RSN: FOCUS: How Far Could Republicans Take Trump's Election-Fraud Claims?

 

 

11 November 20

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FOCUS: How Far Could Republicans Take Trump's Election-Fraud Claims?

Jeannie Suk Gersen, The New Yorker
Excerpt: "There is a limit to what Biden's team can do, particularly in national security, if the Trump Administration holds up a transfer of power."

mong the “firsts” associated with the 2020 election, the most norm-shattering of all will be if the candidate who lost never concedes to the one who won. After the major news outlets called the election for Joe Biden on Saturday, Donald Trump switched from insisting, “I won this election, by a lot,” to claiming that his loss was due to election fraud. Trump’s conduct seemingly has not fazed President-elect Biden as he proceeds into the transition; at the least, it was not a surprise, since Trump spent months making ominous and ungrounded predictions of voter fraud. There is, however, a limit to what Biden’s team can do, particularly in national security, if the Trump Administration holds up a transfer of power, as the head of the General Services Administration has done thus far by not formally recognizing the transition.

As if to fill the void, on Sunday, former President George W. Bush, the previous Republican in the highest office, issued a statement pointedly supporting the legitimacy of the election results. “The American people can have confidence that this election was fundamentally fair, its integrity will be upheld, and its outcome is clear,” Bush said. Twenty years ago, it was Republicans who were outraged that Al Gore retracted his initial concession to Bush, refused to concede when Bush was narrowly ahead during recounts in Florida, and then fought Republican state officials’ move to certify Bush as the winner, by suing to have the recount continue. The Supreme Court finally ordered an end to the Florida recount, in Bush v. Gore, on December 12th, 2000, and Gore conceded the next day. Now Democrats are calling upon Republicans to accept that Biden has won, and Republicans are looking to legal remedies to try to flip the result. But, because Biden’s win does not hinge on the results in one state, as Bush’s did, and because the margin of victory is not as thin, Trump’s legal remedies are far less realistic than Gore’s were.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said, on Monday, that “President Trump is a hundred per cent within his rights to look into allegations of irregularities and weigh his legal options.” Since Election Day, Republicans have pursued a smorgasbord of lawsuits, but they have been dismissed or are otherwise unlikely to succeed. The Trump campaign filed multiple suits in Pennsylvania, Nevada, Michigan, Georgia, and Arizona, generally alleging fraud, or demanding that states stop counting ballots or allow closer observation of the counting. Though some cases are ongoing (for example, a lawsuit to compel Pennsylvania to impose an earlier date for voters’ proof of identification), the vast majority were quickly dismissed for lack of evidence.

One case that Republicans began pressing before the election has gone to the Supreme Court. On September 28th, the Pennsylvania Republican Party challenged the state Supreme Court’s decision that, notwithstanding the Election Day deadline set by the Pennsylvania legislature, mail ballots postmarked by that day but arriving up to three days afterward were to be counted. The case has already produced three orders from the Justices: first, in mid-October, the Court deadlocked 4–4 on whether to lift the state court’s order while the Republicans prepared a request to decide whether a state court may alter the state legislature’s deadline for receipt of ballots. The Court therefore left the extended deadline in place for the election. Second, days before the election, the Court refused to expedite its consideration of the Republicans’ petition, again, leaving the extension in place. And, third, three days after Election Day and before Biden was declared the winner in Pennsylvania, Justice Samuel Alito ordered County Boards of Elections to comply with existing state guidance that mail ballots received after Election Day should be segregated and “if counted, be counted separately.” Had Biden’s victory ended up depending upon Pennsylvania, or, more precisely, on the mail votes that arrived after Election Day, then a Supreme Court decision on whether those votes must be disqualified would have been relevant to the election outcome. But the fact that Biden’s win did not hinge on any one state deflated the potential for the Supreme Court to decide the election.

The Court could still agree to hear the case, in order to decide whether the Constitution’s provisions that “the Times, Places, and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof,” and that “each State shall appoint” electors “in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct,” prohibit state courts from modifying state legislatures’ election rules. Even if the answer can’t affect this Presidential race, the question could recur in future elections. But the Justices might bear in mind that any decision could still influence the perceived legitimacy of this election: even hearing this case would fuel Republicans’ claims that the election procedures were awry, while refusing to hear it would seem to Democrats a vindication of Biden’s victory.

Prominent Republicans have largely refrained from acknowledging that Biden has won, and from challenging the President’s allegations of fraud—with the notable exceptions of Representative Will Hurd and Senators Mitt Romney, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, and Ben Sasse, who each publicly congratulated Biden. Some Republican leaders have urged rejection of the results. On Sunday, Senator Lindsey Graham said, “Do not concede, Mr. President. Fight hard.

But what would it mean to fight hard, when Trump’s barrage of litigation is extremely unlikely to change the outcome? Graham has laid some groundwork for the strategies that might remain even after rebuffs both at the polls and in court. In an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News last Thursday, as it became clear that Biden would soon be declared the winner, Graham signalled his approval of the idea that Republican-controlled state legislatures might appoint electors who would cast votes for Trump, even though Biden won those states’ popular votes. Referring to Article II of the Constitution, which provides that a state “shall appoint” its electors “in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct,” Governor Ron DeSantis, of Florida, also urged people in battleground states to push their Republican legislatures to override popular-vote results.

It would be outlandish for a state legislature to deviate from the wishes of the state’s voters. But states have the power to determine that fraud affected the vote count and choose Presidential electors who do not reflect that supposedly faulty result. States with Republican legislatures that could, theoretically, override a popular vote in favor of Biden include Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, and Wisconsin. This possibility remains far-fetched in any of these states, perhaps particularly Pennsylvania, where last month, the Republican majority leaders of the state Senate and House wrote, in an op-ed, “The only and exclusive way that presidential electors can be chosen in Pennsylvania is by the popular vote. The legislature has no hand in this process whatsoever.” The majority leaders reaffirmed that commitment on Friday. But, on Tuesday, a group of Pennsylvania lawmakers announced that it wants the legislative committee to conduct a “comprehensive examination” of “irregularities and inconsistencies” in the election “prior to the certification of the election results and the empanelment of Pennsylvania’s electors to the Electoral College.”

If several states’ electors were to diverge from the popular vote, in theory, on December 14th, the Electoral College vote could result in a win for Trump, and, on January 6th, the newly seated Congress tabulating the electoral votes could declare Trump reëlected. Alternatively, neither candidate might garner a majority of the electoral votes, in which case the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution says that “the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President.” Because Democrats retain a majority of the House, one might assume that would mean a Biden Presidency. But the Twelfth Amendment specifies that each state delegation gets one vote, meaning that a state that has more Republican than Democratic representatives would likely vote for Trump. Though there will be more Democratic than Republican members, there will be more Republican than Democratic state delegations in the House. Trump could well be the House’s choice for President.

Yet another disastrous situation would be if some states’ officials split and choose rival slates of electors. This would leave Congress to decide which of the electoral votes from those states to count. And, even though Trump will likely fail to convince courts to credit his allegations of election fraud, he could still press his fraud claim to Congress and urge its members to disqualify some states’ electoral votes. Given Trump’s continuing hold on Republican lawmakers, it appears not out of the question that they would take such an appeal seriously. And, as I wrote last week, if Congress cannot ultimately agree on how to count the electoral votes, it is unclear how the Presidential election would be resolved. Even if the American people wanted the Supreme Court to settle it, the Constitution and other laws would not provide clear means for the Court to decide.

None of these doomsday scenarios are likely yet. Perhaps Republicans are merely tiptoeing around Trump for the time being, waiting for his lawsuits to fizzle out, and expecting them to show the fraud and illegality claims to be unfounded. But the more time that passes without Trump conceding, and without Republican lawmakers publicly acknowledging that power will indeed transfer to Biden as a result of the election, the more it is imaginable that a portion of Congress may be persuaded to use the fraud claim to decline to count some electoral votes for Biden, come January 6th. In the meantime, on Monday, contrary to the long-standing practice of the Department of Justice, Attorney General William Barr explicitly authorized federal prosecutors to investigate voting fraud in the 2020 election “prior to the certification of elections in your jurisdictions.” (Barr’s decision prompted the resignation of Richard Pilger, the director of the Department’s Election Crimes Branch.) The move, coming at this delicate time, seems designed to improve Trump’s chances of influencing states’ certification of the election results, their appointment of electors, and Congress’s counting of electoral votes. It became particularly alarming when followed by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s statement, on Tuesday, that “there will be a smooth transition to a second Trump Administration.”

As we have learned in the past four years, it was not one aberrant President, by himself, but rather Trump’s hold on important Republican Party officials, that enabled the proliferation of chaos and erosion of norms. Even now that Trump has lost the election, the death grip will perhaps be slow to loosen because of his undeniable popularity with Republican voters. And Republican leaders may expect to be rewarded rather than punished by their constituents for fighting between now and January to prevent a Biden Presidency. This form of democratic responsiveness, in which leaders need only to appease adherents of their own party, underscores the difficulties that Biden will have in fulfilling his self-proclaimed mandate to unite the country. There are still significant partisan hurdles to clear before Biden is inaugurated, even though the voters have democratically chosen him as their next President.

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FAIR: 'Proposition 22 Is a Backlash to Victories Workers Have Had'

 

View article on FAIR's website 'Proposition 22 Is a Backlash to Victories Workers Have Had' JANINE JACKSON Janine Jackson interviewed Rey Fuentes about California’s Proposition 22 for the November 6, 2020, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.  MP3 Link Janine Jackson: Proposition 22, or the "Protect App-Based Drivers and Services Act," passed in California on November 3, after what the New York Times glossed as a “really, really expensive battle over the future of work.” In reality, the spending was quite one-sided—companies, including Uber and Lyft, spent $205 million, the most costly ballot initiative campaign in US history—on something they obviously felt was worth it: a measure to allow them to keep flouting labor law and classifying their drivers as independent contractors rather than employees. New York Times (11/4/20) And a “battle over the future of work,” while it's true, is a kind of antiseptic way to describe a plan that leaves actual workers—human beings—without basic benefits others have, like healthcare, sick leave, overtime or recourse against discrimination. Uber employees complained of being strong-armed into voicing support for the initiative, and even California Uber customers were forced to navigate through Prop 22 propaganda to use the app. Why such aggression for a move the companies swear is good for everyone? Seems like a question for a critical press corps. We'll learn more now from Rey Fuentes; he's a Skadden Fellow at the Partnership for Working Families and author, with Rebecca Smith and Brian Chen, of the report Rigging the Gig: How Uber, Lyft and Doordash’s Ballot Initiative Would Put Corporations Above the Law and Steal Wages, Benefits and Protections From California Workers. He joins us now by phone from Washington, DC. Welcome to CounterSpin, Ray Fuentes. Rey Fuentes: Hi, it’s so wonderful to be here; thank you for having me. JJ: There are a number of disheartening aspects here: what Prop 22 does, to whom, how it came about, what it could lead to. But I wonder if I could ask you, first, to address this core idea that undergirds so much of the conversation: that companies like Uber, Lyft and Doordash don't have to behave like other employers, because their workers are happy to trade employment benefits for the flexibility of when or whether to work. What does that leave out or distort about the reality of these workers and this industry? RF: Unfortunately, it is a corporate myth. It's something designed by corporations as a way to win a public relations campaign with people who don't work for their company. We have discussed throughout this campaign, up until including these votes being tallied on Proposition 22, really [tried] to reach out to California voters to describe what we know—just based on a plain reading of the proposition—will be the impacts on California workers. The challenging part is that we know that these app-based workers are primarily immigrants, people of color and, for the people that we've worked most closely with,  subsistence wage earners. These are people who work full time on these applications, but struggle to survive in California's economy. And what has undergirded the protections for most workers in California are baseline rights—things like access to paid sick leave, unemployment insurance, when Covid-19 hits. These are things that have been absent to most of these gig workers since they started working for these companies. And it's only been this recent grappling in this country with our history of race, with the Covid-19 pandemic, that many workers started to realize that these protections are actually so vital to them, that they should begin organizing and working together to ensure that they are protected. So Proposition 22 is clearly a backlash to these recent victories that workers have had. And the idea that these workers would prefer to not have access to paid sick leave, if they fall ill or need to care for a family member, or that they wouldn't want the protections of unemployment insurance if they lose their job through no fault of their own, to me is quite galling. JJ: Prop 22 is the response, if you will, as you've just indicated, to state labor law, which listeners might know about: AB 5, that would have required these companies to classify drivers as employees. But before they put together Prop 22, they just straight up refused to comply with the law, isn't that right? RF: Their really irresponsible behavior when it comes to California law has been embedded in the DNA of these companies since their founding, and since they started operating in California. They've flouted employment law that has been on the books since 2010, 2012. Whenever each one of these companies started operating, they've decided that the workers were independent contractors, but under any conceivable state law test, these workers have been employees for the purposes of state law, which means they should be getting the things like basic minimum wage protections and overtime. And AB 5 just crystallized the conversation, and more important than anything else, AB 5 authorized public officials—like the attorney general, and city attorneys around California in large cities—to enforce these obligations. The companies have designed a web of private arbitrations which prevent workers from going to court, and really fairly adjudicating what are the results of their employee classification, or what wages they're owed. And so, because these companies have evaded enforcement in the past, the fact that AB 5 authorized public officials to enforce, and the fact that they started to bring lawsuits against these companies, is what created the urgency to pass Proposition 22, and to really spread so much misinformation about what the proposition actually contains. New York Times (11/4/20) JJ: This is what makes me so irritated with the way media can report these things. The New York Times on November 4 has this statement: The passage of Prop 22 is a bitter loss for state and local officials, who have long seen the ride hailing companies as obstinate upstarts that shrugged off any effort to make them follow the rules. So here you have a simple fact, that they've been flouting rules, but it's presented as the sour grapes viewpoint of "losers." Just taking up the point that you've just introduced about AB 5 introducing a lever for legislators to use to intervene to protect workers: As bad as the lead-up to Prop 22 is—but wait, there's more! The proposition also includes a provision that pretty much ties the hands, doesn't it, of legislators who might want to change what it does? RF: That's what we think is the worst component of the ballot initiative; it's really actually two things that have not received as much attention as possible. And, again, the quick efforts by these companies to spin the narrative as something about protecting employee freedom and independence, and protecting flexibility, have really provided the type of misdirection that has prevented people from realizing that, exactly as you described, the proposition contains a 7/8ths supermajority vote requirement. So if the legislature in the future wants to expand rights for these workers, or wants to ensure that some other protections are provided, they will be unable to do so unless they get a 7/8ths majority vote of the state legislature. And I heard somebody say something pretty funny, but horrible in this situation, that you couldn't get a 7/8ths majority vote for a Happy Mother's Day Proclamation from the state legislature. So it's difficult to imagine important social legislation protecting workers passing by that threshold in our current legislature. And the other thing that it does, that I also think was underreported, was the fact that it now preempts, or cancels, any local law that would protect workers, and regulate things like local wages, access to tips or insurance requirements for drivers: All the things that local governments are best suited to do in their jurisdiction, they now do not have the power to do it, because the ballot initiative preempts those laws. So they've essentially knocked out any way to change the law from the top, or any way to improve it from localities on the ground. That's why we've described it as an attempt to essentially deregulate these industries, and at least as of Tuesday, they were successful, but I don't think the fight ends there. Partnership for Working Families/National Employment Law Project (7/20) JJ: I'm going to bring you back to continuing the fight, but let me just ask you one point that the report deals with extensively, because to the extent that folks are going to read news accounts about this, they're often going to include a line that says, “OK, but the companies are offering some limited benefits, some benefit concessions; they are offering workers something.” Rigging the Gig talks about that, if you could briefly tell us what's going on there. RF: Yeah, the companies have suggested—and I think hyperbolically, as we now understand—that the proposition contains historic new benefits: rights to some healthcare insurance-premium assistance, a wage guarantee, discrimination protections. But as we've described, these things are far less generous than current law. And so that's what we were comparing it to when we wrote our report, because that's what the law was, and these companies had decided they wouldn't comply with it. But more to the point, even the benefits that companies suggest are contained in the ballot proposition are really just not going to be sufficient for workers in their day-to-day lives. So, for example, the ballot initiative intends to offer healthcare premiums to workers, and it suggests you could get up to 100% of the average ACA contribution covered if you work over 25 hours in a week. Unfortunately, they suggest that those are only 25 engaged hours. And we know many workers spend a third to half of their time waiting for a ride. So they actually have to end up working almost 40 hours or more to receive this healthcare insurance guarantee. But it's also tied to the lowest-cost healthcare plan on Covered California, and it's not their actual premium expenses; it's some average that hasn't even been disclosed by Covered California. So at the end of the day—and I know that was a complicated description of what was happening, but really, just to sum it all up: The company suggested they're offering a new historic healthcare guarantee; when you read the fine print, very few workers will be able to access it, and those who do will access insurance that is not adequate to cover what they'll be facing. JJ: Finally, the New York Times had a chilling statement that Prop 22 “opens a path for the companies to remake labor laws throughout the country.” But it can, I'm hearing you say, still be fought, and will still be fought. Rey Fuentes: "We've seen the most explosive and energetic worker organizing on the ground that has ever been present in the gig community." RF: I think one of the things that is important to recognize is that this force by the company, their efforts to pass a ballot initiative like this, has not defeated workers, and in fact, has done quite the opposite: We've seen the most explosive and energetic worker organizing on the ground that has ever been present in the gig community, in workers who are working for Uber, Lyft, Instacart, Doordash, who now recognize very clearly what is at stake, and have started to very articulately cut through the company's messaging. A lot of workers who had started working for these companies, when they were first founded, were earning a pretty good wage and sufficient earnings for themselves to maintain a living. But the companies flooded the market, they started cutting rates, and now workers understand very clearly that the companies were holding them, really, hostage on the job, and leaving them without many alternatives. And so this Proposition 22 fight has actually energized organizing in a way that I've really never seen before. That's what's an exciting component about this, is that workers are more engaged, rather than less engaged. That's one thing that is going to be absolutely critical in the fights ahead. But the other component is just really testing the ballot initiatives, really ensuring that it is lawful, it is constitutional in California, that it has all the features that are necessary to really actually be California law. And so I think that's an important conversation. It's one—I don't want to get ahead of the moment, I mean, we’re really only two days past the election—but I think it will be important to recognize that this fight and this conversation in California is not over. JJ: We've been speaking with Rey Fuentes of the Partnership for Working Families. You can find their work online at ForWorkingFamilies.org. Ray Fuentes, thank you so much for joining us this week on CounterSpin. RF: Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure. © 2020 Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting. All rights reserved. Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting Our mailing address is: FAIRNESS & ACCURACY IN REPORTING 124 W. 30th Street, Suite 201 New York, NY 10001 FAIR's Website FAIR counts on your support to do this work — please donate today.

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"Path to Recovery" | Jon Ossoff for Senate

 

Jon Ossoff has the vision to win big in this election and recover from this pandemic, but we need your help making sure he can reach every single Georgian before the January runoff.

Thanks for powering this campaign,

Team Ossoff

P.O. Box 450326, Atlanta, GA 31145

PAID FOR BY JON OSSOFF FOR SENATE

No. I will not meet you halfway. You must change.

 

No. I will not meet you halfway. You must change.

Dear Trump supporter,

Let’s make a deal.  I will not accuse you of being evil as Satan or stupid as a bag of rocks if you show you are capable of learning from the experience of the past 4 years.  President-Elect Biden is going out of his way to embrace you and offer you a pathway to humanity.  I am not feeling so generous.  Here’s what I am willing to do:

You cannot support Nazis.  You cannot support a person who says Nazis are “very fine people.”  You cannot support a person who gasses citizens who are peacefully protesting.  You must change.  I will not meet you halfway, as in you can only support Nazis on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.  No.  You can’t do that.  There is no halfway.

Now, if you can pull yourself away from the Nazi crowd, I am willing to have an intelligent, respectful discussion about what immigration policies are in the best interests of our country and in the best interests of your family.

You cannot support people who objectify or molest women, or worse.  You cannot have an attitude that it is OK for anybody to grab a woman by the pussy without invitation.  You must change.  I will not meet you halfway by saying that it is OK to molest women on Tuesdays and Saturdays.  It is not OK.  You must change. 

If you can find your way to condemn the abuse of women, then we can have an intelligent discussion about whatever underlying concerns might have led you to think molesting women is a good idea.

You cannot support crazy people owning a veritable arsenal of military-grade weapons.  I cannot meet you halfway by saying it is OK to own street sweeper guns as long as you promise to only shoot 100 rounds per day max.  You must change. 

If you can find a way to put down your “security blanket” weapons, we can have a discussion about gun policies that allow hunters and sport shooters to pursue their hobbies and allow you to reasonably defend your family.  80% of Americans have already come to terms with this.  You must also.

You cannot demand that government should dictate all reproductive decisions in the name of “pro life”, while at the same time supporting capital punishment, supporting policies of deliberately snatching babies from their mothers, and fighting policies that aim to provide a humane quality of life for everyone.  I cannot meet you halfway by saying it is OK to snatch young boys from their mothers as long as we let the mothers keep their daughters.  You must change. 

If you can recognize your essential hypocrisy, then we can have an intelligent, respectful conversation about what we can all do to minimize the number of non-essential abortions.  After all, none of us want abortions that are not medically necessary if there are other things we can do to address the root problems, such as poverty and lack of education.

You cannot support people who oppose science.  You cannot claim that climate change is a hoax.  You cannot claim that COVID is a hoax or that interventions like masks are “fake news”.  I cannot meet you halfway on any issues of science.  Science, by definition, has its own systems of challenges and proof.  You are welcome to offer challenges and proof, but you are not welcome to simply deny well-accepted facts and to impugn those who have done their duty under the scientific method.  I cannot meet you halfway.  You must change. 

If you can find your way to accept the scientific method, then we can have reasonable discussions about the certainty of consensus scientific positions and, more importantly, what policies make the most sense to meet these great problems.

I could go on and on, but let’s just leave it there.  I cannot meet you halfway if you insist on a position of ignorance or intolerance.  If that’s the only way you can live, then we are going to have hard times ahead.  I sincerely hope that you can learn something by what has transpired over the past 4 years and find a way to make the basic changes in your approach to living in a civilized society.  You must change.  I hope you do.  I will welcome you, fully understanding that we probably won’t agree on everything.  But nothing can happen until you commit to moving from the intractable positions you have locked yourself into.  You must do that.  I cannot do it for you and there is no “halfway” where we can meet.

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NHTSA: TOYOTA LEXUS RECALLS FUEL PUMP FAILURE

 

Your vehicle MAY be involved in a safety recall and MAY create a safety risk for you or your passengers. If left unrepaired, a potential safety defect could lead to injury or even death. Safety defects must be repaired by a dealer at no cost to you.

Why am I getting this email?
You are receiving this message because you requested to be notified by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) if there is a safety recall that may affect your vehicle.

The following may apply to one or more of your vehicles if your vehicle is listed below. Click on the NHTSA Recall ID Number below to read more about the safety issue and the reason for the recall.

To find out if your specific passenger vehicle is included in the recall, use our VIN Look-up Tool.

NHTSA Recall ID Number :	20V682
Manufacturer :	Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing
Subject :	Fuel Pump May Fail
	Make Model Model Years LEXUS ES350 2018-2020 LEXUS GS 200T 2017 LEXUS GS 350 2017-2019 LEXUS GS300 2019 LEXUS GX460 2018-2019 LEXUS IS 300 2019 LEXUS IS 350 2019 LEXUS IS200T 2017 LEXUS LC500 2018-2020 LEXUS LC500H 2018-2020 LEXUS LS500 2018-2020 LEXUS LS500 H 2019 LEXUS LX570 2018-2019 LEXUS NX300 2018-2019 LEXUS RC 200T 2017 LEXUS RC 300 2019 LEXUS RC 350 2019 LEXUS RX350 2017, 2019-2020 LEXUS RX350L 2018-2020 LEXUS UX200 2019 TOYOTA 4RUNNER 2018-2019 TOYOTA AVALON 2019-2020 TOYOTA CAMRY 2018-2020 TOYOTA COROLLA 2020 TOYOTA COROLLA HATCHBACK 2019 TOYOTA HIGHLANDER 2017-2019 TOYOTA LAND CRUISER 2018-2019 TOYOTA RAV4 2019-2020 TOYOTA SEQUOIA 2019-2020 TOYOTA SIENNA 2017-2020 TOYOTA TACOMA 2017-2020 TOYOTA TUNDRA 2019-2020

What is a recall?
When a manufacturer or the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) determines that a vehicle creates an unreasonable risk to safety or fails to meet minimum safety standards, the manufacturer is required to fix that vehicle at no cost to the owner. That can be done by repairing it, replacing it, offering a refund (for equipment) or, in rare cases, repurchasing the car.

What should I do if my vehicle is included in this recall?
If your vehicle is included in this recall, it is very important that you get it fixed as soon as possible given the potential danger to you and your passengers if it is not addressed. You should receive a separate letter in the mail from the vehicle manufacturer, notifying you of the recall and explaining when the remedy will be available, whom to contact to repair your vehicle, and to remind you that the repair will be done at no charge to you. If you believe your vehicle is included in the recall, but you do not receive a letter in the mail from the vehicle manufacturer, please call NHTSA's Vehicle Safety Hotline at 1-888-327-4236, or contact your vehicle manufacturer or dealership.

Thank you for your attention to this important safety matter and for your commitment to helping save lives on America's roadways.

Additional Resources
Understanding Vehicle Recalls
Recalls FAQ

Thank you,

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
United States Department of Transportation

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To file a Vehicle safety-related complaint, please go online to our File a Complaint web page, or call us toll-free at 1-888-327-4236.

To find out more about NHTSA, visit nhtsa.gov, and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

If you have questions regarding these e-mails, please go to the NHTSA Contact web page.

RSN: FOCUS: Jamil Smith | No Votes Which the White Man Was Bound to Respect

 

 

11 November 20

It's Live on the HomePage Now:
Reader Supported News

STILL CAN’T GET DONATIONS MOVING - HELP OUT! - We are still trying to get the November fundraiser moving, (unsuccessfully so far). We certainly have enough Readers but so far very few donations. A few donations would really help. / Marc Ash, Founder Reader Supported News

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FOCUS: Jamil Smith | No Votes Which the White Man Was Bound to Respect

Jamil Smith, Rolling Stone
Smith writes: "Trump never wanted to be a president for all Americans. Now he'll be president for none of them."

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RSN: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar | We May Be a Divided Nation, but We're United in Not Trusting the News Media

 

11 November 20

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Still Can’t Get Donations Moving - Help Out!

We are still trying to get the November fundraiser moving, (unsuccessfully so far). We certainly have enough Readers but so far very few donations.

A few donations would really help.

Marc Ash
Founder, Reader Supported News

Sure, I'll make a donation!

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If you would prefer to send a check:
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11 November 20

It's Live on the HomePage Now:
Reader Supported News

HIGH-FIVES OUTPACING DONATIONS! - Right now the volume of Readers writing in expressing support and encouragement is greater than number of people donating. We love the moral support but we need to finish the fundraiser. It's important. Please throw your something in the hat. Sincere thanks to all. / Marc Ash, Founder Reader Supported News

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Kareem Abdul-Jabbar | We May Be a Divided Nation, but We're United in Not Trusting the News Media

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Los Angeles Times
Abdul-Jabbar writes: "Tuesday's election made clear, once again, how politically divided we are as a nation. But there's at least one thing Americans agree on across the political gulf: They don't trust the news media."
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Mike Pompeo. (photo: Drew Angerer/NYT)

Alarm Grows Over Trump's 'Dictator Moves' as He Denies Election Defeat
Stephen Collinson, CNN
Collinson writes: "President Donald Trump's administration is taking on the characteristics of a tottering regime - with its loyalty tests, destabilizing attacks on the military chain of command, a deepening bunker mentality and increasingly delusional claims of political victory."

In response, a visibly confident President-elect Joe Biden is going out of his way to project calm amid the deepening chaos, even as Trump and senior Republicans still refuse to acknowledge the President's defeat in a stunning break with America's democratic traditions.

Biden is taking calls with leaders of the country's top allies and appearing on camera, which reflects the inevitability of his ascent to power. Meanwhile the President is staying behind closed doors, tweeting in wild block capital letters and unleashing a purge of the Pentagon's civilian leadership in what one current defense official called "dictator moves." And William Cohen, former Secretary of Defense and Republican senator, told CNN's Don Lemon the administration's conduct is "more akin to a dictatorship than a democracy."

The President-elect is reassuring the American people with a composure granted by an election win that Trump's threadbare legal cases baselessly alleging massive voter fraud have little chance of overturning the will of the voters.

The President-elect on Tuesday consciously avoided escalating a confrontation with Trump, who is withholding the access and funding that incoming presidents normally rely on to stand up their administrations. But while Trump will remain President until January 20, an unmistakable symbolic transfer of authority is taking place despite Trump's efforts to deny his successor legitimacy.

"We don't see anything that's slowing us down, quite frankly," Biden said.

The President-elect has already crossed the necessary threshold of 270 electoral votes, according to projections from CNN and other major news outlets and has a chance of matching Trump's 2016 total of 306 electoral votes given his leads in Georgia and Arizona.

And more false accusations and conspiracy theories touted by Trump supporters to claim electoral fraud are dissolving, a day after Attorney General William Barr stepped into the political fray to advise prosecutors to probe major fraud.

The Department of Homeland Security meanwhile pushed back on rumors that ballots were cast on behalf of dead people.

But the Trump team only dug itself deeper into a bizarre parallel universe -- one where the President has already secured a second term -- consistent with the embrace of misinformation and alternative facts that has characterized the last four years.

Pompeo uses platform to advance electoral fraud claims

The administration's defiance took an even more ridiculous twist on Tuesday when Secretary of State Mike Pompeo showed his loyalty to a leader who shows no sign of working on key issues -- including a pandemic that has now landed more Americans in hospitals than ever before.

"There will be a smooth transition to a second Trump administration," Pompeo said. Asked whether Trump's refusal to concede undercut traditional US critiques of corrupt elections abroad, Pompeo rounded on a reporter: "That's ridiculous. And you know it's ridiculous, and you asked it because it's ridiculous." As recently as Monday, Pompeo issued a statement warning of electoral issues in Myanmar, which was long ruled by the military and has endured a difficult transition to semi-democracy where dissidents once looked at the US as a lodestar.

In Wilmington, Delaware, the President-elect pointedly refused to pour fuel on the fire, dismissing the idea that he needed to take legal action to release transition funds and making clear that he was confident that the process of assuming power would eventually work itself out.

He described Trump's behavior since Election Day as "an embarrassment" and after saying he was seeking to be tactful added: "It will not help the President's legacy." Asked whether Republicans would ever accept his victory, he said, "They will, they will," and he suggested with a half-smile that GOP senators were "mildly intimidated" by the President.

Biden, who once had a reputation as a windy public speaker, is showing a new persona to the American people. He noticeably chose his words carefully on Tuesday, putting on a show of calm, as he experiences the transformation that often comes over victorious candidates as they begin to assume the weight of the presidency after winning elections.

Pentagon purge

Trump by contrast is tarnishing the instruments of American democracy by refusing to concede and leaving the country more vulnerable with revenge firings that threaten to weaken critical national security agencies.

After Trump fired Defense Secretary Mark Esper, who had put loyalty to the Constitution ahead of his duty to the President, three other senior Pentagon officials have been fired or resigned. They include the department's top policy official, James Anderson, who resigned and is being replaced by retired Brigadier General Anthony Tata, whose nomination for the post earlier this summer foundered after CNN's KFile reported his numerous past Islamophobic and offensive remarks.

Sources told Barbara Starr and CNN's Pentagon team that the dismissals might be motivated by pushback from Esper and his team against a withdrawal from Afghanistan that would be carried out before the required conditions on the ground were met, and other pending security issues.

"This is scary, it's very unsettling," one defense official told CNN. "These are dictator moves."

Cohen, former Secretary of Defense and Republican senator, too called out the Trump administration's refusal to acknowledge Biden's win Tuesday night, saying "the way they are conducting themselves is more akin to a dictatorship than a democracy."

"I think that the State Department has been politicized, just like the DoD has tried to be politicized, and what we've done to undermine the intelligence community and other agencies, I think is consistent with what has been taking place for four years now," he said Tuesday.

A disputed transfer of power could offer US adversaries an opening, especially if there is a belief abroad that there is disarray in the national security infrastructure. Trump may next turn his ire on CIA Director Gina Haspel and FBI Director Christopher Wray, CNN's Jake Tapper has reported. Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut said on CNN International Tuesday that he feared the US was entering a dangerous period.

"I think (Trump) is going to be uniquely distracted from world events and national security," Murphy said. Former national security adviser John Bolton told CNN's Wolf Blitzer that Pompeo's comments on a Trump transition were "delusional."

"I think he has eviscerated his credibility internationally because I think there are very few people even in the US government who believe that is the case," Bolton said.

Trump's legal battle faces massive odds

Despite Trump's claims that his second term is being stolen from him, the President's legal claim has so far made no headway in its efforts to claim massive fraud. The gambit looks increasingly like a political exercise as Trump struggles to come to terms with his defeat while Republican senators scared of the President's political base refuse to cross him, especially with two Georgia runoff elections scheduled for January that will decide control of their chamber.

Trump's already minuscule opportunity to change the course of the election is diminishing by the day. Biden is now more than 46,000 votes ahead in Pennsylvania, is up by 12,000 in Georgia and has a lead of 14,000 ballots in Arizona. It is not clear whether there are sufficient remaining votes left in the Grand Canyon state for the President to overtake the President-elect.

As the Trump campaign filed a new long-shot lawsuit in Michigan, which Biden won by nearly than 150,000 votes, its communications director Tim Murtaugh said, "We do believe that ultimately President Trump will be declared the winner of this election."

But Benjamin Ginsberg, a veteran Republican election lawyer, said that the Trump campaign "was a long way from nowhere" in its quest to overturn the outcome of the election.

"To win cases, they have to put enough results into play to change the outcome of the election in individual states and in none of the suits they have filed around the country are they anywhere close to doing that in any state," Ginsberg said on CNN's "The Situation Room."

Still, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell dug in Tuesday on his insistence that Trump was within his rights to pursue his complaints.

"I think we ought to quit all the hand-wringing and not act like this is extraordinary," the newly reelected Kentucky Republican said.

"We're going to get through this period and we'll swear in the winner on January the 20th, 2021, just like we have every four years since 1793."

While many observers believe McConnell is playing a long political game -- with the Georgia runoffs and the 2022 midterm congressional elections in mind -- the silence of Republican senators is emboldening Trump's intransigence.

The world has already moved on   

But while GOP lawmakers aren't willing to break with the President, many world leaders are moving to embrace Biden -- including a number of whom who saw themselves as ideological counterparts of the President.

Biden's campaign released statements on the President-elect's calls with the leaders of France, Germany and Ireland. Biden also spoke to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, whose populist leanings made him a good fit with Trump. Johnson promised to work with Biden in a post-Covid-19 era.

Even Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who bonded with Trump over their common strongman tendencies, issued a public message congratulating Biden on his "election success." And Saudi King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman -- who has a close and controversial relationship with Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner -- sent Biden a cable in which they conveyed congratulations on "His Excellency's victory in the presidential elections."

Biden said he had a simple message for all the world leaders: "I am letting them know America is back."

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Bernie Sanders. (photo: The Hill)

Bernie Sanders Is Actively Running for Labor Secretary
Hamilton Nolan, In These Times
Nolan writes: "The news that Sanders is still trying for the position is sure to energize progressives."
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Joe Biden. (photo: Getty Images)

Joe Biden Can Quickly Reverse Many of Donald Trump's Immigration Policies, Experts Say
Julián Aguilar, The Texas Tribune
Aguilar writes: "Biden can unwind many Trump policies the same way they were created, via executive order, but bigger immigration reforms will depend on how much Congress is willing to take on, experts say."

t took less than a half hour after the presidential election was called for President-elect Joe Biden on Saturday before Krish O’Mara Vignarajah tweeted her thoughts on what she expected from the incoming administration.

“We will, day-in and day-out, hold the Biden administration accountable to its promises to immigrants, refugees, DREAMers, and the American people,” she wrote. “And together, we can and we will build a fair and humane immigration system that reflects our better angels.”

As the president and CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, Vignarajah was one of several immigrant rights leaders who decried President Donald Trump’s decision last month to cut the annual refugee limit to 15,000, the lowest ceiling in the history of the 40-year-old resettlement program — down from 30,000 in 2019 and 45,000 in 2018.

The refugee limit was the latest in a four-year string of hard-line actions by the Trump administration to curb legal and unauthorized immigration to the United States, one of the areas where Trump has had more successes than failures in delivering on his campaign promises.

With the election decided — although Trump has not conceded and his campaign has filed lawsuits in multiple states to contest the results — how quickly a Biden administration can begin to reverse course on Trump’s immigration policies depends on several factors. They include how far-reaching the policies are, what Biden can accomplish via executive order and whether Congress has an appetite to take on such measures amid other priorities like the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the country’s economic recession.

Sarah Pierce, an analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based policy think tank, said one of the issues Biden can tackle quickly is also one of the most popular and controversial: the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

The 2012 program provided renewable, two-year work permits and a reprieve from deportation to hundreds of thousands of immigrants who were brought into the U.S. as children; it was open to undocumented immigrants who came to the country before they were 16 and who were 30 or younger as of June 2012. Roughly 107,000 Texans had DACA permits as of December 2019, according to federal statistics.

Trump announced in 2017 he was ending the program, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that was inappropriately terminated.

“Reinstating DACA to its full force would likely only require a memo,” Pierce said. “And it would mean opening [the program] up to more than 400,000 young foreign nationals who are immediately eligible for DACA benefits but unable to apply.”

A Trump administration policy that’s had a big impact on the border, the Migrant Protection Protocols, might not be as easy to eliminate, Pierce said. The policy, known as “remain in Mexico,” was enacted in late 2018 in California and a few months later in the El Paso-Ciudad Juárez region before expanding to other major population centers along the Texas-Mexico border.

The Migrant Protection Protocols require that most asylum seekers wait in Mexico for their court dates in front of American immigration judges. More than 67,000 asylum seekers have been sent back to Mexico, including more than 20,000 in the El Paso-Ciudad Juárez area, since the program’s inception.

“Procedurally that would likely require little more than a policy memo — that is actually how it was created,” Pierce said. “But there will be a lot of questions about what to do with the … individuals who are currently or were previously enrolled in MPP. Those questions will present a lot of political and logistical difficulties for the new administration.”

The Mexican government would likely be included in those discussions, but Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is one of the few world leaders who has not congratulated Biden. Instead, López Obrador — or AMLO, as he’s commonly referred to — said he was going to wait until any legal disputes over the U.S. election were resolved.

Duncan Wood, the director of the Mexico Institute at the Washington, D.C.-based Wilson Center, said López Obrador’s decision to wait was somewhat surprising but won’t be a major diplomatic issue once the election results are finalized.

“It sends the message that the president himself isn’t interested and isn’t excited about working with a new president of the U.S.,” Wood said. “But it’s unlikely to have long-term ramifications just because of the nature of the relationship.”

In 2019, Trump threatened to shut down the southern border if Mexico didn’t do more to stop caravans of migrants from Central America from traveling through Mexico en route to the United States. López Obrador responded to the threats by sending federal troops to his country’s northern border to prevent the migrants from entering the United States and by keeping asylum seekers in makeshift encampments south of the Rio Grande.

Wood said he expected a Biden administration to take a more traditional approach with Mexico that includes dialogue and offers of U.S. aid.

“It’s going to be very difficult for a Biden administration to relax or to end the cooperation with Mexico on stopping the flow of Central Americans northward,” he said.

On construction of the border wall, which Trump made a signature issue of his 2016 campaign, Biden can immediately end Trump’s 2019 emergency declaration that allowed him to transfer billions in Department of Defense construction and payroll funds to finance the border barrier. But it’s unclear what would become of the funds that were transferred but haven’t been used, said Jessica Bolter, a Migration Policy Institute policy analyst.

“Ending the transfer of future funds doesn’t mean in itself that wall construction stops,” she said. “If Biden wants to follow through with his promise not to build another foot of wall, his administration could [also] terminate current contracts for wall construction, possibly even if they’re in the middle of construction, which the government does have a lot of leeway to do.”

There are also pending federal lawsuits in Texas about the Trump administration’s use of eminent domain to acquire private land to build more miles of barrier. The litigation has stalled construction so far in Webb and Zapata counties. But those lawsuits would be a moot point if Biden decides to stop new construction altogether.

The president-elect has also promised to send to the next Congress a bill to provide a path toward legal status for the millions of undocumented immigrants in the United States. But addressing the ongoing pandemic and the economic recession it has caused will likely be a bigger immediate priority, said Muzaffar Chishti, a senior fellow at the MPI.

“That makes, I think, real progress on some other important issues very difficult for the immediate future,” Chishti said.

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'Oregon, like other states that have relaxed their drug laws, didn't do so because political leaders woke up to the problem and pushed serious reforms.' (image: Christina Animashaun/Vox)

America's War on Drugs Has Failed. Oregon Is Showing a Way Out.
German Lopez, Vox
Lopez writes: "The central pillar of the country's drug war is criminal prohibition - even simple possession of illegal substances carries the threat of jail or prison time. Oregon is chipping away at that regime, if not dismantling it entirely."
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Clockwise from top left: Donald Trump, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Matteo Salvini, Janez Janša, Jair Bolsonaro, Marine Le Pen, Viktor Orbán, and Thierry Baudet. (image: Carlos Barria/Henry Romero/Francisco Seco/Stefano Carofei/Nicolad Messyas/Robin Utrecht/Rex/Reuters)

End of Trump Era Deals Heavy Blow to Rightwing Populist Leaders Worldwide
Shaun Walker, Tom Phillips and Jon Henley, Guardian UK
Excerpt: "As the Donald Trump era draws to a close, many world leaders are breathing a sigh of relief. But Trump's ideological kindred spirits - rightwing populists in office in Brazil, Hungary, Slovenia and elsewhere - are instead taking a sharp breath."

The end of the Trump presidency may not mean the beginning of their demise, but it certainly strips them of a powerful motivational factor, and also alters the global political atmosphere, which in recent years had seemed to be slowly tilting in their favour, at least until the onset of coronavirus. The momentous US election result is further evidence that the much-talked-about “populist wave” of recent years may be subsiding.

For Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, who has yet to recognise Joe Biden’s victory, Trump’s dismissal struck close to home. “He was really banking on a Trump victory … Bolsonaro knows that part of his project depends on Trump,” said Guilherme Casarões, a political scientist from Getulio Vargas Foundation in Brazil.

As the reality of a Trump-free future sunk in last Thursday, Bolsonaro reportedly sought to lighten the mood in the presidential palace, telling ministers he now had little choice but to hurl his pro-Trump foreign policy guru, Filipe Martins, from the building’s third-floor window.

The election result represented a blow to Bolsonarismo, a far-right political project modelled closely on Trumpism that may now lose some of its shine. And on the world stage the result means Brazil has lost a key ally, even if critics say the relationship brought few tangible benefits. It brings an end to what Eliane Cantanhêde, a prominent political commentator, called Bolsonaro’s “megalomaniacal pipedream” of spearheading an international rightwing crusade.

“Without Trump, who’s going to lead this? Brazil, Poland and Hungary?” Cantanhêde said. “The party’s over ... No one was taking this seriously anyway – but now without Trump, they’ll just laugh.”

Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, whom Trump’s former strategist Steve Bannon once called “Trump before Trump”, had also set out his stall firmly behind the incumbent before the vote, saying he had no plan B in the event of a Trump loss.

Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, whom Trump’s former strategist Steve Bannon once called “Trump before Trump”, had also set out his stall firmly behind the incumbent before the vote, saying he had no plan B in the event of a Trump loss.

“I am convinced that President Trump has saved conservative America and become one of the greatest American presidents. We wish him, and ourselves, total success in his election,” Orbán said shortly before the vote.

Trump’s White House has given tacit backing and sometimes open support to far-right movements and leaders. Trump sent an old friend, the jewellery magnate David Cornstein, to be ambassador in Budapest and flatter Orbán, while his ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, said he planned to “empower” rightwing forces across Europe, infuriating his German hosts.

Orbán said his support for Trump was partly because Hungary was tired of being lectured by Democratic politicians. “We didn’t like it and we don’t want a second helping,” he said.

Cas Mudde, a professor of international affairs at the University of Georgia, said it was the prospect of this kind of criticism under Biden, rather than any concrete political benefits of Trump per se, that was behind European illiberal politicians’ embrace of Trump.

“I doubt most far-right leaders will feel their electoral success is going to be impacted by Trump’s defeat. Neither will it really change their access to the White House, which was limited under Trump too,” he said.

“What they mainly worry about is what Orbán has called ‘liberal imperialism’ – having the US criticise democratic erosion and the abuse of human rights around the world again.”

Most populist leaders waited as long as possible for the results before grudgingly congratulating Biden, or simply remaining quiet. Orbán sent belated congratulations on Sunday, but Hungarian and Polish state television played up Trump’s claims of fraud and suggested the result was still in the balance.

Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, commonly called AMLO, declined to congratulate Biden immediately, saying he would wait until all legal challenges had been settled. “We want to be prudent,” López Obrador said on Saturday.

Observers see stylistic similarities between the two leaders, despite the fact AMLO was elected on a leftwing populist platform. He questioned the US media on Monday for “censoring” Trump’s recent press conference by cutting coverage over false claims being made.

Slovenia’s prime minister, Janez Janša, went further, calling the election for Trump on Wednesday morning. Janša, who has a Trumpian relationship with his Twitter feed, wrote that it was “pretty clear” Trump had won four more years in office. “More delays and facts denying from #MSM, bigger the final triumph for #POTUS,” he wrote.

Since then, he has said Slovenia will continue to be partners with the US, though he also tweeted a number of times that the timing of Monday’s announcement on a potential coronavirus vaccine breakthrough was suspicious and perhaps had been deliberately withheld until after the election.

In Estonia, where the far-right EKRE party was brought into a coalition government last year, remarks on Trump by the party leader and interior minister, Mart Helme, led to a full-blown political crisis. Helme, who described Biden and his son Hunter as “corrupt characters”, said he believed Trump would be declared the winner in the end. “It will happen as a result of an immense struggle, maybe even bloodshed but justice will win in the end,” he said.

President Kersti Kaljulaid said over the weekend that she was “sad and embarrassed” by the remarks and suggested the attack on Estonia’s main ally was a national security threat. On Monday, Helme resigned.

Not everyone in the European far right is eager to die on the hill of Trump’s evidence-free claims of electoral fraud, however, particularly in those countries where most voters tend to be sceptical of the brash US president.

In France, where according to one pre-election poll only 14% of voters wanted Trump to win, the far-right National Rally leader Marine Le Pen seemed keen not to rock any boats before next year’s presidential elections.

Although she hailed Trump’s victory in 2016, and suggested after last week’s vote that he was “on the side of history”, she has conspicuously declined to follow several of her party officials in relaying false claims from the Trump campaign of mass electoral fraud, prompting speculation that she fears risking her domestic credibility by associating herself too strongly with the Trump cause.

In the Netherlands, Thierry Baudet, leader of the far-right Forum for Democracy, and his rival, Geert Wilders of the anti-Islam Party for Freedom, both of whom backed Trump in the election, have made little noise in the aftermath.

In Italy, the League leader, Matteo Salvini, who wore a “Trump 2020” face mask before the elections, has been silent since the Biden win, though he did restate the claims of voter fraud late last week. Giorgia Meloni, his coalition partner and Brothers of Italy leader, said Biden had “Covid to thank” for his victory.

Mudde said Trump, with his “America First” rhetoric, was always a tricky figure for large parts of the European far right, especially in countries that have strong anti-American sentiment.

“Bolsonaro is much more like Trump than Le Pen or Salvini. The latter are ideological far-right politicians, steeped in a far-right subculture; Bolsonaro is a conservative-turned-far-right, unconnected to party or subculture, and therefore ideologically thin and flexible,” he said.

Some observers believe Bolsonaro will be forced to moderate his politics by Trump’s loss. Many expect him to retire his Trump-admiring foreign minister, Ernesto Araújo, who has hailed the US president as the “saviour” of the west.

“The foreign minister is of no use in a post-Trumpian world,” said Oliver Stuenkel, an international relations specialist. “He was a one-issue foreign minister: to admire and adulate Donald Trump and propagate Trumpist ideas.”

In Europe, opponents of populism hope the change in the White House will have a similar knock-on effect. “President Trump was good for the Orbán government, President Biden will be good for Hungary,” Gergely Karácsony, the opposition mayor of Budapest, wrote on Facebook.

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An aerial view of flood waters from Hurricane Delta surrounding structures destroyed by Hurricane Laura on October 10, 2020 in Creole, Louisiana. (photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images)

29 Storms and Counting: The Story Behind the Atlantic's Super-Active Hurricane Season
Zoya Teirstein, Grist
Teirstein writes: "The Atlantic Ocean has spawned a seemingly endless string of tropical storms and hurricanes this year."

n Monday night, the 29th named storm of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season formed in the northeast Atlantic. As of right now, the subtropical storm doesn’t threaten any communities or coastlines, but Theta has demolished the 2005 record — 28 named storms — for the greatest number of named storms in an Atlantic season. Tropical cyclones get names when their maximum sustained winds reach a minimum of 39 miles per hour. The World Meteorological Organization says there’s a 70 percent chance a 30th named storm will form in the next five days.

The Atlantic Ocean has spawned a seemingly endless string of tropical storms and hurricanes this year. The season broke records early and often, starting on June 2 when Tropical Storm Cristobal became the earliest “C” named storm to form in an Atlantic season. (Atlantic storms are named in alphabetical order; Cristobal was the third named storm of the season.) After drenching Central America and Mexico, Cristobal moved into the Gulf Coast and upper Midwest, triggering storm surge, flash flooding, and tornadoes. Cristobal seemed unusually early at the time, but the months that followed proved the storm was not an anomaly. In total, 25 of the 28 named storms that occurred before Theta were the earliest named storms for their position in the alphabet — and then the Greek alphabet —on record.

The sheer volume of storms might seem like a foreboding sign of years to come. Climate scientists say warming ocean temperatures and rising sea levels have already influenced the severity of some storms and will lead to more intense storms in the future. It’s important to note, however, that scientists are not in agreement that rising temperatures are affecting the frequency or timing of tropical storms and hurricanes.

As the New York Times points out, there are two major reasons — neither related to climate change — for the record number of named storms this year. The first is the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, a sea-surface temperature pattern in the North Atlantic that has been in a warming phase for the past couple of decades. Those warmer ocean temperatures in the tropical Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea helped create the conditions for the 29 named storms we’ve seen so far, in part because the cyclical pattern contributed to a powerful African monsoon season and reduced wind shear that could have helped waylay storms.

Another reason for the volume of named storms is how far storm-tracking technologies have come in recent years. The tools meteorologists use to locate, identify, and track disturbances have gotten better over time. Some of the storms that broke records this season but didn’t touch a landmass might not have been detected in previous seasons.

In terms of major hurricanes — Category 3 storms and higher, with maximum winds at least 111 miles per hour — 2005 still holds the record. That year, eight hurricanes met the Category 3 threshold. Three of them hit Category 5 status, an unprecedented development.

But even with all the caveats around the 2020 record, there was something truly record-breaking about this year’s season: the number of times major storms cut through the Gulf Coast, especially Louisiana. Storm-weary residents of coastal Louisiana braced for seven tropical storm forecasts this season, and five of them made landfall — breaking a record set in 2002, when four storms plagued the state. Two of this year’s storms, Laura and Delta, trampled near-identical paths through the state slightly more than six weeks apart from each other. Some Louisiana towns, like Lake Charles, were still facing years of recovery from Hurricane Laura when Hurricane Delta made landfall. More recently, Hurricane Zeta, a Category 2 storm, made landfall about 65 miles southwest of New Orleans and knocked out power for millions in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, and the Carolinas. The compounding effect of back-to-back hurricanes had catastrophic consequences for the region.

It’ll be a long time before Louisiana is fully back up on its feet. That’s not just a short-term problem (though the state might have to contend with another storm before the season is through); it’s the Achilles’ heel of coastal, hurricane-prone states. This busy Atlantic hurricane season has illuminated the recklessness of rebuilding infrastructure, businesses, and homes in exactly the same way in exactly the same places after exactly the same disasters.

The foolhardiness of expecting a different result while doing little to change the odds of survival extends beyond hurricanes. The same deal applies to areas ravaged by wildfires, cities plagued by flooding due to sea-level rise, and a host of other issues that are becoming harder to ignore in our warming world. At some point in the near future, American communities will have to take stock of whether living at the mouths of densely-wooded canyons, in neighborhoods that flood on sunny days, and on the thin stretches of real estate where land meets the sea is worth it. This isn’t a problem that most individuals can solve, not least because plenty of the people who live in these places don’t have the means to up and move on their own. It’s up to the government to help them make the right choices.

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