Saturday, October 17, 2020

If Joe Loses Here's Who To Blame

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX-wiEPVI50&ab_channel=RedactedTonight



With 170+ 'Protect the Results' Events Planned for Nov. 4, Pro-Democracy Groups Vow to 'Ensure Voters Have the Last Word'






"We will honor the valid results of the 2020 election, ensure that every vote is counted, and show up to demand that the losing candidate put their ego aside and concede for the good of our country."



by
Julia Conley, staff writer













https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/10/16/170-protect-results-events-planned-nov-4-pro-democracy-groups-vow-ensure-voters-have







Pro-democracy advocates are organizing more than 170 events in anticipation of President Donald Trump illegitimately declaring victory in the Nov. 3 election before all the votes are counted, or potentially refusing to accept the election results.

Protect the Results, a coalition of more than 100 national groups including Indivisible, Stand Up America, 350 Action, and Mijente, released an interactive map on Friday showing events planned for Nov. 4 across the country. Voters can sign up to join a public action or create their own.


"Should Trump declare victory before all the votes are counted or prevent the legitimate counting of votes, we will mobilize in every corner of this country to ensure voters have the last word in November," Sarah Dohl, co-founder of Indivisible, said in a statement.


Numerous studies have found that fraudulent voting by individuals is extremely rare, and that the very few instances that have occurred were easy for officials to catch before they could ever have an effect on election results. For months, the president has repeated baseless claims that a rise in the use of mail-in ballots this year—in light of the pandemic that he has allowed to spread across the country without implementing a comprehensive national testing strategy or embracing basic mitigation guidelines from health experts—will lead to so-called "voter fraud," despite the fact that Trump himself has voted by mail.

Trump has also urged his supporters to engage in voter intimidation and has suggested that—although his approval rating has never risen above 49% during his nearly four years in office, his average rating is 41%, and he is trailing Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden in several swing states—he will only lose the election if it is rigged.




In an NBC town hall Thursday night, after refusing numerous times to commit to a peaceful transition of power should he lose the election, Trump said, "I absolutely want that" before adding the qualifier that he wants "an honest election."

Such statements are a clear sign that Trump is "desperate," said Stand Up America President Sean Eldridge, and demonstrate that voters must commit to giving Biden an unequivocal victory on Nov. 3.

"We know that voting alone might not be enough when it comes to defeating Donald Trump—and that's why we'll be ready to mobilize to demand that every vote be counted and that state officials, Congress, and the Electoral College honor the final, accurate vote count," Eldridge said in a statement.

Accusations of cheating by the Democrats are "all he has left in his playbook," Dohl said. "But we are ready."

Pro-democracy campaigners have also urged Americans to prepare for a long vote-tallying process given the prevalence of mail-in and absentee ballots this year, as Democratic data firm Hawkfish warned last month warned of a possible "red mirage"—in which votes cast in person on Nov. 3 may give the impression that Trump has won the election, only to be eclipsed if votes that were sent in prior to Election Day favor Biden. Advocates have raised alarm that the president could declare victory before mail-in and absentee ballots are counted.

Fighting back against the president's misinformation about mail-in voting and the election is a matter of "preventing a constitutional crisis," said the Protect the Results coalition.

"We cannot ignore the threat that Trump poses to our democracy and a peaceful transition," said the groups. "We will honor the valid results of the 2020 election, ensure that every vote is counted, and show up to demand that the losing candidate put their ego aside and concede for the good of our country."

The Unlikely Coalition That Made the New Deal (with Thomas Ferguson)

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMYm35zEB78&ab_channel=Jacobin



The Nightmare Facing the Poor and Working Class If There’s Not Another Stimulus




With time running out and Republicans balking at more Covid relief, U.S. workers are facing a future of financial misery.

JEFF SCHUHRKE OCTOBER 12, 2020



https://inthesetimes.com/article/stimulus-covid-pandemic-gop-checks-relief




As mil­lions of U.S. work­ers face unem­ploy­ment, food inse­cu­ri­ty and evic­tion amid the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic, the lim­it­ed aid pro­vid­ed by the fed­er­al government’s flawed CARES Act from March has long since dried up.

Last week, fol­low­ing more than six months of stalled nego­ti­a­tions with con­gres­sion­al Democ­rats over a new eco­nom­ic relief pack­age, Pres­i­dent Trump abrupt­ly announced he was halt­ing talks until after the Novem­ber election.

While the pres­i­dent quick­ly back­tracked and is now report­ed­ly con­tin­u­ing to nego­ti­ate, the fed­er­al government’s ongo­ing fail­ure to pass a new relief pack­age spells cat­a­stro­phe for a U.S. work­ing class already pushed to the brink by an eco­nom­ic cri­sis seem­ing­ly on par with the Great Depression.

Here’s a break­down of what the con­tin­ued lack of fed­er­al help means for workers:

Sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduced unem­ploy­ment checks

Per­haps the most ben­e­fi­cial part of the CARES Act was the extra $600 a week it pro­vid­ed to work­ers on unem­ploy­ment — a tem­po­rary life­line that the GOP-led Sen­ate allowed to expire on July 31.

Week­ly unem­ploy­ment ben­e­fits vary wide­ly by state, rang­ing from $44 in Okla­homa to $497 in Wash­ing­ton. The $600 week­ly sup­ple­ment was an across-the-board ben­e­fit that ensured unem­ployed work­ers in any state main­tained a decent income despite los­ing their jobs due to the pandemic.

The Eco­nom­ic Pol­i­cy Insti­tute found that the con­sumer spend­ing gen­er­at­ed by that extra $600 per week sup­port­ed over 5 mil­lion jobs, and that con­tin­u­ing the sup­ple­ment through the mid­dle of next year would have raised U.S. gross domes­tic prod­uct (GDP) by a quar­ter­ly aver­age of 3.7 percent.

After this ben­e­fit expired, rather than agree to Democ­rats’ demands to extend it, Pres­i­dent Trump signed an exec­u­tive order slash­ing it by 50 per­cent — allow­ing states to use fed­er­al funds to pro­vide only a $300 week­ly unem­ploy­ment sup­ple­ment. At least sev­en states have already exhaust­ed these funds.

Mean­while, by los­ing the week­ly $600 boost, unem­ployed work­ers saw their incomes drop by two-thirds, mak­ing it more dif­fi­cult to pay the bills and afford gro­ceries. There are cur­rent­ly 25.5 mil­lion work­ers receiv­ing unem­ploy­ment ben­e­fits. With at least 14 mil­lion more job­less work­ers than job open­ings, mil­lions will be forced to rely on unem­ploy­ment insur­ance for the fore­see­able future — but now with a great­ly reduced check.

Mass fur­loughs in the air­line industry

Anoth­er one of the CARES Act’s most help­ful pro­vi­sions was the Pay­roll Sup­port Pro­gram (PSP), which pro­vid­ed $32 bil­lion in grants to the avi­a­tion indus­try for the sole pur­pose of keep­ing work­ers on pay­roll and pro­vid­ing ben­e­fits dur­ing the Covid-19 cri­sis. The avi­a­tion indus­try employs 750,000 work­ers, many of them union­ized, and accounts for 5 per­cent of GDP.

The Sen­ate allowed the PSP to expire on Octo­ber 1, result­ing in 40,000 air­line work­ers imme­di­ate­ly being fur­loughed with­out pay or health insur­ance. The industry’s unions are wag­ing an aggres­sive cam­paign to extend the pro­gram. With­out the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment con­tin­u­ing the PSP, more fur­loughs are like­ly to come as pas­sen­ger air­lines suf­fer a loss in busi­ness due to the pandemic.

More lay­offs at small businesses

The Pay­check Pro­tec­tion Pro­gram (PPP), anoth­er com­po­nent of the CARES Act, offered up to $659 bil­lion in for­giv­able loans to small busi­ness­es to keep work­ers on pay­roll. The pro­gram has been crit­i­cized for allo­cat­ing mil­lions of dol­lars to large cor­po­ra­tions and com­pa­nies con­nect­ed to politi­cians, but it has also offered much-need­ed finan­cial sup­port to small busi­ness­es across the country.

The appli­ca­tion dead­line for PPP loans was on August 8. While the Trump admin­is­tra­tion claims the pro­gram saved 51 mil­lion jobs, econ­o­mists have put that num­ber at any­where from only 2.3 mil­lion to 13.6 mil­lion.

What­ev­er the pre­cise num­ber, the PPP’s impact is quick­ly run­ning out of steam. Bor­row­ers say they expect to lay off work­ers with­in six months, while a Nation­al Restau­rant Asso­ci­a­tion sur­vey indi­cates that a whop­ping 40 per­cent of all U.S. restau­rants could go out of busi­ness in the com­ing months, lead­ing to mil­lions of more layoffs.

No sec­ond $1,200 stim­u­lus check

While Sen. Bernie Sanders and pro­gres­sive Democ­rats have been call­ing on the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment to pro­vide a $2,000 month­ly check to every U.S. adult for the dura­tion of the pan­dem­ic, the CARES Act instead pro­vid­ed a one-time check of $1,200 — which exclud­ed many undoc­u­ment­ed immi­grants and col­lege-age adults. Econ­o­mists report that the checks did vir­tu­al­ly noth­ing to stim­u­late the econ­o­my, though they did help poor and unem­ployed work­ers par­tial­ly cov­er a few weeks’ worth of basic expenses.

Pres­i­dent Trump and con­gres­sion­al lead­ers have been say­ing for months that a sec­ond $1,200 check is on the way. But with­out anoth­er relief bill, even this mea­ger finan­cial assis­tance will not materialize.

An uncer­tain future

On Octo­ber 1, the Demo­c­ra­t­ic-con­trolled House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives passed a scaled-down ver­sion of the HEROES Act, an eco­nom­ic relief pack­age they orig­i­nal­ly passed in May that extends the lim­it­ed aid from the CARES Act.

Among oth­er things, the $2.2‑trillion bill would con­tin­ue the $600 week­ly unem­ploy­ment sup­ple­ment to the end of Jan­u­ary (mak­ing it retroac­tive to Sep­tem­ber 6), allo­cate anoth­er $25 bil­lion for air­line work­ers, allow small busi­ness­es to apply for a sec­ond PPP loan, send out a sec­ond $1,200 stim­u­lus check, pro­vide $50 bil­lion in emer­gency rental assis­tance, and give an addi­tion­al $10 bil­lion to the Sup­ple­men­tal Nutri­tion Assis­tance Pro­gram (SNAP).

Over the week­end, the Trump admin­is­tra­tion coun­tered with a small­er, $1.8‑trillion pro­pos­al that would include a $400-per-week unem­ploy­ment sup­ple­ment, $20 bil­lion for air­lines, anoth­er $330 bil­lion for PPP loans, and a sec­ond $1,200 check, among oth­er mea­sures — but nei­ther House Speak­er Nan­cy Pelosi nor Sen­ate Repub­li­cans appear ready to push this bill in their caucus.

While mil­lions of U.S. work­ers are left in the lurch and mass lay­offs con­tin­ue to mount, Trump and Sen­ate Repub­li­cans are instead focus­ing their atten­tion on ensur­ing right-wing, anti-union judge Amy Coney Bar­rett is hasti­ly con­firmed to the Supreme Court in time for the election.

“If this gov­ern­ment doesn’t work for us, then we need to focus on the fact that it is our labor that gives all the val­ue to this coun­try,” Asso­ci­a­tion of Flight Atten­dants pres­i­dent Sara Nel­son — who famous­ly called for a gen­er­al strike to end Trump’s fed­er­al shut­down in Jan­u­ary 2019—said last week. ​“This coun­try doesn’t run with­out us as work­ers. So we have to think about that option as well.”




Trump Dumps Census as Part of the GOP's 10-Year Voter Suppression Plan

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRbs5V-iXx0&ab_channel=NomikiKonst



What's About To Happen Is Not Good! (Moment of Clarity)

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrrwridxDuQ&ab_channel=MomentOfClaritywithLeeCamp



Election experts on the right and left are ringing the alarm








Here’s why: State lawmakers in swing states are on the record stating that the President’s campaign has asked them to consider submitting false electors to the Electoral College who will disregard the vote count and vote for Trump no matter what.1

Could this really happen? Unfortunately, it's a real threat.

Below is our new Election Threat Report. Prepared by our top political strategists, it lays out the threat our Republic faces for you to read, share, and act upon.

The report is below and live on our blog. Please spread the word by forwarding this email to at least 3 of your friends & family.

Right now, most Americans have no idea that bypassing the vote count is even possible. This worst-case scenario is just one of many possible outcomes this November, but it’s one the American people must be prepared for. You can help by spreading the word so that everyone knows about this threat before it happens.

This isn’t about political party; it’s about democracy. See below for our report. And more soon,


Joshua Graham Lynn
Co-Founder
RepresentUs





The Atlantic recently reported that President Trump’s campaign is speaking directly to state lawmakers about the possibility of sending false electors to the Electoral College who would cast their electoral vote for the President no matter what, even if it means ignoring the will of the people.2 Since then, dozens of news outlets have reported on this real threat that could plunge our democracy into chaos.

Below, we analyze the circumstances that make this threat possible, identify the worst-case scenario, and lay out a path for preventing it – relying on a response from the American people.

How We Got Here: Disinformation Has Lead to Distrust in Election Results

This doomsday scenario is made possible by the President’s months of baseless attacks on mail-in ballots. This is critical to remember: All of the facts refute his claims.3

Even as COVID-19 infections surged, the President has repeatedly attempted to cast doubt on the legitimacy of mail-in ballots by lying about rampant fraud. He’s called to “get rid of the ballots” and even claimed, should he lose at the ballot box, that the election would be rigged.4

All in all, the President’s behavior has sowed distrust in our election systems. Despite any evidence of rampant voter fraud, most Americans report a loss of trust in the results of the upcoming election.5

What We Need to Be Prepared For: Lawmakers Disregarding the Will of the Voters

Should the President be ahead in the vote count on November 3, we expect Trump’s campaign to immediately declare victory before millions of mail-in ballots are counted.

The President has laid the groundwork for two paths forward that he could use to disregard the will of the voters:
Stopping the vote count: The President’s public statements suggest he will pressure elections officials to stop counting the votes in the event that he is ahead on Election Night, leveraging lawsuits and heightened disinformation campaigns. This would result in millions of votes – including those sent in by military service members — being thrown out.


Getting electors to ignore the vote count: Citing baseless claims about fraud or a rigged election, lawmakers in swing states could submit a slate of Electoral College electors who will ignore the vote count and install Trump as President against the will of the American people. This is the worst case scenario.

This threat is dire. It would violate our nation's founding principle: That the voters choose who represents them. This scenario can be avoided if we prepare now.

Our 3-Pronged Strategy to Prevent this “Doomsday” Scenario

RepresentUs is pursuing a 3-pronged strategy to make sure the rule of law is upheld and that the voters determine the outcome of the election, as they have since our founding. All three strategies will rely heavily on public awareness and activation, which is why these efforts are underway now, before Election Day.

1. Make Sure As Many Americans as Possible Vote

Power grabs are most successful when the public is not paying attention. An overwhelming turnout this November will show lawmakers that the American people are paying close attention and expect their votes to be counted.


What we’re doing: Through our 6 Steps to Save the Vote hub, we’re registering voters, staffing polling places, and making sure all Americans can vote safely – early, absentee by-mail, or at a polling place on Election Day.

2. Make Sure Every Vote is Counted

If the American people know that it will take time for the results to be tabulated – and hold their state lawmakers accountable – any attempt by President Trump to prematurely declare victory will fall flat.

What we’re doing: We’re changing the narrative, making it clear that Americans should not expect results on Election Day: It’s going to be #ElectionWeek as mail-in votes are validated and counted. We’ve enlisted top Generals and Admirals from all four branches of the military to join our Count Every Hero campaign and assembled a coalition of state elections officials & security experts with VoteSafe to combat disinformation about mail-in voting.

3. Ensure State Lawmakers Respect the Vote Count

If any lawmakers seem poised to disregard the will of the people, we must be ready to expose them.

What we’re doing: We’re getting daily updates straight from key swing states on the lawmakers who will ultimately choose the electors who elect our next President. We are scenario planning for legislative fights that could break out should the President continue to pressure lawmakers to disregard the will of the people. As we prepare for the crucial period between Election Day and the inauguration, we’re spreading critical information and preparing our grassroots supporters to mobilize.

While this threat is grave, we are confident that massive public participation from the American people can protect our election system this November. But to succeed, every American must know the extent of the threat we face – and, when necessary, how to take strategic action to prevent this doomsday scenario.






The Atlantic: What if Trump Refuses to Concede?
The Atlantic: What if Trump Refuses to Concede?
AP FACT CHECK: Trump’s big distortions on mail-in voting
NBC News: Trump on peaceful transition if he loses: 'Get rid of the ballots'
U.S. News and World Report: Majority of Americans Don’t Trust Elections, Poll Finds