Stephan: A majority -- a majority! -- of Republicans would be prepared to suspend democracy if it was requested by Donald Trump, and if the Republicans in Congress support such an action the number goes up. Think about that. We stand at the precipice and it is not clear, to me at least, whether we will willingly jump. It is going to depend on how many people vote, and how they vote. And in 2020, if the Democrats do what they did in 2016 and fragment America is lost.
Credit: www.politicspa.com
A new poll published in the Washington Post found that 52% of Republicans would support postponing the 2020 election if President Trump requested it to “make sure that only eligible American citizens can vote”. It also found 56% of Republicans would support a delay if Congressional Republicans were in support. (emphasis added)
Other takeaways among the Republicans surveyed: 68% believe illegal immigrants voted, 73% believe voter fraud happens somewhat or very often, and 47% believe Trump won the popular vote.
Keep in mind: The poll asked respondents questions about voter fraud before asking about the postponing the 2020 election. As Business Insider editor Josh Barro tweeted, “the poll was designed to produce alarming results…” and find correlations between beliefs in voter fraud and postponing.
We’ve seen deeply partisan polls before. During the 2016 campaign, The Hill reported that a majority of Democrats would support canceling the 2016 election in favor of Obama remaining in office for a third term.
The relevant poll questions, via WaPo:”If Donald Trump were to say that the 2020 presidential election should be postponed until the country can make sure that […]
Stephan: This is further confirmation of what I have been saying since Trump was elected. The reason the Republicans in Congress do not react with a spine or integrity is that they are terrified of the White supremacist christofascists who people their gerrymandered districts. They created a monster and now must give it obeisance. Which is to say, that the problem with America is Americans, in the same way that the problem with Germany in 1931 was Germans.
It is getting very scary, folks.
House Intelligence Committee Credit: Wired
Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee on Thursday defeated an attempt by panel Democrats to subpoena the interpreter who worked for President Donald Trump during his summit Monday with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“This is an extraordinary remedy, I realize, but then it’s extraordinary for the president of the United States to ask all of his senior staff essentials to leave the room and have a conversation with an adversary,” said Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who called for the vote to compel the interpreter to testify behind closed doors. “And then in a public conversation disavow his own intelligence agencies and in many respects disavow his own country.”
Trump has come under increasing scrutiny from Democrats as well as his fellow Republicans for appearing to side with Putin over his own intelligence agencies on Russian meddling allegations, even as the president has attempted to walk back his comments in recent days.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Rep. Joe Kennedy (D-Mass.) have also called for the translator’s testimony.
Stephan: It is becoming clearer every day that the treasonous corruption that is eating away at the democratic structures of the country involve far more than Trump. We have already seen that the evil NRA is complicit, so are members of the Congress, as well as almost all the Evangelical organizations.
Senator Mitch McConnell, Representative Paul Ryan, and Representative Kevin McCarthy at the House and Senate Republican retreat in February 2018. Credit: CQ Roll Call /AP/ Tom Williams
What did everyone think was going to happen?
There’s nothing we learned from Donald Trump’s meeting in Helsinki on Monday with Vladimir Putin that we didn’t already know. Seeing the president of the United States praise a foreign adversary to his face while insulting his own intelligence services carries some remaining power to shock, but nothing about Trump’s past statements, including his tweets in the days leading up to the summit, suggested anything very different was in store. We certainly should have been prepared for the likelihood that Trump would flatter Putin, denounce the media, and generally humiliate the United States for no discernible reason.
On the one hand, it’s healthy that the public is capable of expressing outrage. It’s reassuring that Trump’s appalling behavior and flagrant corruption haven’t been completely normalized. And yet there’s something empty about this reaction every time it occurs. The fact […]
Stephan: Over the past several weeks, as the fundamental structures of America and its international relationships have been sabotaged by Trump and the Trumplicans in Congress, what has fascinated me in a macabre sort of way is that Trump's poll numbers amongst what has become known as the Trumplican "base" -- which is to say the White supremacist christofascists -- have actually gone up.
But have you noticed the strange silence? I understand television networks don't want to drive away viewers so they hardly mention this trend. And I understand why the quislings in Congress don't talk about it for fear the Trumplican "base" will turn against them and they will lose their cushy gigs.
But I don't understand why the other two-thirds of the country have been so complacent. We are finally beginning to see some demonstrations but the kind of passionate defense of the country, such as one saw in the Civil Rights era remains strangely missing.
We are four months away from an election that is going to determine America's course for the foreseeable future. Do you think all those complacent Democrats and Independents will vote, or will they just watch America come apart, and become a Neo-feudal authoritarian state? What will you do?
Credit: Marc Piscotty/Getty Images
A week ago, Norman Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, brought some attention to a growing threat to the integrity of our elections. “[B]y 2040 or so,” he tweeted, “70 percent of Americans will live in 15 states. Meaning 30 percent will choose 70 senators. And the 30% will be older, whiter, more rural, more male than the 70 percent.” Two days later, the Washington Post’s Philip Bump ran a check on the numbers, citing an analysis of Census Bureau projections from the University of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service. “In broad strokes,” he wrote, “Ornstein is correct.”
[In 2040] eight states will have just under half of the total population of the country, 49.5 percent, according to the Weldon Cooper Center’s estimate. The next eight most populous states will account for an additional fifth of the population, up to 69.2 percent — meaning that the 16 most populous states will be home to about 70 percent of […]
Stephan: We have reached a level of racism and nativism that I never thought could possibly happen in America; we are selectively and racially taking away the citizenship of naturalized Americans who immigrated here. Here's the story.
Being naturalized, or sworn in as a US citizen, is supposed to guarantee immigrants equal rights. But the Department of Justice has the power to ask a federal judge to revoke someone’s citizenship if it believes the immigrant committed fraud when obtaining it. Credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Norma Borgono is a 63-year-old grandmother in Miami, scrambling to make ends meet while living with a rare kidney disease. The 28 years she’s spent in the US since arriving from Peru haven’t been easy or perfect: In 2011, she pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud for her role in a scheme to defraud the Export-Import Bank. But she cooperated with investigators to put together the case against the author of the fraud — the owner of the company where she worked as an office manager — and was sentenced to 12 months of house arrest and another several years of parole.
Borgono thought that was that. But years later, the Trump administration is taking her back to court, and threatening […]
