Democrats prep teams of lawyers for ‘Election Week’

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House Democrats, confident of gaining ground in Tuesday’s elections, are also girding for a protracted legal battle over the results of contested races.

President Trump and his Republican allies have voiced heavy doubts about the validity of ballots cast this cycle, particularly in states that have expanded early voting and mail-in options to account for health concerns surrounding the coronavirus pandemic.

With that in mind, the House Democrats’ campaign arm has teamed up with Democrats in the Senate, the states and within the grass-roots community to field teams of lawyers spread around the country in anticipation of long, litigious fights over the legitimacy of ballots. Continue reading.

Scoop: Generals privately brief news anchors, promise no military role in election

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Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley held an off-the-record video call with top generals and network anchors this weekend to tamp down speculation about potential military involvement in the presidential election, two people familiar with the call tell Axios.

Why it matters: The nation’s top military official set up Saturday’s highly unusual call to make clear that the military’s role is apolitical, one of the sources said — and to dispel any notion of a role for the military in adjudicating a disputed election or making any decision around removing a president from the White House.

  • Milley told the anchors that the U.S. military would have no role whatsoever in a peaceful transfer of power, one source added.

Poor US pandemic response will reverberate in health care politics for years, health scholars warn

Much has been written about the U.S. coronavirus response. Media accounts frequently turn to experts for their insights – commonly, epidemiologists or physicians. Countless surveyshave also queried Americans and individuals from around the world about how the pandemic has affected them and their attitudes and opinions. 

Yet little is known about the views of a group of people particularly well qualified to render judgment on the U.S.‘s response and offer policy solutions: academic health policy and politics researchers. These researchers, like the two of us, come from a diverse set of disciplines, including public health and public policy. Their research focuses on the intricate linkages between politics, the U.S. health system and health policy. They are trained to combine applied and academic knowledge, take broader views and be fluent across multiple disciplines.

To explore this scholarly community’s opinions and perceptions, we surveyed hundreds of U.S.-based researchers, first in April 2020 and then again in September. Specifically, we asked them about the U.S. COVID-19 response, the upcoming elections and the long-term implications of the pandemic and response for the future of U.S. health policy and the broader political system. Continue reading.

Also on the ballot: The future of the Trump political dynasty

If Trump wins, his family can set the political dialogue for the better part of a decade. If he loses, the Trumps may have to search for power elsewhere.

In the last century, it was the Roosevelts, the Kennedys, the Bushes and the Clintons. 

Now, it could be the Trumps.

Four years ago, the Trump children followed President Donald Trump’s cannonball into American politics, making their own ripples along the way. Continue reading.

Trump signals chaotic stretch after election

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President Trump is signaling that Election Day could be followed by a stretch of uncertainty and chaos as a purge of top officials, legal challenges to election results and potential resistance to a normal transition cloud the prospects for an orderly post-election period no matter who wins.

Among the possible scenarios is a quick effort to fire or sideline Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert, whose prominence and increasingly pointed criticism of Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic have angered the president.

Other federal health officials whose approach to the pandemic has frustrated the president also may be targeted, people familiar with the discussions say. That means the team leading the fight against the biggest public health challenge in decades could be reshuffled as Trump or Joe Biden bring in new leadership after the election. Continue reading.

Trump’s plan to steal the election has ‘key role’ for Fox News: media critic

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Veteran Democratic strategist James Carville has warned that unless former Vice President Joe Biden defeats President Donald Trump by 6% or more, Trump and his Republican allies will manipulate the courts in order to “steal the election” in key swing states like Florida and Pennsylvania. Carville is hardly the only one who fears that the Trump campaign will play dirty on and after Election Night. And according to Media Matters’ Matt Gertz, Trump has an accomplice in his plan to “steal the election”: Fox News.

In article published the day before the election, Gertz explains, “With Election Day looming, the expert consensus is that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is in a strong position, with President Donald Trump needing to catch a number of breaks to win. But Fox News’ propagandists are making it sound like the president is the odds-on favorite, priming their audience to attribute any defeat to Democratic fraud. Fox’s effort is a necessary, if not sufficient, step toward enacting Trump’s openly touted plan to try to steal the election — if it is close enough to do so — by preventing the counting of ballots legally cast for Biden. And even if the network fails to keep Trump in the White House, its reckless disinformation could raise tensions to feverish heights, potentially leading to political violence.”

Gertz notes that Fox News’ recent election coverage has “revolved around presenting anecdotal evidence that favors a Trump win as superior to polling data pointing to a likely Biden victory.” Continue reading.

Top Trump adviser bluntly contradicts president on covid-19 threat, urging all-out response

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“This is not about lockdowns. … It’s about an aggressive balanced approach that is not being implemented,” says internal White House report that challenges many of Trump’s pronouncements.

A top White House coronavirus adviser sounded alarms Monday about a new and deadly phase in the health crisis, pleading with top administration officials for “much more aggressive action,” even as President Trump continues to assure rallygoers that the nation is “rounding the turn” on the pandemic.

“We are entering the most concerning and most deadly phase of this pandemic … leading to increasing mortality,” said the Nov. 2 report from Deborah Birx, coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force. “This is not about lockdowns — it hasn’t been about lockdowns since March or April. It’s about an aggressive balanced approach that is not being implemented.” 

Birx’s internal report, shared with top White House and agency officials, contradicts Trump on numerous points: While the president holds large campaign events with hundreds of attendees, most without masks, she explicitly warns against them. While the president blames rising cases on more testing, she says testing is “flat or declining” in many areas where cases are rising. And while Trump says the country is “rounding the turn,” Birx notes that the country is entering its most dangerous period yet and will see more than 100,000 new cases a day this week. Continue reading.

A psychologist explains how Trump’s own words reveal the traits that make him unfit for office

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This continues the series, “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump Revisited: Mental Health Experts on the Devastating Mishandling of a Pandemic.” Whereas we could not have predicted a pandemic three-and-a-half years ago, the authors of The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 37 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President anticipated how the president would respond, should there be a crisis. We tried to warn the public of the very consequences that are unfolding today: abuse of power, incompetence, loss of lives and livelihoods of many Americans, and increasing violence.

Philip Zimbardo, Ph.D., professor emeritus at Stanford University, is a scholar, educator, and researcher. Zimbardo is perhaps best known for his landmark Stanford prison study. Among his more than five hundred publications are the best seller The Lucifer Effect and such notable psychology textbooks as Psychology: Core Concepts, 8th edition, and Psychology and Life, now in its 20th edition. He is founder and president of the Heroic Imagination Project (heroicimagination.org), a worldwide nonprofit teaching people of all ages how to take wise and effective action in challenging situations. He continues to research the effects of time perspectives and time perspective therapy.

Lee: Your lifetime work in social psychology and more recently on time perception have guided me and others for a long time, but especially since the beginning of our publicly speaking up. What are your current observations on Donald Trump? Continue reading.

U.S. economy faces severe strains after election with Washington potentially paralyzed

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Political gridlock looms over possibly turbulent period for economy amid spike in coronavirus cases, expiration of federal benefits

America’s economy faces severe new strains in the two months between Tuesday’s election and January, a period when Washington could be consumed by political paralysis and gridlock.

This window is typically used by successful presidential candidates to plan for the outset of their administration, but several large economic sectors are bracing to be hit by both an increase in coronavirus cases and the arrival of winter weather.

These factors could exacerbate extreme slowdowns in the travel, restaurant and hospitality industries and further depress an oil industry already roiled by low prices. Continue reading.

Dean Phillips Wins Reelection in Minnesota’s Third Congressional District

DEEPHAVEN, MINNESOTA – Today, Dean Phillips won reelection in Minnesota’s Third Congressional District by historic proportions. With more than 243,000 votes cast in his favor, Phillips’s win represents the largest vote count ever earned by a candidate for Congress in MN-03. 

Dean Phillips released the following statement: 

“Tonight, our community chose optimism over fear, conversation over chaos, and decency over division. This is the best job I have ever had, and I am honored to have the opportunity to represent such a civically-engaged district for another two years.

Continue reading “Dean Phillips Wins Reelection in Minnesota’s Third Congressional District”