22 October 20
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Robert Reich | How to Stop Trump From Stealing the Election
Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog
Reich writes: "Trump is likely to claim that mail-in ballots, made necessary by the pandemic, are rife with 'fraud like you've never seen,' as he alleged during his debate with Joe Biden - although it's been shown that Americans are more likely to be struck by lightning than commit voter fraud."
rump is likely to claim that mail-in ballots, made necessary by the pandemic, are rife with “fraud like you’ve never seen,” as he alleged during his debate with Joe Biden – although it’s been shown that Americans are more likely to be struck by lightning than commit voter fraud.
So we should expect him to dispute election results in any Republican-led state he loses by a small margin – such as Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin.
The 12th Amendment to the Constitution provides that if state electors deadlock or neither candidate gets a majority of the votes in the Electoral College needed to win the presidency (now 270) – because, for example, Trump contests votes in several key states – the decision about who’ll be president goes to the House, where each of the nation’s 50 states gets one vote.
That means less-populous Republican-dominated states like Alaska (with one House member, who’s a Republican) would have the same clout as large Democratic states like California (with 53 House members, 45 of whom are Democrats).
So if the decision goes to the House, Trump has the advantage right now: 26 of state congressional delegations in the House are now controlled by Republicans, and 22 by Democrats (two — Pennsylvania and Michigan — are essentially tied).
But he won’t necessarily keep that advantage after the election. If the decision goes to the House, it would be made by lawmakers elected in November, who will be sworn in on January 3 – three days before they’ll convene to decide the winner of the election.
Which is why House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is focusing on races that could tip the balance of state delegations – not just in Pennsylvania and Michigan but any others within reach. “It’s sad we have to plan this way,” she wrote recently, “but it’s what we must do to ensure the election is not stolen.”
The targets are Alaska (where replacing the one House member, now a Republican, with a Democrat, would result in a vote for Biden), Montana (ditto), Pennsylvania (now tied, so flipping one would be enough), Florida (now 14 Republicans and 13 Democrats, but 3 Republicans are retiring) and Michigan (where Republicans now have 6 members and Democrats 7).
Congress has decided contested elections only three times in U.S. history, in 1801, 1825, and 1877. But we might face another because Donald Trump will stop at nothing to retain his power.
That’s why it’s even more critical for you to vote. Make this a blowout victory for Joe Biden and Democrats down the ballot, and stop Trump from stealing this election.
Joe Biden. (photo: Getty)
Biden Says He'll Set Up Commission to Study Reforming Supreme Court if Elected
John Bowden, The Hill
Bowden writes: "Former Vice President Joe Biden (D) said that he would form a commission to 'study' the Supreme Court when asked by CBS's Norah O'Donnell whether he would consider "packing" the court, or adding justices past the current nine seats."
emocratic presidential nominee Joe Biden says he would set up a bipartisan commission to study reforms to the U.S. court system, spurred by his party’s calls to expand the number of seats on the U.S. Supreme Court amid the fight over replacing Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Biden told CBS’s “60 Minutes” in an interview airing Sunday the commission would look at several alternatives that he didn’t define. But Democrats and legal scholars have suggested term limits and jurisdiction stripping as well as adding seats to the nine-member high court, known as “court packing.”
“What I will do is I’ll put together a national commission of, bipartisan commission of, scholars, constitutional scholars, Democrats, Republicans, liberal/conservative. And I will -- ask them to over 180 days come back to me with recommendations as to how to reform the court system because it’s getting out of whack- the way in which it’s being handled,” Biden said, according to a transcript released Thursday.
Asked if he meant he’s going to study court packing, Biden said, “There’s a number of alternatives that are -- go well beyond packing.”
Biden has been under pressure to describe his position on the court system after Democrats began pushing for more seats on the court in the wake of Ginsburg’s death. The former vice president has said recently he’s “not a fan” of court packing and has more definitively opposed it before he was running for president.
Democrats have been angry over the speed with which President Donald Trump and Senate Republicans have moved to replace Ginsburg, who died Sept. 18, with Judge Amy Coney Barrett. They say that with the election so close and early voting already underway, the selection of a replacement justice should have gone to the next president.
The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote Thursday on Barrett’s nomination.
Voters in Durham, NC, wait in a long line Oct. 15 to cast their ballots on the first day of the state's in-person early voting. (photo: Jonathan Drake/Reuters)
US Agencies Mount Major Effort to Prevent Russian Interference in the Election Even Though Trump Downplays Threat
Ellen Nakashima and Craig Timberg, The Washington Post
Excerpt: "The U.S. government is mounting a major effort to prevent a repeat of 2016 - when federal agencies were slow to address Russia's attempts to manipulate the presidential election - and is taking a range of actions despite the disinterest of President Trump, who questions intelligence that the Kremlin is intent on undermining American democracy."
Top security agencies are coordinating actions to thwart foreign hackers, prevent Russia-linked individuals from entering the United States and freeze any of their assets subject to U.S. jurisdiction. They are also passing intelligence to social media firms, and helping state and local election officials shore up their defenses.
For months American military cyber-operators, aided by intelligence from the National Security Agency (NSA), have been targeting Russian spies to disrupt their plans by repeatedly knocking them off the Internet, confusing their planners and depriving them of their hacking tools. The goal is to prevent them from attacking U.S. voting systems, according to security officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.
The State Department this year has revoked the visas of two Ukrainians deemed to be engaged in activities designed to influence the election and advance Russia’s interests. The Treasury Department imposed sanctions last month on four Russia-linked individuals — including one of the Ukrainians, who was labeled an “active Russian agent” — to prevent them from interfering in the electoral process, the first time that the U.S. government has taken such an action before an election.
A vital missing ingredient, however, has been messaging from the top, such as a declaration from the president that the United States will not tolerate efforts — in particular from the Kremlin — to interfere in the election. And disinformation experts say that Trump has reinforced Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attempts to stoke American social divisions with Trump’s inflammatory and unfounded remarks about racial and cultural issues, the novel coronavirus and the security of voting by mail.
“We get better at exposing Russia’s activity, and when the president denies it or calls it into question, that gives Putin the space and opportunity he doesn’t deserve,” H.R. McMaster, Trump’s former national security adviser, said in an interview. He wrote about Putin’s “playbook” in his new book, “Battlegrounds.”
But officials say even if Trump is not publicly voicing support for agencies’ efforts, he is not impeding them, and the NSA, FBI and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have made securing the election a top priority.
One result is an increasingly effective working relationship between federal officials and Silicon Valley, whose biggest companies had distanced themselves from the U.S. government after the 2013 revelations by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden about the extent of government surveillance relying on their networks.
That tension, the government’s failure to anticipate the Russians’ operations and the Obama administration’s reluctance to publicly call out Moscow until late in the campaign, hobbled the response in 2016. Both the government and social media companies were focused on traditional cyberattacks as opposed to more subtle influence operations, such as fake social media accounts that worked to discourage African Americans likely to support Democrat Hillary Clinton from casting ballots on Election Day.
But this election year the FBI, also armed with NSA intelligence, has tipped Facebook, Twitter and other tech companies to networks of fake accounts created by Russian operatives, which have cut short the attempts of these actors to polarize voters and undermine support for Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
With this improved relationship and other initiatives, the government is “light-years” ahead of where it was in 2016 — and even the midterms, said David Imbordino, the NSA’s election security lead, who did not discuss operations in an interview with The Washington Post.
Targeting the trolls
In 2016, some state election officials were wary of allowing the federal government to help them safeguard their systems. Today, DHS’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has relationships with officials in all 50 states and the District of Columbia and has installed malware-tracking sensors on every state election network to spot potential intrusions. In some states, such as Florida, it has those sensors in every county.
The hardening of these networks has diminished the prospect of a successful foreign interference effort this year, elections officials say.
“We feel very confident in where we are and how far we’ve come” in securing election systems, said Carol F. Rudd, elections supervisor for Washington County, Fla., one of two counties in the state to have its systems hacked by Russian military spies in 2016. She has seen no such attempts this year.
The election is still threatened by domestic efforts to cast doubt on its integrity and by Russian efforts to amplify those messages, experts say. The U.S. intelligence community’s head of counterintelligence, William Evanina, this month told Hearst Television that Russia, China and Iran have sought to “amplify divisive messages put forth by Americans, to include the president.”
Democratic lawmakers are upset at the administration’s decision to withhold in-person briefings on foreign election threats to the full Congress, and some former officials, including Trump’s former homeland security adviser Tom Bossert, fear that the president and senior officials may not level with the public if foreign — especially Russian — influence is detected.
Moves to strengthen the nation’s defenses against foreign interference began in the closing days of the Obama administration, which declared election systems to be “critical infrastructure.” This allowed the government to prioritize election security efforts and facilitate assistance to state and local election offices.
The Trump administration, despite the president publicly challenging findings about Russian interference, has continued this effort.
In March 2018, DHS helped launch the Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center, which serves more than 8,800 election jurisdictions by providing cyberthreat alerts and running CISA’s remote security monitoring. Also that year Trump signed an executive order permitting the imposition of sanctions in the event of foreign interference, and he also signed a national security memo that streamlined approval for offensive cyberoperations.
U.S. Cyber Command ran a campaign to keep Russian trolls off the Internet for several days around the midterm elections in 2018. And today, Cybercom and the NSA are undertaking broader and more sophisticated actions, including against the Russian military spy agency, the GRU, and a botnet run by Russian-speaking criminals, U.S. officials said.
“Our goal is to make it as difficult as possible for an adversary to execute an operation that may interfere with some type of U.S. election system or may influence a U.S. citizen or entity,” Brig. Gen. Joe Hartman, Cyber Command election security lead, said in an interview, without discussing operations. Hackers need malware, network access and servers, he said. “The ability to take those things away from an adversary prevents them from achieving their tactical or strategic objective.”
Cybercom is also helping foreign allies find malware used by Russian and Chinese hackers, then disclosing it. In August, the NSA and the FBI revealed Russian malware used by the GRU. The same month, the State Department’s Global Engagement Center issued a report exposing websites and organizations as Russian sites spreading disinformation.
NSA intelligence led to last month’s takedown by Facebook and Twitter of a Russian operation called Peace Data, which recruited U.S. journalists to write articles intended to undermine support for Biden and his running mate, Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.). In October, an FBI investigation led to the neutralizing of another Russian operation — this one targeting conservative voters — on three mainstream platforms.
In each case the accounts and pages were removed before they could accrue large followings and spread content virally — an improvement over 2016, officials said.
“Today, the awareness about state-sponsored threats is high, and the infrastructure to fight such foreign operations seems to be working well,” said Colin Crowell, Twitter’s former vice president for public policy whose team probed Russian influence on the platform after the 2016 election and who left the company last year.
Command posts
The bureau, CISA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence have also briefed candidates, parties and the congressional intelligence committees on foreign threats to the election and their systems. The last briefings for the campaigns are expected this week.
CISA and the FBI will have round-the-clock command posts on Election Day to monitor threats and share information across the government. CISA will share data with state and local election officials and social media firms, and it has launched a rumor-control Web page to debunk disinformation about voting security.
The Justice Department last month charged an employee of a Russian troll factory known as the Internet Research Agency with fraud conspiracy related to alleged ongoing election influence.
The National Security Council has a designated official coordinating the agencies’ efforts: Brian Cavanaugh, who reports to national security adviser Robert O’Brien. Under O’Brien, the NSC has held more than 70 election security meetings since September 2019, several of them at the Cabinet secretary level, officials said.
The Treasury Department’s sanctions have enabled social media firms to take more aggressive action against foreign influence. Shortly after Ukrainian lawmaker Andrii Derkach was added to a sanctions list last month, Google removed 14 accounts linked to him, including a Gmail account and a YouTube channel, which he used to spread disinformation involving the Ukraine and the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Google was able to remove the accounts as violations of their terms of service that require customers to obey U.S. law, a Google spokeswoman said.
By this point in the election in 2016, the Russians had hacked and released tens of thousands of emails from the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman. This year to date, there has been nothing similar.
“On the interference side, when you compare to 2016, the level of activity is dramatically different,” CISA Director Christopher Krebs said during a Hayden Center webinar on election security this month. “At this point we’re not seeing the same level of high-stakes coordinated campaign targeting [election and voting] infrastructure.”
Noting the strides taken by the federal, state and local governments and social media companies, Cybercom’s Hartman urged Americans to refrain from “giving a foreign adversary more credit than they’re actually due.”
In the end, McMaster said, the biggest threat to the election is not Russia. “It’s what we’re doing to ourselves,” he said. “The Russians cannot create these fissures in our society, but they can widen them.”
Senate Democrats speak Oct. 12 after a confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett before the Senate Judiciary Committee. They have announced they will boycott Thursday's scheduled committee vote on Barrett. (photo: Stefani Reynolds/AP)
Nina Totenberg | Democrats Plan to Boycott Senate Committee Vote on Barrett Nomination
Nina Totenberg, NPR
Totenberg writes: "Senate Democrats say they plan to boycott Thursday's scheduled vote on the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court."
READ MORE
The Trump administration is being accused of attempting 'to silence and intimidate international human rights organizations.' (photo: Getty)
Trump Considers Labeling Humanitarian Groups 'Antisemitic' Over Criticism of Israel
Peter Beaumont, Guardian UK
Beaumont writes: "The Trump administration is reportedly considering labelling a number of leading international humanitarian organizations as antisemitic after they documented Israeli rights abuses against Palestinians, including settlement building in the occupied territories."
Trump administration reportedly considering move against organisations that documented Israeli rights abuses
he Trump administration is reportedly considering labelling a number of leading international humanitarian organisations as antisemitic after they documented Israeli rights abuses against Palestinians, including settlement building in the occupied territories.
The groups include the UK-based Amnesty International and Oxfam as well as the US organisation Human Rights Watch. Amnesty International accused the Trump administration, and the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, of attempting “to silence and intimidate international human rights organisations”.
The plans were detailed in reports in Politico and the Washington Post and based on briefings from unnamed officials and a congressional aide who said that a declaration labelling the groups antisemitic could come as early as this week.
The move would appear to be a gift to the Israeli right in the run-up to the US elections as it is reportedly being driven by Pompeo.
Rightwing Israeli political figures, not least the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, have long complained that any scrutiny of Israel’s human rights record regarding Palestinians, including by UN bodies, is biased and disproportionate.
The mooted declaration follows recent statements by senior Israeli political figures making similar charges.
Last year, Gilad Erdan, then strategic affairs minister, threatened to ban Amnesty International from Israel over a report that called on websites such as Airbnb, Booking.com, Expedia and TripAdvisor to boycott listings in Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories – regarded as illegal under international law – accusing the sites of profiting from “war crimes”.
“Amnesty International, that hypocritical organisation that speaks in the name of human rights, is acting to promote a boycott of Israelis as part of a campaign of antisemitic delegitimisation,” Erdan said at the time.
According to Politico, the declaration is expected to take the form of a report from the office of Elan Carr, the US special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, and would urge the US government to withdraw support for named groups and encourage other countries to follow suit, despite opposition from state department lawyers.
The report would cite such organisations’ perceived support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which has targeted Israel over its construction of settlements on land Palestinians claim for a future state.
The state department declined to comment on a pending declaration, which was first reported by Politico.
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Oxfam each strenuously denied any accusation of antisemitism.
In a statement, Bob Goodfellow, of Amnesty International USA, said: “Secretary Pompeo’s baseless accusations are yet another attempt to silence and intimidate international human rights organisations.
“The administration is spreading misinformation and working to undermine those who are working to protect human rights. Amnesty International USA is deeply committed to fighting antisemitism and all forms of hate worldwide, and will continue to protect people wherever justice, freedom, truth and dignity are denied. We vigorously contest any allegation of antisemitism.
“We know that the governments of many countries, including the United States, would rather not have their human rights violations exposed. It is concerning to see secretary Pompeo join the list of people and governments that use accusations of antisemitism to try to sweep human rights abuses under the rug.”
Noah Gottschalk, of Oxfam America, said: “Any insinuation that Oxfam supports antisemitism is false, baseless, and offensive.
“Oxfam and our Israeli and Palestinian partners have worked on the ground for decades to promote human rights and provide lifesaving support for Israeli and Palestinian communities. We stand by our long history of work protecting the lives, human rights, and futures of all Israelis and Palestinians.”
Human Rights Watch’s official, Eric Goldstein, also condemned the move.
“We fight discrimination in all forms, including antisemitism,” he said in a statement. “Criticising government policy is not the same as attacking a specific group of people. For example, our critiques of US government policy do not make us anti-American.”
People protesting against police brutality in Lagos on October 20. (photo: Sunday Alamba/AP
Waving Flags, They Sang Nigeria's Anthem. Then They Were Shot At
Fidelis Mbah, Al Jazeera
Mbah writes: "Agboola Fabiyi was close to the front line when he saw armed soldiers approach a peaceful protest camp in Lekki, an upmarket area in Nigeria's commercial capital, Lagos."
Peaceful protesters say they will not give up their fight against police brutality and injustice, even after Lagos attack that shocked the nation.
gboola Fabiyi was close to the front line when he saw armed soldiers approach a peaceful protest camp in Lekki, an upmarket area in Nigeria’s commercial capital, Lagos.
The 28-year-old protester said some of the soldiers reached the crowd and asked them to leave in compliance with a curfew imposed by the authorities earlier on Tuesday. When the protesters demanding an end to police brutality refused, Fabiyi said the soldiers began firing into the air, before turning their guns towards them.
“We never imagined they would start shooting at us because we were peaceful and not carrying weapons,” he said on Wednesday, still shaken. “The worst we expected was for the soldiers to throw tear gas to disperse us.”
Fabiyi said he quickly laid face down to the ground as protesters at the Lekki toll plaza began scampering to safety. Shortly after, he also crawled away.
Several witnesses have given similar accounts on social media and news reports, describing an unprovoked attack that caused outrage across Nigeria and abroad. Graphic footage posted online showed demonstrators fleeing as gunfire and sirens rang out, with some trying to remove shrapnel from wounded protesters.
Just hours before, videos widely shared online showed protesters waving Nigerian flags, singing the national anthem and solidarity songs and chanting the names of victims of police brutality.
In a statement on Wednesday, Amnesty International said it had confirmed that the Nigerian army and police killed at least 12 peaceful protesters in Lekki and Alausa, another protest ground in Lagos, after firing on thousands of peaceful demonstrators.
Following a hospital visit to victims of what he described as the “unfortunate shooting incident” in Lekki, Lagos State governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu said one person had died from a blow to the head – but it was not clear if the person was a demonstrator.
“It is imperative to explain that no governor controls the rules of engagement of the army,” said Sanwo-Olu, who cited what he described as the degeneration of protests “into a monster” when he announced the curfew. “I have nevertheless instructed an investigation into the ordered and the adopted rules of engagement employed by the men of the Nigerian army deployed to the Lekki Toll Gate,” he added.
The Nigerian army, however, denied the involvement of their men in the shooting. In a Twitter post, it said no soldiers were at the scene in Lekki and went on to label several reports as fake news.
“They came in military trucks. They were armed and wore military uniform,” retorted Fabiyi. “Are they denying what is so visible to everyone? There are videos of them shooting at us”.
Fabiyi, a graphic designer based in Lagos’s Osapa area, has been an active participant in the street demonstrations that began some two weeks ago with calls to disband the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), a controversial police unit which has long been accused of unlawful arrests, torture and extrajudicial killings.
Authorities on October 11 announced the dissolution of SARS but protesters remained unconvinced by the announcement, saying they would remain on the streets until their demands were met, including the release of imprisoned protesters and implementation of structural law enforcement reforms.
Tensions running high
Lagos remained on edge on Wednesday as protesters defied the round-the-clock curfew and gunfire was heard. Some public buildings and a private television station were also attacked by criminal elements, according to reports.
Demonstrators in Lagos have long expressed fears that provocateurs might be used to disrupt the peaceful character of their movement and create the conditions that would justify a security crackdown against them.
Early on Tuesday, police authorities announced that anti-riot forces would be immediately deployed across the country to maintain law and order, while soldiers have also been patrolling in major cities where violence has been reported.
Edo State in the country’s south was the first to introduce a 24-hour curfew on Monday after gangs attacked two main prisons, helping nearly 2,000 inmates to escape. A police manhunt has since been under way.
On Wednesday, protesters in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, kept off the streets. But tensions are still running high in the city after thugs attacked demonstrators on Monday and Tuesday.
“We are restrategising on how to approach the next phase of our protests to avoid being infiltrated by hoodlums,” said Francis Okobi.
“The protests will surely continue in a few days from now. We have come under serious attack from hoodlums hired by politicians to disrupt our programme,” added the 32-year-old, a construction worker.
At a corner near the entrance of his one-bedroom apartment in Abuja’s Mpape area, there was still a placard reading: “We don’t need reform. #EndSars #EndPoliceBrutalitynow.”
“We are very determined to achieve results. We won’t give up,” he said.
Fabiyi shared the same conviction.
“We have remained peaceful during our protests. All we are asking for is that government should meet our demands to end police brutality,” Fabiyi said.
“What’s happening now is so unfortunate. We are not hoodlums. We don’t bear arms. We have only been marching through the streets and carrying placards,” he added.
“But we are not giving up. If we fail now our children won’t be happy with us. We have to continue to demand for a better Nigeria.”
There's a pandemic risk lurking on factory farms in the US. (photo: Shutterstock)
Factory Farms Are an Ideal Breeding Ground for the Next Pandemic
Byrd Pinkerton, Sigal Samuel, and Amy Drozdowska, Vox
Excerpt: "We've seen the devastating effects of a pandemic firsthand: the loss of human life, the economic toll, and the impact on everything from mental health to children's education."
One researcher says we are “playing Russian roulette.”
Which is why, as Covid-19 spread, people looked for a way to prevent future outbreaks.
In the US, people started to call for the closure of “wet markets” overseas. Some research suggested that the many different species living closely together in these markets might have allowed the virus to mutate and jump to humans.
But Martha Nelson, who studies viruses at the National Institutes of Health, says that if we’re really serious about preventing a future pandemic, we also need to look closer to home.
“I think it’s really easy to think that pandemics come from other places,” she explains, “I think it’s really easy to think that they’re foreign invaders coming from other people who were doing things in a bad way. And I certainly would never underplay the importance of wet markets and all the opportunities for novel pathogens to emerge there. But I think it’s sometimes hard to see things in your own backyard.”
On this episode of the Future Perfect podcast, Nelson explains the pandemic risk lurking on factory farms in the US.
Nelson has studied our system of raising pigs closely, and she argues that by moving pigs across the country and raising large numbers of pigs in very close proximity, we’re creating ideal conditions for a dangerous influenza virus to develop. And since she’s also seen how easily pigs can spread novel viruses to humans, she’s even more concerned.
Given the frequency of pig to human transmission, she says, we’re “playing Russian roulette” with our current system of factory farming animals.
