brooklynite
brooklynite's JournalTop U.S. general says no role for military in presidential vote
Source: Tampa Bay Times
WASHINGTON — The U.S. armed forces will have no role in carrying out the election process or resolving a disputed vote, the top U.S. military officer told Congress in comments released Friday.
The comments from Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, underscore the extraordinary political environment in America, where the president has declared without evidence that the expected surge in mail-in ballots will make the vote “inaccurate and fraudulent,” and has suggested he might not accept the election results if he loses.
Trump’s repeated complaints questioning the election’s validity have triggered unprecedented worries about the potential for chaos surrounding the election results. Some have speculated that the military might be called upon to get involved, either by Trump trying to use it to help his re-election prospects or as, Democratic challenger Joe Biden has suggested, to remove Trump from the White House if he refuses to accept defeat. The military has adamantly sought to tamp down that speculation and is zealously protective of its historically nonpartisan nature.
“I believe deeply in the principle of an apolitical U.S. military,” Milley said in written responses to several questions posed by two Democratic members of the House Armed Services Committee. “In the event of a dispute over some aspect of the elections, by law U.S. courts and the U.S. Congress are required to resolve any disputes, not the U.S. military. I foresee no role for the U.S armed forces in this process.”
Read more: https://www.tampabay.com/news/military/2020/08/28/top-us-general-says-no-role-for-military-in-presidential-vote/
LINCOLN PROJECT campaign ad: "Protect"
BREAKING: Trump makes an ad buy in two critical swing States
https://twitter.com/MediumBuying/status/1299370183224590336LIVE FEED: 2020 March on Washington
Joe Bide campaign ad: "Anthem"
DOSE OF JOE -- Aug 28
Friends -- see below for today's Dose of Joe.
Joe did interviews with CNN’s Anderson Cooper and MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell where he discussed the shooting of Jacob Blake and condemned violence. And, he called out Trump for purposely sowing discord and chaos for political gain.
Joe released a statement on Donald Trump’s America, and how the images of violence are not from “Joe Biden’s America,” but instead force you to ask the question: “How safe do you feel in Donald Trump’s America?”
Kamala Harris delivered remarks on President Trump’s failures to contain COVID-19 and protect working families from the economic fallout.
Yesterday, more than 100 alumni of the notable Senator and former Republican presidential nominee John McCain, alumni of Senator Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign, and more than 200 former Bush administration officials endorsed Joe Biden for President.
Biden for President released a new two-minute television ad in the run up to Donald Trump’s speech at the RNC that narrates step-by-step Joe Biden’s story, record, and vision.
JOE’S TWEETS TO AMPLIFY
@JoeBiden: From the moment COVID-19 emerged, President Trump downplayed the threat it posed, refused to listen to the experts, and failed to take action to contain its spread. Now, we’re paying the price.
@JoeBiden: Donald Trump promised to be the greatest jobs president God ever created. Instead, tens of millions of Americans are out of work and we're facing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. #PromisesBroken
@JoeBiden: Donald Trump didn't build a wall around America, the world built a wall around us.
Jacob Blake's father spoke to Biden and Harris for an hour...Trump, not so much
https://twitter.com/JohnAvlon/status/1299317021272875008'She was the aggressor': Former Liberty student alleges sexual encounter with Becki Falwell
PoliticoThe student was 22 at the time of the encounter, near the start of Liberty’s fall semester. He said she initiated the act, and he went along with it. But despite his rejection of further advances, he said, Falwell continued pursuing him, offering him gifts and engaging in banter through Facebook messages.
“She was the aggressor,” he said.
The messages, screenshots of which were provided by the former student to POLITICO, suggest a flirtatious relationship that went beyond what might be expected of a mother communicating with her son’s bandmate.
Southern hospitality?
Charlie Cook: Many Are Afraid To Say It, but This Is Not a Close Race
Cook Political ReportAs Joe Biden was preparing to give his presidential nomination acceptance speech Thursday night, for me like so many others it was a time to reflect on where the race stands. I was thinking about the the Hans Christian Anderson fable “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” which many have cited in writings and cartoons criticizing President Trump. Each has put a slightly different contemporary spin on the 1837 story, in which a pair of swindlers convince a vain king that they could weave fabulous clothes for him with a magic fabric that could not be seen by anyone who was stupid or incompetent. The king commissioned the faux-tailors to make him a suit of clothes, checking on their work, watching the pair at their looms as they pretended to weave, not letting on that he could not see the fabric, lest people think him a fool. Once presented with the “clothes,” he strutted through the streets wearing nothing, no one letting on that they, too, could not see the clothes. Finally, a young boy cries out, “But he has nothing on!”
I think about the story in the context of this election, but not in a way that compares Trump to the king. Rather, I think about it in terms of the political analysts, pollsters, and pundits who refuse to state publicly what the data plainly show: that it is very, very unlikely Trump will win 270 electoral votes and the election.
Blame the election of 2016. Virtually everyone but the most die-hard Trump backers that year felt he would lose. Few forecasters thought it was possible for a candidate to lose the national popular vote by over 2 percentage points (nearly 3 million votes) and still win enough states to reach 270 electoral votes. You had to go back to 1876, when Samuel Tilden won the popular vote by 3 points yet lost the electoral vote 185 to 184, to see a similar scenario play out.
Between 1876 and 2016, the popular vote and the Electoral College diverged only two other times: in 1888, when Grover Cleveland won the popular vote by eight-tenths of a point but lost to Benjamin Harrison, and 2000, when Al Gore won the popular vote by a half-point but George W. Bush won the electoral vote on a 537-vote win in Florida.
Trump says goodbye to MAGA rallies
Source: Politico
President Donald Trump has finally given up on his MAGA rallies.
After he formally accepts the Republican nomination for president Thursday night, Trump will launch a general election campaign with a new playbook: short speeches, mostly outdoors, multiple times a day, with the occasional stop at a diner or store to greet people, minus the handshakes. Many of these events, described by four people familiar with the plans, will take place at airports. Trump will fly in on Air Force One to greet crowds of no more than a few hundred people, as his campaign playlist blares and U.S. flags wave around him.
Welcome to the most unusual election season in modern presidential history — where the coronavirus outbreak has forced the most nontraditional candidate to embrace a more traditional campaign style.
“Obviously you’d love to see the president hold his signature arena rallies, but a retail politics approach could end up being a blessing in disguise,” said Charlie Kirk, founder of the conservative student activists group Turning Point Action. “It will humanize him for millions of voters who either only ever see him on stage, in official White House settings, or otherwise just believe the news media’s caricature of him.”
Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/26/trump-post-rnc-plan-400091
Profile Information
Name: Chris BastianGender: Male
Hometown: Brooklyn, NY
Home country: USA
Member since: 2002
Number of posts: 94,490
