Joe Biden
@JoeBiden
Today we celebrate the 80th anniversary of Oxi Day. Greeks inspired the free world when they resisted Mussolini’s invading army — and that courageous spirit lives on today, reminding us we too must stand up and do our part to safeguard our democracy.
12:20 PM · Oct 28, 2020
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In my opinion, opinion writers and other pundits should be describing Trump’s behavior as immoral as opposed to amoral.

Amoral vs. immoral
The adjective immoral means contrary to established moral principles. Immoral actions are corrupt, unethical, sinful, or just wrong. Amoral means (1) neither moral nor immoral, or (2) lacking moral sensibility. So while immoral and amoral might share a little common ground, there is a clear distinction: immoral things are bad, and amoral things are either neutral from a moral perspective or simply removed from moral considerations.

https://grammarist.com/usage/amoral-immoral/

Were all of us here supposed to be gob-smacked when when this game-changing story broke in the WSJ?

Trump Had One Last Story to Sell. The Wall Street Journal Wouldn’t Buy It.

Inside the White House’s secret, last-ditch effort to change the narrative, and the election — and the return of the media gatekeepers.

By Ben Smith
Oct. 25, 2020

536
By early October, even people inside the White House believed President Trump’s re-election campaign needed a desperate rescue mission. So three men allied with the president gathered at a house in McLean, Va., to launch one.

The host was Arthur Schwartz, a New York public relations man close to President Trump’s eldest son, Donald Jr. The guests were a White House lawyer, Eric Herschmann, and a former deputy White House counsel, Stefan Passantino, according to two people familiar with the meeting.

Mr. Herschmann knew the subject matter they were there to discuss. He had represented Mr. Trump during the impeachment trial early this year, and he tried to deflect allegations against the president in part by pointing to Hunter Biden’s work in Ukraine. More recently, he has been working on the White House payroll with a hazy portfolio, listed as “a senior adviser to the president,” and remains close to Jared Kushner.

The three had pinned their hopes for re-electing the president on a fourth guest, a straight-shooting Wall Street Journal White House reporter named Michael Bender. They delivered the goods to him there: a cache of emails detailing Hunter Biden’s business activities, and, on speaker phone, a former business partner of Hunter Biden’s named Tony Bobulinski. Mr. Bobulinski was willing to go on the record in The Journal with an explosive claim: that Joe Biden, the former vice president, had been aware of, and profited from, his son’s activities. The Trump team left believing that The Journal would blow the thing open and their excitement was conveyed to the president.

Read more...
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/25/business/media/hunter-biden-wall-street-journal-trump.html

remember that our cause is just and that we have the smart people on our side.

Oct. 20, 2020 at 12:30 p.m. PDT
For the past decade, I’ve studied how contentious elections create crises and, sometimes, violence. I never dreamed that my research in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Eastern Europe would be applicable to the United States. But now I see many of the same red flags that precede post-election crises elsewhere existing in the United States. President Trump has already made it clear that he’s willing to damage institutions, stir up chaos and abuse his powers if it will help him stay in office.

The Trump campaign has called on an “army of supporters” to observe the polls — emboldening far-right groups who feel called upon to take action. Trump has argued that Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett must be urgently confirmed so that she can rule on legal challenges around the election (presumably in his favor). And he has refused to commit to a “peaceful transfer of power.” All of this makes the risk of a constitutional crisis in the aftermath of the election — perhaps involving political violence — greater than at any moment in modern American history.
Thankfully, there is still time to avoid that dangerous scenario. But doing so starts with clear, direct messaging from Democrats, the press and any remaining principled Republicans who are willing to put country before party.

There are three urgent tasks.
First, responsible politicians and journalists should manage expectations of when decisive results will be known. This isn’t just because of the unprecedented rise in mail-in and absentee ballots due to the pandemic. In 2018, many press outlets mischaracterized the midterm election as a “split decision” rather than a “blue wave.” A few days later, as results were finalized, it became clear that Democrats had won their biggest election victory since 1974. That initial misperception could have been avoided with a little patience.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/10/20/united-states-is-heading-post-election-crisis-here-are-three-ways-avoid-it/

here in the Anarchists Jurisdiction of Portland, ballot received 10/20/20!

It’s a big win for a city that is supposedly “under siege.”

According to the ranking, “Portland’s population toes the between an innocent playfulness and a shameless wild side.”

U.S. News and World Report made no mention of the chaos and rampant homelessness usually favored by national news outlets, and instead focused on donuts and the World Naked Bike Ride.

“Locals tend to be friendly and laid-back while maintaining a healthy work ethic,” the report said. “This, combined with Portland’s emphasis on self-expression, has created a breeding ground for many independent businesses and startups.”

That’s right, “a breeding ground for many independent businesses and startups,” not a breeding ground for communists and anarchists. How weird!

https://www.oregonlive.com/living/2020/10/ranking-portland-is-the-9th-best-place-to-live-in-us-antifa-radicals-and-all.html

saying that my ballot has been mailed. Good to know!

https://www.koin.com/news/protests/homeless-man-leaves-donation-for-battered-oregon-historical-society/

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Executive Director of the Historical Society’s Kerry Tymchuk shared a heart-warming story Monday following the destruction caused to the OHS building during Sunday night’s riot.

Tymchuk said a napkin was dropped off at the front desk of OHS with a handwritten note and a one dollar bill:

Hello, I’m homeless, so I don’t have much to give you. Just some of my bottle collecting money. But, I saw your windows got broken and I wanted to help. You once gave me a free tour before the pandemic. So, this is a thank you.
OSCAR

Tymchuk spoke about the generous gift and said that though OHS was receiving several donations in the aftermath of the damage, Oscar’s gesture was priceless.

“We’ve been fortunate to receive many generous donations to OHS over the years–some upwards o a million or more dollars,” he said. “No donation means more to me and to the society than this dollar donation from Oscar.”

By David Harris, Los Angeles Times

This year’s racial justice protests have captured the attention of the entire country — and especially that of ’60s veterans like me. Perhaps none more so than the ongoing battle in Portland, where nightly clashes have continued for more than 100 consecutive days.

I am a white 74-year-old, Stage 4 cancer patient sheltering in place and prevented from protesting by the demands of my age and illness and the risks posed by the coronavirus. But I have been watching Portland from afar, and for the purposes of this missive, I have been there before.

I registered Black voters in Jim Crow Mississippi in 1964. I was elected Stanford University’s “radical” student body president in 1966 on a platform of equal rights for male and female students. I was a national leader in the student movement to stop the Vietnam War, and I helped found and organize a campaign of civil disobedience against that war’s system of military conscription. For this, I was incarcerated in the federal prison system from 1969 to 1971. All told, I devoted the first 10 years of my adulthood to the ongoing quest for social justice, at great personal risk and no small sacrifice.

That was, I admit, a long time ago, and “What have you done lately?” would be an understandable retort. But please bear with an old man. Hazy as this ancestral perspective may be to many young activists, your predecessors have some observations that may be of use to you now.

The goal of demonstrating is to reach people who otherwise would not take up the cause of racial justice. The message is most effective when it is accessible, compelling fellow citizens to rethink hidebound attitudes and prejudices. Threatening people and shouting them down will only sabotage this dynamic — as will burning buildings, wearing body armor, throwing projectiles, breaking windows and picking fights. If it is to have any chance of advancing, the quest for racial justice needs to jettison threatening tactics. Frightening people is always counterproductive, even if it is sometimes emotionally satisfying. The objective should be to convert everyone with whom you have contact, whoever they may be, police included.

Read more...
https://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/2020/10/advice-to-portland-protesters-from-a-60s-radical-commentary.html