Category: 2020 Election

GOP faces pressure to get tougher with Trump

The Hill logoRepublicans in the Senate are under growing pressure to take the administration to task for its response to the coronavirus.

GOP senators, with a few exceptions, have been reluctant to criticize the administration, but they are starting to re-evaluate that kid-glove treatment amid public frustration over the lack of virus testing kits and protective equipment and reports of taxpayer dollars going to questionable causes.

Some GOP strategists say it would be smart for Republican senators to use oversight to distance themselves from some of the administration’s problems and to burnish their reputations with independents. Continue reading.

Amash launches exploratory committee for Libertarian presidential run

The Hill logoRep. Justin Amash (I-Mich.) announced Tuesday that he has launched an exploratory committee to seek the Libertarian Party’s presidential nomination, his strongest indication yet that he will mount a third-party White House bid.

“Today, I launched an exploratory committee to seek the @LPNational’s nomination for president of the United States. Americans are ready for practical approaches based in humility and trust of the people,” Amash tweeted.

“We’re ready for a presidency that will restore respect for our Constitution and bring people together. I’m excited and honored to be taking these first steps toward serving Americans of every background as president,” he added. Continue reading.

Trump’s Allies Know He Has Failed

Defenders of the president seem to have settled on the excuse that the White House botched its pandemic preparations because it was too distracted by the drama on Capitol Hill.

“The White House was focused on addressing the threat to its survival,” argued the columnist Henry Olsen in The Washington Post, “not on preparing for a threat from China that might not even materialize.”

“Democrats pushed impeachment while coronavirus spread,” blared a Breitbart News headline, which was soon picked up by Sean Hannity on Fox.

Senator Tom Cotton has also adopted the theory, telling Politico, “It’s unfortunate that during the early days of a global pandemic, the Senate was paralyzed by a partisan impeachment trial.” Continue reading.

Officials say at least 40 people who voted or worked in Wisconsin elections have coronavirus

The Hill logoAt least 40 people who voted in person or worked at polls in Wisconsin’s elections earlier this month have tested positive for coronavirus, the state’s health department confirmed to The Hill on Tuesday.

“So far, 40 people who tested COVID-19 positive after April 9 have reported that they voted in person or worked the polls on election day,” Elizabeth Goodsitt, a spokeswoman for the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, said in an email.

It’s unclear if the people got the coronavirus through taking part in the primary, however, as several reported additional possible exposures, she said. Continue reading.

This data shows Trump’s efforts to weaponize COVID-19 against governors is harming him more than the governors

AlterNet logoGiven his incessant insecurities, it perhaps comes as no surprise that Donald Trump cannot (and, as time has proven, will not) stop talking about his “ratings.”

But, clearly, the few fonts of wisdom that exist within the walls of the Trump White House have gotten to him over the past handful of weeks. Despite his commanding the airwaves for hours per day with his COVID-19 “briefings,” poll after poll showed that voters across the nation, be they in red states or blue states, were far more likely to approve of the governmental responses to COVID offered by their governors than the response offered by the Trump administration. So, notably, we’ve seen his self-congratulatory tweets largely go from poll numbers to TV ratings.

But we’ve seen another marked strategic shift. Over the past few weeks, Trump started very pointedly attacking governors who have been aggressive in utilizing measures such as “shelter-in-place” orders to try to contain the spread of the coronavirus. While it had occasionally popped up in his briefings, it reached its apex on April 17 with a series of utterly bizarre tweets that called for three Democratic-controlled states to be “liberated,” a move that one think tank specializing in domestic terrorism fears could act as a dog whistle for right-wing attacks. Continue reading.

Republicans May Undermine Mail-In Voting Just By Running Down The Clock

The coronavirus pandemic could lead to a surge of absentee ballot requests. But time is running out for elections officials to act.

President Donald Trump urged Republicans to “fight very hard” against mail-in elections during the coronavirus pandemic — but the party’s most effective tactic to impede absentee voting may be just quietly running down the clock.

The handful of American vendors that sell mail-in election equipment told BuzzFeed News they have been flooded with phone calls this month from local election officials who anticipate a surge of requests for absentee ballots. More Americans than ever are expected to try voting from home in the general election, particularly after seeing crowds at polling sites during Wisconsin’s primary, which health officials have now linked to 19 new infections of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

Yet the companies can’t sell the thing election officials need most: time. Continue reading.

Schumer Bill Would Keep Trump’s Name Off Relief Checks

On orders from the U.S. Treasury Department, President Donald Trump’s name is appearing on millions of $1200 relief checks that Americans are receiving as part of the $2.2 trillion package signed into law in March in response to the coronavirus crisis. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is vehemently opposed to Trump’s name appearing on those checks —and Politico‘s Marianne Levine is reporting that the top Democrat in the U.S. Senate is planning to introduce legislation that would keep the president’s name off future coronavirus relief checks.

Levine reports that Schumer’s proposal, which is being called the No PR Act, “would prohibit the use of federal dollars toward any material that promotes the names or signatures of Trump or Vice President Mike Pence.”

In an official statement, Schumer asserted, “President Trump, unfortunately, appears to see the pandemic as just another opportunity to promote his own political interests. The No PR Act puts an end to the president’s exploitation of taxpayer money for promotional material that only benefits his re-election campaign.” Continue reading.

Trump cuts U.S. research on bat-human virus transmission over China ties

The National Institutes of Health on Friday told EcoHealth Alliance, the study’s sponsor for the past five years, that all future funding was cut.

The Trump administration abruptly cut off funding for a project studying how coronaviruses spread from bats to people after reports linked the work to a lab in Wuhan, China, at the center of conspiracy theories about the Covid-19 pandemic’s origins.

The National Institutes of Health on Friday told EcoHealth Alliance, the study’s sponsor for the past five years, that all future funding was cut. The agency also demanded that the New York-based research nonprofit stop spending the $369,819 remaining from its 2020 grant, according to emails obtained by POLITICO.

“At this time, NIH does not believe that the current project outcomes align with the program goals and agency priorities,” Michael Lauer, the agency’s deputy director for extramural research, wrote in a letter to EcoHealth Alliance officials. Continue reading.

ABC News Corona Virus Government. Response Americans receiving letters signed by Trump explaining stimulus checks, touting coronavirus response

Some experts say the move is “clearly connected to his reelection.”

Americans receiving stimulus checks amid the coronavirus pandemic have started getting signed letters by President Donald Trump in the mail.

The letter sent to millions of Americans, which prominently features a massive signature by the president that stands a full 2.25 inches long and about an inch high, looks to explain the reasoning for the direct payments while touting the government response to the crisis.

While the purpose of the letter, according to the Internal Revenue Service website, is to confirm receipt of a stimulus payment and, most important, to provide guidance about what to do if someone is due a payment and have not received one, it mostly appears to highlight the government’s response to the virus while providing a website and phone number at the bottom without any further instructions. Continue reading.

Trump desperately tries to gaslight America as he faces humiliation from Lysol-gate

AlterNet logoIt’s gone mainstream in recent years, but the word “gaslighting” used to be an esoteric term from the world of psychology and domestic abuse counseling. The word refers to the 1944 film “Gaslight,” in which Ingrid Bergman plays a woman whose husband tries to drive her insane by hiding her belongings and otherwise manipulating her environment, and telling her that the changes she perceives are all in her head. Experts in domestic violence developed the term to describe the way that abusers in real life try to manipulate victims. The gaslighter works by denying reality, often when the facts are plain as day, with such conviction and repetition that the victim starts to question themselves and the evidence of their own senses.

For instance, this might take the form of the abuser denying that he hit his victim or falsely claiming that she provoked it, and then browbeating her until she accepts the lie and even starts to wonder whether she imagined the whole thing.

Under Donald Trump’s administration, however, the term has ventured into politics. It’s become a way to talk about how Trump and his defenders won’t merely tell lies, but will stand by even the dumbest and most obvious lies, holding their ground until the defenders of reality simply give up fighting. This started from the very beginning of the administration, when Trump and his administration claimed his inauguration crowd was bigger than Barack Obama’s, and insisted on repeating that lie and intimidating government agencies into backing it up. Needless to say, this has continued throughout the coronavirus pandemic, dialed up to an extreme. Continue reading.