Impeached Oval Office squatter Donald Trump apparently had his chief of staff Mark Meadows, formerly the leader of the maniacs in the Freedom Caucus, blow up the negotiations with Democratic leaders to save the nation from coronavirus so Trump could sweep in with “executive orders” to save the day. Except that three out of four of the orders are actually memorandums, and none of them are actually constitutionally within his power to enact. So, yeah, illegal. And not at all helpful for people whose lives have been upended by the crisis. There’s no eviction moratorium, he would cut unemployment benefits by $800 in a month, it steals from FEMA (at the start of an active hurricane season), and would top it all off by starving Social Security.

This hasn’t been received well by anybody but the millionaires he announced it to at his luxury golf club last Friday. The New York Times reports it “resulted in confusion and uncertainty on Sunday for tens of millions of unemployed Americans and countless businesses seeking aid after critical benefits lapsed.” The Washington Post concurred, reporting that it “sparked confusion and frustration on Sunday among businesses, Democrats and state officials, some of whom lamented the moves would not deliver the necessary relief to cash-strapped Americans.” The bad press could be why Trump insisted Sunday that “The Democrats have called. They’d like to get together.” They haven’t called. He tweeted it again on Monday, “So now Schumer and Pelosi want to meet to make a deal. Amazing how it all works, isn’t it.” But it’s still not true.

The move Trump made on unemployment is perhaps the biggest slap in the face to American workers out of jobs. The lowest paid workers will get nothing because the pretend program from Trump limits the supplemental money to people receiving more than $100/week in regular state unemployment. The self-employed, people relying on tips, and gig workers wouldn’t see any of the benefit. It’s also unworkable for states, which are supposed to come up with 25% of the reduced $400/week payments, and can’t afford it. If states can’t come up with money, Mnuchin said on Fox News Sunday, the administration might waive that requirement. Which means that people formerly getting the $600/week would get even less, just $300. There’s $44 billion for that that Trump proposes stealing from FEMA’s disaster relief reserves. It would cover less than five weeks of unemployment insurance payments to the 30-plus million out-of-work Americans. Five weeks—that is, if states could even get it up and running. Some states didn’t get the last enhanced UI program, from the CARES Act in March, fully implemented until as late as July.

Likewise, Trump’s big obsession—ending payroll taxes and cutting off the Social Security and Medicare funding stream—wouldn’t really help people, and certainly not the millions who aren’t on any payroll right now. What Trump would do (but legally can’t since he’s not the one who writes tax law) is defer payroll taxes from September 1 until the end of the year, with a promise that he would “terminate” payroll taxes (and presumably Social Security) if he was reelected. But that leaves businesses in limbo.

As it stands, they’d have to claw back that money to employees at the beginning of next year. “I think what most employers are going to do is not pass this on to their employees,”  Josh Bivens, the director of research at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, told the Post. “They’re not going to give money to the worker because the government is at some point going to come back for it.” All that Trump achieved with that part of the orders was declaring that he intends to destroy Social Security, which Democratic presumptive nominee Joe Biden was quick to point out on Sunday, saying Trump is trying to “undermine the entire financial footing of Social Security,” and to put Americans’ benefits “in doubt.”

He didn’t even do the only thing that was in his actual power—extend the moratorium on evictions in federally mortgaged housing units. It expired last month and would have been simple to reimpose. Instead, Trump calls on the Department of Health and Human Services along with the Centers for Disease Control to “consider” temporarily halting evictions and to determine whether there’s federal money available for providing rental assistance. That’s not enough to keep people in their homes.

Pelosi and Schumer haven’t been desperately trying to get Trump on the phone, but they haven’t been silent. “These policy announcements provide little real help to families,” they wrote in a joint statement Saturday. “For instance, not only does the President’s announcement not actually extend the eviction moratorium, it provides no assistance to help pay the rent, which will only leave desperate families to watch their debt pile higher. Instead of passing a bill, now President Trump is cutting families’ unemployment benefits and pushing states further into budget crises, forcing them to make devastating cuts to life-or-death services.

Trump’s memos “do nothing to increase testing, nothing to reopen schools, nothing to put food on the table for hungry families, nothing to prevent heroes being laid off across state and local government, nothing to protect the Postal Service or the integrity of our elections, nothing on many critical needs of the American people,” they wrote.

Primaries are taking place on Tuesday in Connecticut, Minnesota, Vermont, and Wisconsin for congressional and state offices. Georgia is also holding runoffs in races where no candidate cleared 50% of the vote in the state’s June primary.

As we always caution, we may not know all the winners on election night. With the coronavirus pandemic fueling a surge in mail voting, election watchers everywhere should expect that we might not learn the results in every race for some time—perhaps days or even weeks.

Our live coverage will begin at 7 PM ET Tuesday night at Daily Kos Elections when the polls close in Georgia and Vermont. You can also follow us on Twitter for blow-by-blow updates. And you’ll want to bookmark our primary calendar, which includes the dates of the presidential and down-ballot primaries in all 50 states—many of which have been changed—as well as our separate calendar tracking key contests further down the ballot taking place nationwide this year.

CONNECTICUT

Polls close at 8 PM ET.

GEORGIA

Polls close at 7 PM ET.

● GA-09 (R) (78-19 Trump, 78-20 Romney): State Rep. Matt Gurtler narrowly led gun store owner Andrew Clyde 21-18 in the first round of the Republican primary for this extremely red open seat in the northeastern part of the state. Both men have spent comparable sums during the runoff. Gurtler, though, has benefited from $1.3 million in outside spending from two groups, the well-known Club for Growth and the completely unknown Concerned American Voters.

Both men are running as ardent conservatives, though there are some differences between the two. Gurtler has long had a hostile relationship with the state party establishment, which has made him all the more attractive to groups like the Club. Gurtler’s allies also weren’t troubled in May after a picture emerged of him at an event hosted by a local white supremacist. Clyde, by contrast, is a first-time candidate who has emphasized his military career and his successful battle against the IRS after it seized close to $1 million from him in 2013.

● GA-14 (R) (75-22 Trump, 73-25 Romney): Wealthy businesswoman Marjorie Greene, a defender of the notorious pro-Trump conspiracy theory QAnon, outpaced neurosurgeon John Cowan 40-21 back in June in this safely red seat in the northwest part of the state. Days later, state and national Republican leaders distanced themselves from Greene after Politico reported on her litany of racist and anti-Semitic rantings. The group included House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, whose spokesperson called Greene’s words “appalling.”

However, national Republicans haven’t done much to actually stop Greene. No major super PACs have run ads against her, and not only has McCarthy remained neutral over the following two months, his team said just before the election that he has “a good and productive relationship with both” candidates. Greene also maintains the backing of White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.

Cowan, who has been endorsed by five of his former rivals, has said of Greene: “She is the antithesis of the Republican Party. And she is not conservative—she’s crazy.” Cowan, though, notably has focused his ads not on the crazy but instead on allegations that Greene’s construction company didn’t take part in a federal program meant to screen out undocumented immigrants. Greene, for her part, has argued that her opponent is backed by a corrupt party establishment that’s tried to undermine both her and Donald Trump.

Politico reports that Cowan has a small $50,000 advertising advantage. The only poll we’ve seen in the last month was a late July survey for Cowan from Guidant Polling and Strategy that showed the race deadlocked 38-38.

Other Georgia Races to Watch

● Fulton County District Attorney (D)

MINNESOTA

Polls close at 9 PM ET/ 8 PM local time.

● MN-05 (D) (74-18 Clinton, 74-24 Obama): Freshman Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, who is one of the most prominent members of Congress, faces a well-funded primary challenge from attorney Antone Melton-Meaux in this safely blue Minneapolis seat.

Melton-Meaux has received an influx of money from contributors across the country who dislike Omar, and he’s argued that she hasn’t been a presence in her district. Melton-Meaux has also received over $2 million in outside support from Americans for Tomorrow’s Future, a group that says it backs candidates across the political spectrum who seek to “advance America’s positive role in the world, including through support for our strategic alliance with Israel.”

Omar, though, has the backing of several prominent Minnesota Democrats, including Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison, who held this seat for six terms prior to Omar’s victory in 2018. Omar’s team has also run ads charging that Melton-Meaux’s law firm is “one of the worst union-busting law firms in the country.” The only poll we’ve seen was an early July Omar internal from Change Research that showed her with a wide 66-29 lead over Melton-Meaux, though it was taken largely before both sides had the chance to spend much on TV advertising.

VERMONT

Polls close at 7 PM ET.

● VT-Gov (D) (57-30 Clinton, 67-31 Obama): Three candidates are competing for the Democratic nomination to take on Republican Gov. Phil Scott, who is seeking a third two-year term this fall. (Vermont and New Hampshire are the only states that elect governors to two-year terms.)

Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman is the only Democratic contender who has been elected statewide, and he has the backing of Sen. Bernie Sanders. Former state Secretary of Education Rebecca Holcombe, though, has outspent Zuckerman heading into the primary. Holcombe has run ads attacking Zuckerman’s 2015 vote when he served in the legislature against a bill to eliminate the state’s so-called “philosophical” exemption to the state’s mandatory vaccination laws. The third candidate, attorney Patrick Winburn, has been decisively outspent by both his opponents despite self-funding his campaign.

WISCONSIN

Polls close at 9 PM ET / 8 PM local time.

WASHINGTON – U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is launching a weeklong trip to central Europe with a stop Tuesday in the Czech Republic where he is scheduled to give a speech and have a dinner meeting with Foreign Minister Tomas Petricek. 

Pompeo is also set to visit a museum commemorating the U.S. role in liberating the region during World War 2. 

The top U.S. diplomat’s trip comes as the Trump administration looks to confront Russian and Chinese economic and geopolitical competition in Europe.    

Pompeo is traveling to Prague and Pilsen in the Czech Republic; Ljubljana, Slovenia; Vienna, Austria; and Warsaw, Poland, from Aug. 11 to Aug. 15.    

He will become the first secretary of state since 2011 to visit Slovenia, where he will sign a Joint Declaration on 5G technology as Washington is countering risks posed by communist China’s “infiltration into high-tech networks” in the region.  

The trip comes as the Pentagon prepares to move forward with a plan to pull almost 12,000 troops from Germany and redeploy part of the U.S. forces to Poland and other NATO nations, raising concerns at home and in Europe even as senior officials defend it as a strategic necessity.

Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can download this video to view it offline.

Download File 360p | 9 MB 480p | 13 MB 540p | 16 MB 720p | 34 MB 1080p | 67 MB Original | 81 MB Embed Copy Download Audio Thumbnail Thu, 07/30/2020 – 00:32 Mary Mooney Media Duration 00:02:50 Summary

The United States is pulling almost 12,000 troops from Germany, following through on President Donald Trump’s call to reduce the U.S. military footprint overseas. While defense department officials say the move will boost American security, critics see the move as punishment for a country Trump has criticized as “delinquent” in NATO defense spending. VOA’s diplomatic correspondent Cindy Saine reports from Washington.
Produced by: Bronwyn Benito

Rights Restricted Off US Pulling Almost 12,000 Troops From Germany US military leaders describe the move as ‘strategic,’ but President Trump says he wants the troops out of Germany because ‘we don’t want to be the suckers anymore’

Ambassador Philip Reeker, the State Department’s acting assistant secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs, said Pompeo will discuss with his counterparts the just-completed U.S.-Poland Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) that “provides a framework” to further strengthen “the broad transatlantic security.”      

The defense deal enables the United States for “rotational presence” of an additional 1,000 U.S. troops to “enhance deterrence against Russia, strengthen NATO,” and to assure allies, officials say. About 4,500 U.S. personnel are already on rotation in Poland.  

Energy security

Energy security will also top Pompeo’s discussion with leaders in central Europe as Russia’s controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline that connects Russia and Germany nears completion.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, top left, arrives with his wife Susan Pompeo, top right, at the airport in Prague, Czech Republic, Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2020.

“We have been very dedicated to helping those countries find alternate sources so that they can diversify from Russia,” said Reeker.  

Russia has previously defended the project as economically feasible.   

The U.S. has been warning about the security risks of Russian energy export pipelines, in particular Nord Stream 2. U.S. officials said if completed, these projects would undermine European security and strengthen Russia’s ability to use its energy resources to coerce the U.S.’s European partners and allies.

Czech Republic      

In Prague, Pompeo will meet with Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis to discuss nuclear energy cooperation and the Three Seas Initiative, a political platform to promote connectivity among nations in central and eastern Europe by supporting infrastructure, energy and digital interconnectivity projects.      

The initiative gets its name from the three seas that border the region: the Baltic, Black and Adriatic Seas.  

On Wednesday, Pompeo is set to deliver a speech at the Senate of the Parliament of the Czech Republic on bilateral ties and foreign policy.

Americký ministr zahraničních věcí @SecPompeo ve středu 12. 8. v českém Senátu přednese veřejný projev a bude s předsedou @Vystrcil_Milos jednat o společných zájmech v zahraničně-politických otázkách. pic.twitter.com/ySOKmD9ftd

— Senát Parlamentu ČR (@SenatCZ) August 7, 2020

Slovenia

In Ljubljana, Pompeo will sign a Joint Declaration on 5G technology with Slovenian Foreign Minister Anže Logar.  

Over the past year, European countries, including Poland, Estonia and the Czech Republic, have signed agreements with the U.S., pledging that 5G suppliers would not be subject to control by a foreign government without independent judicial review, which effectively excludes Chinese firms.    

Slovenia will join those countries in the so-called “5G Clean Networks” to use only trusted vendors to secure critical telecommunications, cloud, data analytics, and mobile apps.      

Reeker told VOA it is “a reflection of the shared dedication to protecting privacy” and cybersecurity.    

Austria

In Vienna, the U.S.-Austria Strategic Partnership and growing trade relationship will be high on the agenda in Pompeo’s meetings with Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg.    

Austria hosts the International Atomic Energy Agency, the nuclear watchdog of the United Nations in charge of monitoring Iran’s adherence to the 2015 nuclear deal from which the U.S. has withdrawn.    

Pompeo will also hold talks with IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi, as Washington is calling on other members of the U.N. Security Council to indefinitely extend an arms embargo on Iran that is set to expire on Oct. 18. 

Poland 

In Warsaw, the chief U.S. diplomat will have talks with Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz on deepening defense ties, recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, securing 5G networks, and improving regional energy and infrastructure through the Three Seas Initiative. COVID-19 is the disease caused by the coronavirus.      

Pompeo will also meet with Polish President Andrzej Duda, who visited the White House in late June.    

Poland sees Nord Stream 2, which would double Russia’s gas export capacity via the Baltic Sea, as a threat to Europe’s energy security.  

“In our view, it is paying with European money for Mr. (Vladimir) Putin’s weapons, and we don’t like it,” Morawiecki said during a recent webinar hosted by the Atlantic Council.    

Morawiecki said Poland, as “the most pro-European and most pro-American country” in Europe, is strengthening the transatlantic alliance.    

Last month, the State Department said people making investments or engaging in activities related to Nord Stream 2, including pipe-laying vessels and engineering service in the deployment of the pipelines, could face U.S. sanctions.     

“It’s a clear warning to companies: aiding and abetting Russia’s malign influence projects will not be tolerated,” said Pompeo during a July 15 press conference.    

“Let me be clear. These aren’t commercial projects. They are the Kremlin’s key tools to exploit and expand European dependence on Russian energy supplies,” Pompeo said. 

WASHINGTON – U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo embarks on a weeklong trip to central Europe on Monday, as the United States looks to confront Russian and Chinese economic and geopolitical competition in Europe. 

The top U.S. diplomat is traveling to Prague and Pilsen in the Czech Republic; Ljubljana, Slovenia; Vienna, Austria; and Warsaw, Poland, from August 11 to 15. 

Pompeo will become the first secretary of state since 2011 to visit Slovenia, where he will sign a Joint Declaration on 5G technology as Washington is countering risks posed by communist China’s “infiltration into high-tech networks” in the region. 

The trip comes as the Pentagon prepares to move forward with a plan to pull almost 12,000 troops from Germany and redeploy part of the U.S. forces to Poland and other NATO nations, raising concerns at home and in Europe even as senior officials defend it as a strategic necessity.

Ambassador Philip Reeker, the State Department’s acting assistant secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs, said Pompeo will discuss with his counterparts the just-completed U.S.-Poland Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) that “provides a framework” to further strengthen “the broad transatlantic security.”   

The defense deal enables the United States for “rotational presence” of an additional 1,000 U.S. troops to “enhance deterrence against Russia, strengthen NATO,” and to assure allies, officials say. About 4,500 U.S. personnel are already on rotation in Poland. 

Energy security

Energy security will also top Pompeo’s discussion with leaders in central Europe as Russia’s controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline that connects Russia and Germany nears completion.  

“We have been very dedicated to helping those countries find alternate sources so that they can diversify from Russia,” said Reeker. 

FILE – A worker puts a cap to a pipe at the construction site of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, near the town of Kingisepp, Leningrad region, Russia, June 5, 2019.

Russia has previously defended the project as economically feasible.  

The U.S. has been warning about the security risks of Russian energy export pipelines, in particular Nord Stream 2. U.S. officials said if completed, these projects would undermine European security and strengthen Russia’s ability to use its energy resources to coerce the U.S.’s European partners and allies.

Czech Republic

In Prague, Pompeo will meet with Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis to discuss nuclear energy cooperation and the Three Seas Initiative, a political platform to promote connectivity among nations in central and eastern Europe by supporting infrastructure, energy and digital interconnectivity projects.   

The initiative gets its name from the three seas that border the region: the Baltic, Black and Adriatic. 

On Wednesday, Pompeo is set to deliver a speech at the Senate of the Parliament of the Czech Republic on bilateral ties and foreign policy.   

Americký ministr zahraničních věcí @SecPompeo ve středu 12. 8. v českém Senátu přednese veřejný projev a bude s předsedou @Vystrcil_Milos jednat o společných zájmech v zahraničně-politických otázkách. pic.twitter.com/ySOKmD9ftd

— Senát Parlamentu ČR (@SenatCZ) August 7, 2020

Slovenia

In Ljubljana, Pompeo will sign a Joint Declaration on 5G technology with Slovenian Foreign Minister Anže Logar. 

Over the past year, European countries, including Poland, Estonia and the Czech Republic, have signed agreements with the U.S., pledging that 5G suppliers would not be subject to control by a foreign government without independent judicial review, which effectively excludes Chinese firms. 

Slovenia will join those countries in the so-called “5G Clean Networks” to use only trusted vendors to secure critical telecommunications, cloud, data analytics, and mobile apps.   

Reeker told VOA it is “a reflection of the shared dedication to protecting privacy” and cybersecurity. 

Austria

In Vienna, the U.S.-Austria Strategic Partnership and growing trade relationship will be high on the agenda in Pompeo’s meetings with Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg. 

Austria hosts the International Atomic Energy Agency, the nuclear watchdog of the United Nations in charge of monitoring Iran’s adherence to the 2015 nuclear deal from which the U.S. has withdrawn. 

Pompeo will also hold talks with IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi, as Washington is calling on other members of the U.N. Security Council to indefinitely extend an arms embargo on Iran that is set to expire on Oct. 18. 

Poland

In Warsaw, the chief U.S. diplomat will have talks with Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz on deepening defense ties, recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, securing 5G networks, and improving regional energy and infrastructure through the Three Seas Initiative. COVID-19 is the disease caused by the coronavirus.

Pompeo will also meet with Polish President Andrzej Duda, who visited the White House in late June. 

FILE – Poland’s President Andrzej Duda listens to U.S. President Donald Trump during a joint news conference in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington, June 24, 2020.

Poland sees Nord Stream 2, which would double Russia’s gas export capacity via the Baltic Sea, as a threat to Europe’s energy security. 

“In our view, it is paying with European money for Mr. (Vladimir) Putin’s weapons, and we don’t like it,” Morawiecki said during a recent webinar hosted by the Atlantic Council.  

Morawiecki said Poland, as “the most pro-European and most pro-American country” in Europe, is strengthening the transatlantic alliance. 

Last month, the State Department said people making investments or engaging in activities related to Nord Stream 2, including pipe-laying vessels and engineering service in the deployment of the pipelines, could face U.S. sanctions. 

“It’s a clear warning to companies: aiding and abetting Russia’s malign influence projects will not be tolerated,” said Pompeo during a July 15 press conference.   

“Let me be clear. These aren’t commercial projects. They are the Kremlin’s key tools to exploit and expand European dependence on Russian energy supplies,” Pompeo said. 
 

WHITE HOUSE – U.S. President Donald Trump was abruptly escorted from a White House media briefing Monday afternoon by a U.S. Secret Service agent because of a shooting near the building.      

Returning to the briefing room lectern minutes later, Trump said, “There was an actual shooting, and somebody’s been taken to the hospital.”   

Tom Sullivan, chief of the Secret Service Uniformed Division, identified the person shot as a 51-year-old man who approached a uniformed Secret Service officer and said he had a weapon. 

“The suspect then turned around, ran aggressively towards the officer, and in a drawing motion, withdrew an object from his clothing,” Sullivan said.  “He then crouched into a shooter’s stance as if about to fire a weapon.  The Secret Service officer discharged his weapon, striking the individual in the torso.” 

Both the officer and the man the officer shot were taken to the hospital.  Sullivan did not take any questions, and his statement did not specify whether the man actually had a weapon, fired it, or the nature of any injuries to the officer.

Here’s audio of the shots being fired: https://t.co/zrARtsyy6b @SecretService

— Steve Herman (@W7VOA) August 11, 2020

According to the District of Columbia’s Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department, its units responded to a person who had been shot in the upper body. The shooting took place near 17th Street Northwest and Pennsylvania Avenue. 

The shooting took place at 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, the transition point between a public street with vehicular traffic and the more restricted access around the White House complex. 

Two gunshots were heard by at least one reporter who was in the briefing room.   

U.S. Secret Service Police stand outside the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, in Washington, as a news conference by President Donald Trump was paused, Aug. 10, 2020.

“I heard two shots in rapid succession just after you took the podium,” Fox News White House correspondent John Roberts told the president when Trump asked the journalist what he had heard.    

The president said the situation “seems to be very well under control.”       

“You were surprised, I was surprised also,” Trump told reporters when he returned to the briefing room, saying he had been taken to the Oval Office.   

“I do want to thank the Secret Service. They are fantastic,” Trump said, adding that he was not certain the incident “had to do anything with me.”     

Asked by a reporter if he was rattled by the extraordinary event, he responded. “I don’t know. Do I seem rattled?”   

Trump told reporters he gave no thought to not resuming the briefing once the Secret Service told him it was safe to do so. 

After a short interruption due to a shooting near the White House, President Donald Trump gave a supremely deceptive and misleading press conference on Monday afternoon.

Daniel Dale, CNN’s leading fact-checker of the president, said it was notable for its dishonesty, even when judged by the incredibly low standard Trump has set.

“They’re all at least pretty bad, but that was one of the worst Trump press conferences in a while from a truth standpoint. Fast and furious lying,” Dale said in a tweet.

Here are 5 notable moments:

1. Trump was called out on his lie about pre-existing conditions.

Over the weekend, the president claimed he would sign an executive order guaranteeing that health insurers would cover pre-existing conditions. The only problem with this claim is that it’s already a part of Obamacare, Trump is trying to destroy Obamacare through a lawsuit, and the policy couldn’t be accomplished by executive order.

Trump claims that when he falsely claimed preexisting conditions aren’t already required to be covered by law, he simply meant that there has never been an executive order reaffirming that 🙄 pic.twitter.com/zljDpfZGHd

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 10, 2020

2. Trump defended his outrageous attacks on Joe Biden’s faith.

Despite Biden’s professed Catholicism — and the manifest emptiness of Trump’s own claims to be religious — the president stood by his claim that the former vice president wants to “hurt God.”

Trump defends saying Joe Biden is “against God,” says he does not think he’s a man of “deep religion” pic.twitter.com/sJbrr4thdb

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 10, 2020

3. The president yet again dismissed the effects of COVID-19 on children, even though it can kill them, in rare cases, can cause severe illness, and can spread to others.

REPORTER: 97,000 children tested positive for coronavirus in the last week of July. Does that give you any pause about schools reopening for in-person learning?

TRUMP: No

REPORTER: So do you still think kids are essentially immune?

TRUMP: Yeah [this is false — kids can die] pic.twitter.com/5UCuRkOuRK

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 10, 2020

4. Trump lied and said he wouldn’t have called for Obama’s resignation if he had the same performance in the face of the coronavirus.

We have a very good idea of how Trump would have responded to Obama if he had been faced with COVID-19, because we saw how he reacted to Ebola. Despite the fact that only two Americans died during the entire Ebola outbreak on Obama’s watch, Trump — and much of the right-wing media ecosystem — spent months fearmongering about the virus in the run-up to the 2014 midterms. Trump even tweeted the following:

If this doctor, who so recklessly flew into New York from West Africa,has Ebola,then Obama should apologize to the American people & resign!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 23, 2014

But when pressed on this hypocrisy, Trump said he should be praised for his handling of the pandemic, even though more than 160,000 people have died, and his own failures are plain to see.

5. Trump indicated he doesn’t know when World War II happened.

The President says the “1917 pandemic” ended the Second World War pic.twitter.com/jSltuSYim2

— Acyn Torabi (@Acyn) August 10, 2020

To be clear, the pandemic occurred in 1918, and World War II ended in 1945.

This wouldn’t be that big a deal — anyone can make a factual slip-up while speaking off the cuff — except for the fact that the Trump campaign has jumped on similar slips by Biden to suggest he’s suffering from mental decline.

On the heels of a “Friday Night Massacre” at the U.S. Postal Service that deeply alarmed lawmakers, activists, and ordinary citizens nationwide, two House Democrats are demanding the immediate removal of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy over his sweeping operational changes to the beloved government service that have slowed the delivery of essential packages and jeopardized mail-in voting.

In a statement over the weekend, Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) accused DeJoy—a major GOP donor to President Donald Trump with millions invested in USPS competitors—of doing the president’s bidding by sabotaging mail delivery with the November election less than 90 days away.

“DeJoy’s baseless operational changes have already crippled a beloved and essential agency, delaying mail, critical prescription drug shipments for veterans, and seniors and other essential goods,” said DeFazio.

The Oregon Democrat warned that the latest change imposed by DeJoy—the ouster of two top officials and reshuffling of nearly two dozen others—lay bare his “mission to centralize power, dismantle the agency, and degrade service in order to thwart vote-by-mail across the nation to aid Trump’s reelection efforts.”

“This November, an historic number of citizens will vote by mail in order to protect their health and safety during the Covid-19 pandemic,” said DeFazio. “DeJoy’s nefarious collective efforts will suppress millions of mail-in ballots and threaten the voting rights of millions of Americans, setting the stage for breach of our Constitution. It is imperative that we remove him from his post and immediately replace him with an experienced leader who is committed to sustaining a critical service for all Americans.”

DeJoy, a former North Carolina logistics executive, was appointed to lead USPS by the agency’s Board of Governors in May despite his complete lack of experience at the Postal Service and his potential conflicts of interest, which have drawn scrutiny from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and other lawmakers. After taking charge in mid-June, the new Postmaster General wasted little time rolling out changes to USPS that postal workers said undermine the agency’s core mission and potentially set the stage for privatization.

During an open session last week with the Board of Governors, DeJoy rebuked lawmakers for “sensationalizing” major mail backlogs reported in states across the nation and downplayed the resulting delays as “isolated, operational incidents.” Postal workers, for their part, have warned that the delays appear to be a direct consequence of DeJoy’s policies barring overtime and prohibiting the sorting of mail ahead of morning deliveries.

As the American Prospect‘s David Dayen noted, the Postal Service under DeJoy’s leadership has also “informed states that they’ll need to pay first-class 55-cent postage to mail ballots to voters, rather than the normal 20-cent bulk rate.”

“That nearly triples the per-ballot cost at a time when tens of millions more will be delivered,” Dayen noted. “The rate change would have to go through the Postal Regulatory Commission and, undoubtedly, litigation. But the time frame for that is incredibly short, as ballots go out very soon. A side benefit of this money grab is that states and cities may decide they don’t have the money to mail absentee ballots, and will make them harder to get. Which is exactly the worst-case scenario everyone fears.”

This is the clearest example yet of Trump and his puppet Postmaster General’s attempts to sabotage the USPS before November’s election.

This kind of behavior is why we’re demanding an investigation into Trump’s USPS—the Inspector General should add this to their list. https://t.co/2aXcLeZsF9

— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) August 8, 2020

Rep. Alma Adams (D-N.C.) said in a statement issued alongside DeFazio’s that DeJoy is guilty of “unconstitutional sabotage of our Postal Service with complete disregard for the institution’s promise of the ‘safe and speedy transit of the mail’ and the ‘prompt delivery of its contents.’”

“My friend Maya Angelou used to say, ‘when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time,’” Adams added. “The Postmaster General has shown us on multiple occasions he is working to dismantle a fundamental institution of our democracy. He needs to resign or be removed, now.”

A couple weeks ago, Trump hit 40% approval rating in FiveThirtyEight’s polling aggregate. I watched eagerly to see if he might fall below that threshold, which would have been a clear sign the bottom was absolutely dropping out from his campaign.

Unfortunately, Trump managed to bounce back a bit, but not by much. He’s currently sitting at 41.4% approval and has been bobbing around that 41% mark since early June. But not to worry, a look at the history of the worst political routs in modern U.S. history shows that presidents and major-party nominees pretty much get 40% of the votes no matter how dreadful their leadership or campaign.

Take President Herbert Hoover, for instance, running for reelection against Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932 amid the Great Depression, with food lines and shanty towns across America. Hoover still won 39.7% that year to FDR’s 57.4%.

But Hoover isn’t alone, as MSNBC’s Chris Hayes pointed out during a segment last week. In 1984, Walter Mondale lost every single state to Ronald Reagan except his home state of Minnesota and Washington D.C. and Mondale still got 41% of the popular vote.

And how about Jimmy Carter’s doomed 1980 reelection bid amid stagflation, an oil crisis, and the ongoing Iran hostage crisis? Another Reagan rout but Carter still took 41% of the popular vote.

So when you look at the Trump’s approvals and just can’t imagine why on earth they are still managing to hang around 40% or a little above, that’s actually about the norm. That 40% threshold is almost baked in to our two-party system. What would be truly noteworthy is if Trump falls several points under 40% for a sustained period of time.

It’s also why—as we all recall from 2016—what really matters is the outcomes at the state level. But overall, the trendlines on Trump’s approvals continue to be very steady and very bad for him. Civiqs has Trump right around where Five Thirty Eight does, 41%, but with a lot less noise along the way, which really allows you to see how Trump’s position has just continually worsened since the start of the pandemic.

The terminal decline of the United States will not be solved by elections. The political rot and depravity will continue to eat away at the soul of the nation, spawning what anthropologists call crisis cults — movements led by demagogues that prey on an unbearable psychological and financial distress. These crisis cults, already well established among followers of the Christian Right and Donald Trump, peddle magical thinking and an infantilism that promises — in exchange for all autonomy — prosperity, a return to a mythical past, order and security. The dark yearnings among the white working class for vengeance and moral renewal through violence, the unchecked greed and corruption of the corporate oligarchs and billionaires who manage our failed democracy, which has already instituted wholesale government surveillance and revoked most civil liberties, are part of the twisted pathologies that infect all civilizations sputtering towards oblivion. I witnessed the deaths of other nations during the collapse of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe and later in the former Yugoslavia. I have smelled this stench before.

The removal of Trump from office will only exacerbate the lust for racist violence he incites and the intoxicating elixir of white nationalism. The ruling elites, who first built a mafia economy and then built a mafia state, will continue under Biden, as they did under Trump, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, to wantonly pillage and loot. The militarized police will not stop their lethal rampages in poor neighborhoods. The endless wars will not end. The bloated military budget will not be reduced. The world’s largest prison population will remain a stain upon the country. The manufacturing jobs shipped overseas will not return and the social inequality will grow. The for-profit health care system will gouge the public and price millions more out of the health care system. The language of hate and bigotry will be normalized as the primary form of communication. Internal enemies, including Muslims, immigrants and dissidents, will be defamed and attacked. The hypermasculinity that compensates for feelings of impotence will intensify. It will direct its venom towards women and all who fail to conform to rigid male stereotypes, especially artists, LGBTQ people and intellectuals. Lies, conspiracy theories, trivia and fake news — what Hannah Arendt called “nihilistic relativism” — will still dominate the airwaves and social media, mocking verifiable fact and truth. The ecocide, which presages the extinction of the human species and most other life forms, will barrel unabated towards its apocalyptic conclusion.

“We run heedlessly into the abyss after putting something in front of us to stop us seeing it,” Pascal wrote.

The worse it gets — and it will get worse as the pandemic hits us in wave after deadly wave with an estimated 300,000 Americans dead by December and possibly 400,000 by January — the more desperate the nation will become. Tens of millions of people will be thrown into destitution, evicted from their homes and abandoned. Social collapse, as Peter Drucker observed in Weimar Germany in the 1930s, brings with it a loss of faith in ruling institutions and ruling ideologies. With no apparent answers or solutions to mounting chaos and catastrophe — and Biden and the Democratic Party have already precluded the kind of New Deal programs and assault on oligarchic power that saved us during the Great Depression — demagogues and charlatans need only denounce all institutions, all politicians, and all political and social conventions while conjuring up hosts of phantom enemies. Drucker saw that Nazism succeeded not because people believed in its fantastic promises, but in spite of them. Nazi absurdities, he pointed out, had been “witnessed by a hostile press, a hostile radio, a hostile cinema, a hostile church, and a hostile government which untiringly pointed out the Nazi lies, the Nazi inconsistency, the unattainability of their promises, and the dangers and folly of their course.” Nobody, he noted, “would have been a Nazi if rational belief in the Nazi promises had been a prerequisite.” The poet, playwright and socialist revolutionary Ernst Toller, who was forced into exile and stripped of his citizenship when the Nazis took power in 1933, wrote much the same in his autobiography: “The people are tired of reason, tired of thought and reflection. They ask, what has reason done in the last few years, what good have insights and knowledge done us.” After Toller committed suicide in 1939, W.H. Auden in his poem “In Memory of Ernst Toller” wrote:

We are lived by powers we pretend to understand:
They arrange our loves; it is they who direct at the end
The enemy bullet, the sickness, or even our hand.

The poor, the vulnerable, those who are not white or not Christian, those who are undocumented or who do not mindlessly repeat the cant of a perverted Christian nationalism, will be offered up in a crisis to the god of death, a familiar form of human sacrifice that plagues sick societies. Once these enemies are purged from the nation, we are promised, America will recover its lost glory, except that once one enemy is obliterated another takes its place. Crisis cults require a steady escalation of conflict. This is what made the war in the former Yugoslavia inevitable. Once one stage of conflict reaches a crescendo it loses its efficacy. It must be replaced by ever more brutal and deadly confrontations. The intoxication and addiction to greater and greater levels of violence to purge the society of evil led to genocide in Germany and the former Yugoslavia. We are not immune. It is what Ernst Jünger called a “feast of death.”

These crisis cults are, as Drucker understood, irrational and schizophrenic. They have no coherent ideology. They turn morality upside down. They appeal exclusively to emotions. Burlesque and celebrity culture become politics. Depravity becomes morality. Atrocities and murder become heroism. Crime and fraud become justice. Greed and nepotism become civic virtues. What these cults stand for today, they condemn tomorrow. At the height of the reign of terror on May 6, 1794 during the French Revolution, Maximilien Robespierre announced that the Committee for Public Safety now recognized the existence of God. The French revolutionaries, fanatical atheists who had desecrated churches and confiscated church property, murdered hundreds of priests and forced another 30,000 into exile, instantly reversed themselves to send to the guillotine those who disparaged religion. In the end, exhausted by the moral confusion and internal contradictions, these crisis cults yearn for self-annihilation.

The French sociologist Emile Durkheim in his classic book “On Suicide” found that when social bonds are shattered, when a population no longer feels it has a place or meaning in a society, personal and collective acts of self-destruction proliferate. Societies are held together by a web of social bonds that give individuals a sense of being part of a collective and engaged in a project larger than the self. This collective expresses itself through rituals, such as elections and democratic participation or an appeal to patriotism, and shared national beliefs. The bonds provide meaning, a sense of purpose, status and dignity. They offer psychological protection from impending mortality and the meaninglessness that comes with being isolated and alone. The breaking of these bonds plunges individuals into deep psychological distress. Durkheim called this state of hopelessness and despair anomie, which he defined as “ruleless-ness.”

Ruleless-ness means the norms that govern a society and create a sense of organic solidarity no longer function. The belief, for example, that if we work hard, obey the law and get a good education we can achieve stable employment, social status and mobility along with financial security becomes a lie. The old rules, imperfect and often untrue for poor people of color, nevertheless were not a complete fiction in the United States. They offered some Americans — especially those from the white working and middle class — modest social and economic advancement. The disintegration of these bonds has unleashed a widespread malaise Durkheim would have recognized. The self-destructive pathologies that plague the United States — opioid addiction, gambling, suicide, sexual sadism, hate groups and mass shootings — are products of this anomie. So is our political dysfunction. My book, “America: The Farewell Tour,” is an examination of these pathologies and the widespread anomie that defines American society.

The economic structures, even before the pandemic, were reconfigured to mock faith in a meritocracy and the belief that hard work leads to a productive and valued role in society. American productivity, as The New York Times pointed out, has increased 77 percent since 1973 but hourly pay has grown only 12 percent. If the federal minimum wage was attached to productivity, the newspaper wrote, it would be more than $20 an hour now, not $7.25. Some 41.7 million workers, a third of the workforce, earn less than $12 an hour, and most of them do not have access to employer-sponsored health insurance. A decade after the 2008 financial meltdown, the Times wrote, the average middle class family’s net worth is more than $40,000 below what it was in 2007. The net worth of black families is down 40 percent, and for Latino families the figure has dropped 46 percent. Some four million evictions are filed each year. One in four tenant households spends about half its pretax income on rent. Each night some 200,000 people sleep in their cars, on streets or under bridges. And these stark figures represent the good times Biden and the Democratic Party leaders promise to restore. Now, with real unemployment probably close to 20 percent — the official figure of 10 percent excludes those furloughed or those who have stopped looking for work — some 40 million people are at risk of being evicted by the end of the year. An estimated 27 million people are expected to lose their health insurance. Banks are stockpiling reserves of cash to cope with the expected wave of bankruptcies and defaults on mortgages, student loans, car loans, personal loans and credit card debt. The ruleless-ness and anomie that defines the lives of tens of millions of Americans was orchestrated by the two ruling parties in the service of a corporate oligarchy. If we do not address this anomie, if we do not restore the social bonds shattered by predatory corporate capitalism, the decay will accelerate.

This dark human pathology is as old as civilization itself, repeated in varying forms in the twilight of ancient Greece and Rome, the finale of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires, revolutionary France, the Weimar Republic and the former Yugoslavia.

The social inequality that characterizes all states and civilizations seized by a tiny and corrupt cabal — in our case corporate — leads to an inchoate desire by huge segments of the population to destroy. The ethnic nationalists Slobodan Milošević, Franjo Tudjman, Radovan Karadžić and Alija Izetbegović in the former Yugoslavia assumed power in a similar period of economic chaos and political stagnation. Yugoslavs by 1991 were suffering from widespread unemployment and had seen their real incomes reduced by half from what they had been a generation before. These nationalist demagogues sanctified their followers as righteous victims stalked by an array of elusive enemies. They spoke in the language of vengeance and violence, leading, as it always does, to actual violence. They trafficked in historical myth, deifying the past exploits of their race or ethnicity in a perverse kind of ancestor worship, a mechanism to give to those who suffered from anomie, who had lost their identity, dignity and self-worth, a new, glorious identity as part of a master race. When I walked through Montgomery, Alabama, a city where half of the population is African-American, with the civil rights attorney Bryan Stevenson a few years ago, he pointed out the numerous Confederate memorials, noting that most had been put up in the last decade. “This,” I told him, “is exactly what happened in Yugoslavia.”

A hyper-nationalism always infects a dying civilization. It feeds the collective self-worship. This hyper-nationalism celebrates the supposedly unique virtues of the race or the national group. It strips all who are outside the closed circle of worth and humanity. The world instantly becomes understandable, a black and white tableau of them and us. These tragic moments in history see people fall into collective insanity. They suspend thought, especially self-critical thought. None of this is going away in November, in fact it will get worse.

Joe Biden, a shallow, political hack devoid of fixed beliefs or intellectual depth, is an expression of the nostalgia of a ruling class that yearns to return to the pantomime of democracy. They want to restore the decorum and civic religion that makes the presidency a form of monarchy and sacralizes the organs of state power. Donald Trump’s vulgarity and ineptitude is an embarrassment to the architects of empire. He has ripped back the veil that covered our failed democracy. But no matter how hard the elites try this veil cannot be restored. The mask is off. The façade is gone. Biden cannot bring it back.

Political, economic and social dysfunction define the American empire. Our staggering inability to contain the pandemic, which now infects over 5 million Americans, and the failure to cope with the economic fallout the pandemic has caused, has exposed the American capitalist model as bankrupt. It has freed the world, dominated by the United States for seven decades, to look at other social and political systems that serve the common good rather than corporate greed. The diminished stature of the United States, even among our European allies, brings with it the hope for new forms of government and new forms of power.

It is up to us to abolish the American kleptocracy. It is up to us to mount sustained acts of mass civil disobedience to bring down the empire. It poisons the world as it poisons us. If we mobilize to build an open society, we hold out the possibility of beating back these crisis cults as well as slowing and disrupting the march towards ecocide. This requires us to acknowledge, like those protesting in the streets of Beirut, that our kleptocracy, like Lebanon’s, is incapable of being salvaged. The American system of inverted totalitarianism, as the political philosopher Sheldon Wolin called it, must be eradicated if we are to wrest back our democracy and save ourselves from mass extinction. We need to echo the chants by the crowds in Lebanon calling for the wholesale removal of its ruling class — kulyan-yani-kulyan — everyone means everyone.

Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for fifteen years for The New York Times, where he served as the Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief for the paper. He previously worked overseas for The Dallas Morning News, The Christian Science Monitor, and NPR. He wrote a weekly column for the progressive website Truthdig for 14 years until he was fired along with all of the editorial staff in March 2020. [Hedges and the staff had gone on strike earlier in the month to protest the publisher’s attempt to fire the Editor-in-Chief Robert Scheer, demand an end to a series of unfair labor practices and the right to form a union.] He is the host of the Emmy Award-nominated RT America show On Contact. He is the author of twelve books, including War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, Death of the Liberal Class, Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle, American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America, Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt, which he co-wrote with Joe Sacco, and his latest America The Farewell Tour.  He has taught at Columbia University, New York University, Princeton University and The University of Toronto.  He currently teaches in the B.A. program run by Rutgers University in the New Jersey prison system.

WASHINGTON – The White House signaled Monday it is open to more negotiations with opposition Democrats on a coronavirus aid package and willing to spend more money to reach a deal. 

“We’re prepared to put more money on the table,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told CNBC. “The president is determined to spend what we need to spend.”  

U.S. President Donald Trump signs executive measures for economic relief during a news conference amid the spread of the coronavirus disease, at his golf resort in Bedminster, N.J., Aug. 8, 2020.

President Donald Trump signed executive orders Saturday extending a portion of the expired benefits to millions of unemployed workers and deferring payroll taxes for many employed Americans. In a new Twitter comment, he did not rule out more negotiations but blamed Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for Friday’s collapse of talks on an aid package.  

“So now Schumer and Pelosi want to meet to make a deal,” Trump tweeted. “Amazing how it all works, isn’t it. Where have they been for the last 4 weeks when they were “hardliners”, and only wanted BAILOUT MONEY for Democrat run states and cities that are failing badly? They know my phone number!” 

So now Schumer and Pelosi want to meet to make a deal. Amazing how it all works, isn’t it. Where have they been for the last 4 weeks when they were “hardliners”, and only wanted BAILOUT MONEY for Democrat run states and cities that are failing badly? They know my phone number!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 10, 2020

In the CNBC interview, Mnuchin said, “I think there is a compromise if the Democrats are willing to be reasonable. There is still a lot of things that we need to do and that we’ve agreed on.” 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, accompanied by Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer, left, speak to reporters following a meeting with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Aug. 7, 2020.

As the talks collapsed last week, Schumer and Pelosi said Democrats were willing to cut $1 trillion from their original demand for White House approval of the $3.4 trillion coronavirus aid package approved by the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives in mid-May. They said the White House should at the same time double its call for a $1 trillion deal to at least $2 trillion, but the Trump administration refused. 

The Treasury chief said the Trump administration is willing to spend more money, but not “unlimited amounts of money that don’t make sense.” 

Mnuchin said the two sides have “agreed on more money for businesses that are particularly hard hit,” sending another $1,200 check economic stimulus check to most adult Americans, providing more aid to schools so they can reopen safely and more money for hospitals and the development of vaccines to combat the coronavirus. 

But one key sticking point in the coronavirus talks is additional aid to state and local governments, the assistance Trump disparaged as “bailout money” for jurisdictions run by opposition Democrats. Pelosi and Schumer say the hard-pressed state and local governments need $1 trillion. 

“We’ve offered more money for state and local [governments],” Mnuchin said, “but we’re not going to give a trillion…. That’s just not a reasonable approach.”  

Mnuchin called for congressional passage of aid the two sides have agreed on while talks continue on disputed items, but the Democrats have balked at a piecemeal approach to an aid package. 

Mnuchin declined to speculate when talks could resume. 

With the collapse in the negotiations, Mnuchin said Trump “needed to take action,” the executive orders he signed at a golf resort he owns in Bedminster, New Jersey. 

In Sunday talk show appearances, Schumer and Pelosi derided the provisions as too limited to help unemployed workers or other Americans impacted by the coronavirus. Pelosi also said Trump’s actions were unconstitutional since U.S. authority for spending legislation rests with Congress, not the president. 

FILE – Motorists take part in a caravan protest in front of Senator John Kennedy’s office at the Hale Boggs Federal Building asking for the extension of the $600 in unemployment benefits to people out of work, in New Orleans, La., July 22, 2020.

In the fruitless negotiations, Democrats sought to extend the $600-a-week federal government boost to less generous state unemployment benefits through the end of 2020 after they expired at the end of July. Trump cut the figure to $400 and said states should pay $100 of that amount. 

The president also suspended the 7.65% payroll tax for workers who make less than $100,000 a year through the end of 2020. Unemployed workers, who do not pay the tax because they aren’t collecting a paycheck, won’t benefit. The taxes are used to fund pensions and health care for older Americans. The money would need to be paid back eventually unless Congress acts to write off the deferred taxes.  

Trump also said he was extending protections for rental tenants threatened with eviction, further delaying student loan payments and maintaining zero percent interest on federally financed loans. 

The spread of the pandemic remains unchecked in the U.S. with the country’s number of confirmed cases topping 5 million on Sunday and the death toll more than 163,000. Both figures are the biggest national totals across the globe.