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HONG KONG Hong Kong police on Wednesday arrested pro-democracy protesters, some of whom scrambled up a monument symbolizing the city's handover from British to Chinese rule, a day before Chinese President Xi Jinping is due to arrive for the celebrations.

Hong Kong marks the July 1, 1997, handover on Saturday, amid calls for democracy and fears of creeping influence of Communist Party leaders in Beijing undermining the "one country, two systems" formula under which it operates.

The city is under lockdown, with a massive security presence expected for Xi's arrival on Thursday.

About 30 protesters, including student protest leader Joshua Wong, gathered at the six-meter "Forever Blooming Golden Bauhinia" statue on the Wanchai waterside, a gift to Hong Kong from China, in front of the Chinese national flag and hundreds of perplexed Chinese tourists.

The sweet-smelling bauhinia is the official Hong Kong emblem.

They unfurled a black banner demanding full democracy for the city and the unconditional release of Nobel Peace Prize winning activist Liu Xiaobo, who was recently diagnosed with terminal liver cancer.

"Democracy now. Free Liu Xiaobo," the protesters shouted. "We do not want Xi Jinping. We want Liu Xiaobo."

Xi is due to arrive on Thursday afternoon and make a speech before joining celebrations to mark the handover on Saturday, when he will also swear in the citys next leader, Carrie Lam. Police said the demonstrators, including Wong who helped lead the 2014 "Occupy" street protests that blocked key streets for 79 days, were arrested for causing a public nuisance.

"We want to tell Xi Jinping that Hong Kong's prosperity is just a facade," Wong shouted into a microphone as he sat at the foot of the statue. "When democracy is not in sight, we need to take action to confront this system."Before the visit of Xi Jinping, it is time to urge the Chinese president, a hardliner, to release Liu Xiaobo."

Four policemen carried Wong by all four limbs into a police van as he shouted: "Hong Kong people, don't give up. Protest on July 1!"

Right next to the statue, staff were making preparations for the celebrations and lining up hundreds of chairs for guests to observe the flag-raising ceremony on Saturday.A couple of hundred Chinese tourists, gathered for the sunset flag-lowering ceremony, looked confused as they took photos of the protest before the area was cordoned off by the police.

Many asked each other, "Who is Liu Xiaobo?""It will be the 20th anniversary of the handover. Foreigners will be watching. This is not good for the image of Hong Kong," said a 58-year-old tourist from the southern Hainan province who gave her surname as Fu.

Tens of thousands are expected to join an annual pro-democracy demonstration on Saturday.

(This story has been refiled to amend first reference of Xi's arrival to Thursday in third paragraph.)

(Reporting by Venus Wu; Editing by Nick Macfie)

TOKYO An ally of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe denied on Thursday receiving secret political donations from an educational institution at the core of a scandal over suspected favoritism that has sliced Abe's support ratings ahead of a key local poll.

SYDNEY/VATICAN CITY Australian police charged a top adviser to Pope Francis with multiple historical sex crimes on Thursday, in a case that poses a dilemma for a pontiff who has vowed zero tolerance for such offences.

Link:
Hong Kong protesters arrested for democracy protest ahead of Xi's visit - Reuters

Nothing is as it was, nothing is as it seems, and democracy is the biggest victim, argues Bill Jamieson.

Into every life a little rain must fall. But today it is a relentless downpour.

Search in vain for any break in the mist that swirls around us: rising discontent, falling incomes, social division, a Brexit nightmare, a government on the brink, a slowing economy and on almost every evening news bulletin angry disputation and ritual bludgeoning of politicians at the hands of interviewers.

READ MORE: Scots economy facing lost decade as growth stays weak

Truly a deluge has descended, and with no break in sight. So it is time for a reckoning, and I must fess up and put before you a mea culpa, a grand admission for having believed, it seems, absolutely the wrong things for more than 40 years.

Now I have believed in many things over these years, or if not fully believed, largely gone along.

I believed in a steady, if gradual improvement in things; that problems were capable of solution; prudent finance and living within ones means; that I lived in a country with a shared culture, an underlying cohesion and a definable identity.

READ MORE: David Mundell faces fresh calls to resign over 1bn DUP deal

READ MORE: UK may not leave EU says Brexit secretary Michael Russell

Most of all, I believed that we had a democracy that, for all its faults, was capable of amicable change that would ensure its preservation, as it had done for more than 300 years.

Now I am not sure of any of these things any more, or of the continuance of the democratic system as we know it.

That may seem strange when in political conversation today no commitment is expressed more often and more loudly than our regard for democracy. The will of the people must be respected this, founded on the unalienable right of voters by majority vote to determine how we are governed.

But how deep is that respect? And how many have an unshakeable belief that it ought to be so?

Few expressions of democracy in recent years have caused more disputatious mayhem than the outcome of the EU referendum.

This was held to settle a persistent and growing argument over our membership. The referendum, we believed, would clear the air, settle the argument and allow us to move on. I seriously believed this would be the case.

Instead, it has resulted in the most fractious political arguments for decades.

There is no settled opinion on whether indeed we should leave as the referendum majority wished or whether we should opt for a transitional half-way house.

There is even serious disagreement on what it was we thought we were voting for.

I, along with Leavers, thought we were voting for a restoration of sovereignty and control over immigration from the EU.

But did we really grasp the awesome complexity of leaving?

That even on an issue as apparently straightforward as guaranteeing the citizenship rights of EU nationals resident here, the EU would insist their position in the UK was to be under the watch of the European Court of Justice?

This is before the substantive negotiations begin on trade.

Already the Remainers have sown such doubt as to what it is the majority voted for that the will of the people may prove to be no such thing.

It is not the only referendum outcome that has been challenged with the ink hardly dry on the voting papers.

In 2014 Scotland voted against independence. But the result, far from being respected, has now been followed by demands for another referendum, albeit delayed until 2019 when the outcome of the Brexit negotiations are clearer.

So what is the point of having referendums if the governing party doesnt like the result and seeks another one? And how much more respect will be shown to the outcome of this vote if it does not meet the approval of the administration?

Today we are struggling to come to terms with the aftermath of the general election and a hung parliament.

The Conservatives received 13,669,883 votes, or 42.4 per cent, against Labours 12,878,460 votes or 40 per cent. Yet by general belief, Theresa May lost and Jeremy Corbyn won.

The Conservative-voting majority may baulk at this assessment.

But what is now in prospect?

The party has traditionally drawn support from those who believed it would keep taxes down and, at the least, not allow borrowing and debt to rise, lest we return to the same financial debacle as in 2008-9.

But no such programme is likely now.

Instead we are on course for Corbynism Lite.

Frustration over central and local government spending limits, worries over health and welfare budgets and now the urgent need to install fire-resistant cladding on hundreds of tower blocks and public buildings in the wake of the horrific Grenfell Tower blaze will involve remedial work likely to run into billions of pounds.

But public spending and borrowing across the board will almost certainly rise.

And now there is every likelihood that the Conservative government will resort to tax increases.

Yesterday we heard former Conservative Cabinet minister Sir Oliver Letwin MP say that well-judged and careful tax increases would be levied on a large number of people. That is a somersault on previous Conservative declarations. At least we are to be spared ill-judged and careless tax increases.

Whatever happened to the partys long predisposition towards lower taxes and a smaller state or the notion, set out by the father of conservatism, Edmund Burke, that parties represent a body of men united by their joint endeavours upon some particular principle in which they are all agreed?

What is that particular principle, exactly?

Blasted to the four winds, I fear, along with the commitment to a balanced budget.

As for the Bank of England, an institution for which I once had respect, it is hard to keep a straight face listening to the Governor, Mark Carney, as he urges restraint on personal borrowing.

This admonition, it seems, is not to apply to Bank policy, which has slashed interest rates to record lows precisely to encourage spending and borrowing, or to the public finances, where we have a record debt pile of 1.8 trillion. Should I have worried about this? Not a bit, it seems.

More than ever I have come to appreciate the wisdom of the Scots historian Alexander Fraser Tytler (1747-1813), joint professor of civil history at Edinburgh University and judge advocate of Scotland, buried in Greyfriars Kirkyard. A democracy, he wrote, is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government.

A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.

From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a Dictatorship.

As I hear the raucous exchanges every night on television, how wrong I have been on everything, from sound money to low tax; from sovereignty to coherent administration, from respect for the majority to democratic government. Wrong, it seems, wrong on everything. Sing along if you will to Je Ne Regrette Rein. Me? Je Regrette Tout.

Read the rest here:
Bill Jamieson: I'm no longer sure our democracy can survive - The Scotsman

By Matt Stoller By Matt Stoller June 28 at 6:00 AM

Matt Stoller is fellow with the Open Markets Program of New America.

On his way to an early retirement from Congress later this week, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) has asked for a housing subsidy for members of Congress. I flat-out cannot afford a mortgage in Utah, kids in college and a second place here in Washington, D.C., he said. Chaffetz showed no indication that he cared about affordable housing when he chaired the committee that oversees the District of Columbia, and he recently mused that if families cant afford health insurance, maybe they shouldnt buy new iPhones; he deserves no sympathy.

But he did point, however unwittingly, to a deep problem with the way we understand political corruption. President Barack Obama also noted it accidentally when he discussed his departing press secretary, Robert Gibbs, noted Gibbss relatively modest pay of $172,000 in the White House in relation to what he would earn elsewhere.

The problem is this:We undervalue our public-sector leaders relative to private sector leaders, and that gap helps entrench and deepen corruption.The issue goes beyond the fact that government work is increasingly a means of much higher pay later on from the private sector. Radically disparate pay for public servants isnt punishing public servants, it is simply setting up a different system of power.

In 1975, you could hire six senators for the price of one CEO of a large corporation. In 1992, you could hire twenty-three senators for the price of a single CEO. By 2000, you could buy the whole Senate, plus five additional senators, for one CEO. Since 2000, that ratio has bounced around, mostly in tandem with the stock market, but the number of senators you could get for just one CEO compensation package has never dropped below 50.

In absolute terms, lawmakers have had their pay cut by 10 percent since 2009. And like most Americans (but not CEOs), they received less compensation in 2015 than they did in 1975. It seems odd to say that members of Congress have more in common with the average American than they do with corporate CEOs, but in this case, it is true. Of course, $174,000 is pretty great compared to most people in a country where the median household income is about a third of that. And it is. But its peanuts relative to CEO pay; the average CEO made$12.2 million in 2015. And the salary for members of Congress is actually less than an average 26-year-old first-year lawyer gets at a top corporate law firm.The differential is often starker with state level legislators. In fact, politicians have actually seen relative pay stagnation along with teachers, social workers, journalists, and most American workers.

This differential shows how much we value our public sector leadership versus our private sector leadership. We are say that CEOs are the essential actors in our culture, while public leadership is a sinecure for the already wealthy.

[We compared growth in CEO pay versus growth in worker pay. Its not pretty.]

We are also contributing to conditions that encourage politicians to view rich business leaders as different than other constituents. In 1975, CEOs were wealthier, but still lived in the same economic world as politicians and regulators. A world of public schools, reasonably priced health care and college, and shared public services meant that money could buy a slightly fancier but not fundamentally different life. Today, however, the wealthy and everyone else inhabit vastly different cultures. Politicians cant help but treat powerful economic actors differently when those people make so much more than they do, a situation complicated by the fact that many politicians real compensation is likely to occur through unofficial channels, like lobbying contracts after they leave office.

This disparity also suggests that were misunderstanding the source of political corruption.Since the 1970s, advocacy groups have argued we must place restrictions on lobbyists and the public sector to root out corruption. In the early 1990s, Ralph Nader encouraged this with a campaign against hiking congressional pay. In 1995, Newt Gingrich continued it by gutting congressional committees and destroying the Office of Technology Assessment, which Nancy Pelosi did not restore in 2007. In his 2008 campaign, Barack Obama often noted his work on an anti-corruption measure to reign in lobbyists. This theory misses half the problem. Private lobbyists are too powerful precisely because public servants are too weak.

In political science parlance, lobbying is known as a legislative subsidy. The work of lobbyists is largely not bribery. Lobbyists write statutes, track process, enact legislative strategy, and work with administrative agencies to make sure the laws are carried out. Its just government work, on a private payroll. And corporate interests are a lot more effective if most Hill staffers are 23-year-olds with second jobs bartending to make the rent. Current anti-corruption models, like underpaying congressman, staff, state legislators and regulators, will simply lead to more power for corporate interests that are only too happy to pay for governing work that favors them.The combined attack on the public sector and its ability to govern, and the dramatic concentration in the control of corporate resources, has led to a dangerously weak and unbalanced political culture.

[A radical idea: Just give CEOs a fixed salary]

But this can be reversed. After all, the trend isnt that old: While Ronald Reagan increased CEO pay relative to government leaders, the real quantum change happened in the 1990s under Bill Clinton, likely because of a legal changes during his administration that linked CEO pay with the stock market. And the 1970s vision of corruption that misconstrues the real problem with diminishing politicians pay and budgets ignores a much older tradition in American society, which is an understanding that inequality leads to an enormous loss of freedom, and de-concentration of power is the solution. As Revolution-era weaver-turned-politician William Findley put it, Wealth in many hands operates as many checks.

If we want to restore a democratic culture, were going to have to not just raise the pay of public servants, but reduce inequality dramatically. We must attack the problem of a two-tiered society. We must go after the concentration of corporate assets through strong competition and anti-monopoly policy so that we dont have a society split between billionaires with rights and powerless peasants living with varying degrees of comfort. Basic public goods quality education, health care, transportation, nutrition must be available to all without the need to incur huge debts. Private sector CEOs perhaps should be able to have more lavish lifestyles than the rest of us, but it should be a matter of living a fancier version of the same life. No one should go broke if they have a medical problem, not just because thats a problem in and of itself, but because that is a route to social corruption.

There is no free lunch. If we want a functioning democracy, we need to pay for a functioning public sector. If public servants are treated poorly relative to corporate CEOs, then we will get bribed and subservient public servants and government via the board room. Public servants, and citizens themselves, will become dependent upon private concentrations of power. If we want to stabilize our society, we must strengthen the public institutions designed to protect our democracy. If we dont, we may not have a democracy for much longer.

See the article here:
How inequality makes our government corrupt and our democracy ... - Washington Post

Listen to the new song "I Will Spite Survive" by Deerhoof featuring Jenn Wasner. The song was first aired on todays Democracy Now!

Pitchfork has called Deerhoof "the best band in the world." The New York Times described them as "one of the most original rock bands to have come along in the last decade."

A message from Deerhoof:

In this world of tyrants and CEOs seemingly hellbent on achieving the termination of our species, perhaps the most rebellious thing we could do is not die. Should we survive the global warming, the lack of healthcare, and the bombs, a more humane future may await us. Maligned for shirking their capitalist duty, it is the younger generations we center. Safeguarding our consciences is only part of the daily challenge, since we also need to navigate corporate-owned electronic media which both aids and saps our energies. Fans of Wye Oak will be thrilled (as we were) to hear Jenn Wasner harmonize with Deerhoof singer Satomi Matsuzaki, while fans of Gloria Gaynor, Bee Gees, or The Bobby Fuller Four may detect homage in the lyrics:

"I Will Spite Survive" You could outlive your executioners but youre on tv. Youre expendable. Sleep at night, if you can stay alive. Stay alive, if you can sleep at night. City breaks, if you can stay awake. Let her dance, all night long!

The voices of reason and humanity are puzzlingly but systematically iced out of our national conversation by politicians and media bought by large corporations. Whether were talking about money in politics, trade deals, surveillance, bank bailouts, healthcare, climate change, Middle Eastern wars, or wealth equality, the mainstream popular view is dismissed as unrealistically 'far left,' while the views of a small dissenting minority are advanced as acceptably "conservative," "centrist," or "liberal." Thats why news outlets NOT owned by large corporations are so lovable, and Democracy Now! may be the most lovable of them all.

"I Will Spite Survive" will appear on Deerhoofs forthcoming album, Mountain Moves (Joyful Noise).

View post:
Song Premiere: Deerhoof - "I Will Spite Survive" (ft. Jenn Wasner) - Democracy Now!

The resistance movement against President Donald Trump and his Republican allies has increasingly pinned its hopes on the Russia investigations. If these probes are the panaceas many believe, they will not only remove Trump from officebut also restoresome decorum and decency to our politics.

But while Moscow clearly meddled in our electionwhether by hacking Hillary Clintons emails or collaborating with the Trump campaignblaming the Kremlin for destroying our democracy absolves those who broke it long before November.

Trumps lie that millions of illegal immigrants voted in the election is only the most recent and public effort to thwart majority rule. As that majority has become younger and browner, a core group of conservatives has done everything in its power to stop them from heading to the polls.

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Indeed, small d democracy has been under siege for decades. Vladimir Putin and company just dropped in to pick over the bones.

Heres how it happened.

President Donald Trump delivers remarks at Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on June 21. Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

THE CONSTITUTION

Some of this un-democracy is built into the Constitution. The Electoral College enabled Trump to win the 2016 election with 3 million fewer votes than Clinton received. And because the small states demanded equal representation in the Senate as a condition of signing onto the Constitution, we have a system under which a majority of Americans live in nine statesbut that majority has only 18 votes in the Senate, while the minority has 82.

Californians now have one-sixth the amount of representation in the Senate as people who live in Wyoming, according to calculations byjournalist Zachary Roth, author of The Great Suppression: Voting Rights, Corporate Cash, and the Conservative Assault on Democracy. This imbalance has a racial componenttoo: Nonwhites make up 44 percent of the 10 largest statesbut 18 percent of the smaller ones.

GERRYMANDERING

After the election of Barack Obama, the Republican State Leadership Council began plotting to elect GOP lawmakers to state-level offices to control the redistricting process. When the Republicans won those legislatures in 2010, they also won the right to rejigger congressional boundaries in their favor. The following year, they redrew twisted district lines across the nation, all but guaranteeing GOP control of the U.S. House of Representatives until the next redistricting process, in 2021. The gambit was audacious, and though the Democrats have gerrymandered in the past, the scale of the 2011 effort was like nothing seen before in this country.

VOTER SUPPRESSION

As Roth explains, Republicans have also tried to suppress the vote. Their targets: poor people and nonwhites, who are more likely to live in areas where voting facilities are not well maintained or are difficult to get to. Republicans in control of states such as Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida, Kansas and North Carolina have purged voters who have changed residencies or have failed to vote in previous elections, according to the Center for Public Integrity.

The head of Trumps commission to investigate voter fraud, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, has been battling the American Civil Liberties Unionover his states requirement that voters show birth certificates or passports to register. The young and poor are less likely to have easy access to such documents, or to have photo IDs. The powerful American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which receives significant funding from billionaire conservatives, as well as oil, gas, tobacco and telecom corporations, has provided cookie-cutter voter ID laws to state legislators for sponsorship.

THE COURTS

In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that states no longer have to submit to federal oversight or pre-clearance of changes when they want to modify voting laws. The clearance requirement had been law since the 1960sand was designed to assert federal control over Southern states that were trying to suppress the black vote. The decision in this case, brought by an Alabama county, now effectively allows states to alter their voting requirements in ways that disenfranchise potential nonwhite voters.

PRE-EMPTION

David Koch arrives at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute Gala Benefit in New York on May 5, 2014. Carlo Allegri/Reuters

When the right gained control of state legislatures, progressives turned to local governments to pass restrictionsfor instance, on smoking indoors or polluting local water supplies. There, too, some on the right have squashed democracy, by devising and advocating for pre-emption laws that forbid locals from passing their own legislation. Communities in Oklahoma and Texas that tried to ban fracking, for example, have been forced to give up after state lawmakers prohibited those bans.

Wisconsin turned into a pre-emption hot spot according to Roth, in part because Governor Scott Walkera recipient of major funds from Charles and David Koch, the right-wing billionaire activistswas trying to crush local government unions. Nowindustry lobbyists find it easier to manipulate state legislatures that have passed bans on everything from community public health rules to local regulations on Uber.

DARK MONEY

President Barack Obama meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Los Cabos, Mexico, on June 18, 2012. REUTERS/Jason Reed

Decades ago, a small group of right-wingers with billions of dollars in disposable income banded together to wrest power away from the rabble. With a president and a House of Representatives in thrall to a minority of the population, they have succeeded.

Related: Russian hackers attacked the 2008 Obama campaign

After Obamas victory in the 2008 election, these men, led by the Koch brothers, feared socialism was on the horizon and ratcheted up their efforts. Creating the anti-government, anti-tax Tea Party to win the House in 2010 was only part of the plan. The Supreme CourtsCitizens United ruling that same year amplified their efforts, allowing untold amounts of so-called dark money to flow into new corners of American politics.

The libertarian Koch brothers were reportedly unhappy with the candidacy of Trump, whose allegiance to conservative principles was still in doubt. But by spending nearly a billion dollars on lower races in the 2016 election, they were also aiding the man at the top of the ticket by bringing more Republican voters to the polls.

This year, they have been more muted on Trump. And why not? The presidents disdain for government, his desire to slash regulations and lower taxes, is a Koch brothers dream. Theyre probably happy with the way things have turned out. But when you have endless amounts of money, it is always possible to be a little happier.

TRYING TO AMEND THE CONSTITUTION

Many conservatives profess a deep love for liberty and the Constitution. They use it in rhetoric. They apply it in legal theories to crush liberal economic policies, roll back modern attitudes toward women and minorities and ignore multicultural demographic realities.

But some on the right also want to rewrite the great document. The Kochs, along with other billionaires and their big corporate allies, have been bankrolling a move to hold a convention to amend the Constitution and write a Balanced Budget Amendment into it.

The Kochs and their Balanced Budget Amendment Task Force have been pushing for the amendment since 1995. ALEC, their right-wing legislative policy farm,has a model law that the states have been passing. The Balanced Budget Amendment would, of course, give wealthy people and corporations another tool with which to pay fewer taxes or resist financing projects, like publicly funded or subsidized health care.

Under Article V of the Constitution, amendments can be proposed either by two-thirds of both the House and Senateor through a convention called for by two-thirds of state legislatures, which would be 34 states. Then38 states would have to ratify it before it could become part of the Constitution.

Twenty-seven states have passed the call for a constitutional convention to consider the Balanced Budget Amendment. In response to the movement, more than 200 organizations opposed to the amendment signed a letter in April denouncing an Article V convention at this time as a dangerous threat to the U.S. Constitution, our democracy, and our civil rights and liberties.But the groups behind the convention drive are focused on getting support from at least seven more states is 2018 (Kentucky, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, South Carolina, Virginia and Washington).

The Kochs and ALEC are behind an even more radical effort as well. The Convention of States Project,run by the Texas-based Citizens for Self-Governance, is pushing for a convention to drastically restrict the powers of the federal government to tax, regulate and make decisions that apply to individual states. Last election, they introduced their bid in 24 states. Arizona, Missouri, North Dakota and Texas passed it.

THE RESISTANCE

Women protest against Donald Trump at a demonstration organized by the National Organization for Women outside Manhattan's Trump Tower on October 26. Mike Segar/reuters

As a committed core of conservatives have been fighting against small d democracy, progressives and Democrats have lacked the abilityor the imaginationto fight back. In one of his last interviews in the White House, Obama acknowledged his role in this failure. Some of this was circumstances, he told ABC News. But I think that what is also true is that partly because my docket was really full hereso I couldnt be both chief organizer of the Democratic Party and function as commander in chief and president of the United Stateswe did not begin what I think needs to happen over the long haul, and that is rebuild the Democratic Party at the ground level.

Obama and former Attorney General Eric Holder created the National Democratic Redistricting Committee last year to coordinate campaign strategy, direct fundraising, organize ballot initiatives and put together legal challenges to state redistricting maps. Holder has joked,Part of my job is to make redistricting sexy for Democrats.

Beside that effort, the Supreme Court just accepted a challenge to Republican gerrymandering in Wisconsin. The court last dealt with the issue in 2004, but the current case, which it will hear in the fall and rule on before the 2018 election, proposes a different framework. Plaintiffs are basing their challenge on new political science that uses voting data to assess bias against one party or another in the maps.

The Great Suppression author Roth says all the Republican-backed voting restrictions definitely played a role in the election, but he doesnt think that completely absolves the Russians, who hacked into and possibly disseminated politically damaging email correspondence from the Democratic National Committee. For example, Wisconsins voter ID law gave Trump an advantage in the Cheese State, but Clinton also lost Pennsylvania and Michigan, where voter suppression shenanigans were less of a factor.

After the Democratic loss in Georgias 6th Congressional District on June 20, some Democrats began noticing that the Russia probes wont guarantee success in 2018. The day after the vote, New York Representative Joseph Crowley, the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, told colleagues during a private meeting that voters in the midterm elections will be more concerned about domestic issues than the Trump-Russia investigation.

The shiny object which is Russia and the Trump administration is in many ways a smokescreen for Mitch McConnell and the Senate to do things they probably wouldnt be able to get away with if the public and media were paying more attention, Crowley later told reporters. Were all guilty of that to some degree.

Here is the original post:
Vladimir Putin Didn't Break American Democracy, We Broke the System Ourselves - Newsweek