US elections 2020

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      Fox News's Tucker Carlson mocked for 'lost in the mail' Biden documents claim

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      The Fox News host Tucker Carlson has been mocked for his attempt to explain why he could not produce some documents he had promised relating to Joe Biden.He said the only copy of the papers, which he claimed added to claims about Biden’s son Hunter, had been lost.In a segment delivered to camera, Carlson said:
      On Monday we received from a source a collection of confidential documents related to the Biden family. We believe those documents are authentic, they’re real, and they’re damning … We texted a producer in New York and we asked him to send those documents to us in LA … He shipped those documents overnight to California with a large national carrier brand … But the Biden documents never arrived in Los Angeles. Tuesday morning we received word from the shipping company that our package had been opened and the contents were missing. The documents had disappeared.
      He went on to say of the delivery company, which he did not name:
      They searched the plane and the trucks that carried it, they went through the office in New York where our producer dropped that package off, they combed their entire cavernous sorting facility. They used pictures of what we had sent so that searchers would know what to look for. They went far and beyond. But they found nothing, those documents have vanished. As of tonight the company has no idea – and no working theory even – about what happened to this trove of materials, documents that are directly relevant to the presidential campaign.
      Carlson’s show has been one of the main conduits of conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden, attempting to expand the narrative about his dealings in Ukraine and China and castigating other media outlets for not paying enough attention to claims made recently in the New York Post.Carson’s story of the lost documents cut little ice on social media:BREAKING: Documents Tucker Carlson never actually had that would allegedly blow up the election were so important that they were sent via DHL, and now can’t be found despite copiers, iPhone cameras and security cameras. 😂😂😂 https://t.co/9yKkDAUh2v— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) October 29, 2020 More

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      Investors should prepare for worst over US presidential election

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      Opinion polls in the US have long pointed to the strong possibility of a Democratic party sweep in the election on 3 November, with Joe Biden winning the presidency and Democrats gaining control of the US Senate and holding on to the House of Representatives, putting an end to divided government.
      But if the election turns out to be mostly a referendum on Donald Trump, Democrats might win just the White House while failing to retake the Senate. And one cannot rule out the possibility of Donald Trump navigating a narrow path to an electoral college victory, and of Republicans holding on to the Senate, thus reproducing the status quo.
      More ominous is the prospect of a long-contested result, with both sides refusing to concede as they wage ugly legal and political battles in the courts, through the media, and on the streets. In the contested 2000 election, it took until 12 December for the matter to be decided: the supreme court ruled in favour of George W Bush, and his Democratic opponent, Al Gore, gracefully conceded. Rattled by the political uncertainty, the stock market during this period fell by more than 7%. This time, the uncertainty could last for much longer – perhaps even months – implying serious risks for the markets.
      This nightmare scenario must be taken seriously, even if it currently seems unlikely. While Biden has consistently led in the polls, so, too, had Hillary Clinton on the eve of the 2016 election. It remains to be seen if there will be a slight surge in “shy” swing-state Trump voters who are unwilling to reveal their true preferences to pollsters.
      Moreover, as in 2016, massive disinformation campaigns (foreign and domestic) are under way. US authorities have warned that Russia, China, Iran and other hostile foreign powers are actively trying to influence the election and cast doubt on the legitimacy of the balloting process. Trolls and bots are flooding social media with conspiracy theories, fake news, deep fakes and misinformation. Trump and some of his fellow Republicans have embraced lunatic conspiracy theories such as QAnon and signalled their tacit support of white supremacist groups. In many Republican-controlled states, governors and other public officials are openly deploying dirty tricks to suppress the votes of Democratic-leaning cohorts.
      On top of all this, Trump has repeatedly claimed – falsely – that mail-in ballots cannot be trusted, because he anticipates that Democrats will comprise a disproportionate share of those not voting in person (as a pandemic-era precaution). He also has refused to say that he will relinquish power if he loses and has instead given a wink and a nod to right-wing militias (“stand back and stand by”) that have already been sowing chaos in the streets and plotting acts of domestic terrorism. If Trump loses and resorts to claiming that the election was rigged, violence and civil strife could be highly likely.
      Indeed, if the initial reported results on election night do not immediately indicate a sweep for the Democrats, Trump would almost certainly declare victory in battleground states before all mail-in ballots have been counted. Republican operatives already have plans to suspend the counting in key states by challenging such ballots’ validity. They will be waging these legal battles in Republican-controlled state capitals, local and federal courts stacked with Trump-appointed judges, a supreme court with a 6-3 conservative majority and a House of Representatives where, in the event of an electoral college draw, Republicans hold the majority of state delegations.
      At the same time, all of the white armed militias currently “standing by” could take to the streets to foment violence and chaos. The goal would be to provoke leftist counterviolence, giving Trump a pretext to invoke the Insurrection Act and deploy federal law enforcement or the US military to restore “law and order” (as he has previously threatened to do). With this endgame apparently in mind, the Trump administration has already designated several major Democratic-led cities as “anarchist hubs” that may need to be put down. In other words, Trump and his cronies have made clear that they will use any means necessary to steal the election; and, given the wide range of tools at the executive branch’s disposal, they could succeed if early election results are close, rather than showing a clear Biden sweep.
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      To be sure, if early results on election night show Biden with a strong lead even in traditionally Republican states such as North Carolina, Florida or Texas, Trump would find it much harder to contest the result for more than a few days, and he would concede sooner. The problem is that anything short of a clear Biden landslide will leave an opening for Trump (and the foreign governments supporting him) to muddy the waters with chaos and disinformation as they manoeuvre to shift the final decision to more sympathetic venues such as the courts.
      This degree of political instability could trigger a major risk-off episode in financial markets at a time when the economy is already slowing and the near-term prospects for additional policy stimulus remain grim. If an election dispute drags on – perhaps into early next year – stock prices could fall by as much as 10%, government bond yields would decline (though they are already quite low), and the global flight to safety would push gold prices higher. Usually in this type of scenario the US dollar would strengthen; but, because this particular episode would have been triggered by US-based political chaos, capital might actually flee from the dollar, leaving it weaker.
      One thing is certain: a highly contested election would cause further damage to the US’s global image as an exemplar of democracy and the rule of law, eroding its soft power. Particularly over the past four years, the country has increasingly come to be regarded as a political mess. While hoping that the chaotic outcomes outlined above do not come to pass – polls still show a strong lead for Biden – investors should be preparing for the worst, not only on election day but in the weeks and months thereafter.
      • Nouriel Roubini is professor of economics at New York University’s Stern School of Business. He has worked for the International Monetary Fund, the US Federal Reserve and the World Bank.
      © Project Syndicate More

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      God and the GOP: will conservative evangelicals stay loyal to Trump? – video

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      In 2016, white evangelicals made up a quarter of all US voters. And 81% of them voted for Donald Trump. Oliver Laughland and Tom Silverstone head to the pivotal battleground state of North Carolina to see if Trump’s religious base is showing signs of crumbling. They meet extreme evangelical pastors, travelling progressive preachers and the moral movement leader Rev William Barber
      Watch other episodes of the Anywhere but Washington video series  More

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      Your absentee ballot never showed up. Now what?

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      Voting during a contentious presidential election and a pandemic is more than a little overwhelming. Like many Americans, you may have designed a plan to vote by absentee ballot months ago, when 3 November felt a lifetime away, and no one knew how election day would look. Maybe you were unsure of where you would be, geographically speaking, and voting by mail felt like the safest option. If you’re like me, when the time came to request your absentee ballot, you submitted your information and waited for the ballot to arrive in the mail, but it never did.
      I requested my absentee ballot for New York on 14 September. Two weeks later, the status on my ballot tracker read “out for delivery” but no ballot ever arrived. One of my roommates requested her Pennsylvania absentee ballot on 5 October and it has reportedly been on the way since 19 October. Last week, the Queer Eye star and Texas resident Jonathan Van Ness shared on Instagram that his absentee ballot was marked out for delivery weeks before but never arrived, and the election board couldn’t locate it.
      Why hasn’t my absentee ballot arrived if I requested it before the deadline?
      As states grapple with the challenges of voting during a pandemic, people across the country may find themselves without an absentee ballot days before the election for a multitude of reasons. An absentee ballot request form “may be marked invalid if it’s not completed according to the specific instructions or if it was submitted by the postmarked date, but not received by the deadline”, says Carolyn DeWitt, president and executive director of Rock the Vote. To make matters worse, “if a voter submitted an absentee request that was deemed invalid, they may not receive notification, in which case a voter may be waiting for a ballot that will never arrive”.
      Another one of my roommates believed she had properly requested her California absentee ballot online, only to learn that she needed to physically submit an absentee ballot request to her local board of elections as well. Meanwhile, the US Postal Service has been struggling to meet the demands of increased absentee ballots amid delayed services this year.
      Did states have enough resources and time to set up voting by mail?
      In short, the answer is no. While five states have conducted elections by mail for years, including Oregon and Colorado, the rest were forced to adapt in a matter of months. “It takes most states several years to transition to a vote-by-mail state, but the pressures and restrictions of Covid-19 have put significant pressure on election officials while the federal government has failed to provide adequate resources,” says DeWitt. “There are logistical hurdles – from the purchasing, printing and mailing of millions of absentee request forms and absentee ballots to the processing and counting of absentee ballots.”
      Congress has granted $400m in election aid to states but the Brennan Center for Justice estimated $4bn would be needed to create “free, fair, safe, and secure” elections across the country. Donald Trump has also admitted to restricting funds for the USPS in hopes of curbing mail-in voting. With the entity responsible for delivering absentee ballots under-resourced, ballots may remain in processing or lost through election day.
      What is the best way to track my absentee ballot’s status?
      If you requested an absentee ballot but have yet to receive it, you can track it online or by calling and emailing your local election official, says Ben Hovland, chairman of the US Election Assistance Commission. It may be possible to visit your local election office and speak with a representative, depending on your jurisdiction.
      How do I vote if my absentee ballot is lost?
      In the case that your ballot isn’t located, you have a few options. First, check if an absentee ballot can be picked up from your local election office. If so, you or a trusted person may be able to grab and drop it off in a ballot dropbox or at your local election office quickly.
      The more obvious choice – voting in person – is also an option but comes with a few hoops to jump through. “Most states will require the voter to complete a standard affidavit or another form of documentation confirming that they never received the ballot. Then, the voter will be allowed to vote in-person,” says DeWitt. These affidavits are available at polling places and would be submitted with your in-person vote. “In some cases, voters may have to complete a provisional ballot that will be counted once it’s been verified that the voter did not already vote.” This is the case in states such as New Jersey, Alabama, Texas and California.
      Provisional ballots are a safeguard to ensure people only vote once, explains Hovland. They are theoretically counted as long as you don’t submit a completed absentee ballot, but there’s no guarantee. The 2018 Election Administration and Voting survey reported that about 38% of provisional ballots were rejected in the 2018 election. Reasons for this included a voter not being registered in that jurisdiction, having the wrong ID, and having already voted. Canceling your absentee ballot before voting, as Van Ness reported doing, may allow you to vote in person.
      If your only option is voting in person, but the idea of doing so during a pandemic is frightening, there are a few precautions you can take, says Hovland. If possible, avoid peak voting times before and after work, as well as lunchtime. Check to see if early voting is happening in your district, and keep in mind that the polling location may be different than your voting place on election day. Some jurisdictions also provide voters with the ability to check wait times in advance of leaving to vote.
      What if my absentee ballot comes at the last minute?
      While the USPS advises against mailing your ballot later than a week before the election, if your ballot shows up between now and election day, you can still use it. Some states, such as Michigan and New York, allow you to drop it off in person or invalidate it at the polling station and cast your vote there. In certain places, such as Florida, voters may be able to have their ballots delivered by someone else, says DeWitt. Some jurisdictions may provide ballot pick-up for disabled voters.
      To find out more about your state’s rules and practices for absentee ballots, visit the below resources:
      Vote.org breaks down absentee ballot rules by state
      The ACLU outlines voter deadlines and laws More

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      ‘I regret voting for him': Ohioans hit by GM plant closure reflect on Trump

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      Before Covid-19 hit, Trisha Amato spent her weekdays behind a modest, ebony-colored desk, running the “transition center” that helps laid-off General Motors workers pick up the shards of their lives. GM announced it was closing its mammoth plant in Lordstown, Ohio, in November 2018 and ever since Amato has been ladling out advice to the 1,700 laid-off workers on such matters as how to obtain jobless benefits and how to qualify for government assistance to pay for college courses.The GM plant, the size of more than 100 football fields, had long been the heart of Lordstown – as recently as 2016, it employed 4,500 workers, and in its 53-year history, it produced 16m vehicles. Built alongside I-80, the hulking plant has long been a monument to America’s industrial might, or perhaps one should say its fading industrial might.Deep-voiced, with long, auburn hair and broad shoulders – she, too, had worked at the plant – Amato has problems of her own, saying that she can no longer afford health insurance for herself and her two daughters on her transition center salary. Amato, who is divorced, felt betrayed when GM said it would shut the plant – the company had received $60m in state subsidies, and had promised in return to keep the plant open through 2027.Many of the GM workers were also angry at Donald Trump. During the 2016 campaign, he repeatedly proclaimed that he would make American manufacturing great again and would bring back jobs that had gone overseas. That message resonated in Lordstown and nearby Youngstown, part of the Mahoning Valley area that has been dragged down for decades by one factory and steel mill closing after another. Trump’s repeated promise to bring back factory jobs played well not only in Ohio, but also in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, helping win over many blue-collar voters, who were key to his narrow victories in those states. Blue-collar workers in those states could again play a decisive role in this year’s election, with many still supporting Trump, but some souring on him – perhaps enough to flip those states to Joe Biden.In July 2017, Trump spoke in Youngstown and told the crowd that on his way in from the airport, he had seen the carcasses of too many factories and mills. He bemoaned Ohio’s loss of manufacturing jobs, but then boldly assured the crowd: “They’re all coming back!” He next told his audience, many of them workers worried about plant closings: “Don’t move! Don’t sell your house!” More

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      Athletes and the US election: How a generation of stars got in the game

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      They put in the long hours, did all the heavy lifting, prepared like never before – and all in anticipation for the biggest contest of the year: The one on 3 November.
      That day, election day, is now less than a week away. Already, votes have been cast by a record 66 million-plus Americans, an astonishing draw that once seemed unfathomable during a pandemic. And while much of that sense of urgency stems from the 2020 presidential race – truly a life or death vote, in light of the ravages of Covid – the sense of purpose was shaped in no small part by the activism in sports. “Because of everything that’s going on, people are finally starting to listen to us,” LeBron James told the New York Times in June. “We feel like we’re finally getting a foot in the door.”
      The big push started in March, with people the world over breaking quarantine to protest systemic anti-black racism in the wake of George Floyd’s unlawful killing in May at the hands of Minneapolis police. Meanwhile, scores of idle dribblers wondered if an on-court comeback might steal focus. In the end they did return but with assurances that social justice would become more centered in the overall spectacle. Hence how Black Lives Matter landed on NBA and WNBA courts and jerseys, and voter registration became the focus of recurring league PSAs. And when protests erupted again after Kenosha police shot Jacob Blake within an inch of his life three months later and the Milwaukee Bucks walked off of a play-off game and triggered a two-day sports blackout, one of the biggest concessions they won from their NBA partners was a pledge to convert some 20-odd league arenas into polling places in response to Donald Trump’s attempts to suppress and undermine in-person and mail-in balloting.
      Last Saturday, on the first ever day of early voting in New York state, thousands of masked Manhattanites wrapped the streets and avenues around Madison Square Garden, with some waiting as long as five hours to cast their ballots. The scene was similar, if a bit more brisk, at the Golden 1 Center in Sacramento and at the Spectrum Center in Charlotte. That a team owned by someone as famously apolitical as Michael Jordan could have a hand in this historic election turnout is a welcome twist.
      The kicker: he’s also written $2.5m-worth of checks to fight black voter suppression as part of a 10-year, $100m pledge to beat systemic racism – the clearest indicator yet of his evolution away from the neutral pitchman who hawked so many sneakers and colors of Gatorade in the ‘90s. “We understand that one of the main ways we can change systemic racism is at the polls,” he said in a July statement. “We know it will take time for us to create the change we want to see, but we are working quickly to take action for the Black Community’s voice to be heard.”
      Still, you wonder if Jordan would’ve ever had such courage in his newfound convictions if James wasn’t giving as good as he gets from his critic-in-chief in the Oval Office in between weighing in on social justice issues in real time. As he was leading the Lakers to an NBA championship, he was huddling with a group of prominent athletes and entertainers to launch More Than a Vote, an organization aimed at informing, protecting and turning out Black voters.
      When it comes to more acute impact, however, James and co have nothing on his female counterparts. When one of its owners, Kelly Loeffler, the junior Republican US senator from Georgia who owns half of the WNBA’s Atlanta Dream, took to the airwaves this past summer to disparage Black Lives Matter and the league for dedicating its season to the movement, players from her team and the opposing Phoenix Mercury took to the court before a nationally televised game in black T-shirts endorsing her Democratic opponent Raphael Warnock, leader of the Atlanta Baptist church where Martin Luther King once pastored.
      The shirts quickly came into vogue league-wide. Within two days, Warnock’s campaign announced a $183,000 fundraising windfall – which helped launch a TV ad onslaught. In the last month Warnock has gone from polling slightly ahead of Loeffler at 31% to above 50% – which is right where he would have to be to avoid a January runoff. “It was one of many turning points in the campaign,” Warnock told USA Today Sports of the WNBA players’ endorsement. Nneka Ogwumike, the Los Angeles Sparks MVP forward and Player Association president, called it something else: “My favorite moment of the summer.”
      That a group of athletes could be as persuasive in the political arena as they are commercially shouldn’t come as a surprise. Researchers at Wake Forest University launched a study into this very phenomenon this year and have already found the impact on political views of local and national matters to be significant, citing Colin Kaepernick’s hard-fought success in moving the needle on police reform as one example. “They’re influencing people to watch them,” said Betina Wilkinson, an associate professor of political science on the study. “They’re influencing people to buy the products that they’re selling, but then also now they have the ability to influence people’s views on issues regarding race such as immigration and criminal justice reform.” Meanwhile, the majority of respondents to a recent Politico study said Kaepernick’s activism inspired them to vote in a local, state or national election – and that’s with Kaepernick saying he didn’t vote in the 2016 election.
      Gone are the days when an athlete’s impact on the democratic process was mostly incidental. You remember those “studies”: the gubernatorial race that was actually decided by a college football upset. The presidential election that was foretold by the “Redskin Rule”. Or the Super Bowl result. Or the Bears-Colts game.
      These days, you’d be hard-pressed to turn on an NFL game without the Texans’ Deshaun Watson, Saints’ Cam Jordan and Seahawks coach Pete Carroll belittling the fact that only 60% of Americans voted in the 2016 presidential election as they encourage you to register to vote. For a league that oozes conservatism and genuflected to the president, whose demented causes aren’t helped by high voter turnout, this may as well be the equivalent of dumping tea into Boston Harbor. Even college football plays against type. Just last month, the NCAA’s Division I Council called for a blackout on practices and games on election day. All the while, athletic departments from Cal State LA to Yale have held registration drives with the goal of signing up all of their eligible athletes.
      Clearly, we are now well past the era of athletes voting their bank accounts. Turns out, the money only goes so far. It didn’t spare them the inconvenience of being black or gay in America or otherwise labeled as different. So it figures that when their backs were against the wall, they banded closer together and found a collective resolve. That their impact can already be felt this far away from election day goes to show the hold athletes had on us all along. What’s more, that handle can only get tighter with more practice and progress in the years ahead. More

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      ‘Turning pain into purpose’: why the Covid crisis is driving Arizonans to the polls

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      When Kristin Urquiza drafted an obituary for her father, Mark Urquiza, she didn’t imagine it would be all that controversial or notable.
      “I was just being honest,” she said, when she wrote that her dad’s death from Covid-19 was “due to the carelessness of the politicians who continue to jeopardize the health of brown bodies through a clear lack of leadership, refusal to acknowledge the severity of this crisis, and inability and unwillingness to give clear and decisive direction on how to minimize risk”.
      Her words – published by the Arizona Republic – were shared, retweeted, emailed and relayed across the country. Daughters, sons, parents, grandparents, friends mourning loved ones flooded her inbox.
      Her father was a Trump supporter who had trusted the president, and believed it would be safe to go to a karaoke bar after Arizona’s stay-at-home order was lifted in May. Now, Urquiza has returned to Phoenix, the city where he lived and she grew up, to campaign for Trump’s opponent – and get out the vote. “I’ve been turning my pain into purpose,” she told the Guardian. “This is our chance to collectively come together and demand change.”
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      The coronavirus crisis, which has dominated the election cycle, looms especially large over Arizona. The virus has killed more than 227,000 people in the US, including nearly 6,000 Arizonans, and forced hundreds of thousands more to file for unemployment. It has taken a disproportionate toll on Latino, Black and Native American populations.
      Maricopa county was especially hard hit, and remains the fifth worst affected in the US. With election day less than a week away, a traumatized electorate is weighing the failures of Republican leaders to control the pandemic in Arizona, and across the country. More

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      The age of the elderly candidate: how two septuagenarians came to be running for president

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      “I woke up and I felt good,” Donald Trump told supporters at a campaign rally in Arizona, slamming the side of his lectern as he described hospitalisation with the coronavirus. “I said, ‘Get me out of here’. Boom! Superman!”
      As the US president mimed Clark Kent ripping up open his shirt to reveal the Man of Steel’s “S” logo, the crowd chanted: “Superman! Superman! Superman!” The rally ended with loudspeakers booming Y.M.C.A by Village People: “Young man, there’s no need to feel down …”
      Seventy-four years old and clinically obese, Trump appears eager to prove his virility. He is fighting an election against a man who is even older – Joe Biden turns 78 next month. If Biden wins, he will eclipse Trump’s own record as the oldest person to be sworn in as president.
      The statistics are counterintuitive in a society that can often seem obsessed with youth. Voters’ thirst for change did not prevent this election being contested by two septuagenarian white men. But it has fuelled debate over whether the mental and physical toll of old age could impair the decision-making of the person with the nuclear codes. More