Biden had the support of 46 percent of the state’s registered voters, according to the poll, compared with 41 percent for Trump. Otherrecentsurveys have consistently pointed to a close race in Texas, but this was the first to give Biden a lead that exceeded the margin of error.
Texas has voted Republican in every presidential election since 1976. But Democrats see an opportunity to turn that around, driven by the state’s growing Hispanic population and the increasing frustration with Trump among many independent voters, particularly as the pandemic continues to ravage the country.
Texans may not like the libs very much, but this is so stupid and crazy even they are balking at letting this weirdo run the country anymore:
"They're buying. Whether they buy or not, that's up to them. They're buying." — Trump is totally incoherent pic.twitter.com/V2q8C2H7op
"Biden & Obama stopped their testing … I'm sure you don't want to report it" – Trump absurdly tries to blame Obama for problems w/ testing for Covid-19, which didn't exist until nearly 3 years after he left office. He then falsely suggests the 1918 flu pandemic started in 1917. pic.twitter.com/uXu4NT3sxt
Asked if he acknowledges that the virus is actually spreading in the US, Trump does not. Instead, he repeats his dishonest nonsense that "when you test, you create cases. So we've created cases."
Somebody’s going to be very, very angry about this:
Mick Mulvaney, the former acting White House chief of staff, wrote in an op-ed published Monday that the United States still has a “testing problem” and said policymakers need to realize that the “current economic crisis is public-health driven.”
“I know it isn’t popular to talk about in some Republican circles, but we still have a testing problem in this country,” Mulvaney, who left the White House in March, said in the piece published by CNBC. “My son was tested recently; we had to wait 5 to 7 days for results. My daughter wanted to get tested before visiting her grandparents, but was told she didn’t qualify. That is simply inexcusable at this point in the pandemic.”
The assessment of Mulvaney is at odds with that of President Trump, who has repeatedly touted the country’s testing capacity and argued that U.S. case levels of the novel coronavirus are increasing because so much testing is being done.
Mulvaney, a former South Carolina congressman who now serves as the U.S. special envoy for Northern Ireland, argued that in crafting another stimulus bill, Congress should realize that “using ordinary fiscal tools might not be particularly efficacious.”
“Put another way, the fact that people aren’t going on vacation probably has more to do with fear of getting sick than it does with their economic condition,” he wrote. “Giving people a check, or some financial incentive to travel, won’t solve their problem. Make people feel safe to go back on an airplane or cruise ship, and they will of their own accord.”
Trump must be fuming about this. As I write this he hasn’t said anything publicly but that’s probably because he busy screaming into his pillow that Mick has betrayed him!
I mean, the whole White House has been working overtime to discredit Fauci for saying that there’s no way we can say that things are going well. What are they going to do to Mick?
Having said that, people do need money even if they aren’t going ton vacation. If he’s talking about the daft martha McSally idea to pay people 8,000 if they agree to go on vacation and risk their family’s health that’s legit. It’s just stupid. There aren’t enough reckless people in the country to rescue the travel industry with a program ike that.
But Mick is a tea partier from way back and part of his agenda is undoubtedly to stop any more financial support from the government. So beware. But this op-ed was not about that’ It was a straight up criticism of the testing regimer which his boss Donald Trump says every day is too good!
President Trump on coronavirus testing: “I said to my people, slow the testing down, please." pic.twitter.com/n9C9DJD9km
White we know it will be an improvement over Trump’s chaotic, dictator friendly mess of a foreign policy, it’s still important to look at what Biden has in mind. He did vote for the Iraq war, after all.
This brief summary from Axios suggests that his first priority is to deal with the pandemic. It will be a year late because of Trump’s monumental failures, so it will require immediate attention. The second priority will be to repair America’s relationships with its allies. This makes sense. It’s one thing to refocus trade in light of the challenges we’ve seen in the pandemic and climate change, it’s quite another to believe that the US can withdraw from the world. It cannot. It must stay deeply engaged in the world whether some nationalists like it or not. And that means we must have friends.
Also: Climate change, Iran’s breakout time for a nuclear weapon, North Korea’s missile advancement, a revanchist Russia and an assertive China.
Foreign policy will look drastically different if Joe Biden defeats President Trump in November, advisers tell Axios — starting with a Day One announcement that the U.S. is re-entering the Paris Climate Agreement and new global coordination of the coronavirus response.
The big picture: If Trump’s presidency started the “America First” era of withdrawal from global alliances, Biden’s team says his presidency would be the opposite: a re-engagement with the world and an effort to rebuild those alliances — fast.
Biden will be pressed in the coming months for more details about how his proposals have changed since his time as Barack Obama’s vice president, but his choice of advisers and his remarks thus far serve as guideposts about his thinking.
Driving the news: Biden advisers who watched the 2008-09 financial crisis consume Obama’s early days say that, similarly, the domestic challenges posed by the coronavirus will demand much of the next administration’s attention while the global impacts may compete with other priorities.
“Job one will be to get COVID under control,” said Tony Blinken, Biden’s longtime foreign policy adviser.
Colin Kahl, a former Biden aide who is familiar with his views, said if Biden is elected, “Day One is making sure that our approach to COVID and the associated economic crisis is coordinated internationally” — as well as re-entering the Paris accord to combat global warming.
The pandemic doesn’t recognize borders, and beyond the obvious health implications, team Biden is concerned about a potential global food crisis, security vulnerabilities, worldwide depression and an emerging market debt crunch.
But the coronavirus is just the beginning. Biden’s advisers look at the world they could inherit and feel a sense of dread and urgency in every time zone: Climate change, Iran’s breakout time for a nuclear weapon, North Korea’s missile advancement, a revanchist Russia and an assertive China.
They also worry about stress fractures in the post-WWII international architecture, exacerbated by Trump’s “America First” approach.
“At the top of the agenda at the outset will be signaling to our closes democratic allies that we’re back, that alliances and partnerships matter,” Kahl said.
They take some comfort in Biden’s own history of personal diplomacy and a commitment to allies. “There’s a lot of low hanging fruit, like shoring up alliances,’’ said Derek Chollet, a State and Defense Department official in the Obama administration. “Joe Biden is really good at relationships and alliances.”
Don’t forget: In July 2008, Obama did a world tour promising to end the Bush administration’s foreign policy approach and embrace multilateralism.
The pandemic has ruled out globetrotting for Biden this summer, but his foreign policy approach looks similar, starting with a pledge to unwind Trumpism on the international stage.
Our thought bubble: The core Biden foreign policy team served in the Obama administration.
Blinken, who during Biden’s earlier days in the U.S. Senate was his staff director on the Committee on Foreign Relations, served as Biden’s national security adviser in the White House and later as deputy secretary of state under John Kerry.
Jake Sullivan, who joined the Obama administration in Hillary Clinton’s State Department, later served as Biden’s national security adviser and was instrumental in the Iran deal.
Susan Rice, who served as Obama’s third national security adviser and first UN ambassador, has been advising the campaign and is among the women being considered for Biden’s running mate.
Samantha Power, Obama’s second UN ambassador, is very involved in the Biden campaign and is talked about as a potential secretary of state.
The Donilon brothers, long in Biden’s personal and professional orbit, served in Obama’s White House — Mike in the VP’s office, and Tom as Obama’s second national security adviser.
Julie Smith, a Europe specialist who started in the Pentagon and then served as Biden’s deputy national security adviser, could find herself as ambassador to NATO or the UN.
Between the lines: Biden and Obama had several serious policy differences. In some cases, Biden played devil’s advocate to help Obama arrive at a decision, but there were some genuine divergences.
Biden was for providing the Ukrainians Javelin anti-tank missiles; Obama was opposed. Biden was opposed to erecting a no-fly zone in Libya; Obama imposed one. Biden was against a troop surge in Afghanistan. Obama first added 17,000 and then 30,000. Biden was opposed to calling for Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak to leave office. Obama hastened his exit.
Though Biden’s policies would be quite different from Trump’s, his team may embrace a tactic that Trump also favors when trying to achieve major strategic goals: Overwhelm the circuits and push on multiple fronts at once.
“I don’t think this can really be sequenced,” Blinken said. “I don’t think we’ll have the luxury of choice.”
At the same time, Ned Price, a former CIA and Obama NSC official, says there’s an understanding that “most of the important things can’t be done with a flip of the switch.”
“China is not a 100 day project; China is a presidency project,” said Chollet, now at the German Marshall Fund.
There is plenty to be critical of in Obama’s foreign policy and I have little doubt we will have differences with Biden’s team as well. But it will not be batshit crazy.
It’s going to take great effort to restore any kind of trust or respect for this country after what Trump has done. I’m not sure it’s possible. But they have to try. The US still has the most powerful military on earth and a huge influence in international commerce. Nobody in the world wants America to be a pariah, rogue nation. It’s dangerous for everyone.
One thing that would really help in this would be a crushing repudiation of Trump and his cronies in November. If the world can see that the American people haven’t gone completely nuts, it will help.
.@BetsyDeVosED you have no plan. Teachers, kids and parents are fearing for their lives. You point to a private sector that has put profits over people and claimed the lives of thousands of essential workers. I wouldn’t trust you to care for a house plant let alone my child. https://t.co/Qs0Z7gCnMo
I don’t think there was anyone in the country who was truly surprised that President Trump commuted his good pal Roger Stone’s sentence. I think we might have expected a full pardon, but since there was reportedly so much resistance within the administration, Trump may have decided that commutation before the election, and then pardon afterward looked like a reasonable compromise.
I had 29 or 30 conversations with Trump during the campaign period. He knows I was under enormous pressure to turn on him. It would have eased my situation considerably. But I didn’t. They wanted me to play Judas. I refused.
I’m pretty sure Trump got that message loud and clear. After all, his mentor was Roy Cohn, the infamous lawyer and fixer whose clients included Sen. Joseph McCarthy and the mobsters Carmine Galante and “Fat Tony” Salerno, among other unsavory characters. Cohn also mentored Roger Stone.
Trump speaks fluent gangster patois:
The failing @nytimes wrote a Fake piece today implying that because White House Councel Don McGahn was giving hours of testimony to the Special Councel, he must be a John Dean type “RAT.” But I allowed him and all others to testify – I didn’t have to. I have nothing to hide……
Remember, Michael Cohen only became a “Rat” after the FBI did something which was absolutely unthinkable & unheard of until the Witch Hunt was illegally started. They BROKE INTO AN ATTORNEY’S OFFICE! Why didn’t they break into the DNC to get the Server, or Crooked’s office?
He toldthe “Fox & Friends” hosts back in 2018 what he thought of people who cooperate with the authorities:
It’s called “flipping” and it almost ought to be illegal. I know all about flipping. For 30, 40 years, I have been watching flippers. Everything is wonderful and then they get 10 years in jail and they flip on whoever the next highest one is or as high as you can go.
Roger Stone made sure in the days just before he was set to go to prison that the president understood exactly what he needed to do. Trump knows Stone very well, and understood what he was capable of. Stone might easily have decided to flip if Trump didn’t come through. They’ve known each other so long that whatever Stone has on Trump doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the Russia investigation. Stone knows where a lot of bodies are buried. He helped bury many of them.
He needn’t have worried. His boy Trump came though, although against the wishes of his White House counsel, chief of staff Mark Meadows and even his top henchman, Attorney General Bill Barr. You can imagine how upset Barr must have been after he went to such great lengths to have Stone’s sentence reduced that he caused an insurrection at the Department of Justice and permanently destroyed his reputation. He obviously thought he’d helped Trump’s buddy out sufficiently, but that wasn’t enough.
You’ll recall that Barr claimed that the president didn’t order him to do it and that it was just a coincidence Trump had tweeted this mere hours before Barr’s decision:
This is a horrible and very unfair situation. The real crimes were on the other side, as nothing happens to them. Cannot allow this miscarriage of justice! https://t.co/rHPfYX6Vbv
When reporters asked Trump over the weekend why he didn’t take Barr’s advice not to commute Stone’s sentence, Trump replied, “Well, he didn’t say that. No, the attorney general, about a week or two ago, had made a statement, but that was long before anybody knew what I was going to do.”
Actually, that was before Stone made it clear last week that he would not stand for doing even a day of jail time. His reminder that his “situation” would be much improved if he turned on Trump left no room for interpretation.
Stone’s no Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman, who spent several months in jail before being allowed to serve home confinement due to the pandemic. Manafort stood up to the prosecutors and Trump let him sit behind bars. But then Manafort only knew Trump briefly, and can’t possibly have the same volume of dirt on him that Stone has. (Furthermore, Manafort had his own reasons for clamming up, namely some angry Russian mobsters to whom he owed a lot of money.)
The Stone commutation announcement was unusual, to say the least. In fact, it sounded a lot like Trump dashed it off in a series of tweets and the White House decided that would serve as an official proclamation:
Aside from the dishonest rehash of the Mueller investigation, which was the usual Trumpian combination of whining and blaming, the president attacked a juror in Stone’s trial in his official announcement, which was probably one of the lowest acts he’s ever perpetrated — and that’s really saying something. The degree to which the self-appointed “law and order president” disrespects the legal system is unprecedented. Even notorious gangsters are more civil.
If you are wondering why Trump may have commuted the sentence instead of just pardoning his old buddy, journalist Marcy Wheeler pointed out that a commutation allows Stone to maintain his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, which means he doesn’t have to testify against Trump in any possible further proceedings regarding all those phone calls between them — conversations that Stone specifically mentioned in that interview with Howard Fineman.
Lawfare’s Benjamin Wittes and Quinta Jurecic observed that Trump has just committed another act of obstruction of justice. They argue that Trump’s written answers to Robert Mueller about his knowledge of the WikiLeaks plot were lies, which also specifically pertain to the felonies Roger Stone was convicted of committing. It’s clear from the record that Trump was signaling to Stone throughout to keep his mouth shut.
Newly unredacted pages of the Mueller report back that up. According to Lawfare:
[S]hortly after he submitted those answers [to the special counsel], the unredacted report states, Trump began tweeting publicly in support of Stone — calling him “brave” and congratulating his “guts” for refusing to testify.
Trump’s tweets were always suspicious, to say the least. And his answers to Mueller seemed less than entirely credible even when the redacted report was first released. But the newly revealed text makes clear Mueller’s suspicions that Trump lied in his written answers — and then pushed Stone not to testify in order to prevent Mueller from discovering that lie.
As Mueller put it dryly: “[T]he President’s conduct could also be viewed as reflecting his awareness that Stone could provide evidence that would run counter to the President’s denials and would link the President to Stone’s efforts to reach out to WikiLeaks.” The special counsel also writes that Trump’s tweets to Stone — along with his tweets criticizing [Michael] Cohen, who was by then cooperating with investigators — “support the inference that the President intended to communicate a message that witnesses could be rewarded for refusing to provide testimony adverse to the President and disparaged if they chose to cooperate.”
Roger Stone got his reward last Friday night.
This should have been an impeachable offense. But for reasons I will never understand, nobody wanted to bother with all the evidence of obstruction of justice in Mueller’s report. I suspect there will be little appetite for pursuing it after Trump is out of office, which is a travesty.
The president of the United States just exercised his constitutional powers to commit a crime in plain sight. And once again he will get away with it.
Donald J. Trump is loyal to no one. Not to his wives. Not to his children. Not to the U.S. Constitution. Not to his oath of office. Not to his country. Not to his party. Not to his devoted followers. They hold his interest only so long as they offer praise or make him look strongly and loved. Love he wouldn’t know what to do with if anyone genuinely offered it.
He is a severely damaged human being, unqualified for the job he holds, it goes without saying. Tens of thousands of Americans are dead who might not be but for his maladministration.
President Donald Trump on Sunday criticized a privately built border wall in South Texas that’s showing signs of erosion months after going up, saying it was “only done to make me look bad,” even though the wall was built after a months-long campaign by his supporters.
The group that raised money online for the wall promoted itself as supporting Trump during a government shutdown that started in December 2018 because Congress wouldn’t fund Trump’s demands for a border wall. Called “We Build the Wall,” the group has raised more than $25 million promoting itself as supporting the president.
Even former Trump strategist Steve Bannon joined the board. Trump ally Kris Kobach became the group’s general counsel. Now Trump is publicly disowning them. Even if they won’t admit it to themselves.
Trump tweeted Sunday in response to a ProPublica-Texas Tribune report that the riverbank has started to erode. A federal judge on Wednesday ordered attorneys for Fisher Industries and opponents of the private wall to set a schedule for experts to visit the site and inspect any erosion.
“I disagreed with doing this very small (tiny) section of wall, in a tricky area, by a private group which raised money by ads,” Trump wrote. “It was only done to make me look bad, and perhsps it now doesn’t even work. Should have been built like rest of Wall, 500 plus miles.”
Tommy Fisher, CEO of Fisher Industries, said Sunday that he thought the president “just got some misinformation on this stuff” and that he had “complete respect” for Trump.
Tommy Fisher is another of Trump’s victims, and Trump has no more use for him.
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For The Win, 3rd Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV mechanics guide at ForTheWin.us. This is what winning looks like. Note: The pandemic will upend standard field tactics in 2020. If enough promising “improvisations” come my way, perhaps I can issue a COVID-19 supplement.
It’s not fair that I’m being Impeached when I’ve done absolutely nothing wrong! The Radical Left, Do Nothing Democrats have become the Party of Hate. They are so bad for our Country!
This woman spent the morning insisting that kids have to be back in the classroom no matter what , no exceptions. No hybrid virtual learning or staggered class days or, really, anything. When asked what to do about the 25% of teaches who are high risk, not to even mention the other staff, she basically said tough shit. They can take it up with their school boards. No word on who’s supposed to replace them if they all die.
“Homeschooling represents another perfectly valid educational option. We’ve seen more and more people opt for homeschooling, including in urban areas. What you’re seeing is parents who are fed up with their lack of power to do anything about where their kids are assigned to go to school. To the extent that homeschooling puts parents back in charge of their kids’ education, more power to them.”
More here:
In an unprecedented meeting, United States Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos invited a delegation from the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) to discuss the success of homeschooling and to determine what homeschoolers need from the federal government for continued autonomy and success.
For the first time in its 38-year history, the U.S. Department of Education arranged for a sitting U.S. secretary of education to meet privately with the Christian homeschool legal group.
A friend to homeschoolers
DeVos was commended during HSLDA’s visit for supporting homeschooling and respecting homeschool parents, and she was also requested to help forward the homeschool movement through cooperation and limited governmental restrictions.
“[We] asked her to continue to work to preserve the freedom and autonomy of homeschooling families, and asked her to continue to protect homeschool graduates from discrimination,” HSLDA reported.
One homeschooling mother from the Washington, D.C., area was able to communicate the advantages of teaching her children one-on-one from home.
“The highlight of our meeting was when a local mom, Tricia Powell, shared with Secretary DeVos why she homeschools her two children and how they have thrived in her family’s homeschool program,” HSLDA Director of Federal Relations William Estrada shared. “It was a privilege to hear Powell share her passion and enthusiasm for homeschooling.”
One of the topics brought up during the meeting was HSLDA’s objection to K–12 vouchers – which pay for federally controlled homeschool programs that potentially open the door for more government regulations of homeschooling.
“We were also able to discuss in person with Secretary DeVos why HSLDA and homeschoolers across the nation oppose vouchers for K–12 homeschools,” Estrada added. “We believe that federal homeschool funding would be detrimental in the long run to the cause of homeschool freedom.”
During the discussion, DeVos expressed that she was more than eager to help ensure the educational freedom of homeschoolers across the nation.
“She was a generous listener and emphasized her strong belief that families should be enabled to choose the best form of education for their children – whether that is in a public school, private school or homeschool,” insisted Estrada, whose nonprofit group is based in Purcellville, Virginia. “She also made it clear that she will not use her power as secretary of education to force states or local school districts to adopt federal top-down approaches to education.”
HSLDA recently announced that it was pleased about President Donald Trump’s executive order reining in the federal role in education, and DeVos is playing a crucial role in curbing government overreach in the schools – such as former President Barack Obama’s federalized one-size-fits-all Common Core standards that stretches over most states.
“Secretary DeVos and her team are working to identify and eliminate past U.S. Department of Education programs and guidance that violate the principles of federalism,” Estrada pointed out.
DeVos on the move for parents and kids’ autonomy
Last week, DeVos made it clear that those opposed to school choice have essentially “chilled creativity” and limited the ability of disadvantaged families to succeed.
Even though she did not elaborate on how the Trump administration would promote school choice – to expand access to and promote less-traditional education options such as homeschooling, charter schools and voucher programs – she expressed that states resisting school choice are making a “terrible mistake” that will hurt families and local economies.
“They will be hurting the children and families who can least afford it,” DeVos asserted, according to CNN. “If politicians in a state block education choice, it means those politicians do not support equal opportunity for all kids.”
While recently speaking in Indianapolis, Indiana, at a pro-school choice conference, she stressed that besides options in education, parents and children need lots of opportunities.
“[Parents and children need] the widest number of quality options,” DeVos continued. “If a menu is full of bad options, then do you really have a choice at all?”
DeVos – who Trump appointed as the head of the Education Department earlier this year to the dismay of big-government Democrats – indicated that many of the decisions for curriculum and public school matters will be up to individual states to decide, noting that the federal budget is leaving room to give states federal grant money to pay for school choice initiatives from coast to coast.
“We all fundamentally know one size doesn’t fit all – and that we won’t accomplish our goals by creating a new federal bureaucracy or by bribing states with their own taxpayers’ money,” DeVos expressed last Monday, CNN reported. “We should have zero interest in substituting the current big-government approach for our own (new) big-government approach.”
At the Indiana summit hosted by the American Federation of Children, she also made it clear that the federal government will stop intruding into an area it was never meant to enter – as the U.S. Constitution makes no mention of the government’s role is education, which it left up to parental discretion.
“When it comes to education, no solution – not even ones we like – should be dictated or run from Washington, D.C.,” the head of education insisted, according to Politico.
Shamelessness is their superpower.
I don’t know what her game is, but it’s clear that she’s got one. If I had to guess it’s another step on her question to destroy teachers unions and public schools.
This is like putting Mengele in charge of the National Institute for Health.
