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Post by the Scribe on Apr 27, 2020 9:57:15 GMT
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 27, 2020 9:57:41 GMT
Obama makes some great points about how Trump and the GOP operate. Their M.O. is fear and deflection. Instead of telling us what they will do to help the American people with important things like healthcare and social security they focus on demonizing immigrants. Remember when the Bush administration had all of those color coded terrorist warnings right before the election in 2004 and 2006? Same old story with these people.Obama rips Trump, GOP in fiery speeches for Midwest Dems Ivan Moreno and David Eggert, Associated Press,Associated Press 1 hour 33 minutes ago Obama rallying in Vegas with Dems in tight races
DETROIT (AP) -- Former President Barack Obama criticized President Donald Trump's tenure in office Friday in fiery speeches in Milwaukee and Detroit that took aim at him and other Republicans for "making stuff up."
The speeches were among Obama's sharpest and most direct takedowns of Trump's presidency, although the former president was careful to not mention Trump by name. He said the "character of our country is on the ballot" in the first midterm election since Trump took office.
Obama cited a recent Trump comment that he would pass a tax cut before the November election. Obama then told the crowds in high school gymnasiums that "Congress isn't even in session before the election! He just makes it up!" At one point Obama said in Wisconsin: "Here's the thing. Everything I say you can look up."
Obama's visits were to urge people to vote for Michigan and Wisconsin's Democratic candidates. While Trump was frequently the target of his criticism, he did not spare Republicans generally and said they are lying when they say they want to protect people with pre-existing conditions while trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
"What we have not seen before in our public life is politicians just blatantly, repeatedly, baldly, shamelessly, lying. Just making stuff up," Obama said. "Calling up, down. Calling black, white. That's what your governor is doing with these ads, just making stuff up," he said, referring to Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker and his assertions that he wants to protect health care for those with pre-existing conditions. Walker is being challenged by Democrat Tony Evers.
In Michigan, Obama credited Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gretchen Whitmer for helping to expand Medicaid and said "few people fought against it harder" than her Republican opponent, state Attorney General Bill Schuette. He said voters can trust Sen. Debbie Stabenow to protect people with pre-existing conditions because "she was there" to help pass his health law. She is facing a challenge from Republican John James, whom Obama criticized for saying he backs Trump's agenda "2,000 percent."
Obama used the subject of Hillary Clinton's private email server to accuse Republicans of trying to "scare the heck out of people before every election" and also to mock Trump about the Chinese spying on his cellphone.
"In the last election, it was Hillary's emails. 'This is terrible' ... 'This is a national security crisis.' They didn't care about emails and you know how you know? Because if they did, they'd be up in arms right now that the Chinese are listening to the president's iPhone that he leaves in his golf cart."
Obama spoke about the slow-moving migrant caravan from Central American bound for the United States as another example of a Republican scare tactic.
"Now the latest, they're trying to convince everybody to be afraid of a bunch of impoverished, malnourished refugees a thousand miles away," he said. "That's the thing that is the most important thing in this election," he said.
"Not health care, not whether or not folks are able to retire, doing something about higher wages, rebuilding our roads and bridges and putting people back to work."
"Suddenly," he continued, changing his voice to a high-pitch to strike a mocking tone, "it's these group of folks. We don't even know where they are. They're right down there."
Referring to Trump's promise to "drain the swamp," Obama said that instead "they have gone to Washington and just plundered away."
"In Washington they have racked up enough indictments to field a football team," he said. "Nobody in my administration got indicted."
Obama's visit to Milwaukee was the first time he was in the city for a political event since March 2016, when he came to celebrate enrollment numbers in the Affordable Care Act. He did not campaign for Hillary Clinton in Wisconsin, a state she narrowly lost that proved crucial to Trump becoming president.
Michigan is another battleground state in the Midwest that Democrats lost in 2016, despite Obama's visit the day before the election.
"I'm hopeful Michigan," he said. "I'm hopeful that despite all the noise, despite all the lies, we're going to come through all that. We're going to remember who we are, who we're called to be. I'm hopeful because out of this political darkness, I'm seeing a great awakening." ___ Moreno reported from Milwaukee. www.yahoo.com/news/obama-aims-boost-wisconsin-michigan-democratic-turnout-041257945.html
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 27, 2020 9:58:05 GMT
We really do need Obama out there, more than ever, along with Bernie Sanders and others, to get the word out that voters can stop the Trump agenda and this transparent purge of voters through voter fraud, voter suppression, fear, loathing, and jerry mandering of congressional districts. He may not have been a perfect president, but compared to the mango-headed schmuck that's in there now, he might as well be FDR or JFK.
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 27, 2020 10:42:05 GMT
Only 36% Of Republicans Support Freedom Of The Press
Forty-three percent of Republicans think President Trump “should have the authority to close news outlets engaged in bad behavior,” while only 36 percent disagreed with the statement, according to an Ipsos pollWoman at a meeting says she supports Trump being a DICTATOR while the crowd cheers.
89% of Republicans approve of Trump, even after he has LIED more than any other Politician in history (fact checkers claim over 16,000 false or misleading statements since becoming president).
Rush Limbaugh Finally Admits That Trump’s Dictator-Like Behavior Makes Him “Nervous”
Rush Limbaugh, the king of conservative talking heads, has finally come forward and admitted that Donald Trump’s behavior is beginning to make him nervous. Limbaugh fears that Trump, even with good intentions, good be abusing the power of his office and moving into full dictator mode
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Post by the Scribe on May 3, 2020 17:45:34 GMT
Why Democrats Govern and Republicans Obstructwashingtonmonthly.com/2020/05/01/why-democrats-govern-and-republicans-obstruct/
The best way to promote a liberal agenda is to build trust in good government.
by Nancy LeTourneauMay 1, 2020POLITICAL ANIMAL U.S. Capitol/CongressRoman Boed/Flickr Unlike the Republican response to efforts aimed at mitigating the effects of the Great Recession in 2009, Democrats aren’t attempting to obstruct everything Trump and Republicans propose as the country struggles to deal with a pandemic. That alone should be a stark reminder that both sides don’t do it when it comes to gridlock in Washington.
But as Ezra Klein notes, the differences between the two parties are even more stark than that. While Republicans sat on their hands and simply obstructed, Democrats are actually trying to govern.
Democrats are acting as the governing party even though they’re in the minority. They’re fighting for the baseline policies that any normal administration, Republican or Democrat, would be begging for right now.
“From the very beginning, this administration made the decision that there was no legitimate role for the federal government to play in responding to this crisis,” says Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT). “It wasn’t an accident they didn’t request any money in the early days. They really believed, as they believe today, that this is a problem states and local governments should confront.”
The risk Democrats take is that voters tend to credit a president with any major legislation, especially during an election year. Given the magnitude of Trump’s failures during this crisis, that is less of a concern than it would be otherwise. But we’ve still seen him take credit for relief measures, when it was actually Democrats who did the heavy lifting during negotiations.
There are always those who think that Democrats should employ the same tactics Republicans have used to effectively obstruct any progress that could be credited to the opposition. But that ignores a fundamental difference between the two parties, as Senator Brian Schatz explained.
“It’s like the old saying that Republicans believe the government is incompetent and then get elected and prove it,” says Schatz. “They don’t want the federal government to work and we do. That’s what’s going on here, and I don’t have a quick, facile solution to it. If we engage in a zero-sum game, we’ll just accelerate the death spiral that is Grover Norquist and Mitch McConnell and the Koch brothers’ dream.”
Schatz is exactly right. If you had any doubts about the fact that Democratic obstruction would play right into the hands of Norquist, McConnell, and the Koch brothers, I would remind you of what Mike Lofgren—former Republican congressional staffer—wrote back in 2011.
A couple of years ago, a Republican committee staff director told me candidly (and proudly) what the method was to all this obstruction and disruption. Should Republicans succeed in obstructing the Senate from doing its job, it would further lower Congress’s generic favorability rating among the American people. By sabotaging the reputation of an institution of government, the party that is programmatically against government would come out the relative winner.
That is precisely why a mantra of mine has been that the best way to promote a liberal agenda is to build public trust in good government.
Those differences are especially stark when, for the president and his supporters, “the cruelty is the point.” As Representative Pramila Jayapal told Klein about our current crisis, “There is enormous suffering, and if we do not respond with the boldness and the scale that this crisis demands, then that suffering will continue.”
There are probably times when promoting good government becomes a liability for Democrats who are attempting to negotiate with a party that is, as Lofgren suggested, “programmatically against government.” But ignoring the suffering of the American people, especially during a crisis like the one we’re facing now, is simply not an option.
Support the Washington Monthly and get a FREE subscriptionNancy LeTourneau Nancy LeTourneau is a contributing writer for the Washington Monthly. Follow her on Twitter @smartypants60.
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Post by the Scribe on May 7, 2020 7:20:55 GMT
Congress insider trading inquiry looks 'particularly damning' for Senator Burr, expert saysfinance.yahoo.com/news/congress-insider-trading-inquiry-burr-expert-180314242.html Adriana BelmonteYahoo FinanceMay 5, 2020
Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) found himself mired in controversy after an investigation by ProPublica/The Center for Responsive Politics revealed that he and his wife sold numerous stock shares following confidential briefings on the coronavirus pandemic.
The Justice Department announced in March that it would be investigating some senators to determine whether they traded ahead of the stock market crash triggered by the coronavirus pandemic.
And one senator in particular could be especially vulnerable: Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Burr.
Chairman Richard Burr, (R-NC), gives opening remarks at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing for a nomination hearing for Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, on May 5, 2020 in Washington, DC. (Photo: Andrew Harnik-Pool/Getty Images)
“Insider trading cases, because they require knowledge of the material nonpublic information, are always established circumstantially,” James Cox, professor of corporate and securities law at Duke University, told Yahoo Finance. “It’s a little bit like the question in Watergate: ‘What did you know and when did you know it?’ And then putting that in proximity of when you traded.”
Cox added that “Burr’s been fairly open about [the fact] that we did have this intelligence briefing. We do know that was much richer than the information that was in the public domain. So we have those pieces about what he knew. And then you put that in relatively close proximity to when he knew that information and when he traded, that is particularly damning for him.”
When asked for comment, Burr’s office referred to the statement that the senator posted on Twitter.
‘It wasn’t just one or two stocks’
Back on Feb. 13, Burr and his wife sold shares of companies worth $1.7 million. According to an analysis by the Wall Street Journal, those shares were worth at least $250,000 less at the close of the trading day on March 19. www.wsj.com/articles/burr-senate-colleagues-sold-stock-after-coronavirus-briefings-11584715866?mod=article_inline
“The other thing that’s particularly damning about him is that the trades that he did engage in were significant,” Cox said. “It wasn’t just one or two stocks. It was a big part of his portfolio and an important component of his overall wealth, which suggests again that it was likely he was selling because he was fearful in light of what he had heard from the intelligence community — that there was going to be a major decline in the stock market.”
Burr was receiving daily coronavirus briefings around the time of his stock selling, which included several hotel companies. The hotel industry has been hit hard by the coronavirus. www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-usa-intelligence/u-s-spy-agencies-monitor-coronavirus-spread-concerns-about-india-sources-idUSKCN20L37R finance.yahoo.com/video/coronavirus-impacting-hospitality-industry-211134740.html
WASHINGTON, DC - FEBRUARY 25: Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) (L) and Acting Deputy Homeland Security Secretary Ken Cuccinelli walk to a briefing from administration officials on the coronavirus, on Capitol Hill February 25, 2020 in Washington, DC. Representatives from HHS, CDC, NIH and State Department briefed the Senators. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)View photos
In a Feb. 7 op-ed for Fox News, Burr and Sen. Lamar Alexander wrote that “the United States is better prepared than ever before to face emerging public health threats, like the coronavirus.” www.foxnews.com/opinion/coronavirus-prevention-steps-the-u-s-government-is-taking-to-protect-you-sen-alexander-and-sen-burr
But, according to NPR, he told a private group only a few weeks later that the coronavirus “is much more aggressive in its transmission than anything that we have seen in recent history. It is probably more akin to the 1918 pandemic.” www.npr.org/2020/03/19/818192535/burr-recording-sparks-questions-about-private-comments-on-covid-19
‘The information doesn’t have to emanate from a traditional insider’
Insider trading is defined by the Securities & Exchanges Commission (SEC) as “buying or selling a security, in breach of a fiduciary duty or other relationship of trust and confidence, while in possession of material, nonpublic information about the security.” www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/25743/000138713113000737/ex14_02.htm
The STOCK Act, signed into law by President Obama in 2012, bans members of Congress from insider trading. A major component of the bill is that it increases transparency in financial disclosure reporting. First, government officials are required to report certain investment transactions within 45 days of making the trade. And, information in these public financial disclosure reports have to be available online. obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2012/04/04/fact-sheet-stock-act-bans-members-congress-insider-trading
From there evolved into misappropriated information as the basis of insider trading.
“This is the theory upon which the political intelligence cases are based,” Sporkin said. “At its core, the information doesn’t have to emanate from a traditional insider. It can come from anyone who has direct or indirect access to market moving data and who has a duty not to use that information for personal gain. They kind of stole the information.”
WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 04: Surrounded by members of Congress and U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, U.S. President Barack Obama signs the STOCK Act into law at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building April 4, 2012 in Washington, DC. The STOCK Act is a bipartisan bill that prevents members of Congress from trading stocks based on nonpublic information they gleaned on Capitol Hill. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)View photos Proving that insider trading took place can be both very simple and very complicated, according to former SEC lawyer Tom Sporkin.
“The reason that it is is because insiders started to devise ways of doing it when it became easy to detect,” he told Yahoo Finance. If I was the CEO of a public company, it’s hard for me to trade in advance of a positive earnings announcement in my own account without being detected. Over time, people started to tip their friends and relatives so that they could do the trading for them: ‘hey, I’ll give you a tip and you just kick it back to me this way.’”
Sporkin continued: “Once tipping started, it became hard to detect and much more complex to prosecute. It’s not illegal for John Doe to insider trade in XYZ Company stock. But if he received a tip from somebody inside the company and understood at this insider expected something in return as part of a ‘you scratch my back, I scratch yours,’ then prosecutors needed a way to prosecute that.”
BRAZIL - 2020/04/05: In this photo illustration the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) logo seen displayed on a smartphone with a computer model of the COVID-19 coronavirus in the background. (Photo Illustration by Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)View photos
‘She did this more than once’
Burr isn’t the only senator facing criticism for his stock trading. Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA), a member of the Senate Health Committee, reported selling some stock on Jan. 24. That was the same day the Senate Health Committee was briefed by administration officials on the coronavirus, according to the Daily Beast. www.thedailybeast.com/sen-kelly-loeffler-dumped-millions-in-stock-after-coronavirus-briefing
“Allegations of improper trading are based purely on disregarding the facts, cherry-picking dates, and misrepresenting transactions in Senator Loeffler’s Periodic Transaction Reports,” a spokesperson for the senator told Yahoo Finance. “These transactions were executed by independent third-party advisers who have long-managed Senator Loeffler and her family’s portfolio, and represent a small fraction of the Senator and her family’s investable assets. She has welcomed questions from day one because she has followed the letter and spirit of the law her entire career, including her time in the U.S. Senate.”
The stake sold was in Resideo Technologies, whose stock price lunged more than 50% in the following weeks. Loeffler and her husband, Jeffrey Sprecher (CEO of Intercontinental Exchange, which owns the New York Stock Exchange), sold 26 more stocks through the month of February. Loeffler also purchased stock in Citrix, a tech company that provides teleworking software.
Sen. Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga., arrives for a Republican policy lunch on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, March 20, 2020, to work on a sweeping economic rescue plan amid the pandemic crisis and nationwide shutdown that's hurtling the country toward a likely recession. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Loeffler “appears something of a serial seller,” Cox said. “She did this more than once. And again, it’s the same approach that we would be having. What did she know and when did she know it? And then seeing, first of all, the proximity to which these trades occurred to when she came into possession of this information, and two, whether the trading activity looked the least… It doesn’t have to look abnormal, but it helps the prosecution to show that the trading pattern that was engaged in was abnormal versus what she’d normally done.”
In other words, if she typically traded stocks three or four times a week, it would not seem out of the ordinary, rather than if she completed trades sporadically.
“Again, it’s all circumstantial evidence, but it’s certainly matters that need to be looked into,” Cox said, adding that Loeffler “is not a low-trained person. As a result, she probably trades a lot, so she may have the best case for going forward and saying ‘this was not an unusual situation, I turn my portfolio over a lot.’”
Amid the controversy, Loeffler announced in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that she and her husband would be liquidating their individual stock shares. www.wsj.com/articles/i-never-traded-on-confidential-coronavirus-information
“Senator Loeffler has not traded on any non-public information nor shared any non-public information gained in the course of her Senate duties with investment managers, her husband, or anyone else,” the spokesperson said. “She will continue to act with integrity and transparency. To end these distractions and political attacks, she and her husband have liquidated these independently managed accounts. Senator Loeffler’s focus remains on delivering relief to Georgian families impacted by COVID-19.”
Feinstein and Inhofe
Although there is controversy surrounding Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)’s involvement in the alleged scandal, the senator never actually sold any stocks.
“During my Senate career, I’ve held all assets in a blind trust of which I have no control,” Feinstein said in a statement to Yahoo Finance. “Reports that I sold any assets are incorrect, as are reports that I was at a January 24 briefing on coronavirus, which I was unable to attend.”
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., talks to reporters as she walks to her office during the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Monday, Feb. 3, 2020. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
The SEC defines a blind trust as a legal arrangement “in which a trustee manages funds for the benefit of somebody (e.g., an access person) who has no knowledge of the specific management actions taken by the trustee and no right to intervene in the trustee’s management.” www.sec.gov/investment/im-guidance-2015-03.pdf
In other words, if you have a blind trust, you don’t know what’s currently in your portfolio.
“That’s the way it ought to be and if it just so happens that blind trust trades, that’s it,” Cox said. “Now, the question with Feinstein is: Who manages that trust? Is it her husband? Then we always worry about pillow talk. But we don’t know that.”
Feinstein, citing Senate rules, told Yahoo Finance that “I report my husband’s financial transactions. My husband in January and February sold shares of a cancer therapy company. This company is unrelated to any work on the coronavirus and the sale was unrelated to the situation.”
WASHINGTON, DC, UNITED STATES, FEBRUARY 3, 2020: U.S. Senator Jim Inhofe (R-IA) arriving for the Senate impeachment trial.- PHOTOGRAPH BY Michael Brochstein / Echoes Wire/ Barcroft Media (Photo credit should read Michael Brochstein / Echoes Wire/Barcroft Media via Getty Images)
Meanwhile, a financial disclosure report found that Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) sold $400,000 worth of stock on Jan. 27. These holdings include PayPal (PYPL), Apple (AAPL), and Brookfield Asset Management (BAM). www.nytimes.com/2020/03/19/us/politics/richard-burr-stocks-sold-coronavirus.html finance.yahoo.com/quote/PYPL?p=PYPL&.tsrc=fin-srch finance.yahoo.com/quote/AAPL?p=AAPL&.tsrc=fin-srch finance.yahoo.com/quote/BAM?p=BAM&.tsrc=fin-srch
Sen. Inhofe’s office did not respond to request for comment.
Among these four senators, Cox said that Burr “looks the most aberrant of all of them.”
“We’re going to learn a lot more about particularly Senator Burr’s trading in the ensuing months, perhaps years, because of the investigation,” he said. “The fact that [the SEC and DoJ] are opening a case is, to me, rather surprising because most insider trading cases are not brought as a criminal matter, so it’s a serious matter... It’s going to have a lot of headlines, uncover more allegations, or maybe get into the situation where there’s ultimately going to be a discovery and learning more facts. So we’re going to hear about this story for a long time.”
Adriana is a reporter and editor for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter @adrianambells.
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Post by the Scribe on May 13, 2020 5:48:28 GMT
Greatest increases of COVID deaths projected in Republican stateswww.yahoo.com/finance/news/greatest-increases-of-covid-deaths-projected-in-republican-states-193205068.html Kristin Myers Yahoo FinanceMay 12, 2020, 12:32 PM MST
According to a Yahoo Finance analysis of the University of Washington Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) coronavirus death toll model, states with Republican governors are projected to have greater death increases than those with Democratic governors. covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america
The Yahoo Finance analysis looked at the death toll projections for all 50 states and Washington, D.C., and compared them to the current number of deaths as reported by IHME for consistency. What’s more, the analysis found that Republicans govern roughly 70% of the states in the country with the highest increases in death projections.
Of the top 10 states with the greatest death toll increases, 8 are states with Republican governors. All states in the top 10 are projected to have death tolls that rise well over 150% from their current figures, according to the University of Washington model.
The top state is Arizona, which is projected to experience a 541% increase in deaths from COVID-19. According to the IHME model, Arizona is projected to have 2,987 deaths from the virus. Currently, according to IHME, the state’s death toll stands at 466. (The other Republican-led states include: South Dakota, Missouri, Alabama, Iowa, Florida, Mississippi, and North Dakota.)
Arizona partially reopened the state on May 4, allowing some stores to reopen for delivery, walk-up and window services. Gov. Doug Ducey issued an Executive Order allowing restaurants to resume dine-in service on May 11, while barbershops and salons reopened on May 8. azgovernor.gov/governor/news/2020/05/guidance-restaurants-coffee-shops-barbers-and-cosmetologists
Graphic by David Foster/Yahoo Finance
Of the top 5 states that are projected to experience the biggest increases in their death tolls, only one had a Democratic governor.
By Aug. 4 Minnesota is projected to have 2,073 deaths — a 271% increase from the current death toll of 559.
It’s a frightening reality facing many government officials as they mull just if and how they should reopen their states.
According to the University of Washington’s modeling, the easing of lockdown orders and the relaxation of mitigation techniques like social distancing has caused their projections of deaths from coronavirus to nearly double. After originally predicting that roughly 73,000 people in the U.S. would succumb to the contagious virus, the number now stands at nearly 138,000. www.yahoo.com/finance/news/projected-coronavirus-death-toll-rises-as-more-states-mull-reopening-123737291.html
During his congressional testimony on Tuesday, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci warned states and regions on reopening without adhering to White House guidelines. www.yahoo.com/news/fauci-warns-quick-reopening-could-spark-another-coronavirus-outbreak-172313231.html www.whitehouse.gov/openingamerica/
Reopening he said, needs “to the best extent possible to go by the guidelines which have been very well thought out and delineated.” And if they didn’t, he added, after being questioned by Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), the results could be dire.
“The consequences could be really serious,” he said.
On the flip side, the majority of states that are looking at zero-to-little death increases have Democratic leadership.
Six of the bottom 10 states have Democratic governors. All are looking at increases of less than 50% from the current death figures to the projected numbers by the beginning of August. Even more surprising is the appearance of Washington and New York in the bottom of the list, despite being hardest hit by the virus when accounting for absolute positive cases and deaths.
People are seen dining outdoors as Boca Raton restaurants re-open in accordance with Palm Beach County's Phase 1 reopening of businesses during the Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic on May 11, 2020 in Boca Raton, Florida. Credit: mpi04/MediaPunch /IPX
Where Trump defeated Clinton in 2016
The analysis matches what Dr. William Frey has seen in his own investigation of the impact of coronavirus.
Frey, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, has been tracking the prevalence of the virus in counties across the country. www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2020/05/07/as-states-reopen-covid-19-is-spreading-into-even-more-trump-counties/
As coronavirus spreads, Frey has found that it’s largely impacting counties where President Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in the 2016 general election.
Since the numbers of counties with the highest prevalence of the virus is growing in Trump counties, Frey said, “I assume the numbers of deaths are going to follow.”
But as more and more red states and regions are impacted by the virus, conservatives continue to push for the reopening of states’ economies.
Frey says part of the reason might lie in Trump’s “politicization” of the virus when it was predominantly slamming blue cities like New York, Seattle, and New Orleans.
“At that point, people in these smaller places and red places didn’t feel like they were at risk and might have felt like they were being kept at home for no reason at all,” he said. “So they probably established that mindset before the spread became more vivid.”
The Yahoo Finance analysis found that with the exception of Minnesota, all of the top 10 states projected to have the greatest increases in COVID-19 deaths are currently open in some capacity. In contrast, half of the bottom 10 are currently under lockdown or plan to reopen soon, but have not as yet.
As the virus continues to slam red states and areas, there is a chance voters might rethink their political choice come November.
“I think Trump is taking a big gamble in making this a political issue,” Frey said. “It could blow up in his face. It’s a calculated risk but it could be a bad one for him.”
Kristin Myers is a reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter.
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Post by the Scribe on May 20, 2020 1:37:23 GMT
Rick Wilson: "The Republican Party... is dead"
Overheard with Evan Smith 2.6K subscribers In this clip from Overheard, political strategist Rick Wilson talks about his latest book, "Running Against the Devil."
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Post by the Scribe on May 22, 2020 10:51:47 GMT
Discredited Right-Wing Myths, Information and Resources, Political Humor 100 Things You Can Say To Irritate A Republican (HUMOR) addictinginfo.com/2013/01/14/100-things-you-can-say-to-irritate-a-republican/ By Stephen D. Foster Jr. on January 14, 2013 12:03 am · A typical angry Republican Image from www.skyscanner.net/news/articles/2010/08/007777-76-have-sympathy-for-air-rage-reveals-skyscanner.html Conservatives are so easy to anger these days. Even the most insignificant statement can set off their tempers. If you want to enrage a conservative, I suggest saying the following:
1. A Socialist wrote the Pledge of Allegiance. 2. Jesus healed the sick and helped the poor, for free. 3. Joseph McCarthy was an un-American, witch hunting lunatic. 4. Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee were traitors. 5. The South lost the Civil War, get over it. 6. The Founding Fathers were liberals. 7. Fascism is a right-wing trait. 8. Sarah Palin is an idiot. 9. The Earth is round. 10. Reagan raised taxes eleven times as President. 11. Reagan legalized abortion as Governor of California. 12. Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency. 13. Ronald Reagan supported gun control. 14. Global warming is real. 15. Republicans hate illegal immigrants, unless they need their lawns mowed or their houses cleaned. 16. The military is a government-run institution, so why do Republicans approve the defense budget? 17. The Cold War is over and the Soviet Union no longer exists. 18. Paying taxes is patriotic. 19. Republicans: Peddling the same failed economic policies since 1880. 20. The Republican Party began as a liberal party. 21. The Presidents’ full name is Barack Hussein Obama and he was born in the United States of America. 22. George W. Bush held hands with the King of Saudi Arabia. 23. President Obama saved the American auto industry, while Republicans wanted to destroy it. 24. Hate is not a Christian virtue. 25. Jesus was a liberal. 26. Republicans spend MORE money than Democrats. 27. Tea parties are for little girls. 28. Public schools educate all children; private schools are for indoctrinating children. 29. The Constitution is the law, NOT the Bible. 30. Sharia law doesn’t exist in America. 31. The President is NOT a Muslim. 32. Corporations are NOT people. People are people. 33. Fox News isn’t real news, it’s just a racist, sexist, hateful, right-wing propaganda machine. 34. The Federal Reserve was a Republican idea. 35. Women are equal citizens who deserve equal rights. 36. Women control their own bodies. 37. Abortion is a relevant medical procedure, just ask Rick Santorum. 38. Please use spell-check. 39. It’s “pundit”, not “pundint”. 40. Social Security is solvent through 2038. 41. Health care is a right, not a product. 42. Roe v. Wade was a bipartisan ruling made by a conservative leaning Supreme Court. 43. G.O.P also stands for Gross Old Perverts. 44. The donkey shouldn’t be the Democratic mascot because Republicans are the real jackasses. 45. Barack Obama ordered the killing of Osama Bin Laden. It took him two and half years to do what Bush couldn’t do in eight. 46. Waterboarding IS torture. 47. 9/11 happened on George W. Bush’s watch, therefore he did NOT keep America safe. 48. Republicans invaded Iraq for oil, so Iraq should be allowed to invade Texas to get it back. 49. Separation of church and state is in the Constitution, it’s called the First Amendment. 50. Muslims are protected by the Constitution, just as much as Christians. 51. Barack Obama is the first African-American President, get over it. 52. The Oval Office is NOT a “whites only” office. 53. America is a nation of immigrants, therefore we are all anchor babies. 54. The white race isn’t disappearing, it’s evolving. 55. God is a particle. 56. Evolution is real. 57. The Earth is 4.54 billion years old, not 6,000. 58. The Founding Fathers did not free the slaves. 59. The Revolution was NOT fought over slavery. 60. Paul Revere warned the Americans, NOT the British. 61. Federal law trumps state law. 62. The Civil War was about slavery, NOT state’s rights. 63. Corporations care more about profits than they do about people. 64. Getting out of a recession requires government spending. 65. Glenn Beck is a nut-job. 66. Republicans: Paranoid since 1932. 67. Republicans don’t want to pay for your birth control, but they want you to pay for their Viagra. 68. Republicans actually NEED Viagra. 69. Fox News is owned by an Australian and has a Saudi prince as an investor. 70. Republicans complain about immigrants taking American jobs, then freely give American jobs to foreigners overseas. 71. Republicans hate communism, so why do they refer to themselves as red states? 72. Labor unions built this country. 73. Republicans hold America hostage as a political strategy; the temper tantrum throwing kind of political strategy. 74. Jesus was a Jew, not a Christian. 75. When Republicans see black, they attack. 76. Inside every Republican is a Klansman or a Nazi waiting to bloom. 77. Republicans only care about children BEFORE they are born. 78. Republicans are hypocrites, they’re just too stupid to know it. 79. The Christian-Right boycotts movies that have violence, and then promotes guns and insurrection. 80. I think therefore I am NOT a Republican. 81. Republicans that oppose gay marriage are most likely in the closet themselves. 82. Churches should stay out of politics, or be taxed. 83. People are too poor to vote Republican. 84. Democrats think for themselves, Republicans form think tanks to do it for them. 85. Republicans hate education because they couldn’t hack it in school. 86. Greed is one of the seven deadly sins and Republicans wallow in it. 87. A little socialism on the Left is better than a little fascism on the Right. 88. The current corporate tax rate is the lowest in 60 years, so stop whining about it being too high. 89. Republicans: Anti-Gay Marriage, Pro-Lesbian sex. 90. Republicans: Terrorizing the American people since 1981. 91. Republicans have their own terrorists, just look up Timothy McVeigh. 92. Republicans love outsourcing, just ask the Chinese Communists. 93. The Republican answer to the oil spill was to apologize to BP, a foreign oil company. 94. Democrats will be working hard to bring jobs to Americans, while the Republicans tea bag each other in the middle of the aisles. 95. Voter disenfranchisement is immoral and un-American, that’s why Republicans do it. 96. Republicans would let your house burn down unless you pay them to put it out. 97. Democrats want to take care of the sick. Republicans take their credit cards and then deny them medical attention. 98. Republicans say teachers are union thugs, then proceed to rape and mug the entire middle class on behalf of corporations. 99. Republicans think rape isn’t a crime, but miscarriages are. 100. Republicans are idiots and arguing with them is a waste of time!
Bottom line? If you want to anger a conservative, tell them the truth.
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Post by the Scribe on May 24, 2020 10:33:59 GMT
STAND WITH YOUR MAN - a Parody | The Freedom Toast
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Post by the Scribe on Jul 26, 2020 21:59:11 GMT
Jeet Heer/April 27, 2018 The Republican Party, Not Trump, Is the Real Threat to American Democracy newrepublic.com/article/148142/republican-party-not-trump-real-threat-american-democracy
SAUL LOEB/AFP/GETTY
On Thursday morning, President Donald Trump called into Fox & Friends and went on such a rant that even the show’s conservative hosts seemed startled. “You look at the corruption at the top of the FBI, it’s a disgrace,” he said. “And our Justice Department—which I try and stay away from, but at some point I won’t—our Justice Department should be looking at that kind of stuff, not the nonsense of collusion with Russia.” As if to protect Trump from further embarrassment, Brian Kilmeade cut the interview short by saying, “We’d talk to you all day but it looks like you have a million things to do.”
This is what Trump’s critics have warned about all along: that he’s an authoritarian who would use the office of the presidency to destroy norms (like his attempts, as in the Fox interview, to undermine the independence of the Department of Justice). And in destroying those norms, some fear, Trump could destroy American democracy itself—or at least contribute to its decline. “Donald Trump is not the heart attack of democracy, he is the gum disease of democracy,” The Atlantic’s David Frum said during a Brookings Institution forum in February. “You can die from gum disease, but it festers for a long time before it finishes you off.”
But some Trump critics lately have argued that he’s not the disease at all. “The problems we face run deeper than the Trump presidency,” Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, the Harvard political scientists and authors of the recent book How Democracies Die, wrote in The New York Times in January. “While Mr. Trump’s autocratic impulses have fueled our political system’s mounting crisis, he is as much a symptom as he is a cause of this crisis.” The crisis, as they see it, is that “the norms that once protected our institutions are coming unmoored.” Or, as Vox’ Dylan Matthews put it in a column earlier this week: “the death loop that American democracy appears to be trapped in.”
But American democracy as a whole remains healthy, as seen in the robust resistance to Trump within the government, the courts, and the public at large. The disease is localized within the Republican Party. Which is why, if indeed American democracy is in a death loop, any solution must not focus solely on ousting Trump, but on punishing and reforming the GOP.
The big takeaway from the first year of Trump’s presidency is that the country’s institutions largely have checked him. “President Trump followed the electoral authoritarian script during his first year,” Levitsky and Ziblatt argue in their book. “He made efforts to capture the referees, sideline the key players who might halt him, and tilt the playing field. But the president has talked more than he has acted, and his most notorious threats have not been realized.... Little actual backsliding occurred in 2017.”
Other prominent Trump critics tend to agree. “The year 2018 begins much as 2017 did, with advocates of American democracy holding their breath to see whether it can withstand the assaults of an autocrat in the Oval Office. In 2017, the restraints mostly held,” New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait acknowledged in early January. Weeks later, Vox’ Zack Beauchamp wrote:
Trump’s assaults on democracy have, for the most part, been repulsed. The courts, the federal bureaucracy, the states, and even large numbers of ordinary Americans have all played a vital role in restraining the president’s authoritarian tendencies.... America’s core institutions may not be in perfect health, but they seem to be functioning well enough to constrain a president who’s gone after essential parts of its democratic system. When it comes to the most basic question for any democracy—can it sustain itself?—the answer right now is a surprisingly clear yes.
Trump called on the FBI and the Department of Justice to attack his political foes, including Hillary Clinton, and pledge loyalty to him; the agencies have refused to do so. Meanwhile, the courts have denied Trump on issues like his travel ban, which originally targeted seven Muslim-majority countries and, after being struck down, had to be modified multiple times; the latest version is now being considered by the Supreme Court. And voters themselves are acting as a counterweight to presidential power. Republicans have vastly underperformed in every special election since Trump took office, and Democrats stand a good chance of winning back the House of Representative and possibly even the Senate in the midterm elections this fall.
But one institution has sorely failed in its constitutional duty to restrain the president. Time and again, the Republican-controlled Congress has ignored, defended, or outright enabled Trump’s authoritarian excesses.
“Donald Trump doesn’t have much of an agenda of his own and he has struck a bargain with people in Congress who do have agendas that he will sign bills that are very unpopular, that probably certainly no Democratic President would sign and probably few first-term Republican presidents would sign,” Frum said during the Brookings event. “He will sign those bills if in return he is given protection for actions that no president in American history has ever dared undertake, including running a massive global influence business while president.”
Levitsky and Ziblatt, as well as Matthews, point to polarization as a major cause of this crisis in American democracy. “Some polarization is healthy, even necessary, for democracy,” Levitsky and Ziblatt wrote. “But extreme polarization can kill it. When societies divide into partisan camps with profoundly different worldviews, and when those differences are viewed as existential and irreconcilable, political rivalry can devolve into partisan hatred.” But they seem reluctant to place blame. “Polarization ... encouraged politicians to abandon forbearance, beginning with the Gingrich-era government shutdowns and the partisan impeachment of Bill Clinton,” they wrote. “Democrats are beginning to respond in kind. Their recent filibuster triggering a government shutdown took a page out of the Gingrich playbook.”
Only at the end of their Times op-ed do Levitsky and Ziblatt come out and say it: “Intensifying polarization, driven by an extremist Republican Party, is making constitutional hardball a new norm for party politics.” Which is to say, this crisis is not simply the result of polarization, but what William A. Galston and Thomas Mann in 2010 called “asymmetrical polarization”: The GOP has moved much further to the right than the Democrats have to the left. In doing so, the party has become more cohesive and extreme—more willing and able, that is, to shatter political norms to achieve their ends.
It is not, then, a crisis of American democracy at all, but a sickness in the Republican Party—one that took root with Newt Gingrich’s “Republican Revolution” in the 1990s, and which has only metastasized within the GOP since. (To the degree Democrats have broken norms, too, they have done so in response to—or in mimicry of—Republicans’ norm-breaking.) The ascension of Trump has only made this asymmetry starker, as Arizona Senator Jeff Flake—one of the few Republican willing to criticize his party today—made clear on Thursday. “I think for one thing, just in terms of what this does for the country,” he said, “we’ve got to have two strong, functioning parties, and right now our party has simply become—it seems—an apologist for certain actions of the president when we shouldn’t be.”
Historically, American political parties moderate themselves after suffering consecutive losses at the ballot box. Between 1932 and 1948, the Republicans were whipped in the presidential race five times in a row. This led the party to nominate a centrist who accepted the New Deal, Dwight Eisenhower. After the Democrats lost three times in a row from 1980 to 1988, they shifted toward the center with Bill Clinton, who triangulated between his party and the GOP. Such a losing streak might seem unimaginable today, with Republicans in control of both chambers of Congress as well as the White House. But it’s not implausible—and perhaps even likely, if one puts any stock in current polling trends—that come 2020, Democrats will control the White House and at least half of Congress.
This is not to preach complacency about the threats to American democracy today, or to claim that the ballot box holds the solution to every problem contributing to this crisis. Gerrymandering, for instance, appears to be a problem that only the courts, if anyone, can solve. Voters also have little power to limit the right-wing media’s profound influence on the Republican Party, rewarding extremism over responsibility. And even if Republicans are banished from power in the White House and Congress, they have shown just how effective they can be as the minority party; there are still many norms they can break. But unless Republicans pay an electoral price, there is little hope for it to become a functioning party again.
Jeet Heer @heerjeet Jeet Heer is a contributing editor at the The New Republic.
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Post by the Scribe on Aug 3, 2020 12:40:34 GMT
New Rule: Democracy's Safe Word | Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO)
Republicans Exposed
Vote Republicans Out
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Post by the Scribe on Aug 23, 2020 0:28:55 GMT
Seems to me Delores was correct. Horne left office for many reasons (besides his racism):
www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/tom-horne-scores-new-gig-and-why-he-still-needs-to-be-punished-6652293 Outlawing Dolores Huerta: The Tucson Diaries 6,691 views•Oct 17, 2013
NonprofitNews 97 subscribers In 2006, Dolores Huerta visits Tucson High School and makes a speech. Within the speech, she states "Republicans Hate Latinos." In 2010, Arizona Attorney Tom Horne and other politicians used these words as their rationale for passing HB-2281-The Ethnic Studies Ban. In this interview, Dolores Huerta discusses the statement and its affect.
For complete context, please watch www.outlawingshakespeare.com.
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Post by the Scribe on Aug 24, 2020 21:47:23 GMT
Most Republicans say that 176,000 coronavirus deaths are ‘acceptable,’ new CBS poll showswww.marketwatch.com/story/most-republicans-say-that-176000-coronavirus-deaths-are-acceptable-new-cbs-poll-shows-2020-08-23?mod=mw_more_headlines Published: Aug. 23, 2020 at 1:07 p.m. ET By Shawn Langlois
More than 176,000 people in the United States have died from the coronavirus as of Sunday morning, according to the latest tally from Johns Hopkins University.
Is that an acceptable figure? CBS News, with help from YouGov, posed that question to 2,226 registered voters in recent days and the response varied dramatically, depending on party.
Here are the results, with a margin of error of 2.4 points:
And with that, it didn’t take long for “57% of Republicans” to emerge as a top-trending topic across Twitter TWTR, +3.13% , with the partisan attacks flying, as expected:Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel took issue with the “unfair” poll in an interview on “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “There is nobody in this country, starting with the president of the United States, who wants to see people pass away from this global pandemic,” she said. “Republicans do not want to see people suffering from this pandemic.” help.twitter.com/en/twitter-for-websites-ads-info-and-privacypbs.twimg.com/media/EgHQlOqXYAEB-tX?format=jpg&name=smallpbs.twimg.com/media/EgHQlOqXYAEB-tX?format=jpg&name=small
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Post by the Scribe on Aug 26, 2020 20:49:01 GMT
Today’s GOP ‘Is Donald Trump’s Party’Chris Carlson/Getty Images Ask any Republican strategist about the state of their party in 2020 and you’ll get an answer something like this from GOP consultant Antonia Ferrier. “This is Donald Trump’s party,” she said, “and I don’t think that should be much of a surprise.”
To underscore the point, the Republican National Committee decided not to write a new party platform this year. Instead, ahead of this week’s GOP convention, the committee unanimously approved a resolution stating that the party “will continue to enthusiastically support the President’s America-first agenda.” prod-cdn-static.gop.com/docs/Resolution_Platform_2020.pdf?_ga=2.165306300.2055661719.1598124638-455285808.1584478680
A lot of long-held Republican beliefs — once seen as party dogma — have been jettisoned under Trump. The party of free trade has backed Trump as he imposes tariffs and criticizes trade deals. On national defense, the president accuses NATO allies of not carrying their weight and essentially freeloading off the United States. Then there’s the longtime GOP hard line regarding the Soviet Union and Russia. www.npr.org/2020/01/15/796305300/trump-to-sign-phase-one-china-trade-deal-but-most-tariffs-remain-in-place www.npr.org/2018/07/11/628137185/fact-check-trumps-claims-on-nato-spending
While some may not like his Twitter habit, polls show sky-high approval for Trump among Republicans. Social conservatives praise Trump’s judicial appointments. Others celebrate the 2017 tax-cut package. And many cheer his attacks on the media. www.npr.org/2020/07/02/886285772/trump-and-mcconnell-via-swath-of-judges-will-affect-u-s-law-for-decades
As for how lasting Trump’s transformation of the GOP will be, that depends on the outcome of the election.
Ferrier put it this way: "If there are those who believe that the Republican Party is just going to snap back to some status quo ante of, say, the Bush administration, I think that is misguided.”
Meanwhile, this week’s GOP convention is giving America a nightly view of the current Republican Party, under complete command of President Trump.
Read more about Donald Trump’s GOP here www.npr.org/2020/08/26/905803785/todays-gop-is-donald-trump-s-party
— Don Gonyea, NPR National Political Correspondent www.npr.org/people/2781501/don-gonyea
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