BuzzFeed News: “The law enforcement–obsessed 17-year-old who was charged with shooting and killing two people and injuring another in Kenosha, Wisconsin, during protests for Jacob Blake appeared in the front row at a Donald Trump rally in January.”
Trump Wants Drug Tests Before First Debate
President Trump told the Washington Examiner that he will call for drug tests for both Joe Biden and himself before the first candidates’ debate on Sept. 29.
“The president expressed suspicion at what he said was a sudden, marked improvement in Biden’s debate performance during the Democratic primary season and suggested that he believes the improvement was the result of drugs. The president offered no evidence to support his speculation.”
Said Trump: “My point is, if you go back and watch some of those numerous debates, he was so bad. He wasn’t even coherent. And against Bernie, he was. And we’re calling for a drug test.”
Officials See No Evidence for Trump Claims on Mail Voting
U.S. officials charged with protecting the 2020 election said they have “no information or intelligence” that foreign countries, including Russia, are attempting to undermine any part of the mail-in voting process, contradicting President Trump, who has repeatedly pushed false claims that foreign adversaries are targeting mail ballots as part of a “rigged” presidential race, CNN reports.
Trump Jr. Denies Speech Was Fueled by Cocaine
Donald Trump Jr. denied on Fox & Friends that he prepared for his big Republican National Convention speech by snorting cocaine, blaming his glassy eyes and sweaty forehead on unflattering lighting conditions.
Said Trump: “It must have been something with the lighting… you have me confused with Hunter Biden.”
White House Forced CDC to Loosen Testing Standards
“An abrupt shift this week in government testing guidelines for Americans exposed to the novel coronavirus was directed by the White House coronavirus task force, surprising and dismaying many public health experts,” the Washington Post reports.
“The new guidance eliminated advice that everyone exposed to the virus through close contact with an infected individual get tested to find out whether they are positive, regardless of whether they have symptoms.”
Jonathan Chait: Trump sabotaged coronavirus testing to keep numbers low.
Trump Gives Platform to Some with Fringe Views
Associated Press: “An advocate of ‘household voting’ in which husbands get the final say. A woman who has argued that school sex ed programs are ‘grooming’ children to be sexualized by predators like Jeffrey Epstein. A candidate who has peddled in racist tropes and bizarre QAnon conspiracy theories.”
“President Trump has long surrounded himself with controversial characters who hold out-of-the-mainstream views. But the decision by the party to elevate some of those figures by featuring them in prime-time spots at the Republican National Convention or inviting them to witness this week’s events is drawing new scrutiny.”
Republicans Stage a Norm-Busting Convention
Jonathan Bernstein: “As far as norms, I’m willing to give President Trump some leeway for using the White House as a backdrop for his appearances, given the pandemic and that he lives and works there. If it had just been (say) First Lady Melania Trump’s speech in the Rose Garden and the president’s own address from the White House on Thursday, I’d probably defend the idea.”
“But Tuesday night Trump went way too far, staging first a pardon and then a naturalization ceremony. As Susan Hennessey and Scott Anderson explained even before those two stunts, Trump’s White House is probably violating the Hatch Act, which prohibits government officials (other than the president) from using their offices for partisan political activity. As they say, the administration’s response is basically that ‘rules are for other people.’ Even if the White House’s increasingly implausible justifications somehow satisfied the letter of the law, Trump is thoroughly trampling on the basic principles involved.”
First Read: “Also, we’ve learned that if Washington wants its political norms back, it will need to pass legislation to do so.”
What Are the Risks of Voting By Mail?
Charles Stewart: “In an article forthcoming in the Harvard Data Science Review, I have worked to quantify how much riskier it is for someone to vote by mail than in person. Depending on the state in which a citizen is voting, the increased risk of having your vote lost — meaning, not counted in the election — ranges from 3.5 percent to 4.9 percent.”
“In states where a voter must apply for a mail ballot, the ballot application could get lost in the mail; the local election office could lose the application or deny it; the ballot might not make it back to the voter, for instance, getting lost in the mail; and the marked ballot might not make it from the voter back to the local election office. Even if the ballot arrives, it could be rejected because it arrived late or lacked a signature — the two most common reasons for rejection. Finally, the ballot could have an error that she could have caught had she voted in person.”
Germany Could Be the Decisive Ally
Thomas Friedman: “The Cold War with the Soviet Union was fought and won in Berlin. And the looming Cold War with China — over trade, technology and global influence — will be fought and won in Berlin. As Berlin goes, so goes Germany, and as Germany goes, so goes the European Union, the world’s biggest single market.”
“And whichever country — the United States or China — is able to leverage the European Union on its side in the competition for whose technology standards, trade rules and technology will prevail will set the rules for global digital commerce in the 21st century.”
Somehow Bolsonaro Is Getting More Popular
Washington Post: “By most measures, this should be an abysmal political moment for Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro. A disease he called a ‘little cold’ has swelled into the world’s second-worst coronavirus outbreak, killing 114,000 Brazilians, infecting more than 3.6 million and devastating the country’s health system. An economic collapse he failed to forestall has driven the unemployment rate to 14 percent. He has been abandoned by allies, pilloried by emboldened critics and ensnared by several corruption scandals.”
“And yet, the right-wing former army captain is more popular than at any time since the beginning of his presidency.”
Is the Electoral Map Changing?
FiveThirtyEight: “We looked at how 16 battleground states have voted in the last five presidential elections to see how they might go in 2020.”
Xi Jinping Sets Stage to Resurrect ‘Chairman’ Title
“An intensifying purge of disloyal Chinese Communist party law and order officials is setting the stage for President Xi Jinping to be named party chairman and hold on to power beyond his second term,” the Financial Times reports.
“The anti-corruption campaign launched last month to target the party’s legal and domestic security apparatus kicked into a higher gear last week when the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection announced a probe into Gong Daoan, the Shanghai police chief and the highest-ranking official to fall since Mr Xi’s second term began in 2017.”
A Reality Check on the Conventions
Harry Enten: “We got about about maybe 15% of voters watching this stuff. Most of whom are hardcore partisans in one of the most stable races ever. And little sign the horserace significantly moved after the DNC. This idea that any of the DNC/RNC activities will move voters is untested.”
Islands Emerge as New Virus Hot Spots
New York Times: “The U.S. Virgin Islands is halting tourism for a month, hoping against hope to keep out new cases of the coronavirus. Puerto Rico’s Senate is closed after several high-ranking officials came down with Covid-19. Hawaii is facing a surge in new infections. Guam is enduring its most restrictive lockdown since the pandemic began. For months, United States islands in the Caribbean and the Pacific avoided much of the agony unleashed by the coronavirus across parts of the mainland, due in part to their early mitigation efforts and relative ease in sealing off borders.”
“But now the state of Hawaii and these territories are emerging as some of the most alarming virus hot spots in the United States, revealing how the coronavirus can spike and then rapidly spread in places with relaxed restrictions, sluggish contact tracing and widespread pressure to end the economic pain that comes with lockdowns.”
Trump’s Unlikely Path to Victory
William Galston: “The president hasn’t done much to expand the narrow base that gave him only 46% of the popular vote in 2016, but this is not necessarily a formula for defeat. As an analysis by Brookings Institution demographer William Frey shows, more than 60% of the 2016 non-voters in the ‘Blue Wall; states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania were whites without college degrees. Compared with 2004, when George W. Bush won re-election, turnout rates among these voters, fell by 7 percentage points in Wisconsin, 5.7 points in Michigan, and 2.7 points in Pennsylvania.”
“Restoring their turnout to 2004 levels could allow President Trump to repeat his 2016 Midwestern success, even if Democrats do better in the suburbs and large cities. He could eke an Electoral College majority even if he loses Florida, where he now trails Mr. Biden.”
“Mr. Trump has other strengths. The sharp economic downturn has reduced but not eliminated the advantage he holds over his challenger on the management of the economy.”
Trump Tries to Airbrush His Tenure In Office
“At President Trump’s Republican convention, he is welcoming to immigrants, not the architect of some of the nation’s harshest anti-immigration policies,” the AP reports.
“At Trump’s convention, the coronavirus pandemic has largely subsided, not continued to infect thousands of Americans a day. The economy is booming, not sputtering. Trump is a leader in healing racial strife, not stoking divisions.”
“Tuesday’s gauzy prime-time programming amounted to an airbrushing of some of the darker and more controversial episodes of Trump’s nearly four years in office — an effort to urgently address the vulnerabilities that have imperiled his reelection prospects just over two months until his November face-off against Democrat Joe Biden.”
Many In Nursing Homes May Not Be Able to Vote
ProPublica: “How to vote during a pandemic poses a dilemma for many Americans, who worry about the health risks of voting in person and whether the U.S. Postal Service will be able to deliver mail-in ballots on time. Such concerns are multiplied for nursing home residents.”
“Most, though not all, of the roughly 2.2 million Americans living in nursing homes or assisted living communities are elderly — and thus at higher risk of dying from the coronavirus. They’re also part of the most politically engaged demographic in the country. In 2018, 66% of Americans over 65 voted, compared with just 35% of those 18 to 29. In 2016, Donald Trump had an advantage over Hillary Clinton among voters 65 and older by 53% to 44%, according to the Pew Research Center.”
“Family and friends who helped them vote in prior elections can’t visit them — and may have taken ill or died from COVID-19 themselves. Swing states such as Florida and Wisconsin have suspended efforts to send teams to nursing homes to assist with voting.”
Biden Needs Black Men to Vote Like They Did for Obama
New York Times: “For Democrats, who rely on Black voters to power their electoral advantages in America’s urban centers, the difference between good and great Black voter turnout is often dependent on how many Black men go to the polls. Black women are the party’s most loyal demographic base — often referred to as its backbone — but motivated Black male voters were a crucial distinction between former President Barack Obama’s record-setting Black turnout in 2008 and 2012 and the diminished performance of Hillary Clinton in 2016.”
First Read: “According to exit polls, Black men have only made up about 5 percent of the electorate in presidential elections since 2008.”
“But the share captured by Democrats has been shrinking. In 2008, 95 percent backed Obama. In 2012, that was down to 87 percent. In 2016? Down to 80 percent.”
