Stephan: Here is Sunday's Republican Scum Report. It's a classic image. Alex Jones, standing in a park without a mask shouting through a bull horn at some hikers and park workers who must have wondered who is that fat old loon shouting at us?
Alex Jones, ranting loon in a park
Austin-based conspiracy theorist Alex Jones was filmed screaming without a mask for several minutes through a small bullhorn earlier this week at a small group of largely unresponsive hikers and young park workers seated in camp chairs at one of the new check-point entrances to the city’s Barton Creek greenbelt, accusing the “cult member kooks” of participating in an “illegal power grab of the people’s greenbelt.”
“My wife came here this morning, when you cult member kooks showed up here. And you asked her, ‘Where’s her reservation?’” Jones, founder and host of the conspiracy theory website InfoWars, was recorded shouting in an InfoWars video that first went viral Monday.
“Her reservation is that we live in a free country,” he added. “We live in America.”
The city opened the greenbelt Saturday for the first time since the July 4 weekend, implementing a reservation system to limit attendance amid the coronavirus pandemic. Jones, who has peddled conspiracy theories for years, alleged the new system was a profit scheme.
“I want this removed tonight,” he screamed, pointing at the makeshift wooden registration stand as […]
Erin Cox, Erin Cox Local reporter covering Maryland state politics Email Bio Follow Elise Viebeck, Jacob Bogage and Christopher Ingraham, Reporters - The Washington Post
Stephan: Donald Trump and his orcs, particularly Louis DeJoy, are attempting to pull off completely in the open, with no shame, the largest attack on the American electoral process ever witnessed. I do not understand why hundreds of thousands of people in cities and towns across America are not out in the street protesting the sabotage of the United States Postal Service. Please write your senators and representative, as I have just done, to protest this and demand that they do something to not only stop but reverse this attack on our national wellbeing.
Anticipating an avalanche of absentee ballots, the U.S. Postal Service recently sent detailed letters to 46 states and D.C. warning that it cannot guarantee all ballots cast by mail for the November election will arrive in time to be counted — adding another layer of uncertainty ahead of the high-stakes presidential contest.
The letters sketch a grim possibility for the tens of millions of Americans eligible for a mail-in ballot this fall: Even if people follow all of their state’s election rules, the pace of Postal Service delivery may disqualify their votes.
The Postal Service’s warnings of potential disenfranchisement came as the agency undergoes a sweeping organizational and policy overhaul amid dire financial conditions. Cost-cutting moves have already delayed mail delivery by as much as a week in some places, and a new decision to decommission 10 percent of the Postal Service’s sorting machines sparked widespread concern the slowdowns will only worsen. Rank-and-file postal workers say the move is ill-timed and could sharply diminish the speedy processing of flat mail, including letters and ballots.
Bill Blum, Retired Judge - Independent Media Institute/AlterNet
Stephan: Judge Blum, in my view, speaks to the trend that really concerns me: the creation by Trump and his orcs of a legal structure justifying White supremacy christofascism.
Trump and his orcs Credit: Shealah Craighead/White House
The debate over whether Donald Trump is a fascist is no longer confined to a narrow segment of the far left. It is now out in the open. Even mainstream columnists like the New York Times’ Michelle Goldberg and the Washington Post’s Ishaan Tharoor and influential Democratic politicians, such as Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, have come to use the “F” word to describe our 45th commander in chief.
Although it is an emotionally loaded and often misused term, fascism is as real today as a political and cultural force, a set of core beliefs and a mode of governance as it was when Benito Mussolini founded the Italian Fascist Party in 1919 and declared himself dictator six years later.
Nor is fascism a foreign phenomenon restricted to South American banana republics or failed European states. As University of London professor Sarah Churchwell explained in a June 22 Read the Full Article
Frank Newport, Senior Scientist - The Gallup Organization
Stephan: The Gallup Organization with this research paper gives us a deeper insight into how White supremacist christofascists are sacrificing all Christian principles in order to support Trump and the Republican Party. It is clear that we are in a real cultural civil war.
The process of analyzing and understanding presidential election dynamics often leads us to look at the American electorate not as a whole, but by segments. Party identification is the most frequently used way to sort voters, but other variables are also meaningfully related to political behavior and help explain how and why people vote.
Of particular interest this election cycle is the religious identity of voters, a factor that appears, at least to me, more important than it has been in recent presidential elections. This is in part because Joe Biden is only the fourth major-party Catholic presidential nominee in U.S. history and in part because Donald Trump continues to make the courting of evangelical voters a major priority of his campaign. Both the Biden and Trump campaigns have appointed coordinators to reach out to faith communities.
Segmenting Americans according to their religious identity is not as straightforward as it might seem. Religious identity is like a Russian nesting doll; opening up one doll reveals more dolls within. Broad religious groups can be divided into smaller […]
Julian Borger and Sam Levine, - The Guardian (U.K.)
Stephan: If you are old enough you may remember when the United States sent observers to other countries to observe whether or not they were running fair elections. Well, now other countries are sending observers to watch our election, because the United States is no longer seen as a functional democracy. In three and a half years. Trump and the Republican Party have completely changed the way America is seen in the world. This is so shameful I never thought I would see something like this; how about you?
Voting problems ‘may have an impact on the level of trust in election administration, which, in turn, could harm the integrity of election day proceedings’. Credit: Larry Marano/Rex/Shutterstock
An international election-monitoring body has raised concerns about the US vote in November, saying the “integrity of election day proceedings” could be under threat and recommended again sending observers to monitor the election.
It recommended member states send 100 long-term and 400 short-term observers to monitor the poll which it said “will be the most challenging in recent decades”.
A week-long needs assessment mission by the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) beginning on 29 May found there was widespread concern that “election officials will face serious challenges prior to and on election day, due to new measures in response to Covid-19 pandemic, […]
