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carolinehayter

Biden and Trump hold dueling rallies in battleground Minnesota Friday | Fox News - 0 views

www.foxnews.com/...-battleground-minnesota-friday

biden Trump Politics US election

shared by carolinehayter on 30 Oct 20 - No Cached
  • Trump’s hoping to become the first Republican in nearly half a century to win Minnesota
  • Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and President Trump cross paths for a second straight day in a crucial battleground state -- as they enter the final weekend before Tuesday's vote.
  • On Thursday they faced off in Florida
  • ...14 more annotations...
  • showdown takes place in Minnesota, which suggests that a state long carried by Democrats in presidential elections may be in play.
  • President Richard Nixon was the last Republican to win the state – during his 1972 landslide re-election.
  • But four years ago Trump narrowly lost Minnesota and its 10 electoral votes to 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, and for over a year the president and his re-election campaign have been eyeing the state in hopes of breaking the losing streak and flipping it from blue to red.
  • An average of the latest public opinion polls in the state indicate the former vice president with a mid-single digit advantage over Trump, but the surveys suggest that Trump’s gained ground over the past month
  • Biden’s strength is concentrated in the Twin Cities and the surrounding suburban counties, while Trump polls best in the more rural areas across the rest of the state, which is known as Greater Minnesota.
  • the location of the event was moved twice due to the state’s coronavirus restrictions on large crowds. And the event will be dramatically smaller than the president's typical rallies, where supporters are packed together with out social distancing, and there's limited wearing of masks.
  • Taking aim at the state's Democratic governor and attorney general, the Trump campaign said Thursday night that "thanks to the free speech-stifling dictates of Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney Gen. Keith Ellison, only the first 250 people will be admitted."
  • On Thursday afternoon, the Biden campaign announced that the former vice president would hold a socially distanced drive-in car rally
  • “We’re getting presidential visits four days out. That means we’re in play,” Minnesota based GOP strategist Amy Koch told Fox News.
  • Koch, the first and only woman elected as the state senate majority leader in Minnesota, emphasized that Democrats “always take Minnesota for granted. No one can ever believe that Minnesota’s in play and that was a mistake that Hillary Clinton’s camp made in 2016 and it very nearly cost them. Biden’s camp at least seems to be heeding that, but they always seem to be playing catch up.”
  • But Democratic strategist Mike Erlandson said that the trips Friday by the two national party standard bearers “tells me that the Trump campaign is a little bit desperate and that Biden is feeling good enough that he can come to a state that looks to be pretty blue at the moment.”
  • The former state Democratic Party chair told Fox News that “it’s close,” but that “all the early voting indicates that it’s going very well in Minnesota” for Biden
  • The Trump campaign started building resources in Minnesota early in the 2020 cycle. Biden’s campaign has been catching up in recent months and both teams have shelled out big bucks to run ads in the state in the closing two months of the campaign.
  • Before arriving in Minnesota, Biden campaigns in neighboring Iowa, another swing state. And following his Twin Cities stop, the former vice president campaigns in another neighboring battleground, Wisconsin.The president also campaigns Friday in Wisconsin, as well as the battleground of Michigan.
katherineharron

Donald Trump's Minnesota pipe dream - CNNPolitics - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by katherineharron on 22 Oct 19 - No Cached
  • In the wake of a recent "Keep America Great" rally in Minneapolis, President Donald Trump tweeted this: "We are going to fight with all of our heart and soul and we are going to win the great state of Minnesota in 2020." But probably not actually, at least according to a new poll conducted for the Minneapolis Star Tribune and released Monday. In it, Trump trails both former Vice President Joe Biden and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren by double-digits in the state while Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders holds a 49% to 40% edge over the incumbent.
  • Those wide margins are a far cry from Trump's near-miss in Minnesota in 2016 when he lost by 44,000 votes out of more than 2.6 million cast -- one of the closest margins in the country.
  • To be clear: Trump doesn't need to win Minnesota to get reelected. He didn't win the state in 2016 and won the Electoral College relatively easily.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • The bigger issue here for Trump is whether his numbers in Minnesota are indicative of a broader weakness across the industrial Midwest -- Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin -- where he won the 2016 election. Trump's job approval numbers in these states has been consistent with the numbers in the Star Tribune poll for at least the last year. If that trend continues, his path to a second term narrows significantly.
nrashkind

ACLU sues Minnesota police, alleging harassment of journalists at protests - Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...ists-at-protests-idUSKBN23A3HS

shared by nrashkind on 04 Jun 20 - No Cached
  • The American Civil Liberties Union has accused Minnesota law enforcement of wrongly arresting, injuring and harassing journalists covering unrest sparked by the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, in Minneapolis police custody.
  • In a lawsuit, filed on behalf of journalists in U.S. District Court in Minnesota on Wednesday, the ACLU accuses the Minneapolis Police Department and Minnesota State Patrol of shooting journalists in the face with rubber bullets, arresting reporters and photographers without cause, and threatening them at gunpoint.
  • A Minneapolis police spokesman directed inquiries about the suit to City Attorney Erik Nilsson.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • We are facing a full-scale assault on the First Amendment freedom of the press,” said Brian Hauss, staff attorney with the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. “We will not let these official abuses go unanswered.”
  • The class-action lawsuit was filed with Minneapolis freelance journalist Jared Goyette as the lead plaintiff.
  • WCCO, CNN and the Los Angeles Times could not be reached immediately for comment.
  • The complaint also details two incidents involving Reuters journalists, although the news agency and its employees are not plaintiffs.
  • Minnesota on Wednesday increased to second-degree murder the charge against a fired Minneapolis police officer in the death of George Floyd, and leveled charges against three other sacked officers.
brickol

Klobuchar gains momentum in Iowa - but can a centrist hope to win there? | US news | Th... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...r-iowa-democrats-2020-election

politics US election culture

shared by brickol on 04 Jan 20 - No Cached
  • The Minnesota senator is reaching out to Iowa’s smallest towns and rural settlements ahead of the vital February caucus and seeing increasing numbers
  • Hiller, whose state is the vital first one to cast ballots in the party’s nomination race to pick an opponent to Donald Trump, was impressed by the Minnesota senator, a fellow midwesterner who desperately needs a strong showing in Iowa to boost her 2020 presidential campaign.
  • That sort of reaction is music to Klobuchar’s ears as she carried out a gruelling tour through 27 counties in rural Iowa in an attempt to build a groundswell of support through reaching out to the state’s smallest towns and rural settlements. With this strategy, even a couple dozen attendees counts as a success.
  • ...14 more annotations...
  • Two dozen others had turned out to see the Minnesota senator in tiny Ida Grove that same day, a county that doesn’t even have 1,000 registered Democrats. But most striking to Klobuchar was a crowd of around 50 packing the Sac County Cattle Company on a Sunday night just before Christmas.
  • Klobuchar is blunt about her shared background with Iowa’s voters. She brags about being from the midwest, and how she can win in rural Minnesota counties that Trump took by 20 points.
  • Klobuchar said those gatherings are a sign of what to expect on Iowa’s caucus day on 3 February. Klobuchar sits at about 6% support among probable Iowa caucusgoers, according to the most recent Des Moines Register Iowa poll in October, but a strong debate showing in Los Angeles brought her notice
  • A crowd that size in Sac City, anywhere in rural America, means something
  • The proprietor said Klobuchar’s crowds were at least the size of King’s, or any other Republican who has come calling.
  • Her entire argument is built around electability in midwest swing states such as Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan and Ohio
  • “He’s treating farmers like poker chips in one of his bankrupt casinos,” she said to the delight of her audience at one stop
  • The question is whether her momentum, which is mainly confined to Iowa, is too little too late. In less than six weeks, caucusgoers will trudge through a frigid night to precinct meetings in schoolhouses and courthouses – while she may be chained to Trump’s impeachment trial in the US Senate, which is set to start sometime in January and last for an unknown time.
  • “In an ironic way, her stardom in the Senate will hurt her campaigning in Iowa, where she desperately needs to do well.”
  • Klobuchar says a doubling of office spaces in Iowa and positive responses in Des Moines Register/CNN Iowa polls are signs of hope. Best says her strongest advantage is that overwhelming majorities of probable caucusgoers have favorable opinions of her and list her in their top three selections.
  • She says people there have a thirst for economic prosperity that can be achieved realistically, not with promises like Medicare for All. She never mentions challengers from the progressive wing by name. “We can win them back telling the truth. We can bring those people back.”
  • voters in rural areas like Sac City and Rockwell City are easier to organize than in Democratic metro strongholds such as Des Moines or Iowa City. Those who show up in Rockwell City are reliably Democratic and less issue-focused. Rarely do they see a candidate with Klobuchar’s resume. When they do, they leave with a strong impression.
  • “It’s a lot easier to get viability in Sac county than Polk county,” said Scholten. “She recognizes that people are familiar with her. Sac City isn’t a long way from the Iowa-Minnesota border.”
  • Those who hear Klobuchar’s message like her focus on the midwest.
nrashkind

Minnesota attorney general says first-degree murder charge still possible - Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...e-still-possible-idUSKBN23A3B2

shared by nrashkind on 04 Jun 20 - No Cached
  • Minnesota attorney general says first-degree murder charge still possible
  • Minnesota Attorney General Ellison said on Wednesday that if the prosecution gets evidence to support a first-degree murder charge against former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in the George Floyd case it will be presented to a jury.
  • Ellison said: “We are continuing to gather evidence
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Asked in an interview with CNN about a possible first-degree murder charge,
  • if we get evidence to support that, that we can put in front of a jury, we will present that
  • At this time, we brought forth the maximum ethical charges as we could.”
carolinehayter

Minneapolis promised change after George Floyd. Instead it's geared up for war | George... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...-instead-its-geared-up-for-war

Politics US crisis Culture Policy

shared by carolinehayter on 11 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • The trial of Derek Chauvin, the officer who killed Floyd, has begun - and Minneapolis looks like a police state
  • he George Floyd uprising that began in Minneapolis introduced the demand of defunding the police to the general public, empowered Black-led anti-police violence movements across the planet, generated policy changes in cities across the US, and most importantly built new organizations which have the capacity to fight for systemic change for the long haul.
  • including a move to actually defund the Minneapolis police department
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • Now, however, the Minneapolis and Minnesota governments are in the process of undoing that progress and moving in the opposite direction
  • Instead of becoming more transparent and committed to undoing the anti-Black image it has cultivated, the city of Minneapolis has quickly transformed itself into a 21st-century police state, pushing even beyond the hyper-militarization and violence that already plague police departments across the US.
  • Their attempts were dashed by a state oversight commission that shut down a ballot initiative that would have given voters the chance to abolish the police department in favor of a proposed department of community safety and violence prevention.
  • By this winter, the summer’s ambitions had been replaced by a renewed commitment to the status quo.
  • Some of the blame for this policy about-face lies with the city’s rising violent crime rate and the subsequent push by some within Minneapolis for increased policing.
  • That seems like the direction that the state of Minnesota, and Minneapolis more specifically, is headed as they prepare for protests in response to a potential acquittal of yet another police officer caught executing someone on camera.
  • The governor has also proposed $35m in state aid to fund the deployment of police officers from across the state to support the Minneapolis police department in the case of “extraordinary public safety events”. The state is also coordinating with the FBI, the federal joint terrorism taskforce, and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
  • The Hennepin county government center, the location of the trial, is being turned into a fortress. Several layers of high-security barbed-wire fences line the area around the center and a few buildings around it; they are reinforced with large concrete barriers which, combined with up to 2,000 national guard soldiers, give the impression that the city is ready to fight its own people.
  • “As the people of Minneapolis and Minnesota are calling for justice and healing, and care, state officials have been responding in some ways by basically preparing to go to war with folks … So, I do think it’s meant to be an intimidation tactic.”
  • the city also wanted to pay social media influencers to share messages during the trial to prevent potential rioting.
  • People in Minneapolis are preparing for the trial in their own ways. Some organizers have already planned protests, while others are rebuilding mutual aid networks to support each other with grocery runs and resources in case of unrest.
  • Instead of committing to police reform and transparency – or acknowledging the growing threat of the far right – the city of Minneapolis is, in the words of city councilman Jeremiah Ellison, “showing up ready for war”.
carolinehayter

Judge must reconsider third-degree murder charge against officer for George Floyd killi... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...in-third-degree-murder-charges

politics US culture policy

shared by carolinehayter on 08 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • The Minnesota court of appeals has ordered a judge to reconsider adding third-degree murder to charges against the former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who is accused of killing George Floyd last year.
  • The development could delay Chauvin’s trial, which is due to begin with jury selection on Monday.
  • The killing, which a bystander recorded on video, sparked the biggest civil rights uprising in the US since the 1960s, spilling over at times into rioting but reinvigorating the Black Lives Matter movement and forcing a fresh reckoning on police brutality and broader, systemic racism.
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  • Cahill should have followed the precedent set by the appeals court when it affirmed the third-degree murder conviction of the former Minneapolis officer Mohamed Noor in the 2017 shooting death of Justine Ruszczyk Damond, the court said. The Australian woman had called 911 to report witnessing a possible sexual assault. Noor is appealing to the state supreme court.
  • It was not clear on Saturday whether Friday’s ruling would delay Chauvin’s trial. He is charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter. Chauvin has the option of appealing the ruling to the state supreme court, which would force Cahill to delay the tria
  • A reinstated third-degree murder count would increase the odds of a murder conviction. Floyd’s family originally urged a first-degree murder charge and outrage is likely if Chauvin is not convicted.
  • Legal experts have said reinstating third-degree murder to the case could be a strategic move by the Minnesota attorney general, Keith Ellison, leading the prosecution, to give jurors more chances to convict, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported.
  • The charge could be viewed by jurors as a middle ground. It would also allow the prosecution to present multiple theories based on different elements that must be met to convict on the respective charges
  • Donald Trump’s attorney general, Bill Barr, last year rejected a deal for Chauvin to plead guilty to third-degree murder, partly out of concern that it would be seen as too lenient, the New York Times reported last month. The paper added that Chauvin wanted to be spared federal civil rights charges after his murder trial.
  • The Minnesota national guard has been placed on alert, although the authorities insist peaceful protest will be allowed.
brookegoodman

The governor of Minnesota just showed what leadership in a crisis looks like - CNNPolitics - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

US crisis

shared by brookegoodman on 31 May 20 - No Cached
  • (CNN)Early Friday morning, CNN reporter Omar Jimenez and his crew were arrested while covering the protests that have sprung up in Minneapolis following the death of George Floyd.
  • Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz held a press briefing on the ongoing unrest in his state later Friday. Amid an update on how he would deal with the protests as well as the investigation into Floyd's death, Walz took a moment to address the arrest of Jimenez and his crew.
  • Now, Walz didn't tell those cops to arrest Jimenez and his crew. And had he known it was happening, he would have undoubtedly stopped it. But rather than look for a scapegoat, Walz owned the mistake. Because he is the governor of the state and the ultimate buck-stopper. If law enforcement in Minnesota makes a mistake, Walz understands that it, ultimately falls on him.
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  • When Trump's rambling suggestion that disinfectants could be injected or otherwise consumed to deal with coronavirus led to a spike in calls to poison control centers, Trump shrugged off any responsibility. When he attacked the military service of the late Sen. John McCain in 2015, Trump insisted he didn't need to apologize because the media had twisted his words. (They had not.)
  • Now, that's not to say Walz's reaction to the death of George Floyd has been perfect. Far from it. He clearly didn't fully grasp the amount of anger and outrage in the community, and has struggled to get the ongoing protests under control -- all the while trying to ensure that the investigation into what exactly happened leading to Floyd's death.
katherineharron

Police reform: Joe Biden stands down at a critical juncture as activists demand change ... - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

biden

shared by katherineharron on 16 Apr 21 - No Cached
  • Nearly a year after the police killing of George Floyd, pressure is mounting on President Joe Biden and members of Congress to show they are committed to holding police officers accountable for misconduct, excessive force and negligence
  • Brooklyn Center’s former police chief suggested that the shooting was accidental, and Potter made her first court appearance Thursday after being charged with second degree manslaughter.
  • Biden exhibited caution this week when addressing the death of another Black man and backed away from his campaign promise to create a police reform commission
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  • Biden’s decision to stand down was a puzzling development given that there is no indication whatsoever that the Democratic legislation – which would create a national registry of police misconduct, ban chokeholds and no-knock warrants, and overhaul qualified immunity protections for police officers – has any chance in the 50-50 Senate after it passed the House in March without GOP support.
  • The deep fissures in the Democratic party over what to do on the issue of policing have put Democrats in a difficult spot. During the 2020 elections, Republican hammered their Democratic opponents over radical calls to “defund the police” – attempting to portray all Democrats as sympathetic to a view that is held by a small minority.
  • It’s a major reason why congressional leaders like House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, the No. 3 Democrat in the chamber, were quick to refute Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s argument that there should be “no more policing,” because, in her view, it cannot be reformed. “We’ve got to have police,” Clyburn said in an interview this week with CNN’s Don Lemon.
  • Protests erupted this week after the death of Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man who was shot by veteran Minnesota police officer Kimberly Potter in the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Center after he was initially pulled over for an expired tag and police learned that he had an outstanding warrant for a gross misdemeanor weapons charge.
  • Biden’s reticence reflects not only the deadlock in the deeply divided Congress, but also the fact that Democrats are still struggling to refine their message on police reform – knowing the issue will be a vulnerability at the ballot box in 2022 and 2024.
  • t this pivotal moment when the nation is once again focused on the need to end these all-too-common occurrences, Biden seems uniquely positioned to take a leading role in brokering a compromise with Congress after his lifetime of work on crime and justice legislation.
  • in another difficult case, the Chicago Civilian Office of Police Accountability released body-worn camera footage Thursday that shows a police officer shooting 13-year-old Adam Toledo last month.
  • “The officer screamed at him, ‘Show me your hands,’ Adam complied, turned around, his hands were empty when he was shot in the chest at the hands of the officer,” Weiss-Ortiz told reporters Thursday. “If you’re shooting an unarmed child with his hands in the air, it is an assassination.”
  • Biden’s cautious posture on policing issues since he has become President reflects the arms-length distance that he has maintained from the progressive left on a number of politically-fraught issues, including calls from some Democrats to expand the size of the Supreme Court, the suggestion that he should be doing more on gun control following a recent spate of mass shootings, and fulfilling his own promise to raise the cap set on refugee admissions.
  • “I want to make it clear again: There is absolutely no justification – none – for looting, no justification for violence. Peaceful protest, understandable,” Biden said Monday. “We do know that the anger, pain, and trauma that exists in the Black community in that environment is real – it’s serious, and it’s consequential. But it will not justify violence and/or looting.”
  • “There’s never gonna be justice for us,” Wright’s mother, Katie Wright, told reporters on Thursday. “Justice would bring our son home, knocking on the door with a big smile, coming in the house, sitting down eating dinner with us, going out to lunch, playing with his one-year-old – almost two-year-old-son, giving him a kiss before he walks out the door.”
  • Democrats’ sensitivity to those attacks was magnified this week by the swift response to Tlaib, a liberal Democrat, when she tweeted Monday that Wright’s death was not accident and “policing in our country is inherently & intentionally racist.
  • “This is not about policing. This is not about training. This is about recruiting. Who are we recruiting to be police officers? That to me is where the focus has got to go. We’ve got to have police officers,” Clyburn told Lemon on “CNN Tonight.”
  • But as incomprehensible police shootings multiply with devastating consequences for the families, there is a fierce urgency in this moment, particularly as the nation waits for the verdict in the Chauvin trial. Justice in policing might be “a cause” that is more convenient for Biden to tackle later in his presidency. But by standing down and waiting for others to act, he may well miss this moment.
Javier E

Big oil and gas kept a dirty secret for decades. Now they may pay the price | Climate c... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...crimes-oil-and-gas-environment

oil gas fraud climate denialism corporate history politics

shared by Javier E on 01 Jul 21 - No Cached
  • even more strikingly, the nearly two dozen lawsuits are underpinned by accusations that the industry severely aggravated the environmental crisis with a decades-long campaign of lies and deceit to suppress warnings from their own scientists about the impact of fossil fuels on the climate and dupe the American public
  • for the first time in decades, the lawsuits chart a path toward public accountability that climate activists say has the potential to rival big tobacco’s downfall after it concealed the real dangers of smoking.
  • “Things have to get worse for the oil companies,” he added. “Even if they’ve got a pretty good chance of winning the litigation in places, the discovery of pretty clearcut wrong doing – that they knew their product was bad and they were lying to the public – really weakens the industry’s ability to resist legislation and settlements.”
  • ...17 more annotations...
  • or decades, the country’s leading oil and gas companies have understood the science of climate change and the dangers posed by fossil fuels. Year after year, top executives heard it from their own scientists whose warnings were explicit and often dire.
  • In 1979, an Exxon study said that burning fossil fuels “will cause dramatic environmental effects” in the coming decades.“The potential problem is great and urgent,” it concluded.
  • o investigate the lengths of the oil and gas industry’s deceptions – and the disastrous consequences for communities across the country – the Guardian is launching a year-long series tracking the unprecedented efforts to hold the fossil fuel industry to account.
  • the legal reasoning behind foreign court judgments are unlikely to carry much weight in the US and domestic law is largely untested. In 2018, a federal court knocked back New York City’s initial attempt to force big oil to cover the costs of the climate crisis by saying that its global nature requires a political, not legal, remedy.
  • Among them is a 1988 Exxon memo laying out a strategy to push for a “balanced scientific approach”, which meant giving equal weight to hard evidence and climate change denialism. That move bore fruit in parts of the media into the 2000s as the oil industry repositioned global heating as theory, not fact, contributing to the most deep-rooted climate denialism in any developed country.
  • Other climate lawsuits, including one filed in Minnesota, allege the oil firms’ campaigns of deception and denial about the climate crisis amount to fraud. Minnesota is suing Exxon, Koch Industries and an industry trade group for breaches of state law for deceptive trade practices, false advertising and consumer fraud over what the lawsuit characterises as distortions and lies about climate science.
  • Farber said cases rooted in claims that the petroleum industry lied have the most promising chance of success.“To the extent the plaintiffs can point to misconduct, like telling everybody there’s no such thing as climate change when your scientists have told you the opposite, that might give the courts a greater feeling of comfort that they’re not trying to take over the US energy system,” he said.
  • The public nuisance claim, also pursued by Honolulu, San Francisco and Rhode Island, follows a legal strategy with a record of success in other types of litigation. In 2019, Oklahoma’s attorney general won compensation of nearly half a billion dollars against the pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson over its false marketing of powerful prescription painkillers on the grounds it created a public nuisance by contributing to the opioid epidemic in the state.
  • Exxon set up equipment on a supertanker, the Esso Atlantic, to monitor carbon dioxide in seawater and the air. In 1982, the company’s scientists drew up a graph accurately plotting an increase in the globe’s temperature to date.
  • “The 1980s revealed an established consensus among scientists,” the Minnesota lawsuit against Exxon says. “A 1982 internal Exxon document … explicitly declares that the science was ‘unanimous’ and that climate change would ‘bring about significant changes in the earth’s climate’.”Then the monitoring on the Esso Atlantic was suddenly called off and other research downgraded.
  • Year after year, Exxon scientists recorded the evidence about the dangers of burning fossil fuels. In 1978, its science adviser, James Black, warned that there was a “window of five to ten years before the need for hard decisions regarding changes in energy strategy might become critical”.
  • newspapers to sow doubt. One in the New York Times in 2000, under the headline “Unsettled Science”, compared climate data to changing weather forecasts. It claimed scientists were divided, when an overwhelming consensus already backed the evidence of a growing climate crisis, and said that the supposed doubts meant it was too soon to act.
  • Exxon’s chairman and chief executive, Lee Raymond, told industry executives in 1996 that “scientific evidence remains inconclusive as to whether human activities affect global climate”.“It’s a long and dangerous leap to conclude that we should, therefore, cut fossil fuel use,” he said.Documents show that his company’s scientists were telling Exxon’s management that the real danger lay in the failure to do exactly that.
  • In 2019, Martin Hoffert, a professor of physics at New York University, told a congressional hearing that as a consultant to Exxon on climate modelling in the 1980s, he worked on eight scientific papers for the company that showed fossil fuel burning was “increasingly having a perceptible influence on Earth’s climate”.
  • Exxon worked alongside Chevron, Shell, BP and smaller oil firms to shift attention away from the growing climate crisis. They funded the industry’s trade body, API, as it drew up a multimillion-dollar plan to ensure that “climate change becomes a non- issue” through disinformation. The plan said “victory will be achieved” when “recognition of uncertainties become part of the ‘conventional wisdom’”.
  • The fossil fuel industry also used its considerable resources to pour billions of dollars into political lobbying to block unfavourable laws and to fund front organisations with neutral and scientific-sounding names, such as the Global Climate Coalition (GCC). In 2001, the US state department told the GCC that President George W Bush rejected the Kyoto protocol to reduce greenhouse gas emissions “in part, based on input from you”.
  • “Big oil was engaged in exactly the same type of behaviour that the tobacco companies engaged in and were found liable for fraud on a massive scale,” said Eubanks. “The cover-up, the denial of the problem, the funding of scientists to question the science. The same pattern. And some of the same lawyers represent both tobacco and big oil.”
katherineharron

Early voting: Pivotal Midwest states see uptick in young voters - CNNPolitics - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

election

shared by katherineharron on 02 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • More than 6 million ballots have already been cast in four pivotal Midwest states: Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
  • President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden will both appear in Minnesota and Wisconsin on Friday
  • The Hawkeye state voted twice for the Obama-Biden ticket but then backed Trump-Pence by almost 10 points over Hillary Clinton in 2016. Polls show a tight race.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • Democrats currently have a 16-point advantage over Republicans in the pre-Election Day vote.
  • Voters under 30 make up 11% of all early voters so far -- up four points from this time last cycle. Voters 30-64 are up five points from 43% of turnout at this point four years ago to 48% now. Voters 65 and older make up a smaller share of early voters than at this point four years ago
  • Trump earned Michigan's 16 electoral votes four years ago with a 0.2% margin of victory. This year, Biden and Democrats are fighting to rebuild the so-called Blue Wall. Before Trump's win, the state hadn't voted for a Republican presidential nominee since 1988. The state expanded mail voting as an option to all voters in this year's election.
  • 10% of voters so far in the state are under 30 -- at this point four years ago, only 3% were. While voters 65 or older made up 78% of early voters in 2016, they make up 44% of early voters so far this year.
  • The President sees the state as a possible opportunity to expand the map this year, even though no Republican presidential nominee has won here since 1972.
  • Young voters make up 12% of early voters in Minnesota, more than twice the 5% share they had at this point in 2016.
  • Trump won the Badger State by less than one point in 2016, breaking a Democratic presidential streak dating back to 1988.
  • Wisconsin has seen a large decrease in the share of early votes from people 65 or older, but the state hasn't seen as much of an increase from voters under 30. Seniors went from 48% of the early vote in 2016 to 36% now. Voters under 30 made up only 4% of pre-Election Day voters four years ago but now make up 5%. The largest increase has actually come from voters with unknown ages. Those voters made up 5% of early voters four years ago, but now make up about 12%.
leilamulveny

Election results: How to spot a red or blue 'mirage' in early election night results - ... - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

politics Trump

shared by leilamulveny on 04 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • Early results that pop up shortly after the polls close might look very different from the final outcome, because of unprecedented levels of mail-in ballots and early voting due to the coronavirus pandemic.
  • As a result, in some of the most competitive states, early results may look too rosy for former Vice President Joe Biden, before falling back down to earth and becoming more representative of the true outcome. In other states, Trump could see early leads that slowly narrow as more ballots are counted.
  • As absentee ballots get counted late on Tuesday night and bigger cities report more of their votes, or even over the days that follow, the statewide vote count could shift in Biden's direction.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Some states process early ballots first, and will report those early in the night, while others save them for last. Here is a breakdown of what to watch for in the pivotal states.
  • Similarly, in Minnesota, there might be a "red mirage" that misleadingly looks like a Trump lead. Minnesota was one of the closest states Trump lost in 2016, and he hopes to flip it this year, though he is lagging in the polls.
  • This dynamic is also expected in Texas, Ohio and Iowa, largely for the same reasons. They'll quickly post results from the historic levels of pre-Election Day voting, which likely helps Biden.
  • In Georgia, some counties will report large chunks of absentee ballots quickly after the polls close, but other counties won't right away. It's unclear exactly how this will shake out on election night.
  • Additionally, in New Hampshire and Maine, local officials will blend absentee ballots and Election Day ballots before the results are released, eliminating any "shifts." These states favor Biden, but there is a tight race to win one electoral vote in Maine's 2nd Congressional District.
Javier E

Opinion | Trump's biggest argument is failing him. New polls explain why. - The Washing... - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...ling-him-new-polls-explain-why

law and order trump politics biden 2020

shared by Javier E on 19 Sep 20 - No Cached
  • Recent New York Times/Siena polling found that voters in Minnesota and Wisconsin — both states where violence has broken out — put Biden at parity or slightly above Trump to handle both violent crime and law and order, and a majority (51 percent to 42 percent) favor Biden to handle protests.
  • This is the case even though that same polling showed that many voters believe Biden hasn’t done enough to condemn violence. How can this be?
  • Well, that polling also showed that majorities in Minnesota and Wisconsin believe Trump has encouraged violence in America. Meanwhile, national polls have shown that majorities see Trump as making things worse, not better.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • The upshot: Whatever doubts persist about Biden, the balance he strikes is still seen as preferable to Trump’s false binary, which is seen as destructive, even deliberately so. Biden’s balance would be more effective in addressing the deep civic tensions and even the violence unleashed in the wake of police killings.
  • Political scientist Omar Wasow recently offered an explanation for all this. Wasow noted that during Richard Nixon’s 1968 “law and order” campaign, a supposed model for Trump’s, public sentiment was better classified as a tripartite set of opinions, as opposed to Trump’s binary.
  • In that scheme, Wasow noted, voters perceived the existence of an extreme position, the promise to “use all available force.” Nixon was seen as a moderate, between liberal Hubert Humphrey and segregationist George Wallace, who helped moderate Nixon’s position by being associated with the extreme one.
  • Wasow concluded that it’s plausible Biden is becoming the candidate of “safety,” even as Trump is becoming the Wallace-like extremist. As Jonathan Chait notes, Trump is the candidate of Wallace’s “vicious authoritarianism,” while Biden is “the one candidate opposed to violence in American cities across the board.”
  • Trump’s position just is the exhortation to “use all available force.” Trump’s position at bottom is law and order without the rule of law, which really amounts to unshackled state and even vigilante violence, something Trump has actively encouraged, provided it’s waged by his people.
delgadool

The extremists taking part in riots across the US: What we do and don't know - CNNPolitics - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by delgadool on 01 Jun 20 - No Cached
  • the state is looking at data from arrests and human intelligence that points to some outside influence seeking to capitalize on the situation and create unrest.
  • Trump and Barr have focused on Antifa, the FBI and other agencies are tracking groups from both the extremist right and left involved in the riots and attacks on police.
  • Those domestic extremist groups include anarchists, anti-government groups often associated with far-right extremists and white supremacy causes, and far-left extremists who identify with anti-fascist ideology.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Trump has also blamed Democratic officials in Minnesota and other states where violence has occurred. "Get tough Democrat Mayors and Governors. These people are ANARCHISTS. Call in our National Guard NOW," Trump tweeted Sunday.
  • Minnesota officials said this weekend white supremacists and others were mixing in with legitimate protestors. Authorities there are looking at connections between those arrested and white supremacist organizers who have posted online about coming to Minnesota. Officials have also tracked messages about seeking to loot and whether there was a connection to organized crime.
  • Walz also said the state was looking at who was behind a "very sophisticated" denial of service attack on all state computers that was executed on Saturday. "That's not somebody sitting in their basement, that's pretty sophisticated," he said.
katherineharron

Trump and Biden cross paths in Florida in final election sprint as virus rages - CNNPol... - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

election

shared by katherineharron on 30 Oct 20 - No Cached
  • Former Vice President Joe Biden and President Donald Trump went head-to-head in the mighty swing state of Florida on Thursday, as the US crossed a daily record with more than 88,000 new coronavirus cases
  • Biden thanked attendees for wearing masks and staying six feet apart
  • Biden's visit to Trump's adopted home state was the latest example of his bid to expand the electoral map in the campaign's final stretch by spending ample time in states that Trump won in 2016,
  • ...19 more annotations...
  • "The heart and soul of this country's at stake right in Florida. It's up to you. You hold the key," Biden told a diverse group of voters. "If Florida goes blue, it's over. It's over."
  • Biden's visit Thursday was preceded by events in recent days featuring former President Barack Obama, who won the state twice.
  • Trump won those three Midwestern states by less than a percentage point in 2016, and Biden's kinship with the blue collar voters who live in working class towns like Scranton, Pennsylvania, where he lived as a young boy, was one of the major selling points to Democratic primary voters
  • While Trump has campaigned, both in 2016 and 2020, as a voice for the "forgotten men and women" who live in those communities, Biden has argued that the President ignored their needs while helping his wealthy allies
  • A key facet of Biden's success in 2020, however, is that he has cut into Trump's margins with White voters who do not hold a college degree -- a trend he hopes to accelerate in the closing days of the campaign as he tends to those key Midwestern states.
  • Trump predicted the US would see "the greatest red wave" in history on Tuesday.
  • No swing state looms larger than Florida, prized for its 29 electoral votes and its role as a national barometer.
  • They say the fact that he has nobody at all show up is because of Covid. No, it's because nobody shows up," Trump said to laughter in Tampa. "And I think that's the ultimate poll. And based on the numbers that we're getting, we're going to do really well on Tuesday."
  • The two candidates will cross paths again on Friday when they both campaign in Wisconsin and Minnesota,
  • "He knows if you vote, he can't win. He knows when America votes, they reject people like him,"
  • Trump renewed his efforts to cut into Biden's margins within the diverse community of Latino voters in Florida. At this late stage of the race, Biden is struggling to win over Latinos at the same level that Clinton did as Democratic allies worry that time is running out, and both candidates made their cases to voters of Cuban, Venezuelan and Puerto Rican descent on Thursday.
  • The President's last minute effort in Minnesota, which Clinton won last cycle, appears to be even more of a long shot. Biden held a double-digit lead over Trump last month in the Washington Post/ABC News poll there
  • One of the perils for Trump in Florida is his sliding support among seniors, which has been driven in part by broad disapproval of his handling of the coronavirus and the fact that older voters have been disproportionately affected by Covid-19.
  • the President downplayed the fall surge in coronavirus cases during his huge rally in Tampa
  • The push by the two Trump allies to curtail the number of tests coincided with a precipitous drop in testing in Florida, according to CNN reporting, and the state is now grappling with the fall surge.
  • Trump claimed that the smaller attendance prescribed by the Biden campaign is driven by a lack of enthusiasm.
  • he tried to push back throughout the day on the President's false claims about rampant voter fraud and what he views as Trump's efforts to suppress the vote, particularly in Black and Brown communities.
  • "Donald Trump just held a superspreader event here again. He's spreading more than just coronavirus. He's spreading division and discord," he said hours later in Tampa.
  • "Millions of people out there are out of work, on the edge. Can't see the light at the end of the tunnel and Donald Trump has given up," Biden said.
malonema1

Why Trump's China spat has 2018 consequences - CNNPolitics - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

economics US

shared by malonema1 on 01 May 18 - No Cached
  • President Donald Trump's decision to crack down on Chinese trade practices may seem a world away from the rural roads of Martin County, Minnesota, the self-proclaimed "Bacon Capitol of the USA."
  • "I think the marketplace is speaking for itself. Hog futures are down. Stock market is down," says David Preisler, the CEO for the Minnesota Pork Board said Wednesday. "There are some pieces in the President's trade policy that we really like, but this is a big piece that we don't."
  • And tariffs on soybeans, a cash crop for much of the Midwest, could impact key Senate races in North Dakota and Ohio, two states in the top 10 of soybean producing states.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Hagedorn's district includes Minnesota's entire border with Iowa and has been represented by Democrat Tim Walz since 2007. But he decided to run for governor in 2018, opening up a race in a district where Trump beat Democrat Hillary Clinton by 15 points.But the Republican was clearly worried about Trump's latest volley with China."I trust the President is going to do everything he can to make sure our farmers have markets globally and we are not penalized," he said.
  • But multiple top White House officials have looked to cushion that possibility of a trade war by arguing that not only is the United States trying to avoid a tit-for-tat with China, but that the tariffs are just posturing.
  • We want free and fair trade and to be quite honest there are issue with China," Kim Reynolds, Iowa's Republican governor, said this week. "We need to figure out a way to hold them accountable but we need make sure that we are not having untended consequences by getting into a trade war. Nobody wins a trade war.
Javier E

Gretchen Whitmer Isn't Backing Down - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...whitmer-michigan-protests.html

michigan response pandemic politics crisis policy

shared by Javier E on 19 Apr 20 - No Cached
  • the gathering, like similar ones held in the electoral battleground states of Ohio, Minnesota and North Carolina, was also the clearest sign yet of a simmering ideological movement on the right resisting government mandates over the virus.
  • The protests at state capitals in recent days had the feel of early Tea Party rallies in 2009, with far-right conservatives taking a lead role and more cautious elected Republicans keeping their distance.
  • In a survey released Thursday by the Pew Research Center, very conservative Americans were twice as likely as others to worry that businesses would reopen too slowly.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • very conservative voters are more likely to allude to a sense of outrage over having their public conduct restricted, rather than caution about the economic implications of the shutdown.
  • Republican lawmakers in Michigan, who had backed an earlier, less restrictive executive order, blasted the governor. They moved to strip Ms. Whitmer’s power to declare a state of emergency under a 1945 law.
  • “Here’s my message today: OUR Governor IS DESTROYING OUR HEALTH BY KILLING OUR LIVELIHOODS!” the State Senate majority leader, Mike Shirkey, tweeted this month.
  • ew other states outside the northeast have been as hard hit by the virus as Michigan, which recorded 2,226 deaths as of Friday, and where the intersection of race, presidential politics and Ms. Whitmer’s vice-presidential prospects have turned the perennial battleground into a political tinderbox.
  • the images of nearly all-white protesters demanding the governor relax restrictions while hoisting Trump signs and Confederate battle flags, as the virus disproportionately impacts Michigan’s black residents, will only further cleave the state.
  • Less noticed is another flash point. A number of white Michiganders — many of them affluent but some firmly in the middle-class — have summer homes “up north,” as the sprawling upper tier of the state’s lower peninsula is called. Ms. Whitmer’s order that people not travel between their residences — meant to protect rural towns and rural hospitals from being overwhelmed with the virus — has particularly inflamed those state residents eager to get to their cottages.
Javier E

Scientists' world of truth and knowledge couldn't be further from Trump's - The Washing... - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...a-878a-86477a724bdb_story.html

truth knowledge science trump culture contradiction nihilism moral pandemic

shared by Javier E on 24 Apr 20 - No Cached
  • Scientific knowledge is often difficult to gather, interpret or apply. But the scientific profession at least seeks access to a shared reality. The virus is carried on the air conditioning flow or it is not. The vaccine works or it doesn’t. Scientific truth can be elusive. But the idea of objective knowledge is not itself under assault.
  • Medicine has a moral clarity that makes politics look ever muddier in comparison.
  • President Trump’s goal — on the days that one is discernible — is the maintenance of power.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • he assumes (on good evidence) that anyone who shares his side in the culture war will embrace his delusional, self-serving depiction of reality. Or that people will at least conclude that no one’s version of reality can really be trusted.
  • Trump unfiltered is like a badly polluted canal. The scraps of narcissism, the rotten remnants of conspiracy theories, the offal of sour grievance, the half-eaten bits of resentment flow by. They do not cohere. But they move in the same, insistent current of self, self, self.
  • The president wants credit for listening to health experts on social distancing when he had no other choice. He also wants to send a theatrical online wink and nod to the populist opponents of social distancing: “LIBERATE MINNESOTA!” “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” “LIBERATE VIRGINIA!”
  • Will his double game result in risky behavior and additional deaths in Minnesota, Michigan and Virginia? This seems beside the point. Trump is not making an argument. He is assuming a pose. He wants to be president and provocateur. He wants to be fireman and arsonist. He contradicts himself. He is large. He contains multitudes.
  • In the coronavirus crisis, the scientists are not only our best hope of solving practical problems related to treatment and testing. They are reminders of a moral universe where truth matters, where responsibility is accepted and where a commitment to the common good can be assumed.
clairemann

Justices will decide whether to reinstate death penalty for Boston Marathon bomber - SC... - 0 views

www.scotusblog.com/...lty-for-boston-marathon-bomber

SCOTUS Politics US history

shared by clairemann on 25 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • the Supreme Court announced on Monday that it would review the case of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was sentenced to death for his role in the 2013 bombings.
  • The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit threw out his death sentences last year, ruling that the district court should have asked potential jurors what media coverage they had seen about Tsarnaev’s case
  • Federal law gives district courts the discretion to order someone who is in that district to give testimony or produce documents “for use in a foreign or international tribunal.” In Servotronics, the justices will decide whether that discretion extends to discovery for use in a private foreign arbitration.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • The justices once again did not act on a high-profile petition from the state of Mississippi asking the court to review the constitutionality of a state law that bans virtually all abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Lower courts struck down the law.
  • Obama relied on the Antiquities Act of 1906, which allows the president to declare national monuments on “land owned or controlled by the federal government.” The designation resulted in a ban on most commercial fishing, prompting a group of commercial-fishing associations to go to court, where they argued that the designation as a monument went beyond Obama’s power under the Antiquities Act because submerged land in the ocean is not land “controlled” by the federal government.
  • . Sotomayor stressed that Longoria’s case “implicates an important and longstanding split among the Courts of Appeals over the proper interpretation of” the commentary, with most circuits concluding that “a suppression hearing is not a valid basis for denying the reduction.”
  • The Sixth Amendment guarantees “the right to a speedy and public trial.” In Smith v. Titus, the Supreme Court on Monday turned down the case of a Minnesota man who was convicted of murder for the shooting deaths of two people who had broken into his home.
  • Smith argued that the decision to close the courtroom violated his rights under the Sixth Amendment. The Minnesota Supreme Court rejected that argument, and federal courts turned down Smith’s requests for post-conviction relief. Smith came to the Supreme Court in November, contending that the state supreme court’s ruling was contrary to clearly established Supreme Court decisions – the standard for relief under federal post-conviction laws.
carolinehayter

'Set the standard': Cuomo allegations test Democrats' commitment to #MeToo | Andrew Cuo... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...omo-allegation-democrats-metoo

politics US culture policy

shared by carolinehayter on 08 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • New York Democrats have called for the governor to resign over sexual harassment allegations, but no national figures have joined the chorus
  • But no other national Democrats have joined the chorus. The Axios website branded it the party’s “hypocrisy moment”, arguing: “Governor Andrew Cuomo should be facing explicit calls to resign from President Biden on down, if you apply the standard that Democrats set for similar allegations against Republicans. And it’s not a close call.”
  • But in 2017, as the #MeToo movement held powerful men accountable, Kirsten Gillibrand, a senator who holds Hillary Clinton’s former seat in New York, argued that the former president should have resigned over the affair.
  • ...15 more annotations...
  • The charge of double standards points to a steep learning curve for a party that has struggled to keep pace with shifting public attitudes towards gender roles, power dynamics and sexual boundaries.
  • That same year, Gillibrand became the first Democratic senator to call for her Minnesota colleague Al Franken to quit over allegations of sexual misconduct. She was joined by others including Kamala Harris, who tweeted: “Sexual harassment and misconduct should not be allowed by anyone and should not occur anywhere. I believe the best thing for Senator Franken to do is step down.”Franken did just that, but some critics now believe that he was the victim of a rush to judgment and should have been allowed to wait for the results of an investigation.
  • This time, although Gillibrand said Cuomo’s alleged conduct was “completely unacceptable”, she stopped short of demanding he resign before the investigation is done
  • “The vice-president’s view is that she believes all women should be treated with respect. Their voices should be heard. They should tell their story. There’s an independent investigation that is happening now, being overseen by the New York attorney general, and she certainly supports that.”
  • But this puts Democratic leaders out of step with groups such as Women’s March, which was born out of the January 2017 protests against Donald Trump, who faced numerous allegations of sexual assault and harassment
  • “We share the view that there should be an independent investigation but Cuomo himself has not even denied many of the harassment allegations and, for us, it’s about behaviour that is disqualifying. It could be illegal, but it also could not be illegal.”
  • Just as the instant deification then instant demonisation of Cuomo has left many crying out for nuance and complexity, so it can be said that no two cases of sexual harassment in politics are quite the same.
  • In 2018 Eric Schneiderman, an attorney general of New York lauded as a liberal advocate of women’s rights, resigned after being accused of physically abusing four women. Cuomo was among those who were quick to call for him to step down.
  • Trump’s nominee to the supreme court, Brett Kavanaugh, was nearly derailed by allegations from Dr Christine Blasey Ford that he sexually assaulted her
  • In 2019 several women accused Biden of making unwanted physical contact.
  • Last year Tara Reade, a former Senate staffer, alleged that Biden sexually assaulted her in 1993. He vehemently denied the claim, which remained unsubstantiated and faded from the election race. Biden picked a woman – Harris – as his running mate and often highlighted his work as lead sponsor of the Violence Against Women Act.
  • Larry Jacobs, the director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota, said: “In hindsight, a number of the Democrats in the Senate who had pushed him to step down later expressed regret. They realised they moved too quickly, they didn’t know enough and the punishment didn’t really fit what they later learnt to be the misbehaviour.”
  • sexual
  • “I don’t think the Republican party is in any position to be lecturing anyone about how to handle sexual harassment. They seem to have actually gotten real expertise on how to evade it.”
  • “Just because we fire Andrew Cuomo and Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein, that doesn’t alone solve the problem. The bigger problem is still there, which is that harassment is seen as an acceptable part of our culture. That’s why so many of these people in power are doing it. So yes, we need to respond and uproot harassment wherever it lies but we also need to keep our eye on the ball.”
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