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| One hopes it will be peaceful and safe. |
BUT, FIRST, FAST-FORWARD TO NOV 5TH. NY TIMES.
What Worries Me Most About Election Night
…Imagine an election night this November in which the two parties are trading swing-state victories. The Democrats capture Nevada, while the Republicans take Arizona. The Republicans win the big prize of Pennsylvania, while the Democrats top them in Wisconsin and Michigan. The nation is waiting on Georgia. If Georgia goes red, it’s President Trump; if Georgia goes blue, it’s President Harris.
Then, local news headlines start to circulate. There are reports of unspecified “problems” in the vote in Fulton County. And in Gwinnett County. And in DeKalb, Coffee and Spalding Counties. Republican officials are refusing to certify the results in their counties. They say they are making “reasonable inquiries.”
As legal challenges wend through the courts, a wave of disinformation, confusion and propaganda swells, fueled by unproven claims that something is amiss in these Georgia counties, and also by similar noise — and possibly also certification refusals — in Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Nevada. (All have seen local Republicans try the certification refusal ruse since 2020.)
Under recently revised federal law, each state has until Dec. 11 to send official, certified state results to Washington for the Electoral College count. But if a state doesn’t meet that deadline, then what?
The point of these certification refusals may not be to falsify or flip a result, but simply to prevent the emergence of one. If one or more states fail to produce official results, blocking any candidate from reaching 270 =electoral votes, the 12th Amendment prescribes Gerald L.K. Smith’s dream scenario: a vote in the newly elected House of Representatives to determine the presidency. Each state delegation would get one vote; today, Republicans control 26 state delegations; Democrats control 22; and two are evenly divided.
Our democratic system is not invincible, but it is strong. Certification of election results is a ministerial responsibility that is not discretionary. Legitimate election challenges are handled with recounts and litigation, not by individual election board members. There is no loophole that allows bad-faith officials to so flummox the electoral system that they take the choice of the next president away from the American people…
…A recent report in The Times quoted an official with the conservative Heritage Foundation saying that “the conditions” in the country are now such that “most reasonable policymakers and officials cannot in good conscience certify an election.” Michael Whatley, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, has declined to answer when asked if the party intends to try to block vote certifications…
Opponents no doubt will fight any certification denials in the courts. Those efforts are important, and every state should be shoring up its own legal and electoral system now to prepare for, deter and defend against any effort to sabotage certification. But stopping such subterfuge also depends on an informed public that refuses to let false narratives take hold…
…Now is the time to get to know your local election board, especially if you live in a place where election denialism has taken hold, and where certification refusals may be coming. Public awareness and vigilance can make a difference. No one should be surprised when certification refusals happen or when they are then exploited to try to maximize chaos and upset… [Rachel Maddow, Aug 19th, NY Times]
Goes to the concerns of my prior post.
MR TRUMP'S DNC WEEK
ERRATUM: 15 SEC PHOTOSHOP OVERLAY
UPDATE:
ALSO RELEVANT TO THE PRIOR POST
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| Click here. |
The F.B.I., which has worked to protect Americans from extremist violence since the nineteen-twenties, when it took on the Ku Klux Klan, has warned of a resurgence of the far right. Near the end of Trump’s term in office, the Department of Homeland Security declared for the first time that domestic violent extremists, rather than foreign terrorists, were “the most persistent and lethal threat” to the nation, primarily in the form of “lone offenders and small groups.” Christopher Wray, the F.B.I.’s director, clarified to a congressional committee that the threat was largely from adherents to “some kind of white-supremacist-type ideology.” Then came the storming of the Capitol. President Joe Biden, on his first day in office, commissioned White House staff to draft the first-ever “National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism.” The document, issued in June, 2021, promised “a comprehensive approach to addressing the threat while safeguarding bedrock American civil rights and civil liberties.”
Liberal critics of the F.B.I. complain that its laboriously nonpartisan terminology hides the disproportionately greater size and lethality of the current threat from the right. According to the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, at the University of Maryland, between 2012 and 2022 far-right extremists killed two hundred and nine people; the far left killed thirty-seven. (Most of that violence took place after Trump’s election, including a hundred and fifty of the killings by the far right.) Yet the F.B.I.’s odd taxonomy serves a purpose: it avoids any hint that the agency is basing investigative choices on an antipathy toward certain political beliefs. The officials repeatedly reminded me that the First Amendment protects even the most abhorrent bigotry. One of them noted, “We will not investigate people for being antisemitic, because it is not illegal.” And ever since the Senate’s Church Committee revealed, in 1975, that the F.B.I. had conducted politically motivated surveillance of civil-rights leaders, environmentalists, and others on the left, agency bureaucrats have feared the wrath they would face from Congress and the public if they were again caught crossing that line.
DNC OPENING NIGHT WRAP
Rsn way long. We got to bed at about 12:30 a.m. It was worth staying up to see and hear all six and a half hours. I found it quite uplifting overall. Notwithstanding that DNC 2024 is obviously a highly partisan national event, the relative lack of bitter bad faith and ill will have been thus far palpable contrasts to the relentless derisive, hyperbolic, aggrieved tone of the preceding RNC convention in Milwaukee.. A couple of my favorite takeaway lines:
"Stand Up;
Speak Up;
Show Up."
"Kamala Harris, for the People."
That latter phrase comprised the first five words uttered introducing Kamala in court as she began her career as a prosecutor in California.
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