Barr Invented Story Of Massive Mail-In Ballot Fraud

As Attorney General William Barr faced renewed calls for his impeachment after claiming not to know whether it’s illegal for a U.S. voter to cast two ballots in a federal election, prosecutors and journalists have caught the nation’s top law enforcement officer in a “massive falsehood” about a mail-in ballot fraud case in Texas.

In his interview with CNN earlier this week, Barr told Wolf Blitzer that prosecutors had indicted a man who collected 1,700 blank ballots and used them to cast a specific vote.

“Elections that have been held with mail have found substantial fraud and coercion,” Barr said. “For example, we indicted someone in Texas, 1,700 ballots collected…from people who could vote, he made them out and voted for the person he wanted to. Okay?”

Aside from vastly overstating the prevalence of fraud in vote-by-mail systems which have been used by millions of Americans for decades, Barr appeared to fabricate the facts about the case in Texas, prosecutors who worked on the case told the Washington Post. Continue reading.

Trump, under fire for alleged comments about veterans, has a long history of disparaging military service

Washington Post logo

As Donald Trump laid the groundwork in 1999 to run for president as the Reform Party candidate, he made a little-remembered attack on the person he saw as a rival in a possible general election campaign: Republican John McCain.

Many considered McCain a war hero for surviving five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, and a television interviewer asked why Trump felt he was more qualified to be commander in chief.

“Does being captured make you a hero? I don’t know. I’m not sure,” Trump said in the CBS interview. Continue reading.

More Than Ever, Trump Casts Himself as the Defender of White America

New York Times logo

Presenting himself as a warrior against identity politics, the president has increasingly made appeals to the grievances of white supporters a centerpiece of his re-election campaign.

WASHINGTON — After a summer when hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets protesting racial injustice against Black Americans, President Trump has made it clear over the last few days that, in his view, the country’s real race problem is bias against white Americans.

Just days after returning from Kenosha, Wis., where he staunchly backed law enforcement and did not mention the name of Jacob Blake, the Black man shot seven times in the back by the police, Mr. Trump issued an order on Friday to purge the federal government of racial sensitivity training that his White House called “divisive, anti-American propaganda.”

The president then spent much of the weekend tweeting about his action, presenting himself as a warrior against identity politics. “This is a sickness that cannot be allowed to continue,” he wrote of such programs. “Please report any sightings so we can quickly extinguish!” He reposted a tweet from a conservative outlet hailing his order: “Sorry liberals! How to be Anti-White 101 is permanently cancelled!” Continue reading.

Trump encourages his followers to harass widow of Steve Jobs over her support of Biden

AlterNet logo

In an early Sunday morning tweet, Donald Trump retweeted a post stating the Laurene Powell Jobs — widow of Apple founder Steve Jobs —  donated at least $500,000 to Joe Biden’s campaign this year and urges his followers to contact her and express their displeasure.

According to the president, “Steve Jobs would not be happy that his wife is wasting money he left her on a failing Radical Left Magazine that is run by a con man (Goldberg) and spews FAKE NEWS & HATE. Call her, write her, let her know how you feel!!!”

You can see the tweet below: Continue reading.

Trump campaign works to set narrative ahead of pivotal debates with Biden

The Hill logo

The Trump campaign is already looking forward to the first presidential debate at the end of the month, eyeing the one-on-one format with Democratic nominee Joe Biden as the best remaining chance to sway voters toward the president.

Trump and Biden will square off for the first time on Sept. 29 in Cleveland. The pandemic-altered campaign season, which has left the candidates with fewer opportunities to meet voters face-to-face, has put an even greater emphasis on the debates.

Even after getting a slight boost after the Republican National Convention, Trump still trails Biden in the polls by a healthy margin nationally, and by a few percentage points in most battleground states. Continue reading.

The White House is trying hard to throw Peter Navarro under the bus — let’s wish them well

AlterNet logo

The sheer number of sources on this Washington Post report of abusive behavior by and the belligerent wrongness of Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro, who has for some reason inserted himself into a position of prime and unqualified decision-making on the administration’s COVID-19 pandemic responses, sends a clear message: Team Trump is trying very hard to push Peter Navarro under the bus, but Navarro is such a nasty old cuss that nobody can quite get him to stay under there.

That Navarro’s pandemic decisions have been questionable is not news. Navarro’s focus on hydroxychloroquine sent the administration far down a useless path. His push for reforming Eastman Kodak into a drug producer quickly turned into a federal investigation on possible insider trading. His self-lauded contract purchasing ventilators at a near-500% markup from what they might normally go for was met with derision and, eventually, scaled down drastically. Those are all known instances of Navarro screwups.

What we didn’t know, but should have guessed, is that Navarro is a living bloody terror to work with, something akin to putting mittens on a rabid wolverine, giving him his own office, and Just Seeing How That Goes. Navarro was so consistently abusive towards women on his staff, reports the Post, that then-Chief of Staff John Kelly ordered the White House Counsel’s office to launch an investigation. Navarro only kept his job because that investigation concluded Navarro was a raging asshole to absolutely everyone. Continue reading.

Louis DeJoy’s rise as GOP fundraiser was powered by contributions from company workers who were later reimbursed, former employees say

Washington Post logo

Louis DeJoy’s prolific campaign fundraising, which helped position him as a top Republican power broker in North Carolina and ultimately as head of the U.S. Postal Service, was bolstered for more than a decade by a practice that left many employees feeling pressured to make political contributions to GOP candidates — money DeJoy later reimbursed through bonuses, former employees say.

Five people who worked for DeJoy’s former business, New Breed Logistics, say they were urged by DeJoy’s aides or by the chief executive himself to write checks and attend fundraisers at his 15,000-square-foot gated mansion beside a Greensboro, N.C., country club. There, events for Republicans running for the White House and Congress routinely fetched $100,000 or more apiece.

Two other employees familiar with New Breed’s financial and payroll systems said DeJoy would instruct that bonus payments to staffers be boosted to help defray the cost of their contributions, an arrangement that would be unlawful. Continue reading.

Trump prepares a new fall offensive: Labeling Kamala Harris

Drawing on a playbook of caricature and condemnation, Trump’s campaign hopes to chip away at Joe Biden’s lead by presenting Harris as an extreme California liberal.

Kamala Harris is about to get the Trump treatment.

President Donald Trump has long excelled at ridiculing opponents and fomenting rivalries among those around him — from contestants on “The Apprentice” to his top aides inside the White House. Now he and his campaign are eyeing ways to drive a wedge between Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his younger, lesser-known running mate.

The president and his allies are plotting ways to portray Harris as a serious threat to the working-class voters whom Biden hopes to flip this fall, four years after many across the Rust Belt ditched Democrats to support Trump. They’re digging up her comments from Democratic primary debates, hoping they can use them to put her and Biden on defense. And despite Harris’ lukewarm relationship with some anti-establishment progressive groups, they are considering ways to cast her as a champion of the radical left by concentrating on positions she’s taken that run afoul of Biden-style centrism, one of the former vice president’s key appeals to swing voters. Continue reading.

Trump steps off the golf course and takes a swing at John McCain

AlterNet logo

With the news cycle exploding over reports that Donald Trump called American soldiers who died to stop a German attack on Paris “losers” and “sucker,” it’s obvious that Trump had only one choice: Spend the day honoring America’s military by chasing a little white ball around his private golf course in Virginia.

But if Trump’s scheduled for Saturday seemed incredibly callous and tone deaf, his continuing reaction to the scandal is just as predictable as the way he shaves off just a few strokes on his scorecard. Trump’s most recent tweets starts off with a series of lies about all the great things he’s done for the military. A list that for some reason doesn’t include stealing the money that was meant to be used for housing, schools, and hospitals to be used for his nonexistent and useless “Wall.” Then Trump declared that The Atlantic author Jeffrey Goldberg was a “slimeball reporter” who was ruining all his hard work in doing things like the Veteran’s Choice bill that President Obama actually signed.

Trump also accused Goldberg of “making up a horrible charge” and said that he was “maybe working with disgruntled people.” Disgruntled people apparently covers any White House official because the statements first reported by Goldberg have been confirmed by The Washington Post, and the Associated Press, and Fox News. Not only that, Losergate is perfectly in line with everything Trump has said since before he was elected. Oh, and Trump couldn’t even make it two tweets without taking a swing at John McCain. Continue reading

I’m a public health researcher, and I’m dismayed that the CDC’s missteps are causing people to lose trust in a great institution

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been the premier U.S. public health agency since its founding on July 1, 1946. 

The CDC is responsible for assuring the health of all Americans and promoting evidence-based public health practice. It also is responsible for researching the causes of death and illness as well as working on ways to prevent them. Americans have come to trust it for accurate information. 

However, recent actions by the CDC have led many in public health to call into question the integrity of the CDC’s leadership as they ignore the science and bow to political pressure. Their actions have hurt public health efforts and led to confusion and mistrust by the public at large. Continue reading.