The Biggest Loser

Hey Trump, YOU'RE FIRED!

'This Is a Tsunami... Pay Attention': With All Eyes on Election Results, Experts Horrified as Covid-19 Hits New Record

"I dreaded this day... Historic and unprecedented abandonment of the American people."



by
Jake Johnson, staff writer



https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/11/05/tsunami-pay-attention-all-eyes-election-results-experts-horrified-covid-19-hits-new




With much of the nation's attention understandably consumed by developments in the high-stakes presidential election, the United States on Wednesday reported a daily record of more than 104,000 new Covid-19 infections, the latest alarming indication that—far from President Donald Trump's repeated insistence that the virus is fading away—the deadly pandemic is only getting worse as the winter months approach.

"The count that worries me? Over 100,000 Covid-19 cases yesterday," Yale epidemiologist Gregg Gonsalves tweeted Thursday morning. "Deaths up 21%. There has been silence on this from the White House and the Dems. This is a tsunami. Washing over us. Pay attention."

Coming just 24 hours after millions of Americans showed up at polling places across the nation to cast their ballots in the presidential race and down-ballot contests, Wednesday marked the first time the U.S. recorded at least 100,000 new coronavirus infections in a single day.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has been warning since June—when the U.S. was reporting around 40,000 cases daily—that the nation could reach 100,000 new infections per day if more aggressive preventative measures were not taken by the federal government in partnership with state and local leaders.

"We're in for a whole lot of hurt. It's not a good situation," Fauci told the Washington Post last week. "All the stars are aligned in the wrong place as you go into the fall and winter season, with people congregating at home indoors. You could not possibly be positioned more poorly."

On top of the surge in cases nationwide, coronavirus hospitalizations are also soaring in more than a dozen states, according to data compiled by the Covid Tracking Project.


The latest record-shattering coronavirus figures came days after Deborah Birx, coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force, warned in an internal report dated November 2 that the U.S. is "entering the most concerning and most deadly phase of this pandemic" and urged the Trump administration to take "much more aggressive action."




"Cases are rapidly rising in nearly 30 percent of all USA counties, the highest number of county hotspots we have seen with this pandemic," reads Birx's report, which was obtained by the Post. "Half of the United States is in the red or orange zone for cases despite flat or declining testing.”

As Birx sounded the alarm behind the scenes and other experts issued similar warnings publicly, Trump continued to hold crowded in-person rallies in the days leading up to Tuesday's election and downplay the severity of the pandemic, which has killed more than 234,000 people in the U.S. alone.

As Common Dreams reported over the weekend, a Stanford University analysis linked 18 of Trump's campaign rallies from June 20 to September 30 to more than 30,000 coronavirus infections and at least 700 deaths.

"That's all I hear about now. Turn on television, 'Covid, Covid, Covid Covid Covid.' A plane goes down, 500 people dead, they don't talk about it. 'Covid Covid Covid Covid,'" Trump told a crowd of his supporters in North Carolina late last month. "By the way, on November 4, you won't hear about it anymore."


Dr. Peter Hotez, a professor Baylor College of Medicine, tweeted Wednesday that he has long worried the U.S. would reach 100,000 Covid cases in a single day, a grim milestone he said further lays bare the Trump administration's failures.

"I dreaded this day, here it is. And the lights are off for the entire Executive Branch of our Federal Government," Hotez said. "Historic and unprecedented abandonment of the American people. I'm horrified."

What Democrats Should Learn From the Spate of Socialist Wins on Election Day

It’s not enough to be anti-Trump. Socialists are showing you can win elections by standing for something.

MINDY ISSER NOVEMBER 5, 2020



https://inthesetimes.com/article/dsa-election-2020-democrats-socialism




While many had hoped that Elec­tion Day would result in a sweep­ing rebuke of Trump and Trump­ism, nei­ther a pan­dem­ic nor an eco­nom­ic reces­sion were enough to deliv­er an over­whelm­ing rejec­tion. And although it’s look­ing like­ly that Biden will eke out a vic­to­ry, the 2020 elec­tion was in many ways a bust for the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, which lost seats in the House and most like­ly did not win a major­i­ty in the Senate.

But demo­c­ra­t­ic social­ism, pop­u­lar­ized by near-pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nee Bernie Sanders (I‑Vt.), had a much bet­ter night. The Demo­c­ra­t­ic Social­ists of Amer­i­ca (DSA), an orga­ni­za­tion that boasts near­ly 80,000 mem­bers nation­wide, endorsed 29 can­di­dates and 11 bal­lot ini­tia­tives, win­ning 20 and 8 respec­tive­ly. There are now demo­c­ra­t­ic social­ist cau­cus­es in 15 state­hous­es, includ­ing Mon­tana. (Dis­clo­sure: I am a nation­al­ly elect­ed leader of the orga­ni­za­tion; I sit on the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Social­ist Labor Commission.)

DSA’s vic­to­ries, both in the pri­maries and the gen­er­al elec­tion, have rolled in as pun­dits and poll­sters decry social­ism as polar­iz­ing and raise fears that social­ist can­di­dates will end up back­fir­ing and get­ting Repub­li­cans elect­ed. Sanders’ sup­posed lack of elec­tabil­i­ty was one of the most com­mon­ly used argu­ments against him in the pri­ma­ry. His pri­ma­ry oppo­nents and promi­nent writ­ers like Jonathan Chait claimed that the vast major­i­ty of Amer­i­cans wouldn’t vote for a social­ist, and that there was no way he could defeat Trump.

While there’s no real way to know for cer­tain if that’s true, it is clear that cen­trist Democ­rats aren’t nec­es­sar­i­ly shoo-ins them­selves. Demo­c­rat Jon Ossoff, who lost a con­gres­sion­al spe­cial elec­tion in 2017, looks like he will also lose this cycle’s Sen­ate race in Geor­gia. Demo­c­rat Sara Gideon, who raised $70 mil­lion to run against Repub­li­can Sen­a­tor Susan Collins in Maine, has con­ced­ed, and it looks like Demo­c­rat Cal Cun­ning­ham will also lose his run for Sen­ate in North Car­oli­na. Amy McGrath, who ran as a pro-Trump Demo­c­rat, raised near­ly $90 mil­lion and still lost to Repub­li­can Sen­a­tor Mitch McConnell. The list goes on and on. Even Joe Biden, who seems set to be our next pres­i­dent, often spoke more about beat­ing Trump than any poli­cies he would enact once in office.

Plen­ty of pro­gres­sive can­di­dates also lost, but most can­di­dates nation­al­ly endorsed by DSA sailed through. And while it’s true that many of them had tough pri­ma­ry bat­tles and less dif­fi­cult elec­tions on Tues­day, they still won as DSA mem­bers. All four mem­bers of ​“The Squad” — a pro­gres­sive bloc in Con­gress that includes Demo­c­ra­t­ic Reps. Rashi­da Tlaib (Mich.), Ilhan Omar (Minn.), Alexan­dria Oca­sio-Cortez (N.Y.) and Ayan­na Press­ley (Mass.) — were reelect­ed to the House. (Tlaib and Oca­sio-Cortez are DSA mem­bers and endorsed by the orga­ni­za­tion.) Pro­gres­sives also added two more DSA-endorsed mem­bers to their squad: Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep.-elect Jamaal Bow­man in New York, and Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep.-elect Cori Bush, the first ever Black Con­gress­woman in Missouri.

Although the cur­rent iter­a­tion of DSA has been around since the ear­ly 1980s, the orga­ni­za­tion only became polit­i­cal­ly rel­e­vant dur­ing Sanders’ first pres­i­den­tial cam­paign in 2015, and explod­ed when Trump was elect­ed. Five years is a very short peri­od of time to have helped elect City Coun­cil mem­bers, state sen­a­tors and rep­re­sen­ta­tives, and mem­bers of Con­gress all across the coun­try. Accord­ing to a 2018 Reuters sur­vey, 70% of Amer­i­cans sup­port a nation­al health care plan — due to Sanders’ pop­u­lar­iza­tion of the uni­ver­sal health­care pro­gram and to the orga­niz­ing and can­vass­ing DSA chap­ters, along with oth­er orga­ni­za­tions like Nation­al Nurs­es Unit­ed, have done around the legislation.

DSA-backed can­di­dates suc­ceed for a few main rea­sons: They cam­paign on actu­al poli­cies, have a vision of how to gov­ern, and don’t just depend on the fact that they’re not Repub­li­cans. These poli­cies include Medicare for All, a Green New Deal and a Jobs Guar­an­tee — pro­grams that would improve the qual­i­ty of life for work­ing peo­ple all over this coun­try. And because poli­cies they sup­port are so pop­u­lar and inspir­ing, DSA-backed can­di­dates attract ded­i­cat­ed can­vassers and orga­niz­ers, will­ing to spend nights and week­ends knock­ing doors and mak­ing calls to get them elected.

Now, thanks to DSA mem­bers across the coun­try, there is a social­ist in Austin City Coun­cil and in both the Rhode Island and Mon­tana State Hous­es. In Penn­syl­va­nia, there are three social­ists who are almost cer­tain­ly head­ed to the leg­is­la­ture in Har­ris­burg. Social­ists in Boul­der, Col­orado worked along­side the ACLU to win a bal­lot mea­sure that guar­an­tees no evic­tion with­out rep­re­sen­ta­tion, and DSA mem­bers part­nered with the labor unions AFSCME and SEIU to pass Preschool for All in Mult­nom­ah Coun­ty, Ore­gon. And in both Flori­da and Port­land, Maine, bal­lot ini­tia­tives for a $15 min­i­mum wage passed.

While it’s clear that most DSA vic­to­ries have been in big cities or more lib­er­al states thus far, it’s impor­tant that we don’t dis­count the incred­i­ble orga­niz­ing hap­pen­ing in the South and in rur­al areas. (Mar­qui­ta Brad­shaw ran a DSA-backed cam­paign for Sen­ate in Ten­nessee but lost; Kim Roney, endorsed by her DSA chap­ter, won a seat on the Asheville City Council.)

And while the Demo­c­ra­t­ic par­ty is loath to give DSA any encour­age­ment, DSA mem­ber Tlaib may have helped to secure Biden’s vic­to­ry in Michi­gan by help­ing to mas­sive­ly increase vot­er turnout from 2016. DSA’s ide­ol­o­gy, focused on a soci­ety that works for all of us instead of the wealthy few, is far more inspir­ing to young and work­ing peo­ple than some­one who is run­ning for office just because they’re not Trump. It might take the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty time to real­ize that (or per­haps it nev­er will), but to the aver­age per­son, polit­i­cal con­di­tions are chang­ing fast — and DSA is play­ing a crit­i­cal role in that transformation.

Wolff Responds: Californias Prop 22 vote

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WQTio1744Q&ab_channel=RichardDWolff

Lady Liberty and Trump

 

Keiser Report | Corporate Bitcoin FOMO

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfdglMTMVv8&ab_channel=RT

Trump: The Art of the Deal

ROBERT KUTTNER






Once Donald Trump accepts the inevitable and grasps that he has lost the election, there will be two mortal dangers to the Republic. The first is that he will resort to extralegal means, including exhorting supporters to violence, to hold on to office.

The second is that, as a wounded lame duck, he will become even more crazy and reckless. Let’s hope the military has a contingency plan to prevent him from starting World War III as a final, narcissistic "F-You" gesture to all who scorned him.

But as reality sinks in, the survivor part of Trump’s twisted psyche will be focused on saving his own sorry ass. Jane Mayer has the definitive piece on all the prosecutions Trump will face as he leaves office. It’s quite a list.

So Trump, the ultimate deal-maker, will be looking for the ultimate deal. He resigns, is pardoned by Pence, and is somehow spared further prosecution even by state officials not bound by a federal presidential pardon.

As much as we might like to see Trump in a dungeon for all of eternity with reptiles gnawing at his vital organs, this is a deal worth brokering. Nothing is more important than getting a crazed lame-duck Trump out of office ASAP.

The lawyers will have to figure out how it might be possible to bring in state prosecutors who have spent decades trying to send Trump to the slam. Maybe New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo could also pardon him for state crimes.

Some might reject this as a corrupt deal. But these are not ordinary times.

Get him out well before January 20. Trump has been talking about fleeing the country. Great! There are few pleasant places that would take him, but doubtless Viktor Orban or Rodrigo Duterte would be happy to have him.

He can move Mar-a-Lago to Manila, start his own network, and get even richer. Swell. Just get him out of the White House before he blows us all up.






~ ROBERT KUTTNER
Follow Robert Kuttner on Twitter
Robert Kuttner’s latest book is
The Stakes: 2020 and the Survival of American Democracy.













Will the Supreme Court Overturn the Election Result?
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