SUPERTHREAD: 2020 United States Elections

[Gandalf]

If it's Harris, then it's also pretty easy to play up her history as a prosecutor to play with the Democratic base. So neither are an ideal pick.

[The Romulan Republic]

Neither is great (I rooted for Bass prior to the Scientology praise, or else Warren), but Harris is probably better. She has a fairly strong base of support, she's unquestionably qualified, she has probably less baggage.

However, both seem considerably better than Whitmer. Now is not the time for a white midwestern centrist.

[Mr Bean]

So it's Friday 7pm Eastern Standard time and we still don't know Biden's Vice Presidential pick despite the fact he said he'd pick it this week. So unless there's a Saturday morning big presser I'm not exactly sure it was a smart thing to say he would pick the VP this week... then not pick anyone.

Any picking someone Sunday night at 1159PM is not exactly a good look.

[The Romulan Republic]

A part of me suspects that any delay is because they were leaning Bass, then the Scientology thing broke and they had to reconsider. This is, of course, speculation.

[The Romulan Republic]

So yeah, no announcement this week, it'll be before the convention because it has to be, and basically, this is just Joe being Joe:

https://nytimes.com/2020/08/07/us/polit ... earch.html

Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s campaign staff is making plans to introduce his eventual vice-presidential choice to key party constituencies. Donors are readying finance events featuring the still-unnamed running mate — “date and time to be announced.” An in-person reveal is being discussed.

But as the political world awaits his announcement, Mr. Biden himself has not appeared to be in a big rush — no surprise to those who know him well.

His first self-imposed date for naming a running mate, around Aug. 1, came and went. The first week of August, another timeline he publicly floated, is nearly over, and an aide confirmed that an announcement would not happen this week. Mr. Biden has reached the final stage of his deliberations and is expected to name his choice shortly before the Democratic National Convention, which begins on Aug. 17. And while that is in keeping with the timeline of the two previous Democratic nominees, it is at odds with Mr. Biden’s own words.

“The deadline for a V.P. nomination is the convention,” said Representative Cedric Richmond, a co-chairman of Mr. Biden’s campaign. “He’s very deliberative with his decision-making. It works.”

This kind of approach — being openly meditative about the issue at hand, with a penchant for missing his own deadlines as he mulls his options — is in line with how Mr. Biden has made other big political choices throughout his career. Those who have worked with him over the years describe nonlinear decision-making processes with input from allies and family members, a barrage of questions from Mr. Biden, and a habit of extending deadlines in a way that leaves some Democrats anxious and annoyed, while others say it brings him to a well-considered decision, eventually.

[Follow along with The Times’s coverage of Joe Biden’s pick for Vice President.]

That tendency was on display in 2019, as Mr. Biden grappled with whether to run for president, missing one self-imposed deadline after another to make a decision. A similar pattern played out ahead of the 2016 election, when Mr. Biden wrestled for months with whether to run before ultimately deciding against it, devastated by the 2015 death of his son Beau.

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Ahead of the 2004 presidential race, he engaged in extensive deliberations about a bid, even going to Boston to discuss the contest with John F. Kerry, the eventual nominee, before ultimately deciding against running. He had a moment of indecision just before he announced his run for president in 1988, too, he wrote in a memoir.

On a different scale, he is routinely late to his own events, he lingers on rope lines and phone calls, and he and his team were slow to formulate responses during several pivotal moments of the 2020 contest.

Mr. Biden is not a man who can be rushed, on issues big or small.

And he views the vice-presidential pick as an especially weighty matter.

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“He knows when what he’s decided really matters,” said Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware. “He takes time to make those decisions well. He doesn’t struggle to make those decisions, he makes them in a series. He listens to the relevant experts, he consults the relevant data.”

In this case, Mr. Coons said, Mr. Biden has all the data he needs — he knows the results of the vetting process and his team has heard a range of outside opinions. And he heads into the weekend with a few important conversations left, including, Mr. Coons suggested, with vice-presidential contenders and trusted advisers. Mr. Biden is weighing who would make a “trusted, reliable, capable partner,” the role, Mr. Coons said, Mr. Biden filled as Barack Obama’s vice president.

“He’s taking the time to make sure that he gets the inputs that he would value, both a chance to hear from people who know well and have worked closely with the different candidates, but also time to talk to them directly,” he said Thursday night, asked where Mr. Biden was in the process.

Yet as the process has stretched out, each day has also brought intensive lobbying, uncertainty for the contenders and, increasingly, visible factions.

State Senator Annette Taddeo of Florida said she and other lawmakers and donors had expressed concerns to the campaign about the possible selection of Representative Karen Bass of California, whose record of travel to Cuba as a young activist and respectful remarks about Fidel Castro when he died could alienate voters in Miami.

“It’s our job not just to speak up on his behalf but to speak up when we believe we can avoid an error in the campaign, and that’s what I’ve been doing,” said Ms. Taddeo, a member of Mr. Biden’s Latino leadership committee who spoke highly of her fellow Floridian, Representative Val Demings, and voiced a view privately shared by other prominent Democrats in South Florida. She continued, “We need to hurry up and pick and move on.”


ImageMr. Biden grappled with whether to run for president this cycle, missing one self-imposed deadline after another to make a decision.
Mr. Biden grappled with whether to run for president this cycle, missing one self-imposed deadline after another to make a decision.Credit...Pete Marovich for The New York Times
Ms. Bass, who is well-liked across the ideological spectrum of the Democratic caucus, has said that her views on Cuba had evolved and that she would not repeat those comments about Mr. Castro. A spokesman pointed to a supportive statement made by the Cuban-American mayor of Coral Gables, Fla., Raúl Valdés-Fauli, who praised Ms. Bass’s “commitment to democracy” and governing experience, and said that “the Biden-Bass ticket will win Florida.”

Republicans, in the meantime, are previewing their attacks on several of the potential contenders, including Susan Rice, the former national security adviser, and Democratic opposition research is also flying, aimed at cutting down some contenders in the mix.

Senator Kamala Harris has faced sharp questioning from some Biden supporters about whether she would be loyal to his political agenda — an issue that has played out publicly and created fierce backlash.

“People close to the campaign, to actually start undermining these candidates, was just wrong and so terribly stereotypical, and a throwback to the 1950s,” said Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers. “Joe Biden is being more transparent than I think virtually any other presidential nominee I’ve seen before, but with that unfortunately comes the politics that these incredibly accomplished women are now facing.”

As the process has turned openly divisive, other Democrats wish Mr. Biden had adhered to his original stated timeline and named someone by now. But former Senator Barbara Boxer, who served with Mr. Biden in the Senate, said that he must have time to deliberate, and that it is useful to see potential candidates tested under pressure.

“Joe is a person who has very strong views, and he’s very smart about putting out the positive and the negative on any issue,” Ms. Boxer said. “All this chatter about, ‘hurry up, hurry up’ — I think that’s wrong. Because as we go day by day, we get a chance to see these women in action.”

Andrew Bates, a Biden spokesman, said that Mr. Biden “bases consequential decisions on being informed and hearing from a wide variety of credible experts,” arguing that approach stood in contrast to President Trump’s decision-making style.

Mr. Biden is now determining his personal degree of comfort with a narrowed group of candidates, according to people in touch with the campaign.

Asked in an interview last week if Mr. Biden had ideas about who fit that bill, former Senator Harry Reid of Nevada said: “My knowledge is, I think he knows within two or three people who he feels comfortable with. He’ll have to narrow it down to number one. He’s the only one who can do that.”

Names frequently discussed in Biden circles over the last week, according to interviews with top Biden allies, include Ms. Harris, Ms. Rice and Ms. Bass, along with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan. Some supporters also remain enthusiastic about Ms. Demings and Senators Elizabeth Warren and Tammy Duckworth among others, but acknowledge that there is a fluid process that only Mr. Biden, his wife, his sister and a few close longtime aides probably have full visibility into.

In the meantime, signs of a public rollout have surfaced. Mr. Biden’s campaign is increasingly considering how the eventual candidate should engage important political constituencies, and has sought input regarding the community leaders and organizations the running mate should contact, and what kinds of events she could do, according to multiple people familiar with the proceedings.

In a fund-raising appeal sent Thursday, Mr. Biden wrote, “I’d like to personally invite you to join me and my running mate for our first grass-roots fund-raiser together as the official Democratic ticket.” Details, the message said, will be sent “once they’re finalized.” Another fund-raising invitation hosted by Women for Biden — without specifics on date or time — was headlined, “introducing our running mate.”

Mr. Biden, for his part, has rejected the idea that his search process has been slower or messier than those of previous nominees.

“It’s been very orderly,” he said during an interview that aired Thursday with members of the National Association of Black Journalists and National Association of Hispanic Journalists. “Every one of the women we’ve interviewed is qualified. And I’ve narrowed it down.”

Added Ms. Weingarten, “This is one of those moments where you have to let Joe be Joe, and you have to trust that he knows what he’s looking for and what he needs.”

Jonathan Martin and Shane Goldmacher contributed reporting.

[The Romulan Republic]

So yeah, no announcement this week, it'll be before the convention because it has to be, and basically, this is just Joe being Joe:

https://nytimes.com/2020/08/07/us/polit ... earch.html

Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s campaign staff is making plans to introduce his eventual vice-presidential choice to key party constituencies. Donors are readying finance events featuring the still-unnamed running mate — “date and time to be announced.” An in-person reveal is being discussed.

But as the political world awaits his announcement, Mr. Biden himself has not appeared to be in a big rush — no surprise to those who know him well.

His first self-imposed date for naming a running mate, around Aug. 1, came and went. The first week of August, another timeline he publicly floated, is nearly over, and an aide confirmed that an announcement would not happen this week. Mr. Biden has reached the final stage of his deliberations and is expected to name his choice shortly before the Democratic National Convention, which begins on Aug. 17. And while that is in keeping with the timeline of the two previous Democratic nominees, it is at odds with Mr. Biden’s own words.

“The deadline for a V.P. nomination is the convention,” said Representative Cedric Richmond, a co-chairman of Mr. Biden’s campaign. “He’s very deliberative with his decision-making. It works.”

This kind of approach — being openly meditative about the issue at hand, with a penchant for missing his own deadlines as he mulls his options — is in line with how Mr. Biden has made other big political choices throughout his career. Those who have worked with him over the years describe nonlinear decision-making processes with input from allies and family members, a barrage of questions from Mr. Biden, and a habit of extending deadlines in a way that leaves some Democrats anxious and annoyed, while others say it brings him to a well-considered decision, eventually.

[Follow along with The Times’s coverage of Joe Biden’s pick for Vice President.]

That tendency was on display in 2019, as Mr. Biden grappled with whether to run for president, missing one self-imposed deadline after another to make a decision. A similar pattern played out ahead of the 2016 election, when Mr. Biden wrestled for months with whether to run before ultimately deciding against it, devastated by the 2015 death of his son Beau.

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Create an account or log in
Ahead of the 2004 presidential race, he engaged in extensive deliberations about a bid, even going to Boston to discuss the contest with John F. Kerry, the eventual nominee, before ultimately deciding against running. He had a moment of indecision just before he announced his run for president in 1988, too, he wrote in a memoir.

On a different scale, he is routinely late to his own events, he lingers on rope lines and phone calls, and he and his team were slow to formulate responses during several pivotal moments of the 2020 contest.

Mr. Biden is not a man who can be rushed, on issues big or small.

And he views the vice-presidential pick as an especially weighty matter.

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“He knows when what he’s decided really matters,” said Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware. “He takes time to make those decisions well. He doesn’t struggle to make those decisions, he makes them in a series. He listens to the relevant experts, he consults the relevant data.”

In this case, Mr. Coons said, Mr. Biden has all the data he needs — he knows the results of the vetting process and his team has heard a range of outside opinions. And he heads into the weekend with a few important conversations left, including, Mr. Coons suggested, with vice-presidential contenders and trusted advisers. Mr. Biden is weighing who would make a “trusted, reliable, capable partner,” the role, Mr. Coons said, Mr. Biden filled as Barack Obama’s vice president.

“He’s taking the time to make sure that he gets the inputs that he would value, both a chance to hear from people who know well and have worked closely with the different candidates, but also time to talk to them directly,” he said Thursday night, asked where Mr. Biden was in the process.

Yet as the process has stretched out, each day has also brought intensive lobbying, uncertainty for the contenders and, increasingly, visible factions.

State Senator Annette Taddeo of Florida said she and other lawmakers and donors had expressed concerns to the campaign about the possible selection of Representative Karen Bass of California, whose record of travel to Cuba as a young activist and respectful remarks about Fidel Castro when he died could alienate voters in Miami.

“It’s our job not just to speak up on his behalf but to speak up when we believe we can avoid an error in the campaign, and that’s what I’ve been doing,” said Ms. Taddeo, a member of Mr. Biden’s Latino leadership committee who spoke highly of her fellow Floridian, Representative Val Demings, and voiced a view privately shared by other prominent Democrats in South Florida. She continued, “We need to hurry up and pick and move on.”


ImageMr. Biden grappled with whether to run for president this cycle, missing one self-imposed deadline after another to make a decision.
Mr. Biden grappled with whether to run for president this cycle, missing one self-imposed deadline after another to make a decision.Credit...Pete Marovich for The New York Times
Ms. Bass, who is well-liked across the ideological spectrum of the Democratic caucus, has said that her views on Cuba had evolved and that she would not repeat those comments about Mr. Castro. A spokesman pointed to a supportive statement made by the Cuban-American mayor of Coral Gables, Fla., Raúl Valdés-Fauli, who praised Ms. Bass’s “commitment to democracy” and governing experience, and said that “the Biden-Bass ticket will win Florida.”

Republicans, in the meantime, are previewing their attacks on several of the potential contenders, including Susan Rice, the former national security adviser, and Democratic opposition research is also flying, aimed at cutting down some contenders in the mix.

Senator Kamala Harris has faced sharp questioning from some Biden supporters about whether she would be loyal to his political agenda — an issue that has played out publicly and created fierce backlash.

“People close to the campaign, to actually start undermining these candidates, was just wrong and so terribly stereotypical, and a throwback to the 1950s,” said Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers. “Joe Biden is being more transparent than I think virtually any other presidential nominee I’ve seen before, but with that unfortunately comes the politics that these incredibly accomplished women are now facing.”

As the process has turned openly divisive, other Democrats wish Mr. Biden had adhered to his original stated timeline and named someone by now. But former Senator Barbara Boxer, who served with Mr. Biden in the Senate, said that he must have time to deliberate, and that it is useful to see potential candidates tested under pressure.

“Joe is a person who has very strong views, and he’s very smart about putting out the positive and the negative on any issue,” Ms. Boxer said. “All this chatter about, ‘hurry up, hurry up’ — I think that’s wrong. Because as we go day by day, we get a chance to see these women in action.”

Andrew Bates, a Biden spokesman, said that Mr. Biden “bases consequential decisions on being informed and hearing from a wide variety of credible experts,” arguing that approach stood in contrast to President Trump’s decision-making style.

Mr. Biden is now determining his personal degree of comfort with a narrowed group of candidates, according to people in touch with the campaign.

Asked in an interview last week if Mr. Biden had ideas about who fit that bill, former Senator Harry Reid of Nevada said: “My knowledge is, I think he knows within two or three people who he feels comfortable with. He’ll have to narrow it down to number one. He’s the only one who can do that.”

Names frequently discussed in Biden circles over the last week, according to interviews with top Biden allies, include Ms. Harris, Ms. Rice and Ms. Bass, along with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan. Some supporters also remain enthusiastic about Ms. Demings and Senators Elizabeth Warren and Tammy Duckworth among others, but acknowledge that there is a fluid process that only Mr. Biden, his wife, his sister and a few close longtime aides probably have full visibility into.

In the meantime, signs of a public rollout have surfaced. Mr. Biden’s campaign is increasingly considering how the eventual candidate should engage important political constituencies, and has sought input regarding the community leaders and organizations the running mate should contact, and what kinds of events she could do, according to multiple people familiar with the proceedings.

In a fund-raising appeal sent Thursday, Mr. Biden wrote, “I’d like to personally invite you to join me and my running mate for our first grass-roots fund-raiser together as the official Democratic ticket.” Details, the message said, will be sent “once they’re finalized.” Another fund-raising invitation hosted by Women for Biden — without specifics on date or time — was headlined, “introducing our running mate.”

Mr. Biden, for his part, has rejected the idea that his search process has been slower or messier than those of previous nominees.

“It’s been very orderly,” he said during an interview that aired Thursday with members of the National Association of Black Journalists and National Association of Hispanic Journalists. “Every one of the women we’ve interviewed is qualified. And I’ve narrowed it down.”

Added Ms. Weingarten, “This is one of those moments where you have to let Joe be Joe, and you have to trust that he knows what he’s looking for and what he needs.”

Jonathan Martin and Shane Goldmacher contributed reporting.

Not a big deal, by the sounds of it, but he really shouldn't have set a deadline he wasn't going to keep. Honestly, as much as I know he's likely mostly going to be just a Not Trump placeholder, and he'll serve adequately in that role, I really wish sometimes that they'd just put a gag on Joe until after election day.

[Mr Bean]

A part of me suspects that any delay is because they were leaning Bass, then the Scientology thing broke and they had to reconsider. This is, of course, speculation.

There also was the Republican reporting now confirmedthat Susan Rice is divesting herself of a large amount of stock since she was invested in a great many companies except maybe it was just Netflix.

Either way this is a dumb own goal.

[Knife]

I'd rather it be Rice. To hedge due to GOPer shit is dumb right now. Either way, Biden has to come out strong... who gives a shit what GOPer operatives are going to do.

[Elfdart]

First of all, it doesn't matter if he hasn't yet picked a VP. It's not like they can go campaigning with the Corona lockdown.

As for Susan Rice, her record is pretty godawful. She was so hell bent on ginning up a war in Libya that she made up the preposterous lie that Ghadaffi was issuing Viagra to his foreign (i.e. black) mercenaries so they can rape more effectively. LINK

The result of her scheme in Libya? Riley Waggoman describes it here: HuffPost

After Libya was flattened by NATO’s “no fly zone”, Amnesty International published a report which thoroughly debunked Hillary’s passionate plea for war:

Not only have we not met any [rape] victims, but we have not even met any persons who have met victims. As for the boxes of Viagra that Gaddafi is supposed to have had distributed, they were found intact near tanks that were completely burnt out.

The boxes of pristine Viagra found next to burnt-out tanks weren’t the only things planted in Libya. According to its report, Amnesty “failed to find evidence for these human rights violations [used to justify intervention] and in many cases has discredited or cast doubt on them. It also found indications that on several occasions the rebels in Benghazi appeared to have knowingly made false claims or manufactured evidence.”

The icing on the illegal war cake is that before Hillary started spreading rape rumors, Libya was considered a “high human development” country by the United Nations:

In 2010, Libya ranked 53rd in the UN’s Human Development Index among 163 countries. With life expectancy at birth at 74.5 years, an 88.4% adult literacy rate and a gross enrolment ratio of 94.1%, Libya was classified as a high human development country among the Middle East and North Africa region.

Libyans once enjoyed a higher standard of living than two-thirds of the planet. Now their country is terrorist stronghold ruled by competing warlords.

Rania Khalek offers more detail:



With Democrats like Susan Rice, who needs Mike Pompeo?

[Knife]

Mostly because I want someone who can run the damn thing after this bullshit the last 4 years. Senator's aren't going to cut it.

[The Romulan Republic]

Mostly because I want someone who can run the damn thing after this bullshit the last 4 years. Senator's aren't going to cut it.

Why not? Lots of Senators have been VPs. Some have been Presidents. What makes a Senator inherently unfit for the office of the Presidency? You could also flip the experience issue around, and ask why Biden should pick someone (Rice) who has never run for or held elected office, and appears to have no domestic policy experience.

I agree that Rice should not be rejected just because Republicans will lie about here- they'll do that about anyone we pick. The real baggage she has, on the other hand, seems significant.

My biggest misgiving about her, though, is how closely tied she is to Obama's inner circle, how identified she is with his Presidency, and how picking her would signal that, for all his recent talk about bigger reforms, Biden is still basically running to be the third term of the Obama administration.

[Ralin]

Why not? Lots of Senators have been VPs. Some have been Presidents. What makes a Senator inherently unfit for the office of the Presidency? You could also flip the experience issue around, and ask why Biden should pick someone (Rice) who has never run for or held elected office, and appears to have no domestic policy experience.

Because the skill set for being a good senator is different from the skill set for being a good president. Different to the point of having very little overlap.

The main skill a senator needs is being able to show up and vote the right way. There are other good and useful things they can use the office to do, sure, but those are all secondary. Having the right opinions and showing up to vote is the most important part of the job. Which is why there are very few people I would want to represent me in the Senate instead of myself.

By contrast, there are a whole lot of people I would rather have as my president than myself because being a good or even adequate president requires an array of skills, knowledge and energy that I’m not at all confident I could do well. Being a senator doesn’t mean someone doesn’t have/can’t develop those skills, but it says very little about their aptitude for doing so. Like Wong said years back, a lot of Obama’s issues as president seem to have come from the fact that he flat out didn’t realize what the job demanded and was overwhelmed.

Now, there’s no job that really prepares you for being president, but having a history of working in executive positions is a good place to start. Bush’s time would have been a good example of that, if he hadn’t sucked at it. Or Clinton’s time as governor of Arkansas. Even Bloomberg being mayor and (successfully, unlike Trump) leading a corporate empire is more than nothing. Again, no guarantees here…but Senate experience is a lot less reliable as a predictor.

[The Romulan Republic]

And yet, lots of perfectly capable Presidents worked their way up from the legislature. Obama was a Senator. Perhaps most striking, though, is Abraham Lincoln. Yeah, different times, and yeah, he's an outlier, but its worth remembering that the man widely regarded as the greatest President we ever had, the man who saved the Union, had never held any office higher than one-term Congressman.

Experience matters. I would hesitate, however, to say that there is one kind of experience which trumps all others. Especially since, as you say, no job really prepares you for being President. I would say more important is character and temperament, and particularly the one thing Trump does not have- the ability and willingness to listen to others' advice, and then apply that information, to fill in the gaps in your own knowledge and experience.

Experience is important in judging whose advice is worth listening to, of course.

[Gandalf]

Mostly because I want someone who can run the damn thing after this bullshit the last 4 years. Senator's aren't going to cut it.

What will it take to "run the damn thing?"

[Knife]

Mostly because I want someone who can run the damn thing after this bullshit the last 4 years. Senator's aren't going to cut it.

What will it take to "run the damn thing?"

Ralin pretty much hit it, but over all a working understanding on how to run a government. Trump has kicked so many holes in the walls of the government, we need someone who knows how to run one already in there pulling this shit together. And I'd very much prefer someone who already knows instead of someone who can learn because shit needs to be fixed on day one and honestly I worry about Joe's age and health. We need someone to step up on take over if needed with an understanding of how to run stuff.

[Elfdart]

I've always been opposed to having a senator as VP because the Dems will need every senator they can get, otherwise Bitch McConnell will block everything -just like he did when Obama was in office. As it stands now, the Democrats are looking at a 51-49 split, which means a 50-50 split since Manchin usually votes with the GOP. A governor or representative can cast the tie-breaker if necessary.

[The Romulan Republic]

Doesn't matter so much if they take a Senator from a blue state, although Warren would be a problem as her seat would be at least temporarily filled by a Republican governor IIRC.

Yeah, we want to think twice about endangering a Senate seat right now.

[aerius]

Is there anything that the US election system doesn't turn into a clusterfuck?

https://nypost.com/2020/08/05/84000-mai ... ction/amp/

Over 80,000 mail-in ballots disqualified in NYC primary mess
By Carl Campanile, Nolan Hicks and Bernadette Hogan
August 5, 2020 | 6:53pm

The mail-in ballots of more than 84,000 New York City Democrats who sought to vote in the presidential primary were disqualified, according to new figures released by the Board of Elections.

The city BOE received 403,103 mail-in ballots for the June 23 Democratic presidential primary.

But the certified results released Wednesday revealed that only 318,995 mail-in ballots were counted.

That means 84,108 ballots were not counted or invalidated — 21 percent of the total.

One out of four mail-in ballots were disqualified for arriving late, lacking a postmark or failing to include a voter’s signature, or other defects. The Post reported Tuesday that roughly 30,000 mail-in ballots were invalidated in Brooklyn alone.

The high invalidation rate provides more proof that election officials and the Postal Service were woefully underprepared to handle and process the avalanche of mail-in ballots that voters were encouraged to fill out to avoid having to go to the polls during the coronavirus pandemic, critics said.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed an executive order to make it easier to vote by mail-in or absentee ballot. The state also footed the bill by providing pre-paid envelopes for voters to mail the ballots.

“A 26 percent invalidation rate is astounding. It’s very troubling,” said Arthur Schwartz, who represented several candidates in a federal lawsuit claiming voters were disenfranchised over the BOE and Postal Service’s handling of ballots.

A federal judge ruled Monday that thousands of voters were disenfranchised because of the tardy mailing and processing of the ballots.

The mess included votes not being counted because the pre-paid ballot envelopes were not postmarked.

Manhattan Judge Analisa Torres ordered that ballots received by June 25 be counted, though the state Board of Elections said it is appealing the ruling.

Aside from tardy mailings and processing, Schwartz said scores of ballots were tossed out because the voters failed to sign the interior envelope that came with it.

But he said it wasn’t the voters’ fault.

“The envelope with directions for the signature was so poorly designed,” Schwartz said.

Doug Kellner, co-chair of the state Board of Elections, agreed with the criticism.

“The invalidation rate is higher than I would have predicted,” Kellor told The Post.

Meanwhile, the embattled BOE found itself mired in controversy again after emails obtained by The Post show the agency blew off Kellner, who proposed reforms to prevent another absentee balloting nightmare in November.

His six-page proposal urged city BOE officials to ensure proper staffing at polling places during the November election to ensure lines are no longer than 30 minutes; to tally absentee ballots more quickly than the six weeks it took to certify results from the primary; and to plan for processing “double or triple” the number of absentee applications.

“Add new capacity to process the applications in a timely manner now. Do not wait for a backlog from which you can never recover,” Kellner said.

City lawyers admitted in Manhattan federal court last week that they were still mailing absentee ballots the day before the June primary, leaving little chance they could reach voters in time.

Kellner’s memorandum even suggested that city election administrators should apologize for the mess.

“To those voters who did not have an opportunity to cast their ballots in the primary election, we should apologize for not doing more,” he wrote. “Elected officials and others warned that we were not deploying sufficient resources to mail out absentee ballots in a timely manner, and in hindsight, we could have done more to address the problem.”

Over 20% of the mail in ballots getting invalidated for various reasons, like how the hell do you even do that? If you guys do this in again in November I'm not sure there's gonna be a country left when it's over.

[The Romulan Republic]

The Fuhrer apparently just effectively admitted that he will abolish Medicare and Social Security if he gets a second term:

https://commondreams.org/news/2020/08/0 ... d-medicare

President Donald Trump on Saturday afternoon openly vowed to permanently "terminate" the funding mechanism for both Social Security and Medicare if reelected in November—an admission that was seized upon by defenders of the popular safety net programs who have been warning for months that the administration's threat to suspend the payroll tax in the name of economic relief during the Covid-19 pandemic was really a backdoor sabotage effort.

"We just heard it straight from Trump's own mouth: If reelected, he will destroy Social Security." —Social Security Works
Announcing and then signing a series of legally dubious executive orders, including an effort to slash the emergency federal unemployment boost by $200 from the $600 previously implemented by Democrats, Trump touted his order for a payroll tax "holiday"—which experts noted would later have to be paid back—but said if he won in November that such a cut would become permanent.

The Trump campaign was apparently so satisfied with the public acknowledgement of the president's promise to make the payroll tax permanent—a move that would inherently bankrupt the Social Security system—that it clipped the portion of the press conference and shared on social media immediately after it concluded. The president's critics did as well, though they carried a different message:

Friendly reminder, if victorious on November 3rd, @realDonaldTrump will GUT Social Security and Medicare.#TrumpPressConference #trumppresser pic.twitter.com/9iNJ7sNYvo

— American Bridge 21st Century (@American_Bridge) August 8, 2020
Defenders of the program, including the advocacy group Social Security Works, were quick to point out the implication of what the president said and condemned Trump for threatening the program that has kept countless millions of people out of poverty—during retirement years or due to disability—since it was created over 75 years ago.

"We just heard it straight from Trump's own mouth," the group responded: "If reelected, he will destroy Social Security."

Commonly known as the payroll tax, those are taxes paid both by employers and employees—as dictated by the The Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA)—that go to pay for both Social Security and Medicare.

Candidate Trump promised to protect Social Security and Medicare.

President Trump just promised to PERMANENTLY DEFUND Social Security and Medicare.

— SocialSecurityWorks (@SSWorks) August 8, 2020
"Trump's executive order, which seeks to defer Social Security contributions, is bad enough," said Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works. "But his promise to 'terminate' FICA contributions if he is reelected is a full-on declaration of war against current and future Social Security beneficiaries."

"Social Security is the foundation of everyone's retirement security," Altman added. "At a time when pensions are vanishing and 401ks have proven inadequate, Trump's plan to eliminate Social Security's revenue stream would destroy the one source of retirement income that people can count on. Moreover, Social Security is often the only disability insurance and life insurance that working families have. If reelected, Trump plans to destroy those benefits as well."

More like: "Trump Tells Social Security to Drop Dead"#SaveSocialSecurity #PayrollTax https://t.co/kf9dJtxP4C

— Alliance Retirees (@ActiveRetirees) August 8, 2020
As the Trump administration has foreshadowed this kind of move for months, economists on Friday warned again that any effort to undermine the payroll tax would do practically nothing to help struggling workers and families, but everything to sabotage two of the most popular and successful programs in the country.

"It's like borrowing money from the Social Security and Medicare trust funds to give to employers just to hold," Seth Hanlon, a tax expert and senior fellow at the left-leaning Center for American Progress, explained to Business Insider. "They're just gonna hold the withheld taxes because they'd have to pay it eventually."

So today, Trump

- cut unemployment by $200/week in the middle of the pandemic
- drained funding from Social Security and Medicaid
- created a tax bill you'll have to pay in several months

All for a photo op! #trumppresser https://t.co/pb9J1SRYPs

— Swing Left (@swingleft) August 8, 2020
As Common Dreams reported earlier this week, retirees and their advocates have vowed to fight any "attempt to gut" the program.

On Saturday, Altman called on every lawmaker in Congress to denounce what she called Trump's "unconstitutional raid on Social Security." In the upcoming election, she said, "voters should treat any Senator or Representative who is silent as complicit in destroying Social Security. Furthermore, every American who cares about Social Security's future must do everything they can to ensure that Trump does not get a second term."

The Democrats should campaign on nothing but this until election day.

[The Romulan Republic]

I'm going to make a prediction now: its Susan Rice. Three reasons:

1. Biden "joked" recently that he had already made a pick. The campaign passed it off as a joke. But what if it isn't?

2. Biden politically needs a Black woman.

3. Biden has repeatedly said he wants someone he has a comfortable relationship with- he worked with Rice in the Obama administration, and she was reportedly being pushed by the Obama insider crowd.

4. Rice reportedly just sold off her shares in Netflix, and possibly some other companies, presumably to avoid any conflict of interest. Now, I may be wrong, but I doubt she'd make major financial decisions like that merely on the possibility of getting the nomination. She'd need something more concrete.

So, my money as of now is on Susan Rice. I think its probably a done deal, or all but done, and they're keeping mum to keep Trump and his cronies guessing and so they can drop it right before/at the convention to build excitement/momentum.

[mr friendly guy]

No matter who wins, US intelligence already knows who to blame.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/07/us-inte ... trump.html

If Trump wins its those dastardly Russians helping him. If Biden wins, its because of China. Its brilliant really. Both sides now have "the other" to blame instead of their own failings. It also provides an excuse to ramp up hostilities against the two biggest geopolitical rivals the US has. Of course, people might say, why trust US intelligence uncritically, after all, they also gave us WMDs in Iraq. But hey, everyone has a bad day once in a while.... even if that mistake led to hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dying, but hey who cares. Certainly not the US who seems hell bent on blaming everyone but their own politicians for their failings.

[Ralin]

why trust US intelligence uncritically, after all, they also gave us WMDs in Iraq.

One of campaign Trump's more cogent points

[Vendetta]

No matter who wins, US intelligence already knows who to blame.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/07/us-inte ... trump.html

If Trump wins its those dastardly Russians helping him. If Biden wins, its because of China. Its brilliant really. Both sides now have "the other" to blame instead of their own failings. It also provides an excuse to ramp up hostilities against the two biggest geopolitical rivals the US has. Of course, people might say, why trust US intelligence uncritically, after all, they also gave us WMDs in Iraq. But hey, everyone has a bad day once in a while.... even if that mistake led to hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dying, but hey who cares. Certainly not the US who seems hell bent on blaming everyone but their own politicians for their failings.

True, though China probably has less ability to actually influence the election through intelligence activity than Russia, and Iran has none at all.

Russia benefit from the status quo where an unstable idiot is in charge of the US and it is paralysed on the world stage, China would benefit more from a stable market in a major international trade partner.

[Gandalf]

why trust US intelligence uncritically, after all, they also gave us WMDs in Iraq.

One of campaign Trump's more cogent points

Indeed. It was a point where he really wasn't wrong, and it was funnier that it should have been to watch him shout it at Jeb Bush. You could see Bush do the quick mental math of either selling out his brother, or defending a military action with astronomical costs.

[The Romulan Republic]

No matter who wins, US intelligence already knows who to blame.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/07/us-inte ... trump.html

If Trump wins its those dastardly Russians helping him. If Biden wins, its because of China. Its brilliant really. Both sides now have "the other" to blame instead of their own failings. It also provides an excuse to ramp up hostilities against the two biggest geopolitical rivals the US has. Of course, people might say, why trust US intelligence uncritically, after all, they also gave us WMDs in Iraq. But hey, everyone has a bad day once in a while.... even if that mistake led to hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dying, but hey who cares. Certainly not the US who seems hell bent on blaming everyone but their own politicians for their failings.

Not surprised to see you peddling "Both Sides" and Collusion Denialism, to go with your usual Whataboutism and dictator apologism.