Let us never forget: The election result was not even close

Amid all the frenzied tweeting by Trump and the 56 lawsuits brought by him and his acolytes to obfuscate the fact that he has lost, it is easy to overlook the fact that the final result is not even close. All 50 states have now certified their election results and the Electoral College has formally cast its votes to give Biden the expected 306-232 a margin of victory. In addition Biden easily won the popular vote by over seven million with a margin of 51.3-46.9%. In short, by any measure Trump lost badly and all the protestations by him and his supporters cannot hide that fact. The only thing he can boast about is that he got more votes than any other loser before him. What he has done by fighting it like this is to die a death of a thousand cuts, with a string of daily defeats in different venues.
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‘The big one’ goes down in glorious flames

It is hard to identify which of the around 50 failed lawsuits filed to try and overturn the US presidential elections is the worst. But the one that most reveals the utterly cynical depths to which the Republican Party has sunk is the lawsuit that the Texas attorney general filed with the US Supreme Court that was joined by 18 other Republican state attorneys general and 127 members of the Houser of Representatives. Trump touted it as ‘the big one’, as if all the others were practice runs and that this would succeed where all the others had failed.


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And the legal circus goes on …

I thought that the days just dragged before the election but expected that once Trump lost, the elation over the fact that we would soon be spared the sight and sound of him would make the days just zip by. But the days seem to be dragging by even more slowly as Trump stays in the news by continuing to claim that he actually won and was cheated and mounting ridiculous lawsuits. I can’t believe we still have to go through another 41 days of this.

Seth Meyers takes a closer look at the ongoing futility of the legal challenges brought by Trump and his allies.

Before the pandemic, when his show was televised in the studio, Meyers always appeared in suit and tie. When he was broadcasting from home, he switched to casual. Now he has gone back to the studio but is still dressed casually. Is this going to be one of the permanent changes due to the pandemic, that since we’ve seen people in their homes, that relaxed atmosphere is going to be continued?

Trump is learning what it means to be a lame duck president

Trump is learning what it feels like to be suddenly viewed as a paper tiger. Before the election, almost all Republicans would snap to attention when he said anything and would not dream of criticizing him even when he said and did the most outrageous things. But ever since it became clear that he lost and is on his way out, more and more Republicans, especially at the state and local levels, are feeling freer to defy him, especially when it comes to his demand that they overturn the results of the election.
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What the hell?

Rebekah Jones is a data scientist in the state of Florida who was fired after becoming embroiled in a controversy with the Republican governor of the state Ron DeSantis about how the state reports its covid-19 data. Just another bureaucratic fight, right? But look at how an armed police team raided her home with guns drawn and treat her family, including her young children, like they are violent criminals.

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Faithless electors: Another Trump Hail Mary?

This election has made many of us aware of the minutiae of US election processes and the series of dates that lead up to the results of the presidential election becoming official. One major date is December 14th which is when the people who were elected on November 3rd to serve as Electoral College voters meet in their respective states to cast their votes for president and vice-president. That is what is meant by the Electoral College meeting. But while much attention has focused on that date, today saw the so-called ‘safe harbor’ deadline when each state has to certify its election results, resolve any controversies about who the electors are, and submit their names, thus ending any unresolved issues. Enough states have done so for Biden to get over 270 electoral college votes and those electors are thus fixed, making the December 14th vote mostly a formality.
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The Wisconsin Supreme Court’s incredulity over the Trump lawsuit

In a 5-3 vote, the Wisconsin Supreme Court yesterday threw out yet another Trump legal challenge to the election. Such actions by courts around the country have become so routine as to be hardly worth noting, though if one is counting, there have been 46 such losses by Trump and his allies.

What I want to highlight is the incredulous tone of the majority opinion issued by justice Brian Hagedorn of both the merits of the challenge and the asked for remedy.

The Wisconsin Voters Alliance and a group of Wisconsin voters bring a petition for an original action raising a variety of questions about the operation of the November 3, 2020 presidential election. Some of these legal issues may, under other circumstances, be subject to further judicial consideration. But the real stunner here is the sought-after remedy. We are invited to invalidate the entire presidential election in Wisconsin by declaring it “null”—yes, the whole thing. And there’s more. We should, we are told, enjoin the Wisconsin Elections Commission from certifying the election so that Wisconsin’s presidential electors can be chosen by the legislature instead, and then compel the Governor to certify those electors. At least no one can accuse the petitioners of timidity.

Such a move would appear to be unprecedented in American history. One might expect that this solemn request would be paired with evidence of serious errors tied to a substantial and demonstrated set of illegal votes. Instead, the evidentiary support rests almost entirely on the unsworn expert report of a former campaign employee that offers statistical estimates based on call center samples and social media research.

This petition falls far short of the kind of compelling evidence and legal support we would undoubtedly need to countenance the court-ordered disenfranchisement of every Wisconsin voter. The petition does not even justify the exercise of our original jurisdiction.
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Now you have to leave your horse at home when you fly

Service dogs aid many people, not just those with sight deficiencies, and as such are allowed into many areas that do not allow animals. But recently there has been an increase in the numbers of people who say they need the presence of emotional support animals that are not service dogs to overcome their anxieties, such as when they fly. This has resulted in airlines being faced with having to make ad hoc decisions as to whether to allow them or not.

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Is Barr also bailing on Trump?

In a surprise move, attorney general Bill Barr has said an interview with the Associated Press that the department of justice has found no evidence of widespread fraud in the last election, at least not enough to overturn the results.

His comments are seen as a big blow to Mr Trump, who has not accepted defeat.
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“There’s been one assertion that would be systemic fraud and that would be the claim that machines were programmed essentially to skew the election results,” Mr Barr, who is seen as a top Trump ally, told AP News on Tuesday, referring to the assertion that ballot machines were hacked to give more votes to Mr Biden.
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Mr Barr said that the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Homeland Security have investigated that claim, “and so far, we haven’t seen anything to substantiate that”.
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Reacting to his comments, Trump campaign lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis said in a joint statement: “With the greatest respect to the Attorney General, his opinion appears to be without any knowledge or investigation of the substantial irregularities and evidence of systemic fraud.”

The reason that this is a surprise is not because what he is saying is untrue but that he said it at all, since it goes completely counter to what Trump has been saying. Barr has up to now seemed to have seen himself as more of Trump’s personal lawyer rather than the nation’s top law enforcement official, often going to great lengths to use the department to support some of Trump’s most extreme claims. He could have just kept quiet on the election fraud issue and need not have weighed in on this matter publicly.

So why did he, since he had to know that this would anger Trump who sees anyone who disagrees with him as disloyal? After all, Trump fired Christopher Krebs for saying that this election was the most secure ever. As Democratic senate leader Chuck Schumer wryly noted after Barr’s statement, “I guess he’s the next one to be fired.” Maybe Barr is hoping for that to happen, because like so many people who have been deeply tainted by their proximity to Trump, he is trying at the last minute to salvage something of his tattered reputation.

The walls keep closing in on Trump

Yesterday, Emily Murphy, the administrator of the General Services Administration who has to write a letter to authorize the president-elect’s transition team access to resources to co-ordinate and work with the existing people in government to ensure a smooth transition, finally issued the letter. It appears that she had the power to do this without getting prior approval from Trump and her not doing so for three weeks after the election was over when it was clear that Joe Biden had won had resulted in much criticism. She finally issued a letter that was somewhat whiny and self-serving, saying that she had decided on her own to issue the letter and that she had not been pressured by Trump to not do so before nor to do so now.
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