Category: 2020 Election

The true face of white evangelicalism has been exposed

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One has to imagine that for Jerry Falwell Jr., things feel very unfair right about now. For more than four years, the world of right-wing American Christianity has not only lined up behind Donald Trump — a thrice-married chronic adulterer who bragged on tape how he likes to “grab ’em by the pussy” — but has embraced him as if he were the second coming. White evangelicals’ devotion to Trump didn’t wane after he became president, even in the face of stories about Trump paying off a porn actress and a centerfold model to stay quiet about his compulsive cheating on his third wife. Nor was there any angst on the Christian right over Trump’s relentless grifting or his efforts to blackmail the Ukrainian president into bolstering lies about former Vice President Joe Biden.

On the contrary, the Christian right’s worshipful attitude toward Trump has only increased over the years, with pastors comparing Trump to Jesus himself and calling Trump “God’s chosen one.” The president’s approval with white evangelicals remains strong, at 72%, and 82% say they plan to vote for him.

With all this Christian love for a president who makes all ordinary sinners look like amateurs, it’s no wonder that Falwell — the president of Liberty University, which was founded by his dad, the legendary Southern Baptist pastor and televangelist — thought it was no big deal to unbutton his pants a little. But when Falwell posted a photo on social media of himself partying on a yacht with those literally unbuttoned pants, holding something that resembled an alcoholic beverage and with his arm around the waist of a pregnant female acquaintance with her shirt rolled up, he did not get the Trump treatment. Continue reading.

Trump Erupts In Aggressive Tirade Against Harris

Well, that didn’t take very long.

Former Vice President Joe Biden announced on Tuesday that Sen. Kamala Harris would be his running mate, and by early evening, President Donald Trump had already labeled her “nasty.”

But before getting into what Trump said to attack Harris personally, it’s worth recalling how former President Barack Obama reacted to Mitt Romney’s choice of Paul Ryan as a running mate back in 2012:

Just yesterday, my opponent chose his running mate, the ideological leader of Republicans in Congress. Mr Paul Ryan. I want to congratulate Mr. Ryan. I know him, I welcome him to the race.
He is a decent man, he is a family man, he is an articulate spokesman for Governor Romney’s vision but it is a vision that I fundamentally disagree with.

Continue reading.

Trump’s re-election plan is straight out of the dictator’s playbook

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The single most consistent defining characteristic of an emerging dictatorship in a country that started as a democracy is that the dictator regularly holds elections and always wins, because he uses the instruments of government to make sure he wins.

Trump has now done this with the Justice Department, the Post Office, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Federal Reserve, and our intelligence agencies.

Over at Justice, Attorney General Bill Barr has already said that he intends to investigate Joe Biden and his son’s activities in Ukraine and may report on that just before the election. Continue reading.

‘Donny from Queens’: Trump’s call into a sports radio show reveals the politics behind his push to restart college football

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The topic was whether to resume playing college football amid the coronavirus pandemic. The Fox Sports Radio program was in full swing. And President Trump called in live on the air Tuesday, offering some opinions.

Colleges are “making a tragic mistake” if they cancel their seasons, he told host Clay Travis, who gained prominence three years ago for citing his allegiance to “the First Amendment and boobs” on CNN.

After all, Trump continued, the players are “so powerful and so strong and not lots of body fat . . . maybe none, in some cases” — so they are at less risk of getting sick. “It just attacks old people,” he declared, though a study released this week found 97,000 children in the country tested positive for the virus in the last two weeks of July, a 40 percent increase. Continue reading.

What Trump doesn’t want you to know about Russia’s election interference

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Last Friday, William Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, released a statement that “Russia is using a range of measures to primarily denigrate former Vice President Biden and what it sees as an anti-Russia ‘establishment.’” It also noted that both China and Iran prefer that Trump be defeated in the November election.

The timing of that wasn’t lost on New York Times reporter Robert Draper who was about to publish an article titled, “Unwanted Truths: Inside Trump’s Battle With U.S. Intelligence Agencies.”

Just as this article was going to press — and shortly after I submitted a list of questions to the O.D.N.I. relating to its struggle to avoid becoming politically compromised — Evanina put out a new statement. In it, the O.D.N.I. at last acknowledged publicly that Russia “is using a range of measures to primarily denigrate former Vice President Biden and what it sees as an anti-Russia ‘establishment.’” In the same statement, however, Evanina also asserted for the first time that both China and Iran were hoping to defeat Trump. As with the preceding statement, the O.D.N.I. made no distinction between Russia’s sophisticated election-disrupting capabilities and the less insidious influence campaigns of the two supposedly anti-Trump countries. Like its predecessor, the statement seemed to be tortured with political calculation — an implicit declaration of anguish rather than of independence.

Continue reading.

A Bible Burning, a Russian News Agency and a Story Too Good to Check Out

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WASHINGTON — For some of President Trump’s loudest cheerleaders, it was a story too good to check out: Black Lives Matters protesters in Portland, Ore., had burned a stack of Bibles, and then topped off the fire with American flags. There was even a video to prove it.

The story was a near-perfect fit for a central Trump campaign talking point — that with liberals and Democrats comes godless disorder — and it went viral among Republicans within hours of appearing earlier this month. The New York Post wrote about it, as did The Federalist, saying that the protesters had shown “their true colors.” Senator Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican, said of the protesters, “This is who they are.” Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son, tweeted that antifa had moved to “the book burning phase.”

The truth was far more mundane. A few protesters among the many thousands appear to have burned a single Bible — and possibly a second — for kindling to start a bigger fire. None of the other protesters seemed to notice or care. Continue reading.

QAnon supporter Marjorie Taylor Greene wins Georgia runoff

GOP nod in deep-red 14th District all but assures her a seat in Congress

Corrected, Aug. 12 | Marjorie Taylor Greene, a QAnon supporter who has filmed videos espousing bigoted ideas, is likely going to Congress after winning the Republican primary runoff for Georgia’s deep-red 14th District. 

Greene’s victory, one of at least three this cycle for congressional hopefuls linked to the QAnon movement, represents a potential headache for GOP leaders who have tried to recruit a diverse class of candidates in response to criticism that the party has been too tolerant of extremism under President Donald Trump. QAnon is a wide-ranging conspiracy theory that alleges a “deep-state” plot against Trump. 

Greene was leading neurosurgeon and business owner John Cowan 60 percent to 40 percent in the contest to replace retiring GOP Rep. Tom Graves when The Associated Press called the race at 9:44 p.m. Eastern time.  Continue reading

Rush Limbaugh Revives Crude Sexist Smear Against Sen. Harris

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) is widely seen as a leading choice to be Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s running mate. As Biden moves closer to announcing his running mate, Rush Limbaugh revived a smear against Harris that implies that she advanced her career by dating a prominent politician.

Limbaugh has launched sexist attacks on Democratic politicians, family members, and aides for decades, frequently tying the attacks to personal relationships and marriages. This was particularly true of Hillary Clinton, for example.

The sexist narrative against Harris, pushed in graphic terms by a variety of fringe right-wing figures before spreading to Fox News, involved her past relationship back in the 1990s with Willie Brown, a former speaker of the California Assembly and mayor of San Francisco. During Harris’ own presidential campaign in 2019, Fox News personality Tomi Lahren tweeted a message at her going well beyond previous innuendos on the network and instead used language that could be traced right back to the fever swamps: “Kamala did you fight for ideals or did you sleep your way to the top with Willie Brown?” Continue reading.

Lincoln Project expands GOP target list, winning Trump ire

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The former GOP operatives behind The Lincoln Project are expanding their list of Republican targets, infuriating allies of President Trump‘s and national Republicans scrambling to preserve the GOP majority in the Senate.

In addition to a relentless negative ad campaign against Trump, the group has so far spent more than $1.3 million attacking Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), who is among the most vulnerable GOP senators up for reelection. That’s by far the most they’ve spent on any Senate candidate.

Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings reveal The Lincoln Project has also targeted more than a half-dozen other Republicans up for reelection in 2020, including Sens. Cory Gardner (Colo), Martha McSally (Ariz.), Lindsey Graham(S.C.), Thom Tillis (N.C.), Joni Ernst (Iowa), John Cornyn (Texas) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.). Continue reading.

Trump’s latest falsehood: Democrats are trying to end signature verification for ballots

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Why would they want to ban requirements for signature verification in federal elections? Who would want a bill banning signature verification? What’s that all about? You know what it’s about? Fraud. That’s what they want: fraud. They want to try and steal this election because, frankly, that’s the only way they can win the election”“

— President Trump, at a coronavirus briefing in Bedminster, N.J., Aug. 8, 2020

This is false. Democrats are not trying to ban signature verification requirements for mail-in ballots.

What Democrats have introduced is a bill that says U.S. election officials must notify any voter whose signature was deemed deficient and give them an opportunity to fix it. That’s not a ban on signature verification, not by any stretch.

Democrats also have sued individual states and, in some cases, have won a court-ordered remedy process for voters to clear up any signature mismatches. That’s not a ban, either. Continue reading