SUGGESTIONS FOR OUR ELECTION PROCESS ....

 

With all the Trump accusations of fraud and incompetence and missing ballots, mostly to his disadvantage, plus his election campaign team and all his lawyers raising cases and distributing right and false threats and intimidating allegations, charging Republican and Democrat officials and election supervisors of misconduct, mishandling and rush conclusions. Firing practically anyone who might utter a word against the official White-House frame and policy. 

Even the Attorney General William Barr, is into these allusions, whereby the Trump machine and lawyers haven't provided a scrap of evidence to support their claim, yet Mr. Barr is using full force of the Justice department to investigate allegations of voter fraud and election officials manipulation to delegitimize the election results. 

One could come to the conclusion that Americans are not good nor competent nor trustworthy of running a fair election at practically any level. It sure looks like the last few presidential and Congress elections suffered all from the same ailments and mismanagement. Fraud, incompetence, untrustworthiness, even our electronic machines are a major source of doubt in their accuracy, simply put we honestly cannot sort ballots, read names correctly, or count envelops and ballots. Our officials have been accused of many dysfunctions, and our elections were recounted at all levels several times, usually ending in high courts. 

This year elections are headed to a dangerous stagnating constitutional situations, putting our entire democracy in jeopardy and doubt. I strongly urge the public, our media and legislators to seriously consider an amendment to the constitution, for hiring an independent foreign body of many sympathetic and caring countries and leaders to our cause, who can run our elections for us safely, efficiently in a trustworthy manner, so we can continue safely on our Democratic path. 

Now for this year, if we still have legitimate fears, doubts and reservations about the results, we could call for a new election, run and supervised by some of our closest and loved foreign leaders. Let's call on Israel for help, I'm sure Netanyahu will oblige, North Korea might be a good candidate, as we never heard of a problem with their elections, and their leader writes wonderful and loving letters to our president. Turkey is a sure trusted Nato member and Mr. Erdogan is surely experienced enough in election matters. Possibly Russia, whereby Mr. Putin could add some needed discipline to the process, Belarus by now with its president are surely very knowledgeable and experienced as well. Maybe we should call one Latin American country for balance, Venezuela comes to mind, if we could convince either side of joining in and supervising a fair election for our country. 

Finally I could add one more suggestion for the future, whereby we shouldn't make it a permanent system, as it is not very glorifying for our ego and high esteem, we'd have to ask both major parties as well as some independents to sit in with the foreign organizers, observing and learning their techniques, integrity and diligence. So as to form a unified body of election officials and supervisors, who could and will be trusted to produce unchallenged results within our set time frames, thus eliminating the very costly recounting of every county results. 

America deserves an election system, that eliminates doubts in every looser mind, plus the time lost blocking smoother transitions and atten-ding our real serious major problems. We are after all well into the 21st century, whereby we deserve to not relive medieval tactics and ancient electoral procedures. Let's join the world of modernity. Just because we're a nation that is a leading voice for social justice, economic inequality, environmental fairness, liberty and basic human rights does not mean we should give ourselves a pass to our election procedures and tactics.             He he he .........

                          My, as always, many thanks to all, stay safe and well.                       

IS AMERICA BECOMING A FAILED STATE ???

 

I'm reproducing an article that appeared lately in the NY Times by Paul Krugman, A Nobel laureate and professor, one of the most celebrated economists of our generation. It depicts accurately what might happen, or is happening actually in the U.S. at least for the next 2 years of the Biden presidency. 

As I write this, he says, it seems extremely likely that Joe Biden has won the presidency, and he clearly received millions more votes than his opponent. He can and should claim he has been given a strong mandate to govern the nation. But there are real questions about whether he will, in fact, be able to govern. At the moment it seems likely that the Senate --which is wildly unrepresentative of the American people-- will remain in the hands of an extremist party that will sabotage Biden in every way it can.

Before I get into the problems this confrontation is likely to cause, let's talk about just how unrepresentative the Senate is; Every state, of course, has 2 senators, which mean that Wyoming's 579.000 residents have as much weight as California's 39 millions. The over weighted states tend to be much less urbanized than the nations as a whole. And given the growing political divide between metropolitan and rural areas, this gives the Senate a strong right ward tilt. 

An analysis by the website Five Thirty Eight.com found that the Senate in effect represents an electorate almost 7 percentage points more Republican than the average voter. Cases like Susan Collins who held on in a Democratic state, are exceptions. The underlying right-wing skew of the Senate is the main reason the G.O.P. will probably retain control despite a substantial Democratic victory in the presidential popular vote. 

But, one might ask, why is divided control of government such a problem? After all, Republicans controlled one or both chambers of Congress for three-quarters of Barak Obama's presidency, and we survived, didn't we ?? Yes but. In fact G.O.P's obstruction did a lot of damage even during the Obama years. Republicans used hardball tactics, including threats to cause a default on the national debt, to force a premature withdrawal of fiscal support that slowed the pace of economic recovery. I've estimated that without this defacto sabotage, the unemployment rate in 2014 might have been about 2 percentage points lower than it actually was. And the need for more spending is even more acute now than it was in 2011, when Republicans took control of the House. 

Most immediately, the Corona virus is running wild, with new cases exceeding 100,000 a day and rising rapidly. This is going to hit the economy hard, even if states and local governments don't impose lockdowns. We desperately need a new round of federal spending on healthcare, aid to the unemployed and businesses and support for strapped states and local governments. Reasonable estimates suggest that we should spend $200 billions or more each month until a vaccine brings the pandemic to an end. I'd be chocked if a Senate still controlled by Mitch McConnell would agree to anything like this. 

Even after the pandemic is over, we're likely to face both persistent economic weaknesses and a desperate need for more public investment. But McConnell effectively blocked infrastructure spending, even with Donald Trump in the White-House. Why would he become more amenable with Biden in office ?? Now spending isn't the only form of policy. Normally there are many things a president can achieve for good (Obama) or evil (Trump), through executive action. 

In fact, during the summer a Democratic task force identified hundreds of things a president Biden could do without having to go through Congress But there's where I worry about the role of a heavy partisan Supreme Court, a court shaped by McConnell norm breaking behavior, including the rushed confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett just days before the election. 6 of 9 justices were chosen by a party that won the popular vote only once in the past 8 elections. And I think there's a substantial chance that this court may behave like the Supreme Court in the 1930, which kept blocking New-Deal programs until Roosevelt threatened to add seats to the court, some-thing Biden wouldn't be able to do with a Republican controlled Senate. 

So we are in big trouble, Trump's defeat would mean that we have, for the moment, avoided a plunge into authoritarianism-- and yes the stakes are that high, not just because of who Trump is, but also because the modern G.O.P. is so extremist and anti-democratic. But our skewed electoral system means that Trump's party is still in a position to hobble, perhaps cripple the next president's ability to deal with the huge epidemiological, economic and environmental problems we face. 

Put it this way; If we were looking at a foreign country with America's level of political dysfunction, we would probably consider it on the edge of becoming a failed state, that is a state whose government is no longer able to exert effective control, ( Lebanon comes to mind) Italics mine. Runoff elections in the State of Georgia, may yet give Democrats Senate control, barring that, Biden might be able to find a few reasonable Republicans willing to pull us back from that brink, but despite his apparent victory, the Republic remains in great danger. 

            My usual many thanks to all, stay safe and well.            

        

    

ELECTION DAY IS FINALLY HERE ......

 

Today is the final election day for the presidency of the United States, plus many other positions for Congress's Senate and house, and local State positions. Basically but not exclusively, it is a battle between the Republican party and the Democratic one. It is becoming rapidly more of a battle between liberalism and tight conservatism, between a form of progressive social governing and a total laissez-faire capitalism, backed by a failed laissez-faire leadership, between old classical religiousness and their institutions and a more modern look and understanding of the entire religious dogma and institute. Between fair taxation and more equal wealth distribution, rather than a 1 or 2 % concentration.

An acceptance and reliability on sciences for life threatening matters like climate change, pandemics, and the use of fossil fuels, clean waters, eliminating hunger all over, peace on earth etc.. etc... all against a bunch of refuseniks hiding behind empty slogans of freedom, way of life and sacred rights and total liberty. Plus many other issues, strictly benefitting the very few, while harming and diminishing more than 90% of the American middle classes and the poorer ones. 

One person, his family and his entire oligarchy, hold responsibility for most of these situations. Inciting, lying, accusing and playing the role of a savior deceiver while clowning around. Mr. Trump for his 4 years in office hasn't done a thing to lower drug prices or come up with a Medicare substitute as promised, he's been constantly raiding Medicare funds and treating Medicare as his personal piggy bank. Let's take a closer look at his record for the past few years, as he might be reelected or rejected today. 

Now did we all notice how Donald Trump makes sure to project his own legal and financial problems plus his unethical behavior onto his political opponents. He did incorrectly claim that Hilary Clinton's campaign colluded with Russia, when it was Trump's campaign that was caught speaking and whispering ideas to Russian assets, and his many direct aids coordinating with Russian officials before and during the 2016 elections and taking office

He's incorrectly accused the Biden family of unethical actions related to Ukraine, but it was Trump himself who was impeached for holding international aid to Ukraine hostage in exchange for personal unethical political demands. In another conspiracy theory, Trump claims incorrectly that the Biden family are criminals and they accepted money from China, when we discovered it's Trump who has a secret Chinese bank account, while he was paying less than 750 $ in taxes for many years, and no Federal taxes for 11 out 18 years, while still refusing till today to release his taxes for public scrutiny. 

Mr. Trump is at least one billion $ in debt, according to Forbs, whereby 450 millions we don't know to whom this debt is owed, the NY Times reports that more than 300 millions of it is coming due over the next few years. Several U.S. agencies and intelligence and security experts declared that this huge personal debt is a security nightmare, for him and the country, and it's still a total secret. "That has always been the suspicion about Trump, that the Russians were bankrolling him, if he were a normal employee, that would certainly be a counterintelligence vulnerability, it's frightening all around". Said James Clapper, former Director of intelligence. 

"A second term for president would result in increased vulnerability, and thus potential huge risk." Robert Cardillo, former deputy director of the defense intelligence agency. "For a person with access to top U.S. classified information and the nuclear buttons, to be in such massive financial debt is a sure counter intelligence risk, because the debt holders tend to have leverage over the person. And the leverage may be used  to encourage actions, such as disclosure of information or influencing policy, that compromise U.S. national security." Said David Kris, former head of the justice department's national security division.    

It is unbelievable how hard Trump  was and still is working to trick American voters, and hoodwink them about his failure to accomplish anything. There are two Republican parties fighting this election, Donald Trump is leading only one of them, and surely the U.S. will be a very different country under a Trump second term.      

      My as always many thanks to all my readers, for my American friends, please vote responsibly today while staying safe.