Category: Electoral Politics

Parents Are Worried About Schools. Are the Candidates?

Communities large and small are battling over whether and how to reopen schools closed since March. Superintendents are warning of drastic budget cuts on the horizon, teachers’ unions are calling for standardized tests to be canceled for a second straight year and millions of children are learning remotely, with little evaluation of the impact on

Chuck Schumer Suggests DNI Ratcliffe Is Lying About Iran Attack To Damage Trump

Chuck Schumer couldn’t speak directly about the classified briefing he received, but he was able to suggest that DNI Ratcliffe was lying about Iran’s motivations. Senate Democratic Leader Schumer told Rachel Maddow, “Well, I’m not saying what he told me in the briefing. I can tell you that from the briefing, I had the strong

Iran and Russia Seek to Influence Election in Final Days, U.S. Officials Warn

“But they have gone from propaganda to deliberate interference in this election,” John Hultquist, the senior director of FireEye, a Silicon Valley security firm, said after Wednesday’s announcement.“Their focus here is to prey on existing fears that election infrastructure will be subverted and hacked, as well as fears of voter intimidation,” he said.Iran may not

‘Tensions high at sites of early voting’ … okay, but who’s responsible?

The article offers example after example showing this is a Trump issue.  Trump supporters rallied right by ballot drop boxes in Nevada City, California, forcing voters to make their way through or around the rally to vote, with some feeling intimidated In Hendersonville, Tennessee, a Trump supporter drove a truck and trailer around a polling

Mark Meadows Says Hunter Biden Probe Not a Priority Before Election Day

White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said a possible investigation into Hunter Biden is not a priority before Election Day, one day after President Donald Trump urged his attorney general to investigate Biden’s business dealings. “It’s not necessarily at the top of our priority list in this last 13 days, but as we’re looking

Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: Cue the next act in the reality show

Stu Rothenberg/Roll Call: Excuse me, but is that a partisan wave building? Democratic polling, enthusiasm, fundraising make Republicans nervous GOP insiders are now hoping for the best but bracing for the worst. Veteran Republicans have all but given up on Donald Trump’s reelection and are now focused on minimizing the damage down ballot. They criticize

Tax Records Reveal That Trump Has A Hidden Chinese Bank Account

New details from Donald Trump’s tax records show not only that he spent a decade pursuing business projects in China, but also that the president of the United States has a Chinese bank account that wasn’t listed on his public financial disclosures. According to The New York Times, “Mr. Trump’s own business history is filled

Pompeo reportedly ignored outraged employees to address group that supports ‘ex-gay’ therapy

The Miami Herald reports that “[o]ne source described several aides as ‘appalled’ the event still took place despite the concerns, and that afterward, the secretary highlighted his appearance in his latest ‘Miles with Mike’ message to department employees.” A State Department spokesperson tried to soothe alarm over the speech by later claiming that Pompeo honestly had no

Retired Navy Admiral William McRaven Announces He Voted for Biden

Retired Navy Admiral William McRaven endorsed Democrat Joe Biden in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal published today. McRaven, who was the commander of U.S. Special Operations Command from 2011 to 2014––and was behind the successful raid of Osama bin Laden––said he has already voted for Biden in Texas. “Truth be told, I am a

From her secret identity to how Joe Biden’s wife could become first career First Lady, everything you need to know

Jill Biden could become first first lady to have full-time job outside White House (Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)She may be on the verge of becoming America’s first lady if her husband wins the White House, but don’t expect Dr Jill Biden to give up her teaching career.For Dr Biden, who has four

Rachel Maddow Warns American Democracy May Not Survive A Second Trump Term

During her program on Monday night, Rachel Maddow said that it only took Donald Trump and a complicit Republican Party four years to push American democracy to the brink of collapse. Over the next 15 days, the MSNBC host said, the American people will have to decide if they want the country to remain in

Trump Team Unveils $55 Million Ad Blitz on a Day of Scattershot Attacks

Early in the summer, the state led the nation in new infections per capita. It hit a peak of 4,797 new cases one day in late June, but new infections declined after Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, reversed himself and allowed local governments to require residents to wear masks.While Mr. Trump is trying to recreate

Trump might sink vulnerable Senate Republicans even in states he manages to win

What this suggests is that Trump’s wild support among MAGA enthusiasts isn’t making the 1-to-1 transfer to his Senate colleagues—meaning their blind loyalty to Trump hasn’t paid the dividends they anticipated. At the same time, Senate Republicans’ studied obsequiousness to Trump has hobbled their chances of winning enough moderate and independent voters to be assured they

The Beastie Boys Ad License A Song For The First Time Ever To Support Joe Biden

The Beastie Boys granted their first-ever ad song license for an ad, and it was to support Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. Variety reported: The Beastie Boys had never before licensed any of their songs for an advertisement, but that commercial blackout came to an end during Sunday’s Steelers/Browns game when the sounds of “Sabotage”

Trump says US would be in ‘massive depression’ if he listened to experts

President Trump said the US would be in the throes of a “massive depression” if he had “totally” heeded advice from scientists on coronavirus-related lockdown measures. Trump made the economic prediction at his Sunday rally in Carson City, Nevada, adding that the country would endure another Great Depression if Joe Biden is elected president. “He’s

The Hunter Biden Emails Story Has Totally Fallen Apart

Writers at The New York Post refused to allow their bylines to be used on the alleged Hunter Biden emails story because they doubted the sourcing and credibility of the materials. Via The New York Times:The New York Post’s front-page article about Hunter Biden on Wednesday was written mostly by a staff reporter who refused

Trump Runs the Kind of Campaign He Likes, but Not the One He Might Need

“A lot of Republican consultants are frustrated because we want the president’s campaign to be laser-focused on the economy,” said David Kochel, a Republican strategist in Iowa. “Their best message is: Trump built a great economy” and Covid-19 damaged it, and Mr. Trump is a better option than Mr. Biden to restore it, he said.

Rudy’s ‘Russian Agent’ Pal Teases ‘Second Laptop’ With Hunter Biden Kompromat

Gleb Garanich/ReutersRudy Giuliani has dismissed concerns that his latest anti-Biden smears are part of a foreign-election interference plot, but a Ukrainian lawmaker recently deemed an “active Russian agent” by the U.S. Treasury is now touting further details to come.Andrii Derkach, one of the key players in Giuliani’s years-long dirt-digging mission against Joe Biden in Ukraine,

Ernst Struggles in Iowa as Republicans Battle to Hold Senate Amid Trump’s Woes

SIOUX CITY, Iowa — The Toby Keith music blared from loudspeakers as Senator Joni Ernst, carrying an energy drink, worked a crowd of bikers in this town near the Nebraska border, shaking hands and giving out hugs.Human-size Trump signs stood in the Harley-Davidson store parking lot beneath a bright, almost cyan blue sky, but there

When the Daily Kos Community unites behind a cause, watch out!

When we work together, we may not move mountains, but we block pipelines—a much more ecologically desirable outcome. In 2011, member Bill McKibben, environmentalist founder of 350.org, wrote “Um, thanks to all,” after Transcanada suspended the Keystone pipeline. “Back in the early days of the Keystone fight, it was hard to get anyone to pay

Ignore The Polls And Sprint Through The Finish Line

The Biden campaign has a simple message for Democratic voters as this race approaches its final days: Don’t let up until the votes are counted and Donald Trump is defeated. According to The New York Times, “In a memo that will be sent to supporters on Saturday, Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, Mr. Biden’s campaign manager, stressed

In Kalamazoo, Old High School Classmates Reckon With a Divided Country

Chris Kooi is, on paper, the kind of voter who helped Mr. Trump win Michigan in 2016: white, non-college educated, late-Gen Xer, male. In 2003, he moved from Kalamazoo to a rural county 20 miles east, the sort of place where Mr. Trump ran up the numbers. Keep up with Election 2020 Like many people,

Sean “Diddy” Combs Thinks There Will be a Race War if Trump Wins

Donald Trump has long been desperate for celebrity endorsements. The only that ever seemed to come, though, were from people like Ted Nugent, Tim Allen and Kid Rock. The majority of musicians, actors and artists support Democratic candidates. Rap mogul Sean Combs recently came out to endorse Joe Biden. Diddy, however, took it one step

‘Sort of behaviour you’d expect from Isis’

(Independent)At a speech in Michigan billed as remarks about the Affordable Care Act, Joe Biden paid tribute to Governor Gretchen Whitmer, following the recent discovery of the plot to kidnap her.“There is not a better governor in the United States of America than Gretchen Whitmer,” he said. “You’ve shown this whole nation just how tough

Joe Biden town hall drew more viewers than Trump, early ratings show

Joe Biden’s town hall drew more TV viewers than President Trump’s competing event on Thursday night, according to early figures. A total of 12.7 million viewers tuned in to ABC to watch Biden field questions from voters from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m., compared to 10.4 million who watched Trump do the same on NBC,

Rachel Maddow Declares Trump’s NBC News Town Hall A Catastrophe

With just over two weeks until votes are counted, Donald Trump needed to show up at Thursday night’s town hall event and do something to peel voters away from Joe Biden. Unfortunately for his struggling campaign, Trump may have done just the opposite. As Rachel Maddow said following the president’s town hall, “I know why the

Trump and Biden Spar From Afar at Town Halls

President Trump spoke positively about an extremist conspiracy-theory group, expressed skepticism about mask-wearing, rebuked his own F.B.I. director and attacked the legitimacy of the 2020 election in a televised town hall forum on Thursday, veering far away from a focused campaign appeal. Instead, he further stoked the country’s political rifts as his Democratic opponent, Joseph

Trump’s Law And Order Message Flops In The Midwest As Biden Leads In Wisconsin And Minnesota

Donald Trump hoped his new “law and order” campaign strategy would save him in key midwestern battleground states like Wisconsin and even help him carry historically blue Minnesota, but new polling released Saturday shows that his bet isn’t paying off. According to a batch of polls from The New York Times/Siena College, Biden has a

Trump Onslaught Against Biden Falls Short of a Breakthrough

In Minnesota, Mr. Biden was ahead among suburban voters by 20 percentage points. In Wisconsin, that advantage was just five points.More significant for the former vice president is his strength with seniors, an advantage Democrats did not enjoy four years ago. Mr. Biden enjoys a 12-point lead, 52 to 40, among people 65 and older

Progressive groups push House Dems to help Biden resurrect Iran nuclear agreement

The letter was also signed by the Arms Control Association, the progressive Jewish organization J-Street, and foreign policy-focused groups  Just Foreign Policy and Win Without War. […] Rep. Eliot Engel (D–N.Y.), the current chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, was one of nineteen House Democrats who joined with Republicans to vote against the [JCPOA]