Election Fraud Claims

 Having turned truth on its head for four years it is hardly surprising that Donald Trump has now taken on the rewriting of the civil law. Since time immemorial the law has required that the party alleging fraud has the burden of proof, usually by the heightened standard of clear and convincing evidence. But Mr. Trump, incredulous that Joe Biden could have received 80 million votes, has tweeted that he will vacate the White House only if Mr. Biden proves that his vote total was not fraudulently obtained. A good lawyer, if only Trump had one, would counsel her client that the legal system doesn’t work that way. But it seems that it will be left to the courts to deliver the message. In the meantime,  Mr. Trump embarrasses himself, sows national discord and makes our democracy an object of pity and a laughingstock internationally.

Trump Appointees Show Clout as Justices Scrap Limits on Congregations

 

The Trump-constructed conservative majority on the Supreme Court has now made it clear that, while limitations on free speech imposed by obscenity and defamation laws are acceptable, reasonable and temporary restrictions on the size of prayer meetings, designed to protect public health, are anathema.

Justices who usually defer to the expertise of partisan politicians when it comes to drawing voting maps, now substitute their lay judgment to override the scientifically-based advice of epidemiologists  about how best to combat a pandemic.

Apparently, these justices believe it is constitutionally more important to shelter sensitive ears and protect fragile reputations than it is to safeguard the public's health.

Trump Pardons Flynn

 An unintended yet powerful reminder of how President Trump corrupted the criminal justice system, and how close we came to losing our democracy, is Mr. Trump's pardon today of Michael Flynn. Mr. Flynn, a confessed liar, was fired by President Trump for misinforming the Vice President about his dealings with the Russians and because he was vulnerable to Russian extortion. Notwithstanding, Mr. Trump fired FBI Director James Comey for resisting presidential pressure to drop the case against Flynn and, then, had his Attorney General, William Barr, finish  the job (or so he thought) by moving to dismiss before a court could impose sentence. When the court required Mr. Barr to explain his inexplicable and unprecedented turnabout, Mr. Trump delayed until the election ended and then granted today's pardon.

Now we await with apprehension the final blows this roundly rejected president may deliver to the rule of law as he makes his flailing exit from office.

Trump Moves to Hem Biden In

 

President Trump and his administration are laying economic, environmental, and diplomatic mine fields calculated to prevent, hinder and disrupt the new president’s programs to restore the economy, protect our climate, equalize justice and create a more peaceful world.
Trump has launched an eleventh hour maelstrom to seed the courts and federal agencies with long serving ultra conservatives, suspend protective regulations, forfeit funds for economic recovery, award drilling leases on pristine lands, harden rifts with our adversaries and widen the separation from our allies.
This unhinged rampage is the vengeful and destructive work of an egomaniac determined to bring down the nation that rejected him and to insure the failure of his successor.
It is time for Republicans to realize that the boat being scuttled will carry all of us to the bottom.

Challenge For Biden

The greatest challenge facing Joe Biden’s presidency will be a Republican controlled Senate dominated by Mitch McConnell and dedicated to blocking every program intended to help working class Americans and the confirmation of liberal judges.

A President Biden must immediately send to Congress proposed legislation to fund the unemployed, save small business and keep states and localities from bankruptcy. He must also forward a program to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure, thus salvaging our crumbling roads, bridges, water lines and mass transit systems and spurring employment for millions.
The House of Representatives must swiftly pass this legislation and send the bills on to the Senate. Mr. Biden must then initiate a nation-wide full court press to gain support for these measures and pressure Senate Republicans to defect from McConnell’s negativism. The problem of judges will only be solved when Democrats regain control of the Senate, hopefully in 2022.

Biden's Ambitious Plans Ride on Georgia Runoffs

 It is imperative that President- Elect Biden and the two Democratic senatorial candidates in Georgia lay out in detail the new administration’s proposed legislative plan to defeat the virus, restore the economy and rebuild the nation’s crumbling infrastructure. They must demonstrate how these measures realistically can be funded.

Then they must make the case to Georgia voters that the program is a sound and effective way to solve the country’s myriad problems and not, as Republicans falsely assert, a wild, radical pipe dream.
Finally, they must persuade the voters that keeping the Senate under the thumb of Mitch McConnell will surely be a lethal roadblock to the nation’s recovery.

Is America Becoming a Failed State?

 What this election has demonstrated yet again, perhaps more dramatically than ever, is that the Electoral College is an outdated relic that undermines democratic governance and must be discarded if America is to survive as a functioning, just and modern nation.

In 2016 that method of choosing a president enabled elevation to power of a man rejected by a majority of voters , having lost by 3 million votes. Now we are witnessing that same person losing his bid for re-election by an even greater margin likely to exceed 5 million votes. Yet the switch of several thousand votes in a few key states would have wrought the unthinkable; another four years of autocratic, corrupt and incompetent rule by a president who lost the popular vote overwhelmingly.

The will of a majority of Americans is further thwarted by a system that allocates two Senate seats to each state. As Paul Krugman points out, 39 million Californians have the same representation and weight in the Senate as do just half a million residents of Wyoming. The result is a national policy that neglects the needs and disregards the preferences of a great preponderance of Americans and a Supreme Court that upholds the implementation of that inequitable policy.