Winning by failing has been Donald Trump’s signature business strategy, and now it is his political strategy. Since he couldn’t force the Justice Department to arrest Biden or coerce the courts to overturn the election results, he is left to enrich himself and maintain his influence with his fans and GOP elected officials. Thankfully for democracy, Americans now face not a coup d’état but yet another scam from Donald Trump – and probably not his last.
Repeatedly, professionals in the intelligence agencies, the Office of Management and Budget, and more recently election officials, have fought to hold the line. Just this week, 16 assistant US attorneys wrote a letter reported in The Washington Post, challenging Attorney General William Barr’s attempt to thrust “career prosecutors into partisan politics” so as to buttress the president’s fantasies. Trump seems to grasp that it’s the career administrators he needs to worry about. Maybe that is why his administration is frantically replacing professionals with loyal yes-men and Trump donors. Recent purges include a senior climate scientist, two top Homeland Security officials and a senior cybersecurity official whose agency refuted Trump’s claims of election fraud. If he continues in this vein, he will have compromised the last, and most effective check we have, bringing us that much closer to the 17th century.
Bolton noted that the Trump campaign has so far lost all but two of more than 30 legal challenges in various states. “Right now Trump is throwing rocks through windows, he is the political equivalent of a street rioter,” Bolton said.
Trump saw an opportunity in the division and still does. He took a wedge to all the cracks. (ODT
But when a new enemy emerged in the form of the coronavirus, instead of uniting against it, the 15 Americas turned on each other. Now with the virus raging through the country, eight Americas managed to unite behind a new president. It’s difficult to see how he will be able to bring the other seven on board with him to defeat the virus and heal divisions.
Giuliani and Trump might think it’s about him staying in office, but this is all pure Bannon. And it’s very dangerous. “Anything that aids and abets doubts about an election that has been conducted with integrity makes the future of democracy darker,” William Galston, senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution told the Post. “To weaken a democratic people’s faith in its fundamental institutions of self-government is inexcusable.”
China’s foreign ministry plans to target Australia’s human rights record on Indigenous affairs and aged care as it ramps up its dispute with the Morrison government. The escalation follows a sharp rejection of China’s threats by Prime Minister Scott Morrison who on Thursday said Australia would not compromise on national security or freedom of speech after the Chinese embassy released a list of 14 grievances with Australia that threatens up to $20 billion in trade.
By Grumpy Geezer No grace, no dignity, no humility, no magnanimity, no class, no morals, no empathy, no soul. He has no friends, not even a dog. His wife can’t bear his touch, his daughter can’t avoid it.
A low-income American earning $35,000 this year would be earning $61,000. A college-educated worker now earning $72,000 would be earning $120,000. Overall, the grotesque surge in inequality that began 40 years ago is costing the median American worker $42,000 per year. The upward redistribution of $47 trillion wasn’t due to natural forces. It was contrived. As wealth accumulated at the top, so did political power to siphon off even more wealth and shaft everyone else.
More smoke and mirrors from Rupert Murdoch, as News Corp gets all “scientific” with Big Tobacco, writes Rhys Muldoon. WITH PROFITS down, News Corp, like many media companies, has had to find new revenue streams.
Hate crimes in the United States rose to the highest level in more than a decade as federal officials also recorded the highest number of hate-motivated killings since the FBI began collecting that data in the early 1990s, according to an FBI report released on Monday. The report was alarming to advocacy organisations, including the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which tracks hates groups.
So when, exactly, would we need to worry? If Trump’s desperate tweets and lawsuits fail, he will be faced with a stark choice: going out with a whimper of sore-loser tweets or attempting to send armed federal officers into the streets and calling out supporters who are currently standing back and standing by. “At the end of the day, if he wants to stay in power, he either has to get the courts to side with him or he’ll have to get the support of people with guns,” said Chin. “The [Defense Department] doesn’t see its role as propping up this or any president, but Trump has mobilized other security forces — as he did against Black Lives Matters protests this summer. If there’s a reprise of those types of deployments or he gets armed supporters to back him, that would be quite troubling.” In other words, keep your eyes on the streets, especially if mass demonstrations begin to occur around the country. To this point, if he’s actually trying to conduct an autogolpe, Trump has bungled it as badly as any fiasco of the last four years. But we’re not out of the woods yet. “A nightmare scenario could still happen,” Chin warned. “Between now and January, we’re still in a heightened danger zone.”
The US has topped 150,000 new daily cases for the first time, doubling in three weeks to set a record as the president was still missing in action and tweeting about a “Rigged Election!”.
“President-elect Joe Biden won legitimately and decisively. No matter how much Donald and his enablers lie and spin, nothing will change that,” she said in a tweet on Sunday night.
“But they’re going to break as much as they can on the way out. Stay vigilant–this is an attempted coup.”
Money grab franchise terminally ill from the get go. Trump won’t invest he has only debt from his last gig to invest. His name is terminally dead.
Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Corp shares tumbled with speculation ramping up that President Donald Trump might back or launch a rival news service after he leaves office.
The statement from officials at CISA, an agency of the Department of Homeland Security, undercuts President Donald Trump’s lies about rampant voter fraud.
Murdoch’s hirelings are ready. Unfortunately for Hanson-Young, the News Corp imperium is skilled in camouflaging inertia against change with promises of activity. The inquiry’s terms of reference are also shallow, omitting any reference to News Corp Australia while calling for an examination of the “state of media diversity, independence and reliability in Australia and the impact that this has on public interest journalism and democracy.”
I hate to say this but Rupert Murdoch said this was America’s biggest problem and something had to be done about it well before Trump even entered the race for the Presidency. I’m about to say Trump didn’t invent Trumpism but Rupert Murdoch did and chose Trump to politicize it. Trump did but that’s as far as he got. He delivered little more than a shit load of promises and was boosted by Murdoch. It’s why Murdoch believes it’s JOE TIME (ODT)
The only liberal antidote to Trumpism is actually doing something material to aid those who’ve fallen for it — giving them something in their lives to noticeably improve their social welfare, redistributing wealth downwards. Franklin Roosevelt absorbed this lesson, as evidenced by the New Deal Coalition; it is unclear if a Biden administration is capable of doing the same. Indeed, if Biden’s administration doesn’t do anything to materially improve the lives of millions of working voters, Trumpism is apt to get stronger, not weaker, in the next four years.
Media magnate Rupert Murdoch and outgoing US President Donald Trump have long had a rocky relationship – but the pair share one thing in common. They both love to win.
In one last chaotic push Mr Trump could gift himself legal immunity, fire leading officials he doesn’t like, and worst-case scenario, launch a nuclear war.
Twitter has added multiple warnings and labels to Mr Trump’s tweets There’s been significant moments communicated by the President via Twitter Mr Trump’s posts would no longer be exempt from review by Facebook’s fact-checking partners
Trump is not expected to give a concession speech, and it’s not clear whether he will assist Biden with the transition or appear with him on Inauguration Day.
The media are reporting that anti-Trump protesters are outnumbering pro-Trump protesters at various places throughout the USA. This is being disputed by the Trump camp who argue that only protesters who’d been there since Election Day should be counted.
Trump says presidential race is far from over, accuses Biden’s ‘media allies’ of hiding the truth.“We all know why Joe Biden is rushing to falsely pose as the winner, and why his media allies are trying so hard to help him: they don’t want the truth to be exposed. The simple fact is this election is far from over. Joe Biden has not been certified as the winner of any states, let alone any of the highly contested states headed for mandatory recounts, or states where our campaign has valid and legitimate legal challenges that could determine the ultimate victor. In Pennsylvania, for example, our legal observers were not permitted meaningful access to watch the counting process. Legal votes decide who is president, not the news media.
If the Coalition was serious about helping those who have a go, they would be giving larger tax cuts to those who would value the extra $20 or thereabouts a week and spend it on fixing the car, paying the outstanding bills or going away for the weekend for the first time in years, rather than those who really won’t even notice the extra $20 a week in their bank accounts. Morrison and Frydenberg had the perfect opportunity to make a real change for the better. Did they take it? – nope, of course they didn’t.
Pennsylvania Governor, Tom Wolf has condemned a lawsuit filed by President Donald Trump’s campaign to stop the counting of ballots in the State. Trump’s campaign had filed a lawsuit to stop vote counting in Pennsylvania. Also Trump’s campaign demanded recount of votes in Wisconsin. Democrat governor Wolf, reacting during a press conference, described the action as against the basic principles of democracy and disgraceful.
In news that should surprise nobody (but which is really encouraging to have quantified in some numbers), a study of 17 US counties has concluded that if Donald Trump has held a rally there, coronavirus infections spike 82% of the time.
The President of the United States is a disease vector. Pass it on.
The fact is the LNP has increasingly modelled itself on the GOP and its transactional politics. It threw Democratic values out the door long ago (ODT)
On paper, America’s process for selecting judges is proofed against partisanship and corruption, while ours is open to all kinds of malfeasance. Yet in practice it’s a different story altogether.
Some Hong Kong and Taiwan people support the Trump administration’s China policy But experts caution that it’s Congress, not Mr Trump, that is pressuring China Experts say Joe Biden is not expected to present a stark change in US foreign policy on China
Just as Trump has a rusted on ‘base’, which lets him feel he is universally worshipped – except by the foolish few who believe ‘fake’ news – so, too, has the Coalition enabled Morrison to believe he is doing a good job of managing the economy, the country and our place in the world
Brookfield’s make-up artists are hard at work. They’ve taken “coal” out of the title, hired every broker in town to flog the thing and, in the most telling move, are rushing to get the deal done before the end of the year. Michael West reports on the ASX float of Dalrymple Infrastructure, which looks set to siphon off Aussie cash to an offshore haven, with yield-hungry retirees paying the price.
It’s both comical and disconcerting to see the Prime Minister huffing and puffing over a few, admittedly expensive, gold watches. As news of Australia Post CEO Christine Holgate’s up-market gifts for her senior executives surfaced this week, Morrison was apparently incensed.
Former PM Kevin Rudd has sought a royal commission into the Murdoch family’s influence on Australian democracy. Founder and director David Donovan explains how the Murdochs have subverted Australia’s frail democracy for over a century. THE IMPACT of the Murdochs on Australian politics is no new thing. It is in their blood and seemingly regarded as their birthright. This power to manipulate the Australian people through the information they are allowed to receive has, in fact, spanned three generations.
If Trump wins, expect to see dangerously unqualified ideologues in charge of the FBI, CIA, Pentagon and other key posts. There will be kangaroo court trials of Clinton, Obama, Biden and anyone else on the Fox News target list. There will be more comprehensive purges across government of career civil servants in favor of culture war inquisitors. The intelligence and immigration services will likely be converted into a secret police persecuting liberals and protesters (even more than they have been historically), and Trump will do all he can to use the full might of the military against civilian opposition.It is an unthinkable nightmare from which it would take generations to awaken–and America has just nine days left to stop it.
A crossbench plan to implement a federal anti-corruption commission has lit a fire under the federal Coalition and upped pressure on Scott Morrison to act on mounting government rorts.
In refusing to introduce acceptable air pollution standards, Australia’s politicians are essentially saying our lives and health do not matter, writes David Ritter.
As Donald Trump sees it, “We are leading the World in Economic Recovery.” Yet, less than two weeks before election day, the economy is weaker than he will ever acknowledge. The number of employed Americans in September was still 7 percent below the levels in February: Eight months into the pandemic, 10.7 million fewer people have jobs than before COVID-19. Those job losses are more than twice as great as those seen eight months into the Great Recession. And ominously for the president’s political fortunes, the recovery has not reached millions of Americans whose votes he most needs to win. Jobs issues could well imperil Trump’s reelection hopes, especially in critical swing states.
Perhaps though, what has annoyed the lynch mob most is that Andrews’ strategy for controlling the spread of COVID-19 in Victoria has worked. The number of cases has been falling steadily. This past weekend, record low figures were achieved. As a result, restrictions have been eased, as promised, with more to come next weekend. Whatever he does though, it will never be right, never enough for his detractors. The painful reality for the lynch mob though is that Andrews has stared them down, and they don’t like it. This daily inquisition is demeaning, unnecessary, unbecoming, and a pox on our politics. It must now stop.
Martha MacCallum, Fox News executive editor and anchor of The Story with Martha MacCallum, pushes right-wing narratives, pro-Trump talking points, and Republican spin during her on air appearances on Fox News. Part of the so-called “straight news” division, MacCallum has featured heavily in the network’s election coverage, as well as its promotional material, alongside anchor Bret Baier. Network executives have relied on the “straight news” operation to deflect criticism of the extreme racism and propaganda spewed nightly by opinion hosts like Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham in an effort to deter advertisers from fleeing their toxic programming.
Facebook Twitter Reddit Email Why are Havana’s food markets so empty? For the Cuban people, the U.S. War on Venezuela stands out as a clear culprit contributing to these daily frustrations and hardships.
Donald Trump considers any election in which he is not the “winner” to be null and void. Trump’s appointment of Amy Coney Barrett to the United States Supreme Court is an obvious quid pro quo to secure his “reelection” if his attorneys and other agents can sufficiently sabotage the vote on Election Day and beyond.
![A group of protesters demonstrate against a KKK rally in Charlottesville in 2017 [File: Steve Helber/AP Photo]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/AP_17199454813505.jpg?resize=770%2C513)
![Trump says he will not rest 'until the American People have the honest vote count they deserve' [Reuters]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/image-25.jpg?resize=770%2C513)
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