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Amid Multiple Protests, Israeli Lawmakers Move To Vote On Weakening Supreme Court

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Israeli lawmakers are gearing up to vote on the government’s overall plan to weaken the nation’s court system, despite nearly six months of protests from citizens, and waves of urgent warnings from the White House.

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Electoral College

Electoral College To Make President-Elect Joe Biden’s 2020 Victory Official 

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The Electoral College is all set to vote this Monday and make President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election against Donald Trump official. Electors from all 50 states and the District of Columbia will meet to cast their ballots and confirm Joe Biden as the 46th President of the United States and California Senator Kamala Harris as the Vice President. 

Early attempts from Trump, his administration, and Republican lawmakers attempted to produce allegations and evidence in key swing states that a majority of the votes were fraudulent and Trump had actually won his reelection. The Supreme Court has since delivered several rebukes which found no evidence to any of these claims, and multiple state courts also refused to even see the cases because of how baseless the allegations were. 

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After the ballots are counted and cast by the end of the day Biden will likely have well over the 270 votes needed to officially win the presidency. Once the ballots are counted they’re transported to Washington D.C. where they will then be tallied by Congress on January 6th. 

Once the votes are officially cast, Biden plans to deliver a speech on prime time television about the resilience of US democracy in an effort to unite a nation that has been so ideologically divided within the past four years. Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana recently spoke on CNN’s State of the Union and claimed that “obviously, Biden is the President-elect. He has the 270 Electoral College Votes.” 

Since the election, Trump and his team have made a multitude of false claims that he won landslides in states that Biden won by thousands of votes, as well as tweets that simply claimed he won the presidency. Almost every tweet from Trump has a large warning on the bottom that states the information given in his tweets are false and don’t reflect the actual results of the 2020 election.

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Meanwhile, while the current president and his administration have spent the last month trying to reverse the results of the election, thousands of Americans have continued to die from Covid-19, and hundreds of thousands of new cases are appearing every day thanks to the complete lack of federal policy. The first Covid-19 vaccine has been officially approved for distribution in America, however, if strict lockdown measures, along with all other health and safety procedures, aren’t strictly implemented, case numbers and deaths will continue to rise exponentially.  

Beyond the pandemic, Trump’s consistent claims that the current President-elect won by illegal ballots and procedure is only further dividing the country. Never in the history of US elections has there ever been such a blatant and public effort from the current standing president to try to reverse the results of an election without any actual evidence whatsoever. His supporters see these constant claims that the American political system is “corrupt” and thus take to the streets in violent outrage. 

Members of the far-right Proud Boys group recently made headlines after violently clashing with an anti-Trump demonstration that up until that point had remained peaceful. Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander spoke with the media recently about how he hopes after Monday’s Electoral results that Trump will put the country first and really begin the peaceful transition of power: “We need to not lose one day in the transition in getting the vaccine out.”

Election Pin

US Officials Preparing For Lines And Lawsuits This Election Day

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More than 100 million Americans have already cast their ballots for the 2020 presidential election before the polls opened this Tuesday. This will likely reduce the amount of individuals who will turn up to vote in person this year, however, a lot of issues still remain.

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Biden Gains Momentum In Polls As Key Demographics Switch To Vote Democrat

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We’re a little more than a week away from Election Day and Joe Biden’s goal of reaching the White House in 2021 could be dependent on two crucial demographics who’s previous loyalty to Trump led him to his presidency back in 2016.

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Voting in Election

Multiple States Report Long Lines And Polling Issues For 2020 Primary Elections

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This past Tuesday Georgia held its primary elections which gave America an unfortunate look at the possible mess the presidential election in November could become if this pandemic doesn’t begin to ease up. Voters in Georgia claim that they were standing in lines for up to four hours and that they never even received a mail-in ballot, forcing them to go to the actual polls and wait. Local officials and poll workers were unable to manage the major influx of voters as well. 

Poll worker shortages are also a major problem amid Covid-19, as many are either sick, or don’t want to risk their health to go work in a community space. Since March local officials have been prioritizing easy and safe means of voting during a worldwide health crisis, however, as many states are seeing now, not a lot of work was actually done. 

“We’re just going to have a catastrophe in November. We’ve already passed the point of catastrophic failure. It doesn’t get any better if we have two to three times the number of people who are trying to vote in these polling locations,” said Michael McDonald, a professor at the University of Florida who studies elections. 

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Voters in Nevada also waited for hours in line for their primaries this past Tuesday, despite having a majority of the state choose to mail-in their ballots. Election officials in Pennsylvania and Washington DC also claim that they struggled to provide acceptance to all of the absentee ballot requests before the elections, even if they were sent in on time. Voters in those states also claim to have been waiting on line for multiple hours. 

Maryland and Wisconsin also had reports of long lines and a struggle to receive mail-in ballots, more specifically, it was reported in Milwaukee that they had to reduce their normal 180 polling locations to just five for everyone in the city. The biggest problem, however, is the issue of communities of color receiving an even greater amount of election failures. 

“Black voters are especially hard-hit, in some parts of the country, it feels like officials are making reckless decisions that are a recipe for disaster. It took me three hours to vote in my majority African American precinct in Atlanta, but I saw no line at a polling place in a predominantly white area later in the day,” LaTosha Brown, a co-founder of Black Voters Matter, told Politico.

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Activists have been very vocal about their concern over mass polling closures amid the pandemic, mainly because politicians have a valid reason for these closings, but not a valid reason as to why they haven’t come up with an easier solution to vote in these massively important upcoming elections. 

Many states who haven’t had their primary elections yet are calling for an extension as to when citizens are able to send in applications for absentee ballots. In Wisconsin, Democrats were able to secure a court order that demanded all mail-in ballots be counted as long as the postage was marked six days before the election; and is received by the election date of course. 

Wisconsin has been acting as the inspiration for voter activists in many states, as after they had a similar disastrous primary election to Georgia, they released a detailed analysis as to what went wrong and an extensive plan to send absentee ballots to every single registered voter, regardless of if they requested one or not. California and Michigan followed suit and said that they would also be sending ballots to every registered voter in the state. 

Right now, all of the states are in a league of their own in terms of how they handle voting in the primaries during two major worldwide pandemics. Some things you can do for yourself in terms of voting is ensuring that you are registered in your proper county, check if your state is offering absentee ballots and request one if you still have time. This is the easiest way to ensure that your vote/voice is still heard, and will hold the least amount of risk in terms of contracting the virus.

Impeachment Trial

Should Senators Vote Secretly in Impeachment Trial?

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To say there exists little historical precedent for presidential impeachment trials would be an understatement. Before Trump, only two presidents, Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton, have ever faced an impeachment trial in the Senate, and the circumstances in each trial were very different. During Johnson’s trial, for instance, 41 witnesses testified, whereas Clinton’s trial only featured a handful of witnesses. If Senate Republicans get their way, however, Trump’s trial will feature neither witnesses nor subpoenas for documents, and it will end quickly with an acquittal. The Constitution gives Congress the freedom to determine its own rules for how to handle impeachment trials; this fact, combined with the relative lack of historical precedent, makes it difficult for anyone to predict how the trial will proceed. That being said, the trial will likely be shaped in large part by partisan allegiance to the president, as several Republican senators have already said they’re not interested in acting as impartial jurors and Mitch McConnell has predicted a “largely partisan outcome.” Because hyperpartisanship threatens jurors’ impartiality, and thus the integrity of the trial, some political strategists have suggested that the senators should cast their ballot in secret, protecting them from the political ramifications of their vote and encouraging an independent decision.

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According to Juleanna Glover, a Republican strategist, it would be fairly easy for the Senate to ensure a secret ballot. Creating rules for the trial requires only a simple majority vote in the Senate; assuming Democrats vote in lockstep in favor of a secret ballot, only three Republicans would have to defect to reach the 51 votes necessary to effectuate the rule. Though they don’t publicly admit it for fear of the political repercussions, many Republican senators strongly oppose the president in private, according to various reports. In fact, former Republican senator Jeff Flake has said that he believes that there are at least 35 GOP senators who would vote to remove Trump if the votes were private; such a result would make Trump the first president in US history to be removed by the impeachment process. A secret ballot, however, would break with Senate tradition and expectations of transparency surrounding Senate proceedings, particularly in the extreme case of deciding whether to remove a sitting president from office. That being said, the atmosphere of hyperpartisanship, combined with an overall dislike of the president among lawmakers, may be enough to convince more than half of the Senate to institute such an unusual rule.

Few people predict that Trump will be removed from the White House before the 2020 election, but we live in an era in which unprecedented and unpredicted political events are borderline commonplace. 

While American politics has long been characterized by partisanship, the current political environment is arguably more partisan than ever before, with the vote in the House to impeach Trump passing almost entirely along party lines. The Senate is often considered to be a more impartial chamber than the House, but by most accounts it is still more partisan than it’s ever been. In Clinton’s trial, Republicans and Democrats collaborated to determine the rules, resulting in unanimous consent among all 100 senators—such an outcome is nearly inconceivable in today’s Senate. This very partisanship, though, is precisely what may motivate some senators to support a secret ballot. And while there exists a certain demand for transparency for actions taken by the Senate, grand jury proceedings, which the Senate trial will essentially function as, allow jurors to deliberate and vote in secret. 

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Already, cracks are starting to form in the Republicans’ solidarity in their support of Trump; Republican senator Lisa Murkowski, for instance, has said that she is “disturbed” by McConnell’s pledge to coordinate with the White House in defining the rules of the trial, and Mitt Romney has characterized the president’s conduct for which he was impeached as “troubling in the extreme.” A secret ballot, though admittedly unlikely, may be enough for these cracks to cause Republican senators’ defense of Trump to collapse, leading to his potential removal from office. Few people predict that Trump will be removed from the White House before the 2020 election, but we live in an era in which unprecedented and unpredicted political events are borderline commonplace. 

Impeachment Trial

Impeachment Trial Plans Begin as Schumer Requests Witnesses

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The president will be impeached this week, as the House Judiciary Committee voted to approve  two articles of impeachment for a full vote on the House floor. Because Democrats hold the majority in the House right now and this impeachment is a hyper-partisan affair, it is virtually certain that the House of Representatives will vote to send both articles to the Senate, where a trial of some sort will be held. The Senate is currently controlled by Republicans, who have 53 seats whereas the Democrats have 45. As a two-thirds majority vote in the Senate is required to remove a president from office via impeachment, this outcome is unlikely, particularly because not a single Republican senator has indicated that they’d entertain voting with the Democrats. That being said, the upcoming Senate trial is nonetheless sure to have a significant and difficult-to-predict impact on the political world, particularly in consideration of the fact that the next presidential election is less than a year away.

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Now that impeachment in the House is all but certain, Senate lawmakers have begun publicly discussing the outline and the structure of the trial. Unsurprisingly, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has all but confirmed that the outcome of the trial is a foregone conclusion, saying, “there will be no difference between the president’s position and our position as to how to handle this to the extent that we can.” Mitch McConnell wants the trial to move quickly and with little fanfare, even suggesting that witnesses may not be called at all, in the hopes that news about the facts pertaining to the trial will fly under the radar to the greatest extent possible, whereas the president wants the trial to be a bombastic, theatrical affair, believing that such an event would bolster his poll numbers. 

Despite this difference in opinion, though, Democrats were infuriated by McConnell’s suggestion that the trial should be orchestrated in coordination with the defendant in the trial, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer calling it “totally out of line.” During impeachment, senators are assigned the role of juror, and as such are required to swear an oath which reads: “I solemnly swear that in all things appertaining to the trial of the impeachment of Donald J. Trump, now pending, I will do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws: So help me God.” The Republicans’ coordination with the White House, then, would seem to be a clear and direct violation of this oath, as jurors who have already made up their minds before the trial takes place plainly impede justice.

The decisions senators will make throughout the process are hard to predict and will shed light on these their characters and indeed on the health of the republic generally.

Nevertheless, Democrats are doing everything in their power to negotiate with the Senate majority to make the trial process as fair as they can. Accordingly, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer today wrote a letter to McConnell outlining the witnesses he wishes to call during the trial, which will likely not be held until next year. Given the president’s love of drama and theatrics, it is likely that some witnesses will be called for the trial, though it’s unclear exactly who would be compelled to testify: Schumer specifically requested the appearance of Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and former Security Advisor John Bolton, both of whom refused to cooperate with congressionally approved subpoenas during the inquiry at the direction of the White House and may simply continue to ignore further calls to testify; and Republicans likely will seek testimonies of the unnamed whistleblower and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, the former of whom is protected by anonymity statutes and the latter of whom is not a fact or expert witness in this case and thus would have little legal justification for being compelled to act as a witness. 

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Though Schumer knows that he likely cannot change McConnell’s mind, or the minds of Trump’s most ardent defenders in the Senate, he believes he may convince enough Republican senators that at the very least relevant witnesses should be called to testify to secure the 51 votes necessary to pass an agreed-upon set of rules designed to enable a fair trial. When it comes to impeachment trials, there exists very little historical precedent for how they should be arranged and conducted, and impeachment has never before occurred in a political environment as hyper-partisan and polarized as today’s; as such, the decisions senators will make throughout the process are hard to predict and will shed light on these their characters and indeed on the health of the republic generally.

Election Pin

Billionaire Michael Bloomberg Launches Presidential Campaign

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The former mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, has entered the race to be the next President of the United States, but will he be able to ‘buy’ a presidential term?

As one of the world’s richest men – Bloomberg is reportedly worth $51.4 billion – many have concerns regarding his campaign, which already has a record-breaking budget. Yet with issues including climate change and gun control high on his agenda should we be really be looking at the amount of money being spent promoting Bloomberg?

Each presidential campaign appears to have more money spent on it than the previous campaign, and this is evident with both the Bloomberg and Trump campaigns.

However is having more money than your competitor enough to secure a win?

Not always. It is worth remembering that Hillary Clinton spent around twice as much money as President Donald Trump did in their 2016 campaigns, showing money cannot always buy the White House.

One of the fall outs from Trump’s win was the question of what Clinton actually received for the extra money spent, with many supporters wondering whether the campaign’s staff are capable of budgeting their campaigns efficiently.

But surely the main aspect to any winning election campaign is to persuade voters that you are more passionate about subjects the public care about than your competitor.

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In 2016 Trump ensured all his rallies drew large and passionate crowds, especially in the primary process. This action has been credited as being one of the main strategies that helped him win the presidency. Passion is a huge draw to any campaign, as Bloomberg will soon find out.

Regardless of the amount of money a candidate may have, if there is no passion, poor issues and a lack of credibility, a campaign will struggle to gain the momentum required to be a success.

This is not to say that Trump would have still won on passion alone. Every campaign requires a monumental amount of cash spent, which is why fundraising is so important. Although Trump was also able to fill his rallies thanks to the staggering amount of free publicity he received, mainly through news outlets around the world reporting on both him as a person as well as how his campaign was fairing against previous campaigns.

However when voters are asked to give cash to a political campaign it is easy for them to believe they are being asked due to the campaigner believing they are essential to their campaign, when in fact the candidate is merely more persuasive than the alternative party.

With Bloomberg joining the campaign for 2020’s presidential election, it is easy for him to dismiss fundraising worries, thanks to his ‘bottomless’ money supply. However unless he can become more passionate and more persuasive, filling his rallies will be difficult.

His official video announcing his campaign clearly shows he is yet to find that spark that will encourage voters to back him for president and it appears that both Bloomberg and his staff believe they can win the campaign without any passion necessary.

In his announcement Bloomberg also criticized Trump’s administration, saying, “I’m running for president to defeat Donald Trump and rebuild America. We cannot afford four more years of President Trump’s reckless and unethical actions. He represents an existential threat to our country and our values. If he wins another term in office, we may never recover from the damage.

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The stakes could not be higher. We must win this election. And we must begin rebuilding America. I believe my unique set of experiences in business, government and philanthropy will enable me to win and lead.”

Many Democrats are capitalizing on the anti-Trump feelings that are currently growing across the country, even more so thanks to his current impeachment hearing, but is this enough to land them the top job? Have they – and Bloomberg – made a credible enough case as to why you should vote for the Democrats rather than the Republicans?

Democratic Party rival Senator Elizabeth Warren has already slated Bloomberg’s campaign, accusing him of trying to buy the White House, and therefore American democracy:

“Michael Bloomberg is making a bet about democracy in 2020. He doesn’t need people, he only needs bags and bags of money.”

Senator Warren continued, “That’s exactly what’s now in play in 2020 – which vision, which version of our democracy is going to win? If Michael Bloomberg’s version of democracy wins, then democracy changes.”

Mr. Bloomberg, speaking at his first campaign event in Norfolk, Virginia, declined to answer her remarks however he did discuss the use of his wealth for his campaign:

“For years I’ve been using my resources for things that matter to me. I am going to make my case and let the voters who are plenty smart make their choice.”

Whichever way the voters decide to go, it is clear that the campaign for the Democratic candidate – and the next presidential administration – should be an interesting journey.

Impeachment Trial

President Trump Will Not Participate in Impeachment Hearings

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The first phase of the impeachment inquiry, wherein the House Intelligence Committee questioned fact witnesses about a phone call made on July 25th in which President Trump asked President Zelensky of Ukraine to investigate Burisma, a company connected to Joe Biden, has concluded. Now, the inquiry moves to the second phase in the House of Representatives, and the evidence that has been collected so far will be presented to the House Judiciary Committee, during which members of Congress will deliberate over whether to draft articles of impeachment to deliver to the Senate. 

The hearings will be chaired by Representative Jerrold Nadler, who recently penned a letter inviting Trump and his legal counsel to participate in the proceedings. Yesterday, the president declined to participate in the hearings in any capacity, accusing the Democrats of conducting an unfair and biased process, and even going so far as to accuse them of deliberately scheduling the hearings while Trump is out of the country, as he is heading to London this week to participate in a NATO summit.

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The White House’s refusal to participate in the impeachment process in the House marks a reversal from previous comments made by the president. During an interview on Fox News, Trump claimed that he’d be willing to submit a written testimony to the House of Representatives, and said that he wanted a trial and that he’s looking forward to it. Trump and many Republicans believe that impeachment is bound to backfire on the Democrats, as the president is likely to be acquitted by the Senate and then use the Democrats’ failed impeachment inquiry as evidence to bolster his argument that he is being unfairly prosecuted. 

Though Trump will not be in the United States during Wednesday’s hearing, he could have chosen to send legal counsel and suggest witnesses for questioning. That being said, the president’s lack of cooperation with the Democrats comes as no surprise, as since the inquiry began Trump has sharply rebuked allegations of wrongdoing and attacked the process of impeachment, ordering some key witnesses to defy subpoenas in a possible violation of law. Republicans in both the House and the Senate have essentially fallen in line under Trump, as every Republican in the House of Representatives voted against opening an impeachment inquiry and Senate Republicans have spoken out forcefully against the proceedings.

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Undeterred, Democrats are not changing their plans to accommodate the president’s requests. The Judiciary Committee’s first hearing will be held on Wednesday, and instead of speaking with fact witnesses, lawmakers will question academics and other legal experts to determine whether the president’s actions justify impeachment. Notably, both Democrats and Republicans had expressed hope that Trump would decide to participate in the inquiry, but they are surely not surprised by his refusal to do so given his past behavior. The fact that the president had an opportunity to participate in the hearings but chose not to undercuts arguments from Trump and his defenders that the White House was not given the chance to help define and shape the process. In fact, this refusal may become part of Democrats’ argument that the president has been actively obstructing justice since learning about the whistleblower’s complaint.

While members of both parties surely would have appreciated Trump’s participation in his own impeachment inquiry, his lack of participation is unlikely to change the outcome in the House of Representatives. Democrats such as Adam Schiff have stated that they were unwilling to be subject to a game of “rope-a-dope” in the courts, proceeding rapidly despite various attempts to stonewall the investigation. Democrats have said that they hope to conclude the first part of impeachment, which takes place in the House of Representatives, by Christmas, and so far show no signs of missing that self-imposed deadline.