 This is The Humanist Report with Mike Bigaredo. The Humanist Report podcast is funded by viewers like you, through Patreon and PayPal. To support the show, visit patreon.com forward slash humanist report or become a member at humanistreport.com. Now enjoy the show. Welcome to The Humanist Report podcast. My name is Mike Bigaredo and this is episode 259 of the program. Today is Friday, September 25th and before we get started I want to take some time as we usually do to thank all of our newest Patreon, PayPal and YouTube members, all of which either signed up for the very first time to support us this week or increased the monthly pledge that they were already giving us and that includes Anthony Pullum, Bob McMurray, Dylan Bundy, 1111, Francis Ellis, Mokie, Pilot of the Damned, Tell a Young Person to Register and Vote and Teresa Gosnell. Thank you so much to all of these kind individuals. If you'd also like to support the show and join the independent progressive media revolution you can do so by going to humanistreport.com slash support, patreon.com slash humanistreport or by clicking join underneath any one of our YouTube videos. So we've got a pretty loaded episode this week so let's waste no time and get straight to it. This week on the program we'll talk about the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and whether or not Trump will get a third Supreme Court justice confirmed before the election and we'll also discuss whether or not Democrats will actually fight Mitch McConnell or just let him win once again. We'll also continue our coverage of the 2020 election and talk about a Joe Biden ad that's actually pretty brilliant along with what we can expect from the upcoming debates. So Trump is encouraging his supporters to intimidate voters at the polls and we'll discuss the overall toxicity that Donald Trump brings to American culture. We'll also talk about Donald Trump and Attorney General William Barr's attempt to crack down on protests even more and Trump supporters still don't want to wear masks to stop the spread of COVID-19. We'll talk about that. Also the gig economy is now trying to cash in off of the eviction crisis caused by the economic depression brought about by the global pandemic. We'll discuss that and finally we will close the show by talking to 2020 U.S. Senate candidate Paula Jean Swaringen from West Virginia. That's what we've got on the agenda for today's program. I hope you all enjoy the episode. Let's get right to it. On Friday Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away at the age of 87 I believe and she had cancer for a very long time and this news was genuinely shocking. Even if it's not necessarily surprising that someone who is old would succumb to a long time battle with cancer it's still like it put a really dark cloud over the weekend. You know not the best news to get on a Friday not just because it's sad in general but because of the political ramifications and for that there's a lot. I don't even know where to begin. So obviously the question is what's going to happen now? Who's going to replace her? Will it be Donald Trump before the election? Will it be Joe Biden? What I do know is that Democrats are not up to the challenge and I fear for what's going to happen. In fact I'm expecting the worst. I kind of feel as if Donald Trump replacing RGB is a foregone conclusion at this point because I just don't think Democrats know what to do. Like immediately after RGB died we heard that her last wish was for the next president to fill her vacancy. And you know I see videos of Democrats like Elizabeth Warren talking about how we need to honor her last wish. Republicans don't care. I see the videos online circulating of Mitch McConnell talking about how you can't fill a Supreme Court seat during an election year. You know this was back in 2016 I see videos of Lindsey Graham saying the same thing and people are kind of trying to hypocrisy burn Republicans and I get that instinct but I need people to understand Republicans don't care. The ends justify the means. The ends justify the means. They have absolutely no desire to convince Americans that they're principled. They just don't care. Their goal is to make sure Donald Trump fills that seat. And there's no argument that you can make to Republicans that will you know get them to be persuaded or pull on their heartstrings enough. Like Mitch McConnell he is a soulless ghoul so you're not going to like make some argument that emotionally resonates with him. He doesn't give a shit. He wants to fill that seat and he will do just that. And so what you have to do is you have to block them. If you are Democrats you pull out every single procedural trick in the book to stop them from doing this. Everything in your power. Tool at your disposal. You use that right now because democracy is at stake and I'm not being hyperbolic when I say that. Democracy is at stake. We are looking at a Supreme Court going from a five to four majority to a six to three majority. That means they have a cushion. They have some wiggle room. Everything is on the table. We're not worried about Roberts being a swing vote any longer siding with the liberal justices because guess what. Now they have another conservative there to back them up. So the situation is looking really really grim and what it seems to me is that the goal is to get the Senate to wait to confirm the next justice until after the election. Now the election takes place on November 3 that's a Tuesday so let's say hypothetically speaking Joe Biden does end up defeating Donald Trump and Democrats successfully delay this next appointment until after the election. Well there's still some time where a lame duck president Donald Trump can confirm a justice like I don't know if that's possible. Is it within the realm of possibility to where Mitch McConnell can find some way to make that happen. I feel like it's possible who knows maybe there are illegal ramifications to that I don't know but what I do know is that there's nothing off the table for Republicans nothing is off the table. They will do everything they possibly can to make sure that they fill that seat You're not going to make an argument that's compelling enough to Mitch McConnell to get him to just unilaterally disarm from this fight. You have to fight him. And Democrats are not up to that challenge. Take a look at this interview that Nancy Pelosi did over the weekend with ABC News George Stephanopoulos and he asked her a very simple question and her response was just bizarre. On Friday I started there early voting the day that we lost Ruth Bader Ginsburg. But to be clear you're not taking any arrows out of your quiver you're not ruling anything out. Good morning Sunday morning. We have a responsibility we take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution. No joke when I watched that my reaction was oh my god we're doomed Trump's going to get this seat Trump is going to get this seat. I just I don't think Democrats are up to the challenge. So psychologically I'm already kind of preparing myself for the likely scenario where Donald Trump fills that seat. He's already saying he's going to announce his pick this weekend possibly Friday within an hour after RGB passed away. Mitch McConnell said we will have a vote for this justice. Now there is hope in maybe Lisa Murkowski Susan Collins Mitt Romney not voting with Republicans. Is a possibility that that happens. Am I optimistic about our chances there. Not necessarily because I mean even if it seems like Susan Collins is on the fence she plays this game every single time and ends up going with Republicans. So polling right now shows that she's not in a good spot. So she actually kind of sees the writing on the wall and she feels as if she's going to lose this election. It could be her parting gift to Republicans. It just you know whenever we hope for the best whenever we feel as if maybe a couple of key votes will go our way it just it never seems to and I'm not trying to be a Debbie Downer but I'm just trying to prepare people because I don't think Democrats understand what they have to do like seeing them make this argument. Oh well don't be a hypocrite Republicans or you're going to look bad to the American people. The American people doesn't give a shit Republican Party voters. They don't care if Republicans are hypocrites. They want to make sure they have a comfortable majority on the Supreme Court so they can put Roe v. Way back up on the chopping block so that way they can put you know marriage equality on the chopping block and even if you take out all of these issues related to social justice like all of the issues with regard to regulation the ACA these are the ones that I think are going to be more vulnerable right the ACA could straight up be gutted if we have a 6-3 majority because it seems likely that Roberts would vote with the liberal justices to save the ACA from Trump's newest legal challenge you know assuming that he follows what he did previously but at the same time if you get another conservative on there the Affordable Care Act is gone and as shitty as that policy is that is millions more people who lose their insurance like that protections for people with pre-existing conditions they go away immediately. So there's so much at stake and it seems like already out of the gate Democrats have face planted and we need them more so than ever to fight like hell fight like hell use every single tool at your disposal does Chuck Schumer seem like he's going to be doing that no do I expect him to do that no because he's been outmaneuvered by Mitch McConnell again so I mean if I were Democrats I'd be doing everything right now but they just they don't seem to want to fight so look here's the thing this is where I'm at I would be surprised if Trump didn't fill RGBC I would be surprised because right now it seems like Democrats just don't have the fight in them when I see them trying to do this campaign to honor RGB's legacy do they honestly think that's going to suffice do they think Mitch McConnell is just going to have something go off in him and his heart's going to grow and think well you know I should honor her legacy he doesn't care he doesn't care Trump doesn't care when Trump heard that that was her last wish he called it fake news or something to that effect he might have literally said fake news they don't care you're not going to persuade them with an argument you have to use your procedural tools any legislative mechanism and maneuver that you have at your disposal to block it outright stop trying to win them over with an argument you're not going to win over Republicans with an argument so we'll see how this plays out but I would be surprised if Democrats successfully blocked this and I really really really want them to prove me wrong like I want to stand corrected and I want to be for once just wrong about Democrats and I want them to define my expectations I really hope that's going to be the case because this isn't just like normal politics this is like literally democracy at stake we're looking at the Lochner era on steroids if you want to even argue that we're not already in a Lochner era so we'll see what happens but I have a really bad feeling about this and I hope I'm wrong so Donald Trump chose to hold a rally in Ohio I don't know why he's holding rallies in the middle of a pandemic and there were hundreds of people in attendance this isn't a good idea only a few of them were wearing masks I think that these events could act as super spreader events I mean they are outdoors for the most part know this one was but when you have people really close next to each other it's not a good idea so if you want to get this pandemic under control not the best thing to do but I digress he held this rally anyway like it or not and the lieutenant governor of Ohio John Houston came out to speak and you know probably seeing that they weren't wearing masks he tried to persuade the crowd to wear masks by pandering to them now he brought up something that I brought up before you know I have repeatedly talked about how it is a huge issue that Donald Trump supporters Republicans conservatives are disproportionately less likely to wear masks right so I don't care what kind of masks they're wearing like if you put on a MAGA mask I don't care as long as you were covering your face because we have to get this pandemic under control I've said that and he actually proposed this he has the Trump 2020 mask on but he said look here's the thing if you go into a grocery store where you have to wear a mask why don't we put on one of these Trump masks well it turns out I underestimated the stupidity of the MAGA crowd because even a pro Trump mask to them is out of the question because when he made this recommendation they booed him and they booed him loudly take a look but if you go into a grocery store where you got to wear one all right hang on hang on just listen up listen up all right I get it but if somebody tells you to take it off you can at least say that you're trying to save the country by wearing one president Donald Trump's mask all right all right even the idea of wearing a pro Trump mask to them is out of the question these people are deranged this is why COVID-19 cases are starting to climb once again and we were starting to see the numbers decrease from you know the peaks in July but they're starting to go up again we're seeing what a 10 13% increase once again and we have to get this under control by fall or by winter so we're not seeing COVID-19 and the flu you know overrun and overwhelm hospitals but they booed the idea of a pro Trump mask now if Trump was the one who said listen let's wear these pro Trump masks it's patriotic and will trigger the libs I think that the response would be different because again I don't necessarily think they're following Donald Trump because of any policy reasons this is a cult of personality so if daddy Trump says it anything that Donald Trump says by definition is good so I think that they would have accepted it if Trump said it but because another Republican tried to use what it would only be acceptable for daddy Trump they did not go for it and they booed him these people are deranged and they are a threat to all of us now Trump took the stage after John Husted and he introduced the governor of Ohio Mike DeWine Mike DeWine is a Trump sick of it he has been loyal to Donald Trump but in spite of said loyalty he actually has been attempting to handle COVID-19 like a grotto there is a statewide mask mandate so you can't be indoors with more than six people without a mask and on top of that he actually did have some pretty stringent requirements for the quarantine so they don't like him because I'm assuming a lot of them think that COVID-19 is a hoax and they think that the mask mandate is like I don't know violates their liberty or it's a muzzle or something like some of the dumb arguments that they've used but when Trump mentioned him they booed him I think we're joined today by a real good friend of mine somebody that's been with me from the beginning and I've been with him from the beginning Ohio governor Mike DeWine where's Mike he's opening up thank you Mike thank you Mike he's a good man and Lieutenant Governor John Houston this is just depressing to see because even if the Republican Party is a minority party even if you know the crowd of Trump diehards that are in the MAGA cold is probably like 30 35 percent at most well that's still a sizable portion of the population that's still a large enough chunk of the population to where it's going to make it really difficult for the rest of us to get it under control if that many people aren't taking it seriously I mean in that crowd only a few dozen people were wearing masks most of them were in close quarters not wearing masks I mean they were outdoors but I mean if you're close enough to people still kind of an issue kind of a risk a big risk but I mean this is not surprising you know the GOP has pandered to these types of people they have cultivated this culture of anti-intellectualism and you know a rejection of empirical reality and facts and science and this is what happens you know they reject whatever narrative is inconvenient to them and they come up with their own reasons as to why you know they are right and everyone else is wrong the science is wrong now again I still think that if Donald Trump made this recommendation to wear Trump masks the reception would be a little bit different but it shows you how out of control they are when loyal Republicans speaking at a Trump rally can't even make this suggestion to wear Trump masks without getting booed down I mean this it shows you how out of control and reckless a sizable portion of the population is I mean again this isn't a majority of Americans but it's a big enough portion that makes the rest of us more vulnerable if we have that many people refusing to do the minimal thing to keep this virus under control then it's going to be really difficult for us to get it under control period because we have that many fucking idiots who have that big of an issue with wearing a mask nobody likes wearing masks I hate wearing masks it makes my beard look like shit afterwards it's uncomfortable right it's hot but I do it because this is what we have to do like if we all wore masks because if 100% of the population wore masks imagine how fast would be able to get this under control to where we wouldn't have to wear them anymore we wouldn't have to lock down and do quarantine but because people like this are so stupid the rest of us have to suffer because of their fucking stupidity and this is exactly the type of people who the GOP is appealing to this is the culture of anti-intellectualism pro-stupidity that Trump is trying to you know gin up in order to help himself win reelection it's not surprising but it is still deeply depressing to see this so to me Joe Biden's ads thus far against Donald Trump have been largely hit or miss I think that anytime he goes after Donald Trump for bungling COVID-19 and the response to the pandemic I think he does a really good job when it comes to ads where he tries to you know describe what he wants to do there's usually no policy substance it's just platitudes but still I think that even like the worst Joe Biden ad is still better than the best Hillary Clinton ad so in terms of the media game that they're playing I think he's doing a so so job although one ad that Joe Biden released finally resonated with me and I like this ad so much I kid you not this might be my favorite political ad ever and it's one of those ads where you know your opponent says something in the ad basically writes itself the attack ad writes itself well Donald Trump was at a rally and he said look if I lose to Joe Biden an idiot like Joe Biden I'll be so embarrassed I won't even be able to show my face again I'm paraphrasing but Joe Biden's team took that little clip and turned it into a 10 second ad and this is brilliant take a look if I lose to him I don't know what I'm gonna do I will never speak to you again you'll never see me I'm Joe Biden and I approve this message I did not think I would be doing this but um good job Joe Biden that is a damn good ad simple um not much effort put into it but you don't need it I think that this ad is it's important because it's short so you can run this everywhere before every single YouTube video before you know um uh prime time television but it also it really speaks to something that we haven't seen from Joe Biden and that is self-awareness right because this isn't necessarily an election where people are excited about Joe Biden like this is an anti-trump election most people who are voting for Joe Biden are doing so because they don't like Donald Trump so there's this tacit admission with this ad that hey I acknowledge that I'm not that exciting right but if you uh vote for me and we beat Donald Trump he's saying he'll go away forever I know you don't like me but I know that you don't like Donald Trump more so vote for me and Donald Trump will go away forever like it's it's a good ad it's a good ad it's self-aware and it's exactly what you need like Trump says so many idiotic things so where you could just take that small clip and make an ad like this and just put a you know I'm Joe Biden I approve this message at the end and then it's good enough like Trump has been campaigning against himself shooting himself in the foot repeatedly to where I think that doing things like this it's it's clever to you know create ads off of things like this but on top of that I think it's effective I think it's effective because people are irritated with Donald Trump people want Donald Trump to go away like I get he has his cold base of diehards who will never leave him but most of the country doesn't like Donald Trump remember the republican party is a minority party and even if they hold a majority of power in government they are still a minority party and over the last four years even if you're like me and you hate democrats listening to Donald Trump watching Donald Trump living through a Donald Trump presidency and the Donald Trump era is exhausting and I would want for nothing more than to see Donald Trump go away forever so you know he's really playing on that anti-trump sentiment in an important way and I think this ad is good this is one of the best ads I've ever seen and that's not saying much right because the bar is really low but at the same time like this is what you've got to do people are anti-trump they're not pro-biden and you know if you look at public opinion polls it's not like people are excited to support Joe Biden because of any policies most people probably can't name a single policy that Joe Biden is offering to voters it's just he's not Donald Trump he's the one person who stands between Donald Trump and another four years in the White House so I'm voting for Joe Biden that's the sentiment for Americans across the country there's not much excitement if any at all for Joe Biden so I'm glad that it's it's seeming like he's recognizing that and he's playing to it because it is one of his strengths just not being Donald Trump is a huge asset in this election now that doesn't mean it's foregone conclusion that Donald Trump will lose I do think you have to author people some policies but still like these types of ads they're just damn good they're clever they're you know a little bit funny it's charming damn good job Joe Biden now let's actually address whether or not Donald Trump would leave do I think that Donald Trump would go away no but so long as he doesn't have power he will not be as politically politically relevant so you know he won't create a new cycle with a single tweet or series of tweets he just will be tweeting into the ether for the little cult that supports him he can make lots of money off of his post presidency book deals and TV shows or whatever but I don't think he would go away but is it nice to think about the prospect of never having to hear Donald Trump's disgusting loud mouth ever again yeah it is and this ad touches on that so um look it's it's surprising that I'm saying this but Joe Biden's team put out a damn good ad and um if they keep doing stuff like this where they just take Trump's own words and use it against him um I think it's gonna it's gonna work really well for them things are gonna get pretty dicey in this country because on December 31st that is the last day that people will be protected from evictions Donald Trump's moratorium on all evictions expires so on January 1st millions and millions of Americans are going to be expected to pony up months of past due rent otherwise what's gonna happen they're gonna get evicted and if this happens then it's gonna be a disaster to say the least now if Donald Trump is reelected I'm assuming that he's going to try to take action to either extend that moratorium if he knows what's good for him because he's not able to deal with that much chaos he's incompetent but if let's say there's this situation where Joe Biden beats him and Trump is now a lame duck president on his way out on January 20th or 21st whenever is he going to take action no he's going to leave Joe Biden with this gigantic eviction crisis and it's going to get really ugly it's going to lead to civil unrest people are going to take to the streets if they have nothing to lose if you get evicted and you have nowhere to go you have no choice but to take to the streets and protest for action now look it's not like come December 31st all of a sudden our economic woes will disappear the virus will still be here and as a result people aren't going to have money to pay months of back rent like where is this money going to come from we haven't done anything to ameliorate this crisis right people aren't getting a ubi unemployment is through the roof so what exactly are we going to do and this really is an open question and it's scary to think about what will happen but in our late stage capitalist society we can't expect one thing the private sector is going to attempt to cash in on this crisis because the gig economy is now going to try to take this eviction crisis and pit working people against each other so where if you are in a situation where you're not making money and you've lost your job because of this pandemic well what you can do is um work to evict your fellow americans who have also lost everything so as ashwin rodriguez of vice reports during a time of great economic and general hardship civil aims to be essentially uber but for evicting people seizing on a pandemic driven nosediving employment and a huge uptick in number of people who can't pay their rent civil aims to make it easy for landlords to hire process servers and eviction agents as gig workers helena duncan a chicago-based paralegal who also participates in housing activism saw a craigslist post from civil while searching for jobs the ad alarmed her it's fucked up that there will be struggling working class people who will be drawn to gigs like furniture hauling or process serving for a company like civil evicting fellow working class people from their homes so they themselves can make rent she told motherboard in its craigslist ads posted across the country civil explains the opportunity plainly there is plenty of work due to the dismal economy and employment is at a record high and many cannot or simply are not paying rent and mortgages the ad state we are being contracted by frustrated property owners and banks to secure foreclosed residential properties civil aims to marry the gig economy with the devastation of a pandemic complete with signature gig startup language like be your own boss and flexible hours and looking for self-motivated individuals with positive attitudes fastest growing money making gig due to covid-19 its website says literally thousands of process servers are needed in the coming months due to courts being backed up in judgments that needs to be served to defendants the company at first glance appears to be some kind of Nathan for usk prank sicken precarious gig jobs on vulnerable people but civil is connected to a larger and real gig economy company called on call which describes itself as an app that provides on-demand tasks services to non-urban communities beyond main city areas on call is the developer behind other more believable task rabbit ask apps like lawn fixer clean quick and move quick given the fact that civil is advertising all over the country and that on call though not popular does exist it seems as though civil actually is an attempt to simplify the process of evicting people who cannot pay their rent during a pandemic now had this article not included that paragraph saying I know this seems satirical but it's real we've looked into it I probably wouldn't be talking about this because me just like seeing this headline I thought no there's no way it's either clickbait or you know they're being duped by some sort of hoax or like I don't know some I don't know like this can't be real that was my takeaway there's no way this is real I mean even for our late stage capitalist economy there's there's no way that a company would stoop this low right it has to be fake it's real what do you even say to that do I think people would go for this if they were desperate enough and they knew about this and this could be a lucrative opportunity for them I mean look if it comes down to it and you have to choose between making sure that there's a roof over your head versus someone else you know you're going to look out for number one you're gonna look out for your family and if that means you know you're you're gonna have to evict other people I'm sure a lot of people may opt for that as an option because they're desperate when you get desperate you resort to really crazy things right so this company is pitting the working class against each other and they're profiting off of it something like this in our late stage capitalist society is even shocking to people like me who talk frequently about the depravity of our late stage culture late stage capitalist culture like you think that there's some limit right but there's not a limit like in the event we started to literally see the apocalypse come about if we're not already there there's going to be some way that capitalists will try to make money off of it if there's an asteroid headed our way um you know they're gonna sell lifeboats to rich people if you know um there's a revolution in the streets there's going to be security firms that sell protection to people like there's going to be some attempt to make money so long as we live in this late stage capitalist society it's just it's morally depraved it's disturbing but I mean this is what we've come to expect like we are a country that hasn't done jack fucking shit for people during an economic depression and a pandemic we gave people a one-time payment of $1,200 and that's it does anyone even think that there's going to be another stimulus check before the selection before the end of the year we've done nothing we've responded to COVID-19 and the economic depression that resulted because of said pandemic in a way that we'd expect a failed state to respond like our government just isn't functioning normal governments won't just sit idly by as almost 40 million Americans could be evicted come January 1st like this isn't a normal response it's not healthy for a developed country with the most money in the world to just let people suffer and then you see things like this happen so now the gig economy which wouldn't even be a thing if people weren't already desperate in the first place is now going to um pit working class people against each other by you know getting them to evict one another and make money off of that to survive it's like a dog eat dog world in you know the most literal sense where you know you literally have to harm your fellow working class citizens in order to survive that's that's where we're at and I don't know how many people are going to go for this but it's fucking disgusting and I don't know like I don't really have the words I'm still shocked that this is a thing and there's a part of me that's still hoping that this is satire and we're all being duped but is it really that unbelievable in a late-stage capitalist society no unfortunately no so we've talked about marjorie green on the program before for those of you who don't remember this is a congressional candidate running in george's 14th congressional district and she recently won her primary she was running against a still extreme albeit less cuckoo republican uh he lost and this individual is almost certainly going to be going to congress not just because this is a deeply red district so if you win the republican primary you basically get that seat but her democratic opponent just dropped out not too long ago and if you're not familiar with who marjorie green is and what she represents let me refresh your memory or introduce you to her um and i'm sorry if you were living in ignorant bliss but this is what she's all about i'm marjorie green and i approved this ad america is the greatest country in the world we need conservatives in washington that will keep it that way i'm running to stop gun control open borders the green new deal and socialism democrats fight for their social agenda every single day i'll fight even harder to stop them i'm marjorie green republican for congress save america stop socialism president trump declared antifa domestic terrorist organization i have a message for antifa terrorist stay the hell out of northwest georgia you won't burn our churches loot our businesses or destroy our homes i'm marjorie green and i approve this message yeah it's like indistinguishable from satire like 10 20 years ago if you would have showed me a skit from like saturday night live or the onion um you know where they're trying to make fun of republicans and be overly hyperbolic i think that they do something like that but now like what i would have previously thought would have been satirical it's so looney is now their reality and this is an individual who isn't just going to be going to congress she's a rising star in the republican party she is a rising star in the republican party this is a member of qanon a conspiracy theory group and that's not me attacking her she openly embraces the label herself on top of that donald trump tweeted about her people are really looking to her as a future leader in the republican party and i mean given how far to the right this party has shifted uh you know embracing people like her it's not that surprising but still i mean when you compare her to someone like mit romney i mean the difference is night and day um and i hate mit romney so i mean this is like a new low even for the republican party but yet i'm afraid this will be the new normal but anyways the reason why we're talking about marjorie green is because she will be going to congress and she is already preemptively attacking one of her colleagues alexandria ocasio-cortez and for whatever reason she decided to take a shot at aoc because she thinks that aoc is not intelligent so she tweeted out as a blonde woman i would like to take a moment to thank congresswoman aoc she has single-handedly i think she means handedly put an end to all dumb blonde jokes blondes everywhere appreciate your service and your sacrifice now this is weird like it came out of nowhere this is your future colleague who you're attacking for no reason i mean i guess you don't care that the workplace is gonna be a little awkward next year uh but i mean she attacked aoc out of the blue and she was so proud of this she pinned this tweet to her twitter feed so i mean if you are going to be going to congress you think that you would be you know staying focused you know crafting your agenda trying to let people know what you are going to be fighting for but this person i mean she's just the trump sycophant if you go to her website she doesn't really have any policy proposals but she says i back trump 100 so if trump loses the selection then what do you stand for you just going to go there and keep the seat warm like people like this i don't know why you run for congress if you literally don't stand for anything and you're attacking aoc because you think that she's stupid you're a member of qanon you think it's morally and legally justifiable to kill black lives matter protesters who you deem antifa and you're criticizing somebody else's intelligence level now after she threatened to extra judicially murder black lives matter protesters well since she was inciting violence facebook took down her post and she then took the social media and cried about how she was being censored and her first amendment rights are being violated if you think that a private company deleting one of your videos where you're inciting violence is you losing your first amendment right you are the one who's stupid not aoc you are the one who doesn't know anything about the constitution which you are supposed to be protecting if you're a member of congress but regardless aoc basically had the best response and what she said here made me laugh out loud so she said don't worry miss green i completely understand why you need to swing plus miss at my intellect to make yourself feel better you seem to have some trouble spelling your own insults correctly next time but try single-handedly it'll work better good luck writing legislation that was good that was really really good um i mean look if you're going to say i don't agree with this policy that you're proposing okay you can have that disagreement and debate about it but you're criticizing her intelligence like this is your future colleague again it's so weird that you would do this this is bizarre right and i'm not one to stress about the need to uphold decorum i don't care about civility politics and respectability politics i don't care about that but this is this is bizarre this is immature and you're criticizing her just out of the blue saying hey you're stupid huh let me pin this tweet to my twitter feed it's bizarre and weird and if you're going to criticize somebody's intelligence at least make sure that you get the fucking tweet right and you say single-handedly instead of single-handedly now generally speaking i don't care if somebody makes a typo usually you can put two and two together fill in the blanks figure out what they're trying to say but you're trying to say that someone else is dumb but you're making yourself look like a dumbass as you tweet to her like if you're gonna say somebody else is stupid at least get the tweet right so i'm i'm loving this tweet from aoc but of course marjorie green responded to that saying aoc please no one cares about typos while you were growing up in socialist boot camp i don't even know what that means i was creating thousands of jobs 250 million in revenue in 11 different states your marxist green new deal will destroy millions of jobs and i'm going to put it through the paper shredder okay so now she's changing the subject because she made a fool out of herself so you know she's trying to argue that aoc is stupid but she made herself look like a dumbass so now she's just saying oh well nobody cares about typos but you just said that you know you really are thankful that aoc is so stupid because the dumb blonde joke is no longer relevant but you're kind of disproving your own tweet how can you say someone else is dumb if you can't even insult their intelligence level in even a mildly competent way and then when she says well you know maybe it's not me who's the dumb ass maybe it's you you say oh well nobody cares about typos but you implied that you do if you were concerned with her intelligence like you're just a psychopath like why are you going to congress like you don't stand for anything you don't know a single policy that you want you're just with trump 100 percent like what does that even mean and you say that she went through uh socialist boot camp i don't know what that means what does that mean that she went through college that she has a degree i don't know what that means if anyone goes to college does that mean that we've gone through socialist boot camp i don't understand what that means and she says that the green new deal is marxist the green new deal is marxist do you know what that means do you know what marxism means how is a green new deal going to destroy millions of jobs when the entire point of the green new deal is to subsidize and invest in renewable technology instead of fossil fuels like wind solar hydro these are all the future like this technology is what we should be investing in because climate change is a reality so what aoc is doing with the green new deal is saying hey rather than you know letting china or some other country be the number one manufacturer of this technology that will be the future why don't we actually do that here so we can create jobs and also stop climate change uh in the process but you're saying oh no no this thing that you support that's going to create millions of jobs is actually going to destroy millions of jobs because i don't know what it is and on top of that i think it's marxist because anything that i don't like is marxist i mean do you even understand the terms that you're throwing around like you call people marxists communists when the people who you're attacking oftentimes these are neoliberals they're free market capitalists the democratic party is not a socialist party but she accuses them of being socialists and whatnot and her entire thing is to go to congress to stop socialism that's another part of her agenda stop socialism save america except do you even know what socialism is like i just don't understand how someone like this who is not a serious person can run a successful congressional campaign and get elected to congress and still not even try to play the part i mean everything in this country is so stupid right now and marjorie green is an embarrassment but she is one of those republicans who has no shame like she's in her weird little conspiracy colt slash bubble and you know as long as the people around her like what she's doing as long as she gets likes from you know the far right then she's happy with it but if she looks like a clown to the overwhelming majority of the country she doesn't care so it's it's embarrassing but this is what we're working with like the republican party is going to continue to produce figures like marjorie taylor green because they're shifting to the right like 10 years ago they were trying to really explicitly go after people like this and now they're going to represent a solid portion of your party so you know even if other republicans are condemning her and saying she's even a little bit extreme for us this is what happens when you appeal to these types of people this is what you get and now she's going to go to congress so yeah i'm really glad that she chose to interact with aoc if you're going to take a shot don't miss and in this instance she missed and she phase planted well well well it turns out mit romney is an actually a loyal member of the resistance after all shocker now listen he announced that he will in fact be siding with republicans to move forward with donald trump's supreme court nominee and you know if you are heartbroken by this because you thought maybe he'd do the right thing after voting to impeach donald trump after being the only republican senator to vote to impeach donald trump i mean you should never expect anything good to come from the republican party republicans are gonna republican okay um anytime there's an open question about whether or not they will do the right thing you should always be cynical you should never be optimistic because this party is a terrible party and mit romney is a horrible human being who is a political opportunist so he's not voting with democrats unless it's going to benefit him now i don't actually blame liberals for thinking that maybe there is a chance that mit romney might side with them because there were reports coming out that mit romney might actually be chosen by joe biden to be part of the administration a secretary of state or something like that now that's disgusting the fact that maybe joe biden is considering that should make everyone outraged however if that were true which maybe now i'm assuming it's not true it's not unreasonable to think you know maybe mit romney out of self interest not wanting to piss off his boss next year might vote with the democratic party just because it's the right thing to do since republicans are the ones who set that precedent in 2016 saying we're not going to approve a supreme court nominee during an election year but i mean mit romney didn't come through so look if you are hoping that this is going to be stopped because enough republicans are going to uh you know have the courage to do the right thing it's not gonna happen democrats now have to fight they can't rely on republicans to do the right thing even republicans in uh you know vulnerable seats and swing states so that means democrats if they actually are serious about this will use every single procedural tool that they have at their disposal to block this to obstruct this to do everything that they can to raise hell to make sure that this does not happen we cannot allow donald trump to get a third supreme court nominee because that means that the conservative majority on that court will be six three that means everything is on the table it's already the case that collective bargaining rights workers rights that's already going to be gutted the aca will officially be gutted if we have another supreme court nominee because roberts isn't going to be the swing votes aside with the liberals on the court now they'll have a cushion they'll have a six three solid majority and that means they could even repeal the aca which is a garbage program to begin with but if they repeal that that's a disaster that means that protections for patients with pre-existing conditions vanished like that that means that um anyone who has insurance through the affordable care act exchanges loses that we're talking about tens 20 million people potentially it's a disaster so democrats have to fight with everything that they've got because democracy is at stake here even social issues abortion marriage equality these are all on the table if they have a six three majority they can do anything they want for decades reshape this country for a generation or two so they have to stop this and i'm not seeing many signs of life from the democratic party admittedly i'm not very optimistic it seems as if donald from will in fact get his way now to his credit chuck schumer did try to implement a legislative tool to limit hearings to two hours other democrats such as maggie hassan were complaining about this i mean it's it's a sign that maybe he's willing to try something but i just i'm not feeling very optimistic it's up to democrats but thankfully there are some democrats who want to fight but uh i don't think enough are now ed markey came out swinging expectedly saying mitch pecanal set the precedent no supreme court vacancies filled in an election year if he violates it when democrats control the senate in the next congress we must abolish the filibuster and expand the supreme court and this is exactly what i want to hear because it seems like now like i'm not saying they should give up it seems like trump's going to get his way mitch mcconnell is going to make this happen so if this is going to happen then i hope that what chuck schumer means by saying nothing is off the table next year is that he's open to this he's open to abolishing the filibuster and stacking the court democracies at stake you can't allow a lochner era on steroids to take place at a time when we are facing climate catastrophe when americans could lose their health insurance i mean if you allow this then you don't deserve to be in power you should resign in shame so what ed markey is saying here this is what i want to hear nothing is going to be ruled out if this happens because we have to save our democracy we can't let this happen we can't let them steal two supreme court seats it's unacceptable now um this idea is something that was uh mulled over by the media and one democrat in particular who is horrible diane feinstein responded and as nbc news reporter sahil kapoor explains feinstein on ending the filibuster and expanding scotus quote i don't believe in doing that i think the filibuster serves a purpose it is not often used it's often less used now than when i first came and i think it's part of the senate that differentiates itself now this um is outrageous so what diane feinstein is doing is effectively siding with republican she's saying you know what still one two supreme court seats from us and we are going to just let you have it because uh we have to uphold these uh senate norms we're not going to do anything that might upset the status quo i mean diane feinstein i don't know how she sleeps at night this is a terrible human being who doesn't care about anyone but herself how could you literally just admit i'm siding with republicans i might not vote for donald trump's nominee but um if it comes time to actually fight and stop that damage from a third donald trump nominee from being caused i'm not going to do jack fucking shit i'm not going to end the filibuster we're not going to pack the court it's just it's exhausting because you know the minute that we learned about ruth bader ginsberg's death i just thought this is uh this is not going to go well for democrats they just they don't know how to fight they're fully incapable of trying to even know how to outmaneuver republicans in the slightest mitch pecanal knows exactly what he needs to do to get this through and that's anything he doesn't give a shit if it makes him look like a hypocrite he's gonna ram this nominee through get it confirmed as soon as possible and democrats are just sitting idly by and they're wagging their fingers in fact that's exactly what uh diane feinstein decided to do because she doesn't want to end the filibuster or pack the court but i'm sure that you know this strongly worded tweet to donald trump and mitch pecanal is going to change things for the democrat she tweeted out leader mcconnell set the standard for supreme court nominations in an election year in 2016 let the next president nominate a replacement under no circumstances should the senate consider a nominee for justice ginsberg's seat until after the presidential inauguration i mean that's just that's brilliant diane feinstein i'm sure that mitch mcconnell is going to see that and he's going to be trembling he's gonna think oh my god diane feinstein put out this strongly worded tweet so i can't go forward with this it's exhausting and just reading the news about this it's hard to not like feel completely overwhelmed and demoralized because these are our fighters our best chance at stopping this from happening is a bunch of incompetent clowns who are too afraid to fight or don't care now someone who actually thankfully has been fighting who's saying what i'm saying that democrats have to use every single procedural tool under their belt is aoc and she actually thankfully blasted diane feinstein for refusing to um actually fight fire with fire so she responded to diane feinstein's initial statement about not wanting to pack the quarter and the filibuster and she said senator feinstein's protection of the filibuster is unjust and unacceptable the filibuster wasn't made with purpose it's the result of an accident in rulebook revision and bloomed as a cherished tool of segregationists now it empowers minority rule that's not special it's unjust and i'm so thankful that she actually had the courage to call out a fellow democrat but what she's saying here is so true like we don't say enough how outrageous it is that a minority party the republican party is in control of a majority of government and they are absolutely steering this country in a direction where a majority of its people don't want to go most americans want roe v way they want legal abortions even if personally they wouldn't get an abortion themselves because they're at least you know logical enough to acknowledge that if you get rid of abortions that's not going to stop abortions it'll just increase the number of unsafe and illegal abortions that take place and if you're worried about death then maybe you should start being concerned with all the wars that our lawmakers keep sending us to right all the drone strikes that donald trump is approving um so you know for this party to continue to be in control and keep getting their way and you have this opposition party just sit back and do fuck all about it it's just it's infuriating but at the same time i get fired up because i'm angry but then i just feel exhausted a moment later i mean this we shouldn't have to keep fighting for our lives every fucking time anything happens it's like whenever something happens someone resigns from the supreme court um something politically happens some big event we always have to worry will democrats fight for us there should never be a question they should just do it because we elect them to fight for us and yet they don't do that if they're not sitting on their asses then they are actively discouraging fighting fire with fire you have diane feinstein's dumbass saying no we're not going to get rid of the filibuster no we're not going to pack the supreme court well why don't you just switch sides become a republican because you're more useful to them than you are to us at this point diane so as you can see i'm a little bit uh irritated because this should be something that should come naturally to democrats if they genuinely cared if they had a buy-in to democracy then they would know what's at stake but the fact that we have to scream at the top of our lungs to get them to do anything it's just it's infuriating and i'm so fucking sick of it fight that's why you're there diane feinstein is 167 years old you chose to run for another term if you didn't want to fight any longer than you shouldn't have ran you shouldn't have sought re-election if you were just going to sit on your ass the entire fucking time but you're there now you got elected so fight what are you doing but i'll leave that there because i feel like if i keep um ranting i'm just gonna get meaner and meaner and end up insulting them more so um we'll leave that there um at least some democrats like ed markey and aoc are willing to fight but most of them i just don't think that they've got it in them and if this happens if trump actually gets his way then they should absolutely pay for not fighting hard enough they should face the repercussions of their inaction they should be primaried and lose their elections so on monday attorney general william bar made the absolutely bizarre decision to designate cities such as new york city seattle and portland as anarchist jurisdictions now what this is is a cynical and nefarious plot to further criminalize these protests and penalized cities where these protests continue to take place but on top of that if you think about this if joe biden and the democrats play their cards right they could frame this as a self-own because donald trump his own attorney general is saying under our watch certain cities have devolved into chaos to the extent that we are willing to designate them as anarchist jurisdictions doesn't that show that you're pretty feckless as a leader now i don't even know if that strategy is worthwhile since nobody's really gonna believe that these cities are run by anarchists but regardless they're going through with this and natasha lennard of the intercept kind of explains what's at stake here and what could happen with this new designation in an article for the intercept titled welcome to the anarchist jurisdiction of new york where cops crushed every tiny protest bill bars designation of seattle portland and new york is a cynical trump re-election ploy with potentially dangerous consequences and in this piece she explains on saturday night the new york police department arrested nearly a third of a 300 person protest demonstrators had gathered in time square to call for the abolition of u.s immigration and customs enforcement better known as ice the protesters did no more than march and chant they stayed on the sidewalk police outnumbered them three to one one demonstrator told cnn that officers descended from all sides and started ripping people off of the sidewalk there were 86 arrests and the preceding days small protests after small protests in new york had been crushed by overwhelming police force and aggressive arrests alongside seattle and portland new york city earned the official anarchist jurisdiction label from attorney general bill bar on monday other cities under democratic leadership are likely to be added to this force of a naughty list targeting areas where potent anti-racist anti-fascist protests have erupted this summer the designations are the latest act in president donald trump's theater of the absurd because of the designation the localities now stand to lose significant federal funding there's no subtlety in trump's cynical base pandering aided once again by bar's justice department in service as the president's private law firm residents of new york seattle and portland responded with bemusement on social media when they learned that their cities heavily policed viciously unequal racially segregated terminals and repositories of capital are in fact anarchist jurisdictions new york city hasn't been an anarchist jurisdiction since cbgb closed man quipped comedian and writer josh gondelman on twitter reminder in this anarchist jurisdiction alternate side parking rules are in effect tweeted msnbc's david guira there was some heady riffing on whether the horizontalist anti-hierarchical nature of anarchist organizing makes anarchist jurisdiction an oxymoron the city is ours anarchist jurisdiction brooklyn-based anarchist community center the base mockingly tweeted yet the material consequences for residents in the designated cities could be all too real white house budget director ross vaude is set to issue guidance to federal agencies on withdrawing funds from the cities in less than two weeks in no uncertain terms trump is punishing cities that have again and again shown themselves to be hubs of anti-racist anti-fascist resistance the justice department may well have to defend this jaundiced cynical move in court but the work it's meant to do has been done the fortification of escalating efforts to repress dissent building on trump and his justice department's ongoing campaign strategy of groundlessly demonizing antifa while decimating black lives yeah so i mean in essence people are making fun of this because it's not happening i don't know anyone who actually believes that these cities are run by anarchists or that there's just sheer chaos and anarchy in these cities because there's protests if there's protests that's a sign that democracy is still in effect it's a good thing right it's kind of like the saying that you know if you're feeling pain that means you're still alive so that's a good thing well the fact that we see protests people taking to the streets for black lives matter that's a good thing it shows that democracy is working if people can redress their grievances but it's a way for donald trump and his cronies to uh demonize protesters and criminalize protesters with extra penalties um by punishing states and localities that allow for it now i think that premilla jipal had a really good response to this she says this is not just unlawful but it's also a prime example of this president's failed leadership and desperation amidst covid 19's devastation people need more relief not less yet trump would prefer to turn your attention away from real crises by fear mongering and fanning racism and she's exactly right like this is nothing more than donald trump beating his chest you know attempting to appear tough so he can scream law and order it's an attempt to pander to his base uh but it does have really devastating consequences it is brazenly unconstitutional for one because basically they're trying to disincentivize protests by punishing these cities sending a message to these cities like seattle and portland that hey if you don't get these protests under control we're going to designate them as anarchist jurisdictions and you're going to lose funding it doesn't matter that you need more funding than ever to deal with a global pandemic but we're going to penalize you so get them under control now it's unconstitutional because you can't take funding away from cities if their residents choose to express their first amendment rights and protest i don't care what your bullshit reasoning is there's no such thing as anarchist jurisdictions in the united states of america so for you to say if this takes place you lose funding you're literally just penalizing cities where protests happen it's an attempt to criminalize democracy and protesting and it's disgusting now if you don't live in one of these anarchist jurisdictions as i do uh well you too could see more attempts by republicans to criminalize protests because florida governor ron desantis tweeted this out today i announced bold legislation that creates new criminal offenses and increases penalties for those who target law enforcement and participate in violent or disorderly assemblies we will always stand with our men and women in uniform who keep our communities safe now these harsher penalties i mean we know what this is about this is meant to deter people from protesting even if they're specifically referring to riots here and property damage we already know this will be subject to abuse as curfew laws are but this is what should concern you the most there's a couple of provisions here that they want to get through that are just downright insane so you could lose your entire livelihood if quote convicted of participating in a violent or disorderly assembly and what's deemed violent or disorderly is entirely up to the discretion of police officers who are definitely unbiased and if you're convicted you could lose your unemployment benefits your food stamps so understand what they're trying to do they're trying to dissuade people from protesting if they're poor because if you end up showing up to one of these protests you could lose everything if they say your protest is too disorderly now oftentimes these protests are perfectly peaceful but it's the police who disrupt they you know throw a tear gas canister into a crowd to disrupt the crowd and then since people are panicking all health breaks loose they then say that's a disorderly crowd people get arrested and what are you doing you're effectively criminalizing protests so even if you're a peaceful protest like nobody thinks that this isn't going to be open up to abuse like even if you are peaceful and you don't plan on rioting or looting or doing anything negative that they're fair mongering about you can still be penalized because i mean is it really that out of the question to assume that cops may lie about what you're doing we saw people snatching peaceful protesters off of the streets in portland trump's thugs throwing them in vans kidnapping people so i mean if you are skeptical about how this is going to be used and it's not just going to be applied to people who are you know protesting violently i think you're a reasonable person now the worst clause here in this it should shock everyone so if you block a road that is now a third degree felony but what is being proposed will literally promote vigilante acts of terrorism because if a crowd of people are blocking traffic um and a driver wants to plow through said crowd of people well quote the driver is not liable for injury or death caused if fleeing for safety from a mob so in other words if some far-right chud doesn't like the black lives matter protests and he decides to just drive his car straight into these protesters which the right has celebrated before with compilation videos where they you know uh play it with music you know uh remixes of ludicrous's move they're safe they just have to say look i uh saw this mob and i was fleeing so i had to get away i had no choice but to plow into them this is literally a law that is incentivizing terrorist attacks so after charlottesville the right-wing terrorist who drove his car into a crowd of people and ended up killing heather higher under this law he could potentially be exempt as long as he uses the defense look i saw mob i had to flee i felt intimidated this law allows that person to commit that terror attack legally the republican party they're not just doing things now openly that are profoundly undemocratic they're openly authoritarian openly authoritarian at all levels at the national level we see what donald trump and attorney general william bar are doing bill bar literally instructed police in dc to gas piece for protesters so trump could take a photo op we see now states run by right-wing goons saying look we're gonna do more tough on crime laws and also we're gonna disincentivize certain types of protests by saying that if you're hit by a car like if you're targeted by a far-right thug they're not going to be liable for your death or injury the republican party you know if we don't call them fascist anyone who's afraid to use the f word they're doing a disservice to america because this is fascism this is fascism the republican party is very openly embracing authoritarianism attempting to penalize peaceful protests across the country and we're just sitting back and letting this happen it's uh it's really uh it's scary because this is a democracy we should be allowed to protest but if you protest too long in certain states trump's administration will declare your city an anarchist jurisdiction and if you uh block a street if you know you protest in the street well they say in florida if this law passes if you obstruct traffic the driver's not liable if he chooses to you know drive through you and kill you this is insane i don't know how us to describe it and it's a new low even for the republican party they're no longer just proto-fascists they now are openly embracing violence just the other day at a campaign rally donald trump said it was a beautiful site when a journalist ali velce of msnbc was shot by police with a tear gas canister and the crowd cheered they loved it they are openly embracing violence and authoritarianism if you're not worried about what's to come if they keep on this path and don't change this trajectory soon then i don't know what to say you're just not paying attention this should shake everyone to their cores before donald trump's postmaster general louis de joey said that he would not be doing any changes to the postal service until after the election you know one other thing that worried me another implication of trump's attacks on mail-in voting or i should say his lies on you know mail-in voting is that this could encourage his supporters to take action themselves if he works them into a frenzy and they're hysterical about mail-in voting and they are expecting fraud this could lead to voter intimidation where if he says look you've got to watch out because there's going to be a lot of people committing fraud and cheating and possibly voting illegally then what's going to happen with the emergence of far right militias across the country in response to black lives matter protests it's not going to be too surprising if we see that pop up at the polls if they think somebody is being a little bit too suspicious or is a little bit too brown to be a legal citizen maybe they take action maybe they intimidate or harass that individual now this hasn't officially happened yet but if trump keeps doing what he's doing and saying what he's saying and encouraging what he's encouraging then we could be looking at a disaster come election time when these groups do pop up now again this is speculation because we haven't actually seen anyone take up arms and guard polling stations if you will for lack of a better word but what we did catch was a glimpse of this possibly happening when um early voting started in virginia and trump supporters showed up to protest so as the new york times reports trump supporters disrupt early voting in virginia a group waving trump flags enchanting four more years created a commotion at a polling location in fairfax virginia a county official said some voters and staff members felt intimidated now we'll just pause there before we dive into the article um that was the goal mission accomplished like you can argue maybe these people just showed up because they were excited about early voting and they were enthusiastic about donald trump and they just wanted to you know express that enthusiasm but do we really think that's happening should we be that charitable in our interpretation after donald trump for months has been fearmongering and lying about mail-in voting and voting in general that the left is going to cheat and democrats are going to cheat i mean i think we know what these people wanted to do they wanted to send a message to people showing up to vote a message that was pretty clear we're watching you if you're going to cheat we're watching you now some people may be conflict averse and you know might get awkward and be a little bit intimidated by that and because you show a certain look on your face because you're scared seeing all these lunatics protest at a polling station um maybe they think hey you look suspicious why are you afraid you have no reason to be afraid i mean this could lead to harassment and it's happening because of donald trump now for this specific situation there's been a little bit of misinformation that has been spread some people think that they were blocking people from entering the polling booth but that's not actually what took place based on this article and what they're reporting so they explain county election officials eventually were forced to open up a larger portion of the fairfax county government center to allow voters to wait inside away from the trump enthusiasts election officials said that the group stayed about 100 feet from the entrance to the building and contrary to posts on social media we're not directly blocking access to the building but they acknowledged that some voters and polling staff members felt intimidated by what some saw as protesters citizens coming into and leaving the building did have to go by them gary scott the general registrar of fairfax county said in a statement those voters who were in line outside of the building were moved inside and we continued operations some voters and election staff did feel intimidated by the crowd and we did provide escorts past the group one of the escorts was the county executive so even if we're kind to them the effect that they had even if it was unintentional was negative people felt intimidated rightfully so i mean if you have to open up a certain area so voters can get away from these people who are causing a commotion at a polling station that's a problem regardless of what their intentions were and i'm being a lot more charitable than i should be i think um the result was negative but this is basically um the least of my concerns with what donald trump supporters could possibly do if this continues and i'll tell you why it's happening because donald trump continues to tell his supporters the other side is going to cheat i want you my supporters to watch them he did this just the other day he said they're gonna cheat it's not about if they cheat it's when they're going to cheat it's a certainty so get your friends get your family get your neighbors get your co-workers get everybody and get out and vote gotta get out and vote and in your state in ohio early voting has already begun and don't wait and when you see them cheating on the other side i don't say if when when you see them cheating with those ballots all of those unsolicited ballots those millions of ballots you see them anytime you do report them to the authorities the authorities are waiting and watching that is deeply deeply disturbing voter intimidation like this sort of thing is what we see and expect from uh dictatorships autocrats in authoritarian regimes but we're seeing it here in america now back in june the washington post did an analysis of mail-in voting and do you want to know what the fraud rate is for mail-in voting 0.0025 percent so all of this commotion fearmongering he's causing is over 0.0025 percent now what's especially disturbing is he's telling his voters to expect the other side to cheat but he's not even very specific so you're encouraging people to look out for cheaters but they don't even know what they're supposed to be looking out for are you alleging that there's going to be like people bringing in suitcases full of ballots to vote multiple times what are you insinuating that they should be looking for do you understand why this is dangerous because you have imbeciles who are going to at the behest of donald trump's wish show up to polling stations and maybe try to intimidate people you could have a far-right militia wave guns in voters' faces letting them know if you cheat there's going to be ramifications for your actions and they don't even know what they're looking for what's that you are a brown or black are you a legal citizen do you have any papers like do you understand what they're going to do if this does actually come to fruition if donald trump gets what he wants like what we're seeing with them protesting that's like the least of what we should be concerned with even if it is a nuisance what i'm worried about is outright voter intimidation from far-right thugs that we are seeing become more and more prevalent across the country now in saying all this donald trump again is reinforcing this idea that it's us versus them right he's reinforcing this idea that we are good and the other side is evil and you know it's not just democrats who are the enemy to uh you know magajuds it's also the media because at another rally he literally celebrated the fact that ali velchio the msnbc when he was covering the minneapolis protests was shot by police with a tear gas canister he made fun of that and said it was a glorious site and um there's something even more disturbing about that see if you could pick it up when you watch this i remember this guy welchie he got hit on the knee with a canister of tear gas and he went down he didn't he was down my knee my knee nobody cared these guys didn't care they moved them aside and they just walked right through it was like it was the most beautiful thing no because after we take all that crap for weeks and weeks they would take this crap and then you finally see men get up there and go right to did wasn't it really a beautiful sight it was a beautiful thing the president said of police assaulting a journalist now the more disturbing thing that i hope you picked up on was the fact that the crowd was cheering when donald trump said that understand the impact that donald trump is having on american culture he's getting his far right followers to embrace violence to not just warm up to the idea of doing violence against the other side but to celebrate it when it takes place because everything that they do by definition is bad because they are the enemy it is us versus them remember that and he reinforces this time and again he is deeply deeply dangerous and what he is encouraging here is i worry about what's going to happen now i hope that you know all of my concerns are unfounded and you know voters are able to make their voices heard democratically with no issues whatsoever but am i naive to think that that's going to be the likely scenario that plays out uh not even enough to believe that i should say uh no i think that we're probably not going to see everything go smoothly i think that donald trump will ramp up fear mongering depending on where he is according to polls towards the election and we will maybe see far right thugs show up to intimidate people at polling stations with guns i mean if they show up to intimidate black lives matter protesters you know under the guise of protecting property and stopping looters is it really that ridiculous to think that maybe they'd show up to protect democracy from cheaters not at all not at all and you know i am hesitant to even talk about this because i don't want to put this idea into people's heads if they didn't already have it but i just i see where we're headed and the trajectory that we are on looks bad it looks really bad and i worry so i talk about this to warn people to um be prepared because we have no idea what donald trump and his goons are going to try 2020 donald trump is much different than 2016 donald trump because in 2016 donald trump was an actual outsider so when he claimed that he was anti-establishment he actually had a little bit of credibility but now that he's in power and now that he's in that dc bubble that he once criticized he's a different person he doesn't know what to say to appeal to the voters he won over in 2016 and as a result he keeps shooting himself in the foot and it's astonishing to me that there aren't more people around him who at least try to rein him in at least for purposes of self-preservation because we just passed a gigantic milestone really disturbing milestone when it comes to covet 19 200 000 deaths in america now i am a little bit worried honestly that as that number grows people will become more and more insensitized desensitized i should say um because you know there's a difference when when you see that one person died and there's a face to it you know that really does have a different sort of impact on us at an individual level but when we just see like these giant numbers like 30 000 100 000 200 000 that is a little bit more difficult to grasp so i worry that people will become more desensitized as the number grows but regardless it's still a really disturbing milestone and uh donald trump did the dumbest thing imaginable to draw attention to the fact that we just passed this milestone by downplaying covet 19 at a rally by saying the dumbest thing ever as we reached the milestone take a look oh the disease we didn't know it now we know it it affects elderly people elderly people with heart problems and other problems if they have other problems that's what it really affects that's it you know in some states thousands of people nobody young below the age of 18 like nobody they have a strong immune system who knows you look at you take your head off to the young because they have a hell of an immune system but it affects virtually nobody it's an it's an amazing thing by the way open your schools everybody open your school it affects virtually nobody by the way open your schools he says this as we pass 200 000 deaths if you said this when we were at like 185 there would be less attention drawn to it's still a lot of scrutiny but nonetheless not as bad as you say this as we cross this milestone he just keeps shooting himself in the foot and you can argue that he said a lot of idiotic things back in 2016 that should have theoretically ended his campaign when he said that Obama and Hillary Clinton founded ISIS I thought that was stupid when we got the grab them by the pussy tape I thought that was pretty devastating you know after you have woman after woman after woman accuse him of sexual assault or misconduct you know you think that at some point it had an effect but you know still after all of those things that he said in 2016 that were bad he still said enough things that made it same as if he could still be an agent of change even if he would bring chaos with said change that you know people decided to overlook all those weird things about Donald Trump but now four years later when we have this economic depression brought on by a global pandemic that none of us have ever had to deal with I mean things are different now now when you shoot yourself in the foot I think it actually will hurt you more does that mean that he's going to lose not necessarily I still think that you know currently as it stands now according to public opinion polls Biden is the favorite to win but you know Trump's not out of it but he keeps doing things to isolate voters to piss people off he just can't help himself he just can't help himself and what worked back in 2016 like just being a loudmouth idiot that might not work in 2020 now as I'm watching this like I can't help but think who wants to watch this and listen to this old man just babble on for hours at a time like he's not saying anything he's not talking about anything meaningful he's not addressing anything like why would you go to a political rally if there's almost never any policy discussed like he just talks about who's mean to him like it's not even entertaining like I'm tired of the shtick I'm tired of the oh Trump said this it's kind of funny I'm just over it how do you go to this and enjoy yourself like if you go to a stand-up comedy show you laugh you expect that if you go to a concert you expect to be entertained by music but when you go to this what do you get you don't get policy you don't get substance so what's the point like I don't understand how people can tolerate this and put up with Donald Trump but regardless he keeps having these rallies where he says idiotic things and I you know I think maybe it's wishful thinking but I think it's going to hurt him more than it did in 2016 but you know we'll wait and see because who knows you know there's a chance he says whatever and gets away with it because the news cycle moves on pretty quickly I mean just the week before last he had this huge scandal that should have ended his presidency not just this campaign but his presidency where the bob woodward tapes confirmed he knew about the severity of COVID-19 but downplayed it anyway like nobody's even talking about that so maybe it's the case that even if he's shooting himself in the foot it doesn't matter because you know he could absorb these blows it doesn't matter but I don't know I think that at a time when people want a leader to get us out of this mess out of this pandemic you can't be saying shit like this 200,000 Americans are dead and you're saying it affects virtually nobody I mean you can lie so much and you know people expect you to lie because you are a compulsive liar but when you start lying and you expect all of us to buy into what is obviously delusions of grandeur I think that that is different or I hope it's different it should be different like America has embraced stupidity and anti-intellectualism with Donald Trump's presidency so you know maybe it's the case that we've been programmed and conditioned to just accept stupidity from Donald Trump and when he says something stupid you know the average America just scoffs or laughs at it because it's Trump he's going to be Trump but you know when I see this and he says that COVID-19 affects virtually nobody by the way open your schools as we lost 200,000 Americans I can't help but think this has got to hurt him he's shooting himself in the foot I mean again having a big mouth is really great if you are trying to appeal to people and convince them that you're an outsider you're not a traditional politician but nowadays I just I can't see how this is going to help him where it's necessary like his diehards the cultists they're going to let this but like the people who flipped from Obama to him in 2016 I can't imagine this is going to resonate with them I think this is going to turn them off if anything but again who knows as much as I cannot wait for the selection to be over I will admit that I am kind of looking forward to the upcoming debates between Joe Biden and Donald Trump and the first one is approaching very very soon it will take place on Tuesday September 29th tomorrow by the time most of you see this video and I have a lot of the expectations I think this is probably going to be the most explosive event because I think that both of the candidates know that most people will be tuning in to this debate and so yeah I kind of want to share what we can expect based on the discussions the topics that will come up for discussion and I also want to give you my thoughts about what to expect so first Bloomberg reporter Emma Kinnery explains topics for the first presidential debate next Tuesday have been released the debate will be moderated by Fox News is Chris Wallace and this is what will be discussed the records of both Donald Trump and Joe Biden the Supreme Court highly contentious issue currently COVID-19 probably the most important issue to voters the economy race and violence in our cities and the integrity of the election now conspicuously absent from this debate climate change really important healthcare if Trump actually gets his way and gets a third Supreme Court nominee approved that means that the conservatives on the court will have a six three majority and ACAs on the table right now it doesn't seem like they would strike it down with Roberts if we can assume he will side with the liberals again it just be deadlocked but if if he gets this nominee through the ACA is on the table so we need to talk about healthcare not only because people around the country could lose protections for pre-existing conditions but during a pandemic where people are losing their jobs and as a result losing their employer-based health insurance I think this is something that needs to be discussed but I hope these topics come up at a future debate the way that this is supposed to be structured is each of these topics will be discussed at length for about 15 minutes each so I think that this format is a little bit more conducive to a substantive discussion although when we're talking about Joe Biden and Donald Trump you know we're gonna basically see talking points compete against one another and it might be a little bit insufferable but I do think it will be entertaining at a minimum now before we get to my expectations we do have three debates taking place in October so after this debate the next debate will take place on Wednesday October 7th and this is actually the vice presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Mike Pence moderated by Susan Page of USA Today and after that Steve Scully of C-Span moderates the second presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump which will be a town hall style debate on Sunday October 15th and finally the third and last debate will occur on Sunday October 22nd and will be moderated by Kristen Welker of NBC News now overall broadly speaking going into these debates Joe Biden still has a solid lead over Donald Trump both nationally and in battleground states so what we have to see happen in order to see the trajectory of this race change is Donald Trump doesn't just have to have a good performance Joe Biden also has to have a bad performance because if both Donald Trump and Joe Biden are competent cognitively speaking then I think that it's not really going to change the direction of this race but if it's a disaster and Joe Biden face plans I can't see that tipping you know the scales back in Trump's favor now I kind of want to go through each of these subjects because I think that there's some areas where you know Joe Biden will have an advantage and there's other areas where Donald Trump could be seen as the winner so when it comes to their records they both have absolutely abysmal records I think that you know Joe Biden can win if he hits Donald Trump on COVID-19 and how he bungled that response now Joe Biden is a little bit more savvy than Hillary Clinton and he is using some populist rhetoric on the campaign trail to appeal to the voters that Democrats lost in 2016 so this one I kind of see it as it could go either way but when it comes to the Supreme Court I do think that this is an area of opportunity for Joe Biden he can really win and dominate here by showing how hypocritical Donald Trump and the Republicans are because even if you and I who are in the trenches already know that Mitch McConnell and Republicans are hypocrites I mean does the average voter know that I don't know now COVID-19 if Joe Biden plays his cards right this should be a bloodbath for Donald Trump do not let him get away we already know what Donald Trump is going to say I acted fast you know I did the travel ban to China when you said no Joe Biden has to move on from that explain why we all thought that it's because Donald Trump is the one who downplayed the severity of COVID-19 after he knew how serious it was I mean if Joe Biden messes this up I will be outraged because this is like this is a softball right they're seeing throwing that right down the middle for you so Joe Biden better dominate this when it comes to the economy I think that Donald Trump because he's so braggadocious will have the edge here although if Joe Biden is able to capably respond to Donald Trump talking about how you know the stock market is doing well and actually explain to people that the stock market isn't an indicator of how average Americans are doing Joe Biden can actually do well here now when it comes to race and violence in our cities I think that Trump has the potential to appeal to these white suburban voters that the Democratic Party has been trying to win over by saying look you see all this chaos in the streets you know this is something that you know the Democrats support I don't support this this is law and order but at the same time you know Joe Biden can say look this is all happening on your watch you're declaring certain cities like Seattle and Portland anarchist jurisdictions so are you saying that you're not a competent leader if the country is devolving into anarchy like he can really play around and clown on Donald Trump here um I don't know if he's going to be effective at doing that but if Joe Biden can at least show a little bit of sensitivity to the issue of race and criminal justice then he can he can do a really good job here and at least show voters that he's more in tune to the protests and what people want and the need for criminal justice reform than Donald Trump is in a police reform more specifically now when it comes to the integrity of the election I think that Joe Biden can really show that Donald Trump is full of shit here he just has to prove not just that mail-in voting is safe but that Republicans are actively engaging in voter suppression they're actively engaging in voter suppression and this is happening all across the country and it's making it more difficult for people to make their voices heard which is why a minority party is you know in power controls all of government so you know for each of these topics I kind of I kind of feel like overall Joe Biden has the advantage based on what they're going to be discussing but at the same time Biden's gonna be on point he can't be making too many gaffes whatever his aides gave him at that debate between Bernie Sanders and him I don't know if you know they got him hyped up on sugar you know give gave him a little bit of coke I'm of course talking about Coca-Cola whatever it is he's got to bring that bring that same energy to this debate because you can't afford to fuck up the first debate if you fuck up this debate and out of the gate look like you're in you know really severe cognitive decline if you're having one of your bad days I mean that could change the direction of this race Trump could get momentum and sometimes when you get momentum it's sort of like a snowball effect it just keeps growing so this debate especially Biden has to come prepared I think that the second VP debate if we have you know Joe Biden perform competently at this first debate I think Kamala Harris will do a pretty good job against Mike Pence you know when she actually tries she does a great job debating I've seen some pretty horrible debate performances you know particularly towards the end of her campaign in 2019 but if she actually brings the energy that she brought to that first debate that she uh did in the Democratic Party primary she can obliterate Mike Pence like she is a good debater she just has to come prepared and I think that she will um but so long as Biden has a good first performance and Kamala Harris is able to back him up with a solid second performance by debates two and three where you have a more town hall style well that one isn't going to be as intense and by the time you know it's the third debate I think that there's going to be some people who are just already tuning out the election they've made their decision but then you know the last minute voters are going to see you know both of the candidates make their last pitch and this will be the last impression that they get but I think as long as Joe Biden has a good start then that's not going to be enough to change the momentum right um in Trump's direction that is so you know we'll see what happens uh either way I expect to be entertained but Joe Biden's aides better get him prepared he should be practicing day and night have everything he says be rehearsed like he can't afford the fuck this up like I've said this I sound like a broken record but if you face plan out of the gate it's going to be bad so uh just maintain that lead you know Donald Trump is going to be trying hard because he knows he's losing currently so make sure you come prepared and um I think you'll be okay so long as you don't absolutely make a fool of yourself Joe Biden not that he's watching but um he better bring it turns out there will be no justice for Breonna Taylor so as AP reports a Kentucky grand jury brought no charges against Louisville police for the killing of Breonna Taylor during a drug raid gone wrong with prosecutors saying Wednesday that two officers who fired their weapons at the black woman were justified in using force to protect themselves wow the only charges brought by the grand jury were three counts of wanton endangerment against fired officer Brett Hankison for the shooting into Taylor's neighbors homes during the raid on the night of March 13th the FBI is still investigating potential violations of federal law in the case Ben Crump a lawyer for Taylor's family denounced the decision as outrageous and offensive and protesters shouting no justice no peace began marching through the streets some sat quietly and wept later scuffles broke out between police and protesters and some were arrested the announcement of the charges drew immediate sadness frustration and anger that the grand jury did not go further the wanton endangerment charges each carry a sentence of up to five years right after the decision protesters brought cases of water to injustice square the Louisville park where people have gathered to demand justice for Taylor some began preparing food later police in the city carded off a street with yellow tape and officers with protective gear could be seen handcuffing some people some scuffles broke out and police ordered a group that broke off from the protests to disperse warning that chemical agents might be used if they didn't now Hayes Gardner a reporter for a career journal actually has some video footage that he posted to twitter of this scene what's being described here and as you're going to see the police officers are very obviously trying to intimidate people who are doing nothing we're just standing there and being peaceful take a look so i guess that people just aren't allowed to peacefully assemble did you see anyone doing anything wrong anything that can be described as violently protesting rioting of course not this is what they are doing because they know that they just killed a black woman and they're getting away with it and they know people are going to be angry and so what they're doing is uh trying to use brute force to intimidate people into not doing anything because this is kind of like a tacit message hey we got away with killing Breonna Taylor and best believe we'll get away with killing you too if you choose to uh protest and get angry about it doesn't matter if it's on camera it doesn't matter what the circumstances are we can literally break into your home and kill you and get away with it what are you going to do about it that's the message that i get when i see this as they threaten people as they walk through you know the streets with handcuffs strapped to his side ready to just arrest people they have all of the power you have no constitutional rights anymore apparently because they could just do whatever they want i mean think about how devastating this is police officers in her own home murdered her and they're getting away with it the only charges that we're seeing are for wanton endangerment Breonna Taylor's life wasn't endangered it was taken away she was killed and these police officers are uh going to get away with it and the only charges that are being uh lobbed against that one officer Brett Hankinson uh Hankison is um because he fired his weapon uh into the neighbor's walls i don't know what to say there's really no words for things like this i just feel sadness um i think that maybe because you know the circumstances were so extreme that she was killed by police in her own home maybe there was just a small chance that there would be justice in this instance but i mean this sends a message to people that it doesn't matter what the circumstances are you could be doing nothing and police can kill you with impunity and get away with it i mean what's left to say there's no justice in america there's no justice the justice system is a complete failure and we need to absolutely do away with this system that allows for this to go on where a human being a black woman in her own home sleeping can be killed and nothing happens police officers get away scott free it's just there's no words there's no words i think the lawyer uh put it best this is outrageous and offensive because it is so i mean i don't i don't know what to say i'm a little bit shocked um even though like it's not surprising but it's still like to see it again it's like really they're really just going to get away with this when they killed her in her own home it's just it feels like nothing matters the laws don't matter the constitution doesn't matter because black americans aren't protected police officers can kill them and get away with it and it doesn't matter the circumstances at all they just nothing matters at a recent rally donald trump was talking about minnesota which is a state where representative ilhan omar is from and so of course you know since she's been a target of his in the past he has he decided to bring her up and what he says about her is so disrespectful so outrageous so brazenly xenophobic and racist that it's shocking even for donald trump like it shouldn't be shocking but it still is because you'd think for how big of a mouth he has you know there's still gotta be some mechanism in his brain that gets him to shut up about certain things that he's thinking but no he said the quiet part out loud again uh but thankfully um i think that she hit back in a way that is uh is satisfactory to say the least but first this is what he said about her we're gonna win the state of minnesota because of her they say he's telling us how to run our country how did you do where you came from how was your country doing they're gonna tell she's gonna tell us she's telling us how to run our country that was extremely racist i mean i don't know what else to say about it that was extremely racist and i know republicans are gonna say how is he racist how is it racist mike he's literally saying oh she's telling us how to run our country implying that this isn't her country fuck you this is her country this is her country she is an individual who is emblematic of the american dream like i think the american dream is dead but if you want to get americans to think that it's still alive then you'd point to someone like ilhan omar who came to this country as a refugee from samalia and ended up becoming a member of congress like that is the american dream like you should be celebrating her if you are a patriotic american as trump and his supporters claim to be but he's saying who does she think she is she's telling us how to run our country this isn't her country how dare she tell us what's good for us this immigrant this black person telling us how to run our country that's what he's trying to communicate to his racist followers and if you can't see it you're just you're blind now um what's ironic is that she is um much more competent and capable than donald trump could ever be she could run the country better than donald trump she actually has policy prescriptions to the issues that we're dealing with she supports policies that are very popular so rather than scoffing at her telling you how to run your country maybe you should shut the fuck up and listen to her because she actually knows more than you about this but i don't have to speak very long because i think that she really offered the best events for herself and her clap back was just it was a plus plus so she responded on twitter saying firstly this is my country and i am a member of the house that impeached you damn secondly i fled civil war when i was eight an eight year old doesn't run a country even though you run our country like one she then followed up saying these cult-like rallies leave me wondering one thing and she then shared a jeff from mean girls with regina george saying why are you so obsessed with me damn i love ilhan omar like she brings the fire and she lets all of this shit and toxicity from donald trump roll off of her back but honestly like i don't know how she takes it she's probably my favorite member of congress and i don't know how she is able to withstand all of these attacks i mean she gets death threats regularly she gets attacked by the president in a racist manner explicitly so on a semi-regular basis and still she can laugh about it and share a jeff from mean girls i don't know how she has the willpower to go on i just don't which is why i respect her so much which is why she's such an inspiration to me which is why she's my favorite member of congress because she puts up with more bullshit than anyone perhaps in the history of congress in recent history has had to put up with i mean nobody else deals with this nobody else does i mean you see aoc you know withstand sexist attacks you know republicans calling her stupid and whatnot but ilhan omar she gets death threats people in her own district are you know threatening to harm her and you have the president attacking her and she still goes on she still keeps fighting she never backs down she always stands strong i mean if ilhan omar isn't a leader nobody is she expresses all of the qualities that you look for in a member of congress and honestly if there are more people like her running this country we'd be in a much better place and this is her country i'm glad that she reiterated that it's obvious but you have to say it this is her country it's not something that belongs to oligarchs like donald trump who were born with a silver spoon in his mouth who created businesses off of daddy's money this is more her country than it is your country go fuck yourself donald trump like the things that he says are just outrageous and even if we're all desensitized at this point because it's donald trump and he always says stupid things we shouldn't become accustomed to this where he is openly attacking a member of congress and literally saying you're telling us how to run our country she's literally running the country she's in congress you absolute fucking tool i'm just sick of donald trump i'm over it um but you know credit to ilhan omar for bringing that fire and responding and just never backing down i really respect her as the election gets closer a lot of us are thinking about ways that things could go uh very very wrong even if joe biden wins so um you know there's the prospect of donald trump just refusing to concede and refusing to uh step down come inauguration day we've talked about this before in the program but there's also the uh red mirage scenario that could play out and cause sheer chaos throughout the country if on election night it seems like donald trump is in the lead but then that lead diminishes as mail-in ballots come in because democrats are more likely to vote by mail during a pandemic so it would tip the scales to joe biden and then trump could claim biden's stealing the selection democrats are stealing this his supporters could take to the streets and chaos could unfold but aside from those two scenarios the most frightening that i've heard of yet involves donald trump remaining in power even if joe biden beats him donald trump could actually use the electoral college to steal the selection and we're not talking about you know the 2016 scenario where hillary clinton got more votes overall but he still won because he won in the right places in the right states no we're talking about him staging what is effectively a coup his team literally has a contingency plan to remain in power if joe biden wins and it's close so there's an article in the atlantic by barton gelman that lays all of this out pretty clearly calling this situation if it in fact comes to fruition the election that could break america and he argues if the vote is close donald trump could easily throw the election into chaos and subvert the result who will stop him and gelman is pretty clear that the answer is nobody could stop him because our constitution has a lot of mechanisms in place to stop a dictator from holding on to power but here if trump's legal team actually does what they want to do here by using the electoral college to basically flip the result in his favor even if biden beats him there really is no failsafe in our constitution there's no law that protects us from him using this method to steal the election now this is a really long and comprehensive article i'm going to link to it down below when i read this it was so terrifying it sent chills down the back of my neck that's how scary it is but it's too long for the show so instead we're going to go to a summary written up by eric lutz of vanity fair because i think he does a fair job at concisely laying out gelman's argument here so he explains donald trump has been throwing everything he's got at the 2020 election to ensure a favorable result or otherwise undermine the outcome sowing doubt in the legitimacy of mail-in ballots screwing with the postal service that will handle them trying to recruit law enforcement as poll watchers flirting with delaying the election and openly stating that he won't accept any results he doesn't like now the trump campaign is said to be considering another even more outrageous approach in a thorough and deeply disconcerting piece about the constitutional crisis that may await us between november third and the inauguration in january the atlantic's barton gelman reports that the trump campaign has been discussing contingency plans to bypass the election results and appoint local electors in battleground states where republicans hold the legislative majority citing the president's baseless claims of fraud team trump could ask g.o.p controlled state governments to choose electors completely ignoring an unfavorable or uncertain popular vote state and national republican sources told gelman the state legislatures will say all right we've been given this constitutional power a trump campaign legal advisor explained to the atlantic we don't think the results of our own state are accurate so here's our slate of electors that we think properly reflect the results of our state does completely ignoring the will of voters seem anti-democratic unconstitutional impossible one would think but as gelman points out however authoritarian this kind of end around may seem the constitution doesn't forbid such a move and it's something that trump campaign could pull off indeed state republican leaders have already casually indicated that they'd be all too happy to enable this kind of power grab i've mentioned it to them and i hope they're thinking about it too laurence tabas chairman of the republican party in pennsylvania one of the swing states on which the 2020 race could hinge told gelman it is one of the available legal options set forth in the constitution so i want to repeat trump could take these uh swing states these battleground states that are controlled by republicans and if the result doesn't go the way that he likes if he cries fraud he can say all right i want to give the electoral college our own set of electors that my goons choose to vote in my favor undermining the will of voters in that state and the constitution as gelman points out does not protect us from this level of blatant ratfuckery so if trump chooses to do this if it's close enough he could literally steal the election from biden and remain in power now gelman talks about the possibility that trump wouldn't do this for those of us entertaining the likelihood of this he already has the contingency plan being discussed and republicans are talking about it they would be willing to do this uh but would trump actually do something like this would he like refuse to concede well you have to think about this gelman makes a phenomenal point about the fact that even in 2016 when trump beat hillary clinton he didn't accept the results because remember hillary clinton beat him by almost three million votes but he won the electoral college which is how you win but he wouldn't even accept that he wanted people to think that he won the popular vote as well so he said well you know what if you take into account all of the um illegal votes that took place i would have won the electoral college and the popular vote so after he already did this after he set this precedent for himself is it reasonable to assume he's going to reject the results and possibly do something like this yeah now during a white house press briefing donald trump was asked whether or not he would attempt to commit to a peaceful transferral of power and his response should horrify you because he says he will not when loser draw in this election will you commit here today for a peaceful transferral of power after the election there is been rioting and lovable there's been rioting in many cities across this country red and your so-called red and blue states will you commit to making sure that there is a peaceful transferral of power after the election well we're gonna have to see what happens you know that i've been complaining very strongly about the ballots and the ballots are a disaster understand that but people are rioting do you commit to making sure that there's a peaceful transferral of power we want to have get rid of the ballots and you'll have a very trans we'll have a very peaceful there won't be a transfer frankly there'll be a continuation the ballots are out of control you know it and you know who knows it better than anybody else the democrats know it better than anybody else he was asked will you commit to a peaceful transferral of power his answer well we're gonna have to see what happens this is very serious i don't think there are the words to really describe how serious this is but we could witness the most undemocratic thing in american history so much so that this could be the end of democracy trump is already saying if he wins he's gonna you know see if he can negotiate a third term since democrats were so mean to him he is trying to make it so he stays in power even if he loses i don't think people really understand what's at stake here and what's possible even if joe biden wins trump could still remain remain in power and this is what republicans are planning to do this is the contingency plan that they are disclosing publicly they want people to know that this is what they're planning now putting this aside we hear donald trump at rallies basically encouraging his supporters to intimidate people at the polls i just i don't know what to say about this if you don't see what's happening and automatically know how serious it is then you have to you have to go beyond the united states and american electoral politics and look to dictatorships around the world and understand how democracy has broken down and it's things like this i said this once i'll say it again democracy is not something that will be with us forever all democracies die at some point empirically speaking all democracies come to an end and just because we've been considered uh considered a democracy for so long doesn't mean it's going to be with us forever trump is uh possibly going to undermine democracy and if he's willing to do this if he clings to power using this method do you honestly think he's going to stop there do you think he's going to stop consolidating power after he steals the election from biden no so this is the most serious threat to democracy our country has ever had and look i'm willing to admit that i don't really consider america an actual democracy if we go by robert doll standards of polyarchy like i don't think that you can consider a country a democracy if black people can't vote if they are property if women can't vote but we have made progress over the years and it's a constant battle to fight to maintain what we what we got like democracy is an ongoing fight you know you don't just arrive automatically at democracy you start somewhere and you keep building upon that and trump is threatening here to just trash all of that and i'll be honest with you i live in a deep blue state i'm not going to vote third party i'm voting for joe biden and um that pains me to say it i was actually um you know if i was going to vote for joe biden i wasn't going to admit that because i don't want the democratic party to know that they have my vote no matter what but at this point the situation is so serious that i feel inclined to send a message that this type of fuckery is not acceptable i don't support it i want the margin to be as big as possible and i'm not going to vote shame anyone because i don't believe in vote shaming i think it's a moral and it is incumbent on biden to win those votes but if you do live in a swing state i would reconsider voting third party if you were planning to i know a lot of people who are third party voters you know this time according to polls probably won't be voting third party but this is my this is my thinking before i had this philosophy that i would never even tell them or broadcast my intent to vote for them because i don't want them to think that i'll fall in line every time but this is just this is so different like and i live in a deep blue state so really it's not that serious for me but it's such a serious situation the threat is so severe that donald front poses that i have to vote against it which um you know coming to this realization makes me feel genuinely depressed genuinely depressed like i don't want to get out of bed that's how bad the situation is but you know there's um there's not much else we can do about it as shitty as joe biden is you know um i don't believe he would do something like this he has a lot of you know um quality is about him that i loathe i think you know the democratic party when it comes to progressives are genuinely undemocratic but if trump is able to do this and actually kill our democracy then we won't even have the ability to make our voices heard in the future there's no there's no vote for a politician that supports medicare for all if this can happen because even if trump steals this election from biden and then doesn't run for a third term you know this opens the door to other republicans doing this and even democrats doing this so you have to you have to draw the line somewhere and this is my line like i wasn't planning on voting for joe biden in a deep blue state of orion in a safe state but now i've got to say fuck you to donald trump he's pissed me off more than joe biden and there's just there's too much at stake to where i don't want to risk it i'm not sure what else to say about this situation it's just horrifying um and the fact that donald trump is broadcasting his intent to potentially steal the election and he's saying i'm not going to commit to a peaceful transfer all of power we'll have to wait and see i just i want you to brace yourselves for the chaos that will likely unfold um come november i am here with polygene swearingen who just won her primary in west virginia and she is facing off against shelly more capitol a republican and um i think she's gonna pull this one off paula welcome back to the program hey my thank you for having me back it's always good to be with you it's always glad to i'm always glad to have you on and talk about your campaign so we have some excited news uh you were just endorsed also by bernie sanders um so give us the update there's lots of big things happening currently uh what's going on um tell us about the race uh we've had incredible national endorsements uh we've iron stashes is helping us uh senator bernie sanders and uh senator nina turner andre yang has endorsed us uh so we've had endorsements across the aisle and people really stepping up for west virginia and right now it's really incredible we have a comprehensive uh campaign team we have about 12 on staff and if people say that people funded campaigns do not work we have raised over a million dollars the average donation is 26 dollars and 30 cents and we almost out raised my opponent last quarter even though she is funded by those dark funders so you know if anybody says that money's not in the issue we've had so many people across the country people that have had to leave the state that want to come back calm they have donated dollars and volunteered and you know it's just it's up to west virginia now to help win this race because everybody has pulled out all the stops for west virginia and i'm just so incredibly humbled and proud and our team has a comprehensive digital strategy we sent over 8,000 80,000 texts last week um we have a lot of secret weapons behind the scenes that i don't want to talk about but everybody has been absolutely incredible and the thing is about this campaign it's led mostly by west virginians uh you know i'm from wallamon county my campaign manager is a black cat coal miner and a trucker and he is from logan county and he's leading the ship and i can't tell you how proud that makes me um to show that folks in the coalfields have tissues and brains and you can actually accomplish something and i'm incredibly proud of my team yeah this is astonishing i think you're running a phenomenal campaign um you're putting out ads all of the time like this is a very very active campaign you could just see it like you're you're hungry you all want to win and i think that you guys are doing a phenomenal job i do want to ask you though about the dynamics of this race because knowing that there's an uh open supreme court seat since ruth bettergensburg passed away has that changed anything um i know that democrats collectively got over 100 million dollars after rbg passed away last week um and i'm wondering if there's been any extra attention paid to this race now because um now shelly more capitol is likely you know she's going to vote to approve donald trump's uh nominee so have you been able to use this is this an effective strategy that will play well in west virginia like what's your take on this situation well my opponent's kind of cut off her own leg and all eyes are on her and we don't hold her accountable enough because you know she sucks and we expect her to suck but what she did in 2016 she said that uh we should not have a denomination process happening during election and she said that uh west virginia voters should be able to put their vote in at the ballot box but now she's saying that she's trying to push a nominee down their throats and she says she's going to do with what uh whatever mitch mcconnell donald trump wants to do so west virginia is a pretty ticked off um because we know with her voting record in the past and voting for nominees that she's voted against the working class and i see you know we see a lot of republicans that are noticing not only she a hypocrite but she's alive and uh she's pretty much cut off her leg she's actually helped us and you know we've had more support because of her poor decisions and her flip flopping like she does even with covid relief she had the heroes act sitting on her desk for three months she was drafting legislation um and helped in craft the heels act which would take this it would which took away the six hundred dollar benefit to people that are unemployment on unemployment and it was basically a slap in the face because she said that uh it just was not an incentive for people to go back to work so she essentially to me said that she was calling hardworking americans lazy when they needed help the most also she wanted to push people back into unsafe working conditions and not hold any liability to employers um if someone got sick when she came home uh they went into recess till after labor day having that legislation on her desk not pushing for anything she came home with our governor jim justice had a twenty five thousand dollar plated fundraiser eleven thousand and five hundred dollars for a photo op while she was talking about pushing our children our teachers our public service personnel back into schools while she was having digital press briefings with our governor pretty much saying that she was out of touch and only thing she was worried about was serving her court for you know her corporate donors she's never had to have a real job except for her political career she's never had to wonder where her next meal is going to come from so many things she's proven over and over and over that she's out of touch with west virginians even tying into economic diversity which you've talked to but you know you've heard me talk about it over and over and how broadband comprehensive broadband in this state plays a role in that we we know digitally it ties into our educational system pre-covid and especially since covid with her push to put children back into school as well as their communications she's trying to sell broadband to the highest bidder she's trying to privatize it we have seen over and over with broadband in this state we've had companies that got state federal funding and sent and spent it out of state and instead of making it into a public utility she's just put a for sale sign on our heads again and especially our children right now that are so dependent on digital learning and we have hot spots across the state where children can go and set in the parking lot and download their work and so it's it's like not taking care of the most vulnerable in our society because we're dealing with the addiction epidemic so many people don't have role transportation so what are they going to do they're going to push the most vulnerable children back into the classrooms in buildings that have poor ventilation systems our educators are doing everything that they can but i know that i've talked to some educators that are talking about writing their wheels and talking about what they're going to do if they get sick right now and we have seen an uptick of covid right now in west virginia and so many people are afraid and we are in the fight for our lives and we know it and when i talk to my neighbor and asking for a wrench he doesn't ask me if i'm a democrat or republican he comes over and helps me and he brings that wrench and you hear me say all the time we are some of the most united people um in the country i've never seen people united like we are in west virginia and we've made history mike i don't know if people know because the national media is not talking about it we had over 93 candidates and candidates in the state with the west virginia can't wait movement run for office this time 43 of those candidates won their races every single democratic nominee for congress the first congressional district the second the third and united states senate are women we're all progressive none of us take corporate pack dollars and we're ready to bust the halls of congress and make sure that west virginians have a seat at the table it's a pivotal time in west virginia and i'm just so humbled and proud to be part of this movement that's really encouraging it seems like in west virginia what we're seeing is kind of a political realignment in a sense um to where you know this common struggle across the state is really uniting people and these partisan differences that kind of um characterize a lot of the um chaos in other states it's not necessarily prevalent in your state and one thing that i wanted to ask you about because you talked about how covid-19 is affecting your state is the eviction crisis because trump's moratorium on evictions expires after december 31st so on january 1st there's going to be millions of americans across the country who are going to be expected to pay months in back rent and if that's not extended if trump for example loses the selection and he kind of chooses not to act as a lame duck president um it's just going to be a disaster so has shelly more capital done to anything to attempt to ameliorate this crisis in her home state is she offering resources or even information to voters because i feel like this is such a huge disaster that it should be on the minds of every single member of congress and i just don't see that action i don't see the urgency so can you kind of speak to this because this is something that she has to at least be aware of well the heroes act like i said it said on her desk you know she's got commercials out now i was there for west virginia i voted for the first relief package but also she's been pushing for corporate bailouts and big bailouts for real estate companies in the middle of a relief package and she's not really pushing to help west virginians and this we're one of the sickest and poorest states in the nation and it's been proven statistically that we are the most impacted by covid because of addiction because of black lung cancer heart disease uh cardiovascular um diabetes uh we're just these people here are sick and poor and we have a large bulk of our population that is elderly she's even tried to turn medicare into a voucher program when people ask her about medicare for all she thinks it's going to be medicare for none when she tried to privatize medicare and take you know the medicare that our elderly already have away from them and privatize it and you know like i said put a for sale sign on it she was the first woman to be elected to the united states and to represent the state of west virginia she's a mother and grandmother she voted against equal pay for women at least three times and west virginian see the differences in this campaign and the difference with her because this country girl does not want to go to dc it's about survival it's making sure that west virginians have a seat at the table and she has done nothing as a mother and grandmother and turned a blind eye on the children dying and starving in this state i really want to ask her the question how does she sleep at night but she won't even debate me she's shying away from a debate because she knows she's going to be called out for her years and years of being a corporate servant getting rich off our backs in 2008 you can make your own decision about this and your own assessment but when the stock market collapsed her husband was selling stock the day before so we know who she is we know what's going on with her she's there because of her dad's corrupt dynasty and she continues with corruption across the state and we have not give her enough heat and it's time for a mother and a grandmother to actually make sure that our children have a chance to grow and thrive and have a future in their state for a change yeah and i think that the reason why she doesn't want to debate you is because if you really juxtapose both of your campaigns and your messages it's night and day i think she would just be landslided because like when you speak you speak really thoroughly to all of the specific things that impact the people of west virginia you talk about how you know the issues that are already disproportionately affecting coal miners for example that intersects with COVID-19 and creates a bigger disaster so if you were to ask her healthcare what do we do what's your plan she wouldn't be able to answer that and i wanted to ask you about that as well because you know she doesn't have a plan for the eviction crisis um does she have any sort of idea what she wants to do for healthcare reform because i mean trump over and over has been saying it's coming it's coming meanwhile we see nothing so our other republicans such as uh capitol are they doing anything to ameliorate the healthcare crisis because assuming trump gets his new supreme court nominee approved then the aca is most likely going to be repealed which means that protections for patients with pre-existing conditions that goes away people in west virginia will be affected by that probably more so than others in the country because they are you know um they experience black lung and whatnot from uh being coal miners what does she said with regard to healthcare i mean has she just been silent she just keeps on talking about protecting health insurance companies and framing it as she's going to protect health insurance and even with this administration and with trump's tax plan that went through you know what the bulk of our public population is on medicare and medicaid already and even though we still have the expansion for adult medicaid in the state the income criteria changed under this tax plan and our hospitals were already under red alert because people were having to go into the er for basics like sinus infections because they were not covered under medicaid anymore uh so you know it's she's talking about putting more food into food banks but she's not talking about how we can get people less dependent on food banks and making sure that they have a living wage and we have a diverse economy in this state actually we had an endorsement from the newspaper called the dominion post which is in mon county and they are very known to be conservative and they really come out against her after we interviewed with them because it really brought up all the issues and how out of touch she really is and so many republicans have come into the fold with this campaign we are in the fight for our lives and you know we want basic human rights and we want economic diversity we want long-term solutions to the addiction epidemic everybody deserves health care and those are basics the three top basics that all west virginians want and we don't have to agree or you know on everything but we've come up to a place in this country whether we have representatives it's not a football game first and foremost but if we do have a two-party system we need people that are setting down and thinking about the people that they are supposed to serve instead of corporations and lobbyists and making sure that they have our best interest at heart and that's why we've seen a movement on a local level to a federal level with west virginia can't wait and brand new congress because ordinary people are standing up and saying hey we just want to be representative for represented for a change you know of the people by the people for the people that's what our government should be we can we don't have to agree on everything but we have to make sure that people are intended to represent us period and that's what's going on with my opponent I mean I've I've been angry at her for a long long time because she is a mother and grandmother and she's had mothers knocking on her door trying to get arrested in her office we've had people throw paper airplanes over the top of the door to get her attention because she won't even her staff won't even answer the door and that's why even here and now my telephone number is 304-894-7472 nobody's going to have to get arrested in my office to get attention as a matter of fact when I go to DC I'm going to make sure all these people that have been working in the front lines of our communities trying to solve our problems have a seat at the table in writing legislation that impacts our daily lives and making sure that we do have true change and they do have a true voice in Washington yeah and I think that you you really put it perfectly you said we don't have to agree on everything and you know I think you've been really effective at putting out this message that it's really obvious that she just doesn't care like it's not even like she has solutions that you disagree with she just doesn't have solutions she's not proposing anything you just you see this ambivalence from her which is just astonishing to me when we are facing an unprecedented level of crisis in this country with you know a global pandemic and the economic depression resulting from that pandemic so even if like I didn't agree with anything she proposed at least by proposing something there's at least some initiative like you're showing to us that you care but we get nothing from her which is astonishing to me especially because this is an election year she's seeking re-election so it's it's shocking now basically she's showing her photo ops I think she got some legislation passed for commemorative coins but what does that do for the people in West Virginia you know she has it you know we hear capitol connect for five and a half years she's been talking about broadband in our state where is it you know she's been in office in congress for a long time and look you know anybody with common sense can look around and look at our neighbors and look at our communities and say if she really means what she says during election season then how come we don't see it every day and it's not happening that's happened with so many of our incumbents in their state and that's why so many people here are stepping up and running for office and raising hell because these people are not doing their jobs and my slogan investing in ourselves that's what West Virginians are doing if they're not going to do their jobs we're coming to take them we ain't taking it no more yeah that's beautifully put so I think that anyone who has been watching the Humanist Report for a while is already familiar with your campaign they know about you they support you we're all rooting for you so please help us help you let us know what you need from us how can we help you if we live in West Virginia or not what can we do to make sure that you beat her in November we have to keep making those impressions we need volunteers first and foremost we sent over 80 000 texts last week we need more people on the horn making those phone calls you know every dollar counts a few people can still donate we need to fundraise so we can get broadcast television we know that she's going to take off her money and invest in that to reach voters and you know it's not a problem of reaching voters it's it's you know reaching voters to to we have to get them motivated to the polls as well as learning this campaign and knowing that I'm not a polished politician I'm not here making campaign promises I'm a mother and grandmother too and I want to make sure that my grandchild can stay here and live here and grow so you know let's get on the horn this is go time we're in the fight for our lives I will be a federal representative so I'll represent everybody across this country and so this is not just about West Virginia this is making sure no matter who our president is we have a good strong congress especially the senate especially with everything that's going on with the supreme court right now we don't need a rubber stamp for blue or red we need somebody that is going to put somebody in that seat that is actually going to do their job and make decisions for the American people so there'll be links in the description box to Paula's website for those watching please I would encourage you to support her this is a fight for our lives I think that there's no other way to describe it and by by you know explaining it the way that you did you really are phenomenal at articulating what's at stake like this is this is everything so much is at stake so we are going to be rooting for you thank you so much for coming on the program I look forward to speaking to you after you win I think that's going to be really exciting and it gives us a little bit of hope like you running you winning your primary it gives us hope so thank you for that and thank you for fighting for everyone not just in West Virginia but around the country we are absolutely looking to you you know as a source for inspiration so we love you Paula thank you so much for coming on we love you too Mike thank you for raising the voice of the voiceless and making sure that these campaigns get the coverage that they need because we you know the status quo they're going to do everything they can to fight against us and it's people like you that we get the word out and you know and people know about campaigns like ours and you've worked so hard and I've watched you grow since 2018 and I can't thank you enough you inspire me oh thank you thank you that means so much coming from you you know it's it's a little bit shocking that campaigns like yours aren't getting national attention you know given what's at stake and it's frustrating to me so you know I feel like I have to try to fill that role as much as I possibly can and you know it's just it's nice to be able to um even just do a little bit and talk to you and hopefully get people to recognize the importance of this race because it's it's everything it is everything it's so important well you know I'm only one vote so everybody needs if they're looking at the dynamic in congress go to brand new congress dot org look at all the candidates that went through the primary because I can go to DC and I can raise all the hell that I want well we need votes to pass legislation and so look at all these candidates and make sure that we are putting our support behind them so we can work with each other and actually bring change for a change yeah absolutely it's it's not just like getting one or two more people elected like this is changing the makeup of congress like this is we're we're thinking long term we're playing the long game now and your victory is absolutely crucial um and I think that my viewers at least you know uh they acknowledge that it's just a matter of getting everyone else to understand why these races are so important and why we have to elect people who are actually fighting for working Americans um that's why we're rooting for you so thanks so much for coming on I won't keep you any longer because I know you've got a jet to your next interview but thank you so much Paula it's always a pleasure talking to you thank you Mike have a good night you too well that's everything thank you all so much for tuning in if you are new to the show consider subscribing and clicking the notification icon you can also follow me on twitter at humanistreport I don't have a personal account so the show twitter is my personal account and before we go I want to send a shout out to all of our patreon paypal and youtube members for helping the show not just to survive but thrive as well you all are truly incredible thank you all so much but that's all I've got so I'll see you all next week take care everyone