The Left Column

Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin The Trump campaign is reportedly 'discussing contingency plans to bypass election results' (The Week) Trump's campaign is discussing "contingency plans" that would involve bypassing the result of November's election, reports The Atlantic. The report delves into possible scenarios if Trump apparently loses the 2020 presidential election but doesn't concede, noting that although we're used to electors being selected based on the popular vote, "nothing in the Constitution says it has to be that way."



The campaign would reportedly assert that this step was necessary due to claims of supposed voter fraud, which experts have noted is extraordinarily rare, ahead of the "safe harbor" deadline to appoint 538 electors on Dec. 8. "Trump would ask state legislators to set aside the popular vote and exercise their power to choose a slate of electors directly," The Atlantic reports. "The longer Trump succeeds in keeping the vote count in doubt, the more pressure legislators will feel to act before the safe-harbor deadline expires."

erpowers A Nobel laureate makes the economic case for Joe Biden (Edmund Phelps/Marketwatch) The economic case for Biden begins with the economic case against President Donald Trump. Consider Trumps costly corporate tax cut. It did not deliver anything like the investment and growth he promised, and the main effect was to run up fiscal deficits in the first three years of his presidency. Biden understands that in America there is still a crushing disparity between the wages of the seriously less-advantaged and those paid to middle-income peopleand payments for single mothers do not change that. Biden, having grown up in the steelmaking region of Pennsylvania, can hardly be blind to the deprivations and pain of low-paid workers. So, if elected, we would have a president responsive to legislative initiatives for subsidies designed to pull up these workers meager compensation.

brooklynite Trump falls into the trap he set for Biden (Politico) White House allies, Republican donors and some of Trumps closest advisers worry that a recent, frenzied push by his top lieutenants to portray Biden as a seasoned debater  with the goal of raising expectations for the Democratic presidential nominee  is too late and too disingenuous to have an impact when the two meet on the debate stage next Tuesday. They worry Trump has set a trap for himself by incessantly attacking Bidens age and mental acumen. Its a tactic the president has maintained even as his campaign publicly insists the former vice president is fully capable of a satisfactory performance.

Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin Operation Warp Speed advisers held investments in COVID vaccine firms, records show (Miami Herald) Several top officials leading the administrations effort to develop a coronavirus vaccine at record speed had financial ties to the pharmaceutical companies now competing to develop the much-needed drug, according to disclosures released Tuesday. The Department of Health and Human Services financial disclosures, which were released by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, show that several Operation Warp Speed advisers who were selected by President Donald Trump either held board positions with firms that are currently engaged in coronavirus work, or held securities in firms now contracted to produce vaccines.

spanone DOJ says it won't send officials to testify because Democrats were 'scolding and insulting' to Barr (CNN) The Justice Department is refusing to send its senior officials to testify before Congress these next two weeks, blaming the Democrats' treatment of Attorney General William Barr during a July hearing. In a letter to the House Judiciary Committee dated Monday declining to make witnesses available, the Justice Department accused Democratic committee members of "scolding and insulting the Attorney General" during a July 28 hearing, repeatedly interrupting him, and refusing to let him answer questions.

ProudMNDemocrat Trump Celebrates Recent Violence Against Journalists, Says It's 'Actually A Beautiful Sight' (Huff Post) President Donald Trump celebrated violence against journalists during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Tuesday night, mocking a reporter who was injured covering this summers racial injustice demonstrations and calling the act actually a beautiful sight. The presidents comments are the latest of many attacks on the free press but an overt endorsement of members of the media coming under attack. During one moment at the rally, Trump recounted racial justice demonstrations in Minneapolis following the police killing of George Floyd, saying the city had been cured after National Guard troops were deployed.