Month: October 2020

Stanford Researchers: Trump Rallies Led to 30,000 COVID-19 Infections, 700 Deaths

According to their research, 18 rallies held between June 20 and September 22 led to more than 30,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19. The researchers also concluded that the rallies “likely led” to more than 700 deaths, although not necessarily among those who attended the events. -Slate October 31 

The Effects of Large Group Meetings on the Spread of COVID-19: The Case of Trump Rallies B. Douglas Bernheim, Nina Buchmann, Zach Freitas-Groff, Sebasti´an Otero*  PDF link to abstract

Trump rallies that led to sickness and death of his rally goers and others in the community has been proven. Why are they still allowed to continue? They need to be stopped. I know people throw their hands up and say, “It’s too late, there is nothing we can do now to stop them.” Okay, if that’s the case then what’s your next step? Make the Trump campaign pay a price for this suffering and death to the communities they infected.

After the Rose Garden outbreak, when it was clear,”HE’S INFECTING HIS OWN PEOPLE!” most Democrats stopped pushing hard to stop rallies, hoping decent people would stay away from Trumpers. This might be a good strategy from an electoral point of view, but from a PUBLIC HEALTH point of view it’s still bad to let people get infected. 

I’ve been writing on how and why to stop rallies since Tulsa and Phoenix in June. Read all the methods and reasons at this piece Trump’s Contact Tracing Failure.  I wrote, “The people at Trump’s rallies are suicide bombers. How many will they infect and kill?” (link) We now have proof the rallies spread COVID but nobody in Trumpworld has paid a price for it yet.

The superspreader death rallies have become a joke on cable TV & late night shows, yes it’s gallows humor, but I’m tired of it. I want the organizers and their allies to pay a price for this recklessness that leads to illness and death.  If you live in a city where there was or will be a Trump rally, there are things you can do to stop them now or make them pay afterwards. Let me explain why and how.

Why You Should Go After Trump’s Campaign Rallies Now

1) IT WILL COST THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN MONEY 
Besides possibly saving lives now, suing Trump’s campaign for public health violations will cost them money. Trump cares about money above all else.   Each lawsuit in each city can be used to hound him and the campaign after the election! It will cost his campaign people time and money to defend against this AND it might be a source of cash for the people suing.

2) It will cost Trump’s allies money
Trump isn’t loyal. Campaign allies and supporters might lose power and protection after the election, making them vulnerable AND more willing to roll on the Trump organization to protect themselves financially.

I spoke to Paul DeMuro, one of the lawyers who sued to prevent the Tulsa Rally. He pointed out that the case is not against Trump, it’s against the SMG and ASM Global Parent Inc., that company that ran the venue. HOT TIP for Tulsa residents the case is still open!  PDF Link to Tulsa rally case

3) Multiple laws are broken around events
Don’t just look at violations of pandemic executive orders, look for:     Bribes, payoffs and threats to non-cooperating officials     FEC and Hatch Act violations

4) Trump can’t pardon the staff that broke the state laws
These cases will be state by state, and Trump can’t pardon the campaign people or their local allies from state crimes.

5) It might save lives 
We know that the Trump campaign DOES respond to certain pressures. They might make some changes pre-event; more likely they will AGREE to make changes then break those agreements. (Like we saw in Tulsa with the social distancing stickers when they then removed.) Cities and local activists can use those broken agreements or stiffed vendors for civil cases post election.

I’ve followed the behind the scenes story about the rallies in Michigan, Oklahoma, Arizona, Florida and Nebraska, I KNOW there are public health directors in these states and cities who are angry. There are also attorney generals and individual activists in cities who want to go after the private groups & enablers that have helped the Trump campaign put lives at risk.

No matter their politics, all city officials care about their budget. Whether or not Trump wins, the cities need money for services. Especially now. Why should they extend credit to the campaign for months given his track record?

ACTIONS TO TAKE NOW
Write your city director of finance or comptroller ask how much it cost and when they will be paid. (Here’s contact info for Stephen Curtiss, Omaha’s Finance Director/Acting City Comptroller  ) Here’s contact info for Dennis Rogero, Tampa’s Chief Financial Officer  and Tampa’s Chief Accountant, Lee Huffstutler, CPA, CGFO. 

Sample text: “How much taxpayer money was spent for all the extra services the city had to cover for the campaign? (For example, what was the cost of sending the police out to bring rally goers out of the freezing cold in Omaha? What was the cost of the Tampa Fire Department being sent for water cooling the crowd? What is the cost to the city for EMT services for the heat strokes? Send them these link to remind them of the Trump campaign’s terrible payment record. Write today!

14 U.S. Cities Still Waiting for Trump Campaign to Pay Nearly $2M in Police, Public Safety Bills

Trump still owes El Paso—a city facing a coronavirus disaster—$569,000 for his 2019 rally

Post Election Action: Preparing For When Republicans Lose:

If Republicans lose they will spend the lame duck sessions in cities & states trying to grab power, hide grift and excuse their horrible actions. Now is the time to file FOIA requests on the rallies details. (NOTE: The right will focus only on the laws that do or don’t exist vs guidelines & recommendations because they care more about their liability than your life.)  Things you’ll want to determine:

• Who pressured whom to get the rallies? (Federal, State & Local)
• Who ignored public health guidelines AND/OR blocked passing laws that would support the guidelines?
• Who didn’t push to enforce laws that DID exist that were broken at events? What excuses were made when attendees didn’t follow the laws? What excuses were made for not enforcing laws?
• Who paid, or didn’t pay, for which services? Were there Sweetheart Deals with elected officials?
• Were activities AROUND events, that add to the superspreader nature of them, counted? For example,were bars other indoor spaces filled beyond capacity before and after the events? Was there any enforcement of those violations? Why not?
• What did public health officials recommend about crowds in buses before and after the events? Were they monitoring how long people were exposed to infected people?
  (BTW Georgia Tech COVID-19 Event Risk Assessment Planning Tool calculates there was a 99% chance there were COVID positive people at the Omaha & Tampa rallies.)

If guidelines and recommendations at rallies weren’t followed, because they weren’t laws, it’s time to make them laws. As we saw in Omaha and Tampa, poor planning and irresponsible behavior leads to endangering the lives of people. Yes, those people signed a waiver excusing Trump and this minions, but they shouldn’t be off the hook for the additional costs to the community. (Also based on my early research it’s likely these waivers won’t hold up in court.)

Trump doesn’t care about his people, but he and his grifting buddies DO care about money. Make them pay.

You can push your city elected officials to get the money city taxpayers are owed. Help your local civil lawsuit lawyers and activist groups by gathering evidence of the laws broken and external costs of rallies by tracking what happened before during and after the events.

In this Omaha TV news story they downplay number of people stranded and medical issues at the rally, but they end up explaining how many additional services the city provided to the Campaign in the form of police, medical services and city buses.

Trump’s campaign is notorious for not paying their bills while in office. Win or lose, the Trump Campaign is responsible for their debts. If they lose, the Campaign will claim they are broke. That should trigger the investigation into how the Campaign spent the money, which should lead to exposing multiple FEC violations and crimes. Taxpayers should demand clawing back money that was illegally allocated and have it sent to them. Act now to ensure your city’s debts are on the top of creditor list!

City officials can’t bring back the lives of those lost because of Trump’s reckless decision to hold campaign rallies during the pandemic, but they can make sure his organization pays a huge price with the only thing they actually care about, money.

“If we win on Tuesday, or —thank you very much, Supreme Court —shortly thereafter” — Trump on the trail today

It appears that the Republicans have a plan in place to discard massive numbers of ballots that arrive after election day. And there is even a move afoot to discard ballots that are counted after election day. They are both serious assaults on democracy since there is ZERO evidence of any kind of fraud or other shenanigans, and the latter is a stunningly radical path that would require not only discarding millions upon millions of ballots, but the election laws in all 50 states in a way that would permanently disenfranchise many of their voters in the future.

It is simply impossible to count all the votes on election day — it has never been done and is not required anywhere.

In a normal world with a normal conservative party, this would not be happening. The Republicans would be grateful to the Democrats for getting rid of the unfit, imbecile who got into their leadership on a fluke, has nearly destroyed their party and the nation. But this is not a normal world and they are apparently preparing to fight for him all the way

Republican Party officials say they’re already looking to Pennsylvania, Minnesota and Nevada as likely battlegrounds for post-election lawsuits if the results are close.

As pre-election lawsuits draw to a close, and with President Trump running behind Joe Biden in national and many battleground state polls, Republicans are turning their attention to preparations for Election Day and beyond, and potential recounts.

They have 50,000 volunteers, attorneys and staff working election day operations, with an emphasis in presidential battleground states.

A multi-state wave of litigation brought by both Republicans and Democrats could unfold over the course of several days next week. Where and over what depends on the margins of victory in each state.

What they’re saying: “There’s a good chance you won’t see any litigation” if an election outcome does not hinge on the ballots set aside, one GOP official familiar with the planning said on a call with reporters. “But if it’s really close, to be frank, these ballots are going to become a point of contention.”

Driving the news: Republican Party officials who briefed reporters on litigation plans Friday said they’re watching late-arriving ballots that will be segregated in Pennsylvania and Minnesota, and have sued for ballot counting records from Clark County, Nevada, to test whether signature-matching standards there are lower than the rest of the state.Amid lawsuits over extended mail-in ballot deadlines in Pennsylvania and Minnesota, election officials will now separate ballots that arrive after Election Day in case the courts decide they should not be counted.

The Supreme Court denied Republicans’ request to expedite review of the mail-in ballot deadline in Pennsylvania this week. But Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas notably left open the possibility of the court taking up the case after the election.

The Minnesota lawsuit hasn’t made its way to the Supreme Court yet.

We know that Kavanaugh, Alito, Thomas and Gorsuch are radical and are ready to do it. They’ve signaled their intentions in the elections decisions they’ve already heard. Roberts seems to be committed to voting that state law should prevail, whatever it is. That means this will likely be up to Amy Coney Barrett who was put on the court to make sure Trump wins any case that makes its way to the Supreme Court.

Just how radical is she?

Scalia was her mentor. Trump put her on the court with the understanding that she would put him back in the White House.

Yes, because that’s what he would do. #vote https://t.co/NvUMlCRh7c

— Richard Stengel (@stengel) October 31, 2020

Indeed:

Is there any doubt that he has broken laws as president? No. He has been told he is immune from prosecution so he believes that’s the smart move.

This article by Garrett Graff in Politico assumes Trump won’t be seeking revenge by immediately running for president in 2024, but takes a look at how different he will be than other former presidents. I actually think it will be worse than what he says, but it’s pretty bad.

If Trump loses and actually leaves office, I personally believe he’ll fashion himself as the legitimate president in exile and remain as an adversary in the public eye. I don’t know if he’ll ultimately run in 2024, but you can believe he will keep up the pretense as long as he can to stay in the spotlight and make as much money as possible.

From profiting off his lifetime Secret Service protection to trolling the Biden administration by cozying up to dictators around the world, Trump’s stint as ex-president could be as disruptive and norm-busting as the last four years have been.

Being an ex-president can be a cushy and quiet life for the most part. Jimmy Carter builds homes; George W. Bush paints. After leaving the White House, Barack Obama went kite-surfing with Richard Branson on his private island in the British Virgin Islands.

None of that, though, seems likely to be in the cards for Donald Trump if he loses reelection Tuesday and in just 80-odd days leaves the White House.

A restless figure with few interests outside his own business and political career, no hobbies besides playing golf at his own properties and few traditional friends, Trump thrives on public attention and disruption; this, after all, is a man who couldn’t even spend an entire weekend cooped up inside a hospital while ill with Covid-19 earlier this month and had to take a joyride around Walter Reed Medical Center to wave to supporters.

So if he loses the White House, what new phase would begin on January 21?

In interviews, historians, government legal experts, national security leaders and people close to the administration have a prediction that will disquiet his critics: The Trump Era is unlikely to end when the Trump presidency ends. They envision a post-presidency as disruptive and norm-busting as his presidency has been—one that could make his successor’s job much harder.They outline a picture of a man who might formally leave office only to establish himself as the president-for-life amid his own bubble of admirers—controlling Republican politics and sowing chaos in the U.S. and around the world long after he’s officially left office.

“Can he continue to make people not trust our institutions? Can he throw monkey wrenches into delicate negotiations? Absolutely,” one former Trump administration official says. “He can be a tool. He’ll be somewhere between dangerous and devastating on that extent.”

A president unwilling to respect boundaries in office is almost certain to cross them out of office. Experts envision some likely scenarios—a much-rumored TV show and plans to use his properties to profit off his lifetime Secret Service protection, perhaps even continuing to troll the Biden administration from his hotel down Pennsylvania Avenue—and some troubling if less certain ones, like literally selling U.S. secrets or influence to foreign governments.

Trump has already mused that maybe he’ll leave the country if he loses, but few expect him to willingly depart the American public stage. He would leave the White House with one of the largest social media platforms in the world—including 87 million Twitter followers—and a large campaign email list with a demonstrated small-dollar fundraising capability that could be used to aid other MAGA-friendly politicians—or, just as likely, to sell Trump’s own wares. And he’s presumably going to need every dollar he can squeeze from his businesses and the office he will have just left. As the New York Times has been documenting, Trump personally and the Trump Organization more broadly has more than $1 billion in debt coming due in the years ahead. If he leaves office, he’ll have to be busy raising the cash to pay it off.

Yes, Trump will probably grab the low-hanging fruit favored by ex-presidents past: profiting off the White House with a memoir—though many in the publishing industry don’t think he’ll get that much money for it—and living off a spigot of government money as he settles into the post-presidency. But those presidential traditions will provide just a fraction of the hundreds of millions Trump needs, and are unlikely to satisfy his entertainer’s ego.

“He’s still the leader of a movement,” says Nancy Gibbs, a journalist and historian who co-wrote The Presidents Club about the lives of former presidents. “I’m hard pressed to recall a past president who left office with a movement intact that wasn’t transferred to someone else. I don’t see him giving it up.”

Which means, from even those first minutes, Trump’s post-presidency would almost certainly be unlike anything America—or the world—has ever experienced. Assuming he’s able to settle any legal challenges arising from the presidency and doesn’t spend the rest of his days in tax court in New York state, Trump as a 74-year-old man has a normal life expectancy of around 11 years, and most former presidents actually far outlive the average American, so he might have a couple decades to disrupt the world’s most exclusive club of ex-presidents.

“It’s a safe bet that many of the rules and patterns of past presidents will not apply to him,” says Gibbs. “I long ago stopped putting limits on what he might do or sell. There are no boundaries.”

A career salesman will find himself with more connections around the world than he’s ever had before—and also with more grievances against people he feels mistreated him and forced him from office prematurely. “I put two years as the over-under on groundbreaking for Trump Tower Moscow,” says one former national security official. “It’ll be a huge F.U. to all the Russia coup plotters.”

Graff goes on to discuss all the ways in which he will continue to bilk the taxpayers, his memoir, a possible media empire and presidential library, but I think this is the most alarming:

Once he leaves office, there’s nothing to stop him from entering into lucrative and questionable business deals the world over—and he’d likely find a certain type of country or company all too eager to engage with him. “His mischief is much more international than national as an ex,” says a former senior Trump administration official. “There’s nothing [about leaving office] that diminishes his utility as an instrument of a foreign power.”

Trump’s past business practices already illustrate the possibilities: A hotel in Baku, Azerbaijan, which the New Yorker labeled “a corrupt operation engineered by oligarchs tied to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard”; recently revealed questionable business deals in China; and of course the Trump Tower Moscow project that he evidently pursued even as he ran for president. The possibilities for such deals post-presidency will expand exponentially and likely prove particularly necessary to secure the requisite cash flow to hold off the estimated $1 billion-plus in debt owed by his entire business empire.

In the years before the White House, the Trump Organization had largely become a branding entity—licensing the Trump name to products and projects rather than owning them outright or developing them himself. That may continue to be a smart play post-presidency, providing steady cash without a lot of the headaches of running enterprises.

Even more lucrative than the Trump brand, though, would be selling Trump himself. Look for Trump to be wooed not by the nation’s top adversaries or allies, but instead by the secondary and tertiary global powers who want the imprimatur of U.S. recognition and respect and are willing to roll out the red carpet for state-visitlike celebrations, perhaps all under the guises of fancy ribbon-cuttings of new Trump-branded projects.

Intelligence professionals can envision, for instance, Trump standing on the world stage alongside his favorite global strongmen—say Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán or Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro—bragging about his new joint development deals and the world leaders willing to host him even as they reject entreaties from President Biden. Think “Trump Tower Damascus will be a new start for my peace-loving friend Bashar al-Assad.” Or even imagine Trump, Rodman-style, turning up courtside at North Korean basketball games with his buddy Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang, just as Joe Biden turns up the pressure on the Hermit Kingdom’s nuclear program.

Current presidents often deploy former presidents as roving global diplomats par excellence, ambassadors without portfolio but owed the highest level of respect. Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, for example, have both been sent to North Korea to work out delicate negotiations. But it’s unlikely that a President Biden would ever turn to Trump for help on touchy geopolitical problems. And it’s unlikely Trump would give it. Instead, experts imagine Trump as free chaos agent—more or less what he’s been inside the White House, but with even less staffing, process or official restraints.

“Undermining our will, effectiveness and attempts to reassert our values and effectiveness? He’d be 100 percent willing to mess with that 100 percent for personal gain and continued notoriety,” says a former Trump administration official. “Imagine you don’t have Jimmy Carter out there doing your bidding, you have Donald Trump sitting down with these guys and offering them a stage to sell themselves.”

Trump, who has brokered what he sees as a historic opening between Israel and other Middle Eastern countries largely by excluding Palestinians from the process, might be particularly inclined to undermine any attempts by future presidential administrations to restore their voice or rebalance power in the Middle East. Similarly, if a President Biden moves aggressively against any of the regimes Trump befriended as president, Trump wouldn’t necessarily stand on the sidelines.

“He could become the best friend, underminer, impediment to reestablishing any kind of normalized relationships the United States seeks in the future. He’s able to be there offering a different perspective. You’ve now created in him a negative-pressure relief valve,” says the former Trump administration official.

As another expert told me, “When it was his job to put the country’s interests first, he didn’t put the country’s interests first. Why would we expect anything different after?”

There is no precedent for a former president’s conducting his own freelance foreign policy—and certainly not one that would go against the expressed policy of his successor. (Perhaps the closest analogue is the complex plot by former vice president—and Alexander Hamilton killer—Aaron Burr to form a breakaway republic in the then-southwestern United States with perhaps himself as emperor.) While the U.S. does have laws against citizens attempting to carry out their own foreign policy—it was concerns about that so-called Logan Act that helped launch the investigation of incoming Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn as he spoke to the Russian ambassador about Obama administration sanctions—the law has never been used in American history. As president, Trump has said he thought that former Secretary of State John Kerry violated the Logan Act in his one-man diplomacy to preserve the Iran deal as it was under attack from the Trump White House. The bar to deploy the Logan Act against a former government leader would be presumably high and prove as much a thorny political question as a criminal one. “We all shit all over the Logan Act [as useless], but at what point does that cross over into a legal issue? If he’s going to be trying to obstruct the foreign policy of the United States, what does that mean?” wonders the intelligence professional. “Talk about a complex investigation and case to bring.”

Most helpful to America’s adversaries overseas, though, would be that Trump’s ongoing tweeting and public appearances would simply serve as a constant reminder of America’s political instability. One of the reasons that Russia originally interfered in the 2016 election was simply to undermine the legitimacy of western democracies, and Trump’s ongoing tradition-shattering continues to underscore that message and lead other countries to doubt the moral superiority of American democracy.

Keep in mind that he has had access to all of America’s secrets and has shown as president that he is willing to run his mouth for his own self-aggrandizement. Imagine what he’d do for money and influence overseas after he’s out?

What can be done about this? I honestly don’t know.

There have been a lot of great ads this cycle. I think the pandemic has actually spurred people’s creativity. I’ve posted quite a few already. Here are a few more:

In 2018, Joaquin Oliver was shot and killed in the Parkland school shooting.
His parents used AI to bring him back to tell people how voting can prevent these kinds of tragedies from happening to any more families.https://t.co/BpK4zZkkbi pic.twitter.com/4Zj70f7Oid

— Change the Ref 🟧 (@ChangeTheRef) October 2, 2020

https://twitter.com/ericswalwell/status/1322161334696386560?s=20

States like Pennsylvania aren’t even going to start counting mail-in votes until the day after the election. So, if it comes down to that state, Trump is going to insist that he’s actually won, the courts may step in and this whole thing could quickly go sideways.

And if you think Trump will be sitting in the White House allowing the whole thing to unfold, think again:

Even if there isn’t a clear winner the day after the election, President Donald Trump may still take his MAGA message on the road.

Top surrogates for the Trump campaign have been told to keep their Novembers clear for potential campaign events. And Trump campaign advisers said not to rule out the possibility Trump continues his rallies even as election officials continue to count ballots after the Nov. 3 election, according to a campaign surrogate and two Trump advisers.

With the possibility that there might not be a clear winner on election night in key swing states like Pennsylvania and North Carolina, the campaign has discussed putting Trump and his family on the road to give a morale boost to supporters and let the president fire off about the election to crowds.

“Don’t miscount the fact that Trump will continue to do rallies while they’re still counting votes,” said one adviser to the Trump campaign.

Some surrogates have already been told to keep their schedules flexible for potential travel after the election.

“There’s been discussions about travel opportunities for Trump and his family if we don’t have a result on election day, but nothing definitive on where he would go or how many people we would deploy,” said one campaign aide. “If we still don’t have results in Michigan and North Carolina or Pennsylvania and Nevada on Nov. 4, he might hit those states individually.”

There can only be one reason he will do this. He will go to places where he may not win, call the election rigged and get his people all riled up to do … something.

I’m increasingly worried about what he’s going to do.

The acting president claims he does not drink. That does not mean he is not addicted. And not necessarily to Adderall.

Politico:

Top surrogates for the Trump campaign have been told to keep their Novembers clear for potential campaign events. And Trump campaign advisers said not to rule out the possibility Trump continues his rallies even as election officials continue to count ballots after the Nov. 3 election, according to a campaign surrogate and two Trump advisers.

He is not just incompetent, dishonest, heartless, corrupt, cruel, and weak. He is also insecure and needy.

With the possibility that there might not be a clear winner on election night in key swing states like Pennsylvania and North Carolina, the campaign has discussed putting Trump and his family on the road to give a morale boost to supporters and let the president fire off about the election to crowds.

“Don’t miscount the fact that Trump will continue to do rallies while they’re still counting votes,” said one adviser to the Trump campaign.

Nothing definitive, Trump aides say, and the campaign itself did not respond to Politico’s request for comment.

But if results are not definitive on Nov. 3, he might clutch his adulation security blanket all the tighter. He could incite followers (infected or not) in Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Nevada to throw themselves bodily against the doors of local elections offices to stop the vote count.

Republicans have done it before.

“Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,” states the Declaration of Independence. Just not Republican-led governments … under which consent of the governed is unwelcome and actively opposed.

“It’s just sad when a political party has so lost faith in its ideas that it’s pouring all of its energy into election mechanics,” said Wisconsin state Sen. Dale Schultz (R). “I am not willing to defend them anymore.”

That was March 2014. Schultz condemned his party’s attempts to limit access to the polls.

“It’s all predicated on some belief there is a massive fraud or irregularities, something my colleagues have been hot on the trail for three years and have failed miserably at demonstrating,” he said.

Six years later they are still failing miserably yet still trying to make it harder to vote. I recently counted 20 of their vote suppression methods. Ari Berman came up with a few more.

Republicans are filing election-related lawsuits in Nevada, Texas, Pennsylvania, Minnesota … everywhere, actually. Those actions have been largely a failure too, but party lawyers are just getting warmed up. They’ve challenged the rules. They’ve challenged the methods. They’ve challenged voting days and hours. The Trump administration has slowed the U.S. mail.

Now Republicans are challenging individual voters, maintaining the pretext their efforts are only about ensuring elections officials are scrupulously following the law:

“The other side has given every indication that they will challenge every ballot they can, at every step of the process,” said Chad Dunn, general counsel for the Texas Democratic Party and co-founder of the UCLA Voting Rights Project.

“The mask is off. This isn’t about rooting out any mythical voter fraud. It never was,” Dunn said. “This is about raw power and obtaining power by any means necessary.”

A quote I use on the back of my GOTV planning guide states a very different philosophy:

“We think that voting actually is not just a private vote for the person who gets the vote, but a public good, and that the more people who vote, the more legitimate the elected officials are, and that they represent the actual values of the electorate.” — former Colorado Senate Majority Leader Ken Gordon (D-Denver), Colorado Statesman, 7/27/12

It’s not Lincoln, but it’s American. One wonders if our opponents are anymore except on paper.

“It doesn’t have to be this way,” MSNBC’s Chris Hayes declared in a commentary Friday night.

No, it does not. Harris County, Texas added drive-through voting to its election-support efforts, and made 24-hour service available over the last day of early voting. Nearly 10,000 voted between 7 p.m. and midnight. Hundreds more voted in the wee hours. If you build it, they will come.

“What I like about engineering is that you can’t manipulate the laws of physics and mathematics,” Miguel Valencio said. “As we’ve seen lately, election laws are not the same.” Valencio arrived to vote about 1 a.m. He works for an oil-field services company and was angered by Governor Greg Abbott limiting county residents to using a single drop box for absentee ballots. He had not been enthusiastic about voting for Joe Biden, but Abbotts’s actions convinced him to vote in person.

A Democratic upset in a 2018 race for "Harris County judge" just might deliver Texas to Biden. Meanwhile, recent Dem wins in PA State Supreme Court races could thwart voter suppression in that tipping-point state.

Downballot elections, they matter folks!https://t.co/nCT5VfUuC5 pic.twitter.com/tJDcY1bkXV

— Eric Levitz (@EricLevitz) October 30, 2020

Texas has exceeded its 2016 voting total with Election Day still days away. Those down-ballot and local judges races? They matter.

Some of us still believe the consent of the governed matters.

Better late than never …

All the animals at Australia’s Sea Life Melbourne Aquarium are getting in the Halloween spirit 👻 Some highlights: A crocodile completely obliterates a jack-o'-lantern, while penguins are dumbfounded by a flashing pumpkin 🎃 pic.twitter.com/j3AWsQW5Gc

— NowThis Impact (@nowthisimpact) October 30, 2020

Last night, we watched the Sarah Cooper special on Netflix. As everyone knows already, her Trump lipsyncs border on the profound. Anna Deveare Smith and yes, I’ll say it, even Charlie Chaplin comes to my mind when I see them. After I stop laughing, that is.

In the rest of the special, we get an amazing number of cameos, from Whoopi Goldberg to Helen Mirren (!). The meta-message I took away was that these established performers were personally thanking Sarah. She came out of nowhere during a time when they (and we) were all beyond despair, and made us all laugh together.

We also hear Cooper’s real voice and can see a whole different set of mannerisms. This persona is disarming, endearing, and also poignant — a great a joy to watch! Really, it shouldn’t have taken a pandemic for Sarah Cooper to find an audience but let’s see more of her, soon.