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klbmsw · 4 years ago

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Thomas Clay-

· There's a reason why we can't have nice things in this country. Our roads and bridges are falling apart. Our electrical grid is so antiquated that if most civilians understood how bad it really is, there would be drastic measures taken. There are a whole variety of cybercrimes that happen every single day including child sex trafficking that we can't even get the house or senate to address because Republicans would rather litigate Roe vs. Wade every election cycle than to accomplish anything real or meaningful that would make life better for the American people. Truly, I say this in all honesty and the utmost contempt, if any Republican wanted to help their fellow countrymen then they'd find the nearest pool of water and drown themselves. Of course Republicans are too heartless and selfish to do anything for the good of the country or their fellow man. As you can tell, I've become a bit more ornery the past three and a half years but the last week or so has put me in a lather of murderous rage after the Scumbag-in-Chief had the unmitigated gall to claim Kamala wasn't 'qualified' to be Veep while his toady DeJoy is dismantling our post office to prevent people from exercising their right to vote in the vain hope of helping Dumbfuckitus get re-elected. Anyone seen any Republicans saying this isn't okay? That slowing down the mail on purpose is keeping our veterans from getting their meds on time? Anyone remember the apoplectic rage seizures Republicans were having when Clinton pardoned Marc Rich? Or how silent they are now after he commutes Roger Stone's sentence?What I am grateful to Trump for is proving me right to all of my friends who would say to me, 'Oh Thomas! Republicans aren't as bad as you're saying they are! It's just a difference of opinion but we're all Americans in the end.' Well how'd that turn out for ya hmm?Republicans will lie about anything, cheat as the day is long and steal as much as they possibly can from future generation who will just have to listen to The Black Keys' 'I Got Mine' and suck it because doing anything for anyone else is anathema to the black hearts that pump the slime of sedition through their veins. Trump has known since before the election that Russia was interfering in our election to benefit him alone and after the election he promised to have a commission look into it. What's he done to keep a foreign country from undermining our Republic again? Well besides not a damn thing, he's floating the turd of an idea that he should have Putin come to Washington so he can show how 'tough he is on Russia.' It's enough to make even the grossest flatterer nauseous. If Republicans gave one solitary frig about a fair election, we could have block-chain electronic voting. Block-chain encryption is what Bitcoin uses and it is quite simply impossible to hack. It is impossible to forge or tamper with. Each nonce and hash created in a block chain is unique like a social security number. To give you some idea how big a 256 bit encryption chain is, when Alan Turing was trying to crack the German Enigma machine, the possibilities of finding the key were one in 158 million million million combinations or a trillion million. The numbers to a 256 bit encryption are so large they would make Kurt Gödel crosseyed. The technology exist right now for all Americans to vote instantly and safely. We would have all of votes counted instantly and we could declare a winner as soon as the last poll closed. But we can't have nice things like that because 5% of the population controls 40 senate seats which are you guessed it, Republicans. Republicans have no interests in a free and fair election because they know if they had to compete by winning a simple majority vote, they would be in a permanent minority. That's why scumbags like Brian Kemp and Ron DeSantis do everything they possibly can to keep black people from voting.Black people aren't their only problem come November. Right now Joe Biden leads Trump among Latinos 59% to 31% and naturally you would wonder how any Latino could support Trump. It's no different than chickens voting for Colonel Sanders but that's not important. What is important is that there are over 8 million newly registered latino voters in the United States, 2 million in Texas alone. I might be telling tales out of school but I don't think Latinos are much happy with Stephen Miller's nazi policies towards them. Think what you want but Trump is not trying to sabotage the Postal Service and constantly whining about imaginary voter fraud because he's not worried about winning this election. He's good and scared and he should be because as dumb as Trump is, he is well aware of what Attorney General Adam Schiff is going to do to his felonious ass! He can sign as many pardons for his friends and family as he wants but you can't pardon someone for charges that haven't been filed yet. If we ever hope to rebuild what's left of our self-respect as a nation then Donald John Trump must spend the rest of his god-forsaken life in prison for the crimes he's committed against the people and our Republic. For all you namby pamby democrats who still soil your honor by speaking to Republicans, just remember this; Republicans are nihilistic lying scumbags who should be afforded the same deference we grant syphilis and pederast. You best get that straight NOW before you start telling your 'friends', "it's got what plants need' because I am damn sick of having that orange shit-demon in my life and anyone who isn't on the Fuck Trump Train is a mortal enemy to all that's right and good about the United States and we must all be ready to raze the earth to remove that petulant miscreant from our house come hell or high water on November the 3rd.If you'd like to help me keep shoving a harpoon into Fat Nixon's ass, please join my patreon for a paltry $1 a month. Thanks. https://www.patreon.com/thomasclayjr

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coldasyou · 5 years ago

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I'm *still* quite confused about the electoral college? Like.... the popular vote votes for the people who make up for the electoral college, who vote for the president? But then why would a democrat electoral college member vote for Trump? Or how did he possible win if Hilary won the popular vote? Idk, maybe none of this is accurate, I'm still so confused (also, I'm not US) (also, I have tried to google it but I need someone to explain it to me like I'm 5)

anon I’m american, practically have my BA in history, and I still don’t fully understand it! it is...insanely confusing and I hate it but I’ll try and do my best to explain it.

when the united states founders were first framing the constitution (yes we have to go back this far for context) there was a lot of disagreement over the role of big states vs small states. you can see this with the debate over whether or not states representation in congress should be equal across the board (the new jeresey plan) or based on the population (virginia plan). a compromise was reached and that’s why in the US we have two branches in congress; the senate (where each state gets two senators no matter the size) and the house of representatives (where the number of reps a state has is determined by population).

that same anxiety surrounding how much power big states would have is one of the reasons we have the electoral college. another reason is a lot of the founders just genuinely didn’t trust average citizens to be smart enough to vote (remember, originally only white, property owning men could vote) and didn’t want a pure popular vote to decide a winner but we don’t like to talk about that in this country! so the electoral college is basically a process that works like this: each state gets a certain number of electors, determined by their total representation in congress (the number of reps + the two senators. for example, ohio has 18 votes, 16 for our representatives, 2 for our senators. DC also gets 3 electoral votes despite not actually being a state.). there are currently 538 electors in total and a candidate needs 270 to win. what qualifies a person to be an elector varies by state (bc this process needs to be MORE convoluted) but in general it’s high ranking members of the specific candidates political party. when you vote for a specific candidate, you’re actually voting for their electors (either democrat, or republican).to take 2016 as an example, both trump and clinton had their own set of electors chosen by their respective parties, but the only ones who actually got to vote where the electors of the party that won the state (so in california, the democratic electors picked clinton bc she won the most votes, in texas, the republican electors picked trump bc he won the most votes). every state besides maine and nebraska has a “winner take all” system, where whichever candidate gets the most votes in the state gets all of the electors. this is supposed to be kind of an “honor code thing.” technically, an elector could vote for whoever they want (and some do, they’re called faithless electors) but like 99% of electors vote for their parties candidate. (source, source)

normally, the electoral college matches up with what the popular vote was (so the candidate with the most electors also got the most votes) but there have been five elections in US history where a candidate who got the MOST votes lost bc they still didn’t get the MOST electors. the first 3 were in the 19th century but it has happened twice in the past 20 years already; bush vs gore in 2000 and trump vs clinton in 2016. this can happen bc of the winner take all system: to quote pew research, “This mismatch between the electoral and popular votes came about because Trump won several large states (such as Florida, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin) by very narrow margins, gaining all their electoral votes in the process, even as Clinton claimed other large states (such as California, Illinois and New York) by much wider margins.” (source) and to quote the times: “Today, in every state except Nebraska and Maine, whichever candidate wins the most votes in a state wins all the electors from that state, no matter what the margin of victory. Just look at the impact this system had on the 2016 race: Donald Trump won Pennsylvania and Florida by a combined margin of about 200,000 votes to earn 49 electoral votes. Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, won Massachusetts by almost a million votes but earned only 11 electoral votes.” (source). on average, states with a high population and high urban density (where democrats are more popular) are underrepresented in the electoral college, while more rural states with a lower population (where republicans are more popular) are over represented in the electoral college, and that’s why we’ve seen two democrats win the popular vote but lose the electoral vote in the past two decades.

swing states (states that historically have gone both republican and democrat) also come in to play. they can change based on political trends, but generally include most of the midwest as well as flordia, nevada, pennsylvania, and virginia. one of the reasons trump was able to win the electoral college is he did REALLY well in swing states, particularly in the midwest and rust belt, and he was able to grab a lot of electors from there.

confusing? yes. personally, I am very anti electoral college for reasons that are summarized a lot better here and here and also bc I LIVE in a swing state and the constant political attack ads are horrible.

finally, here’s a graphic that really helps me understand how the divide between popular and electoral vote can occur. (source)

#god this took me like an hour fkjsdkjsd I love democracy <3 #I hope this helps I can try to answer more questions if you have them!#anonymous #answered

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fuckyeahtx · 5 years ago

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Late in the afternoon on the last Monday in June, 430 Democrats, who had paid up to $100,000 each, clicked into a private, Texas-themed Zoom call organized by Joe Biden’s campaign. They were greeted by former Planned Parenthood chief Cecile Richards, whose mother, Ann, was the state’s last Democratic governor. They heard from Julián Castro and Beto O’Rourke, and they were treated to a performance by Willie Nelson, who sang a song with his son Lukas called “Vote ’Em Out.” It began, “If you don’t like who’s in there, vote ’em out. / That’s what Election Day is all about. / The biggest gun we’ve got is called the ballot box.” And they heard from Biden, who — just four days after a Fox News poll showed him narrowly ahead of Donald Trump in the state no Democratic nominee has carried since Jimmy Carter — told them, “I think we can turn Texas blue.”

From Amarillo to Brownsville to Beaumont to El Paso, you could practically hear the sighs: Here we go again. Texas Democrats hear a version of this overture in every election cycle as outsiders swoop in citing statistics about demographic shifts. The national party has long regarded the Lone Star State’s 38 electoral votes as the just-out-of-reach golden key to perpetual success.

Still, the ex-VP is now basking in a double-digit lead nationwide, and we’re improbably entering month 17 of close polling between Biden and the president in Texas, which Trump won by nine points in 2016. The state’s Republican senators are warning that Texas will be “hotly contested” (Ted Cruz) and “at risk of turning purple” (John Cornyn). And after months of bluster from its GOP leaders — in March, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick said seniors like him would be willing to die to restart the economy — Texas is under assault from COVID-19, and frustrations are turning into fury. Governor Greg Abbott has backtracked on plans for reopening as more than 5,000 new coronavirus cases flood in each day, while Houston hospitals are at capacity and millions remain out of work.

Four months into lockdown — about halfway between being left for dead politically early in the primary and Election Day in November — the nominee and his campaign are still adjusting to political fortunes they can hardly believe all around the country, let alone in Texas. As the summer stretches on, party leaders are starting to work out whether Biden’s lead and Trump’s spiral mean Democrats can afford to experiment in conservative states or if it’s worth shining a brighter light on down-ballot races that could hand a President Biden the Senate.

Of course, no national Democratic group has spent a dime on TV advertising in Texas, and they’re unlikely to. Biden doesn’t need Texas to win the White House. Far from it: Carter is the only Democrat to win there since native son Lyndon B. Johnson. Pro-Biden groups, like the Unite the Country super-PAC, that aim to get him to 270 electoral votes have been spending money in top-tier battleground states like Florida and North Carolina, not Texas, where Trump still has a slim lead in some polls. “If we win Texas, it will be the 350th or 370th electoral vote,” says Lily Adams, a senior Unite the Country official (who happens to be Ann Richards’s granddaughter and Cecile Richards’s daughter). “Not the 270th.”

And Democrats are still haunted by their 2016 confidence, especially in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Hillary Clinton’s wasn’t even the party’s only semi-recent collapse; one July 1988 poll showed Michael Dukakis beating George H.W. Bush by 17 points. Trump’s team, meanwhile, insists it hasn’t started fully unloading on its opponent yet. But this year’s race is showing signs of becoming something entirely different: Despite being stuck at home in Delaware because of the virus while Trump soaked up the national attention, Biden held a roughly ten-point lead in national polling averages by the end of June — about four points wider than the margin at this stage of any race in recent history. It would be overly kind to describe Trump as “flailing” as his poll numbers continue to hit new lows amid the pandemic and the protests against police brutality. His answer is to desperately look for a more cutting nickname for Biden, as he’s worried that “Sleepy Joe” isn’t good enough. (The 74-year-old Trump’s allies think their best bet is to portray 77-year-old Biden as frail and deteriorating. When asked by a Fox News producer about “cognitive decline” late last month, Biden replied, “I’m constantly tested … I can hardly wait to compare my cognitive capability to the cognitive capability of the man I’m running against.”)

Biden’s leads in the crucial swing states are more solid than expected — Trump’s campaign team is already worried he may have too big a mountain to climb in Michigan, the site of perhaps his most shocking 2016 victory — but the leads are still smaller than Biden’s apparent national margin. Biden has only recently begun venturing out for campaign events and rarely travels farther than next-door Pennsylvania. Wary of distancing recommendations, he isn’t planning to hold rallies in the fall, and only now, with four months left, is he building up senior teams in Wisconsin, North Carolina, and the like, while his allies pound digital and TV airwaves in those battlegrounds with a barrage of anti-Trump ads.

A Biden sweep still isn’t certain, which is why he probably won’t go all-in on a state like Texas. “My grandmother used to say, ‘You don’t know the size of Texas until you’ve campaigned in it,’ ” warns Adams. O’Rourke’s race against Cruz was the priciest Senate contest ever — and he still lost. But, Adams continues, “what you may be witnessing is a confluence or perfect storm of events that is making Texas more competitive this cycle than any other in recent history.”

Three Democrats independently used the “perfect storm” metaphor in conversations with me to refer to the pandemic, Trump’s plummeting popularity, and demographic shifts that have increased the state’s number of Latino voters and city dwellers. (A fourth called it a “perfect shitstorm.”) While that combination doesn’t yet have party leaders considering Texas a central swing state, it has forced them to shift it solidly into their expanded conversation about electoral battlegrounds, just behind Georgia.

Those closest to Biden have better things to worry about than these debates — like picking his running mate and designing his coronavirus-recovery proposals. When they do get sucked in, though, the pro-Texas-investment arguments usually start by noting that this ain’t the Bushes’ Texas anymore. O’Rourke, whose presidential campaign manager, Jen O’Malley Dillon, now runs Biden’s effort, came within three points of Cruz in 2018. That was just four years after Abbott beat Democrat Wendy Davis by 20 points, and the state’s briskly growing cities and suburbs are sprinting away from Trump’s GOP. Long-term trends have seduced Democrats: The Census Bureau in June reported that Texas’s Hispanic population grew by more than 2 million in the past decade. And the state’s present crisis has only sped things up. It’s the latest stage in a four-month saga during which Trump’s polling has dropped precipitously, but it mirrors similarly dire pictures for Trump in Florida and Arizona. “It’s 24/7, all over the place on TV, on their cell phones, as counties send out emergency texts to every single person in the county,” Castro, the former presidential candidate, tells me. “People are putting two and two together that this is the direct result of a failure by Donald Trump and Greg Abbott.” Whereas Biden has lagged previous Democrats a bit in popularity among Latino voters, Latino communities have been hit especially brutally, causing many to turn hard against Republicans.

The party’s wallet will stay shut for now anywhere but Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina, Arizona, and Florida. Still, before Willie Nelson and his guitar took center stage that Monday afternoon on Zoom, O’Rourke warned that if the vote tally is tight on Election Day, “I believe that the current occupant of the White House — who does not believe in the rule of law, who does not respect the Constitution, who will do anything he can to maintain and increase his purchase on power, will exploit a close outcome to attempt to steal the election.” But, he continued, “the greatest safeguard against that outcome is Texas.”

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bountyofbeads · 5 years ago

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Trump Impeachment Trial: Live Updates https://nyti.ms/3aBUBIT

Amazing that this trial is going to be decided by Senators who represent a minority of the country and from states that would look like third world countries if not for subsidies from the liberal states that the President and his party of Evangelical bigots despise.

"Every single senator who votes against hearing evidence and witnesses is voting against his or her oath of office to be faithful to the laws of the land. Each one should be impeached, following, by their constituency. This has nothing to do with the final outcome, but it is a kangaroo court if evidence and witnesses are not heard. Shameful mockery of our justice system and the Constitution. In what other trial would it be considered legal to block evidence and witnesses?"

CONCERNED MOTHER, NYC

Day in Impeachment: Key Moments From the Managers’ Opening Arguments

The House impeachment managers began laying out their case and Adam Schiff challenged the Senate to demand that the president provide the information he has blocked.

By Peter Baker and Eileen Sullivan | Published January 22, 2020 | New York Times | Posted January 23, 2020 |

[ DAY 2 IN THE SENATE: Follow our live coverage of the Senate impeachment trial.]

Here’s what you need to know:

Schiff called on the Senate to demand witnesses and documents so far denied by the Trump administration.

After a day of outlining the substance of the case against President Trump, the lead House impeachment manager returned in the evening session to lobbying the Senate for testimony and documents from the Trump administration, which so far has refused to provide them.

Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California and head of the team of House managers, took the microphone for a second time after the dinner break and this time turned the question back on the Senate, challenging it to demand that the president provide the information he has until now blocked.

As he mentioned various moments in the effort by Mr. Trump and his team to pressure Ukraine to investigate his Democratic rivals, Mr. Schiff repeatedly stopped and pointed out that if the senators wanted to know more about what happened at that point, they could seek documents or witnesses who could provide more information.

“Would you like to see that written record?” Mr. Schiff said at one point about a key telephone call. “Well,” he added, “there’s a good way to find out what happened on that call because it’s in writing. Is there any question why they’re withholding this from Congress? Is there any question about that?”

The argument revived the pleas the managers made on Tuesday to no effect, as Republican senators rejected motions to call witnesses and seek documents at this time. The trial rules set by the Republican majority will allow the managers to make motions for witnesses and records after opening arguments and a question-and-answer session with senators.

The White House team, which had no speaking opportunity on the floor on Wednesday, has dismissed the managers’ demands for testimony and records, saying that it would violate traditional presidential confidentiality critical to a president’s ability to do his job and that if such information was so important to their case they should have gone to court to litigate the matter.

Managers accused Trump of using his power ‘to cheat’ in the election.

House managers began laying out their case for convicting and removing Mr. Trump from office, accusing him of a corrupt scheme to enlist the help of a foreign government to tarnish his domestic political rivals and pave his way to a second term.

In a series of sober, methodical speeches, the Democratic managers, or prosecutors, presented extracts of testimony that they were able to gather during the House inquiry despite the president’s refusal to cooperate to argue that Mr. Trump’s pressure on Ukraine to incriminate Democrats amounted to an assault on America’s constitutional democracy.

“President Trump solicited foreign interference in our democratic elections, abusing the power of his office to seek help from abroad to improve his re-election prospects at home,” Mr. Schiff said from the well of the Senate. “President Trump,” he added, “withheld hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to a strategic partner at war with Russia to secure foreign help with his re-election. In other words, to cheat.”

While the Senate has so far refused to allow witnesses, Mr. Schiff and his fellow managers in effect brought a few to the floor anyway by playing video clips from current and former officials like Fiona Hill, Gordon D. Sondland, William B. Taylor Jr. and David Holmes, who testified before Mr. Schiff’s House Intelligence Committee last year. And they played several from Mr. Trump himself, showing the president in 2016 publicly calling on Russia to hack Hillary Clinton’s email and last year publicly calling on Ukraine and even China to investigate former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

“Shocking video,” Representative Sylvia Garcia, Democrat of Texas, said after showing Mr. Trump telling George Stephanopoulos of ABC News last spring that he would still be willing to accept damaging information about a campaign opponent from Russia or another foreign government.

With three days to make their case, the seven House impeachment managers started outlining the events in narrative form, how the president and his associates sought to pressure Ukraine to announce investigations of Mr. Biden and Democrats while withholding $391 million in American aid. The managers will later explore the constitutional ramifications of the case.

Mr. Schiff was followed by Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York. Next came Ms. Garcia, then Representatives Jason Crow of Colorado, Val Demings of Florida and Hakeem Jeffries of New York. Mr. Schiff returned to the microphone after dinner, before handing off to Representative Zoe Lofgren of California, then returned to finish the day. Mr. Schiff was by far the main face of the effort, speaking for more than four hours compared with three hours for all six of his colleagues combined.

“If not remedied by his conviction in the Senate and removal from office,” Mr. Schiff said, “President Trump’s abuse of his office and obstruction of Congress will permanently alter the balance of power among the branches of government, inviting future presidents to operate as if they are also beyond the reach of accountability, congressional oversight and the law.”

Mr. Schiff went on to reject the notion that impeachment is outdated and therefore no longer a viable instrument to hold a president accountable. “If it is a relic,” he said, “I wonder how much longer our republic can succeed.”

[ TRUMP’S TRIAL, EXPLAINED: The trial could last two weeks, or stretch far longer.]

Trump set a new Twitter record as he lashed out at House managers seeking his removal from office.

The defendant was not in the room or even in the country, but he made his views known. Mr. Trump fired off so many Twitter messages as his fate was being debated on the Senate floor that he set a record for any single day in his presidency.

As of 7:30 p.m., he had posted or reposted 142 messages on Twitter, surpassing the previous record of 123 set in December, as he defended himself and lashed out at the House managers. Most of the messages were retweets of messages from allies and supporters assailing Mr. Schiff and others prosecuting the case.

Mr. Trump reposted a tweet from Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, who wrote: “The more we hear from Adam Schiff, the more the GOP is getting unified against this partisan charade!” Mr. Trump added: “True!” He also reposted a tweet from Mr. Paul in which the senator invited the president to attend the trial as his guest.

Mr. Trump began his Twitter blitz around midnight Washington time while still in Davos, Switzerland, where he attended an economic forum. He fired off 41 tweets over the next hour, or one every 88 seconds, according to Bill Frischling of Factba.se, a service that compiles and analyzes data on Mr. Trump’s presidency.

Some of the messages later in the day came even as he flew on Air Force One back toward Washington and amplified the broadsides he delivered at a news conference before leaving Davos, where he called Mr. Nadler a “sleaze bag” and Mr. Schiff a “con job” and a “corrupt politician.”

Mr. Trump told reporters at the news conference that he would love to attend the trial — something that no other president has done and that his lawyers have advised against — so he could “sit right in the front row and stare into their corrupt faces.”

He praised his lawyers for their performance on Tuesday. “We’re doing very well,” he said. “I got to watch enough. I thought our team did a very good job. But honestly, we have all the material. They don’t have the material.”

The last comment about the material immediately provoked criticism from Democrats, who called it a boast about the president’s success at withholding documents and evidence from Congress. But it was unclear from the context whether he was instead saying, however inartfully, that his side had the stronger argument.

Schumer ruled out witness bargain that would call both Bolton and Hunter Biden to testify.

Senate Democrats ruled out any bargain that would involve calling Hunter Biden, the son of the former vice president, as a witness in the trial in exchange for Republicans agreeing to hear testimony from John R. Bolton, Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser.

“That trade is not on the table,” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, told reporters during a break in the trial.

Hunter Biden served on the board of a Ukrainian energy company while his father was vice president. In a July phone call, Mr. Trump asked the president of Ukraine to do him “a favor” and investigate both Bidens, a request that is now at the heart of the impeachment charges.

The former vice president’s many allies in the Senate have been particularly insistent on the point. “The president is on trial here, not anyone with the last name Biden,” Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware and a close ally of the elder Mr. Biden, said in a tweet Tuesday night. “VP Biden and Hunter Biden are not relevant witnesses.”

Senator Chris Coons ✔@ChrisCoons

I’m a lawyer, and here’s what I know: Trials have witnesses, and the witnesses have to be relevant to the case. It isn’t complicated.

The President is on trial here, not anyone with the last name Biden. VP Biden and Hunter Biden are not relevant witnesses.

10:45 PM - Jan 21, 2020

Joseph Biden himself also ruled out any testimony tradeoff, saying of the president, “I’m not going to play his game.”

“Look what Trump has done his whole career, whenever he’s in trouble,” Mr. Biden said during a campaign stop in Osage, Iowa. “He tries to blame somebody else, divert the attention.”

He added: “This is a constitutional issue. We’re not going to turn it into a farce, into some kind of political theater.”

Bound to silence on the floor, Trump’s lawyers and allies stewed with no chance to respond until later in the week.

While Mr. Trump used his telephone to make his views known, the next three days may prove uncomfortable for his lawyers and Republican allies stuck on the Senate floor as the House Democrats have exclusive access to the microphone.

Unlike the procedural arguments on Tuesday in which both sides went back and forth offering their points, the trial rules now provide the House managers with 24 hours over three days to make their case uninterrupted by the other side or any of the senators.

For hour after hour, the president’s lawyers and their Republican allies are being forced to sit silent in their seats, listening to the most nefarious interpretations of Mr. Trump’s actions without any ability to rebut the points except during breaks in front of television cameras in the hallways.

But it may also be the first time that some senators have heard the totality of the evidence presented in a sustained way. Always on the move, constantly running from one meeting to another, senators almost never have hours on end, much less three days straight, to focus on a single subject. Few if any of them are likely to have watched all of the House hearings that led to the impeachment.

The White House team will get its turn, though, and the House managers will be the ones having to sit quiet as the president’s lawyers present their case uninterrupted and unrebutted.

The White House ceded a chance to try to swiftly dismiss the case.

The White House passed up a chance to force a vote to dismiss the impeachment charges against Mr. Trump before arguments get underway.

Both the president’s defense lawyers and the House Democratic impeachment managers had until 9 a.m. to offer motions related to the trial, except for ones that would call for witnesses and new evidence, issues that will be dealt with next week. Neither side did so.

The White House’s silence was more significant. Although Republican leaders have discouraged the president’s team from seeking a swift dismissal, Mr. Trump had endorsed the idea and his conservative allies said the Senate ought to vote promptly to do so. A dismissal vote this week would almost certainly have failed to attract a majority of senators, dividing Republicans and dealing Mr. Trump an early symbolic defeat.

— Nicholas Fandos

Republicans bristled at House managers for their aggressive tone during the procedural debate.

On Tuesday, House managers repeatedly criticized the Republican senators who will decide Mr. Trump’s fate, with one manager accusing them of “treacherous” behavior. By Wednesday, it was clear that the tone did not go over very well.

Republicans laced into Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York and the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, whose aggressive tone toward senators — and accusation of treachery — during his remarks after midnight were too much for some in the chamber.

“What Chairman Nadler said and how he conducted himself was outrageous and an insult to the Senate,” said Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas. “We don’t need to continue the clown circus that started over in the House.”

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, lashed out at the managers for suggesting that Republican senators were part of a cover-up by not voting in support of subpoenaing additional documents and witnesses. “You can say what you want about me but I’m covering up nothing,” Mr. Graham told reporters.

Even some Democrats offered some mild criticism. Senator Jon Tester of Montana told reporters that Mr. Nadler “could have chosen better words” and Mr. Coons told CNN that “frankly, several of those folks who were making arguments in the chamber took an aggressive tone. The tone in the Senate has always been and tries to remain measured and civil.”

All of which may explain why Mr. Schiff opened Wednesday’s presentation with an olive branch to the senators, heaping praise on them for their forbearance. “I want to begin today by thanking you for the conduct of the proceedings yesterday,” he told the senators. “And for inviting your patience as we go forward.”

— Michael D. Shear

BELOW ARE SOME READERS COMMENTS FROM AROUND THE COUNTRY ABOUT TRUMP'S IMPEACHMENT TRIAL:

"Make no mistake, the foundational tenets of our Constitution and our republic is what is on trial here. As Schiff just stated the outcome will "... permantly alter the balance of power in our branches of government." And as Noah Bookbinder eloquently stated, "Mr. McConnell's rules will weaken the power of impeachment as a deterrent to presidential misbehavior..." With yesterdays rejection of all the amendments offered, the Republican dominated senate marched our country right up to the edge of this abyss. This is the kind of situation that can truly injure the guardrails of democracy – boundaries President Trump and his loyalists have been disassembling bit by bit with each lie, cruel and ignorant tweet, dismissal of Congressional authority, and outright attacks on the integrity of other governmental departments: DOJ, State Department, OMB, the Intelligence agencies, the Federal Judiciary, the EPA. Trump's corruption has metastasized through our government like a cancer. Trump and his officials have taken an ax to ethical standards of governing. This is how democracies die. The whole world is watching what America will do here. Will we step over into the abyss reduced to a pretense of a democratic republic like Putin's Russia? If a president is allowed to break the law, ignore the constitution, "do whatever I want" then the law is irrelevant and American constitutional democracy as we have known it is dead.

TWG, NEVADA

"Unlike other ridiculous debates in the Congress which have become increasingly more partisan, this one is of historical consequence. The debate whether Senators should allow thousands of consequential documents and key witnesses to be permitted in a trial is no less ridiculous, but history is noting this one. A real trial allows relevant witnesses regardless if it is damning to the defendant. In this trial the Republicans who share the same party as the President will not allow any evidence because it is disastrous. Let this go down as what it is. The Republicans in the Senate of the United States chose to ignore their sworn oath to the Constitution and chose to allow the President of the United States to run the impeachment trial his way. That is a sham trial. Much like they would hold in a corrupt third world government where democracy doesn't exist."JEANSCH, SPOKANE WA

"Words from Magistrate John Roberts :The president is on trial in the Senate, but the Senate is on trial in the eyes of the American people. Will you vote to allow all the relevant evidence to be presented here? Or will you betray your pledge to be an impartial jurors."

RICK JOHNSON, NYC

"Bolton can break the impeachment hearings wide open all by himself-- in the event he is not allowed to testify as a key witness by McConnell and the Senate GOP---by holding --or even threatening to hold--an immediate press conference and telling the truth to the American people about Trump's role in the Ukraine fiasco. The lid can't stay on forever. The truth is sure to emerge at some time in the near future --likely before the 2020 elections as more and more evidence of Trump's actions leak out and more and more voters get disgusted at Trump's actions and hold on the GOP--and the GOP will be blemished forever in American history if one of its own major party representatives does not have the honor and courage to voluntarily disclose to the American people what he himself knows at a critical time in its history. There is not a hero born every minute. Is Bolton a man or a mouse?"

KEN, WASHINGTON DC

"Schiff-does the Homework, His equations add up, Presents with Class, Head and Shoulders above embarrassing Trump Defense--Serves His Country well." THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID, WEST

"The Democrats have to repeat the truth over and over again, because the Republicans repeat their boring lies over and over again. The truth is never boring." ANNA, MA

"Schiff is the most gifted and wisest orator of our time. No need to yearn for statesmen long past gone. Just appreciate who stands before us."

MARK, VIRGINIA

"It appears as thought the GOP Senators have succeeded in pulling the wool over their own eyes. We see this for what it is: a cover up, a sham trial. They see it as their only choice- to follow the party line, to aid in the cover up, to do what they have to do to remain in their seats. Mitch McConnell will go down in history as orchastrating this and that will be his legacy."

WES, DENVER, CO

Keep in mind, the House managers are juggling multiple audiences. There are at least five target audiences for this presentation (not necessarily in order of priority): 1. The Senate/Congress 2. The President 3. The Judiciary 4. The American Public via the media-sphere 5. The Official Record Governance is a long arc. #4 and 5 get overlooked in our era of hyper-analysis. What enters the official record will be interpreted decades and centuries from now. Precedence is being set. History will not be kind to those who compromise the Constitution for expediency and short term political gain. The Senate has ceded Congressional power to the Executive since the middle of the 20th century. A rebalance of power is overdue. So, ask yourself, Who is risking the most and who has the most to gain in both terms? Will the Senate vote to make itself moot?”SOPHISTA, FL

"Watching the Senate impeachment trial proceedings and seeing how Republican Senators have made it clear that they have no interest in finding out the truth, let alone responding to it appropriately, I can't help but think that foreigners view the current US Senate as no different than a legislature in a dictatorship, which does nothing more than "rubber stamp" its approval of the dictator's decrees. And they wouldn't be wrong."JAY ORCHARD, MIAMI

"The "pleas from Republicans" were fabricated nonsense. Remember the "basement pizza party" where Republicans interrupted proceedings, bringing cell phones into a secure location, angry because they weren't given access? Except that they were. Several of them were on the very committees that were permitted to join, but they just didn't go. It was more important to them to make a scene and pretend that they were being barred. Half the people in this country don't even believe an impeachment trial should be transpiring? Well, that's interesting, considering the latest statistic I saw said 51% believe that not only should he have been impeached, but the impeachment *should result in removal* (note: This doesn't include the people who think he should be impeached but not removed). How can those two things be true at the same time? Most people believe that he will be acquitted. That's not the same thing as "not guilty"."FOREST HILLS, IL

" 'What are [Republicans] afraid of? They're going to hear evidence that they don't like? They must be afraid of something,' Conway told Tapper, referring to Republicans' refusals on witnesses and evidence. 'And that's the thing that I find most disturbing about it, is they don't want to hear the evidence because they know the truth. They know he's guilty. And they don't want to hear the evidence because they don't want the American people to see it too.' " (Conservative Lawyer George Conway, CNN, 22Jan2020)" STEVE KENNEDY, DEER PARK, TX

"Nearly two years ago I had an exchange of messages with Jeffrey Toobin, CNN’s chief legal analyst, about the likely outcome of the Mueller investigation. He thought it would be Trump’s Waterloo, and I wrote that I thought Trump would pull off “the perfect crime”: everybody knows he is guilty, but a completely dysfunctional Congress (and a powerful propaganda machine - Fox News) would ensure that he never pays for his crimes. All of that was before the “Ukraine Shakedown”. Now, a GOP-controlled Senate, unbound by any quaint notions of ethics or service to country, will likely let Trump get away with this latest outrage. He will go free, and I’ll wager that the first thing Trump will do is call up Vladimir Putin and start working on the disruption of the 2020 election." WILLIAM L. VALENTI, PORTLAND, OR

"The speech of Schiff's lifetime. Clear, measured, rational and dignified. I am glad he is speaking to the American public. No matter what the Senate Republicans do, we will have the timeline of Trump's corruption and an understanding of its repercussions."

SUE, ASHLAND OR

PLEASE share your 💭 thoughts on the Trump Impeachment trial so far!!!

*********

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berniesrevolution · 6 years ago

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How democratic is the United States? According to a poll released by the bipartisan Democracy Project in June, a clear majority (55 per cent) of Americans consider US democracy to be “weak”, with two-thirds (68 per cent) saying it’s “getting weaker.” Half of Americans believe the nation is in “real danger of becoming a non-democratic, authoritarian country”.

In February, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) classed the United States as a “flawed democracy” for the second year in a row. The US ranked 21st in the EIU’s Democracy Index, behind 20 “full” democracies including Germany, Canada and the UK.

“Popular trust in government, elected representatives, and political parties has fallen to extremely low levels in the US,” the EUI analysts wrote. “This has been a long-term trend and one that preceded the election of Mr Trump as the US president in November 2016.”

Indeed it did. The sad truth is that Donald Trump is a symptom, not a cause, of the United States’ democratic dysfunction.

Consider his own election victory: Trump secured the presidency in November 2016 despite winning three million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton. Turnout stood at a miserable 55.7 per cent; more Americans stayed at home than voted for Trump and Clinton combined.

Consider the president’s latest appointment to the Supreme Court: the scandal-plagued Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed by the Senate, in a 50-48 vote, earlier this month – the narrowest confirmation vote since 1881. Not only did a majority of Americans oppose his appointment, but the 50 senators who put him there represent states covering just 44 per cent of the US population.

Consider the Senate itself: each state is guaranteed two senators, regardless of their size. Yet, given current demographic trends, by 2040, according to calculations by Baruch College political scientist David Birdsell, “70 per cent of Americans are expected to live in the 15 largest states … That means that the 70 per cent of Americans get all of 30 Senators and 30 per cent of Americans get 70 Senators”.

Consider also the upcoming midterm elections, on 6 November, described by former White House strategist Steve Bannon, no less, as “a referendum on the Trump presidency.” Thanks to Republican gerrymandering, reports the Washington Post, “some independent analysts think Democrats will need to win the popular vote by seven to 11 percentage points just to get a bare majority” in the House of Representatives. In 2016, Republicans managed to secure 55 per cent of the seats in the House with less than 50 per cent of the vote.

Minority rule, therefore, is the order of the day. Despite winning fewer and fewer votes, Republicans have amassed more and more political power across the various branches of the US government.

For how long should Democrats tolerate this fundamentally undemocratic, and anti-democratic, state of affairs? In November, they could win back control of the House, and maybe even the Senate too, in an anti-Trump “blue wave”. Would that provide a long-overdue opportunity – perhaps bolstered by a Democrat in the White House come 2021 – to address this broken democratic system in the United States? To slowly restore faith in the nation’s elections and institutions?

If a backswing brings us a Democratic government with a mandate for reform, here are eight simple steps they could take to try and fix, reform and improve our “flawed” democracy.

1) Abolish the electoral college

“The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy.” So said Donald Trump on election night in 2012, when it looked for a brief moment as if Mitt Romney might win the popular vote against Barack Obama. Today, of course, Trump sits in the Oval Office as a result of that very same electoral college – which, unbeknownst to many Americans, was created to boost the political power of slave-owning southern states.

Since the start of this century, the United States has elected two Republican presidents – Trump and George W Bush – who lost the national popular vote but won the majority of electoral college votes. How so? The electoral college elevates smaller, rural Republican states at the expense of bigger, more urban Democratic states. Compare California to Wyoming: the former has one electoral vote per 712,000 people, while the latter has one per 195,000 people. That means a vote in Wyoming has 3.6 times the impact in the electoral college as a vote in California.

The core of democracy is supposed to be the principle of one person, one vote, but the electoral college makes a mockery of that principle. And guess what? Most Americans agree. In June, a PRRI poll found that two-thirds (68 per cent) of Americans would prefer electing their presidents on the basis of the national popular vote, as opposed to the electoral college.

Abolishing the electoral college won’t be easy. It would need a constitutional amendment, which itself requires a two-thirds vote in both the House and the Senate and the ratification of three-quarters (38) of the 50 states.

There is, however, an alternative to outright abolition. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) is an agreement between a growing number of US states to pool their electoral college votes for the presidential candidate who wins the popular vote. The agreement is supposed to take effect once the participating states represent at least 270 electoral votes, the minimum number required to elect a president. As of October 2018, the NPVIC had been adopted by 11 states which, between them, have 172 electoral votes or 32 per cent of the total Electoral College.

2) Pass a new Voting Rights Act

Turnout in the United States is abysmally low by international standards – according to a Pew study in May 2018, the US came 26th out of 32 OECD countries. But Republicans are bent on reducing it even further. Voter suppression has become an integral part of the GOP’s election strategy at the federal and state levels. Take Georgia, where Republican gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp – who, as secretary of state, also doubles as Georgia’s top election official – is trying to block 53,000 people from registering to vote, nearly 70 per cent of whom are black. His Democratic opponent, Stacey Abrams, is black.

In 2013, conservatives on the Supreme Court gutted a key section of the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act which had required state and local governments in areas with a history of racial discrimination to obtain federal “preclearance” before making any changes to their voting laws. The Democrats, if they retake the House and the Senate, should immediately pass a new, beefed-up Voting Rights Act, which would:

– Prohibit racist voter ID laws at the state level. Over the past decade, more than a dozen Republican-led states have introduced restrictive voter ID laws. Their justification? To combat (mythical) voter fraud. The reality? A 2017 academic study found “a significant drop in minority participation when and where these laws are implemented”.

– Mandate that every state automatically register every voter. Thirteen states plus the District of Columbia have already approved automatic voter registration (AVR). In 2016, after Oregon introduced AVR, the state’s turnout increased by 4 per cent compared to the 2012 elections.

- Restore the right to vote to ex-felons. In the swing state of Florida, more than one in ten people of voting age – and a whopping one in five black adults! – are barred from voting due to a felony conviction. In total, and nationwide, around six million Americans with a felony conviction are currently disenfranchised – some of them for life. As the Sentencing Project points out: “We know of no other democracy besides the United States in which convicted offenders who have served their sentences are nonetheless disenfranchised for life.”

– Make election day a federal holiday. Countries such as Germany, France, Spain, Brazil and India either vote at the weekend or recognize election day as a public holiday. One recent study found that “creating a national holiday for election day would increase voter turnout by about 16 percentage points” and cause “voter turnout in the US to be consistent with other developed democracies.”

3) Ban gerrymandering

Is there anything more brazenly anti-democratic than redrawing the boundaries of electoral districts to secure a partisan advantage? That’s gerrymandering.

Take Pennsylvania. In November 2012, according to the Washington Post, “Democratic candidates for the state’s 18 US House seats won 51 percent of their state’s popular House vote. But that translated to just 5 out of 18, or a little more than one-quarter, of the state’s House seats.” How come? Because Republicans had drawn ridiculously-skewed district maps the year before.

Republicans in control of statehouses and governors’ mansions across the United States have gerrymandered their way to the “the most audacious political heist of modern times,” in the words of investigative journalist David Daley. Remember, as political scientist Lee Drutman, of the New America think tank, observed in January, “Gerrymandering is largely a US phenomenon … We’re the only country that uses single-member districts but doesn’t use independent districting commissions to draw them.”

Americans from across the political spectrum have expressed their dislike of gerrymandering. A bipartisan poll conducted by the Campaign Legal Center in September 2017 found that 71 per cent of respondents, including 65 per cent of Republicans, want the Supreme Court to define “clear, new rules” that end blatant partisan gerrymandering.

(Continue Reading)

#politics #the left #electoral reform #progressive #progressive movement

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loudlytransparenttrash · 6 years ago

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I'm seeing a lot different opinions regarding the midterm election. Some say that it was a victory for the Democrats, while others say that the Republicans did better than the Democrats. I admit I don't really understand this part of American politics so much, so I wanted to ask what's your view on the election?

Hi :) I had a discussion about this soon after the midterms. Someone was babbling on about how stupid Trump is for saying the GOP had a victory, the entire media mocked him for it and wanted everyone to know how dumb it was for him to be happy with the results despite losing the House. Since the Civil War, there has been only two instances when a president’s party hasn’t lost seats in the House during their first midterm elections. The average loss during a party’s inaugural midterms is 41, Obama lost 63, Clinton lost 54, Trump lost 39, so this wasn’t a huge and unprecedented victory for the Democrats, it was average and it was expected. Trump himself even said he will lose the House.

What was quite exceptional though is that Republicans increased their majority in the Senate. The last president to achieve such gains in the Senate during their first midterms was JFK in 1964. Consider Clinton and Obama saw historic losses in both the House and Senate while Trump gained seats and increased the majority in the Senate while losing only the average number of House seats, for all the talk of the “blue wave,” the resistance and backlash against Trump and Republicans, why wouldn’t Trump think of it as a victory? Republicans hold the presidency, the Senate, the majority of governorships and the Supreme Court now leans right, these are all far more important positions to hold than House seats which are recycled every 24 months.

It’s also worth looking at how Democrats actually won these seats. Their wins are being framed as America turning against Trump, but the large majority of Republicans who lost their seats were anti-Trump. His staunchest Republican critics either lost to their more pro-Trump primary challenger or they were voted out in the midterms. On top of this, many of the Senators who voted against Brett Kavanaugh were voted out of office as well. Republicans were also faced with historic numbers of retiring House members. On average 22 House members retire each cycle, the GOP alone had about 50, meaning they had to defend each of these seats without an incumbent and ran with somebody new. There was also twice as many Republican House members defending their seats in states Hillary Clinton won than there were Democrats defending seats in states Trump won.

These midterms were like no other, but the results were actually as normal and ordinary as ever. Every president loses House seats during their first midterms, the only rare and remarkable part was the GOP not only holding onto the Senate but picking up extra seats to increase their majority. All of this with the entire mainstream establishment against him, unprecedented levels of political polarization, the migrant caravan, the mass shooting at a synagogue just before the midterms, the ongoing Mueller investigation and myriad of other whipped up scandals, Trump did remarkably well in his first midterm test. This reality should make Democrats nervous.

The most satisfying part though was every Democrat candidate endorsed by a celebrity lost their elections. Taylor Swift told her 112 million Instagram followers that Marsha Blackburn supports domestic violent, homophobia and misogyny and to vote for Bredesen. Marsha Blackburn won. Oprah, Will Ferrell and Michael Jordan each went door to door, telling Georgia residents Brian Kemp is a racist and urged everyone to vote for Stacey Abrams. Brian Kemp won. Beyonce, Travis Scott, Kelly Rowland and Khalid all begged Texans to vote for socialist Beto O’Rourke over Ted Cruz. Ted Cruz won. Obama used his star power to try and bolster the Democrat campaigns in Georgia, Florida, Ohio and Indiana. Every single one of them lost.

While the Democrats and media tried to show the results as America’s “Trexit” moment, they are hiding three very important truths. 1. Very few presidents have done as well as Trump in a first midterm election. When you compare his results to the likes of Obama and Clinton, Trump did exceptionally well. 2. While it wasn’t America saying “enough is enough” to Trump, the results instead proved America said enough is enough to celebrities and the media telling us we can only be good people and socially accepted if we vote for who they tell us to vote for. 3. If historical patterns are anything to go by, Trump’s reelection is on the right tracks. When a party loses House seats but does well in the Senate and when their approval rating going into those midterms are in the 40s as Trump’s is, reelection follows xx

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eowynluna · 6 years ago

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one reason that politics terrifies me as a transwoman

look, at the end of the day, i am going to vote for the best option. and i am just saying that because i know that everyone on this site has the reading compreshension of jared, 19.

the 2020 presidential election currently has more than 23 people running and counting. of those 23, most of them have had a history of dealing a lot of damage to the trans communities. others have supported us just long enough for us to vote for them, and then shoved us under the bus. anothrr group doesnt give a shit about us. out of everyone running, i think that maybe 2 of them would actually put effort into helping the trans community.

but it seems to me that everytime anyone says, "hey, maybe we should put some thought into the primaries just to make sure that we dont have a 46th transphobic president in a row", i see a whole lot of people jumping onto that post saying nonsense like, "if you dont support this raging fucking bigot than trump is going to win".

maybe its just me, but if my only two options are between a rude transphobic dickwad and a slightly more polite transphobic dickwad, then maybe it should be just a *little* understandable why this shit even happens in the first place?

like listen, i dont like clinton. everyone who knows me can tell you that. i mean, the defense of marriage act, dont ask dont tell, etc. would she have been better than trump? she would have certainly had better public relations than trump, thats for sure.

but damn, if its such a big deal to defeat trump, maybe we should nominate someone who people actually fucking like? i know this is a radical idea, but lets imagine if we nominated someone who hasnt campaigned against lgbtqa rights? someone who hasnt supported actual wars that have killed millions? someone who hasnt sniffed womens hair and been weird about it?

like maybe the key to winning an election is for people to actually fucking like you? i mean for fucks sake, trump was the most hated presidential candidate in american history, if the dems had nominated LITERALLY ANYONE other than the second most hated, can you imagine how differently that election would have gone? im not making those figures up by the way.

but ive gotten way off topic. i wanted to talk about why i, a transwoman, am terrified of politics, and instead i seem to have ranted about our broken goddamn "democracy".

the reason im terrified, is because people that i trust keep asking me to put my safety, my rights, and my future on hold for a hypothetical scenario where a (blue!)transphobe would go up against a (red!)transphobe. and they dont even realize what they are asking me to do.

if someone approaches you in an alley, and asks if you want a painful death, or a painless one, what do you think is going to happen? but it seems to me like i keep hearing people i trusted shouting from the fucking sidelines, "YOU SHOULD GO WITH THE PAINLESS DEATH! IF YOU TRY TO DO LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE, YOU WILL GET THE PAINFULL ONE!".

like damn, obviously. but maybe im fucking done with this bullshit. maybe i would rather be choosing between two different versions of paradise than two different cersions of hell.

at the end of the day, im probably going to vote for my best option. luckily for yall centrists, none of the current third party candidates actually support trans rights either.

but maybe i would be less scared if instead of having to hear, "vote for the most polite monster", we could focus more on "here are ways of improving the world despite where a monster, regardless of whether that monster is red or blue, wins".

maybe if we want to talk about immigrant rights, we could talk about providing refuge, and aid, and just moral support, instead of arguing over who has separated marginally less families.

maybe if we want to talk about poverty, we can talk about handing out food, and supporting homeless encampments, and just helping each other out, instead of arguing over which monster is slightly less greedy.

and guess what! suddenly the monsters arent as big anymore! they will still be there, obviously, but we can survive. and our survival is no longer about begging for our lives every four fucking years. suddenly, our survival is about standing together, hand in hand, and telling the monster, "if you want to them, youll have to go through us."

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newagesispage · 6 years ago

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APRIL 2019

PAGE RIB

***** The Rolling Stones have cancelled their North American tour. Mick Jagger apologized for cancelling due to undisclosed medical treatments. Oh Baby, Get Well Soon!!!!

***** Mick and his squeeze, Melanie Hamrick have put together a ballet set to Stones music called Porte Rouge. After premiering in Russia it will come to NY on April 18 for an opening night charity event to benefit Youth America Grand Prix. Tickets start at $600.

***** Tina Fey and Carol Burnett are working on a movie about Carol’s book, Carrie and me: A Mother –Daughter love story.

***** When I hear Bernie Sanders going on, I can’t help but think of Jimmy Carter. He was pushing many of these messages in the seventies. He tried to get us to have more respect for the land and to save energy and the greedy wrote him off as boring and the era of greed took over. Will we listen this time?

***** The Mueller report was finally turned over to Attorney General William Barr. This has started a whole new set of problems. Barr gives us a summary that is like springtime for Trump. He jumps right in to those that done him wrong and FISA warrants. Should congress get a look at the full report? Everyone is talking over each other and don’t seem to hear what the other is saying. Everybody piles on Adam Schiff because they think he isn’t accepting the report like a good Dem should. If they would listen, he makes it very clear that he respects the findings but they need to see the report. How dare they ask HIM to resign as Intel committee chair. It was heartwarming to see his backbone. They must quit backing down. We still don’t have the whole story but he still free to say that he thinks the actions we already know of were wrong. What the hell is wrong with that? Barr is supposed to release the heavily redacted report in mid- April. No collusion? Perhaps, Scary Clown 45 would probably not get his hands dirty. Obstruction? We’ll see. ** Tyler Mcgaughey, William Barrs son in law will now advise Trump and the White House staff. ** I am really sick of listening to the old white man POV.

***** Dow chemical has donated a mil to Trump’s campaign. Strange that Trump has blocked a report that took years of research and shows proof of Dow toxic pesticides which jeopardizes over 1,200 endangered species.

***** US from Jordan Peele opened to 70.3 mil. Just like his last movie, critics tell us to watch it twice. How great for the bottom line.

***** John McCarty, a dead man is running for village President in Spring Bay, Il.

***** Look out for the new film, The Kid, directed by Vincent D’onofrio. The western stars Ethan Hawke, Chris Pratt, Hawk , D’onofrio , MorningStar Angeline and Leila George.

***** Did you ever see the reunion movie ‘Return to Green Acres? ‘ They tried to warn us of who Trump was a long time ago. How strange that it came full circle with that ridic Emmy Green Acres thing he did.

***** Shaq has become a deputy sheriff and has also been added to the board of directors of Papa John’s where he is an investor.

***** In sexual harassment news, Lucy Flores, a former Nevada assemblywoman has accused Joe Biden of unwanted touching and kissing at a 2014 campaign event.

***** Mark Hamill will voice the Chucky doll in the new Child’s Play.

***** Law and Order will get its 21st season.

***** The daytime Emmy noms have been announced and Days got the most this year. WOO HOO! The soap was nominated for drama, writing, costume, music, casting, art direction and oh, just everything. In the acting category the lead noms are Marci Miller, Tyler Christopher and Billy Flynn. Kate Mansi was noticed for a guest spot as Abigail so 2 actresses are up for Emmys in the same role. Other guest noms went to Thaao Penghlis and Philip Anthony Rodriguez. Kassie Depaiva, Linsey Godfrey (really?), Martha Madison, Greg Rikaart and Eric Martsolf were all nominated. Younger actor nods went to Olivia Rose Keegan, Lucas Adams, Victoria Konefal and Kyler Pettis. C’mon , why nothing for Lauren Koslow, Greg Vaughan, Casey Moss, Susan Seaforth Hayes and Robert Scott Wilson?? I think I would switch a few of these around but it is still great to see Days so blessed. I was also happy to see Max Gail from GH get noticed. CBS led the networks in noms. Hooray for Wayne Brady for game show host and Mark Hamill, Ruth Negga and Steve Buscemi in animated programs. Watch for the Daytime Emmys on May 5 which will not be on television again.

***** General Robert Neller has told the Pentagon that funds diverted to the wall are keeping Marines from rebuilding hurricane hit bases.

***** Devin Nunes is suing Twitter for the parody accounts, Devin Nunes Mom and Dvin Nunes cow which is pretty funny.

***** The EU is banning straw, cotton swabs and plastic cutlery by 2021.

***** Jenny McCarthy has a book out that slams The View.

***** Roseanne is thinking about suing ABC and has said some rather nasty stuff about Sara Gilbert.

***** Michael Avenatti was arrested for trying to extort $20 mil from Nike in NY. He claims he was just doing some lawyering. California has him on bank fraud charges. Why is there so much shadiness in this world? Let’s start rewarding the people doing good in this world and quit talking these headlines everyday.

***** Why did this Jussie Smollett thing go away?

***** Wal Mart is walking back this getting rid of the elderly and handicapped greeter thing.

***** Tracy Morgan and Will Forte are to star in the new animated Scooby Doo movie.

***** Johnny Depp has sued ex Amber Heard over the abuse allegations.

***** Martha Stewart is diving into the Marijuana product industry.

***** New York charges Manafort with 16 crimes. Perhaps he won’t get off as lightly with the state crimes.

***** Season 9 of American Horror Story has no premiere date yet. Emma Roberts is confirmed to return. It looks like it will also include Sarah Paulson, Evan Peters and silver medalist Gus Kenworthy.

***** New California Gov. Gavin Newsom has halted executions for now.

***** Dems will hold their convention in Milwaukee. And if I hear again that Hillary didn’t go to these sorts of places, I am gonna puke. She went! She went! Just not so much at the end.

***** Howard Stern will release his first book in 20 years this May.

***** Ok, so glad to see Whoopie Goldberg is starting to get back to work but it is just so unbelievable in this day and age and access to info that she seemed shocked that the insurance companies decide people’s fate. Of course, that is if you are lucky enough to have insurance.

***** Sandy Hook families can take lawsuits against the gun companies to court now.** Three suicides have recently come from survivors and a parent of Parkland and Sandy Hook. The pain goes on.

***** The Senate voted 59-41 to terminate the emergency declaration. VETO

***** Rick Singer, founder if a college prep business had pled guilty to money laundering, obstruction of justice and racketeering. The nationwide college entrance exam scandal involves about 50 people including Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin that dates back to 2011. People paid millions to use ringers to take or fix their children’s exams and sometimes faked photos with coaches to include them in sports they were never involved in. The U.S. attorney does not believe the schools themselves were involved. **Lawsuits have already begun from those claiming they could not get into a good college because those spots were taken by these alleged cheaters.

***** Jennifer Hudson will play Aretha Franklin in the biopic.

***** Experts say a recession is on the horizon.

***** Two Sacramento police officers will face no charges for their overkill of the unarmed Stephon Clark. Oh Big surprise!!

***** White supremacist groups on line are growing faster than ISIS. ** I never get it, if white supremacists are so supreme, so wonderful, wouldn’t they rise to the top naturally? Why do they need to rid the world of others or keep minorities down?? If they think others are so inferior, those they hate or fear should not be a problem .

***** Jeanine Pirro was pulled off Fox news after a racist rant about Muslims. ** And where is Rudy? The lawyer hasn’t been seen on the air since January. ** Is this true? Did Ivanka and Jared really try to resign? Did Scary Clown 45 try to push them into it and then not accept those resignations?

***** This can’t be true. Only 5 states have laws requiring patient consent for medical students to do vaginal exams on women under sedation.

***** I rarely think about Jay Leno but he was right about the late night comics all doing different versions of the same joke. But, who is he to talk? I mean how many different things did you do on OJ and Clinton?? At least these guys are funny.

***** The talk that people stay in their bubble becomes crystal clear when you see the poll asking if the President is truthful: Fox viewers : 84%, MSNBC viewers : 21% and CNN viewers: 1%. Whoa!

***** Word is that Scary Clown ordered economic advisor Gary Cohn to pressure the Justice Department to file a lawsuit to block the Att-Time Warner merger to retaliate against CNN.

***** At least 250 power plants across the country are leaking toxic chemicals into nearby water.

***** Jay Inslee is running for president! I think Stacey Abrams and Jay Inslee would be a nice ticket>

***** Beta O’Rourke is running for President! The psychedelic warlord!

***** Kristen Gillibrand is running for President!

***** Conor McGregor was arrested and charged with felony strong armed robbery and criminal mischief in Miami.

***** The process is in the works to get Trumps tax returns.** The house Judiciary committee has requested 81 documents.** This can’t be true. Trump was signing Bibles for volunteers and survivors in Alabama??

***** Just when it can’t get any weirder: Li Yang and her hubby, Zubin Gong run a string of massage parlors with questionable reputations. Until recently they ran the one that Robert Kraft was busted in. They also had a web site that seemed to sell access to their buddy, Donald Trump with Chinese business contacts. As soon as the story broke, the sites for an international consulting firm, text only in Chinese and no prices for the meets came down. Li Yang and her associates are in pictures at the inauguration, the White House, Mar A Lago and Trump’s super bowl party with the Pres, his sons and other Trump family members. We should have seen this coming. The old adage that always holds true with this administration seems true here. They always blame others for what they are really guilty of, this explains the Pizzagate garbage. This could be bigger than we ever dreamed. Even stories that we may have thought a bit out there need to be looked at closer. Can we connect the sex trafficking, the White House, the money? It is time to quit fucking around with the sellers and customers of those exploited in the sex trade. I don’t get it, all these men from Trump to R Kelly have the power over the women they supposedly use and abuse and yet they are always so angry. Perhaps they wouldn’t be losing their power if you treated others with respect and dignity. They always want all the power for themselves. And c’mon media, stop talking your heads off about the Omar story and give this Li Yang story a closer look.

***** The story of the fall of Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes is a sad one. It does show that greed and massive fraud are not just for the men of this world. When I first heard of her plans for the blood testing, I was so impressed with what she was accomplishing at her age. Yes, she was another poor little rich girl whose family fortune was quite diminished by the time it got to her. Even without the Fleischman yeast money, she did seem to have advantages. I can see how some of us were fooled but what about the big investors, the stalwart statesmen? Do they not remember that if it seems too good to be true, it probably is? How can all the hype, the press, the marketing snowball before there is any proof that something is what is actually supposed to be?? I always assumed that by the time I am hearing about it, things are about ready to go. Seeing all these stories like Trump and Deutsche bank, light sentences for Manafort and now Holmes and her partner in crime seeming to get off lightly, there is not much hope for the little guy. WHY can’t we hold those involved in big money crimes really responsible??

***** It’s true, rich people cause socialism – Neal Brennan.

***** Even in 1692 the rich were different. –Stacy Schiff- The Witches.

***** FEMA released the personal data of 2.3 million victims.

***** They have dug up old words from Fox’s Tucker Carlson. Big surprise that he seemed to empathize with Warren Jeffs, thought women should just shut up and called a woman “cunty.” The women who lap up the words of these men must not think much of themselves.

***** Why are we letting the banks finance detention centers and prisoners? It’s more than immigration or punishing criminals. Why is this big business?? I can’t believe this is still going on. Wake up!!! When will the children be free? C’mon House and Senate, Pass the Shut Down child prison camps bill.

***** Somebody has to pay for this President’s folly: The scary clown new budget cuts:$ 1.5 trillion from Medicaid/ $845 billion from Medicare/ &25 billion from Social Security.

***** About 1 rural hospital a month is shutting down due to lack of support and lack of funds.

***** Globalization seems to be spreading a pathogen killing the olive trees in Italy.

***** A fake Melania?? WTF? UGH!

***** Matthew Whitaker is out! Bill Shine is out!

***** When will we ever be able to buy the boxed set of Late Night with Dave?? Hurry so the next generation can see the genius they may have missed.

***** Pete Davidson and Kate Beckinsale??

***** Hey Bill Maher, way to go with your PETA message about the terrible treatment of the geese used to make Canada Goose down jackets. I will stay away!!

***** J Lo and A Rod are engaged.

***** Bette Midler and Judith Light will join the cast of The Politician.

***** Jussie Smollett has been indicted on 16 felony counts.

***** HBO’s Crashing was cancelled. Pete Holmes was great in this but I never really saw much promotion for it. I hate it when good stuff falls thru the cracks.

***** Kathy Griffin has a new film about the ridiculous Trump head, nearly career ending, Government harassment crap in her life. Kathy Griffin: A Hell of a story. Make that lemonade!! A girl has to take care of herself. It premiered at SXSW.** Speaking of SXSW, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez drew great crowds while she was there.

***** R Kelly lives in Trump tower in Chicago. Well, of course he does. Why is it ok for the rest of us to put up with these arrogant, abusive males in this society? Everyone is giving kudos to Gayle King for her calm demeanor in her interview. Yes, how professional of her but why should she be subject to that disrespect?? She is in her workplace. Would R Kelly have liked his Mother or daughter to be treated that way?

***** So, word is that Isaiah 45 is a Trump thing with the evangelicals. This scripture refers to Cyrus , the anointed one. OY!

***** Days alert: Robin Strasser is coming OH BOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!** Judith Chapman and her old style soap acting just too much. ** C’mon Chloe and Rex!!** More Nurse Shelly!! ** Is Johnny Dimera on his way to town? ** I was so glad to see Tony, one of the best characters ever anywhere, even if it was part of an out of body experience.

***** Why do we have to keep talking about George and Kelly Ann Conway?? Are they just covering their bases? With one on each side of the Trump argument, they win no matter what happens right?

***** So now we know that about 400 Catholic clergy have been accused of sexual misconduct in Illinois. It never ends.

***** End the electoral college!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

***** S

***** Fox has hired Donna Brazile. People seem to finally be taking Bill Maher’s advice and telling their point of view to the other side. How else will sanity prevail if we don’t find common ground? We cannot look to this administration for guidance in this world, we have to figure these things out for ourselves, which we should be able to do anyway.

***** Suicide is the second leading cause of death for 15-24 year olds. We have to find our self- worth.

R.I.P. Andy Anderson, Katherine Helmond, Nathaniel Taylor, Luke Perry, Alabama tornado victims, Jan Michael Vincent, the Ethiopian airlines disaster victims, Hal Blaine, victims of the New Zealand Mosque shootings, Sydney Aiello, the Ogossogou village attack victims, Denise DuBarry, Larry Cohen, Jeremy Richman, Ray Sawyer, Tania Mallet and Nipsey Hussle.

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mirrorcollecter-blog · 6 years ago

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Division and Outrage

Many would agree that the American chain of political discourse has gotten considerably more hostile and less open to discussion over the years, alongside the rise of increasingly radical politics and spread of ideas through the internet. Statistics also seem to support this theory, with pew research citing that 92% of republicans are more conservative than the median democrat and the average democrat 94% more liberal than the moderate conservative. Even through simply interacting online through social media, people in general seem to have become exceptionally angrier over the last few years. So, in the spirit of identifying the causes behind the United State’s newfound division, let us discuss the reasons we seem to be at each other's throats.

As mentioned earlier, the U.S. was not always so polarized. Ronald Reagan’s first election in 1980 illustrates this quite well, with the former actor swamping the electoral college with 489 votes and winning the popular vote by almost 8.5 million votes over Jimmy Carter.

Since then, electoral maps have become substantially more split, especially when compared to the infamous 2016 election. To quickly recap, Donald Trump actually managed to lose the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by about 3 million votes despite gaining well over the 270 electoral votes needed to win the election.

But what has caused such a divide since the good old days of unity pre -1994?

Journalism has always had a large impact on public opinion as a whole, most notably in instances of extreme emotional disarray. The story of the USS Maine typically springs to mind when thinking of journalism’s role in public outrage. To briefly explain, the USS Maine was a United States battleship stationed in Cuba in 1898 that exploded for unknown reasons, but was played off as an attack by the spanish by news outlets. Despite the mistakes of the past, in today’s world it would seem that outrage journalism has only become more frequent.

Just a few days ago the left-leaning New York Times published an exceptionally anti semitic cartoon depicting the sitting president as a blind Jew being led by a dog depicted as the israeli prime minister in its editorial section. Likewise, the fringe right wing website Breitbart managed to play dirty throughout Alabama’s last election cycle, where they routinely elected to downplay and discredit the substantial sexual assault allegations against Roy Moore. Reactionary and outrage pieces like these are certainly good for business, as advertisers use instances of online engagement to determine how much they pay these news sites for ads. In a fantastic piece by Tobias Rose-Stockwell at Medium.com, it is discussed that the more outrageous and “clickable” an article is, the more money it makes.

What's even more brutal is that people in general don’t seem to care all that much. Another piece of the vast puzzle that is political outrage comes from the concept of internet “echo chambers,” where people are entretching themselves in an ever deepening sea of identical “news” sources. According to The Guardian, an estimated 61% of millennials use social media as their primary source of news, a statistic that certainly helps promulgate echo chambers. Tech companies, namely Facebook and Twitter just so happen to show their users content that is closely related to what they may be currently following, which in turn boosts their own profits.

Thanks to algorithms like the aforementioned, “alternative” news organizations are able to function quite well by capturing new members of angry and outraged viewers. Despite what I have mentioned thus far however, reactionary outlets like the previously mentioned Breitbart are not the only ones able to survive in this new climate. More trustworthy organizations like Zero Hedge and Signs of the Times have also managed to materialize thanks to readers who have a vested interest in the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth to its best possible extent.

The rise of more unbiased and publicly funded journalism does signal that there are more influencing factors at work than just a monetary incentive for our newfound charged political atmosphere. For these reactionary groups to continue maintaining a viable business, there still has to be a social cause for why people choose to ignore less biased media in favor of their prefered outrage, which leads me to an interesting look at the culture of politics in the U.S.

It would seem that the only way that media pushing outrage can stay in business is if people continue to want something to be outraged at. An article published in the Chicago Tribune puts it quite well:

“This is the current pitch of outrage culture, where voicing an opinion someone says she sees as a threat qualifies you for instant annihilation, no questions asked. Why ask questions when it's more expedient, maybe more kick-ass, to turn anything you might disagree with into an emergency?

A sense of emergency is what people on all sides have developed an addiction to. Show us the next person to hate and we are so there; we take an animalistic pleasure in destroying the kid in the MAGA hat, in fashioning a decades-old interview with John Wayne into a knife with which to posthumously eviscerate the actor. And then we look for the next target.

Because we need that next hit, we need it right now. Being in a constant state of emergency — a condition in which people notoriously make terrible decisions — is like having a fire raging inside the body, one that needs to be fed. It needs new fuel, and so we seek new enemies.

Meanwhile, some of us are watching from the sidelines, trying to stay out of the way, hoping not to be next. (Good luck with that.)” - Nancy Rommelmann

This passage illustrates a very good picture of why people seem to gut each other at the first possible opportunity. Maybe we truly enjoy the process of getting angry and delving into our own personal circles where we feel right at home. At a minimum, the process feels a bit cathartic to say the least.

Assuming this is true, and that people have a fondness towards conflict and will neglect to take a rational approach to political discourse, how are we supposed to tame our tendencies and return to a less confrontational state? Unsurprisingly, some of the solution requires a healthy dose of personal responsibility and motivation. Readers should at least attempt to open their echo chamber to more centered outlets, such as the publicly funded ones mentioned earlier. As sociologists, we may also be able to help “lead the way,” so to speak. As we study people and populations, we are somewhat responsible for telling people that they are allowing themselves to buy in to stigmas and assumptions fed to them by their own outlets. As a citizen of a country with such a free and open platform for discussion, I truly hope we can work past our tendencies to discredit and damage before civil debate.

Links and resources:

https://www.people-press.org/2014/06/12/political-polarization-in-the-american-public/

https://www.270towin.com/1980_Election/index.html

https://www.pbs.org/crucible/tl10.html

https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/28/media/ny-times-anti-semitic-cartoon/index.html

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/breitbart-fake-news-alex-marlow/comment-page-2/

https://medium.com/@tobiasrose/the-enemy-in-our-feeds-e86511488de

https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2017/dec/04/echo-chambers-are-dangerous-we-must-try-to-break-free-of-our-online-bubbles

https://medium.com/real-social-post/top-10-alternative-media-list-1ed52befa70c

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-perspec-outrage-culture-metoo-meneither-portland-0226-20190225-story.html

I would just like to state that I found all of these articles very interesting and thought-provoking on their own, and would highly recommend that you visit and read them yourself. Thank you for reading.

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arabfanon · 6 years ago

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Trump could not have become America’s President if he had not won the “vote” of his nation’s second-largest political donor in 2016, casinos-owner Sheldon Adelson.

In publicly recorded donations, as of 25 December 2018, Adelson and his wife donated $82,522,800 to Republican candidates in 2016, and this amount doesn’t include any of the secret money. Of that sum, it’s virtually impossible to find out how much went specifically to Trump’s campaign for President, but, as of 9 May 2017, the Adelsons were publicly recorded as having donated $20.4 million to Trump’s campaign.

Their impact on the Presidential contest was actually much bigger than that, however, because even the Adelsons’ non-Trump-campaign donations went to the Republican Party, and the rest went to Republican pro-Trump candidates, and the rest went to Republican PACS — and, so, a large percentage (if not all) of that approximately $60 million non-Trump-campaign political expenditure by the Adelsons was boosting Trump’s Presidential vote.

The second-largest Republican donor in 2016 was the hedge fund manager Paul Singer, at $26,114,653. It was less than a third, 31.6%, as large as the Adelsons’ contribution. Singer is the libertarian who proudly invests in weak entities that have been sucked dry by the aristocracy and who almost always extracts thereby, in the courts, far larger returns-on-investment than do other investors, who have simply settled to take a haircut on their failing high-interest-rate loans to that given weak entity.

Singer hires the rest of his family to run his asset-stripping firm, which is named after his own middle name, “Elliott Advisors,” and he despises any wealthy person who won’t (like he does) fight tooth-and-nail to extract, from any weak entity, everything that can possibly be stripped from it. His Elliott Advisors is called a “vulture fund,” but that’s an insult to vultures, who instead eat corpses. They don’t actually attack and rip apart vulnerable struggling animals, like Singer’s operation does.

So, that’s the top two, on the Republican Party side.

On the Democratic Party side, the largest 2016 donor was the largest of all political donors in 2016, the hedge fund manager Thomas Steyer, $91,069,795. The second-largest was hedge fund manager Donald S. Sussman, $41,841,000. Both of them supported Hillary Clinton against Bernie Sanders, and then against Donald Trump.

As of 23 January 2019, the record shows that Trump received $46,873,083in donations larger than $200, and $86,749,927 in donations smaller than $200. Plus, he got $144,764 in PAC contributions. Hillary Clinton received$300,111,643 in over-$200 donations, and $105,552,584 in under-$200 donations. Plus, she got $1,785,190 in PAC donations. She received 6.4 times as much in $200+ donations as Trump did. She received 1.2 times as much in under-$200 donations as he did. Clearly, billionaires strongly preferred Hillary.

So, it’s understandable why not only America’s Democratic Party billionaires but also many of America’s Republican Party billionaires want President Trump to become replaced ASAP by his V.P., President Pence, who has a solid record of doing only whatever his big donors want him to do. For them, the wet dream would be a 2020 contest between Mike Pence or a clone, versus Hillary Clinton or a clone (such as Joe Biden or Beto O’Rourke). That would be their standard fixed game, America’s heads-I-win-tails-you-lose ‘democracy’.

On 18 January 2018 was reported that, “Trump pulled in $107 million in individual contributions, nearly doubling President Barack Obama’s 2009 record of $53 million.”

However, in both of those cases, the figures which were being compared were actually donations to fund the inaugural festivities, not the actual campaigns. But Adelson led there, too: “Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson was [the] most generous [donor], giving $5 million to the inaugural committee.”

The second-biggest donor to that was Hushang Ansary of Stewart & Stevenson, at $2 million. He had previously been the CEO of the National Iranian Oil Company until the CIA-appointed dictator, the brutal and widely hated Shah, was overthrown in 1979 and replaced by Iran’s now theocratically overseen limited democracy. The US aristocracy, whose CIA had overthrown Iran’s popular and democratically elected Prime Minister in 1953, installed the Shah to replace that elected head-of-state, and they then denationalized and privatized Iran’s oil company, so as to cut America’s aristocrats in on Iran’s oil.

Basically, America’s aristocracy stole Iran in 1953, and Iranians grabbed their country back in 1979, and US billionaires have been trying to get it back ever since. Ansary’s net worth is estimated at “over $2 billion,” and, “By the 1970s, the CIA considered Ansary to be one of seventeen members of ‘the Shah’s Inner Circle’ and he was one of the Shah’s top two choices to succeed Amir Abbas Hoveyda as Prime Minister.”

But, that just happened to be the time when the Shah became replaced in an authentic revolution against America’s dictatorship. Iran’s revolution produced the country’s current partially democratic Government. So, this would-be US stooge Ansary fled to America, which had been Iran’s master during 1953-79, and he was welcomed with open arms by Amerca’s and allied aristocracies.

Other than the Adelsons, the chief proponents of regime-change in Iran since 1979 are the US-billionaires-controlled CIA, and ‘news’-media, and Government, and the Shah’s family, and the Saud family, and Israel’s apartheid regime headed by the Adelsons’ protégé in Israel, Netanyahu. America’s billionaires want Iran back, and the CIA represents them (the Deep State) — not the American public — precisely as it did in 1953, when the CIA seized Iran for America’s billionaires.

In the current election-cycle, 2018, the Adelsons have thus far invested $123,208,200, all in Republicans, and this tops the entire field. The second-largest political investor, for this cycle, is the former Republican Mayor of NYC, Michael Bloomberg, at $90,282,515, all to Democrats. Is he a Republican, or is he a Democrat? Does it actually make any difference? He is consistently a promoter of Wall Street. The third-largest donor now is Tom Steyer, at $70,743,864, all to Democrats. The fourth-largest is a Wisconsin libertarian-conservative billionaire, Richard Uihlein, at $39,756,996.

Back on 19 March 2018, Politico reported that “Uihlein and his wife, Elizabeth, are currently the biggest Republican donors of the 2018 midterm elections, having given $21 million to candidates for federal office and super PACs that will support them. And that doesn’t include their funding of state candidates.” On 1 October 2016, International Business Times had listed the top ten donors to each of the two Parties, and the Uihleins at that time were #4 on the Republican side, at $21.5 million.

Of course, all of the top donors are among the 585 US billionaires, and therefore they can afford to spend lots on the Republican and/or Democratic nominees. Open Secrets reported on 31 March 2017 that “Of the world’s 100 richest billionaires, 36 are US citizens and thus eligible to donate to candidates and other political committees here. OpenSecrets Blog found that 30 of those [36] [or five sixths of the total 36 wealthiest Americans] actually did so, contributing a total of $184.4 million — with 58 percent [of their money] going to Republican efforts.” Democratic Party nominees thus got 42%; and, though it’s not as much as Republican ones get, it’s usually enough so that if a Democrat becomes elected, that person too will be controlled by billionaires.

For example, in the West Virginia Democratic Presidential primary in 2016, Bernie Sanders won all 55 counties in the state but that state’s delegation to the Democratic National Convention handed 19 of the state’s 37 votes at the Convention to his opponent, Hillary Clinton, who got more money from billionaires than all other US Presidential candidates combined. The millions of Democrats who voted for Hillary Clinton were voting for the billionaires’ favorite, and she and her DNC stole the Party’s nominationfrom Sanders, who was the nation’s most-preferred Presidential candidate in 2016; and, yet, most of those voters still happily voted, yet again, for her, in the general election — as if she hadn’t practically destroyed the Party by prostituting it to its billionaires even more than Obama had already done.

Of course, she ran against Trump, and, for once, the billionaires were shocked to find that their enormous investment in a candidate had been for naught. That’s how incompetent she was. But they still kept control over both of the political Parties, and the Sanders choice to head the DNC (the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Party itself) lost out to the Obama-Clinton choice, so that today’s Democratic Party is still the same: winning is less important to them than serving their top donors is.

This means that America’s winners of federal elections represent almost entirely America’s 585 billionaires, and not the 328,335,647 Americans (as of noon on 23 January 2019). Of course, there is a slight crossover of interests between those two economic classes, since 0.000002 of those 328,335,647, or 0.0002% of them, are billionaires. However, if 0.0002% of federal office-holders represent the public, and the remaining 99.9998% represent the billionaires, then is that actually a bipartisan Government? If instead 99.9998% represented 328,335,062 Americans, and 0.0002% represented the 585 billionaires; then, that, too, wouldn’t be bipartisan, but would it be a democratic (small “d”) government? So, America is not a democracy (regardless of whether it’s bipartisan); it is instead an aristocracy, just like ancient France was, and the British empire, etc. The rest of America’s population (the 328,335,062 other Americans) are mere subjects, though we are officially called ‘citizens’, of this actual aristocracy.

The same is true in Israel, the land that the Adelsons (the individuals who largely control America) are so especially devoted to. On 8 November 2016, Israel’s pro-Hillary-Clinton and anti-Netanyahu Ha’aretz newspaper headlined “The Collapsing Political Triangle Linking Adelson, Netanyahu and Trump”, and reported that Ha’aretz’s bane and top competitor was the freely distributed daily Israeli newspaper, Israel Hayom, and:

Israel Hayom was founded by Adelson nine years ago, in order to give Netanyahu – who has been rather harshly treated by the Israeli media throughout his political career – a friendly newspaper. Under Israeli law, the total sum an individual can donate to a politician or party is very limited, and corporate donations are not allowed.

Israel Hayom has been a convenient loophole, allowing Adelson to invest the sort of money he normally gives American politicians on Netanyahu’s behalf. It has no business model and carries far fewer ads than most daily newspapers. While the privately owned company does not publish financial reports, industry insiders estimate that Adelson must spend around $50 million annually on the large team of journalists and the printing and distribution operations.

Distributed for free, in hundreds of thousands of copies the length and breadth of the country, Israel Hayom … clings slavishly to the line from Netanyahu’s office – praising him and his family to the heavens while smearing his political rivals, both on the left and the right.

A billionaire can afford to use his or her ‘news’-media in lieu of political campaign donations. Lots of billionaires do that. They don’t need to make direct political donations. And ‘making money’ by owning a ‘news’-medium can even be irrelevant, for them. Instead, owning an important ’news’-medium can be, for them, just another way, or sometimes their only way, to buy control over the government. It certainly works. It’s very effective in Israel.

Adelson is #14 on the 2018 Forbes 400 list of wealthiest Americans, all having net worths of $2.1 billion or more, his being $38.4 billion, just one-third as large as that of Jeff Bezos. Bezos is the owner of around 15% of Amazon Corporation, whose profits are derived almost entirely from the Amazon Web Services that are supplied to the US Pentagon, NSA, and CIA. So, he’s basically a ‘defense’ contractor.

Bezos’s directly owned Washington Post is one of America’s leading neoconservative and neoliberal, or pro-invasion and pro-Democratic Party, media; and, so, his personal ownership of that newspaper is much like his owning a one-person national political PAC to promote whatever national policies will increase his fortune. The more that goes to the military and the less that goes to everything else, the wealthier he will become. His newspaper pumps the ‘national security threats’ to America.

Adelson controls Israel’s Government. Whereas he might be a major force in America’s Government, that’s actually much more controlled by the world’s wealthiest person, the only trillionaire, the King of Saudi Arabia. He has enough wealth so that he can buy almost anybody he wants — and he does, through his numerous agents. But, of course, both Israel’s Government and Saudi Arabia’s Government hate Iran’s Government at least as much as America’s Government does.

In fact, if Russia’s Government weren’t likely to defend Iran’s Government from an invasion, then probably Iran would already have been invaded. Supporters of America’s Government are supporters of a world government by America’s billionaires, because that’s what the US Government, in all of its international functions (military, diplomatic, etc.) actually represents: it’s America’s global dictatorship.

They throw crumbs to America’s poor so as to make it a ‘two-party’ and not merely a ‘one-party’ government and so that one of the Parties can call itself ‘the Democratic Party’, but America’s is actually a one-party government, and it represents only the very wealthiest, in both Parties. The aristocracy’s two separate party-organizations compete against each other. But their real audience is the aristocracy’s dollars, not the public’s voters. This “two-Party” dictatorship (by the aristocracy) is a different governing model than in China and some other countries.

The great investigative journalist Wayne Madsen headlined on January 24th “Trump Recognition of Rival Venezuelan Government Will Set Off a Diplomatic Avalanche” and he reported the possibility of a war developing between the US and Russia over America’s aggression against Venezuela. US media even have pretended that the US Government isn’t the one that customarily perpetrates coups in Latin America, and pretended that Russia’s and Cuba’s Governments are simply blocking ‘democracy’ from blossoming in Venezuela.

On January 24th, Middle East Eye reported that Morgan Stanley’s CEO James Gorman had just told the World Economic Forum, in Davos, that the torture-murder of Saudi Crown Prince Salman’s critic and Washington Postcolumnist Jamal Khashoggi was “unacceptable,” “But what do you do? What part do you play in the process of economic and social change?”and the report continued: “Gorman said he did not judge any country’s attempts to root out corruption,” and Gorman and a French tycoon joined in throwing their “weight behind Riyadh’s economic and social direction, by saying, ‘it is quite difficult and brave what the kingdom is doing’,” by its ‘reforms’. It was all being done to ‘root out corruption, and to spread democracy’. Sure.

There’s “a sucker born every minute,” except now it’s every second. That seems to be the main way to win votes.

On January 26th, Trump appointed the fascist Elliott Abrams to lead this ‘democratization of Venezuela’, by overthrowing and replacing the elected President by the second-in-line-of succession (comparable in Venezuela to removing Trump and skipping over the Vice President and appointing Nancy Pelosi as America’s President, and also violating the Venezuelan Constitution’s requirement that the Supreme Judicial Trbunal must first approve before there can be ANY change of the President without an election by the voters).

It’s clearly another US coup that is being attempted here. Trump, by international dictat, says that this Venezuelan traitor whom the US claims to be installing is now officially recognized by the US Government to be the President of Venezuela. Bloomberg News reported that Abrams would join Trump’s neocon Secretary of State on January 26th at the UN to lobby there for the UN to authorize Trump’s intended Venezuelan coup. The EU seemed strongly inclined to follow America’s lead. On the decisive U.N. body, the Permanent Security Council, of China, France, Russia, UK, and US, the US position was backed by three: US, France, and UK. Russia and China were opposed.

In the EU, only France, Germany, Spain, and UK, came out immediately backing the US position. On January 25th, Russia’s Tass news agency was the first to report on the delicate strategic situation inside Venezuela. It sounded like the buildup to Obama’s successful coup in Ukraine in February 2014, but in Venezuela and under Trump. In fact, at least two commentaors other than I have noted the apparent similarities: Whitney Webb at “Washington Follows Ukraine, Syria Roadmap in Push for Venezuela Regime Change” and RT at “‘Venezuela gets its Maidan’: Ukrainian minister makes connection between regime change ops”.

Perhaps the US regime thinks that testing the resolve of Russia’s Government, regarding Venezuela, would be less dangerous than testing it over the issue of Iran. But Big Brother says that this imposition of America’s corruption is instead merely a part of rooting out corruption and spreading democracy and human rights, throughout the world.

The US has managed to get Venezuela in play, to control again. Some American billionaires think it’s a big prize, which must be retaken. The largest oil-and-gas producers — and with the highest reserves of oil-and-gas in the ground — right now, happen to be Saudi Arabia, Iran, Qatar, Russia, Venezuela, and US. So, for example, Venezuela is a much bigger prize than Brazil.

All of those countries have an interest in denying the existence of human-produced global warming, and in selling as much of their product as quickly as possible before the world turns away from fossil fuels altogether. High-tech doesn’t drive today’s big-power competition nearly so much as does the fossil-fuels competition — to sell as much of it as they can, as fast as they can. The result of this competition could turn out to be a nuclear winter that produces a lifeless planet and thus prevents the planet from becoming lifeless more slowly from global burnout — the alternative outcome, which would be produced by the burnt fossil fuels themselves. Either way, the future looks bleak, no matter what high-tech produces (unless high-tech produces quickly a total replacement of fossil fuels, and, in the process, bankrupts many of the billionaires who are so active in the current desperate and psychopathic global competition).

This is what happens when wealth worldwide is so unequally distributed that the “World’s Richest 0.7% Own 13.67 Times as Much as World’s Poorest 68.7%”. According to economic theory (which has always been written by agents for the aristocracy), the distribution of wealth is irrelevant. This belief was formalized by a key founder of today’s mathematized economic theory, Vilfredo Pareto, who, for example, in his main work, the 1912 Trattato di Sociologia Generale, wrote (# 2135), that, though “the lover of equality will assign a high coefficient to the utility of the lower classes and get a point of equilibrium very close to the equalitarian condition, there is no criterion save sentiment for choosing between the one [such equality of wealth] and the other [a single person — whom he called “superman” — owning everything].”

The article on Pareto in the CIA’s Wikipedia doesn’t even so much as mention this central feature of Pareto’s thinking, the feature that’s foundational in all of the theory of “welfare” in economics. Pareto was also the main theoretician of fascism, and the teacher of Mussolini. This belief is at the foundation of capitalism as we know it, and as it has been in economic theory ever since, actually, the 1760s. Pareto didn’t invent it; he merely mathematized it.

So, we’ve long been in 1984, or at least building toward it. But US-allied billionaires wrote this particular version of it; George Orwell didn’t. And it’s not a novel. It’s the real thing. And it is now becoming increasingly desperate.

If, in recognizing this, you feel like a hog on a factory-farm, then you’ve got the general idea of this reality. It’s the problem that the public faces. But the publics in the US and its allied regimes are far less miserable than the publics in the countries that the US and its allied regimes are trying to take over — the targeted countries (such as Syria). To describe any realistic solution to this systematic global exploitation would require an entire book, at the very least — no mere article, such as here. The aristocracy anywhere wouldn’t publish such a book. Nobody would likely derive any significant income from writing it. That’s part of the reality, which such a book would be describing.

However, a key part of this reality is that for the billionaires — the people who control international corporations or corporations that even are aspiring to grow beyond their national market — their nation’s international policies are even more important to them than its domestic affairs (such as the toxic water in Flint, Michigan; or single-payer health insurance — matters that are relatively unimportant to billionaires), and, therefore, the most-censored and least-honestly reported realities on the part of the aristocracy’s ‘news’-media are the international ones. And, so, this is the field where there is the most lying, such as about “Saddam’s WMD,” and about all foreign countries.

However, when a person is in an aristocracy’s military, deception of that person is even more essential, especially in the lower ranks, the troops, because killing and dying for one’s aristocracy is far less attractive than killing or dying in order honestly to serve and protect an authentic democracy. Propagandizing for the myth that the nation is a democracy is therefore extremely important in any aristocracy.

Perhaps this is the reason why, in the United States, the military is consistently the institution that leads above all others in the public’s respect. It’s especially necessary to do that, in the nation that President Barack Obama repeatedly said is “the one indispensable nation”. This, of course, means that every other nation is “dispensable.” Any imperial nation, at least since ancient Rome, claimed the same thing, and invaded more nations than any other in the world when it was the leading imperial nation, because this is what it means to be an empire, or even to aspire to being one: imposing that given nation’s will upon other nations — colonies, vassal states, or whatever they are called.

When soldiers know that they are the invaders, not the actual defenders, their motivation to kill and die is enormously reduced. This is the main reason why the ‘news’-media in an imperial nation need to lie constantly to their public. If a news-reporting organization doesn’t do that, no aristocrat will even buy it. And virtually none will advertise in it or otherwise donate to it. It will be doomed to remain very small and unprofitable in every way (because the “World’s Richest 0.7% Own 13.67 Times as Much as World’s Poorest 68.7%”). Billionaires donate to ‘news’-organizations that might report accurately about domestic US problems, but not to ones that report accurately about international affairs, especially about important international affairs. Even liberal ‘news’-media are neoconservative, or favorable toward American invasions and coups. In order to be a significant player in the ‘news’-business in the United States, one has to be.

So: this is how America’s dictatorship works. This is not America’s exceptionalism: it is America’s ordinariness. America’s Founders had wanted to produce something not just exceptional but unique in its time: a democratic republic. But what now exists here is instead a dictatorial global empire, and it constitutes the biggest threat to the very existence of the United Nations ever since that body’s founding in 1945. If that body accepts as constituting the leader of Venezuela the person that America’s President declares to be Venezuela’s leader, then the U.N. is effectively dead.

This would be an immense breakthrough for all of the US regime’s billionaires, both domestically and throughout its allied countries (such as in France, Germany, Spain, and UK). It would be historic, if they win. It would be extremely grim, and then the U.N. would immediately need to be replaced. The US and its allies would refuse to join the replacement organization. That organization would then authorize economic sanctions against the US and its allies. These will be reciprocated. The world would break clearly into two trading-blocs. In a sense, the UN’s capitulation to the US on this matter would create another world war, WW III. It would be even worse than when Neville Chamberlain accepted Hitler’s offer regarding the Sudetenland. We’d be back to the start of WW II, with no lessons learned since then. And with nuclear weapons.

#article #bourgeois democracy #western world #western democracy #american democracy #america

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theliberaltony · 4 years ago

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via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

The overarching story of recent American elections is that 1) voters of color, who have long been Democratic-leaning, are a growing share of the electorate; 2) white voters with college degrees are increasingly shifting to the Democrats; and 3) white voters without degrees are aligning more with the GOP. But those trends, because they get so much focus, can warp our understanding of the electorate as it exists right now. Demographics are not yet destiny in American elections — millions of people don’t align with the party their race and ethnicity or education would predict. Case in point: In 2016, more than a third of President Trump’s support nationally came from non-Hispanic white Americans with college degrees (26 percent) and Asian, Black and Hispanic voters (12 percent), according to Pew Research Center data. On the flip side, about a quarter of Hillary Clinton’s supporters were non-Hispanic white Americans without degrees.

White Americans without degrees aren’t as likely to vote for Trump as in 2016, according to polls — which partly explains why Biden leads in national polls and key swing states like Pennsylvania. But a big reason Trump could still win the Electoral College, despite the poor marks Americans give him for his handling of COVID-19 and his job performance overall, is that the Black, Hispanic and college-educated white voters who backed him in 2016 are largely still with him, particularly in key swing states.

In other words, while Trump is a radical departure from previous GOP candidates in terms of personal style and his frequent racist comments, voters haven’t radically changed their voting patterns amid his rise in U.S. politics — the Americans who voted for Mitt Romney in 2012 overwhelmingly backed Trump in 2016 (about 90 percent) and those backed who Trump in 2016 are overwhelmingly behind him in 2020 (about 94 percent).

That fact helps explain how Trump won in 2016 and why he might still come back in 2020. Here’s a more detailed look at those three groups:

College-educated white voters

Polls suggest white people with college degrees nationally are likely to be more supportive of Biden than they were Clinton. (Pew data suggests that Clinton won whites with degrees by 17 percentage points, while Biden leads among them by 23 percentage points.)

But Biden’s advantage with white Americans with college degrees varies a lot by state, and that’s key. In Democratic-leaning swing states such as Maine, New Hampshire and Minnesota, only about a third of white voters with college degrees are supporting Trump, according to recent polls. That’s why he may not win any of those three states, even as whites without degrees — one of the more pro-Trump demographic groups — account for the majority of voters in all three.1 This represents a continuation of what we’ve seen over the last four years — polls showed college-educated white voters in Maine and Minnesota, in particular, were significantly more Democratic-leaning than those in the rest of the country in 2016 and 2018.2

The good news for Trump is that white voters with degrees in the South remain more conservative-leaning than those in other regions of the country. Polls suggest a majority of white college graduates in Georgia and Texas prefer Trump over Biden — as do more than 40 percent in Florida and North Carolina. Again, this isn’t too surprising: In 2018, white liberals nationally and in their states were enamored with Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams and Texas Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke. But white college graduates overall preferred Abrams and O’Rourke’s GOP opponents — by double digits in both races.

White voters with degrees in Georgia and Texas remaining fairly pro-Trump is hugely important. If he were to lose either state, it would severely complicate his path to winning 270 electoral votes. But he’s effectively tied in Georgia and Texas — even as white voters without degrees are a clear minority of the electorate in both states (just 32 percent in Texas and 36 percent in Georgia).

Outside of the South, a clear majority of white college graduates prefer Biden to Trump in most battleground states. In fact, it’s likely that white voters with degrees will vote Democratic at higher rates than in any recent reelection. That said, at least a third of white college graduates are likely to back Trump in basically every swing state.

What’s keeping this bloc with Trump? Many of these voters are simply longtime Republicans who hold conservative views. But particularly in Georgia and Texas, it’s worth thinking about religion and race. Being white and also an evangelical Protestant is strongly correlated with voting Republican — much more so than being white and not having a college degree. According to data provided to us from the Democracy Fund + UCLA Nationscape polling initiative, Georgia ranks seventh among states in terms of the percentage of its white registered voters who are evangelical Protestants (about a third), with North Carolina 10th and Texas 13th. For comparison, Virginia is the state that backed Hillary Clinton in 2016 with the highest percentage of its white registered voters who are evangelical Protestants — it was 17th among the 50 states by this measure.

In its surveys, Democracy Fund + UCLA Nationscape asks respondents their views on issues like whether they prefer their relatives to marry someone of the same race and whether they agree or disagree with statements like, “Generations of slavery and discrimination have created conditions that make it difficult for Blacks to work their way out of the lower class.” Robert Griffin, research director for the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group, analyzed responses to these questions to create an overall “score” for voters on their racial attitudes. Georgia’s white registered voters are more likely to express more negative sentiments about people of color than those in all but nine states. (So they are more likely than white registered voters in other states to reject the view that slavery and discrimination are holding back Black people and more likely to be unsupportive of their relatives dating people outside of their race.)

Florida (No. 11), Texas (No. 12) and North Carolina (No. 13) rank similarly on these measures of racial attitudes. Again, for comparison, the blue state where white registered voters hold the highest level of negative attitudes about minorities by this measure is Delaware, which is 17th highest of the 50 states.

So while white voters with college degrees are often portrayed as a monolith, and a Democratic monolith at that … they’re not. And that fact is crucial to Trump’s reelection chances.

Hispanic voters

Polls suggest between a quarter and a third of Hispanics nationally are backing Trump — fairly similar to 2016.3 And like in 2016, a sizable bloc of Hispanics in Arizona, Florida and Texas — three important swing states that have fairly large Hispanic electorates — are likely to back the president.4

Polls for the last two decades have shown about 30 percent of Hispanics identity as Republican. And despite his nasty rhetoric toward Mexico in particular, about as many Hispanics backed Trump as other recent Republican presidential nominees. As we wrote in 2018, there are plenty of explanations for that enduring pro-Trump Hispanic bloc: the anti-abortion views and Catholic and evangelical faiths of some Hispanic Americans ; the priorization of issues like jobs over immigration policy for many Hispanic voters, and the longtime courting of Hispanic voters by the GOP in Florida and Texas in particular.

But, again, the fact that the bottom hasn’t dropped out of Trump’s support among Hispanic voters is hugely significant to his continued competitiveness.

Black voters

Polls suggest about 10 percent of black voters both nationally and in key swing states with large black electorates are supporting Trump. That is similar to 2016 as well and again reflects broader partisan dynamics — surveys over the last three decades have shown about one of every 10 Black Americans identifies as a Republican.

If the race is really tight, Trump’s maintaining this sliver of Black support could be critical. In an analysis of the 2016 election, Griffin, John Halpin and Ruy Teixeira argued that Clinton would have won Michigan and Pennsylvania if Black voters in those states had supported her at the levels they did Barack Obama. (About 95 percent of black voters in those states backed Obama, and about 90 percent supported Clinton.)

I don’t want to belabor that point too much — the Clinton-Trump matchup in those two states was so close that basically any increase in support among any demographic group would have won it for Clinton. And it’s not surprising that black voters supported Obama, the first-ever Black president, at slightly higher levels than they did Clinton. But again, the bottom hasn’t fallen out for Trump among Black voters — he is basically as popular as previous GOP candidates.

Last month’s Republican National Convention featured a lot of non-white speakers for a party whose voters are more than 80 percent white, and I think this analysis explains why. In theory, Trump could win this election by further growing the GOP’s advantage among white voters without degrees, who are likely to represent more than 40 percent of the electorate. That might happen to some extent, particularly among white men. But polls suggest that white women without degrees won’t be as GOP-leaning in 2020 as they were in 2016, either because they like Biden more than Clinton, have grown tired of Trump or some combination of both. So Trump probably needs the white college graduates and Black and Hispanic voters who backed him in 2016, and perhaps a few more, to back him again to win this election. And they might.

Make sure to check out FiveThirtyEight’s presidential forecast in full; you can also see all the 2020 polls we’ve collected, including national polls, Colorado polls, Florida polls, Michigan polls, Minnesota polls, North Carolina polls and … well … all the states, really.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Perry Bacon Jr.

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plusorminuscongress · 6 years ago

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New story in Politics from Time: Trump Keeps Using Fear. But Is It Helping Republicans?

Throughout his political career, from his own run for president in 2016 to stumping for down-ballot Republican candidates in 2018, Donald Trump has often used fear to motivate his supporters. In Montana on Saturday, he offered a glimpse into why.

“I can only go for four of five minutes with that stuff,” Trump told a crowd at the Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport of the strong economy and jobs numbers. “When you’re fixing the problem, there’s no reason to go on about it for 45 minutes.”

Later, in Pensacola, Florida, at his second rally of the day, Trump echoed the sentiment. “I’m looking to solve problems,” he said, “not to talk to the fact that we have done a great job.”

At his midterm rallies, Trump does tout Republican successes. He read the same basic script at four rallies in four different states on Nov. 2 and 3, which included mention of tax cuts, designating Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and confirming record numbers of conservative judges to federal courts, with particular mention of new Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

But he spent most of his time at the rallies, each of which lasted roughly an hour, describing the hypothetical horrors of Democratic rule to the audiences. He told the crowds in West Virginia, Indiana, Montana and Florida that Democrats would enact a “socialist takeover of the American healthcare system,” making the United States function more like Venezuela.

He put the upcoming election in these terms at his appearance in Florida: “A Republican Congress means more jobs and less crime. A Democrat Congress means more crime and less jobs.” Trump paused, pleased with the slogan. “It’s pretty simple,” he said. “That’s cute.”

As it has been since the day he announced his candidacy for president in 2015, Trump’s favorite issue to return to on this theme is immigration. For whatever Republican candidate he’s campaigning for, he tells the crowd that the Democratic opponent wants open borders and will let undocumented immigrants and criminals pour into the country. Talking about Andrew Gillum, the Democratic nominee for governor of Florida, Trump said, “He wants to flood your cities with criminal aliens, because that’s what’s going to happen. … So when you have people camping out on your front lawn, remember Gillum.”

He even suggested without evidence that Democrats had organized the migrant caravan making its way towards the United States. “They want to invite caravan after caravan, and it is a little suspicious how those caravans are started,” he said. But he noted explicitly that he thinks using the caravan as a political issue will help Republicans: “I think it’s a good thing, maybe, that they did it. Did they energize our base or what?”

But Trump’s dark warnings about border crossings and undocumented immigrants are an uneasy match for Florida Governor Rick Scott, who appeared with Trump in Pensacola Saturday evening and hopes to unseat the Democratic Senator Bill Nelson. Hispanic voters make up 25% of Florida’s population and 17% of its registered voters, and Scott has been working hard to win them over. “Practicing Spanish every day is important,” Scott told TIME in a recent interview. “Twenty percent of those voting in this state speak Spanish.” Hillary Clinton carried 62% of Latinos in Florida as the Democratic nominee for President in 2016, but local polls show Scott could be making gains.

Read More: Inside the Republican Plan to Win Hispanic Voters—And Battleground States

“Democrats are openly encouraging millions of illegal aliens to break our laws, violate our sovereignty, overrun our borders and destroy our nation in so many ways,” Trump said in Florida. “We can’t let it happen.” The assembled crowd in the airport hangar cheered.

When Scott took the stage, he didn’t mention immigration at all.

Many in Trump’s base remain enthusiastic about the president, as evidenced by the crowds at his rallies throughout the country during his final, aggressive campaign swing ahead of Election Day. But for Republican candidates like Scott who are trying to broaden their support to counter the swelling activation on the left, Tuesday’s results could reveal whether Trump bringing his message of looming problems and a militarized border to their states helped, or whether the president perhaps should have spent more than “four or five minutes,” as he said, flaunting the economy and Republican accomplishments.

It wasn’t all doom and gloom at Trump’s weekend events. He praised his supporters for being “the greatest political movement in the history of our country” and promised to deliver more tax cuts, more conservative judges and to build his signature border wall.

“I’m a happy person,” Trump assured the crowd in Montana. “I’m a much happier person than you would believe.”

But he believes talking about the problems, not the solutions, is the winning strategy.

By Tessa Berenson / Pensacola, Fla. on November 03, 2018 at 11:33PM

#Time #politics #PlusOrMinusCongress #±Congress #Indega±#IndegaPlusOrMinus #TimeMag #TimeMagazine

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jessefferguson · 7 years ago

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My Double Life: 5 Years And Going

It’s been a LONG TIME since I wrote one of these, so I figured now was as good a point as any.

Words, spoken out loud, are funny. They can mean very different things.

Try this one:

I am still here.

and

I am still here.

Both of those are the best summary I can think of for how I feel today since today, May 21, is the 5th anniversary of when I was diagnosed with cancer. Five years ago, I sat in a sweltering doctors office in Washington, D.C. as he told me the results of my first biopsy. Five years later, I still have it.

After 5 years, I have two conflicting emotions: I’m still here (thank God) and I’m still (only) here. Five years later, not much has really changed but, also, everything has.

Over the 5 years, I’ve sort of lived a double life – that of a cancer patient and that of a political operative. Sometimes they overlap but, more often than not, they’re separate worlds.

By my best count, over the 5 years, I’ve had 4 surgeries, 33 days of radiation, upwards of 60 rounds of either chemotherapy or targeted therapy, about 75 blood tests, and 150 doctors’ appointments. And over the same 5 years, I’ve worked on 191 television ads, 311 polls, thousands of press releases and speeches, spent over $100 million (of other people’s money), and sent over 40,000 of my own tweets.

I continue to believe the same thing I did – and wrote about - 5 years ago, there are three keys to getting through this sort of thing: (1) Your family and friends; (2) Doctors who are the best; (3) Doing something with your time that you love to do. Even on the worst days of work, the fact that I was doing the work I wanted to do made it that much more possible to fight a disease I did not want to deal with.

WHAT’S THE LATEST WITH ME

I’m living and working from Brooklyn, still. I decided to stay here after the Clinton campaign ended rather than move back to D.C. for a bunch of reasons – closer to my doctors at Sloan Kettering and further from Trump at the WH. Both sounded like good ideas.

For just under a year, I’ve been on a clinical trail and it’s getting some pretty good results. It’s a targeted therapy drug and I’m one of the first to apply it to my unique disease. It’s unlikely to result in me being “cured” or “cancer free” but it’s definitely shrunk the disease in my skin tissue and throughout my head, neck and chest. It’s also brought down the swelling. The swelling issues are far from gone, but they’re better. The best case is that it continues shrinking things; the next best case is it stops anything from getting worse again. Either way, it’s turned my condition to a chronic one, for now. I’ll take it.

Every three weeks I do the same routine. I book a someone to come clean my house for that morning and I take a car down to Sloan Kettering. I take a blood test. The doctor and I talk about medical stuff for a few minutes and politics for a few minutes and then he sends me for treatment. He’s not from America and has a healthy interest in all the crazy things in our politics.

It takes them about 2 hours to prepare the drug, so I have found a corner in the hospital that is usually empty for work — open the laptop, put on the head set and get to work. It’s my own cancer-center-based mobile-office. I have edited TV scripts and polls, held conference calls, did a radio interview and even convinced a donor to contribute – all from a table in a hospital waiting room. Last week’s discussion was about the placement of a media buy. It’s amazing what you can pull of when people don’t really know where you are.

The drug I’m on is an easy one – targeted therapy. It’s like a smart bomb of chemo that only goes to the cells that have the disease. The worst part is the IV, which I barely notice anymore and after 30 minutes, I’m out. On the road home to a clean house with the mild side effect of an uneasy stomach for a few days. Compared to the other drugs I’ve been on, this is like a piece of cake took a walk in a park.

How long will I stay on it? No clue. But it has made this condition chronic. If you offered me a deal today — get this treatment every 3 weeks for 30 minutes and the disease stays under control, I’d sign in a minute. I’d sign it for the next 10 years. For now, I’ll stay on it unless or until it stops working – then I’ll try something else.

WHAT HAPPENED SINCE 2016

As you may remember from my last blog post, just before election 2016, I had spent the previous 6 months working while dealing with the return of my disease.

On election night 2016, I did venture out. It wasn’t something I did often but I wanted to be with the team that night at the Javits Center in Manhattan. I could, now, try to pretend that I had doubts about the outcome of that night to try to make myself look extra smart, but that would be bullshit. I didn’t; I thought we’d win.

The beginning of that afternoon and evening were great. We were monitoring voting and doing the work we needed to do and I was also seeing some good friends who I had been away from while I worked the last few months from home.

Then, the results started and the mood changed. My heart started to sink, but I kept hoping. Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and others poured in. We knew we needed to hold Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania to make it work.

While we waited for those results, I got up to go to the bathroom. As I stood at the urinal, a friend who had better sense for numbers and data than I do, approached the stall next to me. We looked at each other with the same forlorn look of despair as if our confidence was waning. He said “I just looked at the latest data from Michigan; it’s gone.” And with that, I found out we had lost in a way befitting the occasion -- standing at a urinal.

Whether you believe we lost because of a mission from Russia or a miss in Michigan, or any other reason, one thing was clear: we lost the electoral college. It was over. And while I stared at my peers and colleagues – friends who had hired me and friends who I had hired – I couldn’t stop thinking, “What’s next?”

Despite what you might see or hear, the group who I worked with on that campaign were some of the smartest, most talented and most committed people I’ve ever had the privilege to work with. As I stared at all of them, I wonder what was next for them. As I thought about it more, I worried what was next for me.

At one point, I wandered away and ended up sitting in the middle of the massive loading dock in the Javits Center with 4 senior staff from the campaign. There where shipping boxes, fork lifts, and one table with a few plastic chairs in the middle. We all just kind of stared at each other. Someone would say something about what we should do or what we should say and we’d all agree but, for the life of me, I couldn’t tell you today what anyone said.

As the night ended, I was one of the last ones to leave. I’m not really sure why, I just couldn’t. I kept finding someone else to talk to. I was trying to be a bit of team cheerleader – as best as was possible at that moment.

At around 4:30am that night, I left the Javits center along side two reporters I had gotten to know. We walked for a bit and then they got into cabs and drove off. I just started walking. And walking. I was thinking about what had happened and what it meant for the country. And, if I’m honest, what it meant for me. I had cancer and had just devoted two years of my life to trying to win the presidency – and had failed. I just kept thinking, maybe even crying a bit, and walking.

When I looked up, it was 6 am and the sun was rising. I had walked from the Javits Center at 36th street down almost to the World Trade Center. Much like I did while wandering around the streets of Washington on May 21, 2013, I had done lots of thinking. But now it was November 9, 2016, and it was time to go back to work. I took a cab home, slept for a few hours, and opened my laptop.

WHAT HAVE I BEEN DOING SINCE

Since the campaign ended in 2016, I’ve been “consulting.” I’m still not sure what “consulting” means but it’s what I’m doing. I’m working on my own for a variety of political projects on a variety of important issues, trying to lend my experience to things where I think I can do something interesting and make a difference in the insane moment we’re in right now.

My work has ranged from the fight over the tax plan and some new digital campaign innovations, to a new polling project and an advertising campaign and others. It’s all kept me busy and kept my mind going – in the fight and doing what I love to do. The work is good cause it’s meaningful, it’s the work I want to be doing, and the variety of projects appeals to my attention-span-of-a-fruit-fly-nature.

It’s also allowed me to speak up a bit more about what I think, which has been quite a change. For the last 15+ years, I’ve always represented someone else – the DCCC Chairman, Secretary Clinton, etc. Now I’m speaking more and writing more in my own voice.

I still feel somewhat like a hermit. I live and work in my Brooklyn apartment. I get out more now than I used to, but, nothing like I did when I was healthy. When you’ve been dealing with this as long as I have, you start to lose track of what looking, feeling and being normal would be like. I get to the deli almost every morning and they know to make my eggs and have my iced coffee ready. Others around know me too. Life is easy and that’s important for me right now. One of these days, I’ll be up for making it harder again – but not yet.

THE HEALTH CARE ISSUE

The first project I took on was to help some friends with the coalition fighting the Obamacare repeal legislation. It’s been a hard-waged battle over the last 16 months to improve health care for people instead of letting it get dismantled.

But it’s also been the first time my double lives overlapped a bit. When the Affordable Care Act passed Congress, I was at my office near capitol hill, celebrating with everyone else. But it didn’t really mean anything to me. It was a good thing, but it wasn’t personal.

Seven years later, when repeal of it failed – repeal that would undercut protections for people with pre-existing conditions like I have – it was a very different moment. In fact, when the first repeal plan was pulled from the House floor, I was actually sitting at Sloan Kettering getting my chemo. I was on the phone talking with someone working with me while in the hospital room getting treated as a news alert came across my computer screen.

I don’t often invoke my own personal health care situation while working on the issue because it shouldn’t be about me. I’m fortunate and would be able to get the care I needed if I had to. But sitting there at age 37, with an IV bag dripping a toxic chemical designed to keep me alive into my arm, I certainly had a different perspective than I had 8 years earlier as an otherwise-healthy, overweight 29 year old who saw passage of the ACA as a good reason to go to the bar and celebrate.

FIVE YEARS AND COUNTING

Once and a while I think about what I could be doing if I was fully healthy. I get sad. Maybe I get mad. As I approach 38 years old at the end of this year, more and more of my friends are having their first or second child and I’m forced to think if my life would be different if I hadn’t gotten this diagnosis five years ago. For sure, it would be. But, in the end, you play the cards your dealt and make damn well sure it’s a game you enjoy. You could win big or you could lose your shirt, but either outcome has to be worth it.

Five years ago I was diagnosed with a disease that probably should have killed me. Five years later, I’m still here. When I put it that way, it actually brings a smile to my face. I know talking about having cancer isn’t something that normally is joyful but being able to do what I love while living with the disease sure beats the alternative.

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bountyofbeads · 6 years ago

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Mueller Rejects Trump’s ‘Witch Hunt’ Label and Warns of Russian Meddling

https://nyti.ms/2YiERaF

"There is one incontrovertible truth about the Mueller Report. It establishes, together with the FBI and CIA investigations, that your President was elected, in part, by Russia. That, together with the fact that three million more Americans preferred his opponent, will forever taint this President. His legitimacy is, and should always be, a massive question mark."

JOHN DAVID JAMES, CANADA 🍁

"Has anyone reported on why Senator MCConnell refuses to allow any legislation that would safeguard the 2020 election to even come up for a vote?" JOANNA SMITH, SANTA FE, NM

"Robert Mueller is an old-style, patrician Republican who devoted much of his life to serving the interests of the United States. People such as him have been driven out of today's Republican Party. But what he did was impart damaging information about this President and his actions. There was obstruction and there was no exoneration. Perhaps more significant, he elicited responses from Republican Members of Congress that highlighted how the Republican Party has devolved into a Trump Cult that cares little about truth, integrity or foreign attacks on our Democracy." PAT CHOATE, TUSCON AZ

"Mueller did not say Russia would attack our election again, he said they were attacking us "as we speak." Meanwhile, Democrats have already passed the Election Security Act and have sent it to the Senate, which would help states defend their election systems from attack and require a paper ballot back-up. But McConnell refuses take it up in the Senate. The outcome of the 2020 election hinges on battleground states like Michigan, Ohio and Florida, which Russia targeted last time (with help from the Trump campaign). It appears that McConnell does not care to prevent Russian hacking in these states, perhaps because he knows they will help Trump win." SHERRY, WASHINGTON

"My takeaway from today’s hearings is that impeachment can wait. Trump is not going to be convicted by the Senate. Democrats should focus on defeating him at the ballot box. Mueller and everyone else in this country knows that the Russians will be back to to help Trump win again. That is why Mitch McConnell, the traitor of the Senate, one of many Republicans who put party over patriotism, is refusing to allow a bipartisan bill to shore up and protect our election machinery. No paper trails will tell us if the count in closely contested states or any other state is accurate. Should the results be close , particularly if the Democrat loses, who but Republicans will believe it. Democrats should start demanding this bill be passed. Mitch has gotten away with enough obstruction. Put the pressure on him every day. That includes during his month vacation in August." MARY BETH, MA

"Several GOP panelists derided the Mueller investigation as prolonged and costly. Cost of Mueller investigation? ... through seizures of ill-begotten assets (eg Manafort forfeitures), it has more than paid for itself! Contrast the GOP Benghazi investigation on Clinton that went on for 4 years! ... with no indictments and no counts ... none (and no asset seizures)! Mueller’s investigation wasn't even 2 years, and already with 37 indictments and 199 counts and several in trump’s inner circle charged and in prison with more imminent." JOHN TOWNSEND, MEXICO

"In much the same way Trump demeaned, denigrated a former First Lady and Secretary of State; today the Republican Party did the same to another public servant. No 74 year old, War Veteran, public servant deserved to be spoken to the way Mueller was by the Republicans who questioned him. But then again, we saw with McCain how much this administration respects veterans. Never wandering far from the low moral bar their POTUS has set, Republicans today once more demonstrated how much they respect what were once established values."

DENISE, NM

"Today, it was reiterated that the sitting US President, Donald Trump, is guilty of the "high crimes and misdemeanors" of colluding with the Russians to attain the US Presidency in 2016, and of committing and continuing to commit the obstruction of justice in covering up his collusion. What we also learned today is that the rump GOP that remains, after all this Trump carnage, of what used to be the proud party of Lincoln, is willing to lie, to shill and to defend this narcissistic Russian owned clown to their bitter end. Sad. Humiliating. Depressing." JOE MIKSIS, SAN FRANCISCO

"That Special Counsel Robert Mueller III made a very grave statement about Russian tampering in the 2016 election for President and Vice President of the United States should be a very loud, resounding alarm to every citizen of this country demanding the assurance from every Board of Election in each state that their vote casting system is tamper-proof. And if there is not a very vocal public outcry to demand free and safe elections in this country, we are sunk as a democracy. There is no democracy of one person - one (tamper-proof) vote in the United States if we have Russian or any other outside interference. And yes, I continue to believe Donald Trump's tax returns will see a direct link between Russian interference - in many forms - vote tampering, money schemes, loans, and potentially blackmail that will bring this house of cards down. I think Trump knows this and continues his daily and relentless twittering directed toward whomever is disturbing his house of cards at the moment . All of his twittering behavior is simply to distract from the truth - which will be found in his taxes. And finally, Special Counsel Mueller, in his 11 minute televised address two weeks ago stated:, "if we had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so." Another shocking statement that should be sounding very loud alarms. That statement is yet another reason to issue court orders to subpoena Trump’s taxes." KKM, NYC

"Some of the media coverage of Mueller’s testimony today bothers me as a person who appreciates the American Constitution. The idea that the testimony was ineffective is ludicrous. The house majority did an excellent job of refuting Trump’s claim that there was “no collusion”. They also did an excellent job of meticulously outlining the actions that constituted that collusion. When Republican representatives pushed Mueller on making a political statement with his report, he pushed back vehemently. The American people who watched this testimony now have the truth as opposed to the spin that came from the White House. Hopefully citizens who love this country will uphold our democracy in the next election and today’s testimony gives us all some truths to take to the ballot box as we make our individual decisions." RMWARD, CONNECTICUT

"This is the best account I've read about what I witnessed on the live stream today. The one thing that no news articles have mentioned — I am not seeing hard core critique of the questions that were asked and statements made. The Republicans have so intimidated news media by attacking everything as "partisan" and "political" that the media posit a false equivalency between what one party does versus another, so as to refer to the parties equally. Thus there is not one word spoken about the odiously misleading and false statements and questions by the Republicans, oftentimes loaded with conspiracy theories. It is a disgrace that legislators feed these accusations to the public, and the press says nothing. Nunes telling Mueller to his face that the investigation was a hoax??? These guys are out front with Trump feeding delusions to the public. Many media are making the big news that Mueller seemed indecisive or shaky in his answers, all the while this public disgrace of Republican accusations that are completely disconnected from reality parades before the cameras and goes unmentioned — or else portrayed as equal to the serious and studential questions and comments of the Democrats. There are dangers headed towards U.S. democracy like a freight train. Please do more to wake everyone up to the dangers of claims that flagrantly violate known facts."

ANNE SHERROD

"The fact is, there is no law to say you can't indict a sitting president, neither is there anything in the constitution to that effect. It is simply a DOJ opinion that has been passed down over the years. It is not a high bar to expect that your president has not committed a crime. The simple answer: render the president accountable to criminal justice just as every American is."

YesIKnowTheMuffinMan, NEW HOPE PA

"If Russia can do it to Clinton, China will do it to Trump (and I expect they will). The GOP are unbelievably naive. China is much more experienced and skilled."

CHARACTER COUNTS, USA

"Putin is grinning ear to ear." CINDY, SAN DIEGO CA

"The best we can do is gather a great Democratic Party strategy, pick a candidate that can stand up to trump and beat him solidly in the 2020 election. Muellers report should provide plenty of reasons why trump and his cronies must go. The Democratic Party must insure that the Russians or any foreign country does not hack our election again." DR B, BERKLEY, CA

"Most questions were long winded, hard to follow and self served, aimed to impress the electorate base and embarrass Mueller. Republicans in particular excelled in irrelevancy, ranging form brash accusations to white noise generators. To his credit, Mueller chose not to play along and stayed within the scope of even the least cohesive question. Posterity will remember, hopefully, Mueller for his uncompromising and professional stance, focus on the job and carelessness for his public image. Picture him side by side with the president, and try to take in the difference." MIROCAL, SEATTLE WA

"They’re doing it as we sit here,” Facebook knows more about you than your parents. And they package that knowledge as a target for the highest bidder. As a Target. You and I are Targets. Cambridge Analytica leveraged those Targets to help Trump win. The Russian Government leveraged those Targets to help Trump win. Dear regulators, as a part of the Facebook settlement, how about banning Targeted political ads? Sure, the Supreme Court has ruled, in Burson v Freeman, that blackout periods for political ads are unconstitutional. But, it says nothing about Targeted ads. When I'm shown an ad for or against a candidate, I want to see what everybody else sees. I want to see everybody's response to that ad. Is it fake? Is it fair? One of the worse policies for political speech was the removal of the fairness doctrine -- where broadcasters were required to give free time to opposing views. Well, at the very least, it should be a requirement that ads for public office are truly public. Not some kind of guided missive keyed to my private data. Regulators, are you listening?"

IKO, HERE

"I believed Mueller. I wouldn't believe Trump if my life depended on it. Indeed, I would depend on this fact: Trump will always lie. He THINKS his lies are a "force of nature." I suppose we will found out just how strong they are. Because they are now exposed. Anyone who believes them now has no more excuses. Whoever believes Trump belongs to Trump. They are bought and paid for." PAUL GLASSON, GA

"I am frankly beyond being disgusted with these shameful Republican congresspeople. While they may believe the best defense is a good offense, and are aggressively trying to steamroll and invalidate a legitimate investigative process, I am not buying what they are selling. No amount of money or power could make me behave in such a despicable fashion, and the fact that they seem to be immune from self loathing for their behavior indicates what type of people they are to their cores. They dishonor this country."

GMR, ATLANTA

Mueller Rejects Trump’s ‘Witch Hunt’ Label and Warns of Russian Meddling

By Mark Mazzetti | Published July 24, 2019 | New York Times | Posted July 24, 2019 |

WASHINGTON — Robert S. Mueller III on Wednesday publicly rejected President Trump’s criticism that the special counsel’s investigation was a “witch hunt” and defended his conclusions about the sweeping Russian interference campaign in 2016, warning that Moscow will again try to sabotage American democracy.

The partisan war over his inquiry reached a heated climax during hours of long-awaited testimony by Mr. Mueller before two congressional committees. Lawmakers hunted for viral sound bites and tried to score political points, but Mr. Mueller refused to engage on those fronts, returning over and over in sometimes halting delivery to his damning and voluminous report.

Mr. Mueller remained a spectral presence in Washington over the past two years as the president and his allies subjected the special counsel and his team of lawyers to withering attacks. Speaking in detail for the first time about his conclusions produced occasionally dramatic moments where he ventured beyond his report to offer insights about Mr. Trump’s behavior.

When asked whether Mr. Trump “wasn’t always being truthful” in his written answers to the special counsel’s questions, Mr. Mueller responded, “I would say generally.” He called Mr. Trump’s praise of WikiLeaks during the 2016 campaign “problematic” and said it “gave a boost to what is and should be illegal activity.” He said that he and his team chose not to subpoena Mr. Trump out of concern that a battle over a presidential interview might needlessly prolong the investigation.

Democratic lawmakers had hoped that Mr. Mueller’s nationally televised testimony would provide a dramatic culmination to a yearslong saga: the special counsel translating the dense jargon of his report into a bleak portrait of the Russian interference operation and the president’s behavior since winning the election. The testimony would, in their minds, make the report both more authoritative and more vivid for Americans who had skipped reading it.

Some television pundits built up the drama by comparing Mr. Mueller’s appearance to some of the most galvanizing moments of the Watergate era.

For the most part, Mr. Mueller did not play along. He gave clipped answers to lengthy questions, and forced lawmakers to give their own dramatic readings of parts of his report rather than reciting the conclusions himself. He sometimes gave a forceful defense of his investigation and his team in the face of the Republican fusillade, but his answers were at times faltering. Throughout, he was careful to avoid straying from his report’s conclusions.

Mr. Trump has spent months characterizing the special counsel’s report as a “total exoneration,” though Mr. Mueller was careful on Wednesday to state that he and his team had drawn no such conclusion. The special counsel’s 448-page report, released in April, laid bare that Mr. Trump was elected with the help of a foreign power, and on Wednesday, Mr. Mueller was most impassioned when describing the contours of the Russian interference playbook.

“They’re doing it as we sit here,” he said of Russia’s tampering in American elections.

Looming over the hearing was the question of whether Mr. Mueller’s testimony might shift the ground in Congress and propel more lawmakers to push for Mr. Trump’s impeachment. Only one new call emerged for impeachment hearings by late afternoon Wednesday, from Representative Lori Trahan, Democrat of Massachusetts, and lawmakers will soon depart Washington for a summer recess. It was too soon to say whether the spectacle would change Americans’ opinions about Mr. Mueller and his work that have only hardened over time, and whether Democrats would return to their districts and encounter more vigorous calls for Mr. Trump’s removal.

The questioning on Wednesday reflected a bitter philosophical divide, both on the committees and in the country as a whole: whether it was Mr. Trump, or those investigating him, who committed crimes. Throughout the day, the Democrats hit the high points from Mr. Mueller’s report: the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting, the efforts by Mr. Trump to fire Mr. Mueller, the discussions between Michael T. Flynn and a Russian ambassador about Obama-era sanctions, the strategy by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to sow chaos before the election.

The Mueller report cataloged numerous meetings between Mr. Trump’s advisers and Russians seeking to influence the campaign and the presidential transition team — encounters set up in pursuit of business deals, policy initiatives and political dirt about Hillary Clinton, Mr. Trump’s 2016 Democratic opponent.

Mr. Mueller concluded that there was “insufficient evidence” to determine that the president or his aides had engaged in a criminal conspiracy with the Russians, even though the Trump campaign welcomed the Kremlin sabotage effort and “expected it would benefit electorally” from the hackings and leaks of Democratic emails.

On Wednesday, Mr. Mueller was asked about the Trump Tower meeting, WikiLeaks and the decision by Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman, to share campaign information with a Russian oligarch, and whether these episodes were a new normal for political campaigns.

“I hope this is not the new normal,” Mr. Mueller said, “but I fear it is.”

Republicans tried to flip the lens, peppering Mr. Mueller with questions about what they have long argued, with little evidence: that the F.B.I. opened a politically motivated investigation in 2016 with the aim of preventing Mr. Trump from becoming president. They focused on the research firm that commissioned the dossier by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer. They focused on Joseph Mifsud, a Maltese academic identified by the special counsel as linked to Russian intelligence, and advanced unsubstantiated claims that Mr. Mifsud was actually under the sway of Western spy services.

Mr. Mueller mostly deflected those questions, saying the origins of the F.B.I. investigation predated his time as special counsel and was outside his purview.

Mr. Mueller was a reluctant witness and had tried to avoid the spectacle of a congressional hearing. In a brief public statement in May, he urged the public — and, by extension, members of Congress — to read his report, which he said “speaks for itself.” “The report is my testimony,” he said.

House Democrats were unmoved and chose to take the aggressive step of compelling Mr. Mueller’s testimony under subpoena.

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