First, understand that both the GOP & DNC only care about their donors, not voters or election workers
"In Tuesday’s Wisconsin elections, more than 100 municipalities will not have enough poll workers to open a single voting location. Tens of thousands of voters who have flooded election offices with mail-ballot requests in recent days are at risk of not receiving them on time. And Sally Cohen, an elderly woman with kidney disease and asthma who is self-isolating in her apartment in Madison, isn’t sure she’ll be able to vote at all because of a state law requiring a witness to sign her ballot envelope.
'I was just distraught this morning when I opened it and saw that you have to have a witness,” said Cohen, who is 77 and a retired paralegal. “I thought, ‘I just can’t do it.’ They suggested having the mailman look through the picture window, but I’m on the third floor, so that won’t work.”
MORE AT:
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A new memo from the Democratic National Committee panel that handles delegate selection for the presidential nomination warns that states that hastily change the “first determining step” of their own process could be subject to penalties – including a 50% reduction in delegates – if they hold primaries after a June cut-off date.
The memo also says the panel is looking at ways to adjust how delegates are selected in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Three states will hold primaries on Tuesday. A fourth, Ohio, postponed its vote on Monday, due to Covid-19 and its drastic effect on public life. Louisiana, Kentucky, Georgia and Maryland have also postponed their votes.
As in virtually every part of US society, election officials at every level have been discussing ways to safely administer elections without spreading the coronavirus.
The new DNC memo, obtained by the Guardian, was sent to members of the rules and bylaws committee on Wednesday night.
“We are working with state parties that need to make adjustments as needed to their delegate selection processes so they can continue without major interruptions,” wrote James Roosevelt and Lorraine Miller, the co-chairs of the rules and bylaws committee, in the memo.
“The regulations allow technical changes to be approved by the co-chairs.”
A number of states have taken dramatic steps to prevent spreading the coronavirus. Late on Monday night, Ohio’s governor, Mike DeWine, announced that his administration would order polling stations closed because of the “health emergency”.
“Several states have taken steps to change the date of their first determining step,” the DNC memo said.
It continued: “The Delegate Selection Rules provide that each state’s first determining step must take place by 9 June. If a state violates the rule on timing, or any other rule, they could be subject to penalties as prescribed in Rule 21, including at least a 50% reduction in delegates, which will need to be reviewed by the RBC.
“The deadline to elect convention participants is 20 June, so state parties should have plenty of time to elect their delegates, alternates and standing committee members.”
The committee also advised state parties “to follow the recommendations of local health officials and prioritize health and safety of all individuals. We acknowledge the situation is very different in every state and want to give state parties flexibility to adjust their plans to address their own situations and local guidance.”
When Louisiana moved its primary, the DNC issued a similar warning.
“We will continue to work with every state party as they adjust their delegate selection plans around coronavirus,” the DNC said then, adding a similar warning about the 9 June deadline.
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Democratic National Committee reacts to Ohio postponement with memo that says party working with states on coronavirus measures
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"Trump bears the overwhelming responsibility for the deadly governmental negligence as the Covid-19 pandemic has spread in the United States. But that reality in no way made it okay for the Biden campaign and the DNC to forcefully advocate for retaining a primary schedule that was certain to expose people to the virus.
Even with the new heights of the coronavirus emergency in late March, mass emails from the Biden campaign and the DNC have been stale pitches for donations, often leaving the coronavirus unmentioned. At the same time, Biden’s TV interviews have ranged from uninspiringly passable to stumblingly embarrassing.
Meanwhile, along with raising millions of dollars for care-giving charities, the Sanders campaign has been energetic and creative online—with efforts such as championing health protection for Amazon workers, calling for comprehensive healthcare for everyone in the country during the pandemic, fighting huge corporate rip-offs of the public, and providing strong progressive populist messages during TV interviews
The anemic response to the Covid-19 emergency from Biden and his allies is another ominous sign that he is ill-equipped to rid the country of the vile Trump presidency. Another straw in the wind is a new Washington Post / ABC News national poll that shows an enormous voter-motivation gap—with Trump supporters far more “enthusiastic” about their candidate than Biden supporters are.
The political strategy of reliance on emphasizing how bad Donald Trump is—without offering dynamic progressive leadership—was a catastrophic failure four years ago. Providing feeble alternatives, while reminiscing about real or imagined glory days of the Obama administration, is apt to prove woefully inadequate in 2020."
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If leadership is the metric, what is the measure?
Norman Solomon
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IF TRUMP CAN BE TRIED FOR NEGLIGENT HOMICIDE THEN TOM PERES AND JOE BIDEN CAN ALSO BE TRIED FOR NEGLIGENT HOMICIDE. DEPENDS ON WHO WINS THE ELECTION.
"Deaths from Covid-19 continued to mount this week as the U.S. surpassed 200,000 confirmed cases, more than any other country in the world. Experts increasingly point to President Donald Trump’s willful negligence as a primary cause of the pandemic’s intensity, but MSNBC legal analyst Glenn Kirscher takes things a step further, arguing controversially that Trump could be legally liable for coronavirus deaths after he leaves office. He makes the case to Mehdi Hasan on this week’s podcast."
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Deconstructed Podcast: Is Trump Criminally Responsible
for Coronavirus Deaths?
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