Rematches key to control of the Minnesota Legislature

The contest for control of the Minnesota Legislature is underway, and several of the campaigns for House and Senate seats feature candidates who have run against each other in previous elections. 

Take, for example, the matchup in House District 5A in northern Minnesota, which is between two candidates who know each other well.

Back in 2016, Rep. John Persell, DFL-Bemidji, lost his reelection bid to Matt Bliss of Pennington. Persell ran again two years later and defeated Bliss, but not by much. He won by just 11 votes Continue reading.

Disinformation, QAnon efforts targeting Latino voters ramp up ahead of presidential election

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Disinformation targeting Latino communities is ramping up ahead of Election Day, when the demographic is expected to play a crucial role in key battleground states. 

Advocacy groups and election security experts alike say material is circulating on social media platforms and online messaging apps that pushes false conspiracies that echo larger disinformation campaigns in English.

The misinformation efforts, some of which reflect the QAnon conspiracy theory, are especially critical in Florida, a crucial swing state where polls show Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is running behind Hillary Clinton’s 2016 support among Latino voters.  Continue reading.

McConnell is blocking 400 bills Americans want — but he’s rushing a Supreme Court pick

McConnell has blocked everything from legislation to help unemployed workers to a bipartisan background check bill for gun sales.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has made pushing through Donald Trump’s judicial nominees almost his singular focus of the past two years, confirming Trump’s court picks at a rapid clip while blocking a slew of bills the Democratic-controlled House has passed.

Now, less than six weeks before the presidential election, McConnell has vowed to ram through a Supreme Court nominee to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg — prioritizing filling the seat over helping Americans struggling to find work in the midst of the coronavirus-fueled economic depression.

Back in February 2016, when conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died, McConnell refused to give President Barack Obama’s nominee Judge Merrick Garland a hearing, let alone a vote on the Senate floor. McConnell said a justice should not be confirmed in an election year, and that the next president should get to pick the nominee. Continue reading.

Trump dumbfounds GOP with latest unforced error

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Senate Republicans were left dumbfounded Thursday by President Trump’s latest self-engineered controversy, a suggestion there might not be a peaceful transition of power after Election Day, which left his GOP allies on Capitol Hill scrambling for political cover.

GOP lawmakers expressed frustration that a week that had started so positively with the Senate Republican Conference quickly unifying ahead of a Supreme Court confirmation battle had turned into a circus.

“The president figured out how to take an overwhelmingly good week and change the subject? Shocking. I don’t know what to say,” said one senior Republican senator, referring to the dismay Republicans felt over what they see as Trump’s latest unforced error. Continue reading.

Never Mind! ‘Misplaced’ Ballots Were Result Of Minor Error

Donald Trump’s war on mail-in voting this week turned out to be all for naught after election workers in Pennsylvania admitted to an envelope mix-up that Trump had initially claimed was part of a broader fraud scheme.

On Thursday morning, Trump complained about the supposed mail-in voter fraud on Fox News radio, claiming that ballots cast for him had been recently found in the trash.

“They found six ballots in an office yesterday in a garbage can,” he told host Brian Kilmeade. “They were Trump ballots. Eight ballots. In an office yesterday in a certain state. And they were. They had Trump written on it, and they were thrown in a garbage can.” Continue reading.

Justice Dept. statement on mail-in ballot investigation appalls election law experts

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The Justice Department alarmed voting-law experts Thursday by announcing an investigation into nine discarded ballots found in northeastern Pennsylvania, a case immediately seized upon by the Trump campaign as evidence of a dark Democratic conspiracy to tamper with the presidential election.

President Trump also appeared to cite the case, telling reporters at the White House that ballots had been found “in a wastepaper basket in some location. . . . We want to make sure that the election is honest, and I’m not sure that it can be.”

The president’s comments marked his latest attempt to stoke uncertainty and alarm about the legitimacy of the upcoming election. Continue reading.

Fox News was forced to make a damning admission in a Tucker Carlson lawsuit

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Fox News got to claim victory on Thursday after a new ruling in a lawsuit brought against the company came out in its favor, but the win arrived at a steep cost. To deflect an allegation of defamation, the network was forced to claim that one of its highest-profile personalities can’t reasonably be expected to consistently provide accurate information to viewers.

Here’s the background. Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model, was paid for her silence about an affair she said she had with Donald Trump during the 2016 election by America Media, Inc., the parent company of the National Enquirer, on the Republican campaign’s behalf these details were exposed and confirmed in the case against former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, who pleaded guilty to participating in the illegal campaign finance scheme. The story became national news, so leading Fox News host Tucker Carlson discussed the case.

But he didn’t present it accurately. Discussing the McDougal case alongside the similar story of Stormy Daniels, Carlson said: Continue reading.

WHO warns 2 million deaths ‘not impossible’ as global fatalities approach 1 million

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NOTE: This article is provided free of charge by The Washington Post.

With the world fast approaching 1 million deaths officially related to covid-19, a doubling of that number is “certainly unimaginable, but it’s not impossible,” World Health Organization expert Mike Ryan said Friday at a news briefing.

“If we look at losing 1 million people in nine months and then we just look at the realities of getting vaccines out there in the next nine months, it’s a big task for everyone involved,” Ryan, the executive director of WHO’s health emergencies program, said. Continue reading.

Americans are finding out this emperor is naked

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All of us are being subjected to what we can only hope is Trump’s last attempt to con Americans into believing he has any of their interests whatsoever at heart. With an election looming in just thirty-nine days—an election which Trump is losing—we should all have expected this.

But the moment is finally upon us when the American people have become wise to the con. This is the worst moment for any con man, and Trump knows this, so the lies are becoming more fanciful, more divorced from reality as he gropes into what is fast becoming a very empty bag of tricks.

First example—the health care plan that doesn’t exist. Continue reading.

GOP senators reject Trump’s assertion about transfer of power — with no direct criticism of the president

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Senate Republicans opposed President Trump’s assertion that he might reject a peaceful transfer of power if he loses the November election, trying to deflect his challenge to a foundation of American democracy as bravado that will not actually occur.

Republicans, with almost no direct criticism of Trump’s statements, uniformly asserted that if Joe Biden wins the election, they will support a peaceful transition to the Democrat’s inauguration in January.

“The winner of the November 3rd election will be inaugurated on January 20th. There will be an orderly transition just as there has been every four years since 1792,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) tweeted early Thursday, following the president’s comments late Wednesday night. Continue reading.