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this election has demonstrated yet again, perhaps more dramatically than ever, is that the Electoral College is an outdated relic that undermines democratic governance and must be discarded if America is to survive as a functioning, just and modern nation.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

Election Prediction

 On election night the exit polls and the completed count in many states indicate that Biden will win the popular vote by a substantial margin and the electoral college by a lesser edge. Most states will announce that the winner cannot be declared pending the completion of the ongoing count of mail in ballots.

Trump will claim that the “Radical Left” is stealing the election by fraudulent means. He will call upon “patriots” to protect the nation and armed militias will take to the streets, surround election sites and attempt to confiscate ballots. In some cities the police will act to disarm and disperse the mobs; in other cities the police will take no action.
Trump will challenge the vote count in courts and, ultimately, a fiercely divided Supreme Court will deliver the presidency to Biden. The military will restore order in the troubled cities and insure that Trump leaves office at the end of his term.

Burisma and the Debate

 

At the debate this Thursday, Joe Biden must use the opportunity afforded by the enforced silence of Donald Trump to put to rest the Hunter Biden/Burisma Hail Mary being thrown by the Trump campaign.
In a compact and compelling statement Mr. Biden should remind voters that this timeworn concoction has been debunked by multiple law enforcement and congressional investigations, has been identified as anticipated Russian disinformation aimed at disrupting the election and is based upon a fantasy fed to Rudy Giuliani by a known Russian operative currently under investigation by the FBI.
Mr. Biden should also reinforce the fact that his pressure to remove a corrupt Ukrainian prosecutor was in furtherance of US policy to cleanse that country’s judicial system and had international support.

Unmasking Probe Ends With a Whimper

 

It has been reliably reported that the "great unmasking investigation", initiated by Attorney General William Barr, at the instigation of Fox anchor Sean Hannity and President Donald Trump, has come to an inglorious end. The United States Attorney, John Bash, who was charged with finding criminal misconduct in the highest echelons of the Obama administration, including Vice President Biden, National Security Director Susan Rice and FBI Director James Comey, has left the Department of Justice. Mr. Bash reportedly found no prosecutable wrongdoing, in connection with alleged spying on Michael Flynn and other Trump personnel,  and the report of his non-findings is apparently being buried by Mr. Barr.

After years of almost nightly denouncing the "greatest political conspiracy in American history" and promising that, at any moment, Obama officials would be exposed and jailed, the demise of the investigation has gone without comment or acknowledgement by Mr. Hannity. Mr. Trump has bemoaned the betrayal by his staunchest supporter, Attorney General Barr who has, unexpectedly, failed to do his bidding to imprison the president's opponents.

In these topsy turvy times of a Justice Department out of control, small victories must be noted.

Supreme Court Declines to Revive Abortion Restriction

 The Supreme Court, for the moment, thankfully has declined to stay an injunction issued by a lower court preventing the government from requiring women seeking an abortion pill to travel and appear in person to obtain the medication from a hospital or medical office. The court below found that this requirement imposed an undue burden on the constitutional right to an abortion given the risk of needless travel during the coronavirus pandemic.

In his dissent Justice Alito, joined by Justice Thomas, complained that the court had sanctioned restrictions on religious liberty and free expression by refusing to exempt churches from state shutdown orders but protected abortion rights from government safety regulations. In Justice Alito’s distorted view, the court had allowed serious infringement of free speech and religious liberty in the name of safeguarding public health but now fails to intervene when abortion rights are protected at the expense of public health.
Justice Alito’s reasoning  is logically flawed. Congregating for religious, or any other purpose, poses a health threat. So does a federal requirement that a woman travel unnecessarily to obtain medication provided by mail. Allowing government restriction in the religious context and forbidding it to prevent access by mail to a constitutionally protected right to abortion are each consistent with an overriding concern for the protection of public health. The court’s approach, Justice Alito’s complaint notwithstanding, does not elevate abortion rights above free expression or religious liberty; it subjects each right to the same test of insuring public health.