ANew Yorkercartoon shows Donald Trump in an orange jumpsuit. Until last night, his enemies could enjoyably salivate over that prospect. Today, it might look to them as though President Trump is not going to jail, after all. We cannot say yet whether thats because he has won outright, or because he has lost so narrowly he can dispute the result and dictate the terms of his exit. Either way, the Joe Biden blow-out that most of the polls predicted and his supporters nervously expected has not materialized. This is, as a New York Timesheadline said, a nail-biter. It is not yet a repeat of 2016; Biden could well win, but the opinion polls, which set the tone of much of the reporting of this race, and which made much of the political weather, were once again dramatically, embarrassingly wrong.

As I write, Biden has a slight lead in the Electoral College. It looks as if he will win Arizona, which was Trumps in 2016. Immigration seems to have turned the state from red to blue. The next results to watch are those from Georgia and North Carolina if Trump wins both, the race will then be decided by the three Rust Belt states he flipped in 2016: Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. If Biden wins Georgia and North Carolina, he would probably need only one of those three states.

At the moment, Trump is ahead in Georgia, but only slightly. One Democratic party operative told me that African American votes from Fulton County outside Atlanta were still being counted and would give the state to Biden. Elsewhere, he said, Bidens vast advantage in mail in ballots would carry the remaining states. Bidens got this. Its true that mail-in ballots favor Biden by a huge margin. Thats part of the reason why Nate Silver a pollster whos been less wrong than others in the past says the final result could be Biden 280, Trump 258.

Or it could be Trump. Almost alone among polling organizations, the Democracy Institute said that Trump would beat Biden.Some early results have matched their predictions. They thought Trump would take Florida with a four-point lead; in the end it was 3.4 percent. Florida could be a special case. President Trump did unexpectedly (and ironically) well among Hispanics there. That was largely because Cuban-American men of a certain age and outlook seem to approve of Trumps macho, unapologetic swagger. We are still waiting to see if all of the Democracy Institutes other state-by-state predictions are borne out and Donald Trump is triumphant.

To understand how we got here, watch or watch again Andrew Neils Spectator TV interview with the director of the Democracy Institute, Patrick Basham.

They discussed the shy Trump voter, people too embarrassed to say publicly that they would cast their ballot for Trump. The percentage of these voters may be only in the low single digits, but that could be more than enough to make the difference in a tight race. The Democracy Institute also took its projections only from people identifying as likely voters instead of from those simply registered to vote the mistake that Basham says other polling organizations made. This is a crucial difference given the devotion of many Trump supporters. Large and enthusiastic crowds came to see Trump in the last days of the campaign. Bidens events could have been held in a campervan, as the conservative commentator Ann Coulter said. If Trump has won, he earned his victory by fighting to the very last rally.

Of course, the votes are still being counted. And in many of the remaining states, the two candidates are separated by a gap of a few tens of thousands of votes, just tenths of a percentage point. There could be a recount in more than one state and then, as widely expected, challenges from both sides in the courts. President Trump has long been telegraphing that this will be his strategy as so often with Trump, he says exactly what he is thinking and we should take him at his word.In the early hours of this morning, he declared that he was ready to go the Supreme Court to right the wrong of what he has repeatedly called (without evidence) a rigged election. Avery sad group of people was trying to disenfranchise millions of Americans. This is fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment to our country. We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly we did win this election.

Donald Trump must fear losing the protection of the Oval Office. He was Individual 1, identified as an unindicted co-conspirator in the successful prosecution of his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen. Cohen was convicted of paying $130,000 in hush money to the porn actress Stormy Daniels six days before the 2016 election an illegal campaign contribution. Cohen told me recently that this was done at the direction of Trump and hes prepared to give evidence against him. Cohen and many others speculate that Trump will try to pardon himself, or resign the presidency and get Mike Pence to pardon him.

*** Get a digital subscription toThe Spectator. Try a month free, then just $3.99 a month ***

This might not help Trump. A pardon would apply only to federal crimes. Making an illegal campaign contribution is a federal crime but in this case, if Cohen is telling the truth, it may have involved other, state crimes. The payment was allegedly buried in the Trump Organizations accounts as legal expenses and false accounting is a state crime in New York. More than that, Cohen told me he believed that Trump would almost certainly face state charges of tax evasion and of bank fraud. The Trump Organization is being investigated by the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance Jr, who has already convened a Grand Jury. Cohen had spoken several times to state prosecutors about Trumps business practices. He told me: His dangers are vast and significant.

Cohen wouldnt say me exactly what evidence he has given to Vance but there are some clues in his book,Disloyal. Trump is accused of keeping two sets of books one for the banks, another for the IRS. Cohen writes that Trump would order him and other executives to inflate the value of buildings and golf courses for the banks to get bigger loans. For instance, Seven Springs mansion in Westchester cost $7 million but was supposedly given a value of $291 million for Deutsche Bank. For the IRS on the other hand the same properties would be deemed essentially worthless, or better yet the subject of giant capital losseshe could then deduct. Trump reportedly took a $21 million tax deduction on Seven Springs. In one scene from Disloyal,Trump gets a tax refund check for $10 million and holding it up, delighted, says: Can you believe how fucking stupid the IRS is?

The President, like any other American, is innocent until proven guilty. He says that Cohen is a proven liar. But what if Trump believes that the office of the presidency is the only thing keeping him out of jail? He would cling to the gold lame drapes in the Oval Office with his last ounce of strength. And there is always a deal to be done. According to Trump, the art of the deal is to behave so unreasonably at the start of a negotiation that an opponent is desperate for an agreement on almost any terms. If Trump makes enough trouble now in the courts or on the streets could he extract a promise that he will remain a free man after he leaves the presidency? That would be Trumps greatest deal ever.

This article was originally published on The Spectators UK website.

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Donald Trump is preparing to strike his greatest deal yet - The Spectator US

Its almost time for the US to decide who will be in charge of the country for the next four years.

The results announcement of the US presidential election is set to be one of the biggest TV events of the year, with current Republican Donald Trump facing off against Democrat Joe Biden.

Heres how to watch the US election results in the UK and what to expect on the night.

The US election takes place on 3 November 2020.

With the time difference, however, the majority of election shows will air in the early hours of 4 November.

While we will know results from many states on the night, it may be a while longer until we know the full set of results.

Due to the complexity of voting during the coronavirus pandemic, states have taken different approaches to processing and counting votes, with some taking longer than others.

There are three basic ways to vote in the US: in person on election day, in person and early, and via a mail-in ballot all of which will be counted differently, and on different timescales.

For more information on why it may take longer than usual to find out the results of the vote, see our article here.

Here are some of the main election programmes offering overnight coverage:

BBC One and the BBC News Channel will be showing a live US Election 2020 programme, fronted by Katty Kay and Andrew Neil from 11.30pm on Tuesday 3 November.

The coverage, which is split into four parts, will continue through the night and into the next morning, with other presenters taking over for part four, starting at 9am on Wednesday 4 November.

Christian Fraser will show every result from a special screen, Jon Sopel and Clive Myrie will be with the Trump and Biden campaigns with further reporters in key states, and Tina Daheley will present bulletins throughout the night.

A panel of expert political strategists will assess how the night was won, how the campaign was lost and the impact the decision will have on the years ahead, according to the BBCs programme description.

ITV will also broadcast a live election programme, called Trump Vs. Biden: The Results on from 11am to 6am.

Tom Bradby, who will be presenting the show from Washington, said: If we have learned one thing with these overnight programmes in recent years, it is to expect the unexpected and this night might very well be the most interesting of all.

He will be supported from the studio by Washington correspondent, Robert Moore and US political analyst Dr. Keneshia Grant.

Additionally, Julie Etchingham will report live from the swing state of Florida, while a cast of politicians, campaigners and voters from across the US political spectrum will also offer insight and analysis. Those set to make an appearance incude Anthony Scaramucci, Ann Coulter and Martin Luther King III.

Presenter Moore said: Over the years, I have seen many presidential battles in my role as Washington correspondent. But this is a unique moment in so many ways: an election amid a pandemic; extraordinary early voting figures; and the spectre that President Trump may not accept the outcome. This will be a thrilling political night a true test of Americas democratic resilience.

Several other news channels will be showing election coverage on the night, including Sky News.

Skys show, called America Decides, will begin at 10pm on 3 November.

Broadcasting from a studio overlooking The White House, the show will present live results, expert analysis, special guests and a bespoke augmented reality studio allowing viewers to visualise the Race to the White House.

The show will be anchored byDermot Murnaghan, and accompanied by US Correspondent Cordelia Lynch, former aide to Donald Trump, Omarosa Manigault Newman and the former British Ambassador to the US Sir Kim Darroch, among others. Ed Conway will add to the coverage from the London studio.

On the evening of the US presidentialelection on 3 November, polls will close at different times across the United States, usually on the hour.

As soon as this happens, a state can be called by the US news networks for either Mr Trump or Mr Biden.

Here is a guide to how USelectionnight might play out, based on the latest available information for when polls are due to close.

All times are GMT.

11pm 3 November: Polls close in two Republican strongholds Kentucky and Indiana.

12am 4 November: Virginia, Vermont, South Carolina could provide results. Polls also close in two of the swing states Florida and Georgia. While neither will be called straight away, Florida should count its votes quickly and as such will give an early idea of how both the candidates are doing.

12.30am: West Virginia could be called, while North Carolina and Ohio will close their polls but probably wont call results straightaway

1am: More than a dozen states are set to close their polls including Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Washington DC, Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee anf Texas.

Swing states Michigan and Pennsylvania will also close their polls.

1.30am: Polls close in Arkansas.

2am: Polls close in Kansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, New York. Three swing states of Arizona, Minnesota and Wisconsin will close their votes.

3am: Idaho, Montana, Nevada and Utah will close their polls, as will the last of the swing states Iowa.

4am: California, Oregon and Washington will close.

5am: Polls close in Hawaii.

6am: Alaska is the last state to conclude voting.

Additional reporting by PA.

The i on TV newsletter is a daily email full of suggestions of what to watch as well as the latest TV news, opinions and interviews. Sign up here to stay up to date with the best new TV.

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How to watch US election 2020 in the UK: What time results start tonight, and full TV schedule - iNews

Jeffrey Toobin became the talk of the Internet yesterday, when the world learned that the high profile legal writer and TV analyst had been suspended by The New Yorker after he exposed himself during a video zoom call.

In a statement to Vice, which broke the story, Toobin said, I made an embarrassingly stupid mistake, believing I was off-camera. I apologize to my wife, family, friends and co-workers. He continued, I believed I was not visible on Zoom. I thought no one on the Zoom call could see me. I thought I had muted the Zoom video.

Vice later updated its original story to add that Toobin was masturbating on a Zoom video chat between members of theNew Yorker and WNYC radio last week. The chat was apparently an election simulation in which different prominent New Yorker writers played various parties in a disputed election. Toobin played the courts.

A spokesperson for CNN, where Toobin also works as an a legal analyst, said yesterday that, Jeff Toobin has asked for some time off while he deals with a personal issue, which we have granted.

For a writer at some other magazine, that might be the end of it. But when the writer at the center of an embarrassing incident like this just happens to work for the most distinguished magazine in the country, it gives the highbrow permission for lowbrow gags. Right-wing pundits, left-wing pundits, and even a prominent no-longer-imprisoned former football player who was held liable for his wifes killing, used the opportunity to goof on Toobin and his magazine. Heres a sampling:

1.Sasha Issenberg, journalist and author, via Twitter:

2.Kieran Healy, Professor of Sociology at Duke University, via Twitter:

3.George Conway, via Twitter:

4.Jess Dweck, TV writer, via Twitter:

5.David Klion, writer, via Twitter:

6.O.J. Simpson, whose murder case was the subject of Toobins 1996 book, The Run of His Life: The Peoplev.O.J. Simpson, in a video message posed to Twitter:

7.Paula Reid, CBS News White House Correspondent and lawyer, via Twitter:

8.Ann Coulter, via Twitter:

9. Grace Panetta, politics reporter at Business Insider, via Twitter:

10. Matt Taibbi, via Twitter:

11.Ashley Feinberg, via Twitter:

Read the rest here:

The Best Reactions to the Jeffrey Toobin Zoom Dick Incident - Washingtonian

With the Amy Coney Barrett hearings in full swing this week, my mailbox has been overflowing with questions from absolutely no readers! Here, I will deliver the answers that no one asked for.

Q: How can you say its fair to fill the seat of a constitutional giant like Ruth Bader Ginsburg with this far-right, anti-choice, conservative woman?

A: Youre right, RBG had patience, will and almost no black law clerks. One (1) black law clerk out of 160, to be precise. To borrow from my journalist colleagues, Are you a white supremacist?

Q: So you think its OK to just ignore her dying wish?

A: Touche! But youve forgotten that the Dying Wish clause of the Constitution is trumped by the Retire When a Democrat Is President clause. RBG was fully entitled to have a Democrat choose her replacement by retiring in 2014 when Obama was president and she was 81 years old, had already survived two bouts of cancer, two falls that broke her ribs and a heart operation. She chose not to.

Q: Youre seriously going to claim that ACB is the most qualified Supreme Court nominee?

A: Of course! Much like being a police chief in modern America, apparently the No. 1 qualification for this job is: being a woman. I dont know when my party signed onto identity politics, but Im not happy about it either. At least we didnt end up with Americas leading Karen, Kamala Harris.

Q: So you think women shouldnt run for president or sit on the Supreme Court?

A: Of course they should. But the way we should find them is not to decide Hey, lets get a woman for this job! Anybody know one? Margaret Thatcher and Golda Meir didnt become the leaders of their nations because someone said, Lets find a woman!

Ironically, the Democrats best candidate for president this year actually was a woman, but unfortunately, Sen. Amy Klobuchar was not a woman of color. So now the Democrats are saddled with the smirking insufferableness of Kamala as their backup candidate to a guy with senile dementia.

Q: What are you talking about, Ann? Kamala is the best! Shes hip, shes cool, shes brilliant.

A: Yes, and she called Joe Biden a racist.

Q: Shes explained that! On Stephen Colberts show, she laughed it off, saying: It was a debate!

A: Glad to get this on the record. So the official position of the Democratic Party is that its fine to falsely accuse a person of racism as long as its done to score political points. At least you guys dont take racism accusations lightly.

Q: Im a conservative, and I thought ACB was terrific at the hearings!

A: If there were an Olympic sport called Keeping a Straight Face While Being Lectured by Morons, ACB would take the gold. Though I might recommend that after repeatedly refusing to answer absurd hypotheticals by claiming, I would need to hear arguments from the litigants and read briefs and consult with my law clerks and talk to my colleagues and go through the opinion-writing process, maybe Barrett should not have prejudged a pending case by saying she cried when she saw the George Floyd video and citing it as an example of hatred and racism.

Instead of the George Washington and the Cherry Tree myth, I guess our new patriotic fable is the George Floyd Was Killed by a Racist Cop myth.

Q: My grandpa is in a relationship with a California hipster, and no one in the family knows what to do about it.

A: This isnt really that kind of advice column, but at least were back to Kamala Harris.

Q: You Republicans are just terrified by a strong woman of color. Mike Pence constantly interrupted her at the vice presidential debate and Harris Republican colleagues in the Senate interrupt her all the time. Theres been gobs of press about it, including an article in The New York Times, The Universal Phenomenon of Men Interrupting Women.

A: My imaginary interlocutors are really obnoxious today.

1) According to ABC News Rick Klein, Harris had slightly more speaking time than Pence at the debate.

2) But I loved how the Biden-Harris campaign had Im still speaking! T-shirts available for sale immediately following the debate. That didnt look at all pre-planned.

3) As for senators interrupting Harris, try looking at the videos that are longer than one minute. Invariably, the reason shes being interrupted is that she is rudely badgering a witness and not allowing him to answer. Yes or no! Yes or no! Please allow me to paint you into a corner by accepting all the ridiculous constraints of my question without further comment or explanation.

See the slightly longer videos here: realclearpolitics.com/video/2017/06/13/sen_harris_told_to_stop_interrupting_and_let_sessions_speak_at_hearing.html and here: youtube.com/watch?v=rshx1U9JgZM

Q: But if ACB is confirmed, women will be forced into back-alley abortions!

A: Let me assure you that even if Roe v. Wade is ever overturned, in California, New York and other liberal states, you will still enjoy a right to abortion right up to birth (at least), and if the baby somehow still survives, youll be allowed to bash in his head in with an oxygen tank.

I dont know what Democrats are so worried about, anyway. According to them, Americans LOVE Roe! Amy Klobuchar said at one of the Democratic debates this year, The people are with us. Over 70% of the people support Roe v. Wade.

Oddly, when I tried to locate this statistic on Google, I found endless polls claiming 70% of Americans support every left-wing policy -- the entire Democratic agenda: legalizing pot; Medicare for all; amnesty for illegals, Black Lives Matter and on and on. All have 70% support!

So Ive got good news for liberals: If these polls are accurate, you dont need left-wing judicial activists concocting imaginary constitutional rights to get your way. Just pass laws, like in a democracy. On the other hand, the hysteria over RBGs death and ACBs nomination tells me that liberals dont believe their own polls.

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Ann Coulter: Ask Ann anything! The ACB edition - Today's News-Herald

Half a decade ago, the ascendance of the alt-right was about as plausible as the election of Donald Trump, and we all know how that worked out. Like the 2016 election, director Daniel Lambrosos provocative alt-right portrait White Noise isnt all that surprising, but that doesnt lessen the terror within. In capturing the racist trifecta of alt-right pundits Mike Cernovich, Laura Southern, and Richard Spencer, the documentary shows how they became emboldened by celebrity stature, and comes so close to letting them run the show it risks trumpeting their cause. Fortunately, it doesnt take the most discerning bullshit detector to realize that White Noise has been engineered to expose a fundamental danger to whatever moral fabric America has left. Lambroso has made the scariest documentary of the year without telling us anything new.

However, for the lucky few who somehow avoided any of this movies subjects and their small armies of white nationalist devotees, White Noise provides a handy primer (and just enough to avoid the need to dig further). Working closely with his subjects over the course of several years, Lambroso seems to have gained their trust, and his camera manages to track them across boisterous media appearances as they flaunt their provocative stupidity to every possible camera, including many adoring crowds.

Yet it also finds them at an inflection point empowered by Trumps election, but uncertain how to clarify the next steps. Spencer, the neo-Nazi who went viral for his infamous Heil Trump speech in 2016, annoys the hell out of Cernovich, the nebbishy anti-feminist blogger who prefers to deem his loathsome views as a defense against white genocide. Splitting the difference between the two, 25-year-old Canadian YouTube star Lauren Southern spouts maniacal xenophobic arguments against immigration and womens rights with a camera-ready smirk that hangs over her most radical pronouncements like an awkward Trojan horse. Zipping between these as it maps out their deranged community, the movie implies varying degrees of danger on display: Spencers Hitleresque ambition makes for quite the horror show, but Cernovichs unassuming dopiness and Southerns next-gen Ann Coulter charm are just as alarming for the way they attempt to soften their putrid views with personality. At its worst, White Noise goes there with them.

Like Errol Morris unnerving American Dharma, the filmmakers feature-length one-on-one with alt-right folk hero Steve Bannon, White Noise enters a moral gray zone by virtue of its very existence. Yes, theres no ambiguity about the source of outrage when a Colombia University audience revolts against Cernovich, or journalists assail Spencer for his role in inciting the Charlottesville riots that resulted in one womans death. Yet as the movie follows the traditional cinema verite beats by watching its characters go to work, it often doesnt go far enough in clarifying its moral compass. Viewers can sort most of it out for themselves, but the movies give-em-enough-rope philosophy means that even as White Noise exposes the culture of internet-based disinformation that created these monsters, it actually becomes a part of the same problematic spotlight that thrust them onto the national stage.

Still, theres a fascinating gamble involved in the way the movie dares viewers to stomach its most upsetting moments, most of which come from Southern, who seems to navigate the backlash with aplomb at every turn. That includes her delight over the positive reaction to her disingenuous immigration documentary Borderless to the moronic declarations she manages to toss out to appreciative crowds. (Go to Africa and you will see rape culture being one of many.) Spencer, whose style sense is best described as fascist boy band, looks increasingly pathetic as his crowds dwindle post-Charlottesville, while Cernovich is reduced to selling skin-care products after the media gets over his rebel image. Southern, by contrast, almost comes across as a source of sympathy. One shocking moment finds Vice co-founder Gavin McInnes propositioning her after an interview, and the sense of individuality she expresses in that moment creates one of the more troubling conflicts the movie offers up. Southern doesnt deserve to be anyones hero, but White Noise dares to make her human.

Documentarians have been holding their noses in these putrid depths of bigotry for decades. Michael Moore and Kevin Raffertys Blood in the Face made clear the ambitions of neo-Nazis on American soil almost 30 years ago, while Morris Bannon doc came out shortly before another more explicit condemnation of the man in Alison Klaymans The Brink. Yet White Noise comes across as the most harrowing of the bunch, less for the evil it exposes than the extent it allows them to control the narrative.

If theres any source of comfort that comes from spending time with these loonies aside from, hey, you really ought to vote in this election it comes from the implication that they might just cancel each other out. As Cernovich derides Spencers Nazism for holding us back, while Spencer recalls Cernovichs previous career as a really gross sex-blogger, its enough to make the case that they could simply scream each other into oblivion. (Spencer, whos living with his mother and facing pending criminal charges, may face more precise justice than that.) The jurys still out on Southern, now a young mother and wife (to a non-white person, though she wont get into that for the camera), but lets hope this particular open-ended character doesnt merit a sequel.

In fact, lets hope society doesnt. White Noise culminates by letting its subjects share their delusions of grandeur, but cant sort out if theyre pathetic or practical in these uncertain times. The documentary stops short of investigating how the world got this way, or what it will take to set things right. It might have helped, in a movie so committed to stating its main problem, to offer some semblance of solution. (Hello, education!) Nevertheless, White Noise has a compelling message at its core, by daring viewers to see the worst of our society, and cautioning against the tendency to simply tuning it out.

White Noise is now available for VOD rental.

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White Noise Review: Alt-Right Showcase Is the Scariest Documentary of the Year - IndieWire

Jen Lancasters new memoir is about anxiety, but the top review on Amazon has nothing to do with the book.

Instead, a reviewer from Seattle, Washington, gives Lancasters Welcome to the United States of Anxiety one star the lowest ranking because of what she perceives to be the authors political views. Although the reviewer admits she hasnt read the book, more than 1,422 Amazon browsers said they found the review helpful.

Call it the United States of Animosity, where less than three weeks before a contentious election, politics are creeping into every aspect of life, even those that have nothing to do with politics. The acrimony has seeped into decorations that children will walk past on Halloween, influences decisions about what people read and where they shop, and has even turned up in an online forum devoted to knitting.

It feels like our choices of entertainment, our choices of where we shop, where we eat, what we read, has become deeply infused with political beliefs, said John Sarrouf, co-executive director of the community building nonprofit Essential Partners, based in Boston. Ive heard people say, I dont want to walk down that street because theres a big Trump sign. They dont even want to look at it.

For Lancaster, a bestselling author of 15 other books, it was jarring to see a spiteful review that she says does not even reflect her current personal views. The reviewer said that Lancaster liked conservative author Ann Coulter, based on something Lancaster published in 2006. But in 2006, I also liked chunky highlights and platform sandals, she said, adding that her political views have similarly evolved since then.

Although the all-encompassing nature of politics feels new, historians say its actually a return to an earlier time when political campaigns were the nations major form of entertainment. And some social scientists say an obsession with politics is better than its antithesis, apathy.

But others are hoping the emphasis on political divisions will end after the votes are counted next month.

It ought to be possible to say, for example, I enjoyed playing golf today, without Democrats and Republicans immediately thinking, That awful president plays golf, too, Charles Lipson, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Chicago wrote for Real Clear Politics.

Lancaster, 52, best known for her humorous titles such as Bitter is the Next Black and Such a Pretty Fat, said that until recently, she has held fairly conservative political views throughout her career, and openly so, until around 2007.

Politics are really important to me; I was a political science major at Purdue, she said, adding that she spoke in support of the late GOP Sen. John McCain when he ran for president in 2008 at a time when other authors came out against him.

But then my entire management team said, Youre not going to have a career if you continue to say anything about being conservative. So Ive kept my mouth shut.

In her new book, she says she no longer identifies with a political party. If I identify with anything, its being an American, which is why I despise how badly weve splintered as a country. The divisions between us arent new, but the ways we deal with them are. Weve lost the social norm of civility, Lancaster wrote.

Adrienne Martini, a member of the Otsego County Board of Representatives in Oneonta, New York, wrote a book about her experience running for office, Somebodys Gotta Do It. But before she was a politician, she was a knitter, and like others, turned the hobby political by knitting pink hats that women wore in a march on Washington in 2017.

They are very easy to knit and made me feel like I was doing something after the 2016 election. The big political thing to knit right now is the dissent collar (a nod to the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who wore lace collars) but it doesnt move me in quite the same way, Martini said.

Knitters have also made things in support of President Donald Trump, such as a pattern for a hat that said Build the Wall, designed by an anonymous woman who calls herself the Deplorable Knitter. On her website, she said she and her husband support our President, our Troops, and our God. If any of those things offend you, this is probably not the place for you.

Her support of the president was deemed offensive by the online knitting community Ravelry, which banned her from the platform, as well as anyone promoting Trump and his policies. The resulting furor caused MIT Technology Review to write about increased politicization of the online knitting world.

But Martini said she isnt surprised or even particularly troubled by the division among knitters.

My feeling is that politics is the water that we all swim in every moment of every day. Were just more aware of how wet that water is right now and how many of us are drowning rather than swimming. Knitting is just one more way that people make their preferences known, she said

Ellen Fitzpatrick, a history professor at the University of New Hampshire who specializes in presidential campaigns, said the current high level of engagement in politics is due in part to the pandemic, but magnified exponentially by widespread use of social media.

Everyone is an authority these days, she said. Theres tremendous explosion of opportunity for people to participate in these ways; whether theyre constructive or not is another question.

But what seems a new level of engagement is actually a return to an earlier period in history, she said.

In the 19th century, fewer Americans were able to vote; women and many Blacks were not eligible, for example. But there was a tremendously high level of enthusiasm and engagement on the part of those who could vote. It was a form of entertainment; it was a way of socializing with each other. There would be these huge torchlight parades and outdoor lectures. Politics was entertainment; it was sport. It filled a lot of needs in the culture, Fitzpatrick said.

During that period, however, people identified more with political parties than with individuals, and in the early 20th century, reforms were instituted (to include secret ballots and the primary process) that made the parties less powerful, and the turnout rate, which once was as high as 80%, began to fall, and interest in elections declined and never recovered to 19th century levels.

Paradoxically, the number of eligible voters expands over the course of the 20th century, but voter enthusiasm seemed to decline, Fitzpatrick said. Whats going on today, there seems to be a high level of engagement, but whether that translates to voting or not remains to be seen.

There are new developments today, though, she noted, including exuberance for the individual candidates rather than the political parties and their platforms.

And politics is infecting everything now. This deep division is a worrisome development because it seems to be so full of anger. The anonymity of some of these platforms allows people to say things they would not say in person to someone else. I think theres a hate-filled rhetoric and divisiveness that is a very lamentable thing were seeing in recent years.

Lipson, at the University of Chicago, said that the political divisions in America are deep and the greatest since the Great Depression and perhaps since 1860. Equally disturbing is that, while in the past, people of differing political parties still found areas on which they can agree, now they rarely do.

The parties are more ideological than they have been since the 1930s, he said. Instead of having cross-cutting cleavages socially, we have reinforcing cleavages. Were slicing the pie down the same middle slice all the time. And were doing so without strong trust in social and governmental institutions, Lipson said.

If you asked in the early 1960s, do you think government generally tries to do the right thing?, 70% would say yes; now the number is like 20%, he said. We have deep social cleavages, parties that are trying to pull us apart, activists within those parties, all dealing with each other in a very low-trust environment. This is a recipe for real trouble.

Lancaster, the Chicago author, said the problem is that people are telling other people what they should think and why they should think it. If you want to make a persuasive argument, the best thing you can do is talk about your personal experience with whatever the subject is, she said.

But, she said, This is such an ugly political season that I dont think not talking about politics is the right call either. I think what we need to do is try to foster some mutual understanding or were going to have a civil war.

Sarrouf, co-author of Essential Partners Guide to Conversations Across the Red-Blue Divide, echoed Lancasters remarks, saying that people can learn a constructive cycle of conversation that they can employ anytime theyre in conversation that is becoming acrimonious.

Research has shown that peoples minds are rarely changed by yard signs, but they can be changed in a thoughtful conversation in which both sides listen deeply to the other and ask sincere questions. Be that positive deviation from the escalating norm, Sarrouf said.

Also, he advises people to quickly remove the physical manifestations of division immediately after the election. If its important to put up a sign in your yard, its important to take it down when its over, Sarrouf said.

I think its important to remember that we are not just one thing. The person down the street is not just a Democrat who voted for Biden; theyre the person who brought a bouquet of flowers when my mom passed away, he said. Or, the person for Trump is also the person who picks up trash at the kids playground so it can be a clean place for the children to play. We are not just our political identities.

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Election 2020: From Halloween to Amazon book reviews, politics are everywhere - Deseret News

Back in the halcyon days of February, when healing America seemed like a figure of speech and indoor gatherings of more than two maskless people werent considered a biohazard, Wendy Davis addressed a 75-person crowd in the clubhouse of a gated community outside San Antonio. It was the third event in as many days for Davis, who was two weeks away from winning the Democratic primary to represent Texass Twenty-First Congressional District, a curiously drawn slice of the state that includes downtown Austin, the suburban sprawl of San Antonio, and a rural stretch of Hill Country. Davis delivered her standard stump speecha tight, policy-driven monologue that features the story of how she, a teen mom living in a trailer park, managed to make it to Harvard Law School, thanks to hard work, Pell Grants, and a Planned Parenthood around the cornerbefore fanning out to a case for stitching up the holes in todays social safety net. (Daviss granddaughters dont have the same opportunities she did, she said; we owe it to them to change that.) Afterward, a woman in her late 50s with a sensible brown bob and a faint twang pulled the candidate aside. I got an abortion, and I tell my Sunday-school class about it, the woman began, her voice cracking. I just dont believe in backing down. You just dont back down.

Davis nodded sympatheticallyshe gets this a lot. In 2013, Davis went from Texas state senator to feminist folk hero when she filibustered a bill to effectively close all but five abortion clinics in the state. Lean In feminism was sweeping the nation, and Sheryl Sandberg couldnt have asked for a better standard-bearer for her gospel of sharp-elbowed female empowerment. To avoid giving her (male) Republican opponents even the flimsiest reason to disqualify her, Davis followed Senate rules to the point of absurdityrefraining from sitting, eating, drinking, or using the bathroom (there was a catheter ) for 11 straight hours. The gladiatorial aspect of it all, plus the fact that Davis had done it in a pair of Mizuno sneakers that were an unapologetically girly shade of pink, captured the attention of tens of thousands on a livestream, among them President Barack Obama. When details of her biography surfaced the next day, Daviss cult status grew. Women sent macram uteruses to her office to express their gratitude. She was featured in the September issue of Vogue. Though her effort to kill the bill ultimately failed, she traveled throughout Texas on a Planned Parenthood bus, disembarking to choruses of young women chanting: Wendy! Wendy! Wendy!

A few months later, when she announced that she was running for governor, Davis wasnt expected to win, but that someone with her buzz was even seeking the office gave Democrats new hope for loosening the decades-long red chokehold on the state. Her campaign raised $40 million. Then what started as an exciting underdog effort became something like a disaster, paved with muddled messaging, accusations that shed embellished her origin story (she didnt live in the trailer for that long), and her campaigns release of a tasteless attack ad suggesting that her opponent, Greg Abbott, who uses a wheelchair, was a hypocrite for blocking disability-discrimination lawsuits as state attorney general. Davis suffered an embarrassing 20-point lossthe widest margin for a governors race the state had seen in almost two decadesand by the end of her campaign, her net favorability rating had cratered to negative 4. Apparently, most Texas voters didnt like her.

The arc of any good political story, of course, includes a comeback. When Davis announced that she was running for U.S. Congress in July 2019, Texas 21 wasnt especially high on anyones list of seats expected to flipthe district has been represented by a Republican since the 1970s. But she had a path to victory, albeit a narrow one. In recent years, the Twenty-First has experienced an explosion in population growth, with recent transplants skewing young, educated, and suburbana demographic that famously continues to drift to the left. It was an advantage compounded by the fact that the incumbent, Chip Roy, the former chief of staff to Senator Ted Cruz, is such a staunch far-right ideologue that he once blocked the passage of a disaster-relief bill that would have benefited Texas because it didnt contain sufficient funds for building President Donald Trumps border wall. In 2018, Roy topped the Democratic businessman running against him by only 2.6 percentage points.

Then came a national crisis that upended assumptions about likely winners and losers. In March 2020, almost every aspect of life became a campaign issue, even campaigning itself. In the ensuing five months, Davis held just a single in-person campaign event (outdoors, in a mask), while Roywho likened stay-at-home orders to laws in Nazi Germanyspoke with constituents in crowded restaurants and attended a large, lavish outdoor GOP fundraising gala that was investigated by the Travis County fire marshal for violating the governors COVID-19 protocols. The more daylight that shined between the candidates approach to the pandemic, the more the odds seemed to tilt in Daviss favor. (That the same dynamic was playing out on the national stage didnt hurt.) In July, following a surge of coronavirus cases in Texas, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report bumped up Daviss chances of winning, changing the Twenty-Firsts ranking from Lean R to Toss-Up. And in early September, after Obama endorsed Davis, her campaign disclosed the results of a poll it had conducted that showed the two candidates in a virtual tie. During an Instagram Live event with the actor Connie Britton, Davis appeared downright giddy about her chances of winning, letting out a Dont make a liar out of me! She was kidding, but there was also sincere trepidation in her voice. Davis, perhaps more than anyone, knows the dangers of getting swept up in the hype, and the heartbreak of assuming that this will be the year Texas turns blue.

Given that Davis staged what was essentially an 11-hour performance piece on the floor of the state Senate in 2013, you might expect her to be theatrical in persona wild gesticulator, or a master of dramatic pacing. You would be wrong. The 57-year-old lawyer has a regal mien that recalls a not-evil Claire Underwood (incidentally, a character who, like Davis, is a native Texan who lost her accent along the way). Daviss diction is ivory tower and her framing cerebral, even in the personal story she tells of discovering Planned Parenthood at 19, after giving birth to her first child, Amber: They made it possible for me to take control of my reproductive destiny, and that made it possible for me to take control of my economic opportunity. So I understand very deeply why that matters so much.

Two days before the stop in San Antonio in February, Davis attended an event at the Kerr County Democratic Party headquarters, in Kerrville. Kerrville is among the reddest parts of the district, so much so that six months later, Chip Roy would share a maskless fist bump with the towns former mayor, later shrugging off his behavior to a reporter for the Austin American-Statesman: When in Rome. The mostly white Boomers who came out for Davis were the areas committed Democratic minorityone man wore a MAGA-style hat that said Make Orwell Fiction Again. Most of their questions were about Daviss efforts to expand the electoratethis group loved her, but they couldnt see her convincing many more people from their demographic to vote for her. (Do you speak Spanish? one woman asked the candidate. Working on it, she replied.) Toward the end, a guy in the back about 30 years younger than nearly everyone else, with a smartwatch, a hipster haircut, and skinny jeans, raised his hand: Where did Davis stand on the Green New Deal?

Im for drafting the most aggressive billDavis pausedthat will pass in the Senate.

The question touched a nerve. Her thencampaign manager later told me that she thought the guy might have been a plant from a far left interest group. The campaign was almost certainly wary of a third-party candidate playing spoiler, as has happened in tight races elsewhere. Indeed, when a Green Party candidate threw his hat in the ring in April, Daviss campaign sued to keep him off the ballot because he hadnt paid the required filing fees. (She ultimately lost.)

Davis is not at all shy about being a moderate. In fact, she wants to lay claim to that designation, though she prefers the term mainstream. While health care is the centerpiece of her campaignand she will say approximately a billion times, to me, on Twitter, on the trail, presumably in her sleep, that Texas has the highest rate of uninsured people in the countryher solution is not Medicare for All. Rather, she prefers a competitive public option and expanding Medicare and Medicaid. Making sure every person in America has health care is a bold idea, she told me in February.. It doesnt mean were small thinkers if we dont think Medicare for All tomorrow is the correct path, right?

Her record is definitely on the mainstream side. The first political office she held was as a member of the Fort Worth city council, which didnt have party affiliations. During her time as a council member and later as a state senator, she championed a variety of causes, including commercial development in Fort Worth, protections against predatory lending, and regulation ofrather than a ban onthe nascent and booming fracking industry. (Davis even voted in several GOP primaries in the 1990s and, according to public records, donated to George W. Bush just before he announced his first presidential campaign.)

The problem is, as much as Davis and her campaign operatives believe mainstream is the way to go in a district that is purplish at best, and in a race where her opponent has given her the Trumpian nickname Extreme Wendy, the progressive faction of her party has more energy and influence than it has had in decades. She alienates the skinny-jeans set at her peril.

Its a strange spot for Davis to be in. Once described by former Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards as someone who makes people believe anything was possible, Davis now cant take for granted the support of her partys left flank. Shes been lapped by the new generation of progressive stars, with their full-throated denunciations of capitalism and inequality, of structural racism and sexism. Daviss challenge is one faced by Democrats across the country hoping to capture traditionally Republican seats: how to keep progressives happy enough to pull the lever and woo members of the opposite party to do the same.

Davis blames her poor showing against Greg Abbott on being overly message-managed. If, for instance, she had attempted to talk about the importance of gun controlsomething she has done often in her current racemy team would have told me I lost my freaking mind, Davis told me, beginning to sound almost wistful.For me, that race felt so big and so hard. I didnt trust myself as much as I had in other races.

Bob Stein, a political-science professor at Rice University, is less existential in his assessment. Lets just get honest here. She wasnt what Id call a great candidate, he told me. He thinks Davis miscalculated how much identity politics would motivate female voters, especially on the abortion issue. She felt there were white Republican women who were offended that white males wanted to tell them what to do with their reproductive rights, and there werent. Davis has been much more circumspect about the issue this time around. At the start of the pandemic, when the state halted abortions on the grounds that they were a non-essential medical procedure, Davis tweeted about the topic only a handful of times, using relatively measured language. This makes absolutely zero sense and makes women more vulnerable, not less so, she said in one tweet.

In late September, when Senator Bernie Sanders hosted a virtual town hall, cheekily titled As Goes Texas, So Goes America, with various Texas Democratsincluding Julie Oliver, running a tight race in the neighboring Twenty-Fifth, and Jos Garza, vying for district attorney in Travis County, which overlaps with the Twenty-FirstDavis was conspicuously absent. Less polarizing special guests like Julin Castro and Beto ORourke werent enough of a counterbalance, it seemed, for Davis to risk being perceived as even socialist-curious. (When I asked her about her decision not to participate, Davis claimed ignorance. I certainly dont remember making a decision not to attend it, she said. I may not even have known about it, and thats probably the case.)

On the drive back to Austin from Kerrville in the winter, along a stretch of Highway 290 dotted with peach stands and personal-injury lawyers billboards, Davis explained where she sees herself in the landscape of Democratic talent. It would not be AOC. It would be Amy Klobuchar, she said decisively. It would be the person who goes in, puts her head down, and just works with people quietly and gets it done, you know? And thats not to take away from AOC, because I know that shes working hard on the things that really matter to her, but thats just not me.

The irony is, despite Daviss efforts to distance herself from the younger progressives, theyve helped provoke changes in attitude that are making her life easier, especially with regard to feminism. For one thing, there is much more recognition now that concepts such as likability are polluted by gender stereotypesand Daviss likability, recall, was underwater by the end of the governors race. A major cause of Texans disenchantment with Davis was media reports that she had fudged parts of her biography: She only lived in the trailer for a few months, which critics deemed not long enough to mention at all. Most damning, though, was the revelation that her then-husband had paid her law-school tuition and cared for their two children in Fort Worth while she was studying at Harvardprompting Ann Coulter to call Davis a gold-digger who found a sugar daddy. As proof that beliefs have evolved, look no further than what happened in March 2019, when Daviss fellow Texan, Beto ORourke, made a passing reference while he was running for president to his wife assuming most of the parenting duties. That he seemed to take this arrangement for granted, without so much as an Im so lucky, incited a barrage of accusations of male privilege. (He later apologized.)

Beto-for-President seems like ancient history. So much has happened in the past year and a half, and those events are still reverberating in the contest between Davis and Roy. Even as Trumps poll numbers have fallen in Texas, Roy has not stopped praising the presidents handling of the outbreak or trafficking in conspiracy theories, such as speculation that Democrats will experience a magic awakening after the election and their fears about the coronavirus will vanish. (Roy did complain, however, that his comments about Nazi Germany were taken out of context, explaining that he was referring only to a specific policy in Maine related to travel restrictions.) Meanwhile, Daviss campaign has pronounced Roy the nations top coronavirus skeptic and a danger to Texas families. Im observing my opponent going on CNN and telling the interviewer that everythings just fine in Texas on the day that we actually had the highest number of deaths in our state that wed had to that point, Davis told me when we spoke in August.

The contrast between the two candidates responses to police brutality against Black people isnt quite as sharp. After George Floyds killing in May, Davis slammed the presidents response, tweeting, True leaders mourn with the families who have lost loved ones, and she held a virtual town hall on the topic of racial justice and trans rights on June 11. But the next month, after a protester was fatally shot in downtown Austin and the national call for defunding the police reached a peak, she lowered the temperature of her rhetoric, tweeting: The incident last night in Austin at the Black Lives Matter protest was horrific. As we await more info, let us reaffirm that the right to peaceful protest is sacred in America. No doubt, Davis, who supports reforms such as banning chokeholds but has stopped short of anything more radical, is aware of just how badly defunding the police plays with the suburban voters shes trying to get. This is not lost on Roy, either. He took a staunch law-and-order tack amid the tear-gas standoffs between protesters and police that rocked Austin and San Antonio over the summer. And in September, after NBA players boycotted a handful of games to protest police brutality in Kenosha, Wisconsin, he appeared on the floor of the House with a framed jersey emblazoned with a 43: the number of on-duty law-enforcement officers killed so far this year, he said. Where is the NBA on this issue? Roy demanded.

One of Daviss favorite pieces of political trivia is about how Ann Richards, Ceciles mother and the patron saint of female politicians in Texas, won her 1990 bid for governor. The prevailing lore is that Richardss opponent, Clayton Williams, immolated a winning campaign with a single bizarre joke about rape (comparing it to bad weather, he said, If its inevitable, just relax and enjoy it).

But it wasnt the rape joke that did it, Davis told me, offering a slightly more nuanced account. Williams actually blew it at a public event right before the election, when Richards extended her hand to him, and he refused to shake it. Had that happened on any other daytwo days prior, or three days latershe probably wouldnt have won, Davis said excitedly. It was perfect timing. Its a lesson about just how swiftly circumstances can change in a campaign. Its also about how, if youre patient as a candidate, you just might get an openinga once-in-a-century pandemic, sayto show voters what youre really all about.

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The Woman With the Pink Tennis Shoes Is Walking a Fine Line - The Atlantic

It turns out not everybody believes the Proud Boys are white supremacists, including a prominent Black professor at a historically Black university.

Wilfred Reilly, associate professor of political science at Kentucky State University, said Wednesday that the Proud Boys arent white supremacists, describing the right-wing groups beliefs as Western chauvinist and noting that their international chairman, Enrique Tarrio, is Black.

Gotta say: the Proud Boys arent white supremacists, tweeted Mr. Reilly, author of Hate Crime Hoax.

The Proud Boys came under the microscope after President Trump refused during Tuesdays presidential debate to condemn them as white supremacists, saying, Proud Boys stand back and stand by, prompting accusations that he was supporting virulent racists.

Mr. Reilly said that about 10% to 20% of Proud Boys activists are people of color, a diverse racial composition that is extremely well-known in law enforcement, based on his research.

Enrique Tarrio, their overall leader, is a Black Cuban dude. The Proud Boys explicitly say theyre not racist, Mr. Reilly told The Washington Times. They are an openly right-leaning group and theyll openly fight you they dont deny any of this but saying theyre White supremacist: If youre talking about a group of people more than 10% people of color and headed by an Afro-Latino guy, that doesnt make sense.

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer accused Mr. Trump of refusing to condemn white supremacy, tweeting, He told white supremacists to stand back and stand by. President Trump is a national disgrace, and Americans will not stand for it.

Democratic presidential nominee Joseph R. Biden told reporters Wednesday: My message to the Proud Boys and every other White supremacist group is: cease and desist. Thats not who we are.

White House spokeswoman Alysa Farah pushed back on the criticism, saying, I dont think theres anything to clarify. Hes told them to stand back.

Black Trump supporter Melissa Tate also challenged the white supremacist label, posting a video in which she and Beverly Beatty said that the Proud Boys helped provide security for them at a Christian prayer event.

STOP THE LIES, tweeted Ms. Tate, who has 440,700 followers. Proud Boys are NOT White Supremacist. They are Christian men many of them hispanic & some black.

Added Michael Burkes, who has 236,700 followers on his Trumps Black Grandson account: The Proud Boys arent the ones calling me a Coon so theyre alright with me.

Proud Boys, founded in 2016 by Gavin McInnes, is listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Mr. McInnes has sued to have the designation removed.

Were a drinking club with a patriot problem, Mr. Tarrio told CNN at a Sept. 26 rally in Portland. As Proud Boys, I think our main objective is to defend the West.

After the debate, Mr. Tarrio insisted the group was not racist, saying that Mr. Trump did an excellent job and was asked a VERY pointed question. The question was in reference to WHITE SUPREMACYwhich we are not.

Proud Boys, which describes its members as Western chauvinists who refuse to apologize for creating the modern world, have clashed repeatedly with Antifa in Portland.

The Oregon Justice Resource Center filed a lawsuit last week against the Proud Boys, alleging that four counter-protesters were injured by Proud Boys activists wielding paint-ball guns and bear mace during an Aug. 22 melee in Portland.

The Proud Boys represent an unconventional strain of American right-wing extremism, said the Anti-Defamation League on its website. While the group can be described as violent, nationalistic, Islamophobic, transphobic and misogynistic, its members represent a range of ethnic backgrounds, and its leaders vehemently protest any allegations of racism.

Mr. McInnes, who left the group in 2018, has been banned from most social-media platforms for his anti-Semitic statements, including a video called Ten Things I Hate About Jews, which he later changed to Ten Things I Hate About Israel.

Supporters of the Proud Boys include right-wing pundits Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin, as well as former Republican consultant and convicted felon Roger Stone, whose 2019 sentence was later commuted by Mr. Trump.

During the Tuesday debate moderated by Fox News host Chris Wallace, Mr. Trump was asked if he would be willing to tell white supremacists and militia groups to stand down and not add to the violence in a number of these cities, referring to the ongoing protests and rioting.

Sure, Im willing to, but I would say almost everything I see is from the left wing, not from the right wing, Mr. Trump said. Im willing to do anything. I want to see peace.

Mr. Wallace said, Then do it, sir. Mr. Trump said him to give me a name, and Mr. Biden said, Proud Boys.

Proud Boys stand back and stand by, Mr. Trump said. But Ill tell you what. Ill tell you what. Somebodys got to do something about Antifa and the left because this is not a right-wing problem.

He challenged Mr. Biden to condemn Antifa, to which Mr. Biden replied, Antifa is an idea, not an organization. Mr. Trump replied, Oh, youve got to be kidding.

Blexit founder Candace Owens asked why Mr. Biden was not asked to condemn Antifa, tweeting, Unbelievable. Every person in America knows these riots are being orchestrated by black lives matter and Antifa.

Chris Wallace asks the President to condemn white supremacists but did not think to ask Joe Biden to condemn Antifa or BLM, she added.

More here:

Wilfred Reilly insists 'Proud Boys aren't white supremacists' as Trump takes flak - Washington Times

When I was a police investigator for the Pennsylvania State Police, I found the job to be very like my work in my 10 years as a journalist.

The police officer and the news reporter both seek the truth. We both ask the following questions: Who, What, Where, When, How and, in my view the most important question, WHY. I found in both jobs it wasnt enough to know WHAT you were seeing, but WHY you were seeing it.

The Clearfield Municipal Authority was once thinking about building a massive public works project on Moose Creek Dam. Was it because Clearfield needed the water? Was it because authority members wanted to give friends and relatives rich contracts? Was it because the engineering firm designing the project practically ran the authority meetings? Maybe a little of each?

Why matters.

In police work, why is codified in law and in proof. Intent is key in the findings of guilt or innocence. Did the person do something intentionally, recklessly or carelessly?

When you are evaluating information, to get to facts, you need to know the why.

Kyle Rittenhouse is a 17 year old shooter from Antioch, Illinois, who traveled to Kenosha, Wisconsin, armed with a loaded assault rifle. FACT. Why?

In order to commit five felonies and a misdemeanor, in my world, you have to TRY. Meaning? Youre doing SOMETHING on purpose. Have YOU committed five felonies? Why?

The Kenosha demonstrations were over the police shooting of an unarmed man, Jacob Blake. The protests were marked by daily peaceful protesting followed by confrontations with law enforcement and rioting at night.

Kyle Rittenhouse appears to have been responding to the protest as part of some number of armed militia members.

There exists a video clip of Rittenhouse, shown with members of a group earlier in the evening, getting bottles of water from a law enforcement officer in an armored vehicle. The officer thanks the armed men for their help, though they are clearly civilians armed civilians in violation of the citys 8 p.m. curfew.

We appreciate you guys, the officer says. We really do.

Lets say I was, just spitballing here, at a riot in Penn State some years ago and I was in riot gear and some kid is calling me a Nazi. And I look to my left and a BOY is carrying an assault rifle around. Hed have been on the ground so fast his eyes would have sparkled. But maybe my PSP training was of a higher caliber.

Your president, the day after the Rittenhouse shootings, said this:

That was an interesting situation, he said at a coronavirus task force briefing. He was trying to get away from them, I guess, it looks like, and he fell, and then they very violently attacked him.

He was in very big trouble. He probably wouldve been killed, but its under investigation.

In defending a supporter of his, the president never mentioned that the boy had already shot and killed one unarmed person. Instead, he blamed left-wing political violence.

To me, a trained journalist AND a trained police officer, asking the question, Why? the problem here isnt that unarmed black people are confronting white guys with guns. Its that militia types are self-deputizing and acting illegally in a law enforcement capacity. The actions of these militia members are illegal, never mind the cynical thinking of arming yourself and going to a Black Lives Matter protest.

The president here BLAMES the VICTIMS.

Over on Fox, Tucker Carlson said this:

Are we really surprised that looting and arson accelerated to murder? How shocked are we that 17 year olds with rifles decided they had to maintain order when no one else would?

Tucker does something clever here. He runs video of enraged protesters lighting something that looks like a piece of cloth on fire and throwing it over a chain link fence. Same clip, protesters are saying things like Kill the police back. For a Fox viewer, thats heady stuff. But it isnt shooting. Or looting.

Carlson is positing, blaming the local government here, that, to paraphrase, SOMEONE had to maintain order. The problem with Carlsons argument, emotional as it is, is that it is illegal for someone not the police to do so. To my reckoning, there are plenty of police in the streets in this instance.

Ann Coulter said this:

I want him (Rittenhouse) as my president.

She wants a 17 year old shooter to be president. When the president said he could shoot someone in the middle of 5th Avenue and not lose one vote well Ann Coulter is actually calling for it. Thats madness.

The president cannot run on a Law & Order platform while he defends criminals on his side and condemns criminals on the other.

I suspect, and this is my opinion, that the militia groups here, just like in Charleston and other places, have gone there for hateful reasons and to engage, fully armed, against unarmed black people. Im saying you will find a racist attitude underlying these kinds of actions.

The president stokes this, inflames this, and defends this.

When white supremacist James Alex Fields Jr. rammed his car into a crowd of counter-protesters in Charlottesville, killing one and injuring 19 others, the president said there were Good people on both sides.

Trump cannot run on a law and order message when he is fomenting violent crime. Tucker Carlson and Ann Coulter should be run off Fox for supporting violent criminals and any decent journalist should resign from Foxs news division because they are the sheeps clothing that the fox wears. They are the ones who give Fox a shred of credibility so their screeching opinion merchants at night can inflame their viewers to hatred. Thats my informed opinion.

Black people are protesting because they want justice.

Every one of these horrible videos I watch flies in the face of proper police training. You dont shoot people in the back. You dont shoot a guy you pulled over for DUI in the back as he runs away when you know who he is, you have his car, and hes been with you doing all your tests for 45 minutes. Flight, in itself, we were taught at the state police academy, is not an escalation of force.

You do not shoot a man in the back seven times, point blank range, holding him by his t-shirt, in front of his three kids in the back seat of a car when you cant identify the crime the man committed and later claim he had a knife in his car. Anyone have a knife in their car? In your pocket? That man was not holding a knife. He was not brandishing a knife. He was not even facing the officer. If he was coming at him, brandishing a knife, and if the officer commands him to stop and he doesnt Different story. But those arent the facts.

You dont need to defund the police. You need to have a higher standard of training, like I got with the PSP, uniform, across the country. And thats expensive. You gotta fund that. I lived there at the academy for six months. I studied the constitution and where police powers come from. I studied the FBI use of force continuum and its application to real world situations.

When Rodney King was surrounded by seven jackals beating him senselessly on the ground with riot batons, I could think of no police training video I had ever seen where that was LEGAL.

When Derek Chauvin knelt on George Floyds neck, it was illegal.

And when a heavily armed boy kills in the streets, its illegal.

If the Kenosha police had the PSP training I had? We wouldnt be here.

If the president and the right wing media chamber didnt support such criminals and instead condemned such killings, we wouldnt be here.

Trump cannot have it both ways. It is an affront to my sense of decency that he can defend racists and murderers. It is galling to run on a law and order message while pouring gas on the fire.

There will be a trial for Kyle Rittenhouse, who was illegally in possession of a dangerous weapon, who intentionally loaded the weapon, crossed state lines, went to a protest, aimed at and killed a man shooting him five times. When he was pursued, he killed another unarmed man.

Kyle Rittenhouse may well have racist motivations. That might help explain the why. A trial will tell. But even if he did not have such motivations, he still brought an assault rifle to a protest. He chose to. Intentionally. Hes a BOY. A stupid BOY. Raised, Im betting and this is a guess, in hate.

Hes certainly a killer.

And THIS is Donald Trumps America. This is what your president SUPPORTS and defends. He FEEDS hate.

Law and order. Yeah, right.

q q q

More here:

Fact vs. opinion in the case of Kyle Rittenhouse: Part 2 - Clearfield Progress

Ann Coulter has a knack for tweeting things that get a rise out of people but this post is raising eyebrows for a different reason.

The conservative commentator has been a lightning rod due to some of her controversial comments, such as saying that the teen arrested for shooting three Black Lives Matter protesters (and killing two) in Kenosha, Wis. should be president.

But she tweeted something on Monday night that even liberals could get behind: expressing outrage at the New York Times report alleging President Trump paid just $750 in income taxes in 2016 and in 2017, and shelled out no income tax in 10 of the 15 years before that. She also slammed Trump supporters like Rick Santorum for saying its natural for rich people to game the system.

I dont think the conservative take on @realDonaldTrump paying no taxes should be: BECAUSE HES SMART! she wrote in a post thats drawn more than 13,000 comments and been shared more than 14,000 times. It led to her trending on Twitter TWTR, +1.33% into Tuesday afternoon.

Related:This map shows where American taxpayers are most likely to be audited and its certainly not Washington, D.C.

Ive paid nearly 50% of my income in taxes, year after year, and any system that allows billionaires to pay ZERO is unspeakable corrupt, she continued, adding, How about changing it, Democrats?

And she attacked the utterly corrupt tax code in a series of tweets.

Many of the stunned social media reactions came from Coulter critics who couldnt believe that they were agreeing with her for a change.

But others noted that while they agree with her response to the New York Times tax report, they still dont condone the controversial hot takes that she has made in the past.

And even Coulter clarified in later tweets that shes not suddenly supporting the Democrats, and shes still on brand which she hammered home by using a slur to describe someone mentally disabled, suggesting that she really hasnt changed as much as liberals might have hoped.

Indeed, she suggested that Democrats wont touch the shockingly corrupt tax system because the real estate moguls and hedge fund billionaires who are benefiting from it donate to Democrats. And she questioned how much Biden supporters like real-estate broker George Marcus and the Pritzker family have paid in income taxes.

It should be noted that Coulter has turned on Trump before, such as calling him a shallow, lazy ignoramus at a Columbia University event in 2018, where she expressed regret for voting for him in 2016, calling herself a total idiot.

Read more:When Ann Coulter turns on you, she REALLY turns just ask Trump

Plenty of politicians have piled on to attack the president in the wake of the #TrumpTaxes allegations that have largely dominated election buzz this week leading into Tuesday nights presidential debate between Trump and Democratic candidate Joe Biden. New York Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez seized on the report that Trump wrote off $70,000 to style his hair while he was hosting The Apprentice, countering Republicans attacking her for getting a $250 haircut and color treatment last year. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the report showed the presidents disdain for working families.

Related:$70,000 in hairstyling expenses? Ocasio-Cortez attacks Republicans over Trumps taxes

Trump has responded by saying that he paid his taxes, but would not disclose how much he has paid. While he isnt legally required to release his tax returns publicly, he has broken a 40-year precedent of major-party presidential candidates and presidents doing so.

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Ann Coulters take on Trumps taxes has her critics agreeing with her - MarketWatch