Watch the Coverage Tonight on Election Day…I wouldn’t miss it, since the results of this Election Day may be the most important any of us have ever experienced. We’re in a battle over the soul of the nation, & we can hope & pray the side most representing honest moral values wins! If the GOP wins, it could signal a permanent decline for America into widespread corruption, greed, arrogance, lying & rogue authoritarianism. We’re better than that, so cross your fingers & toes that we’ll far outnumber those mesmerized Trumpeters bent on selling us out & sending our nation down the river. The sane/moral side is still in the majority, so let’s hope enough eligible Americans exercised their right to vote.
As we sit down to watch the Election Day returns, one thing that is tempering my optimism is remembering the shock of the 2016 election results, plus the timing of the caravan procession & latest good jobs report were fortunate for the GOP. But I’m encouraged by the uptick in early voting for young people & those who’ve never voted before, plus overall turnout is way up as early voting was almost double 2014 & the lines look long today. Pollsters have difficulty factoring in such a big increase in turnout: early-voting-turnout-2018-elections-midterms, but there’s a sense things are trending Dem. This looks more like a presidential election than a midterm, with total votes expected to pass 100 million. I have a quiet confidence it’s Trump who inspired them to vote, with most being motivated to vote against Trump’s party. And we all have a right to be horrified, since this demagogue presidency may represent the greatest threat to America in our lifetime! Those same thoughts were also recited by none other than Capt. Sully, like a lot of us lifelong Republicans, who says some very powerful things if you read his article in captain-sully-chesley-sullenberger-criticizes-donald-trump-gop & watch his must-see interview from capt-sullenberger-vote-against-republican-control.
America’s Future on the line this Election Day
So today America can start to rebound from the original election mistake in 2016 that was years in the making, seen in these perceptive excerpts from america-at-the-crossroads-on-the-eve-of-an-election-that-means-nothing-but-means-everything:
So, honestly, what’s the big deal? I ask that both facetiously and not, in a sense of genuine wonder. If you live in this country — if you live in the world, for that matter — you have seen and felt over the past two weeks why this election matters. It is difficult to put that into words with precision, however. Hardly anyone would deny that something has gone seriously wrong in the United States, although we clearly don’t all agree on what that is. That is a peculiar diagnosis, in some ways. Our national economy remains strong, according to most of the supposedly important indicators. We have been mired in the same pointless and nebulous overseas conflict for the last 17 years, but beyond that interminable waste of human lives, money and global goodwill, there is no serious threat of war with a foreign power. Looking past the spectacular episodes of violence that have become characteristic of our society, rates of violent crime are at or near historic lows. However you choose to define our national disorder, it cannot be captured in statistics like those.
Whatever is wrong is cultural or psychological or perhaps spiritual; maybe all three. It is not new, and it stretches from the top of our society down to the bottom. It expresses itself not in the most blatant and obvious signs of social disorder, but in apparently unrelated phenomena: Extraordinary levels of economic inequality; disturbingly high rates of suicide and drug overdoses; the poisonous universe of the internet, which was supposed to bring people together and maximize the spread of information but has instead done precisely the opposite, driving us into separate caves where we dance around tribal bonfires and worship false idols. It has become commonplace to say that Donald Trump and his allies are undermining democracy, and it’s hardly necessary to list a litany of examples: the hateful and divisive rhetoric, the mysterious relationship with the Russian government, the overt longing for a police state, the nudge-wink flirtation with white supremacy and other versions of far-right nationalism. All of that has happened, but to focus on those details as if they came from nowhere is the ultimate example of putting the cart before the horse. Democracy had been well and truly undermined before Trump and friends came along and perceived an opportunity.
Trump is only a symptom of what ails America, not the cause. If Trump was the vector that unleashed Cesar Sayoc Jr., who tried to blow up numerous prominent liberals with mail bombs, or Robert Bowers, who murdered 11 Jewish worshipers at their synagogue in Pittsburgh, that’s not the same as saying he bears personal responsibility for their actions. We all do, which is one reason why the last week or two have been so profoundly upsetting for so many of us. We all allowed this to happen. It’s crucially important for the Democratic Party to win this election. I say that with certain philosophical and political misgivings, and without being entirely sure that, in the larger sweep of history, it even matters. But a big victory on Tuesday would have enormous symbolic importance, not so much for the party and its candidates but for the rest of us. It would bring hope to many people who have felt hopeless for the last two years; it would suggest to many disheartened Americans that despite all the signals to the contrary, our destiny remains in our own hands. It’s important for the Democrats to win, but not because they are thriving and strong and know what they’re doing. That would be a laughable claim. If anything, the Democratic Party seems strikingly unprepared for this moment. It’s a timorous and internally conflicted coalition with no clear ideology.
But what I have to say admittedly isn’t be that different. It’s important for the Democrats to win because, as a friend of mine once put it, they are the only car in the driveway that will actually start. Like it or not (and I pretty much don’t), they are the only vaguely normal political party this country has at the moment. To be direct, they are the only party standing in the way of a slow-metastasizing and especially mendacious form of fascism. I have steered away from that word in pondering the Trump phenomenon; it usually feels lazy. But after the shocking events of the last two weeks, and after the ever-darker tone of last-minute Republican propaganda, no other word will do. Donald Trump is not Hitler (although there are some intriguing similarities) and the parallels between the current political situation in America and 1930s Germany are highly approximate. For one thing, the Nazis were entirely honest about their desire to dismantle democracy, build a police state and purge the nation of Jews and other undesirables. They told voters what they were going to do, and then they did it.
Today’s Republican Party, remade almost overnight in the image of its new leader, is like a horror-movie mashup character, part psychotic and part zombie. It can remember bits and pieces of its old life and its discarded, semi-coherent belief system; it feels compelled to pretend that those alleged principles somehow fit with its new creed of racial authoritarianism. It must pay lip service to democracy and the rule of law, while making clear to its followers that those things are not meant to apply to everyone across the board. It must claim to be the “least racist” party ever, and act outraged if accused of bigotry, while eagerly working to undo every progressive social reform of the last century. It’s imperative for Democrats to win this election because the decades-long process of moral and intellectual rot in the Republican Party has finally ended in a virulent and dangerous form of madness.
Republicans have almost entirely ditched traditional “conservative” politics in favor of a radical agenda to “define democracy downward” and remain in power indefinitely at the helm of a pseudo-democratic state built on racial and economic apartheid. A fascist state, in other words, whatever term it might apply to itself. Donald Trump catalyzed and accelerated this process, and became its major beneficiary. But he didn’t start it, and there’s no reason to believe it will stop when he departs the political scene. Do Democrats understand the grave and unique danger we face at this historical crossroads, where at least a third of Americans would be delighted to follow Trump and the Republicans into the darkness, and an unknown number of others would be willing to follow along? I don’t know. How well do any of us understand it? Do Democrats understand that only a forceful, positive agenda can short-circuit the surge of right-wing nationalism and begin to build a different model of America, and that defensive half-measures will never be enough? You know the answer to that one. Making that possible is up to us. That work can begin on Wednesday.
Watch Out Roger!
He might be the most slippery character in the history of politics, a former Nixon operative with a tattoo of Nixon on his back. As we can glean from these excerpts inside roger-stones-murky-relationship-wikileaks, it looks like it’s Stone’s time in the barrel:
Roger Stone can’t seem to get his story straight. In 2017, the political world’s most well-known “dirty trickster” denied ever having a direct line to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, as he repeatedly boasted during the 2016 election. Now, in light of new emails that show he communicated WikiLeaks’ pre-Election Day plans to at least one senior Trump campaign official in the weeks before the election, his recollection is changing yet again. Mueller, who is investigating whether the Trump campaign conspired with Russia to win the 2016 election, has been interviewing Stone associates and senior campaign officials in recent weeks—including campaign CEO Steve Bannon and the former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort. He’s reportedly trying to determine whether Stone coordinated the release of hacked emails from a senior Clinton campaign official, John Podesta, to distract from the damaging Access Hollywood tape, which showed Trump making vulgar comments about women. The tape was released just minutes before the email dump. Stone has long denied that he discussed WikiLeaks’s plans with Bannon or any other campaign official. “There are no such communications, and if Bannon says there are he would be dissembling,” Stone told The Washington Post as recently as Tuesday. But emails from Stone made public Thursday belie that claim. On October 4, 2016, three days before the Podesta emails were published, Stone emailed Bannon predicting “a load” of new WikiLeaks disclosures “every week going forward.” According to Swalwell, Stone “had an opportunity” to tell the committee about his WikiLeaks-related conversations with Bannon, but “he didn’t.”
Stone’s conflicting statements have been material to both federal and congressional investigators, who want to know whether Stone served as a conduit between the campaign, WikiLeaks, and Russia. Despite telling the committee that he never “had any communication with any Russians or individuals fronting for Russians, in connection with the 2016 presidential election,” Stone later acknowledged meeting with a Russian man named Henry Greenberg in May 2016 to obtain dirt on Hillary Clinton. With regard to Assange, Stone told the House Intelligence Committee that they only ever spoke through an intermediary, but Twitter direct messages show Stone communicating with the WikiLeaks Twitter account in October 2016. It’s widely understood that Assange is the primary administrator of that account. “It is very difficult—not impossible, but difficult—for Stone to walk the fine line between ‘intermediary’ and ‘co-conspirator,’” Honig said. But given what is known about how Russian intelligence illegally hacked the emails of both Podesta and the Democratic National Committee; how those hackers used both WikiLeaks and a Russian intelligence officer with the nom de guerre Guccifer 2.0 to disseminate the stolen materials; and how Stone had direct contact with WikiLeaks, Guccifer 2.0, and Bannon, that line seems to be blurring rapidly. “If Stone knew or should have known that the emails were illegally obtained … and took some step either to disseminate those stolen emails, or to encourage the hackers to continue their illegal work, or to assist in the overall effort to steal and disseminate the stolen emails,” Honig said, “then he likely crosses over into criminal co-conspirator or accomplice territory.”
Mueller may be about to drop some Breaking News!
Now’s the time to really pay close attention, as immediately after the midterms there is anticipation the Russiagate saga will enter a pivotal phase, possibly erupting into a series of bombshell headlines the likes of which could be unlike anything that’s ever happened in American political history. As a preview to lay the groundwork from which this scandal will build, here is a good article explaining what has already happened: special-counsel-russia-investigation-returns. Another good perspective of where we stand comes from this opening to robert-mueller-investigation:
Robert S. Mueller III did it. He really did it. He honored to the letter the Department of Justice guidelines that direct prosecutors and other to avoid actions that might influence the outcome of an election. Doing his work at Quiet Car levels for the past six weeks, the most raucous news to radiate from his investigation into collaboration between the Trump campaign and the Russians has been about its relative noiselessness. Without opening a tab to Google it, tell me the last time something big broke. Manafort’s guilty plea feels like it happened last year. I’ll bet you can’t even remember who got indicted last. Not that the special prosecutor went into hibernation, as CNN noted. His office did its sleuthing on padded feet, conducting at least nine sit-downs with convicted felon Paul Manafort in recent weeks; conversing with President Donald Trump’s legal team; and scrutinizing the connections between Trump devotee Roger Stone and WikiLeaks, which dumped the stolen Democratic emails late in the campaign. Did self-avowed dirty trickster Stone (more on him, later) and WikiLeaks coordinate an October surprise in the release of the hacked Podesta emails?
The press has filled the quiet period with speculations of what will come next. With the baffles taken off his investigation, how high will Mueller turn up the volume? Will he complete and file his report on Russian meddling to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein? Will Rosenstein still have a job by the time the report is complete, or will he have been swept out by the president along with Attorney General Jeff Sessions? Will Trump have Mueller sacked, too? Or will Mueller issue new indictments in the case? Will he taper off his investigation? Will he go to court in an attempt to force the president to testify? Has the president already been subpoenaed? Will he amp his investigation up with an excursion into previously unexplored realms of corruption illuminated by the insights of Manafort and former Trump attorney Michael Cohen, who has so completely turned on his former boss he is encouraging people to vote Democratic?
Finally, if Mueller finds no evidence of collusion, might he instead allege obstruction of justice by the president? No criminal indictment has ever been leveled at a sitting president, and many legal scholars say he can’t be charged. But such an indictment could rally Democrats to impeachment. This week, at the request of legal scholars and activists, the National Archive unsealed the “Watergate Road Map,” the report independent prosecutor Leon Jaworski sent to Congress detailing the evidence collected against President Richard Nixon. The facts-only road map didn’t recommend prosecution or claim that Nixon had committed an impeachable offense. The petition for its release asserted that the road map could provide “a key precedent for assessing the appropriate framework for Special Counsel Mueller to report to Congress any findings of potentially unlawful conduct by President Trump.”
Given all the variables at work, we’ll need more than an ancient road map to make a precise prognostication of which way Mueller will go. Complicating the divination is the likelihood the Democratic Party will take the House of Representatives and ignite new investigations of its own. As my Politico colleague Darren Samuelsohn wrote this week, the Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee have a list of 70 people, organizations and companies they say the Republican-led committee ignored during its investigation and a 98-page document on outstanding lines of inquiry. “One of the issues that is of great concern to me is: Were the Russians laundering money through the Trump Organization,” said Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), a favorite to head the Intelligence Committee in a Democratic Congress. “That to me would be far more powerful kompromat than any video.”
More Russia Updates
Here is an excellent analysis of the potential crimes Trump may be liable for seen in excerpts from extensive-new-report-breaks-down-specifics-of-multiple-potential-trump-campaign-crimes. It’s hard to predict the timeline, but we may begin finding out about the hard evidence behind these criminal activities any day now. Some have speculated it might even start coming out as early as the day after the election (with possibly more indictments), which happens to be tomorrow:
An extensive new report published by the Brookings Institute’s Governance Studies program has analyzed potential crimes committed by the Trump Campaign. The crimes in question may not contain the word “collusion” in them, but they are, in effect, just that, according to the authors Barry H. Berke, Dani R. James, Noah Bookbinder, and Norman Eisen. “Collusion is not a single crime” but “a rubric that encompasses many possible offenses.” To that end, the report goes into an in-depth analysis of the following six crimes Special Counsel Robert Mueller may be looking at right now as part of his Russia investigation: Conspiracy to Commit Offense or to Defraud the United States, 18 U.S.C. § 371; Computer Fraud and Abuse Act 18 U.S.C § 1030; Federal Wiretap Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2511; Contributions and Donations by Foreign Nationals, 52 U.S.C. § 30121; Bribery of Public Officials and Witnesses, 18 U.S.C. § 201(b)(2); Misprision of Felony, 18 U.S.C. § 4.
The analysis of these crimes was made in the context of news reporting on three specific events central to the Mueller investigation: Russian interference in the 2016 election and whether Trump campaign had any advance knowledge of it or coordinated with it in any way; the 2016 Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer for “dirt” on then-candidate Hillary Clinton that involved Donald Trump Jr.; former Trump campaign chairman/convicted felon Paul Manafort and President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner; and contact between members of the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks ahead of the 2016 DNC hack (see: former Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone) The fundamental contention of the analysis is that the conspiracy is the mother of all the other crimes.
These were the elements of conspiracy as presented in the analysis: Two or more people knowingly and voluntary pursuing an illegal goal (conspiracy) in “an overt act by one or more of the conspirators in furtherance of the conspiracy.” The next level of that is to prove there was “knowing participation in the scheme with intent to defraud the United States” by two or more people in an overt act. If that can be proven, everything else could neatly fall into place, the authors argue. Computer fraud would pertain to the alleged hack of the DNC by Russian military intelligence officers posing as the fictitious persona Guccifer 2.0. The Federal Wiretap Act could be implicated by the ensuing disclosure of stolen emails to WikiLeaks.
The Contributions and Donations by Foreign Nationals charge could hinge on the infamous Trump Tower meeting and whether the campaign the Trump campaign “deliberately met with Russian nationals after being told that they had information on the Clinton campaign as part of Russia and its government’s support for Trump, and hid this fact.” A contribution could simply be money or, more broadly, a “thing of value.” We’ll return to this in a moment. “Further investigation could strengthen this case, develop evidence around other instances of Russian support, and could point to liability for other members of the Trump campaign, including possibly President Trump himself,” they authors argue.
The implication of the bribery statute hinges on whether there was a “quid pro quo” in return for a “thing of value.” The authors admit that “there does not presently seem to be a sufficient factual basis to support a bribery charge.” They wonder, however, if Trump’s pro-Russia stances “both as nominee and president” could be construed as a quid pro quo for the “thing of value” (Russian interference, dirt, material support of Trump etc.). Finally, Misprision of Felony boils down to whether there was an effort to knowingly conceal participation a crime (again, the arch-crime being conspiracy).
The authors conclude by saying that “[w]hile there may not yet be definitive proof that the Trump campaign or its associates engaged in criminal collusion with Russia, there are legitimate questions regarding whether the president and those close to him worked with or alongside the Russians in their efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, questions that demand answers.” “The American people have a fundamental right to know if the president of the United States or those close to him worked with Russia to win the election and undermine American democracy—in violation of our criminal law,” they said.
Special Counsel Mueller is currently in a bit of a holding pattern until Election Day, at least when it comes to making any major announcements in his investigation. It remains to be seen what will come out next, but it’s been reported that Mueller is “close to rendering judgment on two of the most explosive aspects of his inquiry: whether there were clear incidents of collusion between Russia and Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, and whether the president took any actions that constitute obstruction of justice.” In the meantime, Mueller has turned up the heat in a noticeable way on the aforementioned Roger Stone in attempt to get to the bottom of his connection to WikiLeaks.
It may be ready to Hit the Fan!
Yes, things could start happening very soon, so get ready!: trump-team-reportedly-bracing-for-mueller-report-to-drop-as-early-as-wednesday. For another review on where this probe stands, see this posting from buckle-up-the-mueller-investigation-may-once-again-take-center-stage:
The Mueller investigation has two areas of primary focus: Russian interference with the 2016 election and possible involvement of members of the Trump campaign; and potential obstruction of justice by the president through such actions as firing then-FBI Director James B. Comey. What news there has been in recent weeks has focused on the Russia conspiracy angle, and in particular on former Trump adviser Roger Stone. Mueller’s investigators reportedly have interviewed a number of witnesses concerning whether Stone may have had advance notice of, or perhaps even direct involvement in, the strategically timed release of stolen Democratic emails in the final weeks of the 2016 presidential campaign. If Stone was involved, it could just be sleazy politics — or it could open him up to charges such as conspiracy to defraud the United States through illegally influencing the election. Stone certainly is not the only one potentially in Mueller’s crosshairs; a number of other senior campaign officials still could end up implicated in a conspiracy with Russians attempting to tip the election to Donald Trump. That could lead to more indictments, or Mueller could conclude that what he has found does not merit prosecution. The end result could be a report to Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein rather than criminal charges.
There are proceedings beyond the Mueller investigation that also may heat up after the election. There is the separate ongoing federal criminal investigation in the Southern District of New York that led to the guilty plea and cooperation of former Trump attorney Michael Cohen. That investigation could result in criminal charges against those high up in the Trump Organization or against the corporation itself. And if the House of Representatives changes hands, congressional committees under the leadership of Democrats — who will not hesitate to use their subpoena power — will investigate anew matters including Russian interference with the election. Mueller has been at this for only about a year and a half. That’s not so long as these investigations go, yet he has already produced substantial results. There are a lot of unresolved issues still on his plate. It has been a quiet couple of months, but that is almost certainly about to change. Buckle up.
Far Worse than Nixon
John Dean, a key participant in Watergate, compares Nixon to the current President Trump from Russiagate fame in a tweet seen here inside john-dean-trump-makes-watergate-look-like-a-brief-idyllic:
Dean tweeted early Sunday that Trump makes the “long nightmare” of Watergate “seem like a brief idyllic daydream.” “History will treat Nixon’s moral failures as relatively less troubling than Trump’s sustained and growing decadence, deviousness and self-delusive behavior,” Dean said. “Nixon=corrupt; Trump=evil.”
Trump may be ready to make a Lawless Move
Since he’ll stop at nothing to cover up all his previous lawless moves. With things expected to ramp up if not explode over the Russian scandal right after Election Day, we need to be very concerned in what ways a corrupt president may try to pull a fast one on us. This is a very curious news story where Trump had originally granted a waiver to the solicitor general, so we can’t help but wonder if this is part of some shady dealings where Trump is trying to line up the dominoes for removing Mueller & shut down his probe: mueller-probe-noel-francisco-ethics-waiver. Through various investigations & lawsuits, there’s a chance we may finally get to find out what’s in Trump’s tax returns. The case here is over violating the emoluments clause, seen in this opening to trump-emoluments-case-ruling-financial-records-tax-returns:
Such records could include income tax returns which Trump has refused to release to public scrutiny. Trump has been fighting multiple lawsuits that argue foreign representatives spending money at the Trump International Hotel is a violation of the constitution’s emoluments clause, which bans federal officials from accepting benefits from foreign or state governments without congressional approval.
The Most Dangerous Situation Of All!!!
And nothing else even comes close, since the weapons in place for the next world war could easily destroy the whole world at the start of a push of a button. And to think Trump is on our side, as unstable as any leader out there. Read all about it in these excerpts from on-the-road-to-world-war-3:
When it comes to relations between Donald Trump’s America, Vladimir Putin’s Russia, and Xi Jinping’s China, observers everywhere are starting to talk about a return to an all-too-familiar past. “Now we have a new Cold War,” commented Russia expert Peter Felgenhauer in Moscow after President Trump recently announced plans to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. The Trump administration is “launching a new Cold War,” said historian Walter Russell Mead in the Wall Street Journal, following a series of anti-Chinese measures approved by the president in October. And many others are already chiming in. Recent steps by leaders in Washington, Moscow, and Beijing may seem to lend credence to such a “new Cold War” narrative, but in this case history is no guide. Almost two decades into the twenty-first century, what we face is not some mildly updated replica of last century’s Cold War, but a new and potentially even more dangerous global predicament. What others are now calling the New Cold War — but I prefer to think of as a new global tinderbox — bears only the most minimal resemblance to that earlier period. As before, the United States and its rivals are engaged in an accelerating arms race, focused on nuclear and “conventional” weaponry of ever-increasing range, precision, and lethality. All three countries, in characteristic Cold War fashion, are also lining up allies in what increasingly looks like a global power struggle. But the similarities end there. Among the differences, the first couldn’t be more obvious: the U.S. now faces two determined adversaries, not one, and a far more complex global conflict map (with a corresponding increase in potential nuclear flashpoints). At the same time, the old boundaries between “peace” and “war” are rapidly disappearing as all three rivals engage in what could be thought of as combat by other means, including trade wars and cyberattacks that might set the stage for far greater violence to follow. To compound the danger, all three big powers are now engaging in provocative acts aimed at “demonstrating resolve” or intimidating rivals, including menacing U.S. and Chinese naval maneuvers off Chinese-occupied islands in the South China Sea. Meanwhile, rather than pursue the sort of arms-control agreements that tempered Cold War hostilities, the U.S. and Russia appear intent on tearing up existing accords and launching a new nuclear arms race.
All three rivals possess outsized military establishments with vast arrays of conventional and nuclear weapons. China and Russia have now joined the United States (even if on a more modest scale) in extending their influence beyond their borders diplomatically, economically, and militarily. More importantly, all three rivals are led by highly nationalistic leaders, each determined to advance his country’s interests. A tripolar world, almost by definition, will be markedly different from either a bipolar or a unipolar one and conceivably far more discordant, with Donald Trump’s Washington potentially provoking crises with Moscow at one moment and Beijing the next, without apparent reason. In addition, a tripolar world is likely to encompass more potential flash points. During the whole Cold War era, there was one crucial line of confrontation between the two major powers: the boundary between NATO and the Warsaw Pact nations in Europe. Any flare-up along that line could indeed have triggered a major commitment of force on both sides and, in all likelihood, the use of so-called tactical or theater atomic weapons, leading almost inevitably to full-scale thermonuclear combat. Thanks to such a risk, the leaders of those superpowers eventually agreed to various de-escalatory measures, including the about-to-be-cancelled INF Treaty of 1987 that banned the deployment of medium-range ground-launched missiles capable of triggering just such a spiral of ultimate destruction. Today, that line of confrontation between Russia and NATO in Europe has been fully restored (and actually reinforced) along a perimeter considerably closer to Russian territory, thanks to NATO’s eastward expansion into the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, and the Baltic republics in the era of unipolarity. Along this repositioned line, as during the Cold War years, hundreds of thousands of well-armed soldiers are now poised for full-scale hostilities on very short notice.
Combine all of this — economic attacks, cyber attacks, and ever more aggressive muscle-flexing military operations — and you have a situation in which a modern version of the Cuban Missile Crisis between the U.S. and China or the U.S. and Russia or even involving all three could happen at any time. Add the apparent intent of the leaders of all three countries to abandon the remaining restraints on the acquisition of nuclear weapons in order to seek significant additions to their existing arsenals and you have the definition of an extremely dangerous situation. In February, for instance, President Trump gave the green light to what may prove to be a $1.6 trillion overhaul of the American nuclear arsenal initially contemplated in the Obama years, intended to “modernize” existing delivery systems, including intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and long-range strategic bombers. Russia has embarked on a similar overhaul of its nuclear stockpile, while China, with a much smaller arsenal, is undertaking modernization projects of its own. Equally worrisome, all three powers appear to be pursuing the development of theater nuclear weapons intended for use against conventional forces in the event of a major military conflagration. Russia, for example, has developed several short- and medium-range missiles capable of delivering both nuclear and conventional warheads, including the 9M729 ground-launched cruise missile that, American officials claim, already violates the INF Treaty. The United States, which has long relied on aircraft-delivered nuclear weapons for use against massive conventional enemy threats, is now seeking additional attack options of its own. Under the administration’s Nuclear Policy Review of February 2018, the Pentagon will undertake the development of a “low-yield” nuclear warhead for its existing submarine-launched ballistic missiles and later procure a nuclear-armed, sea-launched cruise missile.
While developing such new weapons and enhancing the capability of older ones, the major powers are also tearing down the remaining arms control edifice. President Trump’s October 20th announcement that the U.S. would withdraw from the 1987 INF treaty to develop new missiles of its own represents a devastating step in that direction. “We’ll have to develop those weapons,” he told reporters in Nevada after a rally. “We’re going to terminate the agreement and we’re going to pull out.” How do the rest of us respond to such a distressing prospect in an increasingly imperiled world? How do we slow the pace of the race to World War III? There is much that could, in fact, be done to resist a new nuclear arms confrontation. After all, it was massive public pressure in the 1980s that led the U.S. and USSR to sign the INF Treaty in the first place. But in order to do so, a new world war would have to be seen as a central danger of our time, potentially even more dangerous than the Cold War era, given the three nuclear-armed great powers now involved. Only by positioning that risk front and center and showing how many other trends are leading us, pell-mell, in such a direction, can the attention of a global public already distracted by so many other concerns and worries be refocused.
We Absolutely MUST Win Back The House!!!
Should the GOP retain the Senate as expected, keep in mind it’s only because of an extremely unusual & favorable GOP map playing on Trump’s turf in this election cycle, but Trump-world would be hyping that up anyway. It is absolutely critical the Dems take the House as a valuable check on Trump. If the GOP unexpectedly continues holding both houses, it could be a disaster of monumental proportions, since an unleashed Trump could become so reckless & emboldened as to literally put our constitutional democracy on the line. I hope you spend 10 minutes hearing that Captain Sullenberger interview in a link at the top. Americans should realize what’s at stake. The White House spin machine is ready to ramp up whatever the results are from this election day, seen in this post from trump-2018-elections-plans
President Donald Trump and his allies have crafted a face-saving plan if Democrats trounce their way to a House majority — tout Trump as the savior of Republicans in the Senate. In public and private, Trump and advisers are pointing to the president’s surge of campaigning on behalf of Republican Senate candidates — 19 rallies alone since Labor Day — as evidence that nobody else could have had a bigger impact in the states. The argument is classic Trump, who despite making the midterms a referendum on his own presidency, has a history of personalizing and then dwelling on his victories while distancing himself and diverting attention from his losses. Should Republicans pick up Senate seats, “that’s all they’ll talk about,” said Barry Bennett, a presidential adviser on Trump’s 2016 campaign. “That’s where the math is in our favor.”
Here’s the opening to the WaPo editorial inside why-this-election-matters-so-much:
WE’VE SAID it before, but it bears repeating, and with emphasis: The stakes are higher than usual, much higher, in next Tuesday’s election. At issue is not simply the future of federal legislation on health care, taxes and many other policy matters, important as they are. Rather, the pivotal question this November is whether the American electorate will reward a campaign based on divisiveness and dishonesty. The president of the United States, campaigning on behalf of the Republican Party, is, in effect, betting heavily that voters can be swayed by appeals to their worst instincts: anger, hatred and fear. Contrary to the practice of all previous recent occupants of his office — including those who might have dabbled in similar politics but, at least, employed euphemisms and intermediaries — he has delivered this divisive message in his own voice from his own bully pulpit.
Results Tonight are Critical!!!
We can only guess at this point to what extent Russia & other foreign actors may have infiltrated/tainted this election also. But we’re also dealing with domestic bad actors trying to take away the right for lawful Americans to vote, so let’s hope democracy prevails in spite of a slanted playing field: democracy-loser-us-midterms-poor-ethnic-minorities. And the proof shows us voter suppression is a far more serious problem than voter fraud: voter-fraud-yes-were-still-waiting-for-it-to-happen. In the next link, count me in on this group, moderate voters who’ve supported the GOP, but the awfulness of Trump & what has happened to this defiled party have turned us into activists against the GOP: politics-government/election/midterms.
So happy returns tonight from election day voting as it could be a late night. The returns could literally be like watching a contest between having a free democracy or deceitful demagogue type of authoritarianism! If any major news comes out by tomorrow on any shocking election results or Russia scandal headline, watch this blog for such important updates. Otherwise, check back in with us on our normal schedule with a new Friday afternoon posting, offering an analysis of what happened in the midterms & other important political updates. Things are really getting interesting!!!
With an eye towards limiting the number of outbound links, you could do a search on any of these articles you’d like to read, or just check out the titles. These are more recent articles about the midterm election day providing perspective as we watch the returns tonight. Doesn’t the heightened interest feel a lot like a presidential election?:
washingtonpost/prove-it-america-prove-that-president-trump-is-not-who-we-are
washingtonpost/theres-no-telling-how-far-trump-will-go-if-democrats-take-the-house
washingtonpost/this-midterm-election-is-like-no-other-in-a-generation
washingtonpost/gops-looming-spin-about-election-is-fallacy
washingtonpost/without-evidence-trump-and-sessions-warn-of-voter-fraud-in-tuesdays-elections
washingtonpost/is-there-no-evil-the-democrats-wont-commit
washingtonpost/spate-house-polls-reinforce-good-news-democratic-party
washingtonpost/why-democrats-will-do-well-on-election-day
washingtonpost/the-final-polls-tell-us-why-trump-may-sink-the-gop
washingtonpost/each-election-i-feel-more-certain-that-we-focus-on-the-wrong-things
washingtonpost/five-things-to-look-for
washingtonpost/why-donald-trump-needs-an-opposition-controlled-congress
washingtonpost/why-republican-party-is-so-polarizing
washingtonpost/sean-hannity-come-up-trump-fawns-over-fox-news-final-rally-theyve-done-an-incredible-job-us
nytimes/opinion/midterms-trump-republicans-autocracy
thehill/press-todays-vote-donald-trump-yes-or-no
thehill/huge-turnout-raises-dem-hopes-for-a-wave
usatoday/vote-out-donald-trump-lap-dogs-congress
usatoday/donald-trump-did-not-win-majority-2016-electoral-college
theatlantic/donald-trump-stokes-fear-immigrants-his-rallies
thedailybeast/america-deliver-a-verdict-on-trump
thedailybeast/trump-goes-all-in-on-scaring-you-to-death-in-sprint-to-midterms
politico/2018-election-trump-gop-midwest
salon/a-referendum-on-donald-trump-and-whats-scary-is-we-dont-know-how-america-will-choose
vox/2018-midterm-election-democracy-institutions-free-elections
vox/midterm-election-2018-republicans-campaign-democracy
motherjones/trump-and-the-midterms-a-battle-for-decency
motherjones/the-revenge-of-the-median-voter-theorem
esquire/sean-hannity-donald-trump-rally-fox-news
msn/this-is-the-most-important-midterm-election-in-our-lifetime
nymag/what-can-we-learn-from-2018-early-voting-turnout-is-high
newsmax/gizzi-early-voting-blue-wave
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