Category Archives: Democrat

If you are like me, then your children are the most important thing in the world. And its because Im a mother that I will be voting a straight Republican ticket.

Why? The Democrats have shown that they have no shame when it comes to removing parental rights. For example, in Maine, our Democratic legislators voted to eliminate non-medical exemptions for required vaccines, LD 798. Republicans voted against this bill.

Arrogant liberal Democrats think they know better than me what is best for my children. Hows that for womens progress? They merely pay lip service to womens rights as they push similar legislation across the country.

And Biden, if elected, has vowed to support equally harsh mandates, going so far as promising executive orders removing ones right to make personal medical decisions.

My children and my freedom are everything. So yes, I will be voting Republican.

Donna DodgeDenmark

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Letter to the Editor: Democrats' stand on vaccine opt-outs unacceptable - pressherald.com

Two Army Reserve soldiers who appeared in uniform during the Democratic National Convention in August will not be disciplined for politicking in uniform, but their supervisor will.

The unidentified soldiers, from the 9th Mission Support Command based out of Hawaii, were part of a brief presentation by delegates from American Samoa during the conventions roll call of states.

The soldiers wore camouflage uniforms with specialist rank patches visible as local Democratic party leaders Aliitama Sotoa and Patti Matila voiced their support for former Vice President Joe Biden, the partys presidential nominee, during the nationally televised event.

The incident drew immediate attention from military advocates for apparent violations of Defense Department rules regarding appearances at political events and rallies while in uniform. Army officials began an investigation of the incident a day later.

On Thursday, officials said they had determined the two soldiers were not at fault for the mistake.

The investigation found their supervisor violated a Department of Defense directive and an Army regulation that governs soldier political activities, Lt. Col. Simon Flake, chief of media relations for Army Reserve Strategic Communications, said in a statement.

The supervisor at fault will receive the appropriate level of disciplinary action for violating the governing standards.

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Flake did not specify exactly what that discipline will entail or if the supervisor is a member of the military.

Under long-standing Defense Department policy, service members and department civilian employees acting in their official capacity may not engage in activities that associate the DOD with any partisan political campaign or elections. That specifically includes appearing in uniform at political campaign events.

After the segment aired, Democratic Party officials said the presentation was designed to celebrate American Samoas legacy of military service but called the improper inclusion of troops in uniform an oversight.

Flake said Reserve leaders continue to provide all soldiers and civilian employees training and the latest information on DOD Directives and Army Policies pertaining to political activities.

A week after the American Samoa incident, advocates raised concerns about the appearance of two uniformed Marines who appeared in a similar segment during the Republican National Convention. The pair were shown while on duty at the White House, opening a door for President Donald Trump as he walked through the hallways.

Marine Corps officials at the time said those service members were at their assigned place of duty and did not appear to violate any rules regarding political speech or appearances.

Since the start of the year, military leaders have reminded troops about rules regarding participation in political campaigns, emphasizing the importance of the military staying neutral in the democratic process.

Army officials in August reminded all soldiers that they should avoid the perception of DoD sponsorship, approval or endorsement of any political candidate, campaign or cause.

Continue reading here:

Soldiers who appeared at Democratic convention won't be disciplined, but supervisor will - Military Times

ByAngeliki Kastanis, Josh Boak and Dario Lopez-Mills

PHOENIX When Katherine Rutigliano and her husband moved away from San Francisco in 2013, they figured they would never meet a fellow Democrat again.

But housing was affordable around Phoenix. No more cramped condo. No more suffocating mortgage payments. No more tech-boom exhaustion. Everything would be easier for them and their kids in the suburbs everything, that is, except talking politics with neighbors.

Then came an unexpected visitor at the door. It was a Democratic volunteer rounding up votes ahead of the 2018 Senate election. Rutigliano invited her in and inspected the map on her iPad. She was elated to see all the flashing lights that marked where Democrats lived in her stucco neighborhood on the northern edge of Phoenix.

These San Francisco transplants were not alone.

It was like Christmas, said Rutigliano, 37, a mother of three and trained chef who is now sending out mailers for local Democrats.

Rutigliano didnt realize it, but she had moved her family to what is now the front lines in American politics. Once firmly in Republican control, suburbs like hers are increasingly politically divided a rare common ground shared by Republicans and Democrats.

As such, they are poised to decide not just who wins the White House this year but also who controls the Senate and the contours of the debate over guns, immigration, work, schools, housing and health care for years to come.

The reasons for the shift are many. Suburbs have grown more racially diverse, more educated, more economically prosperous and more liberal all factors making them more likely to vote Democratic. But demographers and political scientists are just as likely to point to another trend: density. Suburbs have grown more crowded, looking more and more like cities and voting like them, too.

For decades, an areas population per square mile has been a reliable indicator of its political tilt. Denser areas vote Democratic, less dense areas vote Republican. The correlation between density and voting has been getting stronger, as people began to sort themselves by ethnicity, education, personality, income and lifestyle.

The pattern is so reliable it can be quantified, averaged and applied to most American cities. At around 800 households per square mile, the blue of Democratic areas starts to bleed into red Republican neighborhoods.

A purple ring call it the flip zone emerges through the suburbs.

But the midterm elections of 2018 showed that the flip zone has moved in the era of President Donald Trump, with dramatic consequences. When Democrats across the country penetrated deeper into the suburbs, finding voters farther away from the city, they flipped a net 39 House districts and won a majority of the chamber.

An Associated Press analysis of recent election results and density shows Democrats in Arizona moved the flip zone 2 miles deeper into the suburbs from 2016 to 2018, reaching right to the northern edge of Interstate 101 in Phoenix into areas filled with cul-de-sacs of homes and backyards large enough for swimming pools. The shift helped them win a Senate seat for the first time in 24 years.

The APs analysis essentially maps the challenge Trump and his Republican Party are facing today. Polling shows the president trailing Democrat Joe Biden badly in many key suburbs in battleground states. To hold the White House and control of the Senate, he and his party must stop the flip zone from moving farther out again.

Republicans are working against the recent trend in metros across the country. In 2018 in Milwaukee, the flip zone moved out less than half a mile as Wisconsin elected a Democratic governor. Its distance from city hall grew 2.6 miles in Richmond, Va., helping deliver the congressional seat once held by a conservative House majority leader, Eric Cantor.

Many political scientists think the trend toward political segregation has put the Democratic Party at a disadvantage. Its voters are more concentrated in cities. Republicans are dispersed across larger areas, making it easier for that party to draw favorable districts and win a majority of legislative seats even if it loses the total vote count. In 2018, Wisconsin Democrats received 53% of state assembly votes in 2018, yet they hold only 36 of the 99 seats in the chamber. Under the Electoral College, Republicans have twice in the modern era won the White House despite losing the popular vote.

The geographic divide has also had a real impact on policy and politics. The needs of cities and farm towns are often perceived as being in conflict a tug of war between Republican and Democratic voters over resources. Until recently, scant racial diversity in the suburbs had allowed Republican politicians to cater to the concerns of white voters and prey on their biases.

The geographic split also has exacerbated the tensions on display during the pandemic. Dense, Democratic areas were hit first by the coronavirus, allowing Trump to initially describe the disease as an urban problem and attack Democratic leaders for mishandling the response. Similarly, civil rights protests have been largest and most contentious in cities, and Trump has blamed their Democratic mayors.

Jonathan Rodden, a Stanford University political scientist and author of the 2019 book Why Cities Lose, said this political divide on density has eroded the shared responsibility among elected leaders. Instead, they think of themselves as representing different voter groups and that gives them less incentive to work together.

Municipal officials can blame state and federal officials, who in turn blame lower-level officials, Rodden said.

But he also believes the geographic divides can focus voters on local issues, where theyre more likely to have an impact, and lead to more local activism.

After the Arizona teacher strike in 2018, Democrats organized with the goal of increasing pay and reducing class sizes issues with real impact on suburban families. A study by the Morrison Institute at Arizona State University had found teachers earned higher salaries in 2001 than in 2016 after adjusting for inflation. The effort galvanized local Democrats to elect Kathy Hoffman as state superintendent of public instruction, ending a 24-year Republican grip on the office.

There are a lot of classrooms that dont have certified teachers because the teacher pay is so god-awful, said Mary Witzel, a retiree and member of a Democratic precinct committee in the Phoenix flip zone. The whole education situation in Arizona is causing a lot of people who have never been engaged before to start paying attention.

Cliche campaign ads might show acres of wheat and bustling cities, but the United States is a suburban nation.

AP VoteCast, a survey of the electorate, found that 52% of voters in 2018 said they live in suburbia. Its not surprising that Trump and Biden have been tussling over suburban voters for months.

Trump has suggested that efforts to racially integrate the suburbs would destroy those communities with crime and poverty, despite clear data showing that many suburbs are increasingly diverse. At the first presidential debate, he accused Biden of wanting to kill off the suburbs.

Our suburbs would be gone, and you would see problems like youve never seen before, Trump said.

He wouldnt know a suburb unless he took a wrong turn, Biden responded. This is not 1950. All these dog whistles on racism dont work anymore.

In fact, not all suburbs are alike, and knowing them can be difficult.

There are the English-style garden cities built a century ago for the affluent. Following World War II, mazes of Cape Cod houses and ranches sprawled near highways. There are gated communities, over-55 communities, planned communities, working-class suburbs, inner-ring suburbs and distant exurbs and all have their own local characteristics.

Likewise, these battleground areas the flip zones are not uniform, APs analysis shows.

Now the suburbs are the places delivering a referendum on Trump. And neatly manicured neighborhoods conceal a more complicated political biosphere.

Trumps election caused Marshall Militano, 73, to leave his morning Bible study. He gave his life to Jesus Christ twice, first at a 1959 Billy Graham crusade in Madison Square Garden and again three decades later after dealing with drug and alcohol addictions.

The former long-haul trucker met his wife at church. He could not understand how so many in his breakfast fellowship saw the president as defending Christianity. Trump had stiffed contractors as a real estate developer and mocked veterans and immigrants showing none of Gods grace.

Living in Glendale to the northwest of Phoenix, Militano turned on his computer two years ago and switched his voter registration from independent to Democrat. He and his wife cried after he told her.

I want our country to get back to calm, he said. Im not talking about kumbaya Im talking about rational. We havent done anything in this country in four years except hate.

Along the same streets, Republican Michael Nudo sees the new partisan tensions.

The 27-year-old was concerned by sometimes violent civil rights protests in distant cities this summer. He believes people in Glendale, where he lives and volunteers for the local GOP, want the stability of law and order. Republican leaders, he says, understand that.

Still, hes started carrying a gun in his truck because with whats going on in our country, you dont know what youre going to end up in the middle of.

Nudo grew up in the flip zone when it was more securely Republican territory. During his freshman year in high school, his family lost their house to foreclosure as millions of other Americans did during the Great Recession. Then their rental house was foreclosed on, and they had to move again.

The experience instilled in him a conservative belief that the government, like families, must be financially responsible.

Now Nudo sees that housing crash as the beginning of another wave of change in his hometown a huge turnover. As the economy recovered, big companies relocated workers from around the country. Others moved in chasing low housing prices and lower taxes and bringing their politics with them. The Phoenix area became splintered.

You can walk across the street and be in a whole other community, whole other city, he said. But theyre your neighbors.

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Moving the flip zone: Democrats march deeper into suburbs - The Denver Post

If the Democrats manage to win control of the Senate in the coming election, the pressure on Silicon Valley would only grow.

Democratic senators have signaled a willingness to make substantial changes to antitrust law and advocate breakups of the largest American tech companies, including campaigning for president on the issue. If the party can flip four seats, those same senators such as Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts could be in position to act against some of their favorite targets, including Facebook Inc. FB, -2.26% and Google parent Alphabet Inc. GOOGL, -2.14% GOOG, -2.19%

GOOG, -2.19% If Democrats wrest control of the U.S. Senate on Nov. 3 (or in the following days and weeks it takes to count ballots), it could lead to the first major changes in antitrust law in a generation, Joel Mitnick, a former Federal Trade Commission trial lawyer who specializes in antitrust issues, told MarketWatch.

A late July Congressional hearing, in which David Cicilline, a Democrat from Rhode Island, chairman of House Subcommittee on Antitrust, and other Democrats grilled three of the four companies under investigation, could offer a template on how a Democratic-controlled Senate would approach the Big Four. A report from Cicillines subcommittee, expected soon, reportedly recommends splitting up companies and limiting their future acquisitions.

Read more: House Democrats proposing to split big technology firms, reports say

Klobuchar is in line to chair the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights, where she is the ranking Democratic member, and has held hearings and proposed new antitrust law. A Senate Judiciary hearing last month offered the clearest intent from Klobuchar and [Sen. Richard] Blumenthal [of Connecticut] to change the antitrust standards in ways that benefit prosecutors and claimants, Carl Szabo, vice president and general counsel of NetChoice, a trade association with two dozen e-commerce members that include Google, Facebook, eBay Inc. EBAY, -4.07%, and Airbnb told MarketWatch.

In March, Klobuchar introduced the Anticompetitive Exclusionary Conduct Prevention Act, which prohibits anticompetitive exclusionary conduct that risks harm to the competitive process. The bill co-sponsored by Blumenthal and Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J. in August introduced the Monopolization Deterrence Act to crack down on monopolies that violate antitrust law. And in June, Klobuchar and Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, introduced legislation to help prevent anticompetitive mergers, the Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act.

They want to make more rules enforceable; make it easier to bring these actions, Szabo said.

The Trump administration is reportedly investigating Google, Facebook, Amazon.com Inc. AMZN, -3.10% and Apple Inc. AAPL, -2.86% for antitrust issues, amid concurrent state inquiries and lawsuits from competitors. The Justice Department is reportedly seeking to file suit against Google in October, while the Federal Trade Commission hopes to take similar action against Facebook by the end of the year, according to multiple reports.

For more: Big Tech is turning on one another amid antitrust probes and litigation

The presidential candidates are not actually that far apart on their statements on tech companies, but the Democrats relationship with Big Tech has changed since the Obama administrations policies that alternately promoted, permitted, or ignored the industry. Robert Kaminsky, an analyst at Capital Alpha Partners, expects a Biden-Harris administration would seek tech-focused legislation, but focus more on consumer data and platforms than antitrust law.

See: Heres where Biden and Trump stand on antitrust, social media and other tech issues

We see a Democrat Senate providing a Biden administration with a better chance of passing privacy legislation and making changes to Section 230 liability protections, but jurisdictional issues within Congress still present a challenge to finding consensus, Kaminsky told MarketWatch.

We dont see antitrust as a huge White House focus in a Biden presidency, financial analysts at Beltway political newsletter Height Commentary wrote, adding that they would expect Bidens appointees at the Justice Department and FTC to take a much more aggressive stance than past administrations.

The X-factor could be Warren, who as a presidential candidate loudly advocated for the breakup of Facebook and Google. Whether as a member of a Biden administration, or in her current role in a Democratic-controlled Senate, Warren has shown no hesitancy in advocating drastic measures.

Americans all across the country are seeing how Big Tech has used its massive power to harm our economy and our democracy, Warren said in a statement to MarketWatch. When Democrats win in 2020, it should be a top priority for us to stop these giants from rigging the rules in their favor and against everyone else.

The tone and rancor of a recent three-and-a-half-hour meeting with a Google executive illustrates how much has changed in an increasingly soured relationship between Silicon Valley and the Beltway. Trillion-dollar valuations and record revenue and profits by its biggest names compounded by competitors claims of monopolistic business behavior and consumer outcry over privacy violations and misinformation has turned both major political parties against the industry.

You are in the thankless task of defending the indefensible. Google deserves antitrust action. It has been a stunning abuse of market power, Blumenthal told Donald Harrison, president of global partnerships and corporate development at Google, during a Sept. 15 committee hearing entitled, Stacking the Tech: Has Google harmed competition in online advertising?

An imminent Justice Department antitrust action against Google could be the beginning of a reckoning in antitrust laws, Klobuchar said. I just want our capitalistic system to work. You simply cant have one company dominate this market.

Read more: Antitrust questions bruise but dont break Big Tech CEOs in historic hearing

Democrats would intensify the momentum [of antitrust actions] on Facebook, Google, and Amazon, Bhaskar Chakravorti, dean of global business at the Fletcher School at Tufts University, told MarketWatch. It would be a continuation of the late-summer hearings. Those three companies are in the crosshairs. Apple is a little bit to the side.

One company with an especially large target is Facebook, the subject of scathing comments from Klobuchar in her presidential campaign kickoff event in Minnesota in February.

We need to put digital rules in the law to protect privacy, said Klobuchar, an ardent critic of Facebook who is also co-author of a data-privacy bill. For too long, the big tech companies have said, Dont worry, we have your back.

Klobuchars animus toward Facebook could receive support from a theoretical Biden Administration. The former vice president called Facebook the nations foremost propagator of disinformation about the voting process last month in a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Not everyone is convinced a Blue Wave will translate into punitive actions against some of the worlds most-valuable companies. Paven Malhotra, a Silicon Valley lawyer who specializes in intellectual property, told MarketWatch that a Democratic president and Senate is unlikely to make tech a high priority.

They will continue a DOJ action against Google, I imagine, but it may get lost with actions to reverse actions over the past four years on health care, education policy, trade, climate change and everything else.

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If the Democrats win the Senate, Big Tech better be ready for a bigger fight - MarketWatch

The U.S. Capitol stands in Washington, D.C., U.S. on Thursday, Oct. 1, 2020. Talks Thursday between Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin brought no immediate breakthrough on a deal for a new pandemic relief package, while the House prepared to vote on a Democrat-only plan.

Stefani Reynolds | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Democrats and Republicans still seem unable to find common ground on enhanced unemployment benefits, more than two months after the expiration of a prior, $600 weekly subsidy that had buoyed household income for millions.

White House officials and senior congressional Democrats were still trying to hammer out details of a fifth financial relief package through Tuesday afternoon to help counter the negative economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

President Donald Trump upended those talks around 3 pm E.T. on Tuesday, tweeting that he was instructing White House representatives to cease negotiations until after election day in early November. It wasn't immediately clear whether that was a hard line or a negotiating tactic.

Unemployment benefits appeared to be a key sticking point in the negotiations, despite consensus in other areas like stimulus checks and aid for small businesses.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., at the U.S. Capitol on Oct. 1.

Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images News | Getty Images

It's unclear whether congressional Republicans would support a $400-a-week policy or a bill with an overall price tag as high as the White House proposal.

"Negotiations are ongoing," according to a White House spokesman said Monday. "The White House continues to reach out to Democrats in good faith to try and reach a deal on delivering relief to American workers."

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin during a Senate hearing on Sept. 24.

Toni L. Sandys-Pool/Getty Images

Some experts remain hopeful lawmakers can still come to an agreement, especially as unemployment remains high seven months into the economic crisis and the presidential election looms in a month's time.

"I think there's tremendous pressure on both sides to pass something," said Michele Evermore, a senior policy analyst at the National Employment Law Project. "Nobody wants to go home and campaign on, 'We didn't give you anything.'"

Republicans have criticized the supplement as a disincentive to return to work since it paid many people more than they'd earned on the job.

While anecdotal evidence suggests this may have been the case for some businesses, numerous economic studies found that, in aggregate, the $600 enhancement didn't discourage people from looking for work or accepting job offers.

"Expanded UI benefits from the CARES Act appeared to be an important source of aggregate stimulus rather than an impediment to labor market improvement," according to a paper published last month by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.

Democrats want to extend the $600 weekly payments, which come on top of state-allotted aid, to help bolster consumer spending and the U.S. economy as signs have emerged that the recovery is sputtering.

"We still have a massive gap in the labor market, and job growth is slowing," said Heidi Shierholz, director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute and a former chief economist at the Department of Labor during the Obama administration.

The unemployment rate fell to 7.9% in September after businesses added 661,000 jobs, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. That rate is down from a 14.7% peak in April, the highest recorded since the Great Depression.

There are 10.7 million fewer jobs now than in February before the pandemic-induced recession, according to the bureau. The true figure likely exceeds 12 million jobs when factoring in prevailing monthly job growth trends that had been occurring pre-pandemic, Shierholz said.

President Donald Trump appears intent on passing another relief package before the November election.

"OUR GREAT USA WANTS & NEEDS STIMULUS. WORK TOGETHER AND GET IT DONE," Trump tweeted Saturday from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, where he'd been receiving treatment for Covid-19.

The Trump administration had enacted a Lost Wages Assistance program in August that offered a $300 weekly supplement to unemployment benefits for up to six weeks, paid for with federal disaster relief funds. (A few states paid an extra $100, for a total of $400.)

Workers in some states haven't yet received that aid, however, due to administrative delays. And hundreds of thousands of workers, primarily low-income and part-time workers, weren't eligible for that money due to program guidelines.

If Congress and the White House reach a deal on unemployment benefits, a relief measure may be delayed by lack of common ground elsewhere, like additional aid for state and local governments. And extra jobless aid would likely only last for a few months.

"I do think there's been some progress made, and now it's [down to] whether they'll get something all the way through," Andrew Stettner, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, said of relief talks. "Even if this thing passes, they'll have to come back to it in December or January."

Read the rest here:

Democrats and GOP still fighting over $600 jobless benefits. Where things stand - CNBC

House Whip James Clyburn (D-SC), on CNN, August 2, 2020

The typical reaction to the death of a tyrant whether by revolutionary violence or natural causes is not one ofgriefand sadness but joyous celebration. It is not hard to understand why: when a nation and its oppressed citizenryare finally liberated from the suffocating, savage grip of fascist dictatorship, they feel joy for themselves, their families and the future of their nation. That is the same reason people have always hoped for, or work toward, the death of despots: they want to rid themselves ofthose who impose tyranny on them.

When Romanians learned in 1989 of the summary execution of their despised dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, residents t[ook] to the streets to celebrate the downfall of the dictator. In 2006, many Chileans celebrated the death of dictator Augusto Pinochet, as a cacophony of horns sounded as hundreds of thousands took to streets and plazas across the country when it was announced the man who ruled ruthlessly for 17 years had died at age 91, a week after suffering a heart attack. Cuban dictator Fidel Castro is dead, so celebrate we will, read a 2016 South Florida Sun-Sentinel op-ed by a Cuban-American who appeared to genuinely believe that Castro was a vicious dictator,and thus expressedthe natural, normal reaction of someone who believes a country has been freed from the grip of a despot. So typical is this reaction to the death of a leader perceived as a dictator that history is replete with countlesssimilarexamples over many decades and across the world.

Yet in the U.S., a radically different dynamic is playing out. Over the past several years, but particularly in the months heading into the 2020 election, it has become extremely common for prominent Democrats and their media allies to refer to President Trump as a dictator, a fascist, a tyrant hellbent on destroying U.S. democracy, a genocidal racist, and even a Nazi. And yet, the overwhelming reaction in those mainstream precincts to the news that the fascist dictator has contracted a potentially lethal virus is to hope and pray that he makes a speedy recovery whereby he can resume his democracy-destroying, genocidal, tyrannical, fascist rule.

In March of last year, as CNN put it, two powerful House Democrats invoked Adolf Hitlers actions in Germany and the treatment of Jews during World War I and in the 1920s to warn against the direction the US is moving in, with both saying Donald Trumps presidency presents an unprecedented threat to democracy.One of the Democratic lawmakers who explicitly invoked Nazism and Hitler as the proper prism to understand Trumps rule was House Whip James Clyburn of South Carolina. Just two months ago, Clyburn went back on CNN and warned that Trump was preparing to hold despotic power even if he loses, pronouncing: I feel very strongly that he is Mussolini, Putin is Hitler.

CNN, March 20, 2019

Yet when Clyburn learnedthis week that our modern-day Hitler who is on the precipice of ending democracy had contracted a fatal virus, he did not celebrate but instead, for some reason, lamented the news, wishing the First Family a speedy and complete recovery. Why would you possibly wish a speedy recovery rather than a quick demise to someone you believe is a Hitler-like perpetrator of genocide whose recovery would enable fascism to continue? That seems counter-intuitive and counter-productive.

MSNBC star Rachel Maddow began invoking Nazismand Hitler in connection with Trump as early as 2016, when Politico reported that, once Trump secured the GOP nomination, the on-air personality has been reading up lately on Adolf Hitlers rise to power in Germany, the MSNBC anchor told Rolling Stone, because thats where she thinks the United States could be headed. Maddow has notoriously spent the last four years manically obsessed with the claim that Trump has such a corrupt relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin that it is the Kremlin, thanks to Trump, which secretly runs the U.S. and is using that power to plot harm to large numbers of Americans by, for instance, seizing the power tocut off their heat in the dead of winter. Maddow was explicitlylinking Trump to classic fascism as early as 2015.

Yet upon learning that the fascist, Kremlin-controlled, Nazi-like dictator had become ill, Maddow launched a one-woman crusade demanding that her fellow liberals pray earnestly for his recovery. She first posted an extremely effusive tweet: God bless the president and the first lady. If you pray, please pray for their speedy and complete recovery Presumably in response to widespread liberal confusion and criticisms wait, you spent four years telling us hes a fascist racist Nazi-likedespotand now youinsist that we pray for his health? Maddow devoted a segment on her show in which, with great passion and emotion, she urged her viewers to react to Trumps COVID diagnosiswith the same compassion and through the same prism as if a friend who smokes cigarettes learned she had lung cancer:

These sentiments were not unique to Maddow. Indeed, that all decent people should hope and pray for Trumps speedy recovery was the virtually unanimous consensus of leading Democratic Party figures, expressed by Barack Obama, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. Jane and I wish the President and First Lady a full and speedy recovery, said the Vermont Senator.

How is this messaging we hope the racist fascist genocidal Nazi-like dictator gets well soon and returns to work? not creating extreme cognitive dissonance among those who believed that they actually were sincere in their maximalist denunciations and invocations of fascism and Nazismregarding Trump? Shouldnt liberals not just be confused but overtly disgusted at their leaders who want Trump to survive and return in full health to imposing fascism and genocide on Americans?

Here, for instance, is the fairly representative reaction of a left-wing political operative the Democratic Socialist of Americas Jack Califano, who served as the 2020 Sanders CampaignsDeputy Distributed Organizing Director to Maddows segment urging that all good liberals pray for Trumps recovery and avoid wishing ill on their fellow human being:

That reaction makes logical sense on its own terms. If one really does believe that Trump is a genocidal Nazi a Hitler-equivalent fascist dictator engaged in the deliberate mass slaughter of a particular ethnic or religious group (genocide) then it would be not just irrational but madness and moral bankruptcy to hope that the Nazi genocidal fascist makes a speedy recovery and returns to work. But thats exactly what virtually every prominent Democratic Party leaderis doing. Is Califano regretful about having worked for the presidential campaign of someone who sends warm wishes to a genocidal Nazi?

There are afew potential explanations that may account for this extremely unusual and confounding behavior of praying for, rather than against, the well-being of a fascist dictator. Perhaps Democratic leaders are simply pretending to be hoping for Trumps well-being for political purposes while secretly hoping that he suffers and dies. Or perhapsnational Democratic politicianshave ascended to a state of spiritualelevation rarely seen in modern political history, in which they are capable of praying for even those they most dislike, including ones they believe are imposing fascism on their nation? Or perhaps, maybe more likely, Democratic leaders do not really believe the things they have spent four years saying about Trump and, like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney before him, are applying such labels of historic evil to him for political advantage but still see him as one of them, whom they intend to rehabilitate and honor once he is out of power.

Whatever else is true, their behavior upon hearing that someone they claim toregard as a genocidal racist fascisttyrant has contracted a fatal virus is extremely unusual when compared to how people throughout history react when learning of similar news. It is worth interrogating what accounts for such a baffling dynamic.

Read the original post:

Why Are Democrats Praying for the Speedy Recovery of a Fascist Dictator? - The Intercept

Microphone and US Flag

During the Democratic Weekly Address, Rep. Derek Kilmer (D-WA) stated that a deal on the next round of coronavirus relief needs to be reached because Americans shouldnt have to wait any longer.

Kilmer was Tuesdays KVML Newsmaker of the Day. Here are his words:

Hello, Im Congressman Derek Kilmer, and I proudly represent Washington States sixth congressional district and serve as the Chairman of the New Democrat Coalition. Id like to start by wishing the President, the First Lady and all those who are suffering from COVID-19 a full and speedy recovery.

The COVID-19 pandemic has become the biggest public health crisis of our lifetime and has created the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Responding to a challenge of this magnitude requires bold action. Thats why, back in May, nearly five months ago, the House passed the Heroes Act, a comprehensive coronavirus relief package to deliver help to the frontline. But since that time, the Republican-led Senate has simply dragged its feet, and theyve failed to pass any bill, let alone one thats adequate.

So, this week the House took action yet again, passing an updated version of the Heroes Act, a proposed compromise, but one that will still deliver support to our frontline workers, provide additional direct assistance to families and small businesses, support critical operations for state, local and tribal governments and invest in our nations testing capacity so we can crush this virus. House Democrats moved forward with this bill because we want to do all we can to make sure the American people get all the help they need.

Unfortunately, weve seen a different approach from Senate Republicans and President Trump. In their case, lets pause, has been the mantra. But the people I represent are facing challenges that arent pausing. They need help right now.

When my office has gotten outreach from people who have lost their job or lost their business due to this pandemic, Ive tried to reach out to those folks personally. Ive heard a lot of pain.

Just recently, I spoke to a mom from Port Angeles, my hometown, who said shed worked her entire life until this March when she lost her job. She told me she used to donate to her local food bank, and this month, for the first time, she got help from her local food bank. She said she was struggling to feed her family. Her bills arent pausing. And this updated version of the Heroes Act provides direct support for families to pay their bills and put food on the table.

I spoke to a dad in Bremerton who said he was pounding the pavement looking for work but, in the meantime, was really afraid that his family could lose its home because he simply hasnt been able to make payments. His mortgage payments arent pausing. The Heroes Act we passed this week provides rental and mortgage assistance.

I spoke to a small business owner from Tacoma who broke down as he discussed taking 30 years to build his business, and then having to shut it down. He had planned to pass that family business down to his kids. Main Street employers who are hurting cant wait for the help they need to keep folks on the payroll. This bill provides that help to small businesses and non-profits and provides a lifeline to local restaurants that are struggling to weather this storm.

I spoke to schoolteachers who have seen their lives turned upside-down. More resources are needed so that teachers can continue to teach and students, including my two kids, can continue to learn safely. This bill provides those resources to support our educators and our public schools.

I spoke to a Mayor who is trying to figure out how to pay our heroes, like the first responders and public health workers who keep us safe. This bill provides critical support to ensure they dont get laid off at a time when theyre needed the most.

Folks, these challenges arent just happening in my neck of the woods. Theyre happening in communities all around this country. And economists across the political spectrum agree that, in the absence of further federal action, America faces the real risk of a prolonged recession or even a full-scale depression.

I think what sometimes gets lost in these marble buildings in D.C. is that this is about delivering help For The People. Most people agree with the notion that families shouldnt have to worry about paying their bills or putting food on the table as a consequence of circumstances beyond their control. Thats why weve passed a bill to ensure that families and workers arent getting left behind.

Folks agree that health care workers shouldnt have to worry about getting the personal protective equipment they need to be safe and to care for patients. They agree that sick people should be able to get a test and should have affordable care. Thats why weve passed a bill to provide the resources that health care workers and patients need.

The New Democrat Coalition has been pushing for action and House Democrats are working in good faith to reach a deal that meets the needs of folks in communities across the country. The House vote this week furthers our efforts toward an agreement.

Now, more than ever, we need our Republican colleagues and President Trump to continue negotiating so we can finally secure a relief package that is desperately needed by our fellow Americans.

The American people need action. They need a deal because, quite frankly, they shouldnt have to wait any longer.

The Newsmaker of the Day is heard every weekday morning at 6:45, 7:45 and 8:45 on AM 1450 and FM 102.7 KVML.

Written by Mark Truppner.

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Excerpt from:

Democrats: Americans Shouldnt Have Wait For Coronavirus Relief - MyMotherLode.com

At the debate in Cleveland last week, Joe Biden spent a good deal of time getting shouted over by Donald Trump. But one exchange where the Democratic nominee was emphatic and clear came when Trump said, Your party wants to go socialist medicine and socialist healthcare. Biden made clear why that wouldnt happen.

I am the Democratic Party right now, Biden said. The platform of the Democratic Party is what I, in fact, approved of, what I approved of.

Biden was both right and wrong, in ways that will define the next four years (at least) if he should become president.

More from Paul Waldman

On the immediate policy question, Biden was absolutely right. As he also noted, there was a rather recent primary campaign in which a number of candidates made the case that the party should pursue Medicare for all, and they lost the argument to Joe Biden, who proposed a significant expansion of government health insurance but one that nonetheless stops short of single payer.

Over the years, as the party became more liberal and more ideologically consistent, he grew more liberal as well.

Whether Biden won that argument on the policy merits or because of the political caution that gave him the nominationwith primary voters deciding that an older white man with a moderate image would be more palatable to the general electorateis immaterial. If and when he takes office, Biden will submit a proposal to Congress modeled on his campaign plan. After it passes through the legislative digestive tract it may be substantially different, but what emerges on the other end wont be single payer. It will, however, be the position of the Democratic Party.

The same will be true of most of Bidens lengthy list of proposals: They will be the starting point for most of the policy battles to come. The policy space Biden currently occupies will help define the party.

But its a mistake to understand that as Biden bending the party to his will. His will is and always has been extremely variable. It has already changed and will continue to do so. There isnt anything we could call Bidenism in the same way you could describe Trumpism or Obamaism or Reaganism, as a set of ideas joined to a style of politics. He cant impose it on the party if it doesnt really exist.

Thats in large part, ironically enough, because Joe Biden is in every way a Democratic Party creature, and he always has been. But unlike some other politicians with national ambitions, he never had a plan to remake the party in his image.

Instead, over his long career he moved as the party moved, always adjusting to position himself in its center. He began his time in the Senate opposing busing and favoring restrictions on abortion. When under Bill Clinton the party eagerly tried to portray itself as tough on crime, he led the charge. But over the years, as the party became more liberal and more ideologically consistent, he grew more liberal as well.

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It culminated in the 2020 campaign, in which he embraced a set of policy ideas much more progressive and ambitious than anything the Obama administration seriously pursued. And even after he wrapped up the nomination, Biden kept shifting, endorsing Elizabeth Warrens bankruptcy plan, forming task forces with supporters of Bernie Sanders, and generally trying to form a synthesis that incorporated enough of his opponents ideas to keep the whole party within his fold.

So when Joe Biden says, I am the Democratic Party, he doesnt actually mean it in the way someone like Trump might, whereI am the party really means, the party is me. Biden wants to incorporate all the partys people and ideas, expanding himself until he covers it all. He may use that as an effective comeback to the charge that hes being manipulated by the radical left, but in practice hes working hard to maintain the faith of all the partys factions.

Consider a similar exchange Biden and Trump had in the debate. Amid a lot of shouting and interrupting from Trump over the potential cost of Bidens proposed environmental initiatives, Biden said that he doesnt support the Green New Deal. You just lost the radical left, Trump shot back.

Which reflects how Trump views coalition politics: When it comes to some part of your party, youve either got them or you dont, and you have to keep them. If Biden doesnt give the radical left the symbolic gestures Trump thinks they thirst for, his coalition will fall apart and hell fail.

But what actually happened is that the parts of the Democratic Party that care most deeply about climate change dont seem to be too concerned with whether Biden says, I support the Green New Deal, in a debate. Theyve paid close attention to his positioning on climate, and have been quite encouraged.

In fact, when he released his first climate plan in June 2019, it said Biden believes the Green New Deal is a crucial framework for meeting the climate challenges we face. Since then, he may have backed away from the Green New Deal as a symbol but he has moved left on the substance of the issue.

So when Biden released a post-primary, updated climate plan in July 2020, it was far more aggressive than his first one, even if he wasnt name-checking the Green New Deal anymore. Climate activists were pleasantly surprised; reflecting the sentiment, a co-founder of the Sunrise Movement tweeted that Bidens proposal to get to 100 percent clean electricity by 2035 is a VERY BIG DEAL, and is a huge victory for the #GreenNewDeal movement.

By now, all parts of the Democratic coalition understand that Biden might do what they want on any given issue, but there are no guarantees. It will depend on what his incentives are, what sorts of pressure he feels, and where the clearest path to success seems to lie.

Which means theyll have to do a lot more work than if they had a president who simply imposed his will from above whether they liked it or notbut it also means theyll stand a better chance of getting their ideas translated into action. Governing is different from campaigning, but so far Bidens strategy to hold together a party that contains multitudes seems to be working.

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Read the original here:

What Biden Means When He Says, I Am the Democratic Party - The American Prospect

Nobody in his right mind would support a political party that condones (silence for several weeks and silence speaks pretty loudly) looting, burning and destroying of private property. Nobody in his right mind would support anyone who sanctions socialist/Marxist ideologies as well as the "new green deal initiative" thatwould gut airplane, train and fossil-fueled auto travel.

Most of us are old enough to realize there is no free this and no free that. Someone will pay for it, and it most likely will be the lower and middle class person who happens to have a job or jobs.

Be in the "right" mind and support the Republicans before it is too late. Republicans do not promise free stuff. They know nothing is free. If you vote Democrat, you will be taxed into poverty-oblivion.

Alice Burbank

Old Lyme

Go here to read the rest:

Democrats will tax us into oblivion - News from southeastern Connecticut - theday.com

Jay Ambrose is an OpEd columnist for Tribune News Service.

President Donald Trump has been infected by the COVID-19 virus, and no doubt there are thousands out there saying it serves him right, that he has shrugged his shoulders at the pandemic, even refused to wear face masks and has caused thousands of deaths.

I would say something different, that this is still another event marking 2020 as one of the strangest years in American history, one that signals good reasons to shake and shiver, and not only because of a frightful pandemic and an ultra-bizarre president. Have you noticed principle-shattering leftists, bureaucratic rot, a racial justice movement overtaken by unjust riots, the war on law enforcement, congressional extremism, media degeneration, social media mayhem and that some of the science deniers about climate change are the totalitarian alarmists?

Yes, Trump has been a helter-skelter messenger on the pandemic, an occasional absurdity promoter and a misleading dueler with a gotcha press. In the early going, he seemed almost as unconcerned as Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York, Joe Biden and half of everyone else. But the administration was up to all kinds of meaningful, media-neglected actions early on, with some of the goofs actually coming from the CDC. Trump was definitively instructed by critics that he had no authority over the states. That is correct, and it is the states that have made the mistakes in resolving this deadly medical mystery, not him.

The Washington Free Beacon recently ran a list of Bidens phony campaign assertions about Trump and the virus, and keep them in mind in assessing how miswrought his own leadership could be. He said Trump silenced a CDC expert when he didnt, that he called the virus a hoax when he was referring to Democratic shenanigans, that he eliminated a pandemic office that had instead been reconstituted, that he put no pressure on China when he did, that he reduced our CDC scientists in China when he didnt and that he refused virus test kits from the World Health Organization that never said we could have them.

I know, only Trump lies are important, but he is not lying when he says it is crucial to get the economy started again. If you think that doesnt matter as much as virus dangers, look at the white working class in which 150,000 people have long been dying of alcohol, drugs and suicide each year at least partly in reaction to economic shifts taking away jobs. We could have years of struggle if we dont get started while at least being as careful as Sweden that has handled the virus pretty well without a shutdown.

Trump helped put together an outstanding economy before the virus while Biden wants debt more than Trump does and taxes and more regulations that would in effect be another shutdown that he says he might call for anyway.

Biden also says he might favor packing of the Supreme Court, an extreme leftist position that could lead to parties rearranging the court and thereby destroying it whenever they resumed control of the White House and Senate. This is the Democrats today, the party that worked with the FBI to indulge in a farcical investigation of the Trump campaign coordinating with the Russians in illegal means of winning in 2016. Information is mounting about the connivance in all of this. Its no small thing to try to unseat a president illegitimately and intimidate governance for more than two years, and the current treatment of Bidens conflicts of interest as nothing much shows a morally twisted prejudice.

My point in all of this is that the election-year issues arent as straightforward as some pretend, that, while Trump is scary, the other side is in some ways far scarier, that preserving Republican control of the Senate is imperative and that the public should consider varied points of view.

Meanwhile, I wish Trump, his wife and other virus victims the best while hoping he may return for another debate with a touch of humility.

Originally posted here:

Trump has the virus and Democrats have their faults - Bangor Daily News