Dan Lipka Web Log

Donald Trump is trying his absolute best to ignore the results of the presidential election by coercing or intimidating state officials or judges to throw out the parts of the election that favored Biden. If he had a personal army, this would be a traditional coup attempt, but instead it is something new. And the facts are that if just a few of these states had Republican Governors (that are loyal to Trump), he would have a very realistic chance of winning. The fact that the Governors are Republicans is just a random happenstance and next time it will probably be different. Trump is making an overt attempt to trash the legitimacy of elections and the Democrats have said almost nothing. Perhaps they are just hoping he will go away, but that is completely unrealistic. They need one charismatic person (just one) to constantly be on the offensive against Trump and those who actively support his efforts to discredit the election. This person needs to be on every news outlet calling Trump a

Trump supporters and far right groups are planning a rally in Washington, DC this weekend. The left is also organizing a counter-protest. This seems like a recipe for a huge disaster. How will the citizens react (over 90% voted for Biden)? If there is violence, how will the police react.  A peaceful demonstration by the Trump supporters doesn't really benefit them. However, riots and general anarchy might give Trump ammunition to create new talking points and reasons to invalidate the election. Furthermore, it may lead him to believe (perhaps accurately), that there is a civilian army ready to do whatever he says.    Charlottesville was a few hundred people in a small town. This would be thousand (maybe tens of thousands) in our nation's capital. The media doesn't seem to take Trump at his word, that we will do whatever is necessary to stay in power. He has surrounded himself by loyalists, who are telling him that he is right with everything he thinks (I don't think any

The Biden Campaign should not underestimate Trump's efforts to invalidate the election count. There should be no victory party, no naming of cabinet members, and a continuing campaign to battle Trump's legal tactics. The Republicans are backing him pretty strongly, and we should assume this will include Congress, Governors, State Legislators, and sympathetic judges. And even if he loses all court cases, remember that Trump doesn't need 270 electoral votes, he just needs to make sure that Biden doesn't have 270 (which can be done is one state refuses to send any electors (perhaps they claim the election was fraudulent and just refuse). If neither candidate gets 270, the votes goes to the House of Representatives, but not a vote for each member (which would favor the democrats). Each State delegation gets one vote and it is up to the individual States to determine how to vote (so there are only 50 votes and in this situation the Republicans have the advantage. This not fa

I had a long rant about about this, but I think it missed what should be a clean point. The constitution only deals with a few, limited number of specific items. It was limited by the times and knowledge of the founders. Almost all of the cases argued before the Supreme Court are not directly mentioned in the constitution and require a vast amount of interpretation. The idea of "originalism", in that a Justice "should interpret its text as text, and understand it to have the meaning that it had at the time people ratified it. So that meaning doesn't change over time and it's not up to me to update it or infuse my own policy views into it." This is just ludicrous. The constitution doesn't mention anything about abortion, healthcare, marriage, political contributions, or hundreds of other issues. It is up to a Justice to make judgements that are consistent with that which is in the constitution using their own personal experiences and expertise to come to

 "Joe Biden, are you planning to increase the number of Supreme Court Justices if you win?" It is a simple question and Biden and Harris refuse to answer it. However, the response should be easy, which is  "We are focused on winning this election and saving this country. We currently have no plans to pack the court and honestly aren't considering it at this time. But we haven't really considered such an important decision and there are many, many more important things at this time." And if Biden wins and wants to pack the Supreme Court, he can do whatever we wants. The political fall out after the election would be much less than it is now.  The reason he should deny any thoughts of packing the Supreme Court is simple. There are some conservative and independent voters in which the Supreme Court is their highest priority. As of today, they have won and will have a solid majority on the court, so they are more willing to dump Trump because the courts are no l

Here is the best, realistic, outlook for the future of our economy. An effective vaccine is identified and distributed to "first-world" countries by spring 2021, with the rest of the world by the end by 2021. The US economy is currently in shambles, but is being held together up by a trillions of federal dollars artificially infused into the economy. Hiding the economic despair is that the status of local economies are often overshadowed by the success of huge businesses (as expressed in the Dow Jones). The unemployment rate is hovering around 10% and tens of thousands are small businesses have already closed and many are soon to follow. Assuming a vaccine works and is distributed (which is far from assured), we will still need another massive infusion of cash from the federal government to prevent a long-term recession, combined with wide-ranging local government shortfalls. This is setting up the next President for failure. If the government doesn't continue to blast mo

Lindsey Graham was revealed as a complete hypocritical liar (when he had specifically said he wouldn't vote on a Supreme Court Judge in an election year, than recently said he is going to do the exact opposite. Now, when asked if he will go on the record to say that he will support a peaceful transition on power after the election, Lindsey Graham (S.C.) told "Fox & Friends" that he "can assure" there will be a peaceful transition of power, adding that "if the Republicans lose we will accept that result". How does his word mean anything to anyone. The press needs to follow up with something like "Senator Graham, how to we know you are not lying now, like when you specifically lied about the Supreme Court nominating process. You know that you no longer have any credibility, you know that right?" Every time he ever says anything they press should remind him that he cannot be trusted. This is the only way for there to be accountability.  On a

It should come as no surprise that the Republican majority in the Senate will go against their own precedent and push through a Supreme Court nominee just months before the election. Anyone who is surprised should be ashamed of themselves. This is 100% consistent with their values of staying in power and pushing a conservative agenda at any cost. However, confirming a Justice before the election is just bad politics. If they were smart they would... Step 1: Announce that they are going to start the process of reviewing the Justice as soon as possible, but will not vote on that person until after the election. This will help motivate people to vote on this single issue. If you want a conservative country, you have to vote Republican. From this prospective, middle of the road Republicans and independent voters can ignore the disaster that is Donald Trump, by justifying their vote on Supreme Court issues only. The election won't be about the tens of millions who are unemployment, our

The computer revolution would have been impossible to predict 75 years ago. The idea that almost every person would be carrying around a super-computer, with access to almost all the information in existence, would have been inconceivable. As I guess what life will be like 50 or 100 years from now, I foresee that our understanding (due to advances in genetic manipulation combined with AI) of human biology will lead to our ability to completely manipulate who were are. Technology will finally eclipse anything our body can do on its own. This would start with fundamentally changing how we are physically, like our ability to heal, our strength, and aging. But it would quickly move towards our ability to manipulate our minds and body chemistry. Some people believe in a "soul" that exists beyond our bodies, but I don't. We are the products of our brain and how our brain controls the chemical inside us. You are not "happy" because of something you experience, you are

The economic disaster of COVID-19 is being completely masked by a strong DOW and trillions of dollars pumped into the economy by the federal government. The Dow Jones industrial average does not reflect the economy, but only the most successful and largest companies in the world. It does not reflect anything about the millions of small  and medium sized businesses around the country. In fact, during COVID, the largest businesses have thrived because they are getting the business lost by the closures of the smaller businesses. It is said to be the most significant transfer of wealth ever (from small businesses to large ones). But there isn't panic, even though 30 million Americans are unemployed. 30 million! Unemployment benefits (and extra money provided by the Federal Government) only last so long and a disaster is looming.  It is only a matter of time before the lack of wealth, among regular people, will trickle up to the larger companies, causing them to cut back, lay off worker

I believe that, four years ago, Hillary Clinton lost because she choose to embrace the left as opposed to moving to the center. She neglected independent voters because she was overconfident and wanted a presidential mandate to implement very progressive policies. The left did support her, and she got 94% of Democrats to vote for her, but she only got half the votes from Independents. And here is the thing, THERE ARE MORE INDEPENDENTS THAN DEMOCRATS (OR REPUBLICANS).  About 40% of the total population considers themselves Independent.  https://news.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx . Joe Biden may be a centrist Democrats, but he is not acting like it. The Republicans now refer to him as "Joe Biden and the radical socialists" and he is not saying otherwise.  All he needs to say is something like this... "Yes, there are some Democrats that have very liberal ideas, but I am a centrist and so are most Democrats. In the primaries, the Democrats overwhelming choose

 Who lost World War II? Population Germany          Japan      Russia           Jews Before War 69 71 188 9.5 After War 62 68 163 3.5           Died 7 3 25 6 % of Population 10% 4% 13% 63% Note: All population numbers are in millions. Other countries with high percentage of deaths (above 10%) are the eastern European Baltic states. The United States was at .32%. Almost all of the Western European Countries were less than 2%. 

Just a little thing that I noticed, but I've seen a pattern that foxnews.com does not add the option to comment on articles that do not fit into their overall political narrative. For example, today they wrote a somewhat objective article on the police shooting of Jacob Blake, but no place to comment. https://www.foxnews.com/us/police-involved-shooting-in-wisconsin-prompts-violent-protest-report Interestingly, another article on foxnews.com about the rioting/protests that followed the shooting did include a place for comments (there were over 10K comments in a short period of time). https://www.foxnews.com/us/kenosha-car-dealership-riot-protest  

As I previous wrote, you can be sure that if Donald Trump accuses someone else of something bad, it is probably something that he was already doing first. For years, he had been attacking the integrity of the voting system and widespread voter fraud. Yet, nobody realized that he is probably trying to execute his own plan to do whatever it takes (including voter fraud) to win re-election. This is 100% consistent with his past actions and personality. To further increase the odds that he will solicit massive voter fraud is that it is a win-win for him and Republicans. If this effort is not caught, than there could be thousands (maybe tens of thousands) of illegal voters for Trump. But if it is caught, that will validate Trump's case that there is massive voter fraud and that elections cannot be trusted. It would also further Republican's efforts to make it harder for people to vote. Furthermore, is there is fraud, Biden will sue and demand action, which at that point would lead t

Donald Trump's political tactics aren't new, in fact they are very generic for authoritarian leaders. Controlling the media (and calling opposing media fake or unpatriotic), having loyalty tests, challenging the integrity of the courts, saying the elections are fraudulent, having your own security force, calls for "law and order", saying how great your own country is, blaming minorities, etc. These are tried and true techniques, but the Democrats just can't seem to get ahead of him. I think it would be very effective if they predicted what he is going to say and to make him look ridiculous when he inevitable tries that strategy. And it needs to come directly from Biden. "Hello American. Over the next few months Donald Trump and I will embark on a series of debates and criticism of each other. I want you to know that whatever I say negative about him, he is going to instinctively say that he isn't doing that bad thing, that I am. If I say he is weak on

Almost every major hospital, government agency, pharmaceutical company, and country seem to be working independently to study COVID-19, find better treatments, and develop a vaccine. There is no centralized repository for data and I'm sure that multiple research projects are duplicating efforts. It's called teamwork and it works. The United States was in the unique position of garnering world-wide support to create an organized system to address research and collaboration; however, we no longer have the credibility, leadership, or political will to make this happen. Shame. Here is a related prediction. Some company will announce they have a vaccine. Of course, they will have not have tested the long-term effect of this vaccine since they haven't had to the time to do so. As soon as that happens, dozens of other companies or countries will say "No, we have something better and it will be ready in a month. And ours in better and safer." These researchers will have

What are the facts that we know (in terms of containing the virus).  - If we don't have a complete quarantine, the virus will continue to spread.  - Everyday that businesses are closed will hurt our economy. Two basic facts, both true, that need to be balanced in terms of managing our communities and country. Ignoring one completely, in favor of the other, with be a disaster. To me, it comes down to this...Everyone is going to get infected unless we have a vaccine (and there is no guarantee that will ever happen, although it is also possible we have one available in 6 months). The balance seems to be to open the economy as much as possible while managing infections so that hospitals are not overwhelmed, at-risk populations are protected, and new treatments can be developed. Making matters infinitely more complicated is that communities are not isolated, and a lax policy in one state will impact the others. Other thoughts - The stock market is down 20% from the all-time hig

I just don't understand. Here are the facts: 1) We can't keep the economy closed forever, and every week that it is closed hurts livelihoods and just staying afloat will cost taxpayers trillions. 2) There is no guarantee that COVID-19 is seasonal or that we will have a vaccine anytime soon. 3) The virus will continue to spread (unless we completely lock up society for several weeks, which doesn't seem likely.  Additionally, all international travel will have to be cancelled indefinitely). Given those facts, there has to be a plan to reopen society that doesn't just put us in the same situation over and over again. The solution must include: 1) Testing capacity beyond anything we have ever imagined. Billions of tests, testing people constantly, giving them immediate results (testing for both the virus and antibodies). 2) Develop long-term medical capacity. Assume there will never be a vaccine. 3) Protect those most vulnerable. This will be very challenging and no

There is so much to talk about, but I'll focus on the Paycheck Protection Program, which is the mechanism to allocate a large chuck of the $2 trillion legislated to help businesses. This money goes to small businesses (under 500 employees) to cover payroll costs for staff that they didn't lay off. Take your total payroll, multiple it by 2.5 and the government will basically just give you that money. The form is three pages long and utterly generic (taken from legislation that was written over the course of just a week). As far as I can tell, you don't have to show any proof (like payroll receipts) or that COVID-19 negatively affected your business. For example, my nonprofit organization has to cancel several fundraising events, but they don't actual ask for that information. Banks will have to administer this program and they are completely unprepared to deal with something of this magnitude. And the fraud is going to be overwhelming. My only hope is that technically th

Last week I wrote about a plan for COVID-19 , which would have completely isolated every family and restricted all travel (except for medically necessary issues or to get food from approved supermarkets). After a month, the entire population should be clear to the virus and things can start returning to normal. Don't forget that is that travel into the US would be highly restricted until a vaccine was developed. It might not be perfect, but it is a plan. What we have right now are a series of actions, designed to slow the spread of the virus. People are still traveling around the country, construction workers are still out there, and people are still spreading the virus (although at a much slower rate). These are actions, but not a plan? How long will we stay like this? What metrics are we using to measure change and what actions would be taken if we meet or don't meet expectations.  Are we waiting for zero new cases for a day (which was the metric used in Wuhan to let them k

If the United States had a "mom", she would order the whole country to quarantine itself, as much as possible, without compromising the general welfare of society.  For 2 weeks , all events are canceled, all restaurants closed, schools closed, but there would be special precautions for places that stay open. This would require an investments from the government of extraordinary means, similar to a war situation. Business would be required to help, at the full discretion of the Health Department. The army would be mobilized and stock markets closed. The government would shift resources as needed to make this happen.  Congress's main job would be to review and monitor this plan and its spending (and nothing else)  - Not everything would stop. Supermarkets would be open, but everyone would be required to put on new gloves when entering.  When available, people (who are tested for Covid daily) will prepare online orders and delivery it directly to houses. Amazon already has

Four years ago, Trump ran for President as a radical, pushing his message as far right as possible. All of the mainstream Republican politicians and newspapers said he would never make it, said they would never support him, and that he would get crushed in the general election. However, he steamrolled the nomination, beating out a terrible array of mainstream Republicans (Seriously, Ted Cruz was a top opponent). During the primaries, all of the candidates attacked each other, but once Trump was selected, they all supported their party's candidate. Now, Bernie Sanders is doing the exact same thing on the left. He is pushing radical progressive policies, some of which don't make any sense (the odds of passing medicare-for-all (and eliminating all private insurance), is just as likely as Mexico paying for the wall).  But Bernie's message (and personality) is connecting with democratic voters in a big way.  It looks like he will easily win the most delegates from the states, al

The traditionally political theory has been that a politician wants to maintain their base and get as many undecided/independent voters as possible, but perhaps this is missing a much larger potential block of voters. Roughly 43 percent of eligible voters didn't bother filling out a ballot in 2016, according to turnout estimates from the U.S. Elections Project. The overall number doesn't really matter given the electoral college (I understand why people don't bother to vote in states that lean heavily one way or the other). But even in swing states, like Florida, 25% of eligible voters don't show up to vote. If Hillary Clinton would have gotten just 5% of non-voters to vote for her, she would have won Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, and North Carolina (more than enough to win the election). So who doesn't vote? The largest segment are young people (18-29), followed by minorities .  These potential voters might not care about policy, but what type of

Although I didn't listen to the entire day  (because I have work), I did have a long drive to Long Island was able to hear a few hours of the questions that Senators asked during the impeachment. All of the ones I heard where Democrats asking the House Managers to clarify something and Republicans asking the White House reps questions.  This proved completely useless for both sides and they were just preaching to the choir.  Instead the Democrats should have been asking questions to the White House lawyers. For examples: 1) Would it be an impeachable offence if Donald Trump withheld military aide to Ukraine unless they announced an investigation into corruption by Mitt Romney and his children. 2) Would it be an impeachable offence if Donald Trump withheld military aide to Ukraine, Israel,  Pakistan, and Iraq unless they announced an investigation into corruption by Susan Collins and his children. 3) Would it be an impeachable offence if Donald Trump withheld state aide to Ken

The Democrats are pushing for (and maybe resting their hopes) on John Bolton testifying against Trump.  Something is really wrong here. Bolton is a staunch Republican and would never defy his entire party (even if he hates Trump).  These seems like a terrible idea and possibly an intentional trap.

I just saw the "final" episode of Star Wars, the Rise of  Skywalker.  Anyway, about half way though I started envisioning the ending, but was sadly disappointed.  Here is how it should have gone. Penultimate Ending: During the big space battle at the end, I was sure that I was going to either Finn or Jannah hack into the communication systems of the bad guys and broadcast an inspiring message to all the storm troopers, basically reminding them that they were kidnapped as children and their families are out there; and this is the time to fight for your freedom. I thought Jannah's character was created for this sole purpose (which would also mean that the resistance wouldn't have to achieve the impossible task of destroying every ship). Final Ending (after random banter): Emperor Palpatine - "You are not a hero, you are not a jedi, you are nothing! Ray - "You forgot what else I'm not" Emperor Palpatine (confused look) Ray - "Alone"