Trump’s transition plans

There has been much speculation about whether Trump will accept the results of the election if he loses, speculation that has been deliberately fueled by Trump himself. As I have said before, this is just bluster, designed to sow fear and chaos. Joe Biden was right to dismiss that possibility in the debate. If Trump loses, he has to leave office because the only way he can continue is by a military coup and there is no way that the military is going to be part of that scheme. He may hope that the US Supreme Court will declare him the victor but that option is also a highly remote one unless the results are hair-splittingly close.

Tom the Dancing Bug 1506 donald and john – transfer of power

(Tom the Dancing Bug)

Private detention centers should be shut down

Samantha Bee makes the powerful case that these are breeding grounds for appalling abuses and should be abolished. Furthermore, because of the profit motive driving them, people are kept there longer and treated terribly, just so that the corporations that own them can make more money. She goes further and says that ICE should also be shut down because it is part of the problem.

Election transition fears

As the election draws ever nearer, Seth Meyers takes a closer look at the question of whether there will be a peaceful transition of power.

Although Trump keeps stoking fears that he may not agree with the election results if they show him losing, and this has caused great alarm, I am not so worried. What he would be advocating is a coup and that requires the support of the military. I simply do not think that the US military is going to go along with his attempt to overturn the result of the election even in the unlikely event that his supporters take to the streets en masse to demand that he be allowed to remain in power.

Hilarious episode of This American Life

I have written many times before about my admiration for the way that this radio program tells stories, whether they are dealing with serious political issues or whimsical ones. This show really must be listened to to get the full effect, because these people are terrific storytellers, expertly blending in pauses, inflections, and music to great effect that gets lost with just the written word. Reading the transcript is nowhere near as good. Last week they had a particularly good episode that at times had me laughing out loud. It mostly dealt with watching films and TV.
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What’s the matter with Delaware Republicans?

Lauren Witzke is yet another QAnon supporter who has won a Republican primary and is going to be the party’s candidate for a federal office, this time for the senate seat in Delaware. But it appears that QAnon is not the only thing she believes in. She also has dabbled with flat-Earth and 9/11 conspiracy theories. She will challenge incumbent Democratic senator Chris Coons.
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The importance of down-ballot races

Samantha Bee explains why just getting rid of Trump in the November election is not enough, that the Republicans have to lose the Senate too. I would go further and say that all the way down the ballot to state and local races, Republicans need to lose and lose badly so that they realize that they are paying the price for installing and supporting a sociopath as president.

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Trump will solve all problems by November 2nd

Trump has said that a vaccine for covid-19 will be available in October, a wildly unrealistic scenario. It is clearly an election vote-grabbing strategy As the clock ticks down to the election on November 3, we can expect Trump to make more and more extravagant promises in an effort to convince his supporters that his presidency has not been a colossal failure in pretty much every area other than making the wealthy much wealthier.

Between now and election day, we can expect him to promise that by election day he will end the wars Afghanistan and Iraq, produce a comprehensive new health care plan, solve the immigration issue, find a cure for cancer, and send astronauts to Mars and have them come back. Unrealistic, you say? Don’t you realize that you have to believe for good things to come true?

Samantha Bee takes on his promise that a vaccine will be found within the next few weeks.

The Trump town hall debacle

You know that Trump must feel desperate when he goes outside his bubble of sycophantic right wing interviewers that fawn over him. He agreed to a town hall hosted by ABC News two days ago that featured ordinary people asking him questions and he was clearly rattled by their directness. One questioner even shut him down when he interrupted her while she was asking it. The problem for Trump is that it is easy for him to insult reporters and political opponents when they challenge him. His fans love it. But he cannot do that with ordinary people though he must have been sorely tempted to do so. The event went so badly that one of his biggest sycophants Laura Ingraham of Fox News called it an ‘ambush’ by ABC.
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