of the votes from the North?

I am not thinking like that. Atiku Abubakar is from Adamawa State and is a northerner like me, but I will like to contest the basis of your statistics. The conclusion that the North produces the largest bloc vote is not true. The North-West geopolitical zone in the North tends to go in one direction all the time. The North-East tends to go in another direction. They have never voted along the same lines and we are not even talking about the Middle Belt.

If the South-West, South-East and South-South agree to vote for one party as they do in the North-West, the chances are that our so-called (northern) numerical strength may be challenged, and we may come off worst.

With Adams Oshiomhole and the APC’s National Working Committee’s removal and Asiwaju Bola Tinubu’s alleged presidential ambitions, do you think there could be divisions in the APC?

First of all, I want to declare that I am a Tinubu man. There’s no denying that there’s a Tinubu factor in the APC. Just like I was a Buharist and every time Buhari’s name was mentioned, I stood by it. But the crisis that started in the APC has nothing to do with 2023. It just had to do with the mismanagement of the party by those entrusted with that responsibility – namely the NWC.

We had a chairman that had deficiencies in management skills in a political system where everybody needed to be carried along. As much as possible, he was like Alexander the Great. In almost every state, because of his approach to politics and conflict resolution, there was crisis, even in states where the APC had no governors. So it got to a stage where everybody was fed up with having Oshiomhole as the chairman. However, there were some people who wanted Oshiomhole out more than the rest and members of the APC knew they had ulterior motives that were not altruistic, but majorly selfish.

Does the selfishness have anything to do with 2023?

Yes, like some governors who wanted to go back to the old days when they would sit down and decide what would happen and who got what in the party. Many within the party felt that as a former governor and labour leader, he would be able to stand up to the governors. We also felt that coming to that position with some affluence; he would not sell our party for pecuniary considerations. But Oshiomhole, to some certain extent, did not give the governors one inch because he was autocratic or a dictator. And the governors who wanted to go back to running the party created a crisis. It got to a point when even those of us who ordinarily supported Oshiomhole later became disappointed because he so messed us up. But because those who wanted to throw him out were worse than him, we stood by him. They deployed all kinds of arsenal and Machiavellian tactics that no one after something good would be inclined to do. Some of us advocated for a ‘soft landing’ for him. Like every other human being, Oshiomhole had his weaknesses. He, however, started to change towards the end of his reign but it came too late. Those who wanted him out were more desperate. From my own observation, there is very little the national chairman of a party can do to impose a presidential candidate on their party.

Do you see Buhari supporting zoning ahead of 2023?

Buhari believes firmly and strictly in what is legal. Once you point out to the President that this is what the law says, he goes with it and other considerations won’t matter. I don’t know what he will do but it is only necessary that any leader, whose tenure is running out, ought to show interest in who their successor will be. Not for personal reasons but for the continuity of their policies and programmes. To that extent, even if Buhari is not inclined towards it. I will urge him to.

Do you think the President would support that power should move to the South?

When we were in the CPC, we got many votes but didn’t win. But there were other challenges; there was an unhealthy perception that Buhari was a religious bigot. He was also seen as someone who would be hard on corrupt persons and many groups didn’t feel they would be safe if he became the President, especially the Christian community. So we sat down as a strategic group and thought of what we could do. Which bloc could give us the votes that could make Buhari to become the President? There was no other bloc other than the South-West bloc, which had the defunct ACN in control of states in the South-West as a regional party. This was done as far back as 2010, so we planned to have a merger before the 2011 general elections. But time ran out on us. The merger didn’t work. After the loss, we were encouraged to start the merger process again. I remember a letter from the chairman of the CPC Board of Trustees directing our committee to work with the ACN, only towards having a merger. It was when we read his letter for discussion that we decided that we should not restrict it to the ACN. We moved to include the ANPP. One of our specific goals was to make Buhari the President. Tinubu was a colossus of South-West politics. If he had said there would be no merger, there wouldn’t have been any merger. By the time we went to the APC national convention, the North-West was not with Buhari. The North-West people were either for Atiku or Rabiu Kwankwaso; most of them, at least. The late Inuwa Abdulkadir and I continued to pile pressure on Tinubu, giving him the statistics. There was no point supporting a candidate that would not win the election. We told Tinubu that this man had 12 million votes, and that there could be two million votes for Atiku and four or five million votes for Kwankwaso at best, and that it would not translate to any electoral victory. It became very clear that Buhari was going to win that primary election once Tinubu declared publicly his support for him and accepted that the South-West would vote for Buhari.

Between Wednesday and Thursday (before the convention), it was clear Tinubu and Bisi Akande were going to support Buhari and the North-West had no choice but to support Buhari, otherwise they were going to lose out. So if Tinubu had not conceded at that point, I think probably Kwakwanso would have won the presidential nomination of the APC. For that reason alone, you can see Tinubu’s contributions to the emergence of Buhari as President and his role in building the party.

Everybody knows Buhari had no money and he doesn’t play money politics. So he won his presidential primary election without spending money. Also, Buharists didn’t have money; they only had ideas, zeal and fanaticism. And politics requires money. Tinubu, who had his tentacles spread across the corporate world, was the only man who knew where and how to raise the funds needed. He was the one that reached out to all the ‘big men’ who were at the time scared of the then President Goodluck Jonathan. These were all rich men that depended on government’s patronage. But somehow, Tinubu was able to persuade some of them to support Buhari. We had so many experiences, Timipre Sylva (now Minister of State for Petroleum Resources) and I thought we could do it but found out we couldn’t until Tinubu came in and we won the election.

How did you manage to turn around the negative perceptions the public had of Buhari?

At the time, Nigerians saw Buhari as just a wood. He had no emotions. People weren’t seeing him as a loving husband and father, and doubted if he could be humane. It was Tinubu who brought in consultants from the US – the firm behind the successful execution of President Barrack Obama’s campaign. It helped to repackage Buhari to Nigerians. They came and started from the scratch; they did some research work for us. They told us where Buhari was weak and the messages needed to change the long held perception, using billboards and other campaign methods.

That was when you started seeing Buhari wearing a suit, and in Igbo, Yoruba and Kanuri attire. It was then people started to see Buhari as a family man with his beautiful daughters.

The strategy was to transform his image and show a humane, loving and trustworthy person. It helped us. At some point during our strategy sessions, the consultants asked us: why don’t you allow Buhari’s wife to come out so that she can be contrasted with Dame Patience Jonathan? When you do that, you would have won the election already, they said. She provided a contrast to the former First Lady. Rallies don’t win elections. It is the underground work that wins elections. Almost the same thing repeated itself in 2019. Tinubu doesn’t like to take credit for what he does; he lives for politics, gets his money from politics and spends it on politics. He has no other interest except politics. The monies he spent out of his pocket that are unaccounted for outside of the party’s campaign finances, are quite enormous. I know this because he’s my friend and because I am also involved in the Buhari government. So when there is a crisis, I am the one whose duty is to run to the South-West.

Therefore, except we want to bring the wrath of God on our heads, which we don’t want, the party must create an environment that is free and fair for anybody who wants to contest, including Tinubu, to do so. Allow the delegates, who must have emerged through a similarly free and fair process, decide who they want to vote for. It will be our duty as ‘Tinubu’s boys’ that time to say, ‘Let us vote for Bola’.

By the way, what did we get from several years that the Presidency has resided in the North? Along that line, we have also had vice presidents who were northerners. We have had presidents who were northerners but for some reason, the system is not improving. Presidency from the North is like an albatross around our neck. We northerners can do with power going elsewhere so that at least, we can now complain. But you cannot be holding on to power while things are not working fine. Let us also be able to complain, especially those of us who play active roles in the country.

There have been problems between the Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN), and the suspended Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Ibrahim Magu, people that should be working together to promote the President’s anti-corruption war. How bad do you think this is for the country?

Like the Bible says, the heart of man is desperately wicked: who can phantom it? The conducts of certain people, whether in government or not, is incomprehensible to a normal person with a decent character. Both of them are like my younger brothers. I have known Malami since I was in the CPC and only got to know Magu when I was in government. And I like his sense of duty and commitment to his job. That’s all I know about him. I don’t know however if there had been attempts to address these issues in another way before the options were exhausted and the issues resulted in the escalation of those differences. What I consider painful in all this is that this government has fought corruption and committed all its energies and resources to fighting corruption irrespective of the parties the people they go after belong to. Some are politically motivated; some are not right. I would not be self-serving if I say take my own case, for instance. This issue has given the international community the impression that we are not serious about our anti-corruption campaign. When I was removed as SGF, the general outcry was that because of my closeness to Buhari, they wanted to weaken my flanks so that they could come after me.

But now in the case of Magu, the narrative is that corruption is fighting back. These are the impressions and the consequences of such conducts. Initially I had the feeling that the system would come after Magu, especially the press and the social media. If you are very discerning, you will know they are with him. The preponderance of opinions is in support of Magu’s position. The views being laid out are as if it is a witch-hunt. There are better ways to end Magu’s reign because no matter what anybody tells you, Magu tried. I used to joke that if you are a thief and you are caught by Magu, nobody can release you unless you cut off his hands.

PUNCH

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politicaltheatre · 4 years

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Inevitability

She was inevitable.

That's how a vice-presidential pick is supposed to feel, right? Like an apple finally falling from a tree.

Kamala Harris ticks off all the right boxes. She is a United States Senator, representing California. She was a presidential candidate, one of the few to damage the seeming inevitability of Joe Biden, the former vice president who has anointed her. She is black, in a country that very badly needs to see a minority back in the White House. And she is a woman, in country that has never yet elected one in a century of full women's suffrage.

We want the inevitable choice. It confirms our hopes that the top of the ticket is worthy of our vote. We also crave certainty, and like a sports team drafting to fill a position of need, choosing the right running mate seems like it should be a no-brainer. Right?

Hillary Clinton's choice, Virginia Senator Tim Kaine, left a lot of American's scratching their heads. He might be smart and he might be genuinely nice, but his blandness extends to the horizon and beyond.

His counterpart, Mike Pence, is, if possible, even more bland, with the added problems of deep religious, moral, and ethical hypocrisy, fear mongering, race baiting, homophobia, and a particularly puritan brand of sexism, not one of which makes him even a little more interesting.

And yet, despite those flaws, how many times in the past four years have Americans and others around the world, in moments of quiet and not so quiet desperation, dreamed that some “act of God” wood deliver that same Mr. Vice President to the Oval Office? The idea of a President Michael Pence should scare the hell out of us, and not just because Donald Trump is one golf course coronary away from putting him there.

Pence was chosen, as so many of his predecessors were, not for his ability to step up and lead but because he had exactly two qualifications: he gave the top of the ticket credibility with a vocal minority within the party, and he lacks the kind of juice that would have put him top of the ticket in the first place.

At best, we like to think of a vice president as a kind of spare tire. You buy one to suit your short term needs and hope that you just never have to use it. That's how most have been viewed, and, if we're being honest, rightly so.

The only time we noticed them in the past was when they screwed up (Spiro Agnew, Dan Quayle), exposed the president as a weak placeholder (Dick Cheney), or, too often, when the president died.

Who among the latter rose to the occasion? Teddy Roosevelt surpassed his predecessor. Lyndon Johnson gave us "The Great Society", which included the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Harry Truman far exceeded expectations, integrating the armed forces and steering the United States out of the Second World War.

Of course, Roosevelt established the colonial system in the Caribbean and the Pacific that continues to this day. Johnson oversaw the expansion of the Vietnam War and the lying about it that, when exposed, destroyed any sense of trust in the American government on foreign policy and military action (or should have).

And Truman, he ended that war by dropping two atomic bombs, the only time in history (to date) that nuclear weapons have been used on humans and those humans were hundreds of thousands of unarmed, defenseless Japanese civilians.

Yes, those were the impressive ones. The others were worse. John Tyler, a virulent racist, later served in the Confederacy as a senator. Andrew Johnson was the first president impeached, and rightfully so. And Calvin Coolidge, so often overlooked, oversaw the complete lack of government oversight that led to the Great Depression.

Millard Fillmore and Chester Alan Arthur were, mercifully, forgettable, as a vice-president should be but perhaps not as a president should.

Harris, if elected, may well turn out to be better than all of them.

Then again, she really does have a dubious history as a city and state prosecutor to live down. At the very least, she needs to satisfy those protesting right now against police brutality how she stands with them and against her former self. Well, one of her former selves.

Her economic policy, like that of Biden, can best be described as Obama-like, which is to say that she won't ever make the kind of changes we would have had with a Bernie Sanders or an Elizabeth Warren in the White House, and which we so very badly need.

On health care, she won't damage the system Obama put in place, but neither would she make the changes necessary to help the majority of Americans get what they're overpaying for.

On foreign policy, she's a novice, but she won't go around kissing autocrat's asses like the two men in the White House now. But will she stand up to those autocrats? How? How, for that matter, will Biden, now that Trump and Pence have done so much damage to American alliances and credibility?

If they win, and that's a big if given the lengths Trump and his minions have been going to to undermine the ability of Americans to vote, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will first need to make sure Trump leaves.

They will then need to make sure Trump's supporters don't burn the country down, the way they've been trying to do to the non-violent Black Lives Matter protests.

And then they'll get to the fun part, undoing the damage it somehow only took Trump and his Republican allies four years to do.

That will mean undoing every deliberately hateful, constitution-challenging executive order.

That will mean undoing all of the Republican-led legislation - tax cuts for the very, very rich, deregulation of chemical plants, etc. - through what will hopefully be a Democratic-led Congress.

That will mean finding a way to end the still-ongoing pandemic and the economic collapse it triggered, and to do so before another Great Depression sets in.

That will mean that Kamala Harris will have to be better than any of her predecessors, far better, and not because Joe Biden is really, really, really old but because we basically need two presidents to get done what needs to get done in the shortest possible amount of time.

Not, it should be said, in a Dick Cheney-is-really-president sort of way. Not that, not ever again, please.

The worst thing we can do at this point is talk about inevitability. Hillary Clinton was supposed to be inevitable, and she bought into it so badly she blew the entire election and put us in this mess.

Is it fair to lay that blame at her feet? When she comes to claim any of it, even just the tiniest part, do let us know. She was attacked, unfairly, because she is a woman, as Harris already has unfairly been attacked, but Clinton’s unwillingness to hold herself accountable was and remains her Achilles Heel, and Americans who voted against her did so very much for that reason.

This is why Harris needs to reconcile with her past and the decisions that she made as a prosecutor and as Attorney General of California. It isn’t fair to ask her to hold herself to a higher standard of accountability than, say, Joe Biden, but she is a woman and a minority in a country that clearly still has problems with both, and she, unlike Biden, didn’t win any primaries.

That Kamala Harris feels like the right choice for Joe Biden is good, for Joe Biden. It means that he aced his first decision. He drafted well. The confidence that springs from that could the momentum he needs to win, and the United States needs any Democrat in the White House right now.

Any Democrat.

A Biden/Harris ticket sounds good, maybe even good enough to succeed where Clinton/Kaine failed. And should that inevitability happen, that another president passes away while in office, we should take some comfort that Biden didn’t choose an absolute idiot.

Now comes the hard part, making sure that this least-like-any-other of election years functions like a normal one.

Even before the pandemic, Trump and his Republican allies in Congress were pushing to defund the Postal Service. The actions Trump and his Postmaster General have taken since the pandemic hit threaten mail-in voting for tens of millions of Americans, potentially disenfranchising even more Americans than the usual gutting of the voter rolls.

However it started, today’s Republican Party has become one of winner-take-all, ends-justify-the-means politics. On the national level, at the very least, they believe that it is isn’t cheating if you don’t have to go to jail for it. Those voting for them know this. Those voting for them like it.

That, not merely encouraging people to want to vote and certainly not pontificating on the best of all possible futures, is what Biden and Harris and their surrogates need to focus on and focus our attention on.

The better teams on paper don’t always win. Sometimes, they lose badly. If we can't vote, we lose. We all lose. Right now, the only thing that feels inevitable about this election be might just that.

- Daniel Ward

#kamala harris #joe biden #biden/harris 2020 #2020 presidential election #politics #vice presidents #hillary clinton #tim kaine #mike pence #donald trump #long read #long reads #voting #vote #voting rights #voting rights act

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petescholtes-blog-blog · 4 years

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You send me: Why Minneapolis elected Ilhan Omar for this moment

(Mural by Mohammed "Aerosol" Ali in Birmingham, England, July 2019, painted in "solidarity" with her; photographed by the artist for BBC News.)

Why is my freshman congresswoman being "primaried" in the August 11 election, by a political newcomer who raised six times as much money between April and June, including half a million dollars from big donors favoring conservative policies toward Israel?

You probably already answered that question as near to your satisfaction as you can, if you live in the Fifth District of Minnesota and can vote, or mailed your ballot in anticipation of alleged presidentially-induced delays at the post office.

But if the suspicions raised by this race about either leading candidate remain, like piles of un-recycled mailers, I have a theory as to why: A politics based on the presumption of guilt came to town. It lost, or won, but affected us either way. Because suspicion poisons everything. Without the ability to really test the null hypothesis — the default truth that what you see is a coincidence — belief can be a light out of the darkness, a north star into a black hole, or the sparkle in the eye of a face at the bottom of a well.

So let's talk about what we know. As Rachel Cohen reports in Jewish Currents, the contest here for the Democratic-Farmer-Labor nomination for Congress doesn't seem to be about actual policy differences between the candidates regarding Israel or the Palestinians. Omar and her lead challenger, Antone Melton-Meaux, have the same position on the Boycott Divest Sanctions (BDS) movement, for example, which is really more of a BD movement at this point. Both candidates defend the right to boycott, as Omar did last year with a resolution co-sponsored by John Lewis, a right most federal courts have also upheld, overturning recent anti-BDS laws in three states (though not Minnesota, where Omar argued against the law that passed). Both candidates also oppose BDS strategies, reasoning that they're counterproductive to encouraging negotiations toward a two-state solution. To the same end, they join most Americans in opposing Israel's plan to annex much of the West Bank, though Omar would condition aid against it, and Melton-Meaux would not.

Beyond that consensus, Omar has expressed approval of BDS itself, via a single text message from a campaign aid to the website Muslim Girl in 2018, stating that Omar "supports" the "movement." That message, along with her refusal (on expressly articulated principle) to join the House in condemning BDS, gave reporters license to call her and Lewis's resolution "pro-BDS," and Omar the "face of the movement." On the same narrow basis, Melton-Meaux claimed in April that the congresswoman "supports sanctions on Israel."

People are what they do, and I'm not here to attack Melton-Meaux, who seems to have done good things before writing that astoundingly disingenuous op-ed. But his campaign is about Omar, not him, or rather about someone who isn't really Omar at all, which is the problem. Omar never called for sanctions against Israel or any other country. To the contrary, she has consistently and vocally opposed sanctions, sometimes to a political fault: Her "present" vote on the Armenian genocide was a stand against sanctions on Turkey. Her argument in every case is that sanctions harm people, not governments — which appears to be right, to take the example of Iran. Even her bill to sanction Brunei, for stoning people to death for being LGBTQ, targets the travel and assets of officials, not civilians.

Whatever you think of that position, it's integral with Omar's opposition to arbitrary force or punitive retribution of any kind. She's called for an end to the "cycle of violence" everywhere, whether from undeclared war, terrorism, riots, repression, or criminal justice that metes out more harm, as she sees it. Nine months after being smeared as a coddler of terrorists for writing a judge to ask for leniency in the sentencing of a young man who had not yet taken up arms with Isis, Omar did the same for the middle-aged man convicted of threatening her life. In both cases she asked for a "restorative" approach that would help the person repair himself, not just the community.

With similar trueness, after she and Lewis introduced their "right to participate in boycotts" resolution, Omar spoke of "support" only for "efforts to end the [Israeli] occupation and achieve [a] two-state solution," and argued against condemning BDS on the grounds that "if we are going to condemn violent means of resisting the occupation, we cannot also condemn nonviolent means."

A Somali-born refugee and the first Muslim to wear an hijab in Congress, Omar may recognize better than most how essentialist judgments can thwart a person's autonomy. That she became the media "face" of BDS, while her identically-voting white colleagues of Christian or Jewish heritage did not, is one of many such ironies not lost on her, I imagine. But acting as if some double standards are too contemptible to dignify with an answer, or even an acknowledgment, seems to be part of her armor against them.

(Hugging John Lewis in 2018, in an uncredited photograph posted by the congresswoman this year on his 80th birthday.)

Of all the falsehoods sent sailing like stones at Omar, none bothers me more than the idea that the personal attacks against her didn't happen — that a massive, dangerous smear campaign was just "Twitter fights" with the president, or criticism of her "record." The torrent of Omar fictions began in August of 2018, a week after her primary win, and by July 2019 reached a crescendo of six fake stories per month debunked by Snopes. In the first month of her term, she was accused of defending Isis, based on that letter to a judge, a claim pandering to "sharia" conspiracists like her would-be assassin. In February came unfounded and increasingly dishonest charges of antisemitism, based on Omar's seemingly unwitting use of two antisemitic tropes (hypnotism and money), for which she apologized unequivocally, followed by a third one (dual loyalty), for which she did not, by that point apparently not wishing to enable those seizing on her words to keep changing the subject from what she'd been talking about: the Palestinians, and how any discussion of their treatment is policed out of existence. This time, the charges against her pandered to Christian evangelicals, with the apparent hopeful side-goal of alienating some Jewish voters from her or her party's base. But the criticism of her words was roundly picked up by Democrats, whom Omar joined in the House to vote for a resolution condemning antisemitic language. Only Republicans voted against it.

Then came the video in April shared by the president of the United States, a montage of Omar and 9/11 that aimed far beyond the earlier audiences, this time to falsely link the congresswoman with the worst attack on U.S. soil in history. If the videographer thought Democrats wouldn't defend her, they were wrong. But death threats against Omar increased. April also brought a disinformation campaign about Omar and U.S. and Somali casualties in the Battle of Mogadishu, this time aimed at veterans, whose benefits the congresswoman has consistently voted to keep and expand.

In July came the apotheosis: the president's serial fabrications about Omar on camera and at rallies. He riffed on much of the above, but added the lie that she had expressed "love" for al-Qaeda, that she said al-Qaeda made her "proud," an appalling implicit incitement to violence that Republican leaders mostly played along with. It was, I wrote at the time, "the break with reality that a more fundamental break with humanity requires," in a month of detention center atrocity stories in the news, and with growing numbers of young Jewish activists arrested in front of ICE offices across the country chanting "Never again is now," including here. Trumpists were plugging their ears and going "na-na-na-na-na-na-na" to all this. Which was scary, because a reality war could go anywhere — and that's exactly what it did. The president’s tweet of a video with a September 13 timestamp claiming to show Omar celebrating 9/11 was the same basic impulse that would kill 150,000 Americans in a viral pandemic due to denial, inaction, and corruption.

The warning of a year ago also came after the Poway synagogue shooting in April, which brought home, as Omar and Illinois Representative Jan Schakowsky were early to note, how much antisemitism and Islamophobia had merged on the extremist right. Muslims and Jews had already been grappling with their entangled oppressions for years, partnering on issues like gun violence, as a local group of women did here starting in 2016. Particularly in the wake of the El Paso shooting, the ongoing lying about Omar's immigrant community had a uniting effect outside the president's cult.

(Volunteers sweeping and painting names at the George Floyd memorial in Minneapolis, June 12, 2020; photographed by me with the subjects' permission.)

None of those lies will wash here, where the George Floyd street memorial is a garden of flowers and art six miles north from the Bloomington mosque that was bombed three years ago, in the neighboring Congressional Third District. Contrary to Islamophobic fantasy, the Fifth is 63% white, with an active Jewish left and center, of which many are also on record in support of Omar, including Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey. Given the math of her 2018 landslide, Omar could have won her seat without a single Somali American vote. Her current campaign's internal polling shows an approval rating of 74%.

To supporters I know across demographic categories, Omar is someone there for everyone — and a threat exactly because she challenges leaders who aren't. Like the largest protest movement in American history, which began in her district on May 25 — she puts the moral dilemma of American exclusion, of all exclusion, at the center of politics. Her "radical love" is the inverse of John Lewis's "good trouble," because left humanists have a parent's love of country, not a child's. They hold the world to something better. A month ago, Omar called on reporters to ask state and U.S. senators who were blocking meaningful police reform these questions: "How come you are not listening to the cries of the mothers and the fathers in our communities? How come you are not listening to the people who are telling you that we don't feel like our lives matter equally in this country?'"

I have never seen a U.S. representative host so many town hall meetings on issues important to her poorest and least powerful constituents — two events per month, from one spring to the next. At one, on Black mental health, I watched an audience member literally seek help for herself and her family from the experts onstage. Observing such events, New Hope city councilman Cedrick Frazier wrote that at every meeting with Omar he saw, she "stayed long after the event ended to talk with and answer questions from the people in attendance."

She has also consistently shown up at important protests, not necessarily to speak, but just to be there, as when she went unrecognized in her mask and headscarf at the first, overwhelmingly nonviolent George Floyd protests. She meets regularly with important local activist groups, like MN350 and MIRAC, whose memberships spiked last summer. That increase, beyond our physical proximity to Floyd's life and death, suggests why the movement and unrest happened here as it did. Fifth District residents who took to the streets in response to his killing — (again) overwhelmingly with nonviolence, often numbering in the tens of thousands, and protesting every weekend day for six weeks after the last fires from three nights of riots were out — built on already record-high levels of left activism and organization before the pandemic: for immigrant rights, the climate, and Black lives. It was protesters — medics but also ordinary participants — who used their bodies to shield and rescue all but two souls in the uprising.

This outcome reflected a culture as well as an infrastructure, and it touches everyone. Omar's teenage daughter, Isra Hirsi, helped lead the U.S. chapter and St. Paul march of the global Youth Climate Strike on September 20 — one of the largest international protests before the Floyd marches. Young MN350 volunteers poured into presidential primary campaigns, especially for Omar's friend Bernie Sanders, whose local appeal to voters was headquartered out of her own campaign office. MIRAC's Mari Mansfield painted the long list of names on the street at the George Floyd memorial on 38th and Chicago, of unarmed people of color killed by police. "It's all civil disobedience now," she said, when I lamented missing a MIRAC training on it before the pandemic. The Black Lives Matter protests in every corner of Minnesota will have similar ripple effects going forward.

Omar herself turned her office into a food distribution center after the unrest, and raised hundred of thousands of dollars for local organizations seeking to transform policing. “I saw Ilhan in the streets nearly every single day," wrote Minneapolis city council vice president Andrea Jenkins. “Unbeknown to most of us at the time, Ilhan’s father was in the hospital with COVID-19.” Nur Omar Mohamed’s death was announced on June 16.

(”Close the camps” protesters blocking traffic outside the ICE office at Fort Snelling on July 30, 2019; Youth climate strikers in St. Paul, September 20, 2019; both photographed by me.)

My point is not that Omar is a leader for this moment, but that this moment already elected her two years ago. The congresswoman speaks to both left and humanist values because both of those things are resurgent in mirror opposition to Trump. Like so many of her constituents, but also American leftists more generally, she draws no distinction between appealing to the best in everyone and defending like a sister those left out of that "everyone." "We need to jettison the zero-sum idea that one person's gain is another's loss," she wrote in the Washington Post earlier last month. "I want your gain to be my gain; your loss to be mine, too."

At her police reform press conference, with the Minnesota Legislature's People of Color and Indigenous Caucus, Omar set off another extremist conservative firestorm when she announced that, "We are not merely fighting to tear down the systems of oppression in the criminal justice system. We are fighting to tear down systems of oppression that exist in housing, in education, in healthcare, in employment, in the air we breathe." But that statement is threatening only if you believe, as some Americans apparently do, that "systems of oppression" benefit you.

In her first 19 months in the 116th U.S. Congress, Omar introduced 39 bills, four of which have passed, all amendments. She also succeeded in getting her MEALS Act — providing kids school lunches regardless of whether schools are open in the pandemic — included as part of the CARES Act. You can read the other 34 bills and judge for yourself if there's a wasted effort among them. (She's made a case for each, which is for you to weigh.) But there's something self-fulfilling about claiming a lawmaker doesn't get anything done when you're blocking or ignoring their legislation. Much as the burden of proof is always on the accuser — because you can't prove a negative — I'll leave it to Omar's opponents to make the argument that any of these laws would be bad for the United States: that, no, we should not eliminate fossil fuel subsidies, keep corporations convicted of fraud out of politics, cancel student debt, award grants to zero-waste projects, stop stigmatizing kids unable to pay for school meals, make school lunches free, cut off military aid to human rights abusers, or join the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Similarly, in a pandemic, I'll let them explain why we should not aid small businesses, cancel rent and mortgages, cancel school lunch debt, or move food stamps fully online.

Omar co-sponsored 601 other pieces of legislation, 72 of which passed the House, nine the Senate, and seven into law by the grace of the president's signature. Those dramatically dwindling numbers suggest a political problem that is not Ilhan Omar. She has addressed that problem, whether you agree or disagree with her, by endorsing progressive candidates nationwide, including here in her own district, where she campaigned for Richfield mayor Maria Regan Gonzalez and Crystal city councilperson Brendan Banks. She's also built her Democratic coalition. After the censure from Democrats and the president's attacks on her last year, she made a public show of unity with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has now endorsed her.

Omar is not the Mother of Dragons some imagine. She's just been through the worst fires of war and politics, and has come out the other side a congresswoman from Minneapolis. Most likely, that's what she'll remain next term.

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patriotsnet · 3 years

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What Caused Republicans To Gain Power In Congress In 1938

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What Caused Republicans To Gain Power In Congress In 1938

Who Benefited From The Social Security Act

READ: Why was gunpowder important?

Fdr And Organized Labor

Consequences Of The Court

The New Deal Comes To A Screeching Halt In 1938

Andrew E. Busch

May 1, 2006

This article is the fourth in a series on midterm elections in America.

Then, a series of events damaged Roosevelt’s standing and rejuvenated the GOP’s chances.

Franklin D Roosevelt: Domestic Affairs

Banking and Finance

The War Years

End Of The Democratic Coalition

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Contents

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What Caused Republicans To Gain Power In Congress In 1938

They didn’t take power.

Explanation:

While the Republicans did make huge gains in the 1938 Congressional elections, it wasn’t enough to hand them power in either the House of Representatives or the Senate.

In the House of Reps. the Republicans netted 81 seats, most of them in the northern states. The Republicans gained seats in states like Indiana , Michigan , and South Dakota

The End Of The New Deal

Birth Of A Strong Party

The Class A Power Amplifier: For The 04 Vppinput: 1 What Is The Input Power The Output Power The Power Gain

Midterm Elections Of 1938

The Democratic Party Organization

A Mass Political Movement

Judicial Procedures Reform Bill Of 1937

Upsurge In World War Ii

While in the two decades following World War II union membership remained high, never again would it grow and be as popular as during Roosevelt’s presidency.

John L. Lewis: John L. Lewis, president of the United Mine Workers of America and founder of the CIO, photographed at the Capitol in 1922.

Craft Unionism V Industrial Unionism

American Federation of Labor: Label of the American Federation of Labor.

More About Elections Of 1940 And 1944

Th United States Congress

January 3, 1935 – January 3, 1937 Members 1st: January 3, 1935 – August 26, 19352nd: January 3, 1936 – June 20, 1936

The increased their majorities in both the House and Senate, resulting in a in both chambers, and along with Franklin D. Roosevelt maintained an overall federal government .

Transition To The Fair Deal

More About Black Americans Switch

Lack Of International Pressure

More About Origins Of The Republican Party

Boost Your Grades With Tutorsonspotcom

The New Dealers Arrive

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megacircuit9universe · 4 years

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Civil Unrest

SAT MAY 30 2020

Last Monday, a cop in Minneapolis brutally extinguished the life of an unarmed black man, in extreme cold blooded fashion, in broad daylight. The man, George Floyd, was accused by a cashier of trying to pass a counterfeit twenty dollar bill. He was slowly asphyxiated, over the course of eight agonizing minutes, by one of the arresting officers, who had a knee over his neck, as Floyd lay, hands cuffed behind his back, in the street by the police car, with other officers on the scene doing nothing to intervene as he repeatedly gasped for help saying he could not breathe.

The whole thing was caught by a bystander on video, which went viral, and sparked protests in Minneapolis the next night, Tuesday the 26th. The protests began peacefully, but devolved into riots, vandalism, looting, and arson later that night.

This lead to four more nights (and counting) of ongoing protests and civil unrest, not just in Minneapolis, but across the entire country... with similar protests in every major city... turning into riots after curfew each night so far.

Prior to Tuesday, nobody imagined any story would come along to get Covid19 out of the headlines, but the George Floyd protests have done exactly this, and the protests sparked by this act of police brutality have absolutely dwarfed the AstroTurf anti-mask wearing protests by right wingers in weeks previous.

All these things, however are related.

Covid19 lead to stay at home orders, and a massive economic shutdown, which left people out of work, and stuck at home, with nothing better to do than watch the news... which told them first, of an incompetent President who didn’t give a shit... a vindictive Senate who refused to help anybody financially... followed by cynical Astro Turf protests against the shut downs by armed idiots at courthouses demanding the right to get hair cuts and not wear masks in public... followed by this unconscionable act of police brutality which resulted in an innocent man’s death... in cold blood... in broad daylight.

And so yes, of course we have a real, grassroots protest movement of angry as hell working class people, representing all races, out there raising holy hell across the country... burning down police precincts, and cars, and looting big box stores, smashing up police cars and spray painting them, defying curfews, and... for the first three nights at least... forcing law enforcement and firefighters both to retreat.

It’s too early to say where this is all going. I can’t remember another time where we saw civil unrest on this scale, for so many nights in a row, with no sign of tapering off.

This could all be history by next week, with law and order restored and justice served to the police officer who has already been charged with murder... or... this could be the beginning of a years long civil war.

All I know right now is... 4th of July is a little over a month away. With all official fireworks displays cancelled thanks to the pandemic... it could wind up being the loudest, most explosive.... most potentially violent 4th of July since the National holiday has been celebrated.

This also does not look good for Donald Trump’s reelection resume’. He’s been impeached. The economy’s been destroyed. The pandemic death toll in America has now far exceeded that of any other country, per capita, with little sign of slowing, and now riots are breaking out around the nation on such a scale that law enforcement can’t deal with them.

“He is rich. He is strong. And he is going to crash the stock market. Sidewalks crack, and streets go dark. Ten Thousand bankers shake and scream for Dalton’s pyramid.“ - Pronunciation Book

Meanwhile, looking at Allan Lichtman’s 13 Keys to the White House, in which, for an incumbent to lose reelection six or more keys must be false... for the first time ever, it appears that Trump now scores false on eight keys, with two still nether true nor false, but open.

[F] Party Mandate: After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives than after the previous midterm elections. (lost house in a landslide.)

[T] Contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination.

[T] Incumbency: The incumbent party candidate is the sitting president.

[T] Third party: There is no significant third party or independent campaign.

[F] Short term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign. (it’s in the toilet.)

[F] Long term economy: Real per capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms. (not anymore!)

[F] Policy change: The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy. (unless you count a tax cut for the rich and babies in cages, no.)

[F] Social unrest: There is no sustained social unrest during the term. (not anymore!)

[F] Scandal: The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal. (impeachment anybody?)

[F] Foreign/military failure: The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs. (countless foreign affairs failures, as well as military failures, such as almost starting WW3, and backing a now dead dictator, in Kim Jong Un.)

[F] Foreign/military success: The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs. (none.)

[O] Incumbent charisma: The incumbent party candidate is charismatic or a national hero. (he’s not a national hero, and his charisma is pretty questionable now that even Fox News and Twitter have been turning on him... and he can’t hold rallies anymore.)

[O] Challenger charisma: The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero. (there’s a possibility that by November, Joe Biden could be seen as more charismatic, relative to Trump.)

I have been checking back with these keys a couple times a year since he was elected in 2016, and it’s only now, in 2020, that Trump has finally crossed that threshold of six or more false keys. He had the two economy keys in the bag for a long time, and others remained open, such as third party challenger, scandal, and social unrest, but here on the eve of June... he’s got eight false, with the potential to go false on two more before November.

Not that Lichtman’s keys are a foolproof guide to the outcome of a presidential election, but... they’ve predicted some unexpected upsets in the past, most notably Trumps victory over Clinton in 2016... in that case mainly because there was no incumbent.

Though the keys were worked out by Lichtman by researching the history of presidential elections, it’s fairly self evident that they are simply measures of how competent a president is... while also giving any incumbent a huge edge for the win, even if he/she is only doing the bare minimum.

It does seem now, with the clock counting down to election day, that there is little Trump can do to win reelection.

He could even try to postpone or cancel the elections, but that doesn’t save him from the fact that, constitutionally, his presidency still ends on January 2nd 2021. And in the current climate, it would be extremely difficult for him to try and defy that by going full dictator.

He and his junta have already had ample opportunity to go full dictator this year, first with the pandemic, and now with the riots. And in both cases, they’ve shied away from overt, top-down authoritarian measures... opting instead to back away, keep hands off, and dog whistle for... governors, corporations, white trash with guns... to do... something? Anything? Please?

Their plan (Trump, McConnel, and their junta) was not to take over by force... at least not on such a short deadline. It was to slowly dismantle the three branches of democracy over eight years... packing the courts, undercutting the free press, sowing confusion, taking credit for the self driving economy, voter suppression, etc... until they had it all under control, and only THEN... phasing in the monarchy.

Of course, there were scenarios where a top-down overnight crackdown would’ve worked... like a Y2K, or a WW3... a global scale catastrophe that called for some kind of emergency suspension of democracy altogether.

But, as I’ve said in earlier entries, global pandemic doesn’t lend itself to that... it’s rather the Achilles heel of such a junta, because the only enemy is a primitive, microscopic virus, and while it disrupts the economy and life around the world, competent, compassionate leadership is good enough to mitigate the worst effects... and expose states or nations who cannot mitigate the effects for their incompetency and/or cold neglect.

Also, a pandemic has a time window which is short enough for most to see a light at the end of the tunnel... but far too long for any election schedule, and impossible to get out of the headlines using distractions, in the mean time.

To give in and do the right thing... provide universal basic income and free health care for the duration, while striving to keep a frazzled nation of home bound citizens united with inspirational speeches and reassurances that if we all work together, we can prevail... runs entirely counter to the playbook, and core beliefs of the junta.

Their playbook calls only for sowing division, demonizing the jobless and homeless, and funneling money up the chain, from the poor to the rich... increasing the wealth divide ever further until the working class are indentured servants who live hard scrap lives in perpetual debt, sacrificing everything for the sake of the monarch and the elites.

This is why, all they can do right now is try to bait GOP governors into ending shut downs, and corporations into ending furloughs too early... while dog whistling for ground level supporters to rally against wearing masks... and calling for old people to sacrifice their lives.

It’s a losing strategy, and the riots that are currently breaking out nightly around the nation are proof of that.

What sparked these riots off? Some low level police officer, with deeply racist, and authoritarian leanings, who was emboldened by such dog whistles to think it was okay to slowly asphyxiate a helpless citizen in broad daylight, against the protest of many bystanders, knowing he was being filmed by multiple smart phones.

The junta created a climate in which this officer, and even his police companions on the scene felt this type of obscene public execution, without judge or jury, for a man who purportedly passed a counterfeit twenty, was fully sanctioned by those at the top... because he was black.

But that’s happened too many times already in the country over the past four years for anybody right now... living through the pandemic and the crashed economy, after everything else... to just sit back and take it... or do a peaceful protest that lasted an afternoon.

And now we are looking at the nightmare of every powerful politician, and every rich man... the dreaded uprising of the people!

So, we’ll see where things go from here.

For tonight, that’s all I’ve got to record and observe.

Time for bed.

Justice for George Floyd!

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united-we-stand-politics · 4 years

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The Partisan Crisis

There are two major political parties in American Politics: Republican and Democrat. There are other, or third, parties in American Politics as well, however, these candidates seldom win elections.

I am Unaffiliated, better known as an "Independent". I don't believe in Partisan Politics as I believe it creates friction between people in the two major political parties. I have some ideas that may some day make the political process better here in the United States and re-unite us citizens. Even with our major differences we ALL have more in common than we realize. If we had a completely Independent political process, this country would be a better place for everyone. When a Democrat is elected, half of the country's needs aren't met. When a Republican is elected, the other half of the country's needs aren't met. This pattern continues like a never-ending, vicious cycle. At what point do we stand up as citizens and say enough is enough! At what point do we create a United Front and put a stop to this?

Let us first look at one major crisis here in The United States: Partisanship. Partisanship is dividing America. There are only two major political factions in our Nation, who's opinions and views drastically differ. These differences are so vast that they can't even come to an agreement at the dinner table. People are losing friendships. Even families are being torn apart because the Partisan Crisis has gotten so bad in recent years. This is completely unnecessary and it's been going on for three centuries! Luckily, there is a much better way to do things. Unfortunately, it won't be easy trying to incorporate these simple changes into our current political system.

With the election of President Donald Trump, these opposing factions have become much more distant. The farther the distance, the more dangerous the Partisan Crisis becomes. Partisanship is literally KILLING America and it will cause more serious damage and issues for our future if we don't do something about it right now. In my opinion, we are on the brink of a possible Civil War. This is a TERRIFYING prospect.

Life shouldn't be about black & white anymore. We have come way too far for all of that! It is 2019. We ALL should be able to get along by now and for the most part we have, but the age of the Trump Presidency has brought with it a DISGUSTING and alarming amount of racism, systemic racism, and hatred and both factions are participating. This is NOT good. The Trump Presidency is not entirely to blame, either. First of all, he didn't elect himself!! The Donald, (who I wonder may be the Nostradamus and Bible predicted "Third Anti-Christ" simply called "the trumpet"), has scared many people regardless of color, race, creed, religion or sexual orientation. Many are intimidated by his greedy, racist, sexist, philandering, lying and disrespectful nature and what it is doing and could do to our country and it's image. For a small percentage, it has given them the courage to come out of their racist closet. He spouts racism at his rallies in a way I have never witnessed in my life, other than seeing racist rallies from history in school or on TV. We are backsliding as a country. Make America Great Again? America IS great!

The GOP definitely has to do something. They either need to disconnect themselves from the Trumpets and say, we are Republican, but we do not believe in the Trump White Nationalist agenda OR rebuild itself an entirely new party. They no longer hold the "moral high ground". We have people voting Republican against their own benefit because they don't exactly understand what a Republican government means. (Money for the rich pretty much narrows it down.) They only understand that Trump has promised to, "get rid of illegal immigrants" and "put a stop to the refugee crisis coming to America". They literally voted against their OWN individual benefit on behalf of racism. (Not ALL of them, but 89% of them, based on the most recent Republican approval rating of Trump.) Many of them are on welfare, uneducated and the ones that work have lower than average paying jobs. With 89% of Republicans approving of his racist, White Nationalist agenda, the rest of us are looking at that. This is what Trump has done to the GOP. People who are good people, the other 11% of Republicans, are lumped into this category as well due to their remarkably high approval rating. Trump isn't to blame for being a jackass. They KNEW who they were voting for and they KNOW what they're supporting regardless of the plethora of evidence before them. Best thing that could happen for the GOP would be to vote him out in the 2020 Presidential Primary. It's not unheard of, it has happened before. Trump has lost between 8-10% of his base. His current Independent approval rating is down to 38% and his current Democratic approval rating is down to just 9%. (These numbers are as of May 20, 2018, just a few days before posting this.)

It's a year and a half later and the only thing Trump has "accomplished" was undo many things Obama did, piss off Kim Jong Un and fall for a summit meeting that everyone BUT him & his politically uneducated base KNEW was not going to happen, write a "break-up letter" to Kim Jong Un "cancelling" a meeting Kim had pretty much already cancelled because he finally figured out what everyone else knew. (That there would be no meeting and didn't want Kim to cancel it first. He's like a child). He has also managed to play more golf in his first year than Obama did in his entire Presidency, even after criticizing the man for playing golf. Let's also not forget the fact that he's spent much more money. He has snowed the American people into believing that he works for no salary. Check out his website!!! He's got all kinds of things for sale! "President Trump" memorabilia. One Christmas tree ornament for FORTY DOLLARS.... MADE IN CHINA. Why would anyone think he would bring jobs back to the States when his own workers are overseas? He has outsourced THOUSANDS of American jobs to Mexico and China. (Just ask the coal miners he lied to in order to secure their vote. They won't be voting for him again.) His designer imposter daughter's clothes are also made in China. The "Ivanka Trump" brand that sells cheap knock offs of very expensive French & Italian designers are made in sweat shops. She's had a series of lawsuits from said designers. There's no telling how many times The Trumpet, himself, has been sued. I know it's been several times. He's declared bankruptcy on several properties in Atlantic City and other areas so that he wouldn't have to pay back his investors. (One of them had ties to the Hard Rock Cafe who also sued him.) He's a crook who rips people off! We have a CROOK in the White House!!! This whole country is going down the toilet.....FAST! It doesn't get any worse than this. This is the worst Presidential behavior in American History. It's like a horror movie!

So, what do we do about this horror story called Partisanship?! Well, I have an idea! END Partisanship! Unite ALL Americans. The average politician doesn't care about what the average American NEEDS. So what exactly ARE the NEEDS of the average American?! According to those I have interviewed, we ALL have many similar needs, irregardless of political identity. Everyone I have interviewed is concerned about healthcare in some way, education, homelessness, veterans' needs, smaller government, unneeded child services being put in place regardless of there being any exigent circumstances, children needing services not getting any due to the backlog of unwarranted cases based on "revenge calls". Then we have local, state & federal income taxes, the cost of living in certain states, the heroin & crack epidemic, and overcrowded jails and prisons. The United States is a "free country", yet we have more people in jail than any other country on the planet and we're the only democratic country without free healthcare. Racial profiling was mentioned in my interviews and that's a huge problem in this country today. Police brutality is a concern for all races I have interviewed. Addiction and alcoholism, disability, social security, the rights of felons after a longer period of good behavior, felons not being able to get a job, illegal immigration, and concerns for the DACA citizens because children can't help that they were forced to cross the border by irresponsible parents. Everything down to ridiculous fees on hotel prices in NJ beyond the 12% sales tax is a concern for some. We have homeless citizens all over the place. No one should be homeless here. Some feel that business grants are being distributed unfairly. We need to feel that ALL of our needs are being met no matter WHO is in office and no matter our identity. We have so many similar basic needs that it's an embarrassment of riches! We don't need parties... we need TRUE freedom!

How do we ensure these needs get met? We either create a NO party system OR open up more factions. So, instead of having two major factions like we have now, we have more like eight because many Americans aren't having these needs met by either Political Party and identify in different areas of the scale. When I take a political identity quiz I come up Market Skeptic Republican even though I'm an Independent. This is all a result of having two political parties even though MOST Americans ALL have the same basic needs.

The other change would be to stop political campaign Super PACs. There should be a cap on how much money a person, business, corporation, etc., should be allowed to donate or gift to any politicians regardless of whether or not it is during a political campaign. It's safe to say that VP Pence, as an example, is pretty much owned by the Koch Bros. who have donated in excess of one million dollars to his political campaigns and interests. Politicians should no longer be capable of being bought. This would ensure that the extremely small upper .1% of the population won't be controlling the other 99.9% of us via paying off politicians.

I believe it best if we also got rid of ALL parties. No one has to feel like they need to be "loyal to their party" anymore. With an Independent, literally FREE, "No Party System", (not to be confused with a one party system), all candidates can bring their own ideas to the table without any outside influence. Everything would still work exactly the same. The only difference would be that every candidate is an Independent along with every voter and billionaires can't buy them off with their big bags of money. Without a "base", politicians can start listening to everyone's needs as opposed to one TYPE of person.

So, regarding those American needs I mentioned earlier? What would this new generation of politicians do for these needs of ours? They would get a general sense of everyone's needs and combine them to create something where everyone is happy. A political compromise, if you will. Will there be some sacrifices down the line? Of course their would, but political compromises will ensure that everyone gets their basic needs met and that one "side" isn't being ignored. There would be more than two candidates in every election for all levels from assemblyperson all the way up to the Presidential election. We would have all kinds of candidates running in one general election.

We will never agree with each other on every issue, but we can sure do a much better job of making compromises. With a couple new changes to the political process we can make a better future for ourselves and our children, our grandchildren and many generations to come. Let's work TOGETHER! We can start small by voting for Independent candidates and becoming Unaffiliated or Independent on our voter registration cards. After a period of time, others will follow suit and will do the same. The change starts with me writing this article. It starts with you sharing it with your friends. It starts with one person doing the right thing and passing the message along to the next person. Before we know it, we will have created that positive change that we so desperately need. Thank you for taking the time to read this article regarding this very important issue and may the best candidates win!!! 💘💘💘

*This article is a product of my personal long term investigative journalism, several interviews, reading & research. I'm just starting out as an investigative journalist and I hope you all enjoy my writings, even if you don't always agree with it.

**Sources:

Gallup Polls; The Pew Research Center; CNN, FOX, MSNBC, CBS, ABC; The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Philadelphia Inquirer; Public Interviews of Anonymous Citizens; https://www.snopes.com; Axios; http://www.shop.donaldjtrump.com

**Addendum

I wrote this article over a year ago. Concerning my statement regarding the GOP doing something to help us is currently out of the question considering what's been going on with the Impeachment Inquiry.

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