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mattrenz16

Vienna 'terror attack' near synagogue: Live updates - 0 views

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

shared by mattrenz16 on 03 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • A nationwide lockdown was about to go into effect at midnight to combat Covid-19, so she wanted to "take advantage of the last night," she told CNN on the phone.
  • “Europe strongly condemns this cowardly act that violates life and our human values. My thoughts are with the victims and the people of Vienna in the wake of tonight’s horrific attack. We stand with Austria.” 
  • “I am deeply shocked by the terrible attacks in Vienna tonight. The UK’s thoughts are with the people of Austria - we stand united with you against terror.”
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  • “Terrifying and disturbing news from Vienna: Even we don’t know the full extent of the terror yet, our thoughts are with the injured and victims at this difficult time. We will not give way to hatred which is aimed at dividing our societies,”
  • “shock and sorrow” being felt by the Austrian people, adding: “After France, it is a friendly country that is under attack. This is our Europe. Our enemies must know who they are dealing with. We will yield nothing.”
  • “Our hearts go out to the victims of the attack in Vienna and their families. Belgium supports our Austrian friends in these tough moments.”
  • “there must be no place for hatred and violence in our common European house. Solidarity with the Austrian people, the relatives of the victims and the injured.”
  • "Following the information that comes from Vienna during a painful evening with an attack that doesn’t make sense. Hate won’t defeat our societies. Europe will stand firm against terrorism. Our love to the victims families and solidarity with the Austrian people."
  • "Thoughts are with our friends in #Austria tonight after a terror attack in Vienna."
  • “We are saddened to receive the news that there are dead and wounded as a result of the terrorist attack that took place in Vienna. We strongly condemn this attack ... extend our condolences to the families of those who lost their lives and wish speedy recovery to the wounded. As a country that has been fighting against all sorts of terrorism for decades Turkey stands in solidarity with the Austrian people.”
  • Fifteen people are being treated in hospital in the wake of the attack, including seven who were seriously injured, according to Binder.share with Facebookshare with Twittershare with emailshare link
  • Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has said the Vienna shooting is “definitely a terror attack."
  • He added that "an anti-Semitic motive cannot be excluded" due to the attack's proximity to a synagogue in the city center.
  • One of the suspects has been shot dead, police said, but authorities are continuing to search for the others. Kurz said a police officer is among the injured, but is “thankfully not in danger."share with Facebookshare with Twittershare with emailshare link
mattrenz16

Will Thanksgiving be a superspreading event? Look to Canada for answers - CNN - 0 views

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

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  • Several cities and provinces have shattered single day records for coronavirus infections, and Canada's top doctors say the holiday -- held on October 12 -- is partly to blame.
  • Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has for weeks warned that coronavirus precautions will result in a very different kind of Thanksgiving for many people this year, himself included.
  • "You may have to bite the bullet and sacrifice that social gathering, unless you're pretty certain that the people that you're dealing with are not infected. Either they've been very recently tested, or they're living a lifestyle in which they don't have any interaction with anybody except you and your family."
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  • For weeks, Canadian political leaders in virus hotspots have barred dine-in eating, closed gyms and theaters, and restricted large gatherings.
  • With a surge in cases ongoing and more holidays to come on the calendar, many hospitals in Canada are now activating surge capacity plans, adding temporary Covid-19 units and more acute care beds.
  • "Clearly, even though we haven't, in Canada, experienced one of the catastrophic scenarios we fretted over in April, we shouldn't feel too safe," Dr. Francois Lamontagne, a clinician and scientist at the University of Sherbrooke in Quebec, told CNN.
  • But Lamontagne said he's also concerned about how some people now distrust authorities and the medical advice they dispense about the virus.
  • The United States has recorded more than 9.1 million infections and 230,548 deaths during the pandemic, according to data from Johns Hopkins University (JHU).
  • The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also recently released guidance on holiday gatherings and what Americans need to be aware of before traveling, hosting or attending parties -- or just gathering with family and friends over the Thanksgiving holiday.
  • The lowest risk for contracting the highly infectious virus or spreading it is simply celebrating Thanksgiving in your own home with members of your household and/or virtually with extended family, the CDC said.
  • Traveling during the holidays, on planes or public transportation, increases the chances of catching and spreading Covid-19 because it increases exposure to the virus, the CDC said in its holiday guidelines.
mattrenz16

Federal authorities expected to erect 'non-scalable' fence around White House - CNNPoli... - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...hite-house-fence-erected-again

shared by mattrenz16 on 03 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • Federal authorities are expected to put back into place a "non-scalable" fence around the entire perimeter of the White House on Monday as law enforcement and other agencies prepare for possible protests surrounding the election, a source with knowledge of the matter confirmed to CNN.
  • The fence, the same type that was put up during protests this summer, will encompass the Ellipse and Lafayette Square.
  • NBC News was first to report the new fencing. A Secret Service spokeswoman declined to comment to CNN, saying the agency does not comment on security measures.
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  • But as of Monday, Chris Rodriguez, the director of DC's Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency, told reporters that "we don't have any specific or credible threats for [around] the election."
  • Half a dozen groups, Rodriguez said, have requested permits for protests and there will likely be "First Amendment activities" in the coming days. As a result, the Metropolitan Police Department will be "fully mobilized" and the emergency operations center will be activated on a 24-hour basis as long as needed.
  • The city, he added, has not requested any federal resources.As CNN previously reported, the immediate perimeters around the White House have already been largely blocked off to the public this year for a range of reasons, from construction on the White House gate, to protests and looting that occurred in downtown Washington in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May.
mattrenz16

US special operations forces rescue American citizen held hostage in Nigeria - CNNPolitics - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...ration-american-citizen-africa

shared by mattrenz16 on 03 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • US special operations forces on Saturday rescued an American citizen taken hostage by armed men earlier this week in Niger and held in northern Nigeria, the Pentagon said.
  • "U.S. forces conducted a hostage rescue operation during the early hours of 31 October in Northern Nigeria to recover an American citizen held hostage by a group of armed men. This American citizen is safe and is now in the care of the U.S. Department of State. No U.S military personnel were injured during the operation," Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said in a statement.
  • The US forces who conducted the mission killed six of the seven captors, the official said.
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  • The governor, Abdourahamane Moussa, told these media outlets that after demanding money, the men took the American citizen with them in the direction of the Nigerian border.
  • On Saturday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the US citizen would be reunited with his family.
  • "Thanks to the extraordinary courage and capabilities of our military, the support of our intelligence professionals, and our diplomatic efforts, the hostage will be reunited with his family," Pompeo said in a statement. "We will never abandon any American taken hostage."
mattrenz16

Supreme Court rules in favor of Black Lives Matter organizer McKesson - CNNPolitics - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...t-black-lives-matter-organizer

shared by mattrenz16 on 02 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • The Supreme Court wiped away a lower court opinion related to Black Lives Matter protests that critics argued would chill the speech rights of demonstrators and dismantle civil rights era precedent that safeguards the First Amendments' right to protest.
  • In an unsigned order, the justices sent the case back down to the lower courts to further review Louisiana law holding that before getting to important constitutional questions, more guidance from state courts is necessary.
  • Justice Amy Coney Barrett did not participate in the decision, the Supreme Court's public information officer said, because she was busy preparing for oral arguments. Justice Clarence Thomas dissented.
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  • The officer suffered from a brain injury, loss of teeth, and a head injury.
  • A federal appeals court allowed the suit to go forward in a decision that stunned civil liberties communities who argued that if the opinion is left on the books it would chill the speech rights of protesters and dismantle civil rights era precedent that safeguard's the First Amendment's right to protest. The Supreme Court has held that lawful protestors cannot be held liable when someone within their ranks commits unlawful activity.
  • "The Supreme Court has long recognized that peaceful protesters cannot be held liable for the unintended, unlawful actions of others," said American Civil Liberties Union National Legal Director David Cole, who is representing McKesson. "If the law had allowed anyone to sue leaders of social justice movements over the violent actions of others, there would have been no Civil Rights Movement. The lower court's ruling is a threat to the First Amendment rights of millions of Americans."
  • "The First Amendment does not condone physical violence," a group of First Amendment lawyers represented by Acting Solicitor General Walter Dellinger told the court in support of McKesson. Dellinger argued that while the Constitution does not excuse the attacker's "criminal, tortious and morally indefensible conduct," it does protect the organizer who "neither committed nor incited" the illegal activity.
mattrenz16

US election 2020: What India thinks of the US election (opinion) - CNN - 0 views

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

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  • While President Donald Trump doesn't enjoy the same support as predecessors former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush -- presumably because of his trade threats and his restrictions on visas for highly-skilled workers, most of which go to Indians -- that broad approval remains largely intact, with 56% of Indians polled saying they had confidence in Trump to do the right thing on world affairs.
  • At one level, India and the US have continued to move their nascent strategic relationship forward with mutual concerns about China's territorial and political assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific serving as the backdrop.
  • The US president and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi have gone out of their respective ways to rub shoulders and share podiums with each other over the past four years.
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  • Modi has courted the US administration by inviting Ivanka Trump to India, inviting Trump himself to an Indian-American "Howdy Modi" rally in Houston and, most spectacularly, ensuring the US president received the largest possible audience during his visit to India with events that included a 100,000-strong rally in Gujarat.
  • Senior Indian officials say relations between the leaders of major countries are driven overwhelmingly by national interests and only marginally by personalities. They point to Modi's excellent working relationship with Obama, whom Modi invited to be chief guest at India's Republic Day parade.
  • Modi is best known for his religion-infused nationalism, but he is also a fervent proponent of climate action andr has massively expanded his country's welfare programs.
  • If Biden wins, the Indian government can be expected to re-engage on climate issues, an easing of immigration restrictions and a resumption of less rancorous trade talks.
  • Democrats have criticized these policies as human rights abuses that are biased against Muslims; Indian officials argue that these are a misunderstanding of what the legislation sought to accomplish.
  • Indians, great admirers of the US and its technological capabilities, have been bewildered at how the nation has blundered its way through the pandemic.
  • When it became clear India's rickety healthcare system and unruly federal structure were failing to contain the virus, Modi agreed to impose one of the severest economic lockdowns in the world.
  • Trump, in turn, has compared the US's record on testing favorably to that of India's and claimed India and other countries are not giving proper counts of their Covid fatality numbers.
  • There is also considerable vicarious pride in the choice of an Indian-American, Sen. Kamala Harris, as Biden's running mate. One noticeable characteristic of the present campaign is the degree to which both candidates have gone to woo the Indian-American community. That the US is home to what is perceived by Indians as their most successful diaspora is just one more -- and arguably the most lasting -- reason that India and the US will remain close, irrespective of election results in either country.
mattrenz16

How South Africa is viewing Trump vs. Biden (opinion) - CNN - 0 views

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

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  • South Africans are painfully aware that their country generally does not loom large, if at all, in the awareness of most Americans, nor in the policies of their government.
  • But that doesn't mean they're not waiting with keen interest to see the outcome of Tuesday's race between Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
  • US involvement in South Africa peaked during the Cold War.
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  • During the apartheid years, the White minority governments aligned themselves with the Western nations and leveraged SA's militarily strategic position to maximize British and US support.
  • The government's views tend to be at odds with those of President Donald Trump's administration over Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Iran, the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and the seemingly intractable issue of Palestinian statehood, of which Ramaphosa's government is a vocal supporter.
  • There was anger when he tagged all of Africa, along with Haiti, as "shithole" countries, causing an affronted South African administration to summon the US chargé d'affaires for a dressing down.
  • President Cyril Ramaphosa's government seized on the #BlackLivesMatter protests to lament George Floyd's "regrettable death" and condescendingly observed that the incident "[presented] the USA with an opportunity to address fundamental issues of human rights."
  • This support, articulated by President Ronald Reagan as "constructive engagement," alienated the oppressed Black majority and left a lingering bad taste with many in Nelson Mandela's African National Congress, which has been the ruling party since South Africa's first democratic election in 1994.
  • Privately, it has a preference for Biden, with a government analyst telling me that South Africa believes the Democratic candidate would return to the multilateralism that Trump has scorned and is expected to be less protectionist and isolationist when it comes to China.
  • South Africa is dependent on a strong economic relationship with the US. There are around 600 US firms here, with many making SA their springboard to the rest of Africa.
  • The US is South Africa's third-biggest export destination and the country benefits from the Generalized System of Preferences trade program and the country hopes to continue to benefit from the US African Growth and Opportunity Act, currently under review.
  • Trump's stance on Israel has also drawn strong but quiet support from some sectors of South Africa's shrinking Jewish community, which numbers barely more than 50,000, equivalent to only 0.1% of the country's population of 58 million.
mattrenz16

Opinion: The single most important quality a president must have - CNN - 0 views

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

shared by mattrenz16 on 02 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • Former President Franklin D. Roosevelt loved the prayer so much that in 1945 he had it engraved in the mantel above a stone fireplace in the State Dining Room.
  • These sentiments about honor and wisdom, shared for over two centuries by our best presidents, are now at the center of this year's presidential contest.
  • Within a decade, faith in the federal government as a whole dropped 41 points.
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  • Faith in elected leaders rose to 55% in 2002, but by 2015 -- just before Trump took office -- it had dropped again, this time to only 19% of Americans saying they trusted the federal government all or most of the time.
  • Washington Post cataloging his over 20,000 false or misleading statements.
  • And a recent Pew poll measuring international sentiments across 13 countries found that the international community was more trusting of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping than of Trump.
  • Indeed, I believe that the restoration of trust should be the single highest priority of our next president. Everything else will flow from there.
  • First, our next president should set a new tone in the White House on day one, proclaiming that honesty, dignity and respect for others will be the new marching orders.
  • Ford proclaimed "that truth is the glue" that holds us all together. He believed it and soon his followers did, too.
  • Second, our next president needs every department to review and refresh its ethics codes and then require every new political appointee to attend no-nonsense briefings on what is in bounds and what is out of bounds.
  • Third, our next president needs to review and overhaul those who now serve as inspectors general across the federal landscape.
  • In writing his magisterial biography of Harry Truman, historian David McCullough concluded that character is the single most important quality a president must have.
  • So, the question before us is simple: Will the wise and the honest prevail over the next four years? The answer really rests with you, the voters. You are the ultimate stewards of our democracy.
mattrenz16

In Dash to Finish, Biden and Trump Set Up Showdown in Pennsylvania - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...trump-biden-campaign.html

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  • PHILADELPHIA — As the national early vote climbs past a staggering 93 million and challenges to the electoral process intensify across states, President Trump and Joseph R. Biden Jr. are barreling into Pennsylvania and turning it into the top battleground in Tuesday’s election, with Democrats flooding in with door-knockers and Republicans trying to parlay Mr. Trump’s rallies into big turnout once again.
  • Pennsylvania has more Electoral College votes, 20, than any other traditional battleground except Florida, and Mr. Trump won the state by less than one percentage point in 2016.
  • Mr. Biden is ahead with a modest margin in recent polls, and is trying to cut into the president’s turnout in rural counties. But Mr. Trump’s rallies have energized many Republican voters, and his team is already preparing legal challenges over the vote if it ends up being close.
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  • “Every day is a new reminder of how high the stakes are, how far the other side will go to try to suppress the turnout,” Mr. Biden said as he campaigned here Sunday. “Especially here in Philadelphia. President Trump is terrified of what will happen in Pennsylvania.”
  • Some Trump supporters also turned disruptive on Sunday: Vehicles bearing Trump flags halted traffic on the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey; local officials said the motorcade backed up traffic for several miles. In Georgia, a rally for Democrats that had been scheduled was canceled, with organizers citing worries over what they feared was a “large militia presence” drawn by Mr. Trump’s own event nearby.
  • Mr. Biden, by contrast, set his sights squarely on Pennsylvania on Sunday, an approach he will repeat again Monday, along with a foray into Ohio, a state Mr. Trump won handily in 2016 but that polls show could be more competitive now.
  • Throughout his final sprint of rallies, Mr. Trump has moved to baselessly sow doubt about the integrity of the electoral process.
  • Democrats are well aware of how devoted Mr. Trump’s core base remains. In Macomb County in Michigan, where the president held his first rally Sunday, Irwin Patterson was selling Trump merchandise at a makeshift roadside store.
  • Later, he tweeted in response to the news that the F.B.I. was investigating the incident that “in my opinion, these patriots did nothing wrong,” adding that federal authorities should be scrutinizing antifa instead.
  • Of the three big Northern swing states Mr. Trump won by a hair four years ago, the once reliably blue state of Pennsylvania is the one his advisers believe is most likely within his reach. That’s in large part because of the support of rural voters and Mr. Biden’s call for eventually phasing out fossil fuels, an unpopular stance for many voters in a state with a large natural gas industry.
  • The Trump campaign ads running in Pennsylvania have been overwhelmingly centered on economic messages, mainly jobs and taxes. The campaign’s most aired ad in Pennsylvania over the past week has been a negative ad claiming Mr. Biden will raise taxes (he has said he will raise taxes for those making over $400,000).
  • But the Biden campaign has not ceded the subject to the president, with 14 different ads on air that touch on jobs and the economy. Its most aired ad in Pennsylvania over the past week featured a Biden speech outlining his plans for pandemic recovery, including jobs. Another ad directly rebuts the Trump campaign’s attacks on his tax plan.
  • Pennsylvania saw its unemployment rate fall to 8.1 percent in September, according to the Labor Department, nearly identical to the national rate of 7.9 percent. That is a significant improvement from the 16.1 percent unemployment it posted in April. But the state still had 380,000 fewer jobs in September than it did in September of 2019, and there are 18 percent fewer small businesses open here compared to a year ago, according to data compiled by the economists at Opportunity Insights.
mattrenz16

Why Blue Places Have Been Hit Harder Economically Than Red Ones - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ed-blue-economic-recovery.html

shared by mattrenz16 on 30 Oct 20 - No Cached
  • different mix of jobs in red and blue places.
  • The consistency of the partisan jobs gap contrasts with a shifting pattern of infections and deaths. In the spring, infection rates were far higher in blue states than in red states, with deaths even more skewed toward blue states, especially in and around New York. But the jobs gap has persisted even though red states have had higher case rates than blue states since June, and higher death rates since July.
  • Across all industries, 57 percent of employed people live in counties that Hillary Clinton won in 2016.
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  • Among hard-hit sectors in the pandemic, 59 percent of workers in lodging and food service; 63 percent in arts, entertainment and recreation; and 66 percent in information industries like publishing, film and telecommunications live in counties that Mrs. Clinton won.
  • In contrast, jobs in most sectors less harmed by the pandemic, like utilities, construction and manufacturing, are disproportionately located in counties that President Trump won in 2016.
  • local businesses like retail and restaurants have been slower to hire in places where more people can work from home.
  • Other factors that are correlated with partisanship are also systematically related to job losses during the pandemic. Employment has fallen more in larger metros and those metros with a higher cost of living — perhaps as people move away from cities, possibly to more affordable places, or as businesses struggle where rents and local wages are higher.
  • So that means more than two-thirds of the partisan gap can be explained by local job mix, size of the population, and cost of living.
  • Research suggests that individual choices contributed more than lockdown policies to declines in economic activity, and places that imposed few restrictions still lost jobs.
  • The coronavirus recession is unusual in that services employment (like at restaurants) has declined more than goods-sector employment (like at factories).
  • Still, the future looks far more promising than the present for blue states’ economies.
  • mattrenz16 on 30 Oct 20
     
    " different mix of jobs in red and blue places. The consistency of the partisan jobs gap contrasts with a shifting pattern of infections and deaths. In the spring, infection rates were far higher in blue states than in red states, with deaths even more skewed toward blue states, especially in and around New York. But the jobs gap has persisted even though red states have had higher case rates than blue states since June, and higher death rates since July. Across all industries, 57 percent of employed people live in counties that Hillary Clinton won in 2016. Among hard-hit sectors in the pandemic, 59 percent of workers in lodging and food service; 63 percent in arts, entertainment and recreation; and 66 percent in information industries like publishing, film and telecommunications live in counties that Mrs. Clinton won. In contrast, jobs in most sectors less harmed by the pandemic, like utilities, construction and manufacturing, are disproportionately located in counties that President Trump won in 2016. local businesses like retail and restaurants have been slower to hire in places where more people can work from home. Other factors that are correlated with partisanship are also systematically related to job losses during the pandemic. Employment has fallen more in larger metros and those metros with a higher cost of living - perhaps as people move away from cities, possibly to more affordable places, or as businesses struggle where rents and local wages are higher. So that means more than two-thirds of the partisan gap can be explained by local job mix, size of the population, and cost of living. Research suggests that individual choices contributed more than lockdown policies to declines in economic activity, and places that imposed few restrictions still lost jobs. The coronavirus recession is unusual in that services employment (like at restaurants) has declined more than goods-sector employment (like at factories). Still, the future looks far more promising t
mattrenz16

Iran Is Behind Threatening Emails Sent to Influence Election, U.S. Officials Say - The ... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...sia-election-interference.html

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  • WASHINGTON — Iran and Russia have both obtained American voter registration data, and Tehran used it to send threatening, faked emails to voters that were aimed at influencing the presidential election, top national security officials announced on Wednesday evening.
  • both of which would threaten to alter actual votes
  • And it was not clear that either nation hacked into voter registration systems
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Some of the spoofed emails, sent to Democratic voters, purported to be from pro-Trump far-right groups, including the Proud Boys.
  • Mr. Ratcliffe said the effort was aimed at hurting President Trump, and intelligence officials have said Iran opposes the president’s re-election. But if the emails had the effect of intimidating Democrats, they could also have hurt Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic nominee.
mattrenz16

Live Election Trump vs. Biden Updates: Town Hall Recap - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...trump-biden-town-halls

shared by mattrenz16 on 16 Oct 20 - No Cached
  • The forums replaced what was to be the second debate between the two candidates, after Mr. Trump rejected the decision by the Commission on Presidential Debates to hold the debate virtually because of Mr. Trump’s coronavirus diagnosis.
  • Mr. Trump also all but confirmed that he owed about $400 million to creditors, as reported in a New York Times investigation about his taxes.
  • Over on ABC News, at a very different octane and a very different volume, Mr. Biden answered policy questions from George Stephanopoulos.
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • Mr. Biden’s outing was not completely easy. He again dodged a question on expanding the Supreme Court if he gets elected, though he did say, that he would offer an answer before Election Day but wanted to see how the nomination process for Judge Amy Coney Barrett plays out first.
  • Mr. Biden also made some news, saying that his support of the 1994 crime bill — which has been blamed for the large-scale incarceration of Black people — was a “mistake,”
  • National polls released on Thursday showed Mr. Biden up by an average of more than 10 points.
  • The venerable NBC/WSJ poll did show Mr. Biden’s lead dropping from 14 points, right after the Sept. 29 debate, to 11 points.
  • In Arizona, for instance, two new polls found Mr. Biden ahead by four points and one found Mr. Trump ahead by one point.
  • But in several other swing states, Mr. Biden continues to retain comfortable leads.
  • He also dodged repeated questions about whether he had a negative coronavirus test immediately before the first presidential debate.
  • Mr. Biden got his numbers wrong on troop levels in Afghanistan relative to when he left office four years ago and mischaracterized an element of the Green New Deal, but generally avoided clear misstatements.
  • That day, Nov. 3 this year, instead represents the end of a six-week sprint during a record number of Americans cast their ballots in advance.
  • In an effort to make polling places less crowded on Election Day, many states have encouraged absentee voting, opened more in-person early-voting sites and, in a few cases, mailed ballots to all registered voters.
  • While the long lines were a vivid symbol of longstanding efforts to make voting more difficult — particularly for people of color — they also demonstrated the intensity of the desire to vote in an election that millions of Americans have waited for since the last one,
  • Yet the voters keep coming, intent on exercising a constitutional right and in hopes of shaping a better future for their country.
mattrenz16

As Trump Sows Doubts on Mail, Democrats Push More In-Person Voting - The New York Times - 1 views

www.nytimes.com/...emocrats-in-person-voting.html

shared by mattrenz16 on 02 Oct 20 - No Cached
  • Democrats in Philadelphia will push supporters to vote in person if they have not already requested a ballot.
  • The sudden shift in tactics in the biggest city in Pennsylvania, a critical swing state, reveals unease over President Trump’s war on mail-in voting and a rash of court rulings that are still altering the regulations that will govern how ballots are cast and counted in November.
  • Democrats vastly outnumber Republicans in absentee ballot requests in key battleground states; in Pennsylvania, nearly 1.5 million Democrats have requested a mail-in ballot, three times the requests from Republicans.
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  • Many state parties and officials continue to view voting by mail as essential amid the coronavirus pandemic.
  • As the president falsely claims that mail balloting is rife with fraud, and as the election system has been overtaxed by the vote-by-mail surge, voters across the country have been left to navigate a confusing process.
  • In Madison, Wis., by far the state’s most Democratic stronghold, the city clerk’s office received so many phone calls from voters worried about the Postal Service that on Saturday it dispatched 1,000 poll workers to more than 200 city parks. Their job was to collect ballots in an event the city called “Democracy in the Park.”
  • municipal fire stations next week.
  • The events gather groups of voters to drop off their absentee ballots in person at elections offices or drop boxes.
  • “I think Trump and the Republicans in general are trying to screw up mail-in voting,” said Mr. Velchoff,
  • On Thursday, the Biden campaign said it would begin door-to-door canvassing in battleground states.
  • “Our thought has always been that if we get 1,000 Democrats to vote by mail that wouldn’t have voted otherwise, and we lose 10 percent due to mistakes, we still gained 900 votes,” Mr. Bright said.
  • Officials there recently warned that a decision from the State Supreme Court instructing officials to discard so-called “naked ballots” — those that arrive without a secrecy envelope — could risk up to 40,000 votes in the city. That’s a significant amount in a Democratic city where Mr. Biden needs to run up the margins to have a chance at winning back Pennsylvania.
  • In Wisconsin, Republicans have sought to block officials from conducting mass ballot collections.
  • In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott issued a proclamation on Thursday restricting counties to just one ballot drop-off site each, requiring some of the state’s largest and most Democratic counties to close facilities on Friday.
mattrenz16

Election Live Updates: Trump's Refusal to Commit to a Peaceful Transfer of Power Underm... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...trump-vs-biden-election

shared by mattrenz16 on 24 Sep 20 - No Cached
  • But they carefully avoided any direct criticism of the president.
  • No president in modern memory has said what he said.
  • “Fundamental to democracy is the peaceful transition of power; without that, there is Belarus. Any suggestion that a president might not respect this Constitutional guarantee is both unthinkable and unacceptable,”
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  • “The peaceful transfer of power is enshrined in our Constitution and fundamental to the survival of our Republic. America’s leaders swear an oath to the Constitution. We will uphold that oath.”
  • President Trump’s refusal on Wednesday to commit to a peaceful transfer of power enraged Democrats and again put Republicans in a difficult position as their party leader continued to make remarks aimed at delegitimizing the election.
  • Earlier Wednesday, he flatly predicted that the presidential election would end up in the Supreme Court and said that was why he wanted a full slate of justices, barely concealing his hope for a friendly majority on the court.
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