NATIONAL MEMOCONGRESSHEADLINESLAWNEWSLETTERUKRAINEWHITE HOUSE Think about it: For a 55 cent stamp, America's extraordinary postal workers and letter carriers will take your piece of mail and deliver it by truck, car, airplane, boat, motorbike, mule — and, of course, by foot — to any address across town or across the country. The post

office is

LET’S MOCK THE IDIOTS WHO THINK VACCINES ARE MORE The latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention count is 32,472,201 Americans infected of whom just 5,800 were vaccinated. Only 396 of those vaccinated yet sick required hospitalization. No vaccine is totally effective, especially not at first. When I was a boy in the 1950s, about 160,000 people a year, mostly children, contracted polio. FAR RIGHT’S COVID CONSPIRACY BLAMES FAUCI FOR VIRUS Far right promotes conspiracy theory blaming Fauci for COVID-19 www.youtube.com "COVID-19's greatest power is fear," intoned conspiracy-meister Alex Jones in the introduction to a recent episode of his Infowars show, behind a distorted video portrait of Fauci and

creepy soundtrack.

POLL SHOWS 66 PERCENT OF VOTERS DON’T WANT TRUMP TO RUN IN Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos . Fresh polling from Quinnipiac University has demonstrated two truths at once: Donald Trump is still the frontrunner for the GOP nomination in 2024, and he remains uniquely unpopular with a substantial majority of Americans.. The poll found that 66 percent of all Americans hope Trump won't run in 2024, while just 30 percent do want him to run. TRUMP IGNORED CYBER DEFENSE, BUT GOP BLAMES BIDEN FOR Rather than blame the problems on the group behind the attack or inadequate security at Colonial Pipeline, several Republican lawmakers have blamed the shutdown and the gas price spikes on Biden and cited it as evidence to condemn his presidency. "Increased taxes, the largest increase in inflation since the '08 Obama jobless economy, and skyrocketing gas, energy, and household goods FEDERAL JUDGE WARNS TRUMP MAY BE HELD LIABLE FOR JANUARY 6AUTHOR: CODY

FENWICK

Sabol is accused of beating a cop during the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, which sought to prevent Congress from officially counting the Electoral College votes that made Joe Biden president. The judge rejected the argument that Sabol was prompted to engage in the insurrection in the heat of the moment, spurred on by Trump's rally.

Evidence

EVERYTHING REPUBLICANS OPPOSE, THEY NOW CALL ’SOCIALISTAUTHOR: JOSH

ISRAEL

Everything Republicans Oppose, They Now Call ’Socialist’. Republicans have devised a new definition for the term socialism: anything we don't support. According to Merriam-Webster, socialism is defined principally as "any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of

the

‘YOU VOTED AGAINST IT’ TRENDS AS REPUBLICANS CLAIM CREDIT Some Republican members of the House and Senate are trying to take credit for elements of the American Rescue Act after refusing to support the bill, prompting social media users to remind them: "YOU VOTED AGAINST IT!" That phrase trended on Twitter Sunday after at least four Republican congresspeople tried to convince their

constituents they

KINZINGER’S FAMILY SENDS WILD LETTER THAT SAYS HE JOINEDAUTHOR: CODY

FENWICK

The New York Times obtained a letter signed by 11 of Kinzinger's relatives and sent to his father, as well as other Republican officials in the state. It was written by his cousin, Karen Otto, the Times reported. In style, the letter was clearly influenced by Trump's own writing — though it included far more religious references than

the

HOW OFTEN DOES TRUMP ACTUALLY ATTEND CHURCH? NOT OFTEN April 1, 2018: On his second Easter in the White House, Trump again attended church services at Bethesda-by-the-Sea, as he once again was at his Mar-a-Lago resort for the holiday. Dec. 5, 2018: Trump attended the funeral service of former President George H.W. Bush at the Washington National Cathedral, along with his five living

predecessors.

NATIONAL MEMOCONGRESSHEADLINESLAWNEWSLETTERUKRAINEWHITE HOUSE Think about it: For a 55 cent stamp, America's extraordinary postal workers and letter carriers will take your piece of mail and deliver it by truck, car, airplane, boat, motorbike, mule — and, of course, by foot — to any address across town or across the country. The post

office is

LET’S MOCK THE IDIOTS WHO THINK VACCINES ARE MORE The latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention count is 32,472,201 Americans infected of whom just 5,800 were vaccinated. Only 396 of those vaccinated yet sick required hospitalization. No vaccine is totally effective, especially not at first. When I was a boy in the 1950s, about 160,000 people a year, mostly children, contracted polio. FAR RIGHT’S COVID CONSPIRACY BLAMES FAUCI FOR VIRUS Far right promotes conspiracy theory blaming Fauci for COVID-19 www.youtube.com "COVID-19's greatest power is fear," intoned conspiracy-meister Alex Jones in the introduction to a recent episode of his Infowars show, behind a distorted video portrait of Fauci and

creepy soundtrack.

POLL SHOWS 66 PERCENT OF VOTERS DON’T WANT TRUMP TO RUN IN Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos . Fresh polling from Quinnipiac University has demonstrated two truths at once: Donald Trump is still the frontrunner for the GOP nomination in 2024, and he remains uniquely unpopular with a substantial majority of Americans.. The poll found that 66 percent of all Americans hope Trump won't run in 2024, while just 30 percent do want him to run. TRUMP IGNORED CYBER DEFENSE, BUT GOP BLAMES BIDEN FOR Rather than blame the problems on the group behind the attack or inadequate security at Colonial Pipeline, several Republican lawmakers have blamed the shutdown and the gas price spikes on Biden and cited it as evidence to condemn his presidency. "Increased taxes, the largest increase in inflation since the '08 Obama jobless economy, and skyrocketing gas, energy, and household goods FEDERAL JUDGE WARNS TRUMP MAY BE HELD LIABLE FOR JANUARY 6AUTHOR: CODY

FENWICK

Sabol is accused of beating a cop during the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, which sought to prevent Congress from officially counting the Electoral College votes that made Joe Biden president. The judge rejected the argument that Sabol was prompted to engage in the insurrection in the heat of the moment, spurred on by Trump's rally.

Evidence

EVERYTHING REPUBLICANS OPPOSE, THEY NOW CALL ’SOCIALISTAUTHOR: JOSH

ISRAEL

Everything Republicans Oppose, They Now Call ’Socialist’. Republicans have devised a new definition for the term socialism: anything we don't support. According to Merriam-Webster, socialism is defined principally as "any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of

the

‘YOU VOTED AGAINST IT’ TRENDS AS REPUBLICANS CLAIM CREDIT Some Republican members of the House and Senate are trying to take credit for elements of the American Rescue Act after refusing to support the bill, prompting social media users to remind them: "YOU VOTED AGAINST IT!" That phrase trended on Twitter Sunday after at least four Republican congresspeople tried to convince their

constituents they

KINZINGER’S FAMILY SENDS WILD LETTER THAT SAYS HE JOINEDAUTHOR: CODY

FENWICK

The New York Times obtained a letter signed by 11 of Kinzinger's relatives and sent to his father, as well as other Republican officials in the state. It was written by his cousin, Karen Otto, the Times reported. In style, the letter was clearly influenced by Trump's own writing — though it included far more religious references than

the

HOW OFTEN DOES TRUMP ACTUALLY ATTEND CHURCH? NOT OFTEN April 1, 2018: On his second Easter in the White House, Trump again attended church services at Bethesda-by-the-Sea, as he once again was at his Mar-a-Lago resort for the holiday. Dec. 5, 2018: Trump attended the funeral service of former President George H.W. Bush at the Washington National Cathedral, along with his five living

predecessors.

KAMALA HARRIS AND THE WORSENING JOB OF VICE PRESIDENT Kamala Harris has been vilified by critics on the right, but the people who may end up detesting her most are not conservatives or even contemporaries. They are future vice presidents, who will curse her for loading up the office with heavy burdens. GREENE DEMANDS BIDEN RESPOND ON WUHAN LAB QUESTIONS…BY The Grizzly Scouts, according to the grand jury indictment handed down in April, plotted a variety of lethal actions targeting law-enforcement officers in the months and weeks before fellow "Boogaloo Boi" Steven Carillo—an active-duty Air Force sergeant—shot and killed federal protection officer Dave Patrick Underwood on May 29, 2020, and then a week later, a Santa Cruz

sheriff's deputy

BIDEN SIGNS BILL TO EXPAND HATE CRIME DATA COLLECTION On May 20, President Joe Biden signed the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act into law. Beyond including provisions intended to combat the recent increase in bias-motivated violence against Asian Americans, the law also provides money to help local law enforcement agencies collect

better data

COURT SETS TRIAL DATE FOR JOSH DUGGAR’S CHILD-PORN TRIAL The Grizzly Scouts, according to the grand jury indictment handed down in April, plotted a variety of lethal actions targeting law-enforcement officers in the months and weeks before fellow "Boogaloo Boi" Steven Carillo—an active-duty Air Force sergeant—shot and killed federal protection officer Dave Patrick Underwood on May 29, 2020, and then a week later, a Santa Cruz

sheriff's deputy

EVANGELICAL PASTORS ‘ALARMED’ BY QANON’S GROWING SWAY IN Kristin Du Mez, a historian at Calvin University and author of the book Jesus and John Wayne, told Axios, "For those who hope that the events of January 6 are in our past, I think this data gives little in the way of assurance.". That poll found that 26 percent of Hispanic Protestants and 25 percent of white evangelical Protestants were more likely to agree with QAnon than other groups. WATCH: ANTI-VAXXER’S TESTIMONY IN OHIO LEGISLATURE GOES 10 hours ago · As far as Dr. Tenpenny goes, the Center for Public Integrity reports "Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, who offers a $595 eight-week course in anti-vaccine talking points despite a federal judge having found her 'unqualified' to weigh in as an expert witness on a vaccine-related lawsuit ('Television interviews do not an expert make,' he wrote).". Ohio Capital Journal reporterTyler Buchanan posted

the video

WHY MANCHIN IS SO WRONG ON VOTING RIGHTS Reprinted with permission from Alternet . Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia officially announced in an op-ed Sunday that he would vote against the For the People Act, infuriating progressive critics who view the bill as a crucial tool for countering the Republican Party's anti-democratic tactics.. But Manchin's announcement wasn't particularly surprising, as he has repeatedly NOW THAT Q IS EXPOSED, WHAT SHOULD BE THE The Watkins' nemesis, Frederick Brennan, argues that Ron Watkins and Jim Watkins should be arrested for impersonating federal agents. This legal argument seems far-fetched. Q certainly invited the inference that he was a national security big-shot, but Q was as vague about his fictional credentials as he was about everything else. TRUMP FOR HOUSE SPEAKER IS A BANNON BRAINSTORM 1 day ago · Reprinted with permission from Media Matters . Following former President Donald Trump's June 4 remark that the idea of becoming speaker of the House after the 2022 midterm election is "very interesting" to him, political media has been abuzz with speculation. The idea has been making rounds in right-wing spheres in various iterations since January, when it was first championed by former White

DANZIGER DRAWS

9 hours ago · Jeff Danziger lives in New York City. He is represented by CWS Syndicate and the Washington Post Writers Group. He is the recipient of the Herblock Prize and the Thomas Nast (Landau) Prize. He served in the US Army in Vietnam and was awarded the Bronze Star and the Air Medal. NATIONAL MEMOCONGRESSHEADLINESLAWNEWSLETTERUKRAINEWHITE HOUSE The U.S. economy in fact added 559,000 jobs in May — more than double the number added the month before. The improving employment data comes as new unemployment claims have dropped to new pandemic lows in recent weeks, in the wake of Biden's American Rescue Plan and a successful COVID-19 vaccination drive.. Though the new job totals were slightly below the economists' predictions of around LET’S MOCK THE IDIOTS WHO THINK VACCINES ARE MORE The latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention count is 32,472,201 Americans infected of whom just 5,800 were vaccinated. Only 396 of those vaccinated yet sick required hospitalization. No vaccine is totally effective, especially not at first. When I was a boy in the 1950s, about 160,000 people a year, mostly children, contracted polio. POLL SHOWS 66 PERCENT OF VOTERS DON’T WANT TRUMP TO RUN IN Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos . Fresh polling from Quinnipiac University has demonstrated two truths at once: Donald Trump is still the frontrunner for the GOP nomination in 2024, and he remains uniquely unpopular with a substantial majority of Americans.. The poll found that 66 percent of all Americans hope Trump won't run in 2024, while just 30 percent do want him to run. FAR RIGHT’S COVID CONSPIRACY BLAMES FAUCI FOR VIRUS Far right promotes conspiracy theory blaming Fauci for COVID-19 www.youtube.com "COVID-19's greatest power is fear," intoned conspiracy-meister Alex Jones in the introduction to a recent episode of his Infowars show, behind a distorted video portrait of Fauci and

creepy soundtrack.

TRUMP IGNORED CYBER DEFENSE, BUT GOP BLAMES BIDEN FOR Rather than blame the problems on the group behind the attack or inadequate security at Colonial Pipeline, several Republican lawmakers have blamed the shutdown and the gas price spikes on Biden and cited it as evidence to condemn his presidency. "Increased taxes, the largest increase in inflation since the '08 Obama jobless economy, and skyrocketing gas, energy, and household goods NEW REPORT EXPLORES DETAILS OF GIULIANI CRIMINAL PROBE New Report Explores Details Of Giuliani Criminal Probe. Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani was once a federal prosecutor for the Southern District of New York; now, he is facing a criminal investigation from the Southern District. And journalists Asawin Suebsaeng and William Bredderman, in an article published by the Daily

Beast, note

FEDERAL JUDGE WARNS TRUMP MAY BE HELD LIABLE FOR JANUARY 6 Sabol is accused of beating a cop during the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, which sought to prevent Congress from officially counting the Electoral College votes that made Joe Biden president. The judge rejected the argument that Sabol was prompted to engage in the insurrection in the heat of the moment, spurred on by Trump's rally.

Evidence

‘YOU VOTED AGAINST IT’ TRENDS AS REPUBLICANS CLAIM CREDIT Some Republican members of the House and Senate are trying to take credit for elements of the American Rescue Act after refusing to support the bill, prompting social media users to remind them: "YOU VOTED AGAINST IT!" That phrase trended on Twitter Sunday after at least four Republican congresspeople tried to convince their

constituents they

COURT SETS TRIAL DATE FOR JOSH DUGGAR’S CHILD-PORN TRIAL Reprinted with permission from Alternet . Josh Duggar, the 33-year old former 19 Kids and Counting reality TV star, pleaded "not guilty" to federal charges related to child pornography on Friday in Arkansas, and his parents released a statement thanking Americans for their "continued prayers." "We appreciate your continued prayers for our family at this time," Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar told WHY DO REPUBLICANS HATE OBAMA? Dislike of Obama has grown to cult-like proportions across the region. Statewide polls show the president losing by thunderous majorities. A recent poll by the Public Religion Research Institute highlighted in The New York Times shows that “among Southern working class whites, Romney leads by 40 points, 62-22, an extraordinary gap.” In the Midwest, Obama leads among the same group. NATIONAL MEMOCONGRESSHEADLINESLAWNEWSLETTERUKRAINEWHITE HOUSE The U.S. economy in fact added 559,000 jobs in May — more than double the number added the month before. The improving employment data comes as new unemployment claims have dropped to new pandemic lows in recent weeks, in the wake of Biden's American Rescue Plan and a successful COVID-19 vaccination drive.. Though the new job totals were slightly below the economists' predictions of around LET’S MOCK THE IDIOTS WHO THINK VACCINES ARE MORE The latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention count is 32,472,201 Americans infected of whom just 5,800 were vaccinated. Only 396 of those vaccinated yet sick required hospitalization. No vaccine is totally effective, especially not at first. When I was a boy in the 1950s, about 160,000 people a year, mostly children, contracted polio. POLL SHOWS 66 PERCENT OF VOTERS DON’T WANT TRUMP TO RUN IN Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos . Fresh polling from Quinnipiac University has demonstrated two truths at once: Donald Trump is still the frontrunner for the GOP nomination in 2024, and he remains uniquely unpopular with a substantial majority of Americans.. The poll found that 66 percent of all Americans hope Trump won't run in 2024, while just 30 percent do want him to run. FAR RIGHT’S COVID CONSPIRACY BLAMES FAUCI FOR VIRUS Far right promotes conspiracy theory blaming Fauci for COVID-19 www.youtube.com "COVID-19's greatest power is fear," intoned conspiracy-meister Alex Jones in the introduction to a recent episode of his Infowars show, behind a distorted video portrait of Fauci and

creepy soundtrack.

TRUMP IGNORED CYBER DEFENSE, BUT GOP BLAMES BIDEN FOR Rather than blame the problems on the group behind the attack or inadequate security at Colonial Pipeline, several Republican lawmakers have blamed the shutdown and the gas price spikes on Biden and cited it as evidence to condemn his presidency. "Increased taxes, the largest increase in inflation since the '08 Obama jobless economy, and skyrocketing gas, energy, and household goods NEW REPORT EXPLORES DETAILS OF GIULIANI CRIMINAL PROBE New Report Explores Details Of Giuliani Criminal Probe. Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani was once a federal prosecutor for the Southern District of New York; now, he is facing a criminal investigation from the Southern District. And journalists Asawin Suebsaeng and William Bredderman, in an article published by the Daily

Beast, note

FEDERAL JUDGE WARNS TRUMP MAY BE HELD LIABLE FOR JANUARY 6 Sabol is accused of beating a cop during the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, which sought to prevent Congress from officially counting the Electoral College votes that made Joe Biden president. The judge rejected the argument that Sabol was prompted to engage in the insurrection in the heat of the moment, spurred on by Trump's rally.

Evidence

‘YOU VOTED AGAINST IT’ TRENDS AS REPUBLICANS CLAIM CREDIT Some Republican members of the House and Senate are trying to take credit for elements of the American Rescue Act after refusing to support the bill, prompting social media users to remind them: "YOU VOTED AGAINST IT!" That phrase trended on Twitter Sunday after at least four Republican congresspeople tried to convince their

constituents they

COURT SETS TRIAL DATE FOR JOSH DUGGAR’S CHILD-PORN TRIAL Reprinted with permission from Alternet . Josh Duggar, the 33-year old former 19 Kids and Counting reality TV star, pleaded "not guilty" to federal charges related to child pornography on Friday in Arkansas, and his parents released a statement thanking Americans for their "continued prayers." "We appreciate your continued prayers for our family at this time," Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar told WHY DO REPUBLICANS HATE OBAMA? Dislike of Obama has grown to cult-like proportions across the region. Statewide polls show the president losing by thunderous majorities. A recent poll by the Public Religion Research Institute highlighted in The New York Times shows that “among Southern working class whites, Romney leads by 40 points, 62-22, an extraordinary gap.” In the Midwest, Obama leads among the same group. HERE’S WHO GOT RICH FROM TRUMP’S DISASTROUS RESPONSE TO What looked like chaos or ad hoc decision-making by an improbably elected fraudster president was, in fact, deeply rooted in ideology; specifically, in the belief that the job of the government was neither to exercise leadership, nor activate government agencies to assist the American people.It was to promote private industry and its profits as the solution to anything and everything pandemic. HOW TRUMP BECAME AN ONLINE FLOP IN 2021 After less than a month of postings, Trump's blog was officially taken offline last week, after drawing an embarrassingly small audience. Loyalists will no longer be able to check on "From the Desk of Donald J. Trump" to read his latest, bitter musings. KAMALA HARRIS AND THE WORSENING JOB OF VICE PRESIDENT Kamala Harris has been vilified by critics on the right, but the people who may end up detesting her most are not conservatives or even contemporaries. They are future vice presidents, who will curse her for loading up the office with heavy burdens. DON’T LET THE REPUBLICANS ‘FIX’ THE POSTAL SERVICE The Grizzly Scouts, according to the grand jury indictment handed down in April, plotted a variety of lethal actions targeting law-enforcement officers in the months and weeks before fellow "Boogaloo Boi" Steven Carillo—an active-duty Air Force sergeant—shot and killed federal protection officer Dave Patrick Underwood on May 29, 2020, and then a week later, a Santa Cruz

sheriff's deputy

BOMBSHELL REPORT UNCOVERS RIGHT-WING 'STING' PLOT AGAINST Bombshell Report Uncovers Right-Wing 'Sting' Plot Against McMaster, FBI. David Badash. May 14 | 2021. Former National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster. Undercover operatives from the right-wing Project Veritas worked with a former British spy and Betsy DeVos' brother Erik Prince to wage a smear and sting operation to discredit "deep state NOW THAT Q IS EXPOSED, WHAT SHOULD BE THE The Watkins' nemesis, Frederick Brennan, argues that Ron Watkins and Jim Watkins should be arrested for impersonating federal agents. This legal argument seems far-fetched. Q certainly invited the inference that he was a national security big-shot, but Q was as vague about his fictional credentials as he was about everything else. WHY MANCHIN IS SO WRONG ON VOTING RIGHTS Reprinted with permission from Alternet . Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia officially announced in an op-ed Sunday that he would vote against the For the People Act, infuriating progressive critics who view the bill as a crucial tool for countering the Republican Party's anti-democratic tactics.. But Manchin's announcement wasn't particularly surprising, as he has repeatedly HOW A CBD BUSINESS CAN BENEFIT SOCIETY 1 day ago · Health care is a priority. Poverty, mental illness, and drug addiction still create issues for communities. People who use CBD have reported positive effects, attributed to the freedom that comes from being mentally well and free of cravings. IT'S TIME TO DUMP, DEPOSE AND DEFENESTRATE DEJOY Now that Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has confirmed reports that he is under investigation by the FBI for alleged campaign finance violations, ordinary postal customers who have suffered under his regime may rightly wonder why he is still in office. SCOTT-MORRISON-QANON 1 day ago · The National Memo is a political newsletter and website that combines the spirit of investigative journalism with new technology and ideas.We cover campaigns, elections, the White House, Congress, and the world with a fresh outlook.Our own journalism — as well as our selections of the smartest stories available every day — reflects a clear and strong perspective, without the kind of

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Newsletter

TRUMP FACES MAJOR OBSTACLES IN SCHEME TO OVERRIDE ELECTION RESULTS

Ian McDougall

2h

HOW A 'DISINFORMATION BUBBLE’ ENABLES THE TRUMPIST COUP PLOT

Matt Gertz

November 22 | 2020

Photo by fitzsingworth / Twitter _Reprinted with permission from MediaMatters_ President Donald Trump and his supporters are actively working to overturn the results of the election he lost to President-elect Joe Biden in order to keep him in power. Their

despicable plot

revolves around disenfranchising hundreds of thousands of Americans, in large part voters of color, on the grounds that their ballots were fraudulent. Their claims have been thoroughly demolished in legal proceedings finding no evidence that widespread fraud took place, because it did not. Top federal, state, and local officials have said that there were no election security problems

,

and the president's legal team at times has acknowledged in court that no fraud took place.

But the Trumpist effort to steal the election in broad daylight doesn't rely on whether its arguments can stand up to scrutiny in court. It is a fundamentally political effort. Rudy Giuliani and other members of Trump's legal team are propagating a shambling mass of lies and deranged conspiracy theories about the election. They hope to create enough confusion to give cover to Republican officials at the local, state, and federal level working to subvert the will of the electorate and use their power to preserve the president's. They want local and state Republican officials to refuse to certify election results in key states that Trump lost, in hopes that either Republican state legislators in those states will overturn the results and hand the president a victory or the election is thrown to Congress, where Republicans can grant him a second term.

This seditious conspiracy to shatter American democracy relies on the impermeability of the right-wing information bubble: The facts are not on their side, and the law is not on their side, but the Trumpist media is on their side, so they are banging the table as loudly as they can. They will likely fail -- in no small part because the key players in the would-be coup are incompetent loons -- but the cost America pays will be high nevertheless.

GOP leaders spent decades building an elaborate disinformation network of partisan media outlets and telling their supporters not to believe reporting from mainstream news sources. It worked -- polls show that Republicans overwhelmingly trust right-wing outlets with low or nonexistent journalistic standards and scorn more credible news outlets, and the president's most fervent supporters are Republicans who trust Fox News. A vast swath of the

public is now href="https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/coronavirus-fox-news-and-right-wing-media-failed-their-audience" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">firmly ensconced within an alternate reality, making decisions about not only politics but

their href="https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/six-different-polls-show-how-foxs-coronavirus-coverage-endangered-its-viewers" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">personal health and safety based on propaganda and conspiracy theories.

Within that right-wing information bubble, it is virtually uncontested that Trump is correct that the 2020 election was rife with voter fraud and that he actually won if you only count the "legal votes." The

result is that href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/11/13/trumps-crazy-and-confoundingly-successful-conspiracy-theory-436404" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">polls show a majority of Republicans say that the election was stolen from Trump.

Fox declared Biden the president-elect on November 7. But since then, both its news and opinion sides have pushed conspiracy theories about the election and cast doubt on its results hundreds of times.

Fox hosts, contributors, and guests have claimed that "many are trying to steal this election from President Trump"; asserted that "many Americans will never again accept the results of a presidential

election"; href="https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/sean-hannity-theres-good-reason-here-not-have-confidence-or-not-believe-fair" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">declared that "there's good reason here not to have confidence or not to believe this is

fair"; href="https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-business/lou-dobbs-war-battle-control-our-government" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">argued that "this is a war, this is a battle for the control of our government and for the future of this nation"; attacked Republican officials for being insufficiently committed to Trump's scheme; called for the arrests of election workers; suggested that Republican state legislators in states Trump lost should "appoint a clean slate of electors" who support him; and demanded lawsuits and congressional investigations. The network has aired promos that hype its prime-time line-up casting doubt on the election.

Fox's work to systemically delegitimize the election is important not only because the network remains the largest and most powerful entity within the right-wing media machine, but because Trump himself frequently watches its programming and amplifies it to his Twitter followers. The president has cast doubt on the

election href="https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/58-times-trump-has-cast-doubt-election-response-fox" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">dozens of times in response to Fox's coverage, including by promoting deranged conspiracy theories the network's stars pushed about computer systems changing votes to benefit Biden.

In spite of this barrage of attacks on the democratic process, Fox has actually been under fire from the president's supporters for not going far enough. The network's cable and digital competitors are even crazier and more propagandistic. And the

href="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/q-fades-qanon-s-dominion-voter-fraud-conspiracy-theory-reaches-n1247780" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">social media channels bombarding Republican

users are href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/infamous-hoax-artist-behind-trumpworlds-new-voter-fraud-claim" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">completely unhinged.

The Republican officials targeted by the president's scheme are likely to be either swimming in that fever swamp or dependent on those who do.

At the low end they look like William Hartmann, the Republican member of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers who temporarily blocked certification of the county's election results and subsequently signed an affidavit seeking to rescind the certification. His social media feeds are filled with conspiracy theories about the election from OAN and other far-right sources.

Further up the food chain, Republican members of Congress are

href="https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-news-propagandists-and-gop-leaders-are-pushing-country-toward-abyss" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">going on Fox to promote Trump's election theft.

At every step in the process, at the local, state, and federal level, Republican officials can be pressured by the president's supporters consuming this disinformation. Those are GOP primary voters who likely believe Trump actually won and can threaten the jobs of any politician who takes action to prevent him from staying in office.

This coup is likely to fail; Biden's lead is too great, Democrats hold key offices that can foil the attempt, and the plotters are too nutty. But the Republican base is being primed to treat Biden as illegitimate -- and to question the results of any future elections the party loses. If this behavior is normalized, the next time the right-wing media machine pushes for an anti-democratic solution to an election defeat, the margin may be narrower, the playing field more favorable to Republicans, and the plotters more disciplined.

Our democracy is fragile, and it is under attack. If the truth of the election results can't break through the right-wing information bubble, it may not survive for long.

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HOW CAN AMERICANS BEST MEASURE BIDEN’S ECONOMIC SUCCESS?

Faiz Shakir

@fshakir

November 22 | 2020

Photo by Karolina Grabowska

from Pexels

_Reprinted with permission from Democracy Journal

_

As President-elect Biden's team prepares a plan to get the country back on our feet from COVID's debilitating blow, he and his team will be considering a raft of economic proposals. But how should they assess which proposals to prioritize? We need a new lens through which to analyze economic ideas. For too

long, media

and politicians

have trumpeted stock market indices, GDP figures, trade deficits, and other macroeconomic indicators to portray the economic health of our nation. As wealth and inequality have soared to obscene levels in society, there is increasing public understanding that the Dow and quarterly corporate earnings reports aren't the best measures of economic vibrancy. Yet there is less consensus on what economic indicators we should instead be heeding, a need that will grow in importance as we emerge from COVID.

Certainly, median wages and unemployment figures give policymakers better and more helpful indicators. But the President-elect and his team would be well-advised to focus on one statistic in particular to guide policy formulation in the months ahead: How many non-college individuals will gain jobs during this recovery?

Over two-thirds of Americans above the age of 25 do not have a college degree. In other words, they have been the heart of our workforce. And those without college degrees have suffered most from recent decades of neoliberal fetishization with globalization, unregulated open markets, and corporate-friendly free trade. Greater corporate monopolization combined with a concentrated war on unionization has deprived many of these workers of their liberty.

The non-college workforce took a big hit during the great recession of 2008 and never fully recovered. Then COVID struck. Fifty-six percent of non-college grads held a job prior to COVID; that number fell precipitously and is now only hovering at 51 percent. At the current trajectory, the heart of our workforce is unlikely to ever fully recover to pre-'08 levels, much less pre-COVID levels.

Consider what has been going on in the lives of non-college individuals who have lost jobs in recent years. Those who've been fortunate enough to maintain employment have seen a decrease in their wages over the past 40 years (after adjusting for inflation). Many have given up looking for a job (and are therefore not even recognized in some employment statistics). And for others, the so-called "diseases of despair"—drug overdoses, alcoholism, suicide—with their especially

acute impact href="https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/6_casedeaton.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">on the non-college population are grievously cutting lives short. While the pain has been spread across all demographic groups, Black lives have suffered disproportionately given the racial disparity in the non-college population.

In his thought-provoking new book, Tyranny of Merit, Michael J. Sandel writes that policy elites from both parties, with their "technocratic faith in markets," have produced outcomes that generate hubris among the "winners" of the inequality divide, while fermenting humiliation and resentment among the "losers." By telling the losers that "their inadequate education is to blame for their troubles, meritocrats moralize success and failure and unwittingly promote credentialism—an insidious prejudice against those who have not been to college," Sandel writes.

In short, college-educated policy professionals have been flunking our nation.

To be clear, I'm making a case for less policy focus on people like me. I was fortunate to go to Harvard, get a law degree, and ultimately work as campaign manager to Bernie Sanders. Those of us with advanced degrees will continue to do just fine on the whole, and probably even better, once the non-college population starts thriving again.

Traveling all over the country with Bernie, I saw him make heroic efforts to win back understandably cynical and politically disillusioned working-class voters with a moral, humane, and bold populist agenda. In 2016, Trump helped the GOP win the votes of those who have been left behind. Biden was

able to href="https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2020/11/politics/election-analysis-exit-polls-2016-2020/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">win back some of those votes in 2020. Therefore, now is the time to show the working class that a Democratic agenda can deliver real change.

Democrats would be letting the heart of the workforce down if we tell them we're merely expanding a tax credit here or there. That's not going to fundamentally change their lives in the bold ways that are required. Rather, we need to think big: make vocational and community colleges free, cancel debt, raise the minimum wage to a living wage, expand government-sponsored health-care coverage, create affordable housing, invest in building green infrastructure, accelerate decarceration, foster new small business ownership, among other actions.

The COVID response provides a major opportunity to create structural long-term solutions to our broken and unjust economic system. The important work that will be vital to COVID recovery can and should create many jobs here at home. Producing vials, distributing syringes, making sufficient supplies of personal protective equipment, outfitting schools and public places with safe (and green) spaces, building new health-care delivery centers in needed areas—all this should be led by the government while providing jobs with good wages and benefits. We must utilize the Defense Production Act—something Trump hesitated to do—in order to put the federal government in the role of prioritizing our production needs and mobilizing industry to do it.

The non-college workforce has been told for too long that jobs are gone

and href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/06/01/obama_responds_to_questions_about_carrier_some_jobs_are_just_not_coming_back.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">aren't coming back. We need to be sending a very different message now. To look at our ailing and dysfunctional health-care system, the state of our public education system, crumbling infrastructure, outsourced supply chains, inadequate child care and home care, and so on is to understand that there is plenty of important and valuable work for the government to take the lead in creating. It may not be the kind of work that drives Wall Street profits or market rallies, but it is the work that can fulfill an individual's pride in having a purpose-driven life. And President-elect Biden fundamentally understands that people want to hold jobs and feel respect for the dignity of their work.

During the 2020 primary, I remember then-candidate Biden telling a Teamsters forum in Iowa that "we treat people where I come from and the neighborhoods I come from with high school degrees…we treat you all like dummies if you didn't go to college. We treat people in this country like they're stupid."

Elaborating further on his own sense of how we devalue labor, Biden said at a campaign stop in October, "If every investment banker in New York went on strike, nothing would much change in America. If every plumber decided to stop working, every electrician, the country comes to a halt." Biden has said, "Respect first and foremost is treating you for what you are worth, what you do, the value add."

He's right. More than policy proposals, Democrats must meaningfully show that they respect labor. It should start at the top. The Biden Administration should think about placing individuals throughout the Administration who may not have college degrees, come directly from the working class, and who may have real-world experience being on the receiving end of government policies. We need more individuals in government who know what it's like to fill out government applications, navigate food assistance, file for unemployment insurance, fight for Section 8 housing, get rejected from an SBA loan, etc. The Administration should see individuals with this background as a key asset to prevent bubble thinking from the "experienced" advanced degree set.

Democrats have a critical opportunity to re-instill faith in the public that government works. We can accomplish that arduous project by looking at every policy proposal through the lens of whether it improves the lives of the non-college workforce. It will be up to the President and his congressional allies, not greed-driven multinational corporations, to lead the way if we're going to be a country that works for working

people.

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HEADLINES

TRUMP FACES MAJOR OBSTACLES IN SCHEME TO OVERRIDE ELECTION RESULTS HOW A 'DISINFORMATION BUBBLE’ ENABLES THE TRUMPIST COUP PLOT HOW CAN AMERICANS BEST MEASURE BIDEN’S ECONOMIC SUCCESS? VIRAL VIDEO EXPOSES MCENANY LIES ABOUT 2016 TRANSITION

EDITOR'S BLOG

THE TRUMP REPUBLICANS AND THE FUHRERPRINZIP FORCING TRUMP’S ELECTION LAWYERS TO TELL THE TRUTH THE NATION IS REJECTING TRUMP WHO WILL DEFEND MILITARY BALLOTS FROM TRUMP?

CORONA VIRUS

VIRAL VIDEO EXPOSES MCENANY LIES ABOUT 2016 TRANSITION BIDEN FACES EARLY SHOWDOWN OVER IRAN SANCTIONS THE POWER OF JILL BIDEN — AND THE WOMEN HER HUSBAND TRUSTS

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TRUMP FACES MAJOR OBSTACLES IN SCHEME TO OVERRIDE ELECTION RESULTS VIRAL VIDEO EXPOSES MCENANY LIES ABOUT 2016 TRANSITION HOW A 'DISINFORMATION BUBBLE’ ENABLES THE TRUMPIST COUP PLOT

CAMPAIGN 2020

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LAWYER

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WORLD

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FRAUD

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