ISSUES
REFUSAL TO CERTIFY ELECTIONS
Maddow points out frightening truth about Trump's lack of concern about votes
Democracy Watch with Marc Elias
Marc Elias discusses election officials who refuse to certify the election based on bogus fraud claims. Interviewed by Bryan Tyler Cohen.
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Link
Election Certification Under Threat
August 13, 2024
A legal roadmap to protect the 2024 election including
from 35 officials who have refused to certify results
This 114-page report was prepared by a team at Citizens For Responsibility & Ethics in Washington. The 4-page introduction provides a brief overview of the situation. The main part of the report is a detailed, state-by-state analysis of eight states where Republicans have utilized refusal to certify election results at the county level. For each state, the legal remedies under state law are discussed. The report also covers federal legal remedies that may be used in situations where “a state is unable or unwilling to take action against rogue county officials who threaten to disenfranchise voters in violation of federal law.
The report may be downloaded as a PDF file from the CREW Web site. Link
The Fight to Protect the 2024 Election with Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson
As a critical swing state, Michigan is on the front lines in the fight to protect democracy. Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson joins Marc Elias to discuss how Michigan has worked to protect elections this fall, the growing threat of election deniers and what citizens can do to help safeguard voting rights. (39:57)
This video is provided by Democracy Docket.
Link
ROGUE U.S. Supreme Court
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse:
The Scheme 23: Let’s Say
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) took to the Senate Floor to deliver the twenty-third in a series of speeches entitled “The Scheme,” exposing the machinations by right-wing donor interests to capture the Supreme Court and achieve through the Court what they cannot through the elected branches of government. Whitehouse recounts what we know about the capture of the Supreme Court to date and rebuts the arguments offered by attorneys for court fixer Leonard Leo and billionaire Harlan Crow. YouTube, September 19, 2023 (23:43)
YouTube Link
U.S. Representative Seth Moulton discusses the presidential race and the Supreme Court immunity ruling
Senator Ed Markey speaks in front of the Supreme Court building about a proposal to expand the court
President Biden Proposes Changes for the U.S. Supreme Court
A MEDIA ISSUE
It’s 2016 all over again!
Donald Trump rambled and lied for over an hour without any follow up questions or fact-checking. MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell says that while he hopes Vice President Harris answers questions from reporters, after the press conference that Donald Trump turned into a “charade,” Vice President Harris has “absolutely no greater obligation to do so because of what Donald Trump pretended to do today.” Link
The Truth About Trump’s Press Conference
August 9, 2024
The following is an excerpt. The full article is available in the link.
His obvious emotional instability is frightening, not funny.
Donald Trump’s public events are a challenge for anyone who writes about him. His rallies and press conferences are rich sources of material, fountains of molten weirdness that blurp up stuff that would sink the career of any other politician. By the time they’re over, all of the attendees are covered in gloppy nonsense.
And then, once everyone cleans up and shakes the debris off their phones and laptops, so much of what Trump said seems too bonkers to have come from a former president and the nominee of a major party that journalists are left trying to piece together a story as if Trump were a normal person…
Reporters might listen to Trump and then understandably be reluctant to start typing stories that must feel like spec scripts for The West Wing pieced together by a creative-writing circle…
Instead, The New York Times ran this headline: “Trump Tries to Wrestle Back Attention at Mar-a-Lago News Conference.” The Washington Post said: “Trump Holds Meandering News Conference, Where He Agrees to Debate Harris.” The British paper The Independent got closer with: “Trump Holds Seemingly Pointless Press Conference Filled With False Claims,” but CNN went with “Trump Attacks Harris and Walz During First News Conference Since Democratic Ticket Was Announced.”
All of these headlines are technically true, but they miss the point: The Republican nominee, the man who could return to office and regain the sole authority to use American nuclear weapons, is a serial liar and can’t tell the difference between reality and fantasy.
Donald Trump is not well. He is not stable. There’s something deeply wrong with him.
Any of those would have been important—and accurate—headlines.
The Truth About Trump’s Press Conference,
by Tom Nichols, The Atlantic, August 9, 2024. Link