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‘A Democratic Tsunami’: Top Election Forecaster Changes 2020 Prediction

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President Donald Trump and his supporters are hoping that if his hardcore MAGA base shows up in big numbers in November and Democratic turnout is weak, he will be able to pull off another Electoral College victory. In order for that to happen, Trump will need to fire up his base as much as possible in swing states.

But according to new, updated analysis from the Cook Political Report, former Vice President Joe Biden has an increasing advantage in many of the swing states that Trump needs to win.

“This election is looking more like a Democratic tsunami than simply a blue wave,” Cook’s Amy Walter reports. “President Trump, mired in some of the lowest job approval ratings of his presidency, is trailing Biden by significant margins in key battleground states like Pennsylvania (8 points), Michigan (9 points) and Wisconsin (9 points). He’s even running behind Biden in his firewall states of Florida and North Carolina.”

This month, Walter explains, Biden is looking even better in swing states than he did in June — and Cook has changed its Electoral College ratings to “reflect this reality.”

Walter explains that according to Cook’s analysis this week, “Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Nebraska’s 2nd District move from ‘toss-up’ to ‘lean Democrat.’ Maine, once in ‘lean Democrat,’ moves to the safer ‘likely Democratic category.’”

The Cook reporter adds, “Georgia has joined Arizona, North Carolina and Florida in the ‘toss-up’ column, although at this point, Biden would be slightly favored to win at least Arizona and Florida.”

Florida has been a swing state for a long time. President George W. Bush won Florida twice, but so did President Barack Obama — before Trump carried the state in 2016. But only in recent years has once-red Arizona become a swing state.

The victory of Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema in Arizona was one of the big political bombshells of 2018, and poll after poll has shown Republican Sen. Martha McSally trailing Democrat Mark Kelly in this year’s U.S. Senate race in that state. Moreover, Biden appears to be quite competitive in Arizona, which for decades, was a deep red state synonymous with the conservatism of Sen. Barry Goldwater and later, Sen. John McCain.

Trump’s poor performance in recent polls is being felt on Wall Street: according to Axios reporter Dino Rabouin, Wall Street is now betting on a Biden victory — a change from earlier this year.

Rabouin reports: “Betting markets have turned decisively toward an expected victory for Joe Biden in November — and asset managers at major investment banks are preparing for not only a Biden win, but potentially, a Democratic sweep of the Senate and House too…. The shift is the latest indicator of how quickly the political and business worlds have aligned in the view that Trump is unlikely to win a second term as COVID-19 infection numbers have spiked again and the economy looks to be stalling.”

On May 11, Rabouin reported that Wall Street was expecting Trump to win a second term. But more recently, according to Rabouin: “A Citigroup poll of 140 fund managers released last week found that 62% expect a Biden win, compared to 70% who expected a Trump victory in the same survey in December. And according to Kace Capital Advisors Managing Director Kenny Polcari, ‘Talk of a Democratic sweep (is) now common’ among investors.”

Walter, on Cook’s website, stresses that the “Democratic tsunami” in November could include not only Trump losing to Biden, but also, Democrats retaking the U.S. Senate and expanding their majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.

None of that is to say that Trump won’t turn things around between now and November. There were summer polls that, in 1988’s presidential race, showed Democratic nominee Mike Dukakis with a double-digit lead over Vice President George H.W. Bush. But in 1988, the U.S. wasn’t coping with the world’s deadliest pandemic in more than 100 years.

Walter adds the caveat that the race could still change, noting:

One of the biggest unknowns, however, is voting itself. As we’ve seen this spring and early summer, most states are not prepared for an onslaught of absentee ballots. And confusion about how/where to vote could impact turnout.

She also floats the possibility of voters splitting their ticket this year — that is, voting for Biden over Trump but voting GOP in Senate and House races. However, a GOP strategist interviewed by Cook is predicting that many voters will go straight Democratic this time.

“If voters start to sense that the race for president is a blow-out, will they be more willing to split their tickets to ensure a ‘check and balance’ in Washington next fall?” Walter writes. “At least one Republican I spoke with, however, was wary of a check-and-balance working this year, telling me that ‘people are looking for a restart and a reset.’ That includes down-ballot candidates as well as the president.”

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Trump Order to Keep ‘Jalopy’ Coal Plant Open Costs Taxpayers Over $100 Million

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A Trump administration order to keep an aging and unneeded Michigan coal-fired power plant open and online reportedly is costing taxpayers about $615,000 per day, or $113 million to date. Closing the plant would save taxpayers about $640 million by 2040.

“The Trump administration in May ordered utility giant Consumers Energy to keep the 63-year-old JH Campbell coal plant in western Michigan, about 100 miles north-east of Chicago, online just as it was being retired,” according to The Guardian.

“The costs of unnecessarily running this jalopy coal plant just continue to mount,” Michael Lenoff, an attorney with Earthjustice, which is suing over the order, told The Guardian.

READ MORE: ‘Total Authoritarian Population Control’: Experts Sound Alarm on Trump’s Immigrant Attack

President Donald Trump signed a national energy emergency order on his first day in office this year, rolling back regulations.

In court documents, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said that the administration’s latest order is “arbitrary and illegal.”

Consumers Energy, the operator of the plant, did not ask the Trump administration for the order to keep the coal plant running, and the Trump administration did not consult local regulators, a spokesperson for the Michigan public service commission (MPSC), told the Guardian in May.

“The unnecessary recent order … will increase the cost of power for homes and businesses in Michigan and across the midwest,” the chair of the MPSC, Dan Scripps, said in a statement at the time.

Reporting on what it called Trump’s “pro-fossil fuel agenda,” The Guardian in January quoted the president:

“We have something that no other manufacturing nation will ever have, the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on Earth, and we are going to use it – let me use it,” Trump said in his inaugural address. “We will be a rich nation again, and it is that liquid gold under our feet that will help to do it.”

READ MORE: Republicans Scuttled Trump Health Care Fix Because They Felt ‘Left Out’: Report

 

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‘Total Authoritarian Population Control’: Experts Sound Alarm on Trump’s Immigrant Attack

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Legal and national security experts are responding to what the White House is calling, “one of the most important messages ever released” by President Donald Trump, a 511-word broadside attacking 53 million immigrants in America, vowing to not only end immigration from certain countries but to foster “reverse migration,” a term used in white nationalist circles.

In his Thanksgiving remarks, President Trump denounced the U.S. being “divided, disrupted, carved up, murdered, beaten, mugged, and laughed at, along with certain other foolish countries throughout the World, for being ‘Politically Correct,’ and just plain STUPID, when it comes to Immigration.”

He claimed that there are 53 million people in America born outside the U.S., most of whom, the president claimed, “are on welfare, from failed nations, or from prisons, mental institutions, gangs, or drug cartels.”

The president condemned what he called the “refugee burden,” stating that it “is the leading cause of social dysfunction in America.”

READ MORE: ‘Theater of the Absurd’: Trump’s Attacks Cast Doubt on Bipartisan Funding Deals

He specifically targeted the “hundreds of thousands of refugees from Somalia,” and alleged that “Somalian gangs are roving the streets looking for ‘prey’ as our wonderful people stay locked in their apartments and houses hoping against hope that they will be left alone.”

Trump vowed to “permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the U.S. system to fully recover, terminate all of the millions of Biden illegal admissions, including those signed by Sleepy Joe Biden’s Autopen, and remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States, or is incapable of loving our Country.”

He also promised to “end all Federal benefits and subsidies to noncitizens of our Country, denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility, and deport any Foreign National who is a public charge, security risk, or non-compatible with Western Civilization.”

The Associated Press called it Trump’s “most severe social media post against immigration since returning to the Oval Office in January,” and noted that it “came after the shooting Wednesday of two National Guard members who were patrolling the streets of the nation’s capital under his orders. One died and the other is in critical condition.”

READ MORE: Republicans Scuttled Trump Health Care Fix Because They Felt ‘Left Out’: Report

The Washington Post reported that “the tenor of Trump’s posts was a significant escalation in his rhetoric around immigration and appeared to be a vow to make life so difficult for many immigrants to the United States that they eventually opt to depart.”

Attorney Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow with the American Immigration Council, remarked that the rhetoric in the president’s statement “is indistinguishable from the stuff you hear coming out of white nationalists. Completely identical language.”

Reichlin-Melnick rejected Trump’s “outrageous claim that ‘most’ immigrants, which include over 25 million U.S. citizens, ‘are on welfare, from failed nations, or from prisons, mental institutions, gangs, or drug cartels.'”

He also noted that “immigrants use LESS federal benefits per capita than native-born U.S. citizens; and the most common is Social Security (after they paid into it for decades like everyone else).”

The Steady State, a group of more than 360 former U.S. national security officials, in a statement warned that, “Trump is now describing millions of immigrants, refugees, and even naturalized citizens as ‘invaders,’ ‘non-compatible with Western Civilization,’ and candidates for ‘reverse migration,” which they called, “a blueprint for total authoritarian population control.”

“If he can revoke citizenship based on his personal judgment of who ‘loves America,” they asked, “the question becomes: who is next?”

Professor of law Richard Painter, a former chief White House ethics lawyer, commented that “The United States should enforce immigration laws passed by Congress, but this proclamation is racist and far exceeds the power of the president.”

Bill Neely, a former Chief Global Correspondent for NBC News, wrote that Trump’s remarks were “filled with hatred & virtually an incitement to violence against not just immigrants but settled US citizens of a different colour from him.”

READ MORE: Trump: Nearly All of Biden’s Pardons — Including the Turkeys — Are ‘Invalid’

 

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Trump Vows Not to Invite South Africa to G20 in 2026, Citing Conspiracy Theory

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President Donald Trump vowed not to invite South Africa to the 2026 meeting of the G20 over a debunked conspiracy theory he continues to push.

Writing to his social media platform Truth Social on Wednesday afternoon, Trump announced that the U.S. did not attend this year’s G20 meeting in Johannesburg, and, in turn, wouldn’t let South Africa attend next year’s meeting in Miami.

“The United States did not attend the G20 in South Africa, because the South African Government refuses to acknowledge or address the horrific Human Right Abuses endured by Afrikaners, and other descendants of Dutch, French, and German settlers. To put it more bluntly, they are killing white people, and randomly allowing their farms to be taken from them. Perhaps, worst of all, the soon to be out of business New York Times and the Fake News Media won’t issue a word against this genocide. That’s why all the Liars and Pretenders of the Radical Left Media are going out of business! At the conclusion of the G20, South Africa refused to hand off the G20 Presidency to a Senior Representative from our U.S. Embassy, who attended the Closing Ceremony. Therefore, at my direction, South Africa will NOT be receiving an invitation to the 2026 G20, which will be hosted in the Great City of Miami, Florida next year. South Africa has demonstrated to the World they are not a country worthy of Membership anywhere, and we are going to stop all payments and subsidies to them, effective immediately. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” Trump wrote.

READ MORE: Marjorie Taylor Greene: Christians Helping Resettle Migrants and Refugees Are Controlled by ‘Satan’

Trump’s claims of human rights abuses against Afrikaners has been widely debunked. Trump says that the South African government, in retribution for apartheid-era institutional racism, is punishing the white population of the country. The conspiracy theory alleges that South Africa is engaging in “white genocide” against the Afrikaners, according to NPR.

While Trump is correct that the “fake news media won’t issue a word against this genocide,” it’s because it’s not happening. Even Afrikaners have denied that there is an “existential threat” against them, according to France24.

“We reject the narrative that casts Afrikaners as victims of racial persecution in post-apartheid South Africa. This framing, now being used to support the far-right ‘Great Replacement’ theory in the United States, is not only misleading, but also dangerous. It distorts the realities of South Africa, weaponizes our history, and reduces a complex social context and necessary levelling of playing fields into a simplistic symbol of white decline,” a letter from several prominent Afrikaners reads.

“Let us be clear: South Africa faces serious challenges – crime, inequality, and the enduring legacy of apartheid. But these issues affect South Africans of all races. To cherry-pick white suffering and elevate it above others is dishonest and harmful. It feeds extremist ideologies that perpetuate division and have inspired real-world violence, including mass shootings.”

The letter was signed by 46 Afrikaners in South Africa, including professors, journalists and more. It was sent in response to Trump’s first overture to the conspiracy theory, which was to allow Afrikaners to come to the United States as refugees—all while the number of real refugees the U.S. will accept has been lowered from 125,000 to just 7,500.

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