Mediaboss Marketing

The Electoral College casts its votes Monday, but just days earlier, more than half of House Republicans signed on to a Texas lawsuit asking the Supreme Court for an emergency order to invalidate the ballots of millions of voters in four battleground states, despite having zero evidence of voter fraud.

There is a much larger matter at play right now than whether or not Trumps tactics worked.

The Supreme Court including all three of President Donald Trumps appointees rejected the case. But one wonders whether it would have been more useful for the court to have heard the case, expose the baseless claims for the public to see, and then decided against it.

Im sure I wont find many takers on that idea, but there is a much larger matter at play right now than whether or not Trumps tactics worked. They may not have worked in the actual courts, but that might not matter as much as we want it to. A poll out Dec. 10 indicated that 77 percent of Republicans believe there was fraud in this election. And while most of the talk of fraud comes from Trump himself hes the spark the fuel is all around us. And the momentum is fueled by fringe fiction, not facts.

Months ago, I warned that congressional candidates who hold dangerous fringe views could potentially get elected. And they did. And I thought that was going to be our biggest problem moving forward candidates whipping up conspiracies to divide voters and get elected.

I failed at the time to recognize that the dangers are far greater. Since Nov. 3, elected members of the GOP and their constituents not whom youd ordinarily think of as fringe groups have pushed actual lies, setting their highly selective outrage on anyone not in favor of overturning the election, i.e. the people who voted President-elect Joe Biden in and Trump out.

Its one thing if Bidens victory had been like Trumps an electoral college win even though more people voted for his opponent. But 7 million more people voted for Biden than for Trump and of more than 50 cases filed, not one court not a single one has found a single instance of voter fraud. No multiple voting, no dead people voting. Just people not voting for Trump.

A poll out on Dec. 10 indicated that 77 percent of Republicans believe there was fraud in this election.

To these conspiracy theorists and congressional enablers, it doesnt matter that theres no evidence of voter fraud and that count after recount has shown Trump to be the loser each time. The fringe conspiracists want what Trump wants: to subvert democracy. They continue to fight for a president who himself will apparently fight for anything as long as it benefits him.

This behavior is historical. Actually, its hysterical. But not in a funny way.

Trump continues to test our norms, the Constitution and our freedoms under his manipulative, fact-free but still substantial weight. He is, after all, still the president of the United States. He empowers these fringe thinkers and they support his every perverted and unjust idea. Its a dangerous relationship that is damaging our foundations. And the most dangerous part is that this phenomenon goes beyond Trump. Hes helped ignite his base, which we will soon see outlast his presidency.

I dont know whether the fringe found Trump or Trump found the fringe, but this stuff is real. From the ridiculous but increasingly dangerous #StoptheSteal movement that is encouraging Americans to take the so-called stolen election into their own hands, whatever that means, to the consistent undermining of the coronavirus, Trump and his enablers have brought the fringe into the middle of the most important issues this nation faces.

Ali Velshi is an MSNBC columnist and the host of Velshi, which airs Saturdays and Sundays on MSNBC. He has been awarded the National Headliner Award for Business & Consumer Reporting for How the Wheels Came Off, a special on the near collapse of the American auto industry. His work on disabled workers and Chicagos red-light camera scandal in 2016 earned him two News and Documentary Emmy Award nominations, adding to a nomination in 2010 for his terrorism coverage.

Read more:
If you thought Trump was the most dangerous threat to our democracy, you were wrong - MSNBC

Nearly two years after the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) saw a peaceful transfer of power to President Flix Tshisekedi following a nevertheless flawed election, numerous significant political and economic developments have transpired in the country. The presidents chief of staff, Vital Kamerhe, was convicted on corruption charges; violent conflicts have increased in the eastern DRC; civil society has mounted increasing anti-corruption campaigns; and a major political reconfiguration is currently underway that may significantly change the shape of reforms. Meanwhile, in a bipartisan letter, the U.S. Senate highlighted the need for urgent anti-corruption and electoral reforms in the country and the International Monetary Fund is considering a significant loan to stabilize the countrys economy, pending anti-corruption reforms.

On Friday, Dec. 18, the Foreign Policy program at Brookings will host a panel discussion examining the issues and the possible U.S. policy options to address them.

Viewers can submit questions via email to events@brookings.edu or on Twitter using #DRCSecurity.

The rest is here:
Democracy, corruption, and U.S. policy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo - Brookings Institution

How low has the Party of Lincoln fallen? In answering this question, it is instructive to look at the example of Kevin McCarthy, a seven-term California congressman who, since 2019, has served as the House Minority Leader. Until Donald Trump appeared on the scene, McCarthy wasnt regarded as particularly conservativeat least by the standards of todays Republican Party. When, in 2015, he abandoned a bid to become Speaker of the House, some Tea Party activists celebrated.

In the summer of 2016, McCarthy endorsed Trump for President, but only after the interloper from New York had sewn up the nomination. A year later, it emerged that, in June of 2016, McCarthy had told some of his fellow-members of the House Republican leadership that he believedswear to Godthat Trump was in the pay of the Russian President, Vladimir Putin. When the Washington Post eventually reported about these comments, McCarthy tried to laugh them off as a joke.

The nature of the accommodation that McCarthy made with his conscience, when he jumped onto the Trump train, can only be speculated upon. Its perhaps fair to assume that he didnt realize exactly where the tracks would lead, but, given his comments in 2016, its also clear that he didnt harbor any illusions about the man he was endorsing.

In any case, after McCarthy took over as House Minority Leader, he followed Trumps wishes so slavishly that the President started to refer to him as my Kevin. On Friday, McCarthy took the ultimate Trump-loyalist move and threw his backing behind the Presidents outlandish bid to overthrow the 2020 election result. Along with a hundred and twenty-five other Republican representatives, McCarthy added his name to an amicus brief supporting the lawsuit filed by Ken Paxton, the attorney general of Texas, and backed by seventeen other Republican state attorneys general, that requested the Supreme Court throw out the duly certified election results from Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

On Friday night, the Court dismissed this scurrilous lawsuit on the grounds that Texas had no standing to challenge election results in other states. (My colleague Amy Davidson Sorkin has more on the Supreme Court ruling.) And how did McCarthy respond to this rebuke from the Court? On Friday night, he said nothing. On Saturday morning, he maintained his silence, but tweeted out a video of himself talking to Senator Tim Scott, of South Carolina, the lone Black Republican senator. The Republican Party is the Party of Lincoln, grounded in the values of freedom and equality for all people, McCarthy said in the tweet.

The gall of McCarthy and his fellow Trump toadies in the Republican Party is only surpassed by their irresponsibility and fecklessness. In taking their oaths of office as members of Congress, they swore that they would support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. And, yet, here they were, supporting a Trump venture that the attorney general of Pennsylvania, in a brief opposing the Texas lawsuit, described as a seditious abuse of the judicial process. The gambit amounted to a flagrant effort to overturn the most basic liberty enshrined in the Constitution: the right of the people to choose their leaders. In the unlikely event that the lawsuit had succeeded, the country would have been plunged into chaos, and Trump would have succeeded in his reckless effort to defy the rules of democracy.

The only conceivable defense for the actions of the Republican signatories is that they supported the Texas lawsuit in the sure knowledge that it would fail. Terrified of incurring the wrath of an enraged Bully-in-Chief, they postured for him, and for the MAGA mob. But what sort of defense is this for politicians elected to a body that likes to see itself as a model for the world? A pitiful one at best, and not one that would stand up in any court of law or any court of history. One lesson of failed democracies is that when officials or institutions genuflect before would-be authoritarians, in the hope that somebody else will head them off, or control them, the results can be disastrous.

After the events of the past few weeks, it is easy to sympathize with the editorial writers of the Orlando Sentinel, who published a column on Friday expressing regret to their readers for the support they afforded one of the Trump minions, Representative Michael Waltz, of Floridas Sixth District, going into November 3rd. We apologize to our readers for endorsing Michael Waltz in the 2020 general election for Congress, the editorial said. We had no idea, had no way of knowing at the time, that Waltz was not committed to democracy.

A fair reading of the G.O.P.s record of gerrymandering and voter suppression over the past couple of decades, and its abject servility toward Trump during the past four years, is that its commitment to democracy has long been subservient to its desire to retain power. But even for an organization as tarnished as this one, the decision by so many Republican congressmen, and so many state attorneys general, to support the Texas lawsuit marked a new low.

And its not over yetit never is when you put your lot in with a pathological narcissist who has no regard for you, your party, or democracy, beyond the services that they can render to him. On Saturday morning, Trump tweeted, WE HAVE JUST BEGUN TO FIGHT!!! Later in the day, en route to the Army-Navy football game, the Presidents Marine One helicopter flew over Freedom Plaza, at Pennsylvania Avenue and Fourteenth Street, where thousands of alt-right activists were holding a Stop the Steal rally, demanding that the results of the election be overturned.

On Monday, the Electoral College will meet and officially cast its votes to elect Joe Biden, who won by three hundred and six votes to two hundred and thirty-two. But Trump isnt quite done. His eyes are on January 6th, when Congress will hold a joint session to ratify the work of the Electoral College. In the coming days and weeks, he will, doubtless, demand that Republicans in Congress reject the vote counts from a number of states, which could cause bedlam. How will McCarthy and his colleagues react to Trumps next entreaties? Anyone hoping for a belated display of character and commitment to democracy is likely to be disappointed.

Visit link:
The G.O.P. Can No Longer Be Relied On to Protect Democracy - The New Yorker

WILMINGTON, Del. President-elect Joe Biden pointedly criticized President Trump on Monday for threatening core principles of democracy even as he told Americans that their form of self-government ultimately prevailed.

Speaking from his longtime home of Wilmington, Delaware, on the day thatelectors nationwide castvotes affirming his victory, Biden was blunt in critiquing the damage done by Trumps baseless allegations that the contest was stolen. Such arguments have been roundly rejected by judges across the political spectrum, including the justices at the Supreme Court.

Democracy, Biden said, has been pushed, tested, threatened. But he said it proved to be resilient, true, and strong.

The flame of democracy was lit in this nation a long time ago, Biden said. And we now know that nothing, not even a pandemic or an abuse of power, can extinguish that flame.

Biden and his team hope that the formal victory in the Electoral College combined with his record-setting 81 million-vote count will help the country unify and accept his presidency. But the challenge facing Biden was evident as many congressional Republicans, including some of the partys top leaders, refused to officially accept Bidens win. Trump, meanwhile, shows no sign of conceding.

The president-elect acknowledged an irony in the circumstances, noting that he won with the same number of electoral votes 306 as Trump did four years ago. Trump hailed that win as a landslide.

By his own standards, these numbers represent a clear victory then, and I respectfully suggest they do so now, Biden said.

A candidate needs to win 270 electoral votes to clinch the presidency.

The fact that Biden had to even give such a speech shortly after electors voted to make him the president a usually routine and even mundane step shows how extraordinary the post-election period has been, with Trump trying to thwart Biden at every turn.

Despite that, Biden struck a familiar theme of his presidential campaign, pledging to be a president for all Americans who will work just as hard for those of you who didnt vote for me as I will for those who did.

Now it is time to turn the page as weve done throughout our history, he said. To unite. To heal.

He said that was the only way the country could overcome the worst health crisis in more than a century, saying that in the face of the pandemic, we need to work together, give each other a chance and lower the temperature.

Whether his message will have any effect remains to be seen. Top Republicans have mostly continued to back Trump and his unsubstantiated claims of a rigged election and, even once Biden takes power, are unlikely to give him any of the traditional honeymoon period.

Biden recalled that one of his jobs as vice president four years ago was to formally recognize Trumps electoral victory in the Senate after 2016, and he said he expected the same process to occur this time saluting the small number of GOP senators who have acknowledged his victory. But there are many other leading Republicans who have continued to side with Trump.

Andafter losing dozens of legal challengeson the state and federal level, Trump is expected to push forward with new litigation this week. Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani says he expects five more lawsuits at the state level.

Even after he takes the White House, Biden faces a narrowly divided Senate. Next months runoff elections in Georgia will decide which party controls the chamber. Theres also a thinned Democratic majority in the House as the GOP picked up seats even as Trump lost.

Meanwhile, Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin is set to hold a hearing Wednesday on election irregularities. Johnson has questioned why Congress wasnt informed that the taxes of Bidens son Hunter wereunder federal investigationduringTrumps impeachmenttrial last year.

The president wasacquitted in a Senate trialthat centered onTrumps dealings with Ukraines presidentand on whether he abused his office by seeking an investigation into the Bidens. Hunter Biden served on the board of directors ofa Ukrainian energy company.

The younger Biden said in a statement last week that he just recently learned that he was under investigation. He also said he committed no wrongdoing.

Bidens deputy chief of staff, Jen OMalley Dillon, downplayed the notion that the investigation could hamper Bidens ability to pursue his agenda.

The president-elect himself has said this is not about his family or Donald Trumps family, OMalley Dillon said. It is about the American peoples families. And I think were going to continue to stay focused on the issues that are impacting their daily lives.

Invalid username/password.

Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.

Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.

Previous

Next

See more here:
'Democracy prevailed,' Biden says as he aims to unify divided nation - pressherald.com

PublicAffairs

Is public education part of the foundation of democracy in this country? How long have the fights for and against it persisted? And where does that fight stand right now? Legal scholar Derek Blacks new book, Schoolhouse Burning, is a sharp, clear look at the long history of public education in this country, viewed through a legal lens.

Black asserts up front his conclusion that the ideological, legal, and constitutional roots of our public education system stretch to the very founding of our nation. Through thorough research and a close reading of critical court cases, Black traces how those roots have been fed, attacked, and refreshed over the last 250 years.

Education was viewed as critical from the very first, but in Blacks telling, it is in the aftermath of the Civil War that public education receives a real boost. For the freed slaves, education was a huge priority. It becomes a critical part of new southern state constitutions, and that view of public schools spread, so that every state in the Union has a clause requiring the state to provide public education. During Reconstruction, some states went so far as to impose a school tax. This furthered the old idea that education was part of a functioning democratic country. Black writes, Committing to and acquiring education was, in effect, to assume the role of citizen. He lays out how Reconstruction featured significant steps forward in guaranteeing an education to every American.

After Reconstruction, of course, assaults on that right accelerated. Public education moved forward as a conflicted institution beset by unreconcilable tensions, writes Black. An idea too strong to abandon but too dangerous to faithfully implement. States segregated students and segregated dollars in an attempt to avoid fully honoring the promise of public education, and as part of the program to keep Blacks out of the voting booth. But the author sees one silver liningthe actual right to an education was never stripped from the laws of the states.

Black writes about the Second Reconstruction and the series of legal challenges attempted to force states to honor the promise of public education for all students, and the defenses mounted by advocates of segregation, and this makes for particularly useful reading if your knowledge doesnt extend far beyond Brown v. Board of Education.

While many of the attacks on education for non-white citizens will seem familiar, Black observes that modern attacks on public education have shifted. While much of our history has involved attempts to avoid providing free public education for Black and brown Americans, he now sees a shift to attacks on the very idea of public education itself. Race still remains a powerful undercurrent fueling the notion that government spends too much on others kids education. But weve gone beyond that. He points at how state spending on public education did not bounce back after the Great Recession cuts of 2008. States did not have to stop funding education at adequate levels, he notes. They just stopped trying.

Many folks discuss education with semi-formed ideas about whether or not education really is a fundamental part of our democracy and whether or not it is something that is truly promised to our children. Schoolhouse Burning makes a strong case that yes, public education is and has always been a foundational element of our nation, not just a pretty ideal held by some, but a promise supported by the Founders and baked into our legal framework

Blacks book is packed with information and analysis, but remains exceptionally accessible, like getting a detailed explanation from a legal scholar who just happens to speak plain English. Beyond the well-researched history, Black also provides a convincing argument in favor of public education in this country, a defense of a foundational institution at a time it is once again under attack.

Original post:
Is Public Education Part Of The Foundation Of Democracy? A New Book By Legal Scholar Derek Black Says Yes. - Forbes