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Democrats flood the courts

More election-related lawsuits have been filed this year than in the last two decades, according to the Stanford-MIT Healthy Elections Project, which is tracking the cases. These suits, filed in nearly all 50 states, challenge voter ID laws, polling place consolidations, widespread purges from the rolls and multistep absentee ballot processes. Lawsuits have snowballed in response to the coronavirus, with an increase of more than 300 cases since the beginning of the pandemic, the Stanford-MIT database shows.

Some primary elections held at the height of the virus spread in the United States were plagued by last-minute polling place changes and closures as well as long wait times. Voting rights advocates point to the complicated primary elections in Georgia and Wisconsin as a warning sign that Covid-19 could expedite efforts to limit turnout among Black and Latino voters, who have been disproportionately harmed by the virus.

Still, Democrats say they're encouraged by a handful of wins in the courts. On Sept. 28, a U.S. district judge in Georgia ordered state election officials to prepare paper copies of voter registration and absentee voting information for each of the state's polling places, should problems arise with their digital voting system on Election Day.

Also last month, a Nevada judge dismissed a case filed by Trumps reelection campaign that tried to bar the state from mailing ballots to all active voters. Early voting in the state begins on Oct. 17.

In other states, however, Democrats had mixed results. A 2015 Wisconsin law requiring voters to present photo IDs to vote drew seven separate lawsuits from groups in the state, according to a tracker from the Brennan Center for Justice.

The lawsuit alleges the law, which does not count student IDs alone as a valid form of identification, is a violation of voters 14th Amendment rights to vote unburdened. That law was upheld by a federal judge on Wednesday, who ruled changing it would cause unnecessary confusion so close to the election.

In 2018, the Florida electorate voted overwhelmingly for Amendment 4, which restored voting rights to as many as 1.4 million formerly incarcerated people. But earlier this month, Floridas Supreme Court ruled that people with former felony convictions could vote only if they paid all their fines, court debts and fees. The ruling, which would keep hundreds of thousands of returning citizens from being able to vote, was a major blow to voting rights advocates, who view the requirement as a poll tax.

Our government is supposed to be seeking ways to expand democracy, to make sure that all of its citizens have a very unencumbered pathway to being able to participate in elections, said Desmond Meade, executive director of the Florida Voting Rights Restoration Coalition, which led the movement to pass Amendment 4.

They should not be seeking ways to restrict that. And when they do that, they're really breaking a contract with people, Meade continued. They're supposed to provide this access. They're supposed to want to create a more inclusive democracy.

Outside of the courts, efforts to keep dissuade voters from casting a ballot still loom.

One automated call in Illinois, sponsored by right-wing hoaxer Jacob Wohl, used paranoia to discourage Black voters from mailing in their ballots. In the call, a womans voice can be heard telling voters their personal information would be added to a public database and that they could be arrested for outstanding warrants or be forced to participate in Covid-19 vaccine trials.

Dont be finessed into giving your private information to 'the man,' the woman says. Stay safe and beware of vote by mail.

On Thursday, Michigan's attorney general charged Wohl and Jack Burkman, another conservative operative, with felonies in an alleged robocall scheme to suppress the vote.

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November's coming. Are Democrats losing the battle over voter suppression? - POLITICO

WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) Democrats are optimistic they can advance their new $2.2-trillion COVID-19 relief bill.

I know Nancy Pelosi is very serious about wanting to get to a deal. Shes made enormous concessions so far, Virginia Congressman Don Beyer said.

Beyer hopes Pelosi, the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin will reach an agreement.

As long as those two are talking, and as long as Mitch McConnell ultimately will accept what the White House tells him to do, I think were all staying balanced on the balls of our feet, ready to come back and vote, Beyer said.

Republicans arent as enthusiastic and say even this less expensive bill costs too much.

I really dont think were closer to a deal. I think we need to do things that are specific to COVID and not really partisan wish list types of items, Virginia Congressman Denver Riggleman said.

Riggleman says the new Heroes Act still includes too many unnecessary items.

Pennsylvania Congressman Dan Meuser says Democrats arent focused on helping the American public.

Are we trying to transform our nation or are we trying to fix a problem? We gotta stay focused on recovery, we gotta stay focused on finding a vaccine and we gotta stay focused on law and order, Meuser said.

After passing the House last week, the bill is on its way to the Senate.

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Heroes Act 2.0 passes in the House, Democrats optimistic while Republicans disappointed - ABC27

House Whip James Clyburn (D-SC), on CNN, August 2, 2020

The typical reaction to the death of a tyrant whether by revolutionary violence or natural causes is not one ofgriefand sadness but joyous celebration. It is not hard to understand why: when a nation and its oppressed citizenryare finally liberated from the suffocating, savage grip of fascist dictatorship, they feel joy for themselves, their families and the future of their nation. That is the same reason people have always hoped for, or work toward, the death of despots: they want to rid themselves ofthose who impose tyranny on them.

When Romanians learned in 1989 of the summary execution of their despised dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, residents t[ook] to the streets to celebrate the downfall of the dictator. In 2006, many Chileans celebrated the death of dictator Augusto Pinochet, as a cacophony of horns sounded as hundreds of thousands took to streets and plazas across the country when it was announced the man who ruled ruthlessly for 17 years had died at age 91, a week after suffering a heart attack. Cuban dictator Fidel Castro is dead, so celebrate we will, read a 2016 South Florida Sun-Sentinel op-ed by a Cuban-American who appeared to genuinely believe that Castro was a vicious dictator,and thus expressedthe natural, normal reaction of someone who believes a country has been freed from the grip of a despot. So typical is this reaction to the death of a leader perceived as a dictator that history is replete with countlesssimilarexamples over many decades and across the world.

Yet in the U.S., a radically different dynamic is playing out. Over the past several years, but particularly in the months heading into the 2020 election, it has become extremely common for prominent Democrats and their media allies to refer to President Trump as a dictator, a fascist, a tyrant hellbent on destroying U.S. democracy, a genocidal racist, and even a Nazi. And yet, the overwhelming reaction in those mainstream precincts to the news that the fascist dictator has contracted a potentially lethal virus is to hope and pray that he makes a speedy recovery whereby he can resume his democracy-destroying, genocidal, tyrannical, fascist rule.

In March of last year, as CNN put it, two powerful House Democrats invoked Adolf Hitlers actions in Germany and the treatment of Jews during World War I and in the 1920s to warn against the direction the US is moving in, with both saying Donald Trumps presidency presents an unprecedented threat to democracy.One of the Democratic lawmakers who explicitly invoked Nazism and Hitler as the proper prism to understand Trumps rule was House Whip James Clyburn of South Carolina. Just two months ago, Clyburn went back on CNN and warned that Trump was preparing to hold despotic power even if he loses, pronouncing: I feel very strongly that he is Mussolini, Putin is Hitler.

CNN, March 20, 2019

Yet when Clyburn learnedthis week that our modern-day Hitler who is on the precipice of ending democracy had contracted a fatal virus, he did not celebrate but instead, for some reason, lamented the news, wishing the First Family a speedy and complete recovery. Why would you possibly wish a speedy recovery rather than a quick demise to someone you believe is a Hitler-like perpetrator of genocide whose recovery would enable fascism to continue? That seems counter-intuitive and counter-productive.

MSNBC star Rachel Maddow began invoking Nazismand Hitler in connection with Trump as early as 2016, when Politico reported that, once Trump secured the GOP nomination, the on-air personality has been reading up lately on Adolf Hitlers rise to power in Germany, the MSNBC anchor told Rolling Stone, because thats where she thinks the United States could be headed. Maddow has notoriously spent the last four years manically obsessed with the claim that Trump has such a corrupt relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin that it is the Kremlin, thanks to Trump, which secretly runs the U.S. and is using that power to plot harm to large numbers of Americans by, for instance, seizing the power tocut off their heat in the dead of winter. Maddow was explicitlylinking Trump to classic fascism as early as 2015.

Yet upon learning that the fascist, Kremlin-controlled, Nazi-like dictator had become ill, Maddow launched a one-woman crusade demanding that her fellow liberals pray earnestly for his recovery. She first posted an extremely effusive tweet: God bless the president and the first lady. If you pray, please pray for their speedy and complete recovery Presumably in response to widespread liberal confusion and criticisms wait, you spent four years telling us hes a fascist racist Nazi-likedespotand now youinsist that we pray for his health? Maddow devoted a segment on her show in which, with great passion and emotion, she urged her viewers to react to Trumps COVID diagnosiswith the same compassion and through the same prism as if a friend who smokes cigarettes learned she had lung cancer:

These sentiments were not unique to Maddow. Indeed, that all decent people should hope and pray for Trumps speedy recovery was the virtually unanimous consensus of leading Democratic Party figures, expressed by Barack Obama, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. Jane and I wish the President and First Lady a full and speedy recovery, said the Vermont Senator.

How is this messaging we hope the racist fascist genocidal Nazi-like dictator gets well soon and returns to work? not creating extreme cognitive dissonance among those who believed that they actually were sincere in their maximalist denunciations and invocations of fascism and Nazismregarding Trump? Shouldnt liberals not just be confused but overtly disgusted at their leaders who want Trump to survive and return in full health to imposing fascism and genocide on Americans?

Here, for instance, is the fairly representative reaction of a left-wing political operative the Democratic Socialist of Americas Jack Califano, who served as the 2020 Sanders CampaignsDeputy Distributed Organizing Director to Maddows segment urging that all good liberals pray for Trumps recovery and avoid wishing ill on their fellow human being:

That reaction makes logical sense on its own terms. If one really does believe that Trump is a genocidal Nazi a Hitler-equivalent fascist dictator engaged in the deliberate mass slaughter of a particular ethnic or religious group (genocide) then it would be not just irrational but madness and moral bankruptcy to hope that the Nazi genocidal fascist makes a speedy recovery and returns to work. But thats exactly what virtually every prominent Democratic Party leaderis doing. Is Califano regretful about having worked for the presidential campaign of someone who sends warm wishes to a genocidal Nazi?

There are afew potential explanations that may account for this extremely unusual and confounding behavior of praying for, rather than against, the well-being of a fascist dictator. Perhaps Democratic leaders are simply pretending to be hoping for Trumps well-being for political purposes while secretly hoping that he suffers and dies. Or perhapsnational Democratic politicianshave ascended to a state of spiritualelevation rarely seen in modern political history, in which they are capable of praying for even those they most dislike, including ones they believe are imposing fascism on their nation? Or perhaps, maybe more likely, Democratic leaders do not really believe the things they have spent four years saying about Trump and, like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney before him, are applying such labels of historic evil to him for political advantage but still see him as one of them, whom they intend to rehabilitate and honor once he is out of power.

Whatever else is true, their behavior upon hearing that someone they claim toregard as a genocidal racist fascisttyrant has contracted a fatal virus is extremely unusual when compared to how people throughout history react when learning of similar news. It is worth interrogating what accounts for such a baffling dynamic.

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Why Are Democrats Praying for the Speedy Recovery of a Fascist Dictator? - The Intercept

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State Assemblymember Todd Gloria and San Diego City Councilmember Barbara Bry would likely take the city in different directions on issues like affordable housing, transportation and climate action.

Aired: October 5, 2020 | Transcript

The San Diego mayor's race is among the most consequential on the local ballot this election season, with big implications on city finances, housing and homelessness, transportation and climate action. And for the first time in recent history, both candidates in the runoff are Democrats.

Assemblymember Todd Gloria is generally considered the frontrunner against City Councilmember Barbara Bry. Gloria came in first in the primary, winning 41.5% of the vote compared to Bry's 22.9%. Gloria has also secured more high-profile endorsements from the San Diego County Democratic Party, business groups, labor unions and elected officials.

But the race appears to have tightened since the primary Bry and Gloria were virtually neck-and-neck in an opinion poll commissioned by the San Diego Union-Tribune and 10News. The poll was criticized as overrepresenting Republicans and underrepresenting independents, though pollster SurveyUSA stood by its methodology.

Fundraising reports have also suggested a more competitive race than what was apparent after the primary. Bry significantly outraised Gloria from mid-February through the end of June. Gloria then outraised Bry from July to mid-September and ended the reporting period with more than three times as much money in the bank.

Gloria also has a lopsided advantage when it comes to independent expenditures, which are made by political action committees, known as PACs. Those committees, which candidates are forbidden from controlling, take money from individuals, corporations and unions and can often tip the scales in close elections with targeted mail campaigns. Bry has sought to turn Gloria's advantage with independent expenditures against him, casting him as beholden to special interests.

Who are the candidates?

In 2016, Barbara Bry was elected to represent City Council District 1, which covers the neighborhoods of La Jolla, University City and Carmel Valley. Prior to entering politics, the 71-year-old Bry had a successful business career, co-founding an e-commerce company and incubating other tech startups.

Her platform includes banning dockless scooter sharing companies and short-term home rentals. Among her proudest accomplishments are helping defeat the 2018 "Soccer City" ballot measure, demanding an independent audit of the city's overbilling of water customers and asking tough questions about the city's bad record on real estate deals.

Bry said she was motivated to run for mayor after she got to City Hall and noticed a culture of secrecy, where big decisions were made behind closed doors. If elected, Bry would be San Diegos first female mayor since 2000, when Republican Susan Golding left office.

"I'm running for mayor first of all to bring accountability and transparency to City Hall (and) to lead an inclusive economic recovery as we come out of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has exemplified our existing inequities," Bry said. "And it's why I believe my private sector experience is so important in creating jobs, in terms of how we're going to have an economy that's going to get everyone back to work."

Gloria, 42, was elected to the state Assembly in 2016 after serving on the City Council for eight years, including six months as interim mayor. He would be San Diego's first elected mayor who is openly gay and the first with Latino, Filipino or Native American heritage.

Gloria said he was proud of starting work on the city's Climate Action Plan, passing an increase to the city's minimum wage and navigating the budget crisis during the last recession. He said that experience prepared him to tackle the current budget deficit related to the pandemic.

"I served as the city's budget chair for six of the eight years that I was at City Hall, was able to take the city from massive budget deficits as a result of the Great Recession (and) turn them into surpluses and reserves that thankfully will help mitigate some of the cuts that will be necessary going forward," he said.

Housing and homelessness

Voters frequently cite homelessness and housing affordability as among their top concerns. And those problems could get even worse as the economic fallout from COVID-19 puts thousands of low-income households at risk of eviction.

Both candidates say they support building more housing near public transit to relieve San Diego's housing shortage, which has led to low vacancy rates and higher housing costs. But they differ on a critical issue related to subsidized affordable housing: Measure A.

Measure A would authorize the city of San Diego to issue up to $900 million in bonds to fund affordable housing. The money could be used for new construction, preserving rents on existing low-income housing or buying up market rate housing and making it affordable.

Bry said she has not yet made up her mind about Measure A because it would increase property taxes, a cost she said would be passed on to renters at a time when the pandemic is already making it difficult for many households to make ends meet.

"We still have many San Diegans out of work," she said. This ... could be a very challenging time to raise taxes."

Gloria supports Measure A, which needs a two-thirds majority to pass, saying that too often when San Diego is tasked with solving big problems, "later" becomes "never."

"Even in this pandemic, even in this recession, even with people marching in the streets, the most common thing that is shared with me as a concern by San Diegans is homelessness," he said. "They see thousands of our neighbors sleeping outdoors, unsheltered, and they want something done about. And this is a way we can do something about it."

Bry has attacked Gloria for supporting SB 1120, a statewide housing bill. The bill, which passed the legislature but died because it missed the deadline for a final vote in the Senate, would have allowed property owners to build duplexes on lots otherwise zoned for single-family homes. Bry has characterized the bill as Sacramento overreach, while Gloria has said it's a simple way to create more housing for the middle class.

Transportation and climate action

San Diego's next mayor will have a big say over the future of transportation in the county and its efforts to meet state and local climate targets. The San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) is preparing a 30-year regional transportation plan with big investments in public transit, including new rail lines and rapid bus services.

A notable exception in SANDAGs new vision from previous plans is that it will not include any freeway widenings. It does, however, envision new toll and carpool lanes to be built within the existing freeway network. State law requires the next plan to result in significant cuts to greenhouse gas emissions and car travel.

The San Diego mayor has a powerful vote on the SANDAG board of directors, and opposition from the next mayor could sink the transportation plan entirely.

Gloria supports the vision, though he said much of the details need to be worked out.

"We actually get the active transportation, the mass transit network, the highway network that actually gives consumers choices," Gloria said. "This is ... what we need to do under our obligations in our Climate Action Plan, it is necessary for our continued economic growth in San Diego and it's necessary to protect our quality of life."

Bry opposes SANDAG's current vision for the transportation plan, saying future technologies such as autonomous vehicles paired with existing transit would be more effective and that San Diego's topography makes the pursuit of new underground rail lines not worth it.

"I think the plan to drill under our neighborhoods to build all of this fixed transit is ridiculous," Bry said.

The two candidates vying to be San Diegos next mayor would each likely take the city in different directions on issues like affordable housing, transportation and climate action. Also, deadly wildfires in California have burned more than 4 million acres (6,250 square miles) this year more than double the previous record.. Most of that acreage has been in Californias ... Read more

Aired: October 5, 2020 | Transcript

Andrew Bowen Metro Reporter

I cover local government a broad beat that includes housing, homelessness and infrastructure. I'm especially interested in the intersections of land use, transportation and climate change.

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Mayoral Candidates Bry and Gloria Are Two Democrats With Differing Views On City's Top Issues - KPBS

The Democratic National Committees (DNC) flat-out rejection of anti-Israel language in the final version of its 2020 platform demonstrates that progressives should not be so quick to declare victory in the battle for the soul of the Democratic Party.

Yes, a candidate backed by progressives toppled incumbent Rep. Eliot EngelEliot Lance EngelHouse Democrats 'alarmed' by allegations about US diplomat in Brazil Democratic chairman subpoenas Pompeo for records related to Biden, Burisma Sherman joins race for House Foreign Affairs gavel MORE (D-N.Y.). Engel, the powerful chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee and a longtime supporter of Israel, will surely be missed. While this upset garnered headlines, moderates in races from coast to coast defeated an overwhelming majority of progressive insurgents. And that is a good thing for a nation that is eager to heal after years of fractious politics.

Despite the drubbing of progressive candidates, Slate magazine called Engels loss a cautionary tale for Democrats nationally. The Jerusalem Post called it a changing of the guard for Democrats. These estimations more than misread the political tea-leaves. They misrepresent reality.

As NBC points out, the vast majority of Justice Democrats who have run over the past two House cycles have lost. In 2018, Justice Democrats endorsed 65 non-incumbent candidates; only 24 survived their primaries and, in the end, just seven were elected to Congress.

The name Justice Democrats has proven to be an oxymoron. The groups strategy is divide and conquer. They single out Jews and Israel for scorn, allowing an unacceptable level of anti-Semitic rhetoric in their ranks; they seek to topple capitalism in favor of socialism.

Yes, a few progressives won high-profile races. And winning doesnt always come down to money or even the power of incumbency. As an insurgent candidate herself, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-CortezAlexandria Ocasio-CortezTrump holds mini-rally at Florida airport Overnight Defense: House passes 5B Pentagon spending bill as part of broader package | One dead, eight missing after Marine Corps training accident | White House says Trump stands by controversial nominee House approves amendments to rein in federal forces in cities MORE (D-N.Y.) was dramatically outspent but still beat Rep. Joe CrowleyJoseph (Joe) CrowleyProgressive Bowman ousts Engel in New York primary How a progressive populist appears to have toppled Engel Bowman declares victory over Engel in New York primary as votes still counted MORE, a powerful member of the House Democratic leadership. Engel held similar stature and fundraising advantages over his opponent and still lost.

When progressives win, they follow a familiar playbook: They find soft targets of opportunity, like reliable but longtime incumbents who dont have social media star power and seem out of touch. Progressives win when they appeal to the changing demographics of their district. They win when they have a scapegoat, which all too often is Israel. And when they do claim a scalp, they declare victory for their movement.

But with greater regularity, progressives lose. They lose because they are on the wrong side of their electorate; their views are repudiated. Calling for economic boycotts of Israel or failing to repudiate anti-Semitic remarks do not comprise a winning strategy in a nation in which Jews play a vital role in civic and economic life.They dont win in a nation that is desperate to heal from years of division.

Nor should progressives declare victory in the presidential primaries. The darling of the Justice Democrats, Sen. Bernie SandersBernie SandersVermont has a chance to show how bipartisanship can tackle systemic racism The Hill's Morning Report - Presented by Facebook - At loggerheads, Congress, White House to let jobless payout lapse Sanders calls for the end of the filibuster following Obama's remarks MORE (I-Vt.), was defeated. He was hopelessly out of step with mainstream voters who comprise the majority of the electorate, and he had a fraught relationship with Jewish voters.

Instead, the winner was Joe Biden, who, as a senator and as vice president, went out of his way to bridge and heal Americas divides, not contribute to them.The 2020 DNC platform, with regard to Israel, is further evidence of the strength of center-left candidates and the weakness of the appeal of progressive policies to mainstream voters. In its rejection of language that would condition aid to Israel and refer to Israel as an occupier, the DNC has responded decisively to those on the radical fringe of the party.

The victorylap in this year's Democratic primaries goes to center-left candidates who stayed true to America's ideals and allies,including tolerance of Jews and support for Israel. Rumorsof the demise of such candidates, as the saying goes, are greatly exaggerated.

Jack Rosen is president of the American Jewish Congress, which advocates on behalf of American Jews and Israel through public policy, diplomatic and legislative actions.

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Progressives lost the battle for the Democratic Party's soul | TheHill - The Hill