Fears are growing, stoked by the president’s own comments, that he will refuse to peacefully leave office should he lose the election in November. How concerned should we be, and what can we do to make sure we’re prepared? Joshua Geltzer, visiting law professor at Georgetown University and a former member of Barack Obama’s National Security Council, joins Mehdi Hasan to discuss.
Deconstructed: What if Trump Won’t Go?
Alabama: Trump won it by 14% in 2016, now down 4% on that (to 10%).
Arkansas: Won by nearly 16% in 2016, now down by 13.5% to a 2.5% lead. What is going on there?
Florida (possible change): Trump won by nearly 1.5% in 2016, with a swing so far close to 3.5%, he is 2.3% behind.
Georgia: Volatile this week. Trump won by 5% in 2016, with a swing of 3.5% he holds on 1.5% in front.
Louisiana: Won by 20% in 2016, now down 4% on that.
Mississippi: Won by 18% in 2016, now down 8% on that.
North Carolina (possible change): Won by 3.5% in 2016, with a swing so far of 5.5%, he is 2% behind.
South Carolina: Won by 18% in 2016, now down 12% on that. Tennessee: Won by 26%, now down 17% on that.
Texas: Volatile this week. Won by 9% in 2016, with a swing so far of 8%, he is holding on 1% in front.
Virginia: The only former Confederate state carried by the Democrats in 2016. Lost by Trump by 5.5%, with a swing of 8.5% he is trailing now by 14%.
Donald Trump doing it tough down in Dixie
Trump can’t keep himself from sounding like a Nazi. Campaigning in Minnesota, he told the almost all-white crowd, most of Scandinavian descent, “You have good genes.”
After praising Nordic “genes,” Trump slams Jewish Americans and Muslim Americans
An executive order Is. Not. Law. Let’s turn it over to Nicholas Bagley, law professor at the University of Michigan and health law expert. “Traditionally, executive orders are instructions to agency officials about how to exercise their congressionally delegated powers,” he explains. “Maybe they should issue a new rule or set new enforcement priorities.” But they are not law. They are, according to Bagley again, “internal memos with a fancy header. That’s all they are.”
Trump Signs Meaningless Paper, Promises Bribes To Seniors And Calls It His Healthcare Plan | Crooks and Liars
On Thursday, Tucker Carlson bolstered a corrupt attack on mail-in ballots that was eagerly promoted by Trump
Trump, Barr, and Fox News are working in concert to undermine confidence in the election | Media Matters for America
My thoughts for the day Honesty isn’t popular anymore. It doesn’t carry the weight of society’s approval it once did. * * * I found it impossible to imagine that the Australian people could be so gullible as to elect for a third term a government that has performed so miserably in the first two and has amongst its members some of the most devious, suspicious and corrupt men and women, but they did. (John Lord)
Just because we are governed by clowns it doesn’t mean we have to laugh – » The Australian Independent Media Network
He switched to an announcement-based approach to leadership, and it made complete sense. In the current environment, there are no disincentives for doing so. Press conferences are held at short notice with details postponed until later, and inconvenient questions are easily batted away, well after headlines have established an underlying narrative. Outlets rush to break the news first, follow-ups are negligible, corrections are buried, and the media as a whole paints the picture you would expect from an ecosystem increasingly dominated by supporters of Morrison and his government (most notably in the News Corp stable). It’s all working for the prime minister – he’s a self-styled practical dad, an optimist taking care of business. If there are objections or uncomfortable revelations, he doesn’t accept the premise of your question. Next, please. And tomorrow he’ll have another announcement.
The announcement artist | The Monthly
WHAT does all this mean for Australia? Defence gives an average price of less than $126 million for Australia’s 72 F-35s when fully operational by 2023. It is the ongoing costs of maintenance and support that are the killer. The Australian Strategy Policy Institute estimates the sustainment costs to be triple those of the F-18 fighters it replaces. Bloomberg reported this month that the confidential estimates of the Pentagon’s Cost Analysis Unit now put the F-35’s life cycle operating and sustainment costs at $US1.723 trillion in 2020 dollars – easily the most expensive weapons program in history. It says that $1.266 trillion of the $US1.723 trillion is for operations and support and the rest for the initial acquisition cost. On this basis, the life cycle cost in current dollars for Australia’s F 35s will be approximately $(A)475 million per plane. The sustainment costs are so high it’s likely the US will keep cutting the total number of planes it buys from its proposed 2400, thus adding to unit costs.
King of Lemons: Australia swindled by Lockheed Martin and its Joint Strike Fighter – Michael West
There are those who do back-flips, and triple backward somersaults with a twist. Then there is Communications Minister Paul Fletcher. The saga of the National Broadband Network continues as the Government this week announced a large-scale upgrade to fibre, heralding it as “an idea whose time has finally come”. It’s cost $14.5 billion more than budget, is under-performing and now the Government wants to spend another $3.5 billion to upgrade it, while competition looms. Australia is ranked 50 in internet speed worldwide. We’re well below almost every country in Europe and North America and many including ‘developing’ countries in South-East Asia. And we are failing badly when compared with our cousins across the ditch. Kiwis enjoy twice the average download speed of what Australians enjoy.
Backflips and somersaults – the NBN black comedy takes a new twist
I haven’t met a person who lived or lives on the streets and has not said that it is the hardest, scariest, worst of living.
Australia’s homeless — third highest rate and street homeless deaths increasing
Trump’s plan to clean the forests up so there’s less to burn(ODT)
Plan to open Alaska’s Tongass national forest to logging faces backlash from environmental advocates, tribal nations and fishermen
Trump administration advances plan to cut protections for largest national forest | US news | The Guardian
Luxury cars are inextricably linked with the weapons industry. When James Bond saves the world in his faithful Aston Martin he is glamourising the very industry he is ostensibly trying to defeat. Tasha May reports.
A masterful PR campaign: the links between Hollywood, luxury cars and the arms industry – Michael West
There are more ways to skin a cat in Russia without Novochok and Putin should know. However can the cat be silenced? (ODT)
Mr Navalny has a long-running dispute with Moscow Schoolchild catering company The Russian court ordered for damages to be paid over libel Tests in Germany found he was poisoned with Novichok nerve agent but the Kremlin denies involvement
Poisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has assets frozen by court – ABC News
I suspect the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg means Donald Trump will win November’s US election. You might think conversely that it favours Joe Biden, and you might even be right. What interests me is that everyone agrees her death is hugely significant.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death a win for Trump in 2020
The Australian tax office claims it has been ripped off by as much as hundreds of millions of dollars under mass tax evasion schemes allegedly run by professional advisers
Phoenixing: how unscrupulous dealers rise debt-free from the ashes of failed companies | Australia news | The Guardian
Behind closed doors, government ministers beholden to monopoly capitalists cherry-pick which industry sectors get the most hand-outs. Take for example the unscrupulous extraction industry receiving fuel subsidies and a raft of other tax-breaks designed to offset the operational costs of doing business. While the working class suffer the financial burden that comes from the inequity of a 10% regressive goods and services tax, rent-seekers and other capitalists benefit handsomely from government wilfully leaving gaping loopholes in the tax system.
The big lie – » The Australian Independent Media Network
My beautiful but astonishingly pooey two-year-old has handled himself through this pandemic with more grace than Melbourne’s largest newspaper. And the Victorian Liberal Party. Both of whom should feel grateful I’ve listed them as distinct entities.
These creeps are going to make the next few weeks harder than they need to be | The Shot
Yesterday Crikey mistakenly referred to Lachlan Murdoch in a headline on a story about ex-British Labour MP Tom Watson. In the headline we incorrectly likened Lachlan Murdoch to an organised crime figure.
Crikey apologises to Lachlan Murdoch
The promise to change irresponsible lending practices force the LNP to draw up a bill to put the reins on payday lending so that people aren’t simply caught up in the debt trap the LNP in their wisdom are cancelling that bill. Australians already carry am inordinate amount of personal debt an the government are about to increase that. Yes the talk about the abstract but divide peoples lives.
Customers will be promised faster access to loans under simpler rules that aim to free up credit and lift the economy by ending confusion over lending obligations for banks and finance companies.
Simpler lending rules for home loans and credit to free up the economy
“Senator Bernie Sanders is planning to mount an aggressive campaign to counter potential attempts by President Donald Trump to delegitimise the results of the November election, warning that Democrats and Republicans alike must do “everything that we can to prevent that from happening.”
Bernie Sanders sounds alarm on a Trump ‘nightmare scenario’
The UN leadership fears President Trump and his volatile reaction psychology – “America First.” American masses are increasingly assuming anti-racism stance and marching for human equality and racial justice. President Trump alleges conspiracy and calls them “extremists’ and ‘thugs” disturbing the law and order.
Strange Celebrations of the UN 75th Anniversary
In America the Right raises funds for the Kenosha shootings accused and Israel does the same for the convicted settler (ODT)
Deep-rooted anti-Palestinian racism is endemic across large segments of Israeli society. This was demonstrated yet again when an Israeli crowdfunding campaign raised over 1.38 million NIS (equivalent to £310,000) in just five days last week for the legal appeal fund of Amiram Ben Uliel, the Israeli terrorist who received three life sentences for killing three members of the Palestinian Dawabsheh family five years ago. Ben Uliel’s arson attack on 31 July 2015, killed 18-month-old toddler Ali Dawabsheh and his parents Saad and Riham. Ahmed Dawabsheh, the sole survivor of the attack and only five years old at the time, was left with second- and third-degree burns on over 60 per cent of his body.
Israeli Right raises $400K for Israeli Settler convicted of Burning up Palestinian Family, Toddler
By sanctifying selfishness, it has undermined community-mindedness and the role of co-operation in advancing our mutual interests. Voting has become a simple matter of “what’s in it for me and mine”, while businesses and industries have been licensed to lobby for preferment at the expense of everyone else. “In recent decades the balance between these instincts [of competition and co-operation] has become dangerously skewed: mutuality has been undermined by an extreme individualism which has weakened co-operation and polarised our politics,”
Since the late 1970s, however, Americans have talked less about the common good and more about self-aggrandisement; less “we’re all in it together” and more “you’re on your own”. There’s been “growing cynicism and distrust toward all the basic institutions of American society – governments, the media, corporations” and more.
Thinking economists are grappling with why their profession has made our lives worse
The Coalition will continue to devote taxpayer dollars to deny the science until they are voted out, or until climate change finally wins.
Angus Taylor’s coal and gas roadmap to nowhere
Outgoing Westpac chief Peter King has asked regulators if it would be ok to settle their impending $1.3 billion fine for money laundering and child exploitation with a half dozen briefcases filled with $100 notes.
Westpac To Pay $1.3 Billion Money Laundering Fine Using Unmarked 100 dollar Notes | The Shovel
I just want to sit in a cafe drinking an entire coffee in the actual cafe I bought the coffee in
Welcome back to the world Melbourne (almost sort of hang in there!) | First Dog on the Moon | Opinion | The Guardian
People in public life tend to fall into one of two broad categories – those who are motivated by principle, and those motivated by power.
For RBG it was all Principle, for Mitch McConnell it’s all Power | The Smirking Chimp
Donald Trump tries to portray himself as pro-worker. Nowhere is this absurdity better exposed than in the decisions of his National Labor Relations Board, which have over and over again favored bosses rather than workers.
Trump Claims He’s Pro-Worker. But His Labor Board Is Trying to Destroy Worker Organizing.
In September 20th, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) –the reporters who brought us the “Panama Papers” and the “Paradise Papers” — released the “FinCEN Files,” in collaboration with Buzzfeed News. The FinCEN Files are the result of a U.S. leak of 2,100 “Suspicious Activity Reports” (SARs) – covering over 18,000 transactions — filed by banks when they believe a transaction may involve fraud, corruption, or other criminal activity. SAR reports are not public. A former U.S. Treasury official leaked the documents to expose corruption.
FinCen Files Shine Spotlight on Suspicious Bank Transfers | The Smirking Chimp
An unprecedented leak of thousands of files from the US government’s most confidential financial intelligence database has shone a spotlight on the world’s $2 trillion-a-year dirty money habit. As Nathan Lynch reveals, this story goes much deeper than the glib “bad bankers” narrative being trotted out by the world’s media.
Dirty money leaks shine a spotlight on kleptocrats devouring our economy – Michael West
Scott Morrison has perfected the art of media manipulation by briefing a select club of Canberra correspondents at once, rather than leaking to individual media outlets. Callum Foote and Michael West report on the marketing genius of the Prime Minister and the increasingly meek mainstream media.
Feeding the Chooks: Scott Morrison’s marketing triumph over mainstream media – Michael West
“This has meant Australian taxpayers have paid more for a network that does less, and more money is now required to play catch up,” she said in a statement issued on Tuesday. “What on earth was the point of spending $51bn of taxpayers’ dollars on the Liberals’ second-rate copper network to begin with?” In 2018, the outgoing chief executive of NBN Co, Bill Morrow, admitted that the reliance on copper had led to a higher fault rate and slower internet speeds but helped deliver the network faster and more cheaply.
Coalition to announce $3.5bn NBN upgrade to roll out fibre ‘deeper and closer to homes’ | Technology | The Guardian
Abbott’s chasing his Knighthood he can no longer get one in Australia (ODT)
And amid the current round of negotiations between Australia and Great Britain, there stands good reason for the reunited strange bedfellows of Abbott dealing with the Morrison government, according to the ACTU, for the following anti-worker characteristics: • No adequate protections for local workers and their jobs • Unregulated exploitation of vulnerable migrant workers • Deregulation of public services • and Investor-State Dispute Settlement provisions that allow foreign corporations to sue governments for changes to domestic law.
Internationally, unions fearful of Abbott’s past trade reputation – » The Australian Independent Media Network
In any other universe, recovering from one public health crisis by worsening another would spark immediate backlash. An “asbestos led recovery” would be career-ending; as would a “tobacco led recovery” or a “AK-47 led recovery”. But fossil fuels have locked their harm so deeply into our lives that we have become desensitised to this incredible, radical significance of proposing to hurt humans as a pathway to helping them. What is happening here is simultaneously deadly and ludicrous. (Ketan Joshi Renew Economy).
Stop the lies, Morrison. Your gas-led recovery is a toxic sham. – » The Australian Independent Media Network
And so, there are mining companies and then there are mining companies. If the sacking of executives at Rio Tinto was an act of contrition, it was at least a step in the right direction. It won’t, however, solve the power imbalance with Indigenous community relations. But FMG’s latest decision is incredibly tone-deaf. It speaks to a parochial desire to deny the sanctity of this place, which many traditional owners recognise and which many non-Indigenous citizens also support.
‘Twiggy’ refuses to rule out destruction of Aboriginal sacred sites
When Rupert Murdoch decided to shut down 112 regional newspapers around Australia he did it in the typical Murdoch fashion. He was not satisfied with the returns from these regional mastheads so rather than sell them off to people who weren’t so concerned about a bottom line but who had a passion for journalism and for their community and who could make them work, he decided to completely shut-down 36 and move 76 behind a digital paywall.
On your bike, Roop! – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Over the next 48 days, let us do all we can to deliver a decisive victory for Joe Biden on November 3. And once we do that, let us remain vigilant to see to it that Trump allows for the peaceful transition of power.
The Possibility That Trump Will Not Voluntarily Leave | The Smirking Chimp
DeSantis’ proposed bill came on the same day that the U.S. Department of Justice designated New York City, Seattle, and Portland—where anti-racism demonstrations continued 119 days after the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd—as “anarchist jurisdictions.”
‘Sledgehammer to Permanently Silence Opposing Voices’: Outrage Over Florida Gov. DeSantis’ Proposed Anti-Protest Bill | Common Dreams News
“Much of this equipment and technology is given under the guise of either narcotics, policing, or counterterrorism. Ultimately, a lot of it gets used to monitor protests.”
Operation Legend Is Bringing Surveillance Tech to Cities
The first to seal its frontier was the Marshall Islands. Samoa, Tonga, Kiribati, Palau, Micronesia, Tuvalu, Nauru, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands, followed suit. Six months on, most of the world is ravaged by the coronavirus but these island nations remain virus free.
Coronavirus: Only 12 countries are free of COVID-19. Most of them in the Pacific
As wildfires destroy millions of acres in California, Oregon, and Washington, and an unprecedented series of hurricanes cause historic flooding in the South, leaving parts of the region uninhabitable, the Trump administration has been racing to reverse rules designed to prevent exactly these kinds of climate disasters.
The Race to Demolish Environmental Protections
Australia could potentially waste another industrial boom
Australia’s renewable energy endowment means that there is likely to be a boom similar to that of the mining industry in the early 2000s, writes Tim Cornwall. THE MINING BOOM of the early 2000s was horribly wasted by the Howard Government. Over the next few decades, to the chagrin of the current Australian Government, the economics of renewable energy will render the fossil fuel industry obsolete. As detailed by Ross Garnaut among many others, Australia stands to gain the most from this transition and stands to lose the most from delaying it. As the transition inevitably occurs, however quickly or slowly, we should learn the lessons from our last industry boom. Will we allow the profits to be siphoned to tax havens or take advantage to build a better Australia?
Australia could potentially waste another industrial boom
Just as boys and girls with leanings toward the Right tend to join the armed forces, so do Right-leaning youngsters get recruited as spies. A spy is a person employed by a government to obtain secret information or intelligence about another country and individuals within it. Spies come in many shapes and forms. They can be full or part-time, they can be sleepers, activated as needed. Or even members of professional or sporting associations and academics who report regularly or as required, or when they judge something is of interest to their minder. They might be journalists, but they shouldn’t be. Sometimes diplomats are spies; sometimes spies use the cover of diplomacy to undertake their activities.
Getting back to the roots of spycraft
The common good, or empathy for it, should be at the centre of any political philosophy. However, it is more likely to be found on the left than the right.
Newspoll, Insiders, and what’s new in politics – » The Australian Independent Media Network
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