October 10, 2020

What Makes Mike Pence's Complicity So Chilling

The vice president will be remembered as the great enabler.

By Timothy Egan

Somewhere under the cornfields and backyard hoop courts of Indiana is a small black box holding the conscience of Vice President Mike Pence. He buried it four years ago, when a tape emerged of Donald Trump boasting about sexually assaulting women.

Pence and his wife, Karen, whom he reportedly calls “Mother,” had rushed home to pray during the biggest campaign crisis of 2016. Ever since an evangelical conversion in college, Pence had been a beacon of Hoosier holiness, using his talk radio show and his political perch to preach biblical values in the public sphere.

But, of course, he buried them in a heartland moment. And by 2017, Pence would have this to say about Trump to religious conservatives: “This is somebody who shares our views, shares our values, shares our beliefs.”

As we saw in Wednesday night’s debate, Pence is not just the great enabler of Trump’s awfulness, but the man who puts a godly sheen on it. In that sense, he’s more dangerous, and arguably more evil, than Trump.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/09/opinion/mike-pence-debate.html

October 10, 2020

Former Special Forces sought by private security company to guard polling sites in Minnesota

Source: Washington Post

Former Special Forces sought by private security company to guard polling sites in Minnesota, company says

A private security company is recruiting former U.S. military Special Operations personnel to guard polling sites in Minnesota on Election Day, an effort the chairman of the company said is intended to prevent left-wing activists from disrupting the election but that the state attorney general warned would amount to voter intimidation and violate the law.

The recruiting effort is being done by Atlas Aegis, a private security company based in Tennessee that was formed last year and is run by U.S. military veterans, including people with Special Operations experience, according to its website.

The company chairman, Anthony Caudle, posted a message through a defense industry jobs site this week calling for former Special Operations forces to staff “security positions in Minnesota during the November Election and beyond to protect election polls, local businesses and residences from looting and destruction.” He said in an interview earlier this week he is planning to send a “large contingent” to Minnesota but did not specify the numbers.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (D) said in a statement Friday that he joined election officials in “strongly discouraging this unnecessary interference in Minnesota’s elections, which we have not asked for and do not welcome.”

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/private-security-minnesota-election/2020/10/09/89766964-0987-11eb-991c-be6ead8c4018_story.html

October 10, 2020

Trump, lagging in polls, pressures Justice Dept. to target Democrats and criticizes Barr

Source: Washington Post

President Trump publicly pressured the Justice Department on Friday to move against his political adversaries and complained that Attorney General William P. Barr is not doing enough to deliver results of a probe into how the Obama administration investigated possible collusion between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign.

The delayed report is “a disgrace,” and Trump’s 2016 Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, should be jailed, Trump said in a rambling radio interview, one day after he argued on Twitter that his current Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, is a criminal who should be barred from running.

Three weeks before the election and trailing Biden in polls nationally as well as in key states, Trump is issuing a new torrent of threats and demands for federal action against Democrats, including former president Barack Obama, that go beyond his familiar and often erroneous claims of wrongdoing by his perceived political enemies.

One main difference is in the level of anger being leveled at Barr, a deeply conservative lawyer picked for the job after Trump complained that Barr’s predecessor, Jeff Sessions, was disloyal.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-barr-durham-russia/2020/10/09/05ed9842-0a40-11eb-a166-dc429b380d10_story.html

October 10, 2020

Republicans have no standing to complain about court-packing

Opinion by Ruth Marcus

The 2020 election isn’t about whether to expand the size of the Supreme Court. It isn’t about whether Democratic nominee Joe Biden states his position on court-packing. The election is about one thing: a referendum on the dangerous presidency of Donald Trump.

No wonder Republicans are so desperate to change the subject.

The future of the court, now that Republicans are poised to cement a six-justice conservative majority, is a hugely important topic. Republicans stole one seat when they refused to let President Barack Obama fill a vacancy created nine months before the 2016 election. Now they are poised to steal another, rushing through President Trump’s nominee with Election Day less than a month away.

If Democrats, in response, are entertaining the radical idea of expanding the size of the court, it’s hard to blame them; Republicans have stocked the court with one and soon two justices whose seats they were not entitled to fill. This is slow-motion court-packing in plain sight.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/republicans-have-no-standing-to-complain-about-court-packing/2020/10/09/ab4befaa-0a4f-11eb-859b-f9c27abe638d_story.html

October 10, 2020

Gretchen Whitmer: I will hold the president accountable for endangering and dividing America

When I addressed the people of Michigan on Thursday to comment on the unprecedented terrorism, conspiracy and weapons charges against 13 men, some of whom were preparing to kidnap and possibly kill me, I said, “Hatred, bigotry and violence have no place in the great state of Michigan.” I meant it. But just moments later, President Trump’s campaign adviser, Jason Miller, appeared on national television accusing me of fostering hatred.

I’m not going to waste my time arguing with the president. But I will always hold him accountable. Because when our leaders speak, their words carry weight.

When our leaders encourage domestic terrorists, they legitimize their actions. When they stoke and contribute to hate speech, they are complicit. And when a sitting president stands on a national stage refusing to condemn white supremacists and hate groups, as President Trump did when he told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” during the first presidential debate, he is complicit. Hate groups heard the president’s words not as a rebuke, but as a rallying cry. As a call to action.

2020 should be the year for national unity. In the midst of the worst public health crisis we have seen in our lifetimes, we should all come together as Americans to fight covid-19 and protect each other.

But this country is more divided than ever. And instead of uniting the country, our president has spent the past seven months denying science, ignoring his own health experts, stoking distrust, and fomenting anger and giving comfort to those who spread fear and hatred and division. He has proved time and again that he is more focused on his chances in the upcoming election and picking fights with me and Democrats across the country than he is on protecting our families, front-line workers and small businesses from covid-19.

As a result, at least 212,000 Americans are dead. More than 60 million have filed for unemployment. And still, the president has not developed a national strategy on testing, protective medical equipment or masks.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/10/09/gretchen-whitmer-hold-trump-accountable/

October 9, 2020

Trump yard sign rigged with razor blades left town worker needing 13 stitches

A town employee in Michigan had to get 13 stitches after he sliced three fingers on razor blades attached to the bottom of a Trump 2020 campaign yard sign.

The 52-year-old municipal employee in Commerce Township, about 40 miles northwest of Detroit, was asked to remove signs that violated a city ordinance, the Oakland County Sheriff's Office said in a news release. Signs are required to be 33 feet from the center of roadways, and a political sign in the yard of a home was 9 feet too close to the street.

"When he went to remove one of the signs, he was cut by razor blades that had been attached to the bottom edge of the sign," the sheriff's office said. "Both signs removed from that location had several razor blades taped all along the bottom edge. He received lacerations to three fingers which required medical attention."

Commerce Township Supervisor Dave Scott told NBC affiliate WDIV in Detroit that his employee initially thought he had been electrified and then looked at his hand and saw that he was "bleeding aggressively."

https://news.yahoo.com/trump-yard-sign-rigged-razor-142611747.html

October 9, 2020

On Hannity's show, Trump reveals his corrupt, panicky endgame

Opinion by Greg Sargent

Given President Trump’s latest antics, we should probably get more serious about reacquainting ourselves with the concept of political violence, or violence undertaken to achieve political or ideological ends, something that was more widespread in previous eras.

Trump increasingly appears unwilling to discourage the potential for political violence on his behalf — even when events are screaming at him to do so. And it’s reasonable to fear he may actively stoke outbreaks in the run-up to the election or in its aftermath.

Trump told us where this is all going on Thursday night from the safe confines of his favorite fact-free propaganda zone. He told Sean Hannity that he was pleased with Vice President Pence’s comments at the Wednesday debate on whether he’d assist a peaceful transfer of power.

“Mike Pence’s best answer was that answer last night,” Trump said.

Let’s review that “answer.” Moderator Susan Page pointed out that Trump has repeatedly refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power after the election, then asked Pence what he would do in that situation.

Pence didn’t answer the question, refusing to commit to a peaceful transfer himself. He then aired the false claim that the Obama-Biden administration “spied” on the Trump campaign in 2016, citing new “documents” supposedly showing Hillary Clinton’s campaign concocted the claim of Russian interference.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/10/09/hannity-trump-reveals-his-corrupt-panicky-endgame/

October 9, 2020

Trump's campaign is in a death spiral. He's only making things worse.

Opinion by Paul Waldman

The latest in a string of very bad polls for President Trump comes from the Pew Research Center, a massive survey (nearly 12,000 respondents) that shows Joe Biden leading by 10 points. Which is right where poll averages have the race as well.

Meanwhile, Trump is losing ground with one key group after another, from suburban voters to seniors. And there is not a single swing state where he leads in the polls (though he’s hanging on by the skin of his teeth in Texas). As the New York Times reports:

He is trailing not just in must-win battlegrounds but according to private G.O.P. surveys, he is repelling independents to the point where Mr. Biden has drawn closer in solidly red states.

Which is why you’d expect to see the president and his campaign, as they try to stave off panic, ready to try almost anything to turn this race around. They’d be examining his areas of greatest weakness, looking to address the bad feelings voters have about him, coming up with plans to not just seize attention but to do so in ways that will persuade people to vote for him. With time running out, they’d be desperate.

Yet the president is quite plainly not willing to try almost anything. His answer to his current political predicament is to do exactly what he’s been doing, only more. It seems clear that as Election Day approaches, he’ll be caught in an insane cycle in which he thinks the way to pull victory from the jaws of defeat is to double down on everything that’s driving voters away from him.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/10/09/trumps-campaign-is-death-spiral-hes-only-making-things-worse/

October 9, 2020

Trump got a $21 million tax break for saving the forest outside his NY mansion

Trump got a $21 million tax break for saving the forest outside his NY mansion. Now the deal is under investigation.

Five years ago, Donald Trump promised to preserve more than 150 acres of rolling woodlands in an exclusive swath of New York suburbia prized for its luxury homes and rural tranquility.

In exchange for setting aside this land on his estate known as Seven Springs, Trump received a tax break of $21.1?million, according to court documents.

The size of Trump’s tax windfall was set by a 2016 appraisal that valued Seven Springs at $56.5?million — more than double the value assessed by the three Westchester county towns that each contained a piece of the property.
The valuation has now become a focal point of what could be one of the most consequential investigations facing President Trump as he heads into the election.

New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) is investigating whether the Trump Organization improperly inflated the value of Seven Springs as part of the conservation easement on the property, according to filings in the case in August. The investigation also scrutinizes valuations, tax burdens and conservation easements at Trump’s holdings in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York City.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-got-a-21-million-tax-break-for-saving-the-forest-outside-his-ny-mansion-now-the-deal-is-under-investigation/2020/10/07/de84c1ba-ff6b-11ea-830c-a160b331ca62_story.html

October 9, 2020

Trump Is Killing the Economy Out of Spite

So what will he do if he loses the election?

By Paul Krugman

Last year Donald Trump called Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, a “nasty, vindictive, horrible person.” Actually, she isn’t — but he is.

Trump’s vindictiveness has become a major worry as the election approaches. He has already signaled that he won’t accept the result if he loses, which seems increasingly likely though not certain. Nobody knows what chaos, possibly including violence, he may unleash if the election doesn’t go his way.

Even aside from that concern, however, a defeated Trump would still be president for two and a half months. Would he spend that time acting destructively, in effect taking revenge on America for rejecting him?

Well, we got a preview of what a lame-duck Trump presidency might look like Tuesday. Trump hasn’t even lost yet, but he abruptly cut off talks on an economic relief package millions of Americans desperately need (although as of Thursday he seemed to be backtracking). And his motivation seems to have been sheer spite.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/08/opinion/donald-trump-economy.html