Category: 2020 Election

Judge halts Trump campaign’s mail-voting lawsuit against Pennsylvania

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A federal judge in Pennsylvania on Sunday halted the Trump campaign’s lawsuit against the state over how it sends and counts mail-in ballots.

Nicholas Ranjan of the U.S. District Court in the Western District of Pennsylvania, who was appointed by President Trump, ruled Sunday that Trump’s lawsuit against the secretary of state and 67 county election boards should be put on hold while state court cases about voting move forward, CNN reported. 

“After carefully considering the arguments raised by the parties, the Court finds that the appropriate course is abstention, at least for the time being. In other words, the Court will apply the brakes to this lawsuit, and allow the Pennsylvania state courts to weigh in and interpret the state statutes that undergird Plaintiffs’ federal- constitutional claims,” Ranjan reportedly wrote Sunday.  Continue reading.

Nominating Trump, Republicans Rewrite His Record

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President Trump and his party engaged in sweeping revisionism about his management of the coronavirus, his record on race relations and much else. And they painted a dystopian picture of what the nation would look like if Joseph R. Biden Jr. were president.

President Trump and his political allies mounted a fierce and misleading defense of his political record on the first night of the Republican convention on Monday, while unleashing a barrage of attacks on Joseph R. Biden Jr. and the Democratic Party that were unrelenting in their bleakness.

Hours after Republican delegates formally nominated Mr. Trump for a second term, the president and his party made plain that they intended to engage in sweeping revisionism about Mr. Trump’s management of the coronavirus pandemic, his record on race relations and much else. And they laid out a dystopian picture of what the United States would look like under a Biden administration, warning of a “vengeful mob” that would lay waste to suburban communities and turn quiet neighborhoods into war zones.

At times, the speakers and prerecorded videos appeared to be describing an alternate reality: one in which the nation was not nearing 180,000 deaths from the coronavirus; in which Mr. Trump had not consistently ignored serious warnings about the disease; in which the president had not spent much of his term appealing openly to xenophobia and racial animus; and in which someone other than Mr. Trump had presided over an economy that began crumbling in the spring. Continue reading.

Tracing the roots of city boy Trump’s racist ‘suburban dream’ nonsense — all the way to Rush Limbaugh

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It’s no surprise that the current occupant of the White House is running for reelection on racism. Given his track record, it would be a surprise if he weren’t. Donald Trump’s racist rhetoric has always centered on fearmongering around crime, going back not just to the start of his presidential campaign in 2015, but back to the 1980s. Now he’s at it again, this time with a focus on the suburbs and, in anachronistic language that evokes June Cleaver or Carol Brady, ”suburban housewives.”

Based on his rambling, Trump seems to think the suburbs are still filled with white women in aprons making their kids PB&J on Wonder BreadTM with the crusts cut off, dutifully fixing after-work martinis for their husbands. Trump thinks he can scare those white-lady aprons right off with tales of Black and brown criminals descending upon their neighborhoods, and present himself as the white (orange?) savior who will keep their neighborhoods safe by keeping them white. This particular dog whistle is not one Trump invented, of course. Among others, Rush Limbaugh has been blowing it for years.

Let’s start with Trump’s current campaign. On June 30, President Shitgibbon tweeted that he was “studying the AFFH housing regulation that is having a devastating impact” on the suburbs. He also claimed that his opponent, former vice president Joe Biden, wants to make things “much worse”—correction: “MUCH WORSE.” Trump added that he “may END!” the AFFH. Continue reading.

ICYMI: Statement by Vice President Joe Biden on the Shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin

“Yesterday in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Jacob Blake was shot seven times in the back as police attempted to restrain him from getting into his car. His children watched from inside the car and bystanders watched in disbelief. And this morning, the nation wakes up yet again with grief and outrage that yet another Black American is a victim of excessive force. This calls for an immediate, full and transparent investigation and the officers must be held accountable. These shots pierce the soul of our nation. Jill and I pray for Jacob’s recovery and for his children. Equal justice has not been real for Black Americans and so many others. We are at an inflection point. We must dismantle systemic racism. It is the urgent task before us. We must fight to honor the ideals laid in the original American promise, which we are yet to attain: That all men and women are created equal, but more importantly that they must be treated equally.” 

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GOP seeks to boost Senate hopes with convention

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Republicans are looking to their national convention to boost their most vulnerable Senate incumbents and help preserve their increasingly tenuous majority in the chamber.

With President Trump’s poll numbers sagging in recent months and the political fortunes of several GOP Senate incumbents largely following suit, Republicans believe that any post-convention bump for the president will also lift up their party’s senators as they head into the crucial final stretch of the 2020 election cycle.

“Obviously it’s a Trump-centric convention, but if the party puts forward something that can reframe the national conversation, yeah, the senators will get a bump,” said Scott Jennings, a Republican consultant and former campaign adviser to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). “It won’t just be for Trump. It’ll help all Republicans.” Continue reading.

Stakes high for Supreme Court as Trump battles for reelection

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President Trump has a chance to transform the Supreme Court into a conservative supermajority if he wins another four-year term, underscoring the potential stakes of this year’s election for future court decisions on everything from the Second Amendment to abortion.

If reelected, Trump would likely get the opportunity to replace ailing liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 87, and possibly fellow liberal Justice Stephen Breyer, 82, which would give conservatives a commanding 6-3 or 7-2 majority. It would also move the court’s fulcrum to the right of its current ideological center, Chief Justice John Roberts, whose stewardship of the court is seen by some conservatives with increasing skepticism.

At the same time, a Democratic win in November could lead to a dramatic reshaping in the opposite direction. A Biden administration might get the chance to field a liberal replacement for conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, 72. He is currently the longest-serving member of the court, and his 28-year tenure is beyond the typical length of service. Continue reading.

How Trump, Mnuchin and DeJoy edged the Postal Service into a crisis

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Soon after Louis DeJoy arrived at the U.S. Postal Service’s L’Enfant Plaza headquarters in mid-June, Mark Dimondstein, the veteran leader of the agency’s largest union, called to get on the new postmaster general’s schedule.

He had urgent matters to discuss: The coronavirus pandemic was forcing widespread absenteeism among his 200,000 members. Protective gear was running low. The post office needed a plan to handle a historic crush of mail-in ballots.

Dimondstein had spoken weekly with DeJoy’s predecessor, Megan Brennan. But it would take six weeks for him to get an audience with the new boss, and by then, the labor leader had other priorities: to halt the rapid-fire cost-cutting moves DeJoy ordered that were degrading the delivery of mail, medicine, food and other staples to a country homebound as the virus was surging again. Continue reading.

Michael Cohen’s Book Will Bare Trump’s ‘Steep Illegality,’ Vows Anthony Scaramucci

It’s all going to “come out in a waterfall” ahead of the election, said Trump’s short-time director of communications.

The soon-to-be-published book by President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, will reveal multiple cases of criminality, backed by “evidence,” longtime Trump associate Anthony Scaramucci said Saturday. 

Scaramucci, who served as White House director of communications for a week in 2017, said on MSNBC that Cohen’s book will expose Trump’s “rank criminality” and “steep, steep illegality and amorality.”

“It is not like Michael is going to say this and the White House is going to discredit him … He is going to back it up with documentary evidence to show the level of illegality, the repetitiveness of the illegality,” said Scaramucci. Continue reading.

AP FACT CHECK: Trump’s distortion on Dems and the pledge

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is accusing the Democrats of taking God out of the Pledge of Allegiance at their national convention. He’s distorting what happened. 

TRUMP: “The Democrats took the word GOD out of the Pledge of Allegiance at the Democrat National Convention. At first I thought they made a mistake, but it wasn’t. It was done on purpose. Remember Evangelical Christians, and ALL, this is where they are coming from-it’s done. Vote Nov 3!” — tweet Saturday.

THE FACTS: That’s a misleading accusation. The central programming of the convention featured the entire pledge, complete with “under God.” Continue reading.

House passes $25B bill to boost Postal Service

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The House on Saturday passed legislation that would prevent the U.S. Postal Service from making any changes to its operations that could slow delivery of mailed-in ballots for this fall’s elections.

The bill passed largely along party lines, 257-150, with 26 Republicans bucking party leaders to support it.

The rare Saturday vote came after Postmaster General Louis DeJoyannounced earlier this week that he would suspend cost-cutting measuresuntil after the November elections.  Continue reading.