It’s so stupid. Mishkin is standing by the Arizona call, by the way, and they’ve said if Pennsylvania tips over to Biden tonight they’ll call the election for Biden.
Here’s a link to the November 5 Guardian coronavirus world liveblog.
Their recent summary:
The UK death toll from coronavirus rose by 378, taking the tally of people who died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 to 48,120, government data showed. As of 9am GMT on Thursday, there had been a further 24,141 lab-confirmed cases in the UK, taking the cumulative total of confirmed infections to 1,123,197.
Colombia’s lower house abruptly ended its session on and asked lawmakers to quarantine after a member tested positive for Covid-19. At least 150 lawmakers could potentially have been exposed, the chamber’s press office said. They have been told to avoid travel to their home regions and remain in Bogota while they wait 72 hours from potential exposure to have a test.
A dozen US states reported record one-day increases in Covid-19 cases, a day after the country set a record with nearly 105,000 new infections reported on Wednesday, according to a Reuters tally. The outbreak is spreading in every region of the country but is hitting the Midwest the hardest, based on new cases per capita. Illinois reported nearly 10,000 new cases and along with Texas is leading the nation in the most cases reported in the last seven days.Other Midwestern states with record increases in cases on Thursday were Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota and Ohio. Arkansas, Maine, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Utah and West Virginia also set records for rises in new infections.
Ireland is on track to get its second wave of Covid-19 infections under control by the end of November when the government hopes to ease some of the strictest restrictions in Europe, a senior public health official said. “The way case numbers are behaving would suggest that case numbers are declining rapidly and that we are on target for the sort of end position we want to be in at the end of the six weeks,” on 1 December, Philip Nolan, the chair of the Irish Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group, told a press briefing.
Russian lawmakers have introduced a bill to parliament that would give Vladimir Putin lifetime immunity from prosecution if and when he decides to leave office.
The draft bill would give a former president immunity from criminal prosecution for any offences committed during his lifetime. A supermajority of lawmakers would be required to revoke the protections. Currently, ex-presidents are protected for actions taken only while they were in office.
It is the second bill this week that provides special provisions for former presidents, prompting talk of whether Putin, 68, might be preparing for retirement.
On Saturday he sponsored legislation that would entitle a former president to a lifetime seat as a senator in Russia’s Federation Council, a position that also comes with immunity from prosecution.
The bills follow Russia’s adoption of constitutional amendments that “reset” Putin’s term limits, allowing him to potentially run twice more for president and remain in office until 2036, when he would be 84. He has ruled the country, mostly as president, since 2000.
Political analysts have differed on their interpretation of Putin’s plans. While he has cleared a path to rule for years, it is possible he simply did not want to be seen as a lame duck as he would have been forced out by term limits in 2024 – he was first elected president in 2000, then returned to the presidency in 2012. He has largely worked remotely since the outbreak of the pandemic, holding meetings from a windowless bunker and rarely appearing in public….
Ichthyicsays
uh, the link to the previous thread appears to be missing all the posts for the last week?
Ichthyicsays
…actually, it’s missing all the posts since oct 20.
In Georgia, Chatham County vote – 15,000 outstanding votes – will be released “imminently” according to Steve Kornacki (via local reporters). They had said earlier today that it wasn’t going to be out until tomorrow.
Didn’t watch, did President Trump gracefully concede?
52 of 53 Republican senators told President Trump he is an authoritarian with unlimited ability to barter away our country’s wealth & security for his personal gain, with no checks on his power: they are complicit in whatever he does to burn down the republic on his way out.
In 76 days many people in positions of influence who remained silent when they could have helped or were actively complicit in President Trump’s crimes against US will suddenly regain their moral footing: I will never forget what they have done to US.
“NEW: Trump & his aides want to move ahead w/firing a few top officials like Esper and Wray and signing a slew of executive orders to make Trump look as presidential as possible, as his campaign disputes ballots and Biden kicks up his transition team.”
Nerd @12, glad they cut away. MSNBC had Nicole Wallace watch it and then give us a summary afterward. She looked shocked. Trump said if the legitimate votes are counted, he won. He said Democrats are counting fraudulent votes.
Trump claimed that a conspiracy of the media, election officials in various states, Democrats and a few other supposed enemies of Trump supposedly all got together to steal the election from him.
He claimed that all ballots received after election day or counted after election day are fraudulent and shouldn’t be counted. He claimed that “as far as I know” the law says that all ballots have to received on election day.
He is wrong at every level. He is lying. He is going to get people killed.
Some coverage from Daniel Dale of the batshit bonkers speech Trump gave this evening:
[Trump is] desperate and flailing, yes, but these lies do incalculable damage. [Daniel Dale quotes Adrian Morrow saying, “It bears repeating that when Donald Trump says things like this, a great many Americans believe him. Nearly every one of his voters that I’ve spoken with over the last couple of months are convinced that Democrats are perpetrating some sort of mass election fraud”]
“As you know, I’ve claimed certain states,” Trump says, though his claims are entirely irrelevant.
Trump lies, “We can’t have an election stolen like this.”
What is there to say? This is just horrific.
Ballots are not being “cast” after election day. They are being counted after election day. As they always are.
I’ve read or watched all of Trump’s speeches since 2016. This is the most dishonest speech he has ever given.
Trump baselessly suggests election corruption in Democratic cities.
Trump lies that unnamed people are trying to “steal” and “rig” the election.
Trump lies that he “won the state” of Michigan and “did likewise” in Wisconsin.
This is just an absolutely appalling and anti-democratic series of lies.
Trump falsely claims elections apparatuses in all of the remaining close states are run by Democrats. Georgia is one of them, and the governor + secretary of state are Republicans. (Regardless, Democrats in other states aren’t doing anything wrong. And counties count the votes.)
Trump lies that he “won” Georgia by a lot on election night.
The votes have not been fully counted.
“It’s amazing how those mail-in ballots are so one-sided,” Trump says after relentlessly trashing mail-in ballots and thus getting his supporters to not want to use them.
Trump lies that his opponents wait to see how many votes they need and then just “find” that number.
This is all anti-democratic trash.
Trump lies that mail-in voting is corrupt.
There is no basis for Trump’s suggestion there’s something nefarious or “miraculous” about him losing his lead in various states.
The votes are being counted, the end.
There is no basis for Trump’s regular claims that polls were deliberately inaccurate “suppression polls” designed to deflate his supporters. The wrong polls are just wrong.
Trump is boasting about having “kept the Senate,” which is not clear now that we are headed to two Georgia runoffs.
Trump begins by lying that “if you count the legal votes, I easily win.” Absolute garbage.
Yikes! Trump has shocked me before, but this is just unfuckingbelievable.
Coverage of Trump’s speech from Aaron Rupar, and from some readers of Rupar’s thread:
A democratic emergency. The President is falsely challenging the results of an election he is very likely to lose and trying to overturn the outcome.
Trump opens his news conference by saying “if you count the legal vote, I easily win. If you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us.” This is a lie. There is no evidence of election fraud.
“It’s a corrupt system” — The President of the United States is trying to undermine faith in US elections
“The pollsters going it knowingly wrong” — Trump argues that the media conspired to take him down by releasing polls that inflated Biden’s popularity. Totally bonkers.
Alex Jones would blush at this stuff
Insane — after arguing that Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin were rigged against him because all the votes were counted, Trump calls for all the votes to be counted in Arizona. He’s blatantly trying to have it both ways.
“The officials overseeing the counting in Pennsylvania and other key states are all part of a corrupt Democratic machine” — Trump smears elections officials
“It’s going to end up, perhaps, at the highest court of the land” — Trump is really gonna try and steal this election. If he succeeds the US will no longer be a democracy.
“As you know, I’ve claimed certain states,” Trump says, as though calling dibs means he’s won. He then walks off without taking any questions.
Is it possible for this [Trump’s speech] to be horrifying but also hilarious?
From the Washington Post:
[…] Trailing Democratic nominee Joe Biden in the unresolved presidential contest, Trump is pulling out a playbook perfected by Russian President Vladimir Putin and other authoritarians. It relies on sowing doubt about the institutions of law and government, spreading misinformation or outright lies that serve a leader’s political ends and relying on a cadre of loyal supporters to believe what they are told […]
Trump’s attempts to brand legal election practices as fraud and to use the courts — one pillar in the nation’s democratic architecture — to intervene in the counting of votes — another pillar — are the latest examples of what has long been his malleable view of the democratic system. […]
I wonder if Trump’s batshit bonkers display tonight will affect the run-off races coming up in Georgia? A plus for Jon Ossoff, the Democratic senate candidate?
In a last-minute press conference Thursday evening, President Trump directed his full ire at the last bonds holding American democracy together: the integrity of the vote.
Sowing doubt about the fairness of the election for his political benefit from the presidential pulpit, President Trump said, “if you count the legal votes, I easily win.”
He added, almost predictably: “If you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us.”
The President’s affect at the presser was mostly listless, projecting a lack of energy and apparent exhaustion with the situation. But his claims are incredibly corrosive to the core of American democracy: that both parties to an election respect the process and its results, allowing a shared sense of reality and legitimacy regardless of who wins and who loses.
Trump has spent the past few days stomping that concept into the ground, holing up in the White House to deride the election as “illegitimate” through surrogates, twitter, and, Thursday evening, a press conference, at which he appeared for the first time in more than 24 hours.
Specifically, President Trump has been trying to argue that votes from Democratic-majority areas are fraudulent, and that the slow counting of mail-in ballots represents some kind of a conspiracy.
Though there is no evidence to support any of these claims, and many news networks cut away while he was speaking, millions will believe the President, and will spend years thinking that the 2020 election was somehow stolen. Trump, himself, is the first President to use the position of his office to cast doubt on the very process that delivered him there, creating a deep fissure in the American body politic.
“I challenge Joe and every Democrat to clarify that they only want legal votes, because they talk about votes and I think they should use the word legal, legal votes,” Trump said.
President Trump is playing on years of fear-mongering by the GOP around the myth of widespread voter fraud, but is taking it both to a new level and, arguably, its logical conclusion by stating that the entire system is corrupt and irredeemable.
The President singled out “mail-in” voting in particular as being the source of much of the delays and uncertainty around the tally. Of course, Trump has done more than anyone to sow doubt in the process.
He’s also been abetted in that by Republican state legislators who refused to enact minor reforms that would have sped up the counting process, giving Trump these critical extra days to take a sledgehammer to public confidence in the election.
Trump also cast completed vote tallies in many states showing a Biden victory as the Democrat simply “claiming certain states” — not an objective fact stemming from the decision of millions of voters.
He added that he had won both Michigan and Wisconsin — two states that have finished counting and definitively gone for Joe Biden.
The only body that could decide the process now, Trump added, would be the Supreme Court.
“We can both claim the states but, ultimately, I have a feeling judges are going to have to play a role,” Trump said.
For Trump, anything short of a victory is theft.
“We can’t have an election stolen like this,” the President said, as hundreds of thousands of votes from Democratic areas remain outstanding.
His remarks are likely to deepen the extreme polarization that led to his own election, creating a constituency of voters who believe that a potential Joe Biden administration is inherently illegitimate and lacks any sort of popular mandate.
It also comes as Trump’s son and others suggest that the President, should he lose, may run again in 2024.
Trump added, baselessly, that he had “won many critical states,” though the states that are critical for his re-election — Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, and Georgia — are all slipping out of his reach.
“It’s amazing how mail-in ballots are so one-sided,” Trump added.
His remarks — casting doubt on the integrity of the election and the processes that went into it — were long expected, and follow on years of similarly irresponsible behavior.
But in stranding millions of his own voters in an alternate reality in which the election was stolen, Trump has dropped a bomb in the country’s political system, leaving the U.S. with a constituency primed to disbelieve in the basic fabric of our democracy.
“There have been a lot of shenanigans,” Trump said, “and we can’t stand for that in our country.”
From comments posted by readers of the TPM article (see comment 23):
Full blown batshit crazy. I’d still love to 25th Amendment Fat Nixon before he’s bounced from the Oval Trailer.
———————–
Nancy needs to setup a zoom call among the House leadership (Ds & Rs) and get this ball rolling…
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It was a low energy, lie filled melt down. Pathetic!
————————–
McConnell need to tell him to shut up and resign or they will 25th him and then swear in Pence.
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I was astounded when he started this, and now amazed that he finished it.
He’s a FUCKING loonie.
——————————
God Damn him for putting the Nation through this.
—————————–
“We see him like an obese turtle on his back flailing in the hot sun, realizing his time is over…”—Anderson Cooper
————————
I expect something more epic by the end of the coming weekend. He is sort of proving he can’t steel himself and be cool period. He wanted immediate results and waiting is killing him.
In both GA and PA, Biden is holding his own in even the red counties, because the mail ballots are so favorable. In some, he’s even netting more votes out of the mail ballots. That’s very good.
Twitter tells me Steve Bannon’s War Room Pandemic account has been “permanently suspended” for violating its rules on glorification of violence.
So, as for YouTube, it removed the video and gave the account a “strike” meaning no video uploads for a week.
“We’ve removed this video for violating our policy against inciting violence. We will continue to be vigilant as we enforce our policies in the post-election period.” YouTube spokesperson Alex Joseph said in a statement to Axios.
—NV: up 11.5K. (90% of what’s left from Clark.)
—AZ: up 57K. Waiting for more in Maricopa. Soon.
—GA: down 3.5K. ≈19K mail left. Tightish, doable.
—PA: down 57K. [more than] 100K left in Philly & Allegheny alone
Some more GA votes came in (Biden got 87% of them.), and now Trump’s lead is under 2,500.
John Moralessays
The shitshow is that it’s even tight.
Over the last few weeks, I’ve deliberately been reading differing perspectives; takeaway: far far too many people in the USA aprove of Trump and Trumpism (or, more correctly, think they do). For whatever reason: he will repeal lawful abortion (an awful lot of people); he is genuine and strong and not a politician (!); he has made things better (somehow); he is making the USA stronger; he fights “the system” — all these are common claims.
(as with people who are religious, I cannot understand how they can hold those opinions, but there it is, nonetheless. They do.
I must conclude they’re genuine, remarkable and unpalatable as it may be)
—
One thing is for sure: no “blue wave”.
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 30
For whatever reason: he will repeal lawful abortion (an awful lot of people); he is genuine and strong and not a politician (!); he has made things better (somehow); he is making the USA stronger; he fights “the system” — all these are common claims.
So, essentially white, heterosexual, Christians afraid of everyone who isn’t white, heterosexual, and/or Christian.
Within seconds of President Donald Trump wrapping up a rambling statement in which he baselessly claimed that counting votes was actually election theft, he faced a barrage of condemnation from, well, just about everyone.
John Roberts, Fox News’ White House correspondent, pointed out that the President had simply not presented any evidence for his claims of widespread fraud.
“Perhaps I just haven’t heard about it,” Roberts allowed.
“We have not seen it, we have not seen the evidence yet” anchor Brett Baier agreed.
After Trump concluded the strongman spectacle without taking questions from reporters, CNN anchor Jake Tapper took aim at the President for continuing his efforts to delegitimize the election process. He called Trump’s presser “a sad night” for the country.
“What a sad night for the United States of America, to hear their president say that, to falsely accuse people of trying to steal the election, to try to attack democracy that way, with his feast of falsehoods,” Tapper said. “Lie after lie.” […]
The New York Post, part of the broader Rupert Murdoch media empire that is generally sympathetic to Trump, referred to Trump as “downcast” in a headline on his statement and pointed out that the votes Trump was so upset about were actually perfectly legal.
“The President railed against what he called ‘illegal votes,’ not acknowledging that the US election is still in progress as legal mail-in votes are being counted and that the 2020 presidential race was simply not able to be declared on Election Night due to the coronavirus,” the Post’s Ebony Bowden wrote.
On Twitter, Democrats were up in arms. Some cheered what they predicted to be Trump’s last episode, some gave grave warnings about the future the speech portended.
But in perhaps the clearest mark of how dire Trump’s prospects for reelection are, there was a small but resounding denunciation from conservatives.
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) said there was “no defense” for Trump’s comments […]
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), a sometimes Trump critic, called the President’s antics “insane.” […]
Former Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) called on his reticent peers to denounce the speech. “No Republican should be okay with the President’s statements just now. Unacceptable. Period.”
[…] And “a new Republican to the flock said he was “ashamed” of the President’s behavior. “As a Republican who just won in a Blue district, I am embarrassed and ashamed by what I just heard from POTUS.” […]
I assume you saw the President’s comments. It’s just a disgrace. An absolute disgrace. You know that. It’s not surprising. […] what we saw looked to me like a televised psychological collapse. We know that weakness, losing, humiliation are like searing agony for him, his own personal kryptonite. And now he is there with it, alone. This will get brutal and ugly and stupid. But it’s out of his control. He’s being abandoned by the key political and institutional locuses of power. It’s ugly. It will get uglier. But it’s ending.
“Tonight’s lying on Fox News is out of control. Hannity, Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham & Pam Bondi have all repeated Trump’s lie that Philadelphia is blocking his poll watchers from observing the ballot counting. Bondi herself has been watching the ballot count. I watched her walk in.”
KGsays
Biden has taken the lead in Georgia – by 917 votes. Note that there are still military and overseas votes to count, as well as remaining domestic mail-ins (which are likely to favour him), so this doesn’t necessarily mean he will win Georgia.
I don’t think that’s quite accurate. It’s not that there wasn’t a blue wave. It’s that it crashed right into a red wave. More people have voted for Trump this time than voted for Hillary last time*. He’s actually become more popular. In any other year, this kind of turnout for for an incumbent would have been an automatic re-election.
65.8m for Hillary in 2016 vs. 69.6m for Trump so far. Latest numbers, quickly googled.
At this point Biden and the Democrats are on track to:
– Win the Electoral College 306-232
– Win the popular vote by 4-5 points
– Win Georgia for the first time since 1992
– Win Arizona for the first time since 1996
– Have a shot at control of both House/Senate
The U.S. Office of Special Counsel has opened an investigation into allegations that the Trump campaign’s use of the White House as an Election Day command center violated federal law, Democratic Representative Bill Pascrell said on Thursday.
In a statement, Pascrell said the federal watchdog responded on Thursday to his call for a probe, telling him a special unit “has opened an investigation into these allegations to determine if the Hatch Act was violated.”
President Donald Trump monitored election returns in the living room of the White House residence on Tuesday, later addressing some 200 supporters gathered in the East Room.
Pascrell had asked the special counsel, Henry Kerner, to investigate reports suggesting that Trump used space in the adjacent Eisenhower Executive Office Building – on the grounds of the White House – as a campaign “war room.”
The New Jersey lawmaker said Trump was also expected to be briefed in the White House residence and the Oval Office throughout the day by campaign officials, which he said put executive branch officials at risk of violating federal law.
The Hatch Act of 1939 limits the political activities of federal employees, except the president and vice president.
…
Pascrell said the Special Counsel’s office told him it “was not consulted (by the Trump campaign or White House) on the decision to use space inside the Eisenhower Executive Office Building as a campaign ‘war room.’”
The agency launched an investigation last month of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s speech to the Republican National Convention in August, and last year recommended the firing of then-senior Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway for repeated violations.
Kerner is a Trump appointee who previously worked for Republican lawmakers in Congress. His office is an independent agency that enforces the Hatch Act. It is not connected to the office of former U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
Saadsays
LykeX, #38
He’s [Trump] actually become more popular.
I was shocked by this at first but it makes perfect sense. Over the last four years, he gave them more of what they loved about him in 2016. So why wouldn’t he be more loved?
Useful thread – “ALRIGHT Y’ALL. ELECTION FRAUD DEBUNKING MEGA THREAD. I’m following claims of fraud and looking into them. I think I’ve solved most now. Nothing is holding up under any scrutiny so far so I’m making a thread to track in one place. Please RT!…”
“@VaughnHillyard says MSNBC has moved their crew away from the Maricopa County Election Center for their safety and that reporters who are still on site are wearing ballistic vests. Alex Jones is there riling up armed Trump supporters. This is so dangerous.”
Chris Hayes: “At some point we need to talk about consistent and illegal abuse of the apparatus of the entire federal government to aid Trump’s campaign.”
“More people have voted for Trump this time than voted for Hillary last time.”
Ok, in absolute numbers. However overall voter turnout is way up as well. Sort me out.
I’m sure the base is more dug in, though.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trollssays
As an aside, I’m sure the Redhead’s ghost is pleased that a woman will be a heartbeat way from being POTUS. She was sorely disappointed when Hillary lost.
@Saad #41
Sadly, it does make sense. I was just holding out hope that maybe a few of his supporters weren’t horrible people, but just misinformed or short-sighted. That once they saw him in action, they’d think better of it.
Well, maybe a few of them did, but apparently an even bigger number liked what they saw so much, they got out to vote, when they otherwise wouldn’t have. Trump has captured a bigger number of fence-sitters than the number of votes he has lost on his corruption, racism, lies, and general incompetence. By several million.
Somebody is going to step up to capture that voter base. Somebody more competent than Trump. It’s sad to say, after four years of mayhem, but the fight has only just started.
Pardon me for ranting. I’m honestly quite worried where this is headed. Biden winning is good, but this wasn’t the sweep that was needed.
stroppysays
@ 54
Yeah, it’s been pointed out that this isn’t a repudiation of Trumpism, and that the lesson Republicans will have learned from this is that it works.
stroppysays
I will say that I don’t know if it’s fence sitters going over so much as activation of normally passive fellow travelers.
Voter turnout for Biden is up over Clinton as well. The loss of seats in the house is very disturbing though.
Nate Cohn is saying the networks usually don’t call until the recount threshold has been surpassed (.5% in PA).
KGsays
LykeX@54,
The fight is always just beginning! :-p At least, that’s been the case ever since 1968 (the year I began – at least emotionally – engaged in politics). But the next battle, in the USA, is to prevent Trump and his henchpersons stealing the election.
Biden winning is good, but this wasn’t the sweep that was needed.
Well that would have been good on balance, but would probably have entrenched the centrists in the Democratic Party. They and the left have already begun blaming each other for the failures in Congress and the state legislatures, but I think this will now be a more even fight than if Biden had won a sweeping victory. At the same time, we can expect a massive falling-out within the Republicans, between unregenerate Trumpkins, and those eager to pretend they hardly new him – wasn’t he just someone who served the coffee?
They all talk about it but no one ever seems to go.”
KGsays
I would be astonished if it doesn’t turn out that Biden’s victory is down to the votes of women, with a majority of men still supporting Trump. Expect the fascists’ calls for women to be disenfranchised to grow in volume.
lumipunasays
Re 54
At this point, I’m honestly wondering whether the popularity of fascism is at all affected by whether the fascist candidate is a traditional strongman vs. some weird mess of amateurish incompetence, blatant corruption, personal immaturity and tired senior appearance. It seems like obviously it should, but who the hell knows any more.
stroppysays
@ 62
Good point. At the core maybe it comes down to appeals to petty resentments, however they are framed.
lumipunasays
In any case, unless traditional strongmen actually make fascism less popular, America’s long term prospects seem bleak. At least Republicans would be hard pressed to find another candidate as weird as Trump, if that were the secret to success.
Saadsays
LykeX, #58
Agreed. I’m also worried that he’ll be appointing conservatives to various posts.
Louisiana voters decided to amend the state’s constitution by adding language that expressly states the document offers no protections for a right to abortion or the funding of abortion, and Colorado voters rejected a ban on abortion beginning at 22 weeks of pregnancy, according to CNN projections.
Louisiana voters approved Proposed Amendment No. 1 by 62% to 38%, according to CNN projections. Should Roe be overturned, the amendment would prevent the state courts from declaring abortion restrictions unconstitutional at the state level.
The state isn’t the first to amend its constitution this way — Alabama and West Virginia did so in 2018, as did Tennessee in 2014.
In Colorado, voters rejected Proposition 115 by a 59% to 41% vote, according to CNN projections. It would have banned abortion beginning at 22 weeks of pregnancy. The measure included exceptions to save the life of the pregnant woman but not for instances of rape or incest. Doctors who continue to perform abortions at 22 weeks would have faced a fine up to $5,000.
The results maintain Colorado as one of seven states that do not bar some abortions past a specific point in pregnancy…
Data from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s office shows that women from more than 30 states have traveled to Colorado to access abortions.
Another fairly large batch of votes has come in from Maricopa County (AZ). Trump got 51%, which isn’t on par with what he would need to overtake Biden’s lead (they were saying 59%, but now that he’s getting under the target it’ll be higher for future batches). It does seem in keeping with the Fox/AP pre-election analysis that led them to predict Trump would get around 55% of the remaining votes, and thus to their early call. We’ll see. McSally was already running behind Trump, so this put her out of the running. NBC has now called the AZ Senate race for Mark Kelly.
A large batch has come in in Clark County, Nevada, which Biden won 68% of, has upped his lead there from around 11,000 to around 30,000.
SC @35, Hannity is claiming that, “they violated the law, and nobody can contest that.” He is referring to the election process in Pennsylvania. Almost everyone except Trump and Hannity contests that baseless claim.
Hannity is actively making his Fox News audience more stupid.
“Quite an accomplishment for Martha McSally – singlehandedly responsible for erasing Arizona Republicans from the US Senate in the space of two years. It’s the first time in 68 years the GOP hasn’t held at least one of those seats.”
Plenty of leading Republican lawmakers have offered Trump support this week; only one has said Trump actually won the election.
On Election Night, Donald Trump told the nation, in reference to the 2020 presidential election, “As far as I am concerned, we already have won it.” That was ridiculous, but the Republican incumbent didn’t care.
Yesterday at the White House, the incumbent president listed a series of states he claimed to have “won by a lot,” despite the fact that he appears to be on track to lose some of them. He didn’t care about that, either.
But what struck me as amazing was House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) willingness to go along with Trump’s attack.
“President Trump won this election,” McCarthy falsely claimed to Fox News host Laura Ingraham on Thursday night. He followed up his on-air comments with a tweet proclaiming: “Republicans will not be silenced. We demand transparency. We demand accuracy. And we demand that the legal votes be protected.”
To be sure, there’s been no shortage of congressional Republicans who’ve been wildly irresponsible over the last couple of days. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), for example, seemed reluctant to rule out the possibility of Pennsylvania’s legislature ignoring voters’ will and choosing a slate of pro-Trump electors. Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) similarly voiced some support for the president’s procedural demands during the vote tallies.
But it was the top House Republican — the man who would be in line to become Speaker of the House in the event of a GOP takeover of the chamber — who told a national television audience, “President Trump won this election,” reality be damned.
[…] McCarthy is the leader of roughly 200 House Republicans, each of whom just received a signal to question the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election and its outcome. […]
“Back To Normal: McConnell Invokes Bogus Austerity Cudgel For Smaller Stimulus,” from text posted by Josh Kovensky of TPM.
For Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), it’s 2015 all over again.
In a press conference in Frankfort, Kentucky, McConnell said that he believed a second COVID stimulus package was still needed, but should be very, very tiny in scope.
“Something smaller, rather than throwing another $3 trillion at this issue, is more appropriate,” McConnell told reporters in Kentucky on Nov. 6.
It’s a familiar framing: austerity. And it’s one that, for some reasons, Republicans only seem to care about when Democrats are in the White House, or in danger of winning it.
I could see this coming. As soon as McConnell started making noises about passing a stimulus bill during the lame duck session, I thought that he was probably looking for a way to screw the incoming Democratic administration while simultaneously pretending that it is Republicans who help ordinary people.
SC @71, so glad to see Martha McSally voted out. She continued to be a lickspittle for Trump even after he publicly humiliated here. Even more happy to see Mark Kelly elected. He will be a great addition for the Democrats in the Senate.
The Trump campaign has been urgently seeking volunteers to call Pennsylvania Republicans who didn’t return their absentee ballots to mail them in. It’s unlikely to work, but it is election fraud. The deadline for ballots to be mailed in Pennsylvania was Tuesday, Nov. 3. The campaign sent out an email from its Wisconsin staff, saying: “Trump Victory urgently needs volunteers to make phone calls to Pennsylvania Trump supporters to return their absentee ballots.
Warning for irony meter breakage. The Trump campaign is urging Republican voters to commit fraud using absentee ballots.
“These phone calls will help President Trump win the election!” it concluded. The problem is, it can’t unless there’s a really big conspiracy to get those ballots injected into the system, one that would involve postal workers or the election observers inside canvassing rooms. They would need the postal workers to illegally manufacture fraudulent postmarks on the ballots. Or they would need someone in the rooms where they count the ballots who could smuggle them in and slip them into the process. Nevertheless, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that “dozens” of staff of Wisconsin’s Republican Party were involved in the effort to recruit volunteers.
Here’s a key confirmation from ABC News: Not only are the mail-in ballots that arrive after Tuesday being sequestered in Pennsylvania, they have not yet been counted—they’re not part of the current totals. Biden is winning PA without those late-arriving ballots Trump has been screaming about.
“This seems deeply stupid as it seems to be a solicitation to commit voter fraud,” Richard Hasen, elections law specialist at the University of California, Irvine Law School, told the paper. “It’s hard to believe this is real.” It’s more likely an effort to try to spoil all the mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania by injecting these fraudulent ones into the mix so that the Trump campaign could have “real” evidence that there’s fraud to boost their chances of getting the Supreme Court to toss out the Pennsylvania results. Benjamin Geffen, an attorney with the Public Interest Law Center in Philadelphia, pointed this out: “If you’re knowingly encouraging people to mail in ballots after the deadline, you’re encouraging cheating,” Geffen said. “But maybe it’s just to muddy the waters.” He added: “I don’t know if it’s what you could call first degree misconduct, (trying to actually get invalid votes counted) or just second degree misconduct, trying to create perception the process is riddled with fraud.”
Because Trump, his campaign, and the Supreme Court conservatives raised so much hell about the deadline for mail-in ballots being extended through end of the day Friday, Pennsylvania officials ordered counties to make sure those late-arriving ballots were segregated from Election Day ballots, to ensure they were walled off from Trumpian mischief. So you can bet these ballots are getting an awful lot of scrutiny, with their postmarks being closely checked and double-checked.
Meanwhile, a sweep of postal facilities on Thursday found 1,000 ballots in Philadelphia facilities and 300 in Pittsburgh. Since the Wisconsin Republican voter fraud initiative started Thursday, these are probably not those ballots.
This is a deeply stupid effort, so much so that you have to wonder if Sen. Ron “Genius” Johnson in Wisconsin didn’t cook it up. It’s exposing potentially dozens of people to prosecution for election fraud. And it’s proving once again that systemic voter fraud is entirely manufactured by Republicans, to prove that voter fraud is a real thing.
As White House aides cower in the corner drawing straws over who will inform the bossman he’s lost, the Biden campaign isn’t losing any sleep over Donald Trump’s intention to refuse to concede the election.
“As we said on July 19th, the American people will decide this election,” said Andrew Bates, Biden’s director of Rapid Response, in a statement. “And the United States government is perfectly capable of escorting trespassers out of the White House.”
The Biden campaign was responding to multiple reports that Trump has no intention of conceding the election even when it becomes clear he has no path to victory.
“Trump-world is becoming concerned that someone is going to have to reckon with him that this race is coming to an end — but who?” tweeted CNN’s Kaitlan Collins. Collins further reports that Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and other aides “have not attempted to bring Trump to terms of what’s happening and have instead fed his baseless claim that the election is being stolen from him.”
Newsflash: Everyone still working at the White House is a spineless wonder. Hey, here’s an idea: How about just letting the whizzes at Fox News handle it? They seem up to the task.
LOL
[…] “Nobody I have spoken to on the campaign or in the White House believes that Trump would ever publicly acknowledge a loss, even long after the election is certified,” tweeted Axios reporter Jonathan Swan.
Yep. Trumper will go to his grave insisting the election was stolen out from under him because Georgia and Pennsylvania weren’t called for him when he was up with 50% of the votes reported. Seriously, has the guy ever even watched returns come in? Because Trump’s unhinged tirade from the White House briefing room on Thursday displayed a level of ignorance that is, frankly, irreconcilable with the bare basics of how elections are called.
That said, Trump really did the Biden campaign a favor when he unleashed that attack on the fundamentals of our democracy just before a stretch of hours when Biden would blow by Trump in the Pennsylvania count and even edge ahead of him in Georgia. Team Biden no longer has any obligation to wait for a concession speech from Trump because one obviously isn’t coming. When the race is finally called for Biden, he can simply move ahead with his victory address to the country.
[…] The only way to handle a bully like Trump is to never give an inch—thus the “trespasser” designation. If Trump’s going to trash our democracy, then he may as well be treated like the garbage he’s spewing.
And just imagine Trump’s pique when he realizes the center of the media universe has shifted to Biden and his transition team just as soon as this race is called.
The giant, orange, tantrum-throwing toddler is going to fire everybody.
Talk is picking up that […] Trump could fire members of his Cabinet, including Defense Secretary Mark Esper, even as the presidential election goes uncalled.
[…] firing him would give Trump a chance to flex his executive powers as it appears increasingly likely he could lose to Democratic nominee Joe Biden. It would also raise questions about the military chain of command during a fraught time in the United States.
[…] A House Armed Services Committee aide said Friday the panel has not been “advised on any imminent personnel changes within Pentagon leadership.”
Since when has Trump informed the House Armed Services Committee before he takes action?
[…] chief Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said Esper “has no plans to resign, nor has he been asked to submit a letter of resignation.”
“He continues to serve the nation as the secretary of Defense at the pleasure of the president and is working on the irreversible implementation of the National Defense Strategy,” Hoffman said in Thursday’s statement. […]
Questions are also swirling as to whether FBI Director Christopher Wray and CIA Director Gina Haspel will be ousted as well […]
Trump and his allies have grown increasingly frustrated that officials like Wray will not meet the president’s calls for the launch of a formal investigation to examine the business dealings of his political opponent’s son, Hunter Biden, or his resistance to firing officials tied to the 2016 Russia probe that Trump has alleged have acted improperly.
[…] Esper and Trump’s relationship soured considerably over the summer after the Defense secretary publicly split with Trump over deploying active-duty troops to quell nationwide racial justice protests. Trump had repeatedly threatened to do so, prompting Esper to announce his opposition to the idea at a Pentagon news conference.
Esper’s move was said to have infuriated Trump to the point that the president had to be talked out of firing him then. […]
New: Fox News is instructing its talent not to call Joe Biden the “President-elect” when the network calls the race, according to two memos obtained by @brianstelter and me. The memos say Fox should “stay away” from using the description.
Rick Santorum on CNN literally saying “Democrats need to give Republicans, including Trump, time and space to work through their feelings about losing.”
On January 20, 2021, Joe Biden will be sworn in as the 46th president of the United States. But there’s going to be a whole lot of squealing from the losers between now and then. With exactly zero evidence of fraud, the president and his allies are blanketing the media with concocted allegations of impropriety. And as usual, Trump’s worthless children are leading the charge.
Demure Ivanka simply implies the existence of “illegal ballots,” tweeting “Every legally cast vote should be counted. Every illegally cast vote should not. This should not be controversial. This is not a partisan statement — free and fair elections are the foundation of our democracy.” And no, Princess will not be taking questions […]
Dumb Eric, who promised four years ago that he’d be running the business and staying out of politics, has been traveling to Pennsylvania with Rudy shouting about mythical ballots appearing from nowhere and threatening the GOP if it doesn’t get behind “our voters” to fight the will of the American people. “Where are Republicans!” he wailed. “Have some backbone. Fight against this fraud. Our voters will never forget you if your [sic] sheep!”
What. Ever.
[…] Yeah yeah, cry harder.
Over at the White House, the mood is souring. CNN reports the staff is engaged in a fierce rock-paper-scissors tournament to see who has to tell the old man it’s all over. (More or less.) Meanwhile Republican lawyers are headed to Pennsylvania to sue the state for … something. Look, they’ll figure it out when they get there. The main point is, look out Philly Dems because Briscoe Cain is on the way with a can of Texas whoopass. [See https://twitter.com/BriscoeCain/status/1324699315915411456 It is LOL worthy]
[…] Fact check: The Trump campaign’s only case before the Supreme Court involves a handful of late arriving ballots in Pennsylvania. And even if they win, it won’t undo a 75,000 vote margin for Biden in the state.
This is all just all noise. Or, as Biden campaign lawyer Bob Bauer put it, “All of this is intended to create a large cloud that, it is the hope of the Trump campaign, that nobody can see through. But it is not a very thick cloud. It’s not hard to see what they’re doing. We see through it. So will the courts, and so do election officials.”
Cloud or no cloud, it’s over. Lou Dobbs can call for a MAGA swarm on Philadelphia, and Lindsey Graham can beg the universe for faithless electors, and Ted Cruz can make baseless allegations of fraud, and none of it is going to unbake the cake we all shoved in the oven four days ago. Or a month ago, depending on when you sent in your ballot.
Who gives a flying fuck if he concedes, or accepts the results, or whines about it on the golf course for the rest of his miserable life? Not our problem.
This four year waking nightmare is coming to an end. FINALLY.
The Trump campaign sent out a fundraising appeal this morning to donors, ostensibly written by Vice President Mike Pence. It read in part, “Democrats have made it clear that they’d rather destroy our Nation than have four more years of our President’s incredible leadership.” No, really, that’s what it said.
KGsays
A question going on in newsrooms all over the country now: what do you call the president-elect when the old president won’t concede? – Lynna, OM@80
Ooo, that’s a tough one. How about “the president-elect”?
Peter Alexander’s comment reminds me (this shows my age) of the joke going round when Franco died:
He’s been very ill for some time. A special messenger dashes in to the room where his cabinet is meeting and gasps out the news of the expected death. Long silence, then one of those present says: “Yes… but who’s going to tell him?”
The battle for the Senate is not over! Republicans have won or lead in 50 Senate races, and Democrats have secured 48 seats.
But both of Georgia’s Senate seats are headed to Jan. 5 runoffs. If we win them both, that will create a 50-50 tie. And if Joe Biden wins the White House, as he’s on track to do, Kamala Harris will be able to break ties in our favor.
Georgia is hosting elections both in its regularly scheduled Senate race and in a special election for its other Senate seat due to a resignation last year. Donate now to help. Here are the details:
Regular election: Democrat Jon Ossoff will face off against Republican Sen. David Perdue.
Special election: Democrat Raphael Warnock will face off against Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler.
We don’t have much time, and Republicans know the stakes just as well as we do. They’ll pull out every ugly lie and dirty trick to make sure Mitch McConnell can block Joe Biden’s entire agenda. We have to fight like hell to give Biden a chance.
So let’s keep digging deep to help this fantastic pair of Daily Kos endorsees flip these seats and win the Senate!
[…] In a sign of the campaign’s confidence, Biden plans to deliver a primetime speech to the nation from Wilmington on Friday, according to aides. His running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, is also expected to give remarks.
“I know he knows he’s a winner,” said Bob Brady, chairman of the Philadelphia Democratic Party, who spoke to an upbeat Biden earlier in the day. “Philadelphia put him in the White House. Pennsylvania put him in the White House.”
“Biden has re-built a Wall…the Blue Wall … although it is fragile,” University of Florida political science professor, who tracks the nation’s early voting in real-time, wrote on Twitter after Pennsylvania’s race flipped.
Biden only needed six electoral college votes to secure the 270 needed to win. Pennsylvania is worth 20 electoral votes, and Georgia is worth 16. They are still too close to call.
With fewer than 1,600 votes separating the candidates, Georgia’s secretary of state announced Friday morning there would be a recount, something Democrats don’t expect in Pennsylvania because of Biden’s growing margin and the large pool of uncounted ballots.
In Nevada, which is worth six electoral votes, Biden has led for days and he saw his margins almost double Friday to more than 22,000. Tens of thousands of ballots remain to be counted, but nearly all come from heavily Democratic Clark County.
Nevada is the likeliest state to be called first in Biden’s favor. His campaign is waiting on independent media to call one of the races so he can claim victory without appearing premature, allies said. […]
For several reasons, Mark Kelly’s Senate victory in Arizona is likely to reverberate for a while.
Arizona earned a reputation as a reliably “red” state. Over the last 70 years, it’s backed the Republican presidential ticket 16 times in 17 election cycles, and over the same period, it’s always had at least one GOP senator.
It makes Mark Kelly’s success in the state’s U.S. Senate race all the more striking.
Democrat Mark Kelly has defeated Republican Sen. Martha McSally in Arizona, NBC News projected on Friday, giving Democrats a Senate pickup in the state. Kelly, a former NASA astronaut, declared himself the winner earlier in the week…. Kelly, 56, is the husband of former Rep. Gabby Giffords, who survived being shot in the head in 2011 at a constituent event. The couple founded the Giffords Foundation, which supports gun control laws around the country.
This was Kelly’s first bid for elected office. McSally, whom I do not believe has yet conceded, appears to have now lost two Senate campaigns in successive elections.
Of course, there’s an important larger context to the results. For example, there’s Arizona’s history to consider: the state now has two Democratic U.S. senators — Kyrsten Sinema was elected two years ago — for the first time since the early 1950s.
As some battleground states start to look more like Republican strongholds — see Florida, Ohio, and Iowa, for example — and Democrats start looking for “red” states that are starting to look “bluer,” it’s clear Arizona belongs on that list.
There’s also the regional history to consider: Democrats now hold all of the U.S. Senate seats in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico. According to The Atlantic’s Ron Brownstein, this is a first since 1941. Bronstein added that if Joe Biden ends up winning Nevada and Arizona — states where he’s currently ahead — in addition to his victories in Colorado and New Mexico, it’ll be the first time the Democratic ticket won these four states and won their eight U.S. Senate seats since 1936. […]
More at the link, including a discussion of the outstanding Senate races.
On Friday morning, Joe Biden is leading in Pennsylvania, and in Georgia, and in Nevada. There is no reason to think that any of those states will go back to Trump. That’s 295 electoral votes even without Arizona … and Biden is still likely to take Arizona. This isn’t going to be a narrow victory. It’s also not going to be a victory where a court challenge in a single state might reverse the outcome. Biden is going to win handily—while also piling up the largest vote total any candidate has ever received and scoring a greater popular vote edge than Hillary Clinton.
The only thing more certain than Biden’s victory at this point is that Donald Trump will continue to throw a tantrum, undermine democracy, and refuse to admit that he’s been soundly beaten. On Thursday evening, a thoroughly downbeat Trump appeared behind a White House podium to deliver an unbroken stream of lies, false claims, and plain old whining. It was a speech so completely laced with misinformation, so completely corrosive to the machinery of democracy, that every broadcast network cut away before Trump was done. Even NPR cut him off. On Friday morning, Trump’s team has issued a new statement complaining about “the false projection of Joe Biden as the winner” before either the AP or any network has actually projected Biden as a winner. The statement only confirms what we already knew: Donald Trump will not go quietly. But he will go. […]
On this occasion, Nancy Pelosi may have put it best. “Joe Biden will be inaugurated as president of the United States on Jan. 20,” said Pelosi said. “I don’t have any anticipation that [Trump] will act in a way that is, for the first time, presidential. And why would I care?” When it comes to any race, a loser doesn’t have to admit they lost to be a loser. They just have to lose. Trump already did that.
[…] Well, Trump may try that “going boneless” thing that toddlers do when they don’t want to get taken to bed. And that could present quite a challenge … but it will be overcome. […]
We believe the American people deserve to have full transparency into all vote counting and election certification, and that this is no longer about any single election. This is about the integrity of our entire election process. From the beginning we have said that all legal ballots must be counted and all illegal ballots should not be counted, yet we have met resistance to this basic principle by Democrats at every turn. We will pursue this process through every aspect of the law to guarantee that the American people have confidence in our government. I will never give up fighting for you and our nation.
You can tell that someone else wrote that for him.
From Wonkette: “Let’s Get Stacey Abrams Her Nobel Prize, Please.”
I was up late last night, watching the updated numbers come in from Clayton County, Georgia, a majority Black town 30 minutes south of Atlanta. It is the heart of the late John Lewis’s former congressional district, one soon-to-be former President Donald Trump once claimed was “crime-infested” and “falling apart,” so it was fitting that this county was the one that put Joe Biden over the top in Georgia […]
Yes, Georgia. No Democratic presidential candidate has won the state since Bill Clinton in 1992. I was a college freshman during that election. My friend Zach ran around the Tate Student Center at the University of Georgia, cheering and dancing, once Clinton was declared president-elect. We were excited for change, but we didn’t fear that democracy was at stake. We also didn’t think we’d have to fumigate the White House once George H.W. Bush left.
It’s a different, much darker time now, and not just because I’ve grown old and wear my trousers rolled. But I want us to reclaim our joy today and try not to think too much about President Klan Robe. Today is for the heroes.
[…]Stacey Abrams narrowly “lost” the 2018 Georgia governor’s race, one where her opponent was the secretary of state and literally in charge of who was able to vote. Brian Kemp’s voter suppression tactics were blatant and repulsive, but Abrams still came within 55,000 votes of defeating him.
She accepted the tainted election results, but she didn’t concede the battle. She launched the nonprofit Fair Fight, which according to Newsweek went on to register an estimated 800,000 new voters in the next two years.
[Fair Fight] also raised around $32 million by October 2020 to help increase registration. […]
Discussing these new voters with NPR on November 2, Abrams said: “Of those numbers, what we are excited about is that 45 percent of those new voters are under the age of 30. Forty-nine percent are people of color. And all 800,000 came on the rolls after November ’18.”
The early voting numbers in Georgia were through the roof and had almost matched the 2016 turnout before Election Day. It was predicted at least six million Georgians would vote in 2020. Black voters across the state, joined by more than a few Julia Sugarbakers in the Atlanta suburbs, came out in force to dump Trump.
This isn’t “fraud.” These are all legal ballots cast legally by American voters in a free and fair election. Republican officials have done everything they can to disenfranchise Black voters, but this election in particular has shown us our strength, the power we possess. Georgia was always more than Brian Kemp, Kelly Loeffler, and David Perdue. It’s the home of Martin Luther King Jr., John Lewis, and Stacey Abrams, who broke through the red wall like the Doctor in my favorite episode of television.
Even if Biden’s lead doesn’t hold or survive a recount, this was a remarkable achievement that gave us a shot at prying the Senate from Mitch McConnell’s cold, dead hands. Perdue fell below 50 percent and will face Jon Ossoff in a January runoff. Loeffler, who ran an overtly anti-Black campaign, will go head-to-head against Rev. Raphael Warnock. Flipping those seats feels like less of a longshot now.
[…] Philadelphia is known as the birthplace of freedom, but like most majority-Black cities, Trump considers it hostile territory. During his first deranged debate performance, he claimed that “bad things happen in Philadelphia.” He apparently meant voting. This is why he declared victory Tuesday night before votes from the state’s largest city were fully counted.
If only white people voted, Trump would’ve comfortably won reelection. But Black people in this country vote and we will continue to vote. Republicans who oppose true democracy won’t stop their dirty tricks, but heroes like Stacey Abrams will make sure every Gerry Gaines has their voice heard. Today, we are speaking loudly and uniformly, and it’s beautiful to see.
From the Washington Post: “The refrain from state officials is consistent: The Trump campaign’s fraud claims are unfounded.”
We should begin any consideration of […] Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was riddled with fraud with the context that Trump has been making similar claims without evidence for five years and, for months, has telegraphed his intention to claim that any loss in this year’s contest was a function of dishonesty. […]
The rationale for doing this is obvious. It’s becoming increasingly clear that Trump lost the election, by about the same electoral-vote margin he won four years ago but with a much greater loss of popular vote. If his goal is to stay in office at any cost, he has got to do something to undercut the results. So this is his play, as he said it would be.
His allies and enablers, predictably, are lining up to support him. Instead of demonstrating fraud, though, they’re simply alleging it and using those allegations as their case. […] If I say that you are a space alien, it’s not sufficient for me to demand that any skeptics bother you to answer questions about it. Also, Michigan has been called for Biden
Regardless, we have heard from officials in Nevada and elsewhere on the subject. Their response to questions about fraud is uniform: There’s no evidence it exists at any significant scale, if at all.
Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford said in an interview on Thursday that he rejected the idea that the election was riddled with fraud. “We need to trust the process and finish it out,” he said of the election. “Rest assured, again, that we have people here who know how to run fair, safe and secure elections, and voter fraud is a very minimal occurrence.”
As is the case in other states, there are observers from both parties in the room as votes are counted.
In Georgia, a spokesman for Secretary of State Ben Raffensperger similarly dismissed the idea that fraud was occurring. “These are 159 elections directors and employees who are here to do the job of protecting democracy,” he said. “When you go to talk to them, they think about that. They think about the votes of every person in this room and around the country. These people are not involved in voter fraud. These people are not involved in voter suppression. I’m telling you, they are doing their jobs every day. It is hard, and we are thankful to them for it, and we are going to work with them to make sure that every legal, lawful ballot is counted.”
Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs said something similar in an interview on CNBC. “There is absolutely no merit to any claims of widespread voter fraud in Arizona,” she said. “There is no evidence to back it up, and it is not something that we’ve experienced here.”
[…] Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel spoke to a local television station reinforcing the integrity of the vote in her state. “We feel very confident that the election was conducted appropriately and that it was fair and transparent and the results accurately display who really won the election here in the states of Michigan,” she said […]
“When accused felons are out on bond, they’re not supposed to speak out in support of beheading public officials — including the head of the FBI.”
Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s former chief strategist, apparently thought it’d be a good idea to endorse the decapitations of two prominent federal officials. That appears to have set a series of dominos in motion.
Twitter banned an account associated with Steve Bannon on Thursday and YouTube removed one of his videos after the former Trump adviser called for the beheadings of two federal officials. Bannon, in a video for his podcast recording, had said he wanted to behead FBI Director Christopher Wray and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious diseases expert.
Bannon specifically said he would “put the heads on pikes” as a “warning to federal bureaucrats.”
It wasn’t long before Twitter “permanently suspended” Bannon’s account for violating the social-media company’s policy against “the glorification of violence.” YouTube didn’t ban Bannon’s account, but it did remove the offensive video, and gave the account a “strike” — and three strikes would lead to the termination of the account.
And while all of this is notable in its own right, there’s a complicating factor: Bannon is currently only free as part of his pre-trial release, which comes with certain conditions.
As regular readers may recall, Bannon was indicted over the summer as part of an alleged border-wall scheme, in which prosecutors accused him and his associates of having “orchestrated a scheme to defraud hundreds of thousands of donors.” Soon after, Bannon pleaded not guilty and was released on a $5 million bond.
The trouble is, when accused felons are out on bond, they’re not supposed to speak out in support of beheading public officials — including, in this case, the head of the FBI.
It’s against this backdrop that CNBC reported today that Bannon’s criminal defense lawyers are withdrawing from the case.
“Mr. Bannon is in the process of retaining new counsel, and [the firm of] Quinn Emanuel intends to move to withdraw,” wrote his lead attorney, William Burck, in the filing in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, where Bannon is scheduled to go on trial next May.
It’s possible that this is a coincidence. It’s also possible that Bannon’s lawyers saw his comments and decided they didn’t want to defend him anymore.
Awww, so sad. Trump is failing again and again in the courts.
The Trump campaign and Republicans have brought a whopping 13 lawsuits in Pennsylvania alone in their futile effort to find a case that allows them to have the U.S. Supreme Court declare him reelected. It’s not working, because so many of the cases are baseless nuisance suits, many of which have either been summarily dismissed or have had no substantial impact on actual votes counted. Or just mocked by actual legal people. Like this: “Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford on CBS responding to Trump campaign: ‘This six-page complaint that they filed late last night is, in a word, garbage.'”
The stupid suits are everywhere, not just in Pennsylvania, but an inordinate amount of effort has been spent there, particularly considering Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are on the verge of taking Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada. […] probably because of Trump’s bizarre obsession with Philadelphia. Back in September he was talking about the “bad things” that happen there, and he hasn’t let up. All the stupid has converged there. And by that I mean Rep. Louis Gohmert and James O’Keefe all there, screaming about the election fraud that doesn’t exist. It’s hard to discern any real strategy in any of this. […]
[…] it really can’t be overstated just how bad their false claims in front of actual judges are.
Like in a hearing in front of Michigan Court of Claims Judge Cynthia Stephens, who reviewed a witness affidavit the Trump team brought in which a Republican poll watcher in Wayne County said the she’d heard that an election worker was told to backdate late-arriving absentee ballots. “The witness claimed another poll observer, who wasn’t named, heard from the election worker, also unnamed, about the issue,” Buzzfeed’s Zoe Tillman reports. “The witness reported that she then spoke with the poll worker, who gave her a handwritten note that read, ‘entered receive date as 11/2/20 on 11/4/20.'”
“‘I heard somebody else say something’—how is that not hearsay? Come on now,” Judge Stephens told Trump lawyer, saying it was secondhand hearsay at that. Trump lost that one. Then there was the Chatham County, Georgia, case, one of the silliest, in which a poll watcher saw 53 ballots separated from other ballots and put on a table and so clearly, the campaign asserted, they had arrived late and were proof of fraud. An elections official testified that those 53 ballots “were, in fact, received by GA’s Election Day deadline, saying they were handled separately because they didn’t show up on a manifest of absentee voters so they had to be checked.” For 53 ballots, the Trump campaign wasted all that time and effort and money to have the case summarily dismissed.
One of the “victories” the Trump campaign claimed out of one of their many Pennsylvania suits was in getting election observers into a Philadelphia ballot-counting process. That allowed them to move from 10 feet away from the process to 6 feet away, provided they complied with social distance measures put in place. That was their big win in Pennsylvania. They’re not going to give it up, however. They just filed one more in Montgomery County Pennsylvania arguing over 600 absentee ballots they say should not be allowed.
Everything they are trying to do in Pennsylvania appears to be hoping that something will stick so that they can take their case to the U.S. Supreme Court, where three of the court’s conservatives made it clear that they would welcome Republicans coming back if the vote is close enough, or Trump asks for it. The Trump campaign has been saying it out loud, like when a campaign lawyer went on Lou Dobbs’ show on Fox and said: “We’re waiting for the United States Supreme Court—of which the President has nominated three justices—to step in and do something. And hopefully Amy Coney Barrett will come through.” Which I’m sure will work. It’s not like saying out loud “Amy Coney Barrett is on the court to subvert democracy” is going to put a spotlight on her or anything, making her anxious to distinguish herself in her first major case by allowing a Trump coup. […]
Philadelphia police have arrested two armed men following a tip of an alleged plot to attack the Pennsylvania Convention Center, where ballots are currently being counted.
Officers from the Philadelphia Police Department arrested two men on firearms charges Thursday night after they were discovered carrying guns without valid Pennsylvania permits near the convention center, The Washington Post reported.
Both men, who were not named, were spotted with firearms by bike patrol officers.
No one was harmed in the incident, according to the Post.
The men could potentially have ties to the conspiracy theory group QAnon. A Philadelphia Inquirer photographer Jessica Griffin captured photos of the Hummer that the men were traveling in which featured a QAnon decal on the back window. Police had discovered their empty silver Hummer at 10:20 p.m., the Post reported. […]
PA Lt. Governor John Fetterman (pictured here :)) just told Erin Burnett on CNN: “The use of a mail-in ballot in this election was about as predictive for Democrats as driving a Subaru.”
tomhsays
I’m really tired of headlines that say “Biden takes the lead in Pennsylvania” or wherever. If Biden is leading it’s because he’s always had the lead and the counting is merely being completed. These mail-in ballots that they’re counting now were cast weeks ago and they’ve just been sitting there. These headlines feed Trump’s delusions that he was ahead and these ballots appeared and now he’s behind. It’s ridiculous.
I normally read speeches instead of watch them. I happened to catch this speech where Trump is going on about “legal votes” and “illegal votes”. It reminded me of the second season episodes of Rick and Morty where they were watching interdimensional television and you can tell there was ad-libbing of comedy going on except he was exhaustedly ad-libbing political spin.
It’s driving followers nuts. They were told to trust the plan for three years and some are starting to realize there isn’t one. They want guidance or an explanation and it hasn’t come yet. Others are embedding themselves further into the lie.
On election day, seven hours after Q’s last post, Ron Watkins “resigned as admin” from 8Kun, which hosts Q’s posts.
Ron Watkins is the son of 8kun’s owner Jim Watkins, both of whom are presumed to at least know who Q is, and can almost certainly post as Q at any moment.
Is this the end of QAnon? Absolutely not. Q will likely come back. The tripcode (8kun’s word for a password) for Q’s account is an extremely valuable, sellable asset.
Too many hangers-on have books, shirts and Patreons to sell. Q is here to stay, despite its incredible failure.
“Biden’s lead is over 4,000 in Georgia, after new Gwinnett County ballots. I don’t think we’re getting a call here for weeks, but given that we have such a good accounting of what’s outstanding, it’s hard to see Trump winning this without a tabulation error”
Trump tweeted: “I had such a big lead in all of these states late into election night, only to see the leads miraculously disappear as the days went by. Perhaps these leads will return as our legal proceedings move forward!”
Is anyone archiving these Trump sycophants for when they try to downplay or deny their complicity in the future? I foresee decent probability of many deleted Tweets, writings, photos in the future
Lol at the “party of personal responsibility” being upset at the idea of being responsible for their behavior over last four years
“STOP THE COUNT,” Trump bellowed on Twitter, a missive he quickly retweeted just over an hour later. “ANY VOTE THAT CAME IN AFTER ELECTION DAY WILL NOT BE COUNTED!” he added.
The only problem: If the vote-counting stopped at that moment, Trump would lose.
Trump’s senior advisers intervened, explaining to the president that he needed to be more precise about just which vote counts he wanted halted. He did not want all of the states to stop counting votes, they added, because that would lead to a Biden victory.
[…] At one point, when Fox News […] called Arizona, which Trump had won in 2016, for Biden, the president implored his team to “get that result changed,” […] Campaign adviser Jason Miller took to Twitter to complain — “WAY too soon to be calling Arizona,” he wrote — and he, along with Conway, former counselor to the president, Meadows and White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, spent considerable time calling allies at Fox News, trying to get them to back off the Arizona decision. Trump and aides continued to privately rail against the network Thursday, officials said.
Though aides had tried to prepare Trump that mail-in ballots would probably favor Biden, he was “genuinely taken aback,” in the words of one campaign adviser, as the votes rolled in for his rival, the former vice president.
[…] Instead of reflecting on whether his rhetoric throughout the campaign demonizing mail-in ballots could have helped cost him the election, the president has taken the results as a vindication on his views of it, advisers said.
[…] In one call, Hogan Gidley, a campaign press secretary, promised that Trump would be declared the victor on Friday. “It was kind of laughable,” said a person on the call. […]
Bernie Sanders: “I want to thank progressive grassroots organizations for their extraordinary efforts in helping to make Biden’s victory possible. Together, you built widespread support for Biden among young people, people of color and the working class. Congratulations. Let’s keep going forward.”
It’s a shame she doesn’t understand how bad an argument this is: “Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel did not present concrete examples of alleged voter fraud in her home state of Michigan and elsewhere when pressed by Fox News anchors on Friday, instead urging Americans to ‘give us time’ to produce evidence of irregularities.”
And there’s this:
Former Sen. John Danforth (R-Mo.) issued a statement today that read, “By alleging widespread fraud, President Trump’s purpose is to undermine Americans’ belief in the legitimacy of the election and therefore in the foundation of our democracy. He is causing incalculable damage to our country.”
By TPM’s count, Biden has 264 electoral votes and Trump is still stuck at 214. Some other media outlets report that Biden has 253 electoral votes. Everybody still has Trump at 214.
As far as Senate races go, Jo Ossoff has already kicked off his race to win the runoff in Georgia. You can watch a video of him speaking here: Link. Scroll down for the video.
Excerpt from the transcript:
[…] “When Congressman Lewis marched across that bridge 55 years ago to demand the sacred right to vote for all Americans, it was so that we the people could decide who represents us, could demand that our interests, our health, our prosperity, our rights, be upheld, respected, and expanded, so that we could have moments like this one, where Georgians in their millions have said, ‘enough.’ Enough incompetence, deceit, corruption, division.
“Change has come to Georgia. Change is coming to America.
“And retirement is coming for Senator David Perdue, because the majority of Georgians have stood up to reject his request for a second term — a senator who saw fit to continue to attack our health care in the midst of a pandemic. A senator who told us that this disease that’s taken a quarter of a million American lives was no deadlier than the ordinary flu — while he looked out for himself.
“A senator who has shown no spine and no independence, who has sold out our values and our interests to his donors and to this president.
“Retirement is coming for Senator David Perdue.
“See, Senator Perdue feels entitled to this U.S. Senate seat. This is the guy who hasn’t held a single public town hall meeting in six years as our senator. Just imagine being a sitting United States Senator, and he happily will sell meetings for corporate PAC checks.
“He sells access to his home for corporate money. He sells lavish retreats on private islands to lobbyists for corporate PAC money, but he hasn’t seen fit to come out in public and defend his record or answer questions from the people at a public town hall meeting in six years. And then when it comes time for Senator Perdue to answer some questions in public, when it comes time for Senator Perdue to debate his opponent, he doesn’t take kindly to being asked tough questions.
“And he refuses to debate in an open forum, because Senator Perdue cannot defend the indefensible, he cannot defend attacking our health care in the midst of a pandemic. He cannot defend misleading us so profoundly about a threat to our health and our prosperity, that’s taken such a human tragedy. He cannot defend being such a weak enabler of this president, who doesn’t deserve his loyalty or our support.
“See, what we’re demanding, what we deserve from our leaders, what we deserve from our government, it’s not that complicated. It’s not mysterious. We believe that every single Georgia family should have access to affordable housing, affordable health care, education without debt, dignified work that pays a living wage, equal justice under the law regardless of race, and regardless of class. […]
“Our daily update is published. States reported 1.5 million tests and a record 126k cases. There are 55k people currently hospitalized with COVID-19. The death toll was 1,186.
…
Deaths are increasing across the US, particularly in the Midwest. Today’s national total is the highest since Sept 16. The 7-day average for deaths is the highest since Aug 31.
Since Tuesday, over 6k people have been hospitalized with COVID-19. Regional per capita hospitalizations in the Midwest are quickly approaching the summer surge in the South.
IL reported a record 12K cases today. 7 states reported over 5k cases.”
A batch of Maricopa County votes just came in. Trump got 55%, which is, again, below the percentage he needs (60%) to be on track to overtake Biden in AZ. (55% is also precisely the AP/Fox prediction.)
Josh Marshall: “Perhaps we can have a compromise where the networks agree to report that in a vote sense Trump lost. But in a feelings sense we don’t know yet.”
There’s a lot of speculation about the provisional ballots in PA, but the fact is they have no idea. It could be that the provisionals skew to Trump, even in blue counties. So I really don’t get the push to call PA.
From what I’ve seen, the only reason people were even talking about the provisional ballots was that Kornacki raised the subject, but he seems to have backed away from it now.
stroppysays
@ 120
The explanation I heard earlier was that, like Pennsylvania, there is a question about provisional ballots being an unpredictable mix of red and blue regardless of where they came from. In other words, whereas Democrats in the past have been more likely to cast provisional ballots than Republicans, that’s not holding this time around, and these ballots are being counted last with a significant number still outstanding.
stroppysays
Mind you, the situation being somewhat volatile, they are probably being extra cautious about their predictions.
stroppy @ #125, that was something like what Kornacki had suggested earlier, but, as I said @ #121, he definitely appears – as I type this! – to be going in the other direction.
“Biden’s now up by 28k votes [in PA], putting him up by .43 points–just short of the .5 point threshold. No clue whether any decision desks are really waiting for Biden to clear this figure, but we are approaching it”
“Sorry for just realizing this — but Biden is winning Nevada by TWO POINTS with mostly Dem ballots in Clark remaining and they haven’t called it? Forget Pennsylvania. That’s just bananas. Any other cycle they would have called it.”
Trickster Goddesssays
@138
The percent spread is irrelevant at this point. Biden is leading by 22,000 votes, but there are still about 180,000 ballots yet to be counted.
They have a legal deadline of Nov. 12 to finish the count but officials expect the majority of the remaining votes will be counted by Sunday.
I don’t get why people are so much wanting a network to make a pronouncement on a winner. It means nothing. The votes will be counted and the finally tally will be whatever it is, whether a network calls it or not.
Ichthyicsays
I like the idea floating around that everybody is waiting on FOX to make the final call.
Trickster Goddess @ #139, the networks who haven’t called Arizona (everyone but Fox and AP) can call Nevada without calling the entire race for Biden. I’m not an expert on this (to put it mildly), but what the people I’ve quoted appear to be saying is that the reluctance to call Nevada is unusual for the networks – not in keeping with how they’ve made calls in previous races. The lead margin is very relevant given that it’s what Trump would need to overcome, and the remaining votes are overwhelmingly from a Democratic county.
Mark Meadows, who has tested positive for COVID-19, was in the White House Residence on election night huddled around Donald Trump alongside Ivanka, Jared, Don Jr., and other family members and senior staffers.
…I’m told that Mark Meadows, who rarely wears a face mask, was not wearing a face mask in the White House Residence on Election Night.
…I’m told that Mark Meadows and the White House went to great lengths to keep his diagnosis a secret. This is despite alleged contact tracing efforts. My source says: “It’s fucked up.”
This is not the first time the White House has tried to keep a coronavirus outbreak a secret from people who work in the White House and might have contracted the virus from the official who tested positive.
…I’m told that even senior White House staffers who had direct contact with Mark Meadows this week learned about his coronavirus diagnosis when the media reported it.
Not the first time senior white house staff has learned about their exposure to the coronavirus from @JenniferJJacobs.
Tim Miller: “Good to know that the Trump White House’s lack of transparency about covid diagnoses wasn’t just about election concerns but also complete indifference to the health and well-being of those around them.”
“Meadows pranced around without a mask at the campaign head quarters and the White House on Election Day. Says something of you as a boss (and a human) to put your subordinates at risk like that. Reckless and selfish.”
LOS ANGELES (CN) — Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey conceded the largest county prosecutorial agency in the nation to reform challenger George Gascón, a result spurred by years of organizing by Black Lives Matter that sent shockwaves across the movement for police accountability.
[…]
Gascón spoke to reporters Friday after his acceptance speech, saying he will immediately stop his agency from seeking the death penalty, cease prosecuting children as adults and reopen investigations into police misconduct and fatal police shootings.
[…]
Gascón said the election results show people are unhappy with the status quo, including how fatal police shootings are reviewed by the agency he will take over on Dec. 7.
“We have to move away from police departments investigating themselves,” Gascón said, adding that he will explore creating an independent bureau within the DA’s office to review police misconduct cases.
Law enforcement unions across California poured more than $3.5 million into Lacey’s campaign, but support from Democratic leaders faded as the winds of change swept through the election.
LA Mayor Eric Garcetti and U.S. Representatives Adam Schiff and Maxine Waters switched their endorsements to Gascón, who is also supported by California Governor Gavin Newsom and Senators Kamala Harris and Bernie Sanders.
To clarify, President Trump’s press conference will NOT be held at Four Seasons Hotel Philadelphia.
It will be held at Four Seasons Total Landscaping— no relation with the hotel.
When Biden pulls ahead of Trump by that amount in #Pennsylvania it means he’s over the .5% threshold that may be what’s holding back the networks from calling the race.
After 45 presidents and 48 vice presidents of the United States, with two women previously nominated for vice president and one for president, a woman is finally ascending to the vice presidency. And not just any woman.
Sen. Kamala Devi Harris, the daughter of immigrants from India and Jamaica, will be not only the first woman to be vice president, but also the first Black vice president (we have, of course, had a Black president in Barack Obama), and the first Asian person in either the vice presidency or presidency. She was the second Black woman ever elected to the Senate and the first South Asian American senator, woman or man. Before that, she was “elected as the first African American and first woman to serve as California’s Attorney General.”
[…] for women, for Black women, for South Asian women … This is so big. The fight isn’t over, but this is a good time to take a deep breath and soak in the moment.
Early Friday evening, professor of law and political science at UC Irvine Rick Hasen tweeted out that “If you give money to Trump’s recount/postelection litigation efforts, half of that money will go towards retiring his campaign debt instead, per the fine print.” The tweet was accompanied by a screenshot of the purported fine print on one of the Trump campaign’s fundraising emails, that said “50% of each contribution, up to a maximum of $2,800 ($5,000), to be designated toward DJTFP’s 2020 general election debt retirement until such debt is retired.” The emails have been sweatily sent out from the sinking garbage can fire called his campaign since Election Day.
The Wall Street Journal reports that this is indeed true. In fact, the con man-to-the-end and soon-to-be former disgraced and impeached president of the United States’ “official election defense fund” might actually be more about retiring his money-laundering campaign’s debt than anything else.
According to the Journal, while some of the “protect the election” fundraising emails direct marks to pages with fine print like the one Hasen pointed out above, others send MAGA supporters to pages with different fine print: “The fine print on those solicitations says 60% of a contribution helps the campaign retire debt and 40% goes to the Republican National Committee.”
In contrast, Biden’s similar asks for money for potential legal battles surrounding this election do not have fine print about “debt retirement.” Instead, that money is mostly earmarked for the DNC, with $2,800 going to Biden’s “recount account” only after $142,000 has been allocated to the DNC. This makes sense, as usually the RNC and DNC play the main role in financing election-related legal claims and battles.
I guess that’s one reason why Republicans wanted to slow down the vote count: it would give them more time to raise money.
Walking to the Farmer’s market in Durham NC and we hear screaming and cheers from 2 blocks away. I start crying because I know what it means. Everyone wants to hug but everyone is staying COVID happy. ♥️♥️♥️
Congratulations, @JoeBiden and @KamalaHarris. Our two countries are close friends, partners, and allies. We share a relationship that’s unique on the world stage. I’m really looking forward to working together and building on that with you both.
“Please be careful today, tonight, and tomorrow. Wear masks. Keep some distance from others. There is still a catching respiratory disease abroad in the land, and recent data shows it is spreading rapidly.”
I win, I win, I always win. In the end I always win,” Donald Trump once said. Now, though, for the first time in his life, in a public and historic way, he has lost.
As he has so relentlessly in the past, Trump is fighting against being tagged with a label that he has considered toxic to his brand. He has refused to concede. “The simple fact is this election is far from over,” he said in a statement just after the election was called. He promised to fight the results in court, alleging, without evidence, that a massive electoral fraud had robbed him of victory. But his talent for recasting reality to his advantage was incapable of overcoming a statistical truth not only accepted but dictated by the majority of the nation. He lost.
[…] For a half a century, time and again, Trump was able to fail and yet persuade the world that he hadn’t. He shirked personal bankruptcy by shunting to others the financial wreckage in his wake, fogged over defeats by insisting they were not, developed over time an armor of seeming untouchability, benefiting from people failing to act who could have held him to account — lenders, regulators, prosecutors and political power brokers. In this election, however, hundreds of millions of voters have done what all of them did not, making Joe Biden the next president
[…] For Trump himself, the consequences to come loom large — politically, legally, financially, historically, personally. […] In addition to exacerbating the country’s polarization, hastening the decline of discourse and legitimizing disreputable, illiberal elements of America’s patchwork electorate, he steered to the right for years the judiciary up to and including the Supreme Court, rolled back environmental regulations as the dire effects of climate change became more and more clear and alienated democratic global allies while currying favor with some of the planet’s most menacing despots. […]
Biden and Harris will address the nation tonight at 8PM Eastern.
Meanwhile, Trump is doing what we expected:
[…] Trump on Saturday declined to concede the election and promised lawsuits to challenge initial results, despite major media outlets projecting that former Vice President Joe Biden has secured enough electoral votes to win the White House.
“The simple fact is this election is far from over,” Trump said in a prepared statement. “Joe Biden has not been certified as the winner of any states, let alone any of the highly contested states headed for mandatory recounts, or states where our campaign has valid and legitimate legal challenges that could determine the ultimate victor.“
It was the first official statement from the Trump campaign, coming shortly after the Associated Press and major networks including Fox News called the election for Biden. The written statement, released while Trump was golfing at his club in Virginia, blamed the media for aiding Biden and offered unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud.
“Beginning Monday, our campaign will start prosecuting our case in court to ensure election laws are fully upheld and the rightful winner is seated,” the statement continued.
States generally officially certify results within weeks of the vote-count finishing. The Trump campaign has already filed — and lost — multiple lawsuits alleging voting violations in several states.
Trump’s blustering and whining are becoming increasingly irrelevant.
ravensays
Trump’s blustering and whining are becoming increasingly irrelevant.
He is stalling and running out the clock.
It won’t take the GOP/Trump long to figure out they have 2 1/2 months of power left to continue wrecking the USA. I’m sure it will be an ugly finish to an ugly term.
people in my neigborhood (albany, ca, next to berkeley) are standing in their front yards, howling, cheering. i’m crying.
From DC:
It’s a joyful scene out here
People laughing
Smiling
Honking
Waving at each other
Feels like must have felt when the war was over
Jesus
Brings me to tears
Plus the weather
Loud music, windows open
Kool & the Gang “Celebration” blaring out of window just passed me on Broad Branch
From NYC:
when the networks called and the honking began in Inwood (northern Manhattan), my 2 yr old was very excited that the 7pm essential workers “yay” clap had returned … my mother-in-law said on FaceTime that this was a big deal, so now he’s just walking around saying “yay big deal yay big deal”
From Massachusetts:
Here in Somerville, Massachusetts–a town that was very much a Bernie/Warren town during the primary–residents have erupted in spontaneous celebration. Car horns haven’t stopped honking, people are screaming Biden’s name in the streets, and someone is blaring an impromptu patriotic playlist (God Bless America, Fortunate Son, Party in the USA) from their apartment window. I’ve been confident about the result for a few days, but it feels different now after the media call. As my wife just said: “I feel so relieved.” I feel like we’ve been holding our breath for four years.
From Madison, Wisconsin:
We were driving around with our daughter looking for a playground that wasn’t too crowded on this beautiful fall day. There was a family, a young mother and three small children, out on their front lawn waving an American flag and clanging bells. It took us a moment to realize, but my wife pulled out her phone and confirmed what we were hoping – Biden wins!!
From my house: my neighbor has taken down his gigantic Trump flag.
raven @173, I agree. Trump and his lackeys are going to try to destroy everything they can before they are dragged out of the White House. Lots of them having coronavirus might slow them down just a bit, but I am still worried.
I also have some hope that Trump’s influence on all the levers of power will diminish a bit.
I’m actually a little bit shaky with relief. Nothing has made me feel sustained anxiety & dismay for this long other than loved ones being seriously ill. That’s how this felt, except the sick loved one was America & I feel like we just got the news that she’s going to recover ❤️
Joe Biden plans Monday to name a 12-member task force to combat and contain the spread of the coronavirus…
By announcing a COVID task force even before unveiling his senior White House staff or a single cabinet appointment, Biden is signaling that addressing the coronavirus will be the immediate priority for his transition, and then his potential administration.
…The task force will be led by three co-chairs: former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner David Kessler and Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith from Yale University.
Some members of the group have been advising Biden throughout the campaign, both the public policy challenges, as well as adopting health protocols for the campaign itself to prevent the spread of the virus in Biden’s inner circle…
Bias doesn’t always just mean unfairly favoring one side over the other or giving preferential treatment or even just assuming we are right and everyone else is wrong. It can also mean assuming people think the same way we do, on a very basic level. Liars always assume other people are lying. Cheaters tend to be more jealous. People who are not devious don’t always realize when the people around them are up to some shit. As much as humans love to tout their own individual snowflake-like uniqueness, we actually have a hard time wrapping our heads around people not thinking the same way we do. […]
As such, Trumpian conservatives have some truly messed up ideas about us and what we want and what would bring us joy. So ever since it became clear that Trump is going to lose this thing, and now that he has, for definite, lost this thing, many of them have begun preparing themselves for the gulags and reeducation camps that we will inevitably send them to, because sure, that’s definitely our thing.
Like this guy, Chad Whoever, who asked his followers which they were looking forward to more? The bread lines or the gulags? And this other lady, Jill, who responded “I’m so excited to pay for everyone else’s college tuition!”
[…] Jack Posobiec has already changed his Twitter handle to Gulag Inmate 4859. […]
Brietbart scribe Rebecca Mansour wrote “Biden wants to bring us together… which is why his supporters are busy drafting a Gulag list for Trump supporters.
[…] Gad Saad asks Sam Harris to put in a good word for him so he is not sent to the gulags, and also pledges fealty to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
Awkward, because I’m not so sure Sam Harris has that kind of pull, really.
[…] Part of this is related, I shit you not, to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez saying we should all keep receipts for when all of the people who have been up Trump’s butt later try to deny it. This, they have decided, is code for “Remember all of their names so we can put them in GULAGS!”
[…] Now, in my life, I had never actually heard … anyone, really, calling for “tribunals” until QAnon supporting Trumpists started talking about how super jazzed they were for all of the military tribunals of all of the baby-eating Satanists who definitely exist in real life. Quite frankly, I have no idea how that would even work.
[…] Four years! We have been through four freaking years of […] QAnon idiots talking about their fantasies of military tribunals and mass arrests and general fucking insanity! And I will tell you, at no point did I ever think they were ever going to get it together to make that happen. But they think that is secretly what we all want.
Like …
Step 1: Give people healthcare
Step 2: Cancel everyone’s student loans
Step 3: Gulags
Step 4: … profit?
I am very unclear on how they would even expect this to go. […] Let me assure all Republicans, that I am far too busy creating workable plans to redistribute the wealth of the nation to even consider gulags. None of my “after the revolution” scenarios have ever involved gulags. I cannot imagine that is on Joe Biden’s list.
Clearly, the only reason they think we want to put them in gulags, the only reason they go to the gulag well in the first place, is because they want to gulag us. They cannot imagine a scenario in which one would not want to gulag their enemies. But quite frankly, it does not track. They’ve gotta come up with something better if they want us to take them seriously […]
It’s easier to be a parent this morning. It’s easier to be a dad. It’s easier to tell your kids character matters. It matters. Tell them the truth matters.
From Josh Marshall:
[…] Imagine waking up this morning and realizing that Donald Trump would be President for another four years and all that would flow from that. And now realize that that that didn’t happen. You did that.
Now back to Four Seasons Total Landscaping, where Rudy Giuliani is being extremely normal in wake of Trump’s defeat.
“Oh my goodness, all the networks! Woooow! All the networks! We have to forget about the law! Judges don’t count! All the networks, all the networks!” he cried when informed that yes, all the networks have announced that his client lost.
The Americans have chosen their President. Congratulations @JoeBiden and @KamalaHarris! We have a lot to do to overcome today’s challenges. Let’s work together!
From the prime minister of Fiji, Frank Bainimarama:
Congratulations, @JoeBiden.
Together, we have a planet to save from a #ClimateEmergency and a global economy to build back better from #COVID19.
Now, more than ever, we need the USA at the helm of these multilateral efforts (and back in the #ParisAgreement — ASAP!)
From Nancy Pelosi:
We kept the republic! Congratulations to Joe Biden on his victory for the soul of our country. Congratulations to Kamala Harris for making history. It’s a time to heal and a time to grow together. E Pluribus Unum.
From Dan Rather:
Please indulge me with sharing a personal thought. But I am glad I’m still around to see this.
One of my many personal thoughts: For vice president, we elected a woman who can dance!
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trollssays
Every time I’ve seen Susan Rice, who is part of the Biden/Harris transition team, I think Secretary of State.
#185 I agree Steve Kornacki deserves a raise, and an extra week off.
Congratulations to President Elect @JoeBiden. We look forward to working with the new #USA Administration to reinforce transatlantic relations and cooperate on global issues, such as climate change, defense of democracy and international security.
Parabéns ao Presidente eleito @JoeBiden. Espero que em breve possamos trabalhar no reforço das relações transatlânticas e na gestão de assuntos globais, como as alterações climáticas, a defesa da democracia e a segurança internacional.
From the Swedish PM:
My warmest congratulations to @JoeBiden and @KamalaHarris. Looking forward to strengthening excellent US-Swedish relations and to work jointly for multilateralism, democracy and global security. Together, we can lead a green transition creating jobs for the future.
From Richard Engel:
Chinese state media makes fun of Trump. tweets ‘HaHa’ about Biden winning election
There may be nothing more emblematic about the 2020 election than this: The call came while Donald Trump was out golfing. Because of course he was. In the spirit of new transparency, America deserves to see that score card.
This isn’t just about the character of the president. It’s about the character of America.
Right now, a pandemic is raging. Right now, the economy is in recession. Right now, the nation is suffering from four years in which Donald Trump did everything possible to rewind decades of progress and tear at the foundations of democracy.
But right now. Right now. All of that has to be set aside. Right now, it is time to shout. To cry in joy and in relief. To jump. To dance. To celebrate.
[…] Joe and Jill Biden will move into the White House, and Trump will retreat to Mar-a-Lago, where he could spend years fending off creditors, prosecutors, the Internal Revenue Service, and the judgment of history. Trump might develop a new media venture. He might even lay plans for a run in 2024. The Constitution allows it.
But, even if Trump’s career in elective politics is over, Trumpism will, in some form, persist. In 2016, he recognized the hollowness of the Republican establishment and quickly buried front-runners for the G.O.P.’s nomination, from Jeb Bush to Marco Rubio. As President, he made the Party his own, bending former opponents to his will and banishing anyone who questioned his authority, his judgment, or his sanity.
Republican leaders made it plain that they were willing to ignore Trump’s antics and abuse so long as they got what they wanted: the appointment of right-wing judges and diminished tax rates for corporations and the wealthy. His appeal was nearly as frightening to Republicans in Congress as it was to those who voted for Biden. Trump has lost this race, but it is hard to describe the election as a wholesale repudiation. Tens of millions of Americans either endorsed his curdled illiberalism, his politics of resentment and bigotry, or were at least willing to countenance it for one reason or another. The future of Trumpism remains an open question. […]
The task of repairing liberal democratic institutions and values awaits Biden, too. The country’s intelligence agencies concurred that Vladimir Putin had acted on his long-standing antipathy for Hillary Clinton and meddled in the 2016 election in Trump’s favor. […] Putin preferred Trump. The Russian leader wished to be left alone, free of American intrusion in Ukraine, free of nato’s influence in the Baltic States and in Eastern and Central Europe. So long as the United States was tied up in its own internal tumult, so long as the new President disdained postwar international alliances, Putin was pleased. […]
The pandemic revealed the human cost paid by states without humane social safety nets and equal access to medical resources. It also revealed the capacity of capable democratic leadership. Angela Merkel, in Germany, and Jacinda Ardern, in New Zealand, were exemplary in the way they communicated the facts with their populations and acted to contain the virus based on scientific evidence and rational decision-making. Trump’s behavior, by contrast, resembled the denialism and the autocratic style of Jair Bolsonaro, in Brazil.
To rebuild trust in democratic processes, Biden needs to restore faith in the integrity of government itself. He needs to empower scientists and medical experts at the C.D.C. and the F.D.A. and oust charlatans at the Department of Justice and fossil-fuel lobbyists at the E.P.A. […] It is encouraging that Biden has said that on his first day in office he would “stop the political theatre and willful misinformation” and “put scientists and public-health leaders front and center.” He needs to make it clear that expertise is invaluable in all realms of government: the courts, public health, environmental science, diplomacy, defense, the economy. In order to repair American democracy, he also needs to address the antediluvian mechanism of the Electoral College and help reform an unjust system of voting. […]
There may be nothing more emblematic about the 2020 election than this: The call came while Donald Trump was out golfing. Because of course he was. In the spirit of new transparency, America deserves to see that score card.
“Trump plays against himself; Biden declared winner”
PHOENIX — Plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed in Arizona over alleged ballot issues stemming from Sharpie use abruptly filed to dismiss their suit without prejudice Saturday.
The Trump campaign, the Arizona Democratic Party and the Republican National Committee had all gotten involved in the case, which fanned claims of widespread ballot problems affecting Republican voters, claims repeatedly denied by local and state election officials.
Alexander Kolodin, a lawyer behind the suit, did not provide comment Saturday afternoon and said he would have a statement in the evening.
Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, whose office had filed an amicus brief asking that the matter be resolved quickly, expressed her frustration Saturday about the rumors circulating.
“My office has been putting out information for months about how election processes work in the state & all we do to ensure security & fairness,” she tweeted Saturday morning, not long before protesters were expected to gather at the state Capitol decrying attempts to “steal” the election. “If you haven’t been paying attention, that’s on you, but don’t show up when you don’t like the result & scream fraud w/no evidence.”
I can’t keep the smile off of my face. I have not smiled this much and this frequently in a long time. My face actually hurts.
Seriously!
POTUS, the military and Q are in control and playing this out perfectly.
What a time to be alive and watch the entire systematic distraction of the old guard.
The [F-word demeaning gay men] running in the streets and celebrating with Biden Harris flags right now are going to be hit the hardest when they find out Biden lost and their TV lied to them. It’s just too funny. I absolutely love it.
Fox News is full melt down telling everyone that POTUS is going to have to accept it sooner or later. They all took the bait. Q even told us that this would happen. They openly stated that those we think we trust are controlled, and will out themselves over time. Now is that time.
It’s HABBENING!
God Bless America.
Time to smoke a cigar and drink a beer frens.
And then there’s this, an example of a less excited and perhaps even more confused follower of QAnon:
Wow, this gaslighting is next level…
I mean, right now I really don’t know what to think. The gaslighting is so massive that it’s hard to see how Q and Q+ can counter. They had 4 years to arrest all these people, now time is short. Fight it in court, but what about public opinion and optics… People called the play before, but seeing it like this, it’s like wow… Trump won in a landslide, but right now it feels like Biden won… It’s insane… A nuclear bomb of truth has to drop to counter this mess…. It will be interesting to see what happens now for sure… rambling away here, cause I am really confused about the plan at this point…
Whereas once I expended anger upon you, now I am simply glad never to be forced to think of you again. Whereas many have contended over the years that you acted valiantly, if secretly, to mitigate and ameliorate the cruelty of your father, the evidence suggests that you instead acted corruptly, if secretly, to coat his viciousness in silky pink pearlescent influencer goo.
Surely it is unjust to have been born to perform one task: moving Trump product, hawking the Trump brand, filling the Trump coffers, endlessly pitching and selling and managing the Trump units that filled the Trump warehouses, and the Trump wine bottles, and the foreign Trump factory storerooms full to bursting. That was the destiny you should have been left to fulfill, with its empty slogans of feminism and faith, equality and motherhood, globalism and environmentalism. But of course, feminism and faith, equality and motherhood, globalism and environmentalism are real values. When not just being repurposed to help you hawk midpriced kitten heels, each demands the arduous work of justice. Humility, I understand, is not on brand for Trumps but attempts at any of these fundamentals of justice without humility is actually just shilling.
If and when you look back at your life, maybe you will realize that this is where it all went wrong: You were superb at the pitchman stuff, and maybe if your creepy dad hadn’t decided to run for president, you could have stayed in that branded plastic world of warehouses and factories and skyscrapers. But transactional justice words pressed through gauzy Instagram filters are not the stuff of democracy or morality, equality or faith. You’ve had great fun with this whole governance lark, to be sure, but frankly, the pain and suffering your dad so relishes make for bad influencer vibes. And in the end, when things became desperate, you committed fully to his side, changing your position on abortion and even voting itself. You would preserve your proximity to power at the expense of American democracy. Despite all the years of breathy talk of equality and dignity and empowerment, you—like your dad—think justice is the thing you alone are owed.
Unfortunately, the Trump™ brand now includes family separations, environmental denialism, global degradation, needless pandemic deaths, LGBTQ affronts, and petulant, truth-free grievance, none of which can just be shipped out and sold like last year’s sagging merch. The shattered shiny detritus is littered everywhere, and the cleanup work will take years. And though it may be a designer fragrance, the smell of complicity lingers. Even at its glossiest, the Trump™ catalog was never all that interesting. Please, oh please, take me off your list.
[…] Here in the twilight of the Trump presidency, when many of us are still puzzling over the career arcs of Bill Barr or Lindsey Graham or Susan Collins, Miller is in a rarified tier of villainy where armchair psychologizing or “how did he get heres” no longer apply. The damage he has done is all that matters.
Of the many things that no longer matter to me about Stephen Miller: that he is the only senior adviser to have survived—thrived—all four years of the term while not having sprung from or married into Trumpian gametes. Or that he was a jerk at Santa Monica High School, or that he capitalized on the Duke lacrosse rape allegations. I don’t care about his rapid ascent up the Michele Bachmann and Jeff Sessions staff ladder, or that he (and Jared Kushner) provided the rare sight of a fitted suit and skinny tie in the West Wing. I don’t care about the pitch of his voice, or his surprisingly wooden delivery at a podium, or that he got married. There’s much about his brutishly short life thus far that I don’t care to evaluate. There’s only one thing to know.
I found out I was going to be a father a month after Donald Trump’s inauguration and 15 months before the administration was revealed to have enacted a zero tolerance policy at the border, separating children from their parents as a deterrent. My son is 3 now and it still surprises me that he started his life at the center of my heart and yet still finds ways to move deeper into it. It falls under “necessary cliché” that there is a reserve of wholly uncivil white rage embedded in our animal DNA, available for activation at the thought of parents and children being taken from each other. As a parent, it’s a thing that you feel rather than understand. That mothers and fathers would die or kill for their children transforms from a maxim into a life.
Who Stephen Miller is doesn’t matter, in other words. Because while Stephen Miller was in the White House, thousands of children were forcibly marked with the trauma of being caged away from their parents, and hundreds may never see their parents again. And it happened on a scale far below what he’d pushed for. It’s difficult to write that dispassionately, and without some embarrassment: One would prefer to discuss federal policy without losing one’s shit, and yet no other response feels commensurate or honest.
The hardest thing to resist at times like these is the desire for Old Testament justice, an eye for an eye. I’m not saying Stephen Miller should suffer. Stephen Miller’s foulness is an idea that has been given shape and breath by Stephen Miller the person. And the idea needs to be chased down and stamped out. You are free to perform all manner of medieval torture on an idea! The cruelty, the abuse, the hatred—all this must be destroyed with a kind of berserk fervor. But he’s also a man. And like all men who commit crimes against humanity, he should be imprisoned by the society he wounded, forever prevented from spreading his pestilence and fear. In a just world, this reckoning would happen right on Jan. 21. It won’t. But one way or another, he will have to leave that building and its protection, and it’s a day that cannot come fast enough.
Goodbye, Chad Wolf! This guy, the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, is one of the most dangerous types of Trump administration official: a former bottom-of-the-barrel functionary, who’s worked his way up through his willingness to echo Trump’s rhetoric and do Trump’s bidding. Wolf is exactly the kind of person who would have become even scarier in a second Trump term—which is why it’s so great that he’s not going to get a chance.
Wolf worked as a bureaucrat in the Transportation Security Administration during the Bush years, then spent a decade as a lobbyist, swimming happily in the infamous Swamp. When he started working for the Trump administration, he began again at the TSA, working there for four months before moving to DHS. He was an aide to the acting Secretary Elaine Duke, then chief of staff to Kirstjen Nielsen; he then became an undersecretary and moved to the acting secretary job last year.
Wolf was not Trump’s choice for the acting secretary job, Abigail Tracy wrote in a recent assessment of Wolf’s rise for Vanity Fair. But due to a lack of other choices, and a perception that Wolf might be willing to toe the line, he got the nod. Senior adviser Stephen Miller, in particular, saw Wolf as a willing tool for his policies. “Stephen really tried to be the shadow secretary of Homeland Security, and his vessel for doing that was Chad,” a former DHS official told Tracy.
[…] after getting onto the ladder at Trump’s DHS, Wolf became something else—something Trumpier. In public statements, he has been quite willing to advance Trumpian arguments: This past summer, he told ABC’s This Week that there was no “systemic racism” problem in law enforcement; in early September, he used the occasion of a “State of the Homeland” address to blame China and the World Health Organization for the COVID-19 pandemic.
Behind the scenes, Wolf has also been willing to use the department to advance sinister policies on Trump’s and Miller’s behalf. It was Wolf who, in December 2017, drafted the memo of policy recommendations that proposed the separation of “family units” (how cold that sounds) at the border. He then lied to Congress, during his confirmation for his undersecretary job, about his knowledge of the family separation policy. More recently, under his leadership, expedited deportation programs have been hustling migrant asylum-seekers out of the country without benefit of legal counsel, using COVID-19 as cover.
And it was Wolf who decided to send federal agents to Portland, Oregon, this summer, to quell protests there, though the governor and mayor of the state and city in question informed him they’d rather not have his “help.” Those terrifying unmarked agents hustling protesters into vans were acting on his behest. Summing up Wolf’s recent actions in July, my colleague Jeremy Stahl wrote that Wolf had “graduated from advocating kidnapping children from their parents at the border to kidnapping grown adults on American streets.”
Lately, there have been more garden-variety—at least for this Administration—whispers of rule-bending and corruption. The Government Accountability Office found in August that Wolf and fellow DHS official Ken Cuccinelli may not have been serving in their roles lawfully. Also in August, CNBC reported that several former lobbying clients of Wolf’s had won DHS contracts during his tenure. Then, news broke that a consulting firm where Wolf’s wife works had been awarded more than $6 million in DHS contracts in the past two years. Then, a whistleblower filed a complaint alleging that the Trump administration had tried to “censor or manipulate” intelligence, including intelligence about possible election interference. At a Senate hearing, Wolf called this allegation “patently false.”
Despite everything, Wolf’s nomination to become secretary for real advanced in late September, after a Senate Homeland Security Committee vote split along party lines. But with a Trump loss, it looks like this jumped-up swamp creature, whose fingerprints are on some of the worst offenses against humanity and civil rights that this administration has concocted, may finally be out of luck. To which we say: Too bad, so sad! Goodbye!
Remember Scott Pruitt? The Trump administration’s first Environmental Protection Agency administrator was such a blatantly horrid, corrupt, slimy, anti-environment son of a gun that his resignation in July 2018, brought about by the tireless work of activist groups, felt like a hard-earned victory for science. But conservationists didn’t breathe too easily, knowing his climate change–denying lackey, Deputy Administrator Andrew Wheeler, was next in line—and that what Wheeler lacked in theatrics and chaos he made up for in quiet, brutal efficiency.
Nearly immediately after taking over, Wheeler engaged in the time-honored Republican tradition of “reshuffling” the agency. He eliminated EPA’s Office of the Science Advisor in a move targeted to dismiss its role of providing independent, quality scientific research to influence the agency’s decisions. He then shifted around the structure of regional offices to further reduce the number of EPA staff, even though many had already departed during Pruitt’s reign. In turn, he consistently nominated chemical and energy industry workers and representatives to EPA committees. During the summer of 2019, a particularly horrific time for Trumpian environmental policy, Wheeler’s EPA proposed rules to curb regulations on methane emissions and car pollution that were so extreme even the companies they were supposed to help expressed concern. And earlier this year, he weakened the Clean Car Standards, one of the country’s most significant emissions regulations, which set benchmarks for automobiles to become more efficient and reduce pollution. (The standards are now basically nothing.) When the New York Times cataloged the 99 environmental rollbacks—including weakened controls on mercury, pollution from mining, air pollution, water pollution, and toxic substances—that have either taken place or were kickstarted during President Donald Trump’s term, it found that the majority of them had been fulfilled by Wheeler’s EPA.
Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist, was just one of a long line of business toadies who joined the Trump administration in order to stop the government from governing. Like the Kochs and Harold Hamm, Wheeler promulgated destruction for business’s sake, but his environmental focus also meant endangering air, water, and soil quality at the risk of millions of human lives. In the end, no one except polluters and climate deniers was really served by this public servant. […] the EPA head using his power to do everything except protect the environment, just so a few energy companies could make a few more bucks.
On Wednesday, the U.S. officially exited the Paris Agreement, completing one of the longtime goals of Wheeler’s former boss and going against the wishes of American voters. President-elect Joe Biden promises to reenter the agreement on his first day in office, […] for now, let’s celebrate that this oily administrator is heading for the exits. Andrew Wheeler: Begone.
Cross-posted from “Finally”; my initial thoughts on the political position after the election:
This election was primarily about whether the USA would become a nuclear-armed fascist superpower. That possibility has by no means vanished – over 70 million Americans voted for it – but it’s been averted for the next four years. There is the possibility that Trump will attempt an outright seizure of power with the connivance of the Supreme Court and the police unions, or start a war with China, or nuke Philadelphia, and Americans need to be alert to these dangers, but I don’t expect them to happen. Trump has no friends, and few if any among those with significant power actually feel any loyalty to or admiration for him; they will act in self-interest, and in most cases that’s likely to mean distancing themselves from this loser as fast as possible. (“Trump? I hardly knew him. Of course, he had won the election, and you had to respect the office, but really, the vulgarity of the man…”) Of course, Biden is a standard-issue conservative, Harris, judging by her Senate record, somewhat more liberal, but certainly not a serious progressive, let alone a socialist. And even if they wanted to enact the kind of policies desperately needed on health care, economic equality, reform of the police, and above all climate disruption, the Republican lock on the Supreme Court and probable control of the Senate would not allow it. But what our sourly flatulent friends up-thread (most notably mnb0 and drew on this occasion, consciousness razor at least found something positive to say, which I’ll come back to) overlook, or indeed appear to actively resent, and attempt to counter, is the huge boost to the morale of those on the left who disagree with them, and the corresponding blow to the right, domestically and internationally. In political struggle, momentum is of the first importance. For the past decade, in the USA and globally, that has lain with the far right: the rise of the “Tea Party” culminating in the election of Trump, the rise of mini-Trumps across much of Latin America, Europe and Asia, the baleful influence of Putin. Trump’s defeat is the latest and largest of a number of very recent signs that it may be shifting: the elections in South Korea, New Zealand and Bolivia, the overwhelming vote to replace Pinochet’s constitution in Chile. Of course, across much of the world the right and far right remain in the ascendant – but they have no answer to the pandemic, let alone to the climate and ecological crises; and in Trump’s downfall, they will see the shadow of their own.
Trump’s loss leaves them without a sacred cow to rally around. Even if the Republicans retain the Senate Majority, they will be less organized and less empowered. I’m not saying it’s going to be an easy fight, but at least it’s no longer an impossible fight. – Ray Ceeya@47
QFT.
From consciousness razor@46:
Some mildly good news, via Ryan Knight on twitter:
Support progressive policies like Medicare for All and win elections.
Campaign against progressive policies like Medicare for All and lose elections.
If Ryan Knight’s point holds in general, or on average – I’d need to see more systematic evidence, but I certainly hope it’s there and think it might be, then there, precisely, is the leverage that drew@32 and seachange@36 are convinced is absent. Biden and Harris are not progressives, but they are politicians: they want to win the Georgia runoffs, to avoid the usual losses of the party holding the Presidency in the mid-terms, to hold the Presidency in 2024. They are not under any circumstances going to initiate the glorious ecosocialist revolution the USA and the world need, but if they are convinced a leftward shift will win votes, they’ll make it.
The fact that the election results were well short of a triumph may itself give the (relative) progressives within the Democratic Party more leverage than they would have had if the “blue wave” had materialised. Pelosi has already been making excuses for the losses in the House, and anyone can see that Biden’s strategy barely succeeded – just as in 2016, a few tens of thousands of votes difference in a few states and the electoral college would have gone the other way. Conversely, we can expect to see an instant descent into infighting within the Republican Party, between Trump and his family and cronies on the one hand, and the free-traders and neocons (who want the TPP, a strong NATO, an anti-Russian stance, better relations and a revival of trade talks with the EU) on the other; as well as jockeying for position between those with Presidential ambitions for 2024. We can also see that the Supreme Court Republicans will be faced with serious dilemmas, not only over any election-related cases that reach them (would they really risk a far larger and more blatant political interference than in 2000?), but over the Obamacare case. If they rob 20 million Americans of health care in the depths of a pandemic, they give the Democrats the most potent issue possible for the Georgia runoffs. I don’t know which way they’ll jump – most probably, try to punt the issue into next year – but the dilenmma for them is real. One of the biggest errors of the likes of mnb0, The Vicar and that crowd, typical of purity fetishists of all stripes, is the failure to understand that the political and personal divisions and conflicts between our enemies are real, deep and lasting – they can’t even admit the reality of those between the Republicans and the Democratic Party establishment, let alone those within the Republicans. Admit them, study them, exploit them.
Kamala Harris: “While I may be the first woman in this office, I will not be the last—because every little girl watching tonight sees that this is a country of possibilities.”
“I am so honored to be an American right now, and my heart swells, and what an incredible night, and also my goodness I’m not sure anything has ever been funnier than The Four Seasons Total Landscaping thing and I might never get over it.”
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trollssays
My top four from the Biden/Harris victory speeches.
1) The fireworks.
2) Kamala Harris’ speech. Ready for 2024 or 2028.
3) Biden mentioning Kamala and Doug are now part of the Biden family, and bringing them onstage as part of the Biden family.
4) Seeing Joe Biden bring himself to the level of one of the small Kamala/Doug family while on national TV.
“Friends, please avoid close-proximity and stationary crowds. Masks and being outdoors help reduce risk a lot, but they’re not foolproof. If you’re next to an infected person in the crowd for an extended period, you could still be exposed.”
“‘Be kind. Be hopeful. Be optimistic. Never get down. It’s all gonna be okay…We’re one people. We’re one family. We all live in the same house’. – John Lewis”
“If Hunter Biden ever worried that his struggle with addiction would derail his dad’s career, I hope he goes to bed tonight knowing that in the end it did not.
I don’t mean that as a political statement, just a hope from one recovering addict to another.”
John Moralessays
It’s all gonna be okay…We’re one people. We’re one family. We all live in the same house’.
Leaving aside such things as domestic violence and incest, I suppose so. Just fine.
(Yeah, I know… one should not take such vague bromides anywhere near literally)
Mehdi Hasan: “I don’t know if I can overstate how much it means to me and to millions of others, and what a big bloody deal it is, that today we learned the Muslim ban will be gone in January 2020. Lifted. Repealed. Reversed.”
Even as […] Trump hasn’t conceded yet to President-Elect Biden, people at the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Va. tell me they are expecting him AGAIN to play golf later today, just as he did yesterday.
a_ray_in_dilbert_spacesays
SC@232
Caine’s been on my mind as well. I wish she’d lived to see the day.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trollssays
I suspect Trump will never concede, and frequent golf trips will allow him to ignore the transition.
KGsays
people at the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Va. tell me they are expecting him AGAIN to play golf later today, just as he did yesterday.- Daniel Lippman quoted by Lynna, OM@236
It would be best if he spends the rest of his term – or at least the hours he’s awake – playing golf.
From the Washington Post, the news flavored with snark:
On Saturday, Donald Trump finally became the one thing he hates the most: a loser.
[…] Trump had just arrived at his namesake golf course in Sterling, Va., on Saturday morning — whizzing past signs blaring “Biden/Harris” and “Good Riddance” — when Democratic nominee Joe Biden pulled so far ahead in the Pennsylvania vote count that, four days after Election Day, he was finally declared the next president of the United States.
That Trump was pummeling drives off a tee box as Biden made the transition from former vice president to president-elect was a fitting coda for a leader who craved the perks and power of the office but often seemed reluctant to do the job.
[Trump] remained cosseted away at Trump National Golf Club for three more hours, finishing his morning on the links with Kevin Morris, the club’s manager, in one of the few situations he could still control to his own liking.
There, club members shouted, “We love you!” and “Great job, Mr. President.” Then, as Trump lined up his shot on the green (two putts, from about 50 feet), supporters offered more words of encouragement: “You can make it!”
“We’ve got a long way to go,” the president said — seeming to refer to the 2020 election results — while offering a thumbs-up and fist pump, according to a club member who snapped a photo of him as he zipped by in his cart.
The excursion marked Trump’s 209th day golfing since becoming president, according to CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller — 104 more than Barack Obama, Trump’s predecessor whom he excoriated for golfing.
Historically, when Trump has faced down the prospect of failure — his divorces, his bankruptcies, his broke casinos, his fledgling football team and airline — he has simply walked away, either claiming victory or decrying an unfair system rigged against him, the victim.
Even before the election results began clearly listing toward Biden, the president and his team had been following that playbook. On Saturday, the campaign put out a statement on behalf of Trump almost immediately after Biden was declared the winner, falsely claiming that “the election is far from over.”
But now, with Biden set to become the nation’s 46th president, it will be harder for Trump to ignore that reality, even if he never actually admits defeat. If Trump incinerates a final presidential norm by refusing to offer a gracious concession speech and attend his successor’s Inauguration Day, he will still, in 10 weeks, have to pack up the White House residence and vacate perhaps the most coveted address in America: 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
On Saturday, the outside world seemed determined to force a man not known for his introspection to grapple with the magnitude of his loss. A CNN chyron blared: “Cities erupt in celebration after Biden beats Trump.” Both Trump’s home city of New York and his temporary one of Washington — where 92.6 percent of voters chose Biden — were awash in euphoria.
Biden supporters thronged to the White House almost immediately, prompting officials to use snowplows to help move the crowd to make way for Trump’s motorcade when he returned from golf, clad in a white “Make America Great Again” hat. The crowd performed the Village People’s “Y.M.C.A,” the walk-off music at Trump’s recent rallies — a throbbing mass jumping up and down with both relief and elation.
Back in Trumpworld, the efforts at counterprogramming had a characteristically slapdash feel. Before Biden was declared the winner, the Trump campaign had scheduled a news conference at Four Seasons Total Landscaping in Philadelphia with the president’s lawyers, but when Trump initially tweeted it out, he incorrectly implied it was at the Four Seasons Hotel. The hotel’s Philadelphia location quickly offered its own clarification, tweeting: “To clarify, President Trump’s press conference will NOT be held at Four Seasons Hotel Philadelphia. It will be held at Four Seasons Total Landscaping — no relation with the hotel.”
Trump’s lawyers did ultimately show up at the right spot, speaking against a makeshift backdrop of blue and red Trump signs at the landscaping business, in view of a crematorium and an adult entertainment shop named “Fantasy Island.” Trump’s personal attorney, Rudolph W. Giuliani, yelled at the news conference that all the networks calling the race could be wrong.
[…] “The legal operation is designed for Trump to save face and ultimately give him the ability to say he didn’t lose the election fair and square,” this person said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to share details of private discussions. “So we’re going to roll with it.”
White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, meanwhile, found himself battling the novel coronavirus, along with several other aides, potentially turning the White House into a virus hot spot yet again. Meadows had accompanied Trump on an Election Day visit to campaign headquarters in Arlington, Va., and later attended his election night party in the East Room — sans mask for both.
Even Meadows’s own colleagues and allies were furious with him, said one senior administration official, noting that Meadows didn’t share his diagnosis with his team until after it broke Friday night in the media.
[…] a glimpse of Trump earlier in the day, at his private golf club, was perhaps more illustrative of the post-White House future he could very well inhabit. After finishing his round, the president, looking slightly deflated, ran into a bridal party and paused to pose for pictures.
He stood next to the bride, flashing a thumbs-up, before the bridesmaids — bubbly in frosting-pink dresses — squealed their way into the photo.
“Thank you, Mr. President! We love you!” called the breathless onlookers.
“Have a great life, right?” Trump replied, before lumbering away into the safety of his Trump-branded clubhouse.
A coalition of state attorneys general has become the latest to challenge the Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to decimate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. “Following the coalition’s successful defense of DACA, the case is once again before the trial court and now focused on the Trump administration’s most recent attacks,” California’s Xavier Becerra said in a statement.
The Supreme Court ruled in June that impeached president Donald Trump unlawfully ended the program, which should have led to its full reinstatement (a federal court in Maryland the next month said the same). Instead, he’s defied the court and further escalated his attacks. Like another suit filed in September by a top advocacy group, the states argue in part that the changes are unlawful because acting Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Sec. Chad Wolf, who is unlawfully serving in his job, has no legal authority to do so.
“Despite the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision finding the Trump administration’s attempt to rescind DACA to be unlawful, the federal government has continued to take steps to diminish protections granted to Dreamers who were brought to the United States as children,” Becerra said in the complaint, joined by Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey, Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh, and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison.
The changes that the unlawfully appointed acting secretary ordered include reducing the duration of protections from two years to just one and the outright rejection of any new applicants, as well as the denial of advance parole, which in the past allowed DACA recipients to be able to travel outside of the U.S. and safely return. […]
After rising through the ranks for 33 years, winning awards and becoming the first female major in the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office in Ohio, Charmaine McGuffey was ousted in 2017.
She said she was fired for being a lesbian and for calling attention to the use of excessive force against inmates. Her boss at the time, Sheriff Jim Neil, said she refused to accept a demotion after an internal affairs investigation concluded that she had created a hostile work environment, according to court records…
Now, Ms. McGuffey, 63, is poised to return to the office, this time as the elected sheriff after defeating Sheriff Neil in a Democratic primary in April and a Republican challenger in the general election on Tuesday.
[…]
Ms. McGuffey will assume control of an 800-person staff that oversees an average of 1,500 inmates in Hamilton County, which includes Cincinnati. During her campaign, she described herself as a progressive who would focus on “rehabilitative, rather than punitive strategies” to reduce recidivism…
…After he lost in the primary, he endorsed the Republican challenger, Bruce Hoffbauer, a former Hamilton County deputy sheriff and Cincinnati police relief commander. Sheriff Neil called Ms. McGuffey a political activist who would turn the city and county into another Chicago, Portland or Seattle…
On Tuesday, Ms. McGuffey won 52 percent of the nearly 405,000 votes cast in the sheriff’s race in Hamilton…
[…]
“#Belarus Despite detentions, armed riot police, blocked streets, closed metro stations, disrupted internet, people were able to gather. Again and again. This persistence, strength and defiance are phenomenal. It’s been three months of the protests. Honestly, I didn’t expect that”
The end came in all the places you’d expect, in all the ways you’d expect, with all the people you’d expect.
When news broke Saturday that Donald Trump’s reign was ending, the president was on a golf course that he owns in Virginia, playing his last round as a non-loser. In Washington, about 125 of his worshipful supporters gathered on the stoop of the Supreme Court to “stop the steal,” then circumnavigated the U.S. Capitol seven times, because that’s how the Israelites conquered Jericho, according to the Book of Joshua. And a pair of Trump’s most loyal surrogates made a defiant stand on the gravelly backside of a landscaping business in an industrial stretch of Northeast Philadelphia, near a crematorium and an adult-video store called Fantasy Island, along State Road, which leads — as being associated with Trump frequently does — to a prison. [LOL]
Rudolph Giuliani, America’s mayor turned Trump’s sloppy fixer, squinted into the autumnal sun at journalists who had assembled outside Four Seasons Total Landscaping — a choice of location that multiple Trump staffers could not account for, saying that it was the work of the campaign’s Pennsylvania advance team. Literally anywhere else would have conveyed more legitimacy on the enterprise […]
“Joe Frazier is still voting here — kind of hard, since he died five years ago,” Giuliani said in a meandering monologue, referring to the champion boxer who died in 2011 as an example of Philadelphia’s unproven election malfeasance. “But Joe continues to vote. If I recall correctly, Joe was a Republican. So maybe I shouldn’t complain. But we should go see if Joe is voting Republican or Democrat now, from the grave. Also Will Smith’s father has voted here twice since he died. I don’t know how he votes, because his vote is secret. In Philadelphia, they keep the votes of dead people secret.”
Where to begin?
Or rather: Where to end?
As Joe Biden marched slowly to victory last week, the Trump Train jackknifed. It raged about suspicious Sharpies in Arizona, about “irregularities” and “anomalies” in Georgia, about weaponized pizza boxes used to obscure democracy in Michigan, about “mathematical impossibilities” in Wisconsin, about ghosts in Philadelphia. What became clear is that Trump supporters thought Democratic votes, Democratic strongholds and Democratic methods were suspicious. Cities were suspicious. The turnout was suspicious. The mail was suspicious.
In reality, a preponderance of mailed-in ballots — which were counted last, in many places — had slowed the process and delayed the inevitability of Biden’s win. Poll workers were just trying to do their civic duty — extracting, flattening, scanning and counting ballots into the night — but this was not good enough for the president’s supporters. They showed up with instructions tailored to whatever way the tide was shifting.
“Stop! The! Count!” they chanted Wednesday afternoon outside the TCF Center in Detroit.
“Count! The! Votes!” they chanted Wednesday night outside the Maricopa County Elections Department in Phoenix.
“A lot of shenanigans,” Trump said from the White House briefing room Thursday.
Indeed. Top Trump lieutenants deployed to various cities in navy windbreakers with their names embroidered. The campaign set up a fraud hotline, which was eventually swamped with prank calls. They sent out desperate fundraising pleas for its legal defense fund. On his podcast, Steve Bannon, Trump’s former adviser, called for the beheading of Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading expert on infectious diseases.
[…] “I’m more than a little frustrated that every time they close the doors and shut out the lights, they always find more Democratic votes,” Cruz told Hannity, inaccurately describing the vote-counting process, which occurred with the lights on and in the presence of Republican observers.
[…] New Jersey resident Edward X. Young wore a button that said “Barron 2052,” referring to the president’s 14-year-old son. “I will never accept Joe Biden,” said Young, a horror-movie actor whose titles include “Maggots,” “Mold!” and “Gerry the Psychopath.”
[…] a federal judge heard arguments from attorneys who wanted to stop the counting in Nevada’s Clark County because Republicans could not conduct “meaningful observation.” The judge wondered how to interpret the phrase. How many people should observe, and from what distance? Should observers be entitled to hear a ballot-counter’s every utterance? What if one of the poll workers had a soft voice and could not be overheard?
“At what point does this get to the ridiculous?” Judge Andrew P. Gordon asked.
His question was answered the following day, at Four Seasons Total Landscaping.
Sean Middleton, the company’s director of sales, was at a Bible study when he got the call to come to the shop and help prepare for Guiliani’s news conference.
“I was pretty happy because it got me out of Bible study,” he said Saturday, adding: “I have no idea why [the campaign] wanted to do it here. I don’t know how the government works. Maybe they saw on satellite images that we have a big back lot and proximity to [Interstate] 95?”
Middleton said he was not aware of any connection between the landscaping company and the Trump campaign, which did not immediately provide an explanation for why the news conference was held at that location.
Giuliani stood in the landscaping company’s dusty parking lot with campaign adviser Corey Lewandowski, in front of a garage door plastered with Trump placards, flanked by a few disgruntled GOP poll observers, facing a gaggle of journalists. He claimed there was fraud; he also said GOP observers were prevented from witnessing fraud. About 30 minutes into his show, Giuliani was informed that the race had been called for Biden on television. He stretched out his arms, looked to the heavens and seemed to mock-crucify himself on the notion.
“Come on, don’t be ridiculous,” Giuliani said. “Networks don’t get to decide elections. Courts do.”
The president had promised many lawyers, and now Giuliani promised many lawsuits, some “big” and some “small.”
“We are leaving all legal options open,” Trump legal adviser Jenna Ellis said in an email Saturday, which she sent from an airplane flying back from a “Stop the Steal” rally in Wisconsin. Asked to describe the emotions of this moment, as Trump World teetered on the brink, Ellis said she was “disgusted” by Biden. Lewandowski, when reached by phone after the Giuliani news conference, answered more flatly.
“I have no emotions,” Lewandowski said. “I’m like a robot. I literally have no emotions.” […]
Sources close to POTUS tell me he’s being urged by Jared Kushner, Rudy Giuliani, & campaign adviser Jason Miller to hold rallies throughout the US pushing for recounts of votes.
Dave Bossie and WH chief of staff Mark Meadows are urging the president to think about a concession.
The administrator of the General Services Administration, the low-profile agency in charge of federal buildings, has a little-known role when a new president is elected: to sign paperwork officially turning over millions of dollars, as well as give access to government officials, office space in agencies and equipment authorized for the taxpayer-funded transition teams of the winner.
It amounts to a formal declaration by the federal government, outside of the media, of the winner of the presidential race.
But by Sunday evening, almost 36 hours after media outlets projected Biden as the winner, GSA Administrator Emily Murphy had written no such letter. And the Trump administration, in keeping with the president’s failure to concede the election, has no immediate plans to sign one.
This could lead to the first transition delay in modern history, except in 2000, when the Supreme Court decided a recount dispute between Al Gore and George W. Bush in December.
“An ascertainment has not yet been made,” Pamela Pennington, a spokeswoman for GSA, said in an email, “and its Administrator will continue to abide by, and fulfill, all requirements under the law.”
The GSA statement left experts on federal transitions to wonder when the White House expects the handoff from one administration to the next to begin — when the president has exhausted his legal avenues to fight the results, or the formal vote of the electoral college on Dec. 14? There are 74 days, as of Sunday, until the Biden inauguration on Jan. 20.
“No agency head is going to get out in front of the president on transition issues right now,” said one senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly. The official predicted that agency heads will be told not to talk to the Biden team.
[,,,]
… for people who have been through them, a presidential transition is a massive undertaking requiring discipline, decision-making and fast learning under the smoothest circumstances. Each lost day puts the new government behind schedule.
“The transition process is fundamental to safely making sure the next team is ready to go on Day One,” said Max Stier, president and chief executive of the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service, which has set up a presidential transition center and shares advice with the Biden and Trump teams. “It’s critical that you have access to the agencies before you put your people in place.”
[…]
GSA has been part of transition planning since the Presidential Transition Act was signed in 1963. Since then, the agency has identified the winner within hours or a day of media projections, and weeks before the results were made official by the electoral college.
jessemsays
KG, comment 207
Thank you for that. Beautiful, uplifting and convincing.
A vaccine against Covid-19 is in sight, with the announcement of the first interim results in large-scale trials showing the Pfizer/BioNTech candidate is 90% effective, according to the manufacturers, whose analysis shows a much better performance than most experts had hoped for.
The high percentage of those protected makes the findings compelling. Regulators have said they would approve a vaccine that is just 50% effective – protecting half those who get it. The company says there have been no serious side-effects.
“Today is a great day for science and humanity. The first set of results from our phase 3 Covid-19 vaccine trial provides the initial evidence of our vaccine’s ability to prevent Covid-19,” said Dr Albert Bourla, the Pfizer chairman and CEO.
“We are reaching this critical milestone in our vaccine development program at a time when the world needs it most with infection rates setting new records, hospitals nearing over-capacity and economies struggling to reopen.”
The trial will continue until there have been 164 confirmed cases so there is potential for the efficacy rate to change, but a finding that 90% of infections were prevented will excite politicians and public health leaders and brings into view a potential end to the pandemic.
The phase 3 trials have involved more than 43,000 people. People from black and minority ethnic backgrounds appear to have been as well protected as everyone else, the company says.
Gathering the required safety data will take until the third week of November, says the company. The dossier will then be submitted to the regulators for approval. Speedy licensing could mean the first doses being given to healthcare workers by the end of the year.
In Minsk, what people here call the Great Patriotic War is never far away. Monuments, street names and museums venerate the memory of the awful years from 1941 to 1945, when the Soviet Union was at war with Nazi Germany.
Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus since 1994, has used the years of partisan resistance against the Nazi occupation of the country, and the eventual victory by the Red Army, as the basis for a neo-Soviet, Belarusian identity.
But in recent months, something strange has happened, as Lukashenko faces angry and sustained protests to his continued rule and has launched a vicious crackdown. The war narrative that his regime has done so much to promote still resonates among the population, but with a twist: now, his authorities have become the Nazis.
It has become normal for people to speak about the authorities as “fascists” and “occupiers” who remain in power only due to their military and police might.
Given some of the images that came from the crackdown in August, it is not hard to see why: thousands of Belarusians were subjected to ritual beatings and abuse from security officers dressed in black and wearing balaclavas; military vehicles patrol the streets; and anyone supporting the opposition movement can be snatched for interrogation at any moment.
“We were brought up on endless films and books about fighting the fascists, and then, when you look at the uniforms, the style, the methods used by the authorities, it’s not hard to see why these memories resonated,” said Yulia Chernyavskaya, a Belarusian cultural anthropologist.
…
For their part, the authorities have tried to show that it is the protesters who are the descendants of the Nazis,…
Such rhetoric worked well in Ukraine in 2014, when the Kremlin portrayed the Maidan revolution in Kyiv as a “fascist coup” and backed a separatist movement in the country’s east that rallied behind Soviet second world war symbolism. Using the same playbook has not had the same effect in Belarus, however. Partly because far-right nationalists simply do not exist in Belarus, and partly down to the sheer brutality of Lukashenko’s crackdown and the courage of those who continue to stand up against it….
“Not nearly enough attention has been paid to the amazing quantities of disinformation circulating among US Hispanics, in Spanish, both before the election and now…”
NYT link atl. I’ve been wondering about this for a while.
Once again, TikTok users are trying to troll President Donald Trump, this time by calling into a hotline for voter fraud started by his campaign and making false, and often silly, reports to clog the lines.
Even before the ballot counting began, Trump had made false claims about voter fraud. The claims have led to accusations of vote-rigging, protests at counting centers and false declarations of victory from Trump.
The campaign set up a voter fraud hotline for people to report any shady goings-on they noticed at their voting stations.
“Help stop voter suppression, irregularities and fraud,” read a post on Twitter promoting the hotline from Trump’s son Eric Trump. “Tell us what you’re seeing.”
But TikTokers saw the hotline as an opportunity to mess with the campaign….
I get that the media is calling for reconciliation and healing, but in order for this to happen, both sides have to acknowledge the facts. The fact is, Donald Trump lost the election. It wasn’t stolen from him. His fellow Americans voted him out.
Professor Dr Uğur Şahin and his wife Özlem Türecki, both of whom are the children of Turkish immigrants to Germany, are being described as the masterminds behind the Covid 19 vaccine which, it has been announced this morning, has been shown in large-scale trials to be 90 per cent effective.
An article by Spiegel magazine last month, describes the professor as waiting in a state of “severe tension” with his team of 500 scientists at the German company Biontech in Mainz, for the results of the study which has just emerged, offering the first optimistic news on coronavirus for months, and causing euphoria on the markets.
Some 44,000 participants received either the vaccine, known as BNT162b2 or a placebo. Şahin, described by Spiegel as a quiet, emphatic man of few words, told the magazine he was aware that “every week counts”, and that his vaccine was capable of saving hundreds of thousands of lives if it worked.
The company specialises in mRNA agents, a molecule which is an essential component of human biology, serving as a messenger which transports the ‘building instructions’ between the genome of the cells and the cells’ protein ‘factories’.
Already in January long before Germany entered its first lockdown, under Şahin’s leadership, Biotech established the make up of Coronavirus’ genetic information and within two days it had produced the suitable RNA and began immediately with the first experiments. Within a short time Biontech had already produced 20 vaccine candidates.
Şahin told Der Spiegel that even the scientists were surprised at the speed of the results.A teacher at the University of Mainz, initially as a professor for Oncology, Şahin is described as a natural educator – who has continued to assist doctoral students even whilst dedicated to the intense work on the vaccine – and a reluctant businessman.
He has long been considered one of the world’s leading cancer researchers, but qualified as a professor in the field of immunology. He insists that cancer and coronavirus are closely related. “We see ourselves as immunology engineers,” he said. “We want to instruct the immune system to protect us from certain illnesses.”
Şahin and Biontech’s lack of experience in bringing a new medicine out of the research lab and turning it into a global product available worldwide, prompted it to join forces with the US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, earlier this year.Spiegel was requested not to reveal the exact location of Şahin’s office at the Biontech headquarters. It described ‘muscular bodyguards’ watching over the building’s entrance, and said the firm had been offered protection by Germany’s intelligence service against cyber attacks.
KGsays
jessem@249 blushes – Well, thank you!
tomhsays
Supreme Court oral arguments, challenging the constitutionality of the health care law, will be aired live on C-Span tomorrow, Nov 10, at 10 AM ET.
McDonald’s is planning to test a meat-free burger as it adds plant-based McPlant menu offerings next year, CNBC reported Monday. The McPlant line would apparently be made internally, instead of being made by another company.
It comes after Beyond Meat made plant-based patties for a test in Canadian McDonald’s branches, CNBC noted.
[…] the advisory panel [Biden’s Coronavirus Advisory Panel] includes Dr. Rick Bright, who, up until recently, served as the deputy assistant secretary for preparedness and response and director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority. The scientist has alleged, however, that he was ousted for resisting the White House’s political agenda on the coronavirus pandemic.
Now, evidently, the whistleblower is back in a position to help with the U.S. response to the crisis.
As for the news from Pfizer this morning about progress on a coronavirus vaccine, the Biden/Harris transition team issued a statement this morning noting that it was informed of the news last night. And while the incoming administration congratulated those responsible for the apparent breakthrough, the transition team added, “At the same time, it is also important to understand that the end of the battle against COVID-19 is still months away. This news follows a previously announced timeline by industry officials that forecast vaccine approval by late November. Even if that is achieved, and some Americans are vaccinated later this year, it will be many more months before there is widespread vaccination in this country.”
The statement went on to say, “This is why the head of the CDC warned this fall that for the foreseeable future, a mask remains a more potent weapon against the virus than the vaccine. Today’s news does not change this urgent reality. Americans will have to rely on masking, distancing, contact tracing, hand washing, and other measures to keep themselves safe well into next year. Today’s news is great news, but it doesn’t change that fact. America is still losing over 1,000 people a day from COVID-19, and that number is rising — and will continue to get worse unless we make progress on masking and other immediate actions. That is the reality for now, and for the next few months. Today’s announcement promises the chance to change that next year, but the tasks before us now remain the same.”
[…] Biden’s statement bears no resemblance to what Americans have heard from the outgoing incumbent.
What began five years ago with the made-for-TV announcement of Donald Trump’s presidential ambitions from the escalator of his ritzy Manhattan high-rise ended Saturday with his aging lawyer shouting conspiracy theories and vowing lawsuits in a Northeast Philadelphia parking lot, near a sex shop and a crematorium.
Follow-up to SC @247, if Trump holds a lot more rallies they will all be super-spreader events. Even if the vaccine trials, preparation and distribution go well from here on out, there will be no vaccine for most of the population until well into next year.
I expect Trump to spew disinformation, promote violence, and spread coronavirus over the next two months. And he will also use the super-spreader events to raise money.
Just when you think you’re done laughing at the totally humiliating ending of Rudy Giuliani’s career as Donald Trump’s personal attorney, it keeps getting more embarrassing for Giuliani and the Trump campaign.
Like most of Trump’s unqualified appointees in government, apparently the Trump campaign didn’t closely screen who they were putting in front of worldwide cameras in the parking of the Four Seasons Total Landscaping lot. Which I still can’t even believe I’m typing, but that was a real thing that happened.
To recap, on Saturday Donald Trump announced via Twitter that his lawyers would be having a press conference at the upscale Four Seasons Hotel in Philadelphia. That tweet was quickly replaced with one saying the location was the Four Seasons Total Landscaping company in Philadelphia, located in an industrial area next to the Fantasy Island adult store and a crematorium.
As if that weren’t bad enough, Politico reports New Jersey political reporters instantly recognized one of Rudy Giuliani’s key “witnesses” as Daryl Brooks, a New Jersey man who went to prison in 1988 after a sex offender conviction. He was convicted of exposing himself to two girls, ages 7 and 11 years old.
Brooks ran for Congress in 2004 as the Green Party candidate in New Jersey’s 12th District […]
“I started watching it and all of a sudden I was like, ‘there’s New Jersey’s perennial candidate claiming to live in Philadelphia and Giuliani claiming him to be a poll watcher and Philadelphia resident,” Trenton Mayor Reed Gusciora said in a phone interview. […]
All the best people ended up in the best location.
Vice President Pence on Monday credited Operation Warp Speed for the announcement by drugmaker Pfizer that an analysis of its coronavirus vaccine trial suggested it was highly effective in preventing covid-19, even though Pfizer did not join the Trump administration initiative.
“Thanks to the public-private partnership forged by President @realDonaldTrump, @pfizer announced its Coronavirus Vaccine trial is EFFECTIVE, preventing infection in 90% of its volunteers,” tweeted Pence, who heads the White House coronavirus task force and has maintained a low profile since the election.
Pfizer, unlike its competitors, did not join Operation Warp Speed, the government initiative designed to erase the financial risk of vaccine and therapeutics development by providing funding to companies and helping coordinate the trials. Instead, Pfizer plowed $2 billion of its own money into the project, a partnership with German biotech firm BioNTech, and then struck a $1.95 billion contract with the U.S. government to provide 100 million doses, contingent on the vaccine’s effectiveness.
In an interview with the New York Times, Kathrin Jansen, a senior vice president at Pfizer and head of its vaccine research and development, sought to distance the company from the initiative and presidential politics.
“We were never part of the Warp Speed,” she said. “We have never taken any money from the U.S. government, or from anyone.”
But quitting for-profit detention won’t be so easy.
[…] Stock prices for the country’s two largest prison companies, the GEO Group and CoreCivic, have fallen 14 percent and 19 percent respectively since Election Day.
Biden’s campaign platform, like Hillary Clinton’s in 2016, promised that he would end the federal government’s use of private prisons. That’s a serious threat to both GEO and CoreCivic, which depend on federal contracts with the Bureau of Prisons (BOP), Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the US Marshals Service for more than 50 percent of their revenue […]
The industry benefited as the [Trump] administration detained tens of thousands of immigrants and imposed hardline immigration policies such as family separation […] (Private prisons did not hold children taken from their families, but they did hold their parents, as well as families detained together.)
That public backlash had major repercussions for the companies’ access to financing. JP Morgan and seven other banks, as well as the country’s largest public pension fund, announced in 2019 they would divest from the prison industry. Stock prices for both companies have been falling ever since, and have kept falling as policies to stem the spread of COVID-19 have led to reductions in prison populations. Meanwhile, California, Nevada, Minnesota, and Colorado have recently passed or are considering private prison bans.
[…] “As long as there’s a policy of border enforcement,” he [GEO Group CEO George Zoley ] told investors, “we will continue to play a role in supporting that policy.”
[…] prison industry PACs, employees, and their families shelled out a record $2.5 million in campaign donations—mostly to Republicans, with Trump the top recipient. Zoley personally gave $200,000 to the Trump Victory PAC over the last two years.
It remains to be seen how quickly federal contracts could be ended—and whether Biden’s promise will extend to private facilities used to hold ICE or Marshals detainees. According to Margo Schlanger, former head of the office of civil rights and civil liberties at the Department of Homeland Security, it would be easy for the Biden administration to reissue an Obama administration policy to phase out BOP private prison contracts. […] Ending those contracts would affect thousands of incarcerated people: Over 14,000 people, or about 9 percent of the BOP population, are currently held in private prisons. But it would be far from a devastating blow to the industry. “We think our risk is pretty minimal there,” CoreCivic CEO Damon Hininger told investors on an earnings call last Thursday.
[Biden’s platform] says he will “make clear” that the feds “should not use” private facilities to hold detainees, including undocumented immigrants. What that means for ICE, as well as the Marshals Service—which uses private prisons to hold about 17 percent of people arrested by federal agencies—is not obvious.
[…] ICE relies on for-profit facilities to hold around 70 percent of the people in its custody. […] In the last fiscal year, CoreCivic and GEO relied on ICE contracts for nearly a third of all their revenue. […]
the coronavirus crisis could be an opportunity for Biden to reduce the scale of immigration detention. According to ICE statistics, the number of people in immigration detention dropped by about 60 percent over the last year, with much of the decline due to the pandemic. “ICE doesn’t have good alternatives for private or county operators,” Schlanger said in an email. But, she added, “ICE’s detention population is very low right now. Which highlights the appealing option of simply keeping the population low.”
Private prison stock price graph is available at the link.
KGsays
Brooks ran for Congress in 2004 as the Green Party candidate in New Jersey’s 12th District- Lynna, OM@267, quoting Daily Kos
KG @271, it is not the Green Party that is faulted here. Brooks is a “perennial candidate” who runs for whatever office under whatever banner. In other words, a scam artist. The main think wrong with Brooks is that he is a convicted sex offender. The next most important factor is that it looks like Brooks was claiming to live in Philadelphia while actually being a resident in New Jersey.
It is doubtful that he would make a good defendant in a court case making claims to have seen voter fraud while serving as a poll watcher in Philadelphia.
Christopher Miller, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, will replace Mark Esper as acting secretary of defense, President Trump tweeted on Monday.
tomh @273, I think this kind of thing only makes a difference if Trump is planning to start a war; or if Trump is planning to use national security as a reason to arrest/detain protestors; to declare martial law … or whatever other stupid move he dreams up.
Trump can’t be ignored just yet. He can still do damage.
I am not sure that Christopher Miller would do Trump’s bidding though. Miller was confirmed by the Senate, and he may not be a Trump lackey. We’ll see. If he is not enough of a Trump lackey, then we can assume that Trump was just being his usual vindictive self in firing Esper.
Doctors in Italy have warned there will be an additional 10,000 Covid-19 deaths in a month in the country unless a national lockdown is imposed, my colleague Angela Giuffrida reports from Rome.
The government is moving toward placing further restrictions in four more regions considered high risk: Campania, Liguria, Abruzzo and Umbria.
The Italian Order of Doctors, however, has urged tougher action as hospitals struggle to find space for coronavirus patients. Ambulances have been queuing outside emergency units from Turin in the north to Naples in the south. People were treated for Covid-19 in their cars outside Cotugno hospital in Naples, the capital of Campania, over the weekend. One 78-year-old woman waited in an ambulance for 26 hours before being admitted to hospital.
As Italy edges towards a million coronavirus infections since the start of the pandemic, 32,616 new cases were registered on Sunday, a more than sevenfold increase since 8 October. There were 331 Covid-related fatalities, bringing the total to 41,394, the highest in mainland Europe.
The United States became the first country to surpass 10 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Monday, according to a count from the Washington Post, a grim milestone that comes as experts warn of a surge in new cases this fall and winter.
The U.S. continues to have more cases than any other country, averaging more than 111,000 new cases per day. Nearly 137,000 new cases were reported on Friday, the highest number reported in a single day.
Experts had long warned that new cases would surge in the fall and winter as the cold weather forces people to spend more time indoors, where the virus spreads more easily. […]
Hospitalizations are also rising, with nearly 57,000 people hospitalized as of Sunday, according to The COVID Tracking Project.
Deaths, which typically lag behind an increase in cases and hospitalizations, is also starting to tick up, with an average of 934 fatalities reported in the past seven days, according to the project. […]
There’s currently a Senate-confirmed Deputy Secretary of Defense — David Norquist. Under 10 U.S.C. § 132(b), *he* is supposed to become Acting Secretary in the event of a vacancy.
Unless Trump fired him, too.
To be clear, *if* the Federal Vacancies Reform Act allows the President to appoint someone else as Acting Secretary notwithstanding § 132(b), Miller is a valid choice (because of his Senate confirmation). But it’s not at all obvious that the FVRA *does* override the DoD statute.
The last time this came up, Trump named as Acting Secretary Patrick Shanahan (who was already serving as the Deputy Secretary), which avoided the issue:…
And not for nothing, but he’s also ignoring the currently governing Executive Order on DoD succession, which likewise puts the Deputy Secretary first:…
From Wonkette: “Fox News Idiots So Mad Trump Not Getting Credit For Coronavirus Vaccine He Didn’t Create”
You know how Democrats are just going to stop talking about coronavirus now that the election is over? That’s what Donald Trump always said, because coronavirus was just a hoax to tank his re-election prospects and because everything is about him. President No Mask had the virus and is now “immune,” so obviously this whole thing is over, right? That’s why nobody is even reporting that Mark Meadows and Dr. Ben Carson and God only knows who else got covid after attending the White House superspreader election night party
[…] Pfizer announced it has a COVID-19 vaccine it says is more than 90 percent effective, at least so far. This is great news, if the safety and efficacy of the vaccine pan out. And yet, it’s sparked a tidal wave of BELLYACHING from Trumpland, because Pfizer didn’t even take this opportunity […] thank Trump for being such a great Dear Leader. Mike Pence is taking credit for it, White House comms liar Alyssa Farah is doing a victory lap, and the whining at Fox News has gone up to eleven. […]
EARHARDT: Are you finding the timing curious? We had an election a week ago.
PAYNE: I am finding the timing curious. It’s frustrating. You know, it’s so interesting. I was watching — toggling around TV yesterday, watching a couple games and whatever, and I saw a commercial for 60 Minutes and they said “we’re going to go to the military’s Operation Warp Speed.” The military’s? They’re actually operating it, in fact, at the behest of President Trump. And then there’s an article this morning before this came out that was, the shifting sort-of Operation Warp Speed to Biden now. The Washington Post: Biden advisers met with sharp — with the Warp Speed drugmakers before the election. But what I thought was intriguing is on the Biden website, it says “Operation Warp Speed lacks a strategy to see its mission through and gain the trust of Americans.” Well, I wonder what they’re going to say today? Are they going to tell people not to take this vaccine that Pfizer is saying 90% effective? Are they going to say wait? I mean this is absolutely remarkable stuff. Credit where credit is due; President Trump, he really did push hard on this. Who knows, if it came a week earlier it might have changed the outcome, but it is great news for all Americans.
Uh huh yes, well, one reason why people aren’t really giving Trump credit for this is that Pfizer didn’t actually take federal money under Operation Warp Speed, though it did ink a $2 billion deal with the Trump Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to distribute a vaccine, assuming one worked. But developing this vaccine? That’s Pfizer. And you can argue that Pfizer might not have used its own piggy bank for the development of the vaccine if it didn’t have that $2 billion deal with HHS, and that could be valid.
But LOL please.
Donald Trump did not do shit. Some people at HHS inked a deal with Pfizer, but if you believe Trump somehow made that happen, you are a goddamned idiot.
Allow Dr. Kathrin Jansen, Pfizer senior VP in charge of making vaccines, to explain:
Dr. Jansen sought to distance the company from Operation Warp Speed and presidential politics, noting that the company — unlike the other vaccine front-runners — did not take any federal money to help pay for research and development.
“We were never part of the Warp Speed,” she said. […]”
Got it? They were not part of Trump’s Warp Speed thingie. Also she says she didn’t find out about the vaccine’s trials were going until Sunday afternoon, well over 24 hours after the media stole the election from Donald Trump, by doing math and reporting on vote counts. So that’s the curious “timing” Charles Payne is whining about.
Fox News idiot David Asman just nailed his reporting and analysis in this tweet, except for how none of the details were right: “I have no doubt if this game-changing news on the virus came a week earlier, Biden’s razor-thin edge in the election would have disappeared. Flies in the face of Biden charge that Trump did “nothing” against the virus. “Operation Warp Speed” was a success.”
Yeah, no. Again, Trump didn’t do this, and Biden’s win wasn’t “razor thin,” but rather more like “four and a half million votes and counting.” Indeed, Biden is on track to end up with 306 Electoral College votes, which, as Donald Trump has told us VERY MANY TIMES, is a landslide feat that is literally impossible to achieve for mere mortals.
Because Wonkette is very fair, we did want to make sure you knew the part about Pfizer doing a deal with Trump’s HHS for distribution of the vaccine, if it proved effective. But pat Trump on the back? After his constant lying and gaslighting about the virus? After his refusal to wear a mask or encourage mask use? After all one million of his bullshit conspiracy theories about coronavirus? After DRINK BLEACH? After we found out that he knew very well how bad coronavirus was back in February and admitted to Bob Woodward that he was lying about it? After 237,000 Americans and rising have died on his watch, because of his malevolent incompetence?
[…] In other news, incoming President Joe Biden named his coronavirus task force today. It includes real scientists, because of course it does, including Rick Bright, the vaccine chief from HHS who got fired because he refused to promote Trump’s snake oil Hydroxybonercream 3000 corona cure.
Reuters is reporting that the lawyer charged with leading the US president Donald Trump’s post-election legal challenges, David Bossie, has tested positive for Covid-19, citing a source familiar with the matter.
Bossie, a prominent conservative activist who leads advocacy group Citizens United, tested positive on Sunday, joining White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and the housing secretary Ben Carson as victims of the latest coronavirus outbreak to touch the White House.
“Big picture on Nov. 9th: McConnell, the most powerful Republican in Congress, stands firmly with President Trump as the president fights his legal battles. Rails against ‘far left mobs’, minutes after meeting with AG Barr at the Capitol. Wants ‘no lectures’ from Democrats.”
He was (is?) speaking on the Senate floor, which I shut off because I hate him.
Georgia’s two Republican U.S. Senators are calling on the Republican Secretary of State to resign because they believe – without evidence – that he “failed to deliver honest and transparent elections.”
I’ve seen a lot in my two years of covering Georgia elections but I never thought that I’d see an evidence-free assault on one of the most transparently-run elections in recent memory – with few reported issues – from two U.S. Senators.
Joint statement atl. No evidence of a single thing, naturally.
“Based on my convos with Rs over wknd, most everything McConnell does from here on isn’t about January 20th (inauguration day & working with Biden) but January 5th (the Georgia run-off elections). To win the latter, Rs believe the base must be stoked, esp in a fast-changing state.”
The coronavirus pandemic in the U.S. will face its darkest period so far over the next three to four months as cases continue to surge above 100,000 per day, a newly appointed coronavirus advisor to President-elect Joe Biden said on Monday.
“What America has to understand is that we are about to enter Covid hell,” Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center of Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, told CNBC’s “Squawk Alley.” “It is happening.”
The U.S. is reporting a record-high weekly average of roughly 108,736 cases every day, growing more than 33% compared with a week ago, according to a CNBC analysis of data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
The U.S. is nearing 10 million reported Covid-19 cases as of Monday, the most of any nation on the globe, according to Hopkins data. The coronavirus has killed at least 237,584 people in the country so far.
That figure has grown dramatically in recent weeks, sending the U.S. pandemic deeper into its third peak ahead of Thanksgiving and Christmas. After a summer of surging infections across America’s Sun Belt states, the country was able to suppress the average number of cases to just above 30,000 a day in early September.
After Labor Day, Osterholm said, he warned the U.S. would see an “astronomical” increase in new cases. That prediction has come true in only a matter of weeks, he said, adding that “this number is going to continue to increase substantially.”
“We have not even come close to the peak and, as such, our hospitals are now being overrun,” Osterholm said. “The next three to four months are going to be, by far, the darkest of the pandemic.”
And while Pfizer’s early Covid-19 vaccine data showing more than 90% effectiveness is “a great, great finding,” Osterholm said that more data is needed to understand how effective the vaccine is in preventing serious illness and death versus more mild symptoms.
“Until we have those pieces of information, we can’t really know how much of a game changer this really is,” he said….
Today is the 82nd anniversary of Kristallnacht. Merkel spoke about it (DW link):
…Merkel’s message was part of the “Let there be Light” initiative, which sees places of worship and other institutions around the world lit up to remember the events of 82 years ago. Kristallnacht saw Jews terrorized throughout Germany and Austria. Some had businesses destroyed and some were murdered. Others were among the earliest victims of the Nazi concentration camps.
“We remember the disgrace of November 9, 1938, the pogroms against Jewish fellow citizens throughout the country, the people driven to their deaths, the burning synagogues, the destroyed stores,” said Merkel. “We commemorate the victims of the crime committed by Germany against humanity, the Shoah, in shame.”
As part of the worldwide event, prayers and messages from all over the world are being projected onto the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City. A memorial service, with international online participation, was also planned at the Jerusalem residence of Israeli President Reuven Rivlin. In Germany, some commemoration events were cancelled due to the coronavirus, while others were held behind closed doors or digitally.
German Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, together with his Israeli counterpart Rivlin and Austrian opposite number Alexander Van der Bellen called for solidarity in the fight against antisemitism.
“The dark shadows of the past have not disappeared from our streets,” Steinmeier said in a joint video message. “We stand together, in Vienna, in Jerusalem, in Berlin.”
In a separate message directly to Rivlin, Steinmeier said the “sickening outburst of violence” of 1938 was a “stark warning to us today.” After German Jews were warned by the country’s antisemitism commissioner against wearing the traditional Jewish headwear of the kippa, or yarmulke, Steimeier said Kristallnacht represented a “pressing warning” to us today….
Endorse. Twitter should shut down Trump’s account. He’s violated their rules multiple times, is willfully endangering people, and is doing immeasurable harm to democracy.
“Fox News just cut away from @PressSec, saying the network could not in good conscience continue to air her false claims, for which she has provided no supporting evidence.”
Inbox: Georgia’s secretary of state rebuffs Perdue/Loeffler, says election results process has been “orderly and followed the law”
Raffensperger calls the election “a resounding success” from an election management perspective. Average wait time: 3 minutes. Record turnout near 5 million votes.
Says “unlikely” allegations of illegal votes it is investigating would change the outcome.
Raffensperger ends with a [fire] dig at Loeffler/Perdue.
“As a Republican, I am concerned about Republicans keeping the U.S. Senate. I recommend that Senators Loeffler and Perdue start focusing on that.”
Novel strategy: Try to cancel a fellow Republican running your runoff election without presenting any specific claims or evidence.
@SenRickScott reflecting on his own recounts: “They didn’t let me come up here. Schumer made sure I couldn’t come up here and do the orientation until after the recounts were done even though I won by 54,000 ballots on election night.”
And responses:
FACT CHECK – FALSE. @SenRickScott came to DC and did his freshman orientation with every other GOP Senator on November 14, 2018. This was before Florida elections officials confirmed Scott’s victory on November 18, 2018.
I literally stood in Mitch McConnell’s office for a photo-op with Scott and other newly elected senators while FL’s recount was ongoing.
Lawyers working to reunite migrant families separated by the Trump administration before and during its “zero tolerance” policy at the border now believe the number of separated children for whom they have not been able to find parents is 666, higher than they told a federal judge last month, according to an email obtained by NBC News.
Nearly 20 percent of those children were under 5 at the time of the separation, according to a source familiar with the data.
In the email, Steven Herzog, the attorney leading efforts to reunite the families, explains that the number is higher because the new group includes those “for whom the government did not provide any phone number.” Previously, the lawyers said they could not find the parents of 545 children after they had tried to make contact but had been unsuccessful. […]
‘Should NOT ordinarily be taken in matters involving alleged fraud in the manner in which votes were cast or counted until the election…has been concluded, its results certified, and all recounts and election contests concluded'”
During a recent debate, Trump insisted the stock market “will crash” if Biden wins, but that apparently wasn’t true: “Wall Street surged on Monday, propelling all three major indices to record highs after Pfizer said its vaccine was 90 percent effective in protecting people against Covid-19…. Monday’s rally was the biggest since February, and built on post-election gains, which came as former Vice President Joe Biden emerged on Saturday as victor in the presidential race, according to NBC News Decision Desk projections.”
From NBC News:
Law-enforcement stories like these are scary: “An Arkansas police chief has resigned after he posted messages on a right-wing social media site that appeared to urge people to assault ‘Marxist’ Democrats over the presidential election, the mayor said.”
[…] A new administration will take office in 72 days, and there was no reason to believe President-elect Joe Biden planned to keep Esper on as a member of the Democrat’s cabinet. In other words, Esper was poised to give up his post in a couple of months anyway.
The question then becomes, why bother?
Did Trump fire the Pentagon chief as an act of political spite against a cabinet secretary who indirectly hurt his feelings? Was there a policy Esper was reluctant to implement during Trump’s lame-duck period? Is this intended to make the transition between administrations more difficult?
Former CIA Director John Brennan told NBC News, “I think there is a lot that’s going to happen over the next 75 days as Trump carries out vendettas, settles scores and tries to position himself for his next act…. He is a totally unprincipled, unethical individual. I don’t think anything is beyond him, and that’s very scary to say.”
Retired Gen. Barry McCafferty added on MSNBC that the public should be “apprehensive about what’s going on,” adding, “We ought to be worried about this.”
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, wrote on Twitter, “Trump is creating a dangerously unstable national security environment during this transition period. Adversaries are watching.”
The Trump administration threw the presidential transition into tumult on Monday, Attorney General William Barr authorizing the Justice Department to probe allegations of voter fraud and President Donald Trump firing the Pentagon chief and blocking government officials from cooperating with President-elect Joe Biden’s team.
Despite little [<i.sic] evidence of fraud, Barr signed off on investigations into the unsubstantiated claims made repeatedly by Trump. Even as Biden began assembling experts to face the surging pandemic, the federal agency that needs to green light the beginnings of the transition of power held off on taking that step. And the White House moved to crack down on those not deemed sufficiently loyal as Trump continued to refuse to concede the race.
Top Republicans largely refused to put widespread pressure on Trump to accept his election loss. He remained out of sight at the White House, conversations ongoing about how the defeated president would spend the coming days and weeks as he challenged the people’s verdict.
The ouster of Defense Secretary Mark Esper was expected by some aides to be the first of several firings by Trump, now freed from having to face voters again and angry at those in his administration perceived to be insufficiently loyal. Others believed to be vulnerable: FBI Director Christopher Wray, CIA head Gina Haspel and infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci. [He can’t fire Fauci.]
Out of sight but not unheard, Trump took to Twitter to again dispute the result of the election, making baseless accusations of widespread “unthinkable and illegal” activity in the vote.
Trump is not expected to formally concede but is likely to grudgingly vacate the White House at the end of his term, according to several people around him. He was in discussion with top allies about the possibility of more campaign-style rallies as he tries to keep his supporters fired up despite his defeat. It was possible they would feature his family and top supporters but not the president himself.
The president was given cover to keep fighting by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, seen by many in the GOP as the one who may eventually need to nudge Trump to the exit.
“Our institutions are actually built for this,” McConnell said as he opened the Senate on Monday. “We have the system in place to consider concerns and President Trump is 100% within his rights to look into allegations of irregularities and weigh his legal options.”
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer countered that the Republicans’ refusal to accept the election results was “extremely dangerous, extremely poisonous to our democracy.”
“Joe Biden won the election fair and square,” Schumer said.
…
Republicans on Capitol Hill have been hesitant to push Trump to concede to Biden, knowing it would anger their base of Trump’s most devoted supporters. Most were also not overtly encouraging the president’s unfounded claims of fraud, while allowing baseless questions about the election process to linger.
Adding to the sense of uncertainty, the General Services Administration held off on formally beginning the transition, preventing Biden’s teams from gaining access to federal agencies. An agency spokesperson said late Monday that an “ascertainment” on the winner of the election had not yet been made. Citing what the agency did during the extended 2000 electoral recount, it signaled that it may not do so until Trump concedes or the Electoral College meets next month.
Across government, there were signs of a slowdown.
…
A senior administration official said presidential personnel director John McEntee, the president’s former personal aide, has sent word to departments that they should terminate any political appointees seeking new work for now. Another official said the warning was not seen as likely to result in any firings but rather meant to reinforce to staff that they should not act counter to Trump while he refuses to concede. Those officials and others who were not authorized to discuss internal policies or describe private discussions requested anonymity. [JUST QUIT, ALREADY.]
…
And despite Trump’s public stance, there was a growing realization in his inner circle that the election result would be impossible to overturn.
Legal challenges already have been dismissed in battleground states like Georgia and Wisconsin. And Trump’s legal challenge was dealt another blow Monday when campaign adviser David Bossie, tasked with leading the effort, tested positive for the coronavirus.
Bossie had been at the indoor White House election night party now being perceived as a possible superspreader event after other attendees — including chief of staff Mark Meadows, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson and other aides — contracted the virus.
Some senior officials have tried to make the case that Trump should turn his efforts to cementing his legacy, but they are wary of being labeled disloyal for even thinking it.
At the White House, attendance among aides had dropped off since election night — partly because of the result and partly because a number are in quarantine after contracting or being exposed to people who came down with COVID-19. And Vice President Mike Pence was slated to depart Tuesday for a vacation in Florida. [WTF]
In the closing days of the election, Trump repeatedly described campaigning as “my job,” and it steadily crowded out his official duties.
Trump’s public schedule hasn’t included an intelligence briefing since Oct. 1. The White House hasn’t provided a “readout” of any call between the president and a foreign leader in weeks. He hasn’t met with members of the White House coronavirus task force in months. He also offered no public comment on Tropical Storm Eta lashing the Florida Keys.
The drawn-out resolution to the election has only added to the culture of suspicion that has permeated the hollowed-out West Wing.
Aides said there were two camps at the White House: those who have already accepted the outcome and those who are still working through it and pushing Trump to keep fighting. Staffers don’t know in which camp their officemates reside and those who are looking ahead to new work are fearful of being branded as disloyal….
OK. Still seems to conflict with DoJ policy (@ #311), as does making it public like this.
John Moralessays
re #315:
The ouster of Defense Secretary Mark Esper was expected by some aides to be the first of several firings by Trump, now freed from having to face voters again […]
[and]
Republicans on Capitol Hill have been hesitant to push Trump to concede to Biden, knowing it would anger their base of Trump’s most devoted supporters.
Either their base is not their voters, or this has it both ways.
Tiffany Cross is telling Joy Reid how important it is that her voice was such a big part of the campaign coverage, and I agree. I think it made a difference that Chuck Todd and Chris Matthews were sidelined in favor of Reid, Wallace, and Maddow. Morning Joe was garbage this morning.
I have a question: Can cable news show (or play the audio of) the court arguments in these election cases? The lawyers keep pointing out how when they bring these nonsense conspiracies into court they get shot down – of course, because they have no evidence. And they’re 0-10 (at least) so far. I’ve seen some quotes on Twitter from the courts in the various states, and the judges are basically laughing them out of court, but I don’t think I’ve seen or heard anything directly from the hearings. Is it not allowed?
Joe Biden: “I won’t be president until January 20th, but my message today to everyone is this: wear a mask.”
Kamala Harris: “I want to speak directly to the Black women in our country. Thank you. You are too often overlooked, and yet are asked time and again to step up and be the backbone of our democracy. We could not have done this without you.”
“NEW: Richard Pilger, the official who oversees election crimes has stepped down over Barr’s memo:
‘Having familiarized myself with the new policy and its ramifications… I must regretfully resign from my role as Director of the Election Crimes Branch’.
Pilger is staying at the Justice Department and will return work as a line prosecutor in the Public Integrity section prosecuting corruption cases.”
Estonia’s minister of interior Mart Helme was forced to resign after he publicly entertained the Trumpian conspiracy theory of US “election fraud”. Not to be confused with his son Martin Helme, who is the minister of finance and represents the same rightwing nationalist Ekre party. The parliament also tried to oust him, but failed.
Various Ekre politicians, most notably Mart Helme, have frequently made “non PC” comments in public, sometimes forcing Estonian government to apologize to foreign governments. There doesn’t seem to be an effective way to shut them up, since ousting of one racist Ekre politician would result in him being replaced by another racist Ekre politician. However, in this case, alliance with the US is deemed so important for Estonia that a mere apology wouldn’t do.
Mart Helme claims he resigned “voluntarily” after being (once again) “mispresented and persecuted” by Estonian media. He said he has “not said anything that has not already been recounted by the American media, the American free media” as if that’s a good standard for political speech.
If you thought disinformation on Facebook was a problem during our election, just wait until you see how it is shredding the fabric of our democracy in the days after.
Look at what has happened in just the past week.
Steve Bannon literally called for the beheading of FBI Director Wray and Dr. Fauci in a video on November 3. It was live on Facebook for 10 hours before it was removed after a journalist inquired about the video.
Bannon? His page is still live on Facebook.
In the days after Election Day, Facebook is flooded with thousands of calls for violence. Some of them are taken down, but many are left up for hours, if not days.
Unsurprisingly, Breitbart was an early amplifier and legitimizer of “voter fraud” misinformation on Facebook, writing “The Steal is On” early Tuesday afternoon after citing numerous debunked conspiracy theories.
Breitbart distribution should have been reduced on Facebook for multiple misinformation violations, but Facebook’s policy team intervened to remove misinformation strikes from its account.
The result? Facebook-enabled mobilization of conspiracy theorists using “Stop the Steal” groups ballooned to over 300k members, before finally being taken down under pressure.
After Facebook removed the initial group, multiple new “stop the steal” groups formed and grew rapidly.
In its wake, Donald Trump voter fraud and election victory lies represented 17 of the top 20 posts on FB between 11/3-11/8. While Twitter disabled sharing of Trump’s election disinformation, Facebook continued to actively promote the posts in feeds.
It continues. Today, a Team Trump “voter fraud” disinformation press conference — so full of lies that Fox News had to cut away — ran unmediated on Facebook. After being prompted, Facebook added a woefully ineffective closable label to it.
We knew this would happen. We pleaded with Facebook for over a year to be serious about these problems. They have not.
“President-elect Biden is defending the Obama administration’s signature health law as it goes before the Supreme Court in a case that could overturn it. He’s delivering an Affordable Care Act speech today, when the high court hears arguments on its merits.”
“For those keeping score, we’ve now seen 7 veteran career prosecutors resign from 4 different high-profile cases (Stone, Flynn, Durham, now this) to protest Barr’s political weaponization of DOJ.”
Here’s a link to the November 10 Guardian coronavirus world liveblog.
From there:
The Covid-19 death toll in Europe is set to pass 300,000, according to a Reuters tally, and authorities fear that despite hopes for a new vaccine, fatalities and infections will continue to rise as the region heads into winter.
With just 10% of the world’s population, Europe accounts for almost a quarter of both the 50.7 million cases and 1.2 million deaths globally and even its well-equipped hospitals are feeling the strain.
After achieving a measure of control over the pandemic with broad lockdowns earlier this year, case numbers have surged since the summer and governments have ordered a second series of restrictions to limit social contacts.
In all, Europe has reported some 12.3 million cases and 295,000 deaths and over the past week, it has seen 280,000 cases a day, up 10% from the week earlier, representing just over half of all new infections reported globally.
Hopes have been raised by Pfizer’s announcement of a potentially effective new vaccine, but it is not expected to be generally available before 2021 and health systems will have to cope with the winter months unaided.
Britain has the highest death toll in Europe at around 49,000 and health experts have warned that with a current average of more than 20,000 cases daily, the country will exceed its “worst case” scenario of 80,000 deaths.
France, Spain, Italy and Russia have also reported hundreds of deaths a day, and together with the UK account for almost three quarters of the total fatalities.
lumipunasays
Tangentially related to covid, this year’s flu vaccine is reportedly already sold out here in Finland. That should mean slightly more people than usually are vaccinated, and earlier than usually. We already saw last spring that covid precautions can slow down flu at least as much as they slow down covid.
I procrastinated on taking the shot, in part because I’m lazy, but also I figured my hermit-like life situation should keep me rather well protected, so most other people need the vaccine more than I do. Plus I’ll get some benefit from herd immunity anyway.
“This is the seventh day in a row for @realDonaldTrump with nothing on his public schedule. This is tied for the 2nd longest stretch without items on his public schedule.”
“In July, I interviewed Jose Garza, who is now the incoming DA of Travis County (Austin): he since beat the incumbent in Dem primary & won again last week.
I asked him about the calls to reduce, or shrink, the criminal legal system. Here’s what he told me….”
southpaw: “I’m always hesitant to say oral arguments mean anything about what the final opinion will be, but Kavanaugh and Roberts both effectively said they didn’t buy Texas’s non-severability argument. Not as hypotheticals; they just said it. Make of that what you will.”
Big comment from Kavanaugh just now: “I tend to agree with you” that the case is “very straightforward” under our severability precedents. Those precedents (including an opinion authored by Kavanaugh last term) say there is usually a strong presumption in favor of severability.
This is the most important line that any Justice could’ve said at this morning’s #ACA argument.
If Justice Kavanaugh believes that the individual mandate is “severable” from the rest of the statute, then there’s no way to count to five votes to throw out the *entire* law.
SC @339, I saw that. Makes me wonder what he saw on his phone.
Bits and pieces of campaign news from Steve Benen:
* Though she added some caveats, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) yesterday extended congratulatory wishes to President-elect Joe Biden. As of this morning, only four of the Senate’s 53 Republicans have acknowledged the Democrat’s victory.
* On a related note, Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) appeared on CNN this morning said some of his Republican colleagues have told him privately to convey their well-wishes to Biden, though they can’t “say that publicly yet.”
* Jason Miller, a leading figure in Donald Trump’s political operation, said yesterday that the word “concession” is “not even in our vocabulary right now.”
* The outgoing president is reportedly preparing to launch a leadership PAC, perhaps as early as this month. NBC News’ report on this added, “This would allow Trump to raise money once he leaves office as an intermediary vehicle and as he contemplates a potential 2024 run. Funds raised could pay for his travel and political consultants over the next few years, for example.”
* On a related note, the Trump campaign reportedly sent 23 fundraising emails yesterday, with over-the-top messages about “illegal” ballots. The Dallas Morning News’ Todd Gillman noted, “The fine print says 60% of donations go to ‘retirement of general election debt,'” which reinforces concerns that Team Trump isn’t conceding at least in part because it wants to keep collecting money from the president’s followers. [That’s what I though all along.]
* Speaking of fundraising, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) launched a fundraising campaign over the weekend, seeking contributions to “help us bring it home” for Trump. The Associated Press noticed, however, that “the donations are set to flow into her own re-election account.”
* Following an unexpectedly difficult cycle for House Democrats, Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.) announced yesterday that she will not seek another term as chair of the DCCC. Among those who hope to replace her: Rep. Tony Cardenas (D-Calif.), the current chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus’ BOLD PAC.
* Every official who served as Homeland Security secretary before the Trump administration endorsed a joint statement yesterday, making the case that the 2020 elections were fair and that Team Trump’s assorted lawsuits “cannot and must not prevent the transition process from beginning.”
* And on a related note, Georgia’s statewide voting system implementation manager, Gabriel Sterling, said yesterday that there was no widespread electoral fraud in his state, which is clearly not what Republicans want to believe.
Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh has tested positive for Covid-19 only days after being released from prison, her husband said on Tuesday.
“Nasrin tested positive today,” Reza Khandan wrote in a brief post on his Facebook account.
“Last Wednesday, during (a) meeting I had with Nasrin at Qarchak prison, she said that the coronavirus had spread in her ward and many (inmates) had become sick.
“That’s why she was in a rush to follow up on her furlough process,” he added.
Sotoudeh, 57, was released from jail on Saturday after being granted a temporary leave of absence.
The lawyer and activist was jailed in 2018 after defending a woman arrested for protesting against the requirement for Iranian women to wear the hijab.
She was told at the time that she had been sentenced to five years in prison in absentia for spying, according to her lawyers.
In 2019, she was sentenced again to 12 years in prison “for encouraging corruption and debauchery”.
According to her husband, Sotoudeh’s health deteriorated badly behind bars, where she had to end in September a 45-day hunger strike that she had launched to seek the release of prisoners during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Iran is the Middle East country hardest hit by the pandemic. Since March, more than 100,000 inmates have been granted temporary release to limit the spread of the disease in prisons.
The Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, has sparked outrage by gloating over the suspension of clinical trials of the Chinese coronavirus vaccine after a volunteer’s death.
“Another victory for Jair Bolsonaro,” read a comment posted by the official Facebook account of Brazil’s far-right leader on Monday night after the country’s health regulator, Anvisa, announced it had halted testing of the CoronaVac jab.
Anvisa said the trial of the vaccine – which is being developed by the Chinese biopharmaceutical firm Sinovac Biotech – had been suspended as a result of a “adverse, serious event” involving a participant in Brazil.
But many Bolsonaro critics see a possible political motivation behind the move, and the head of the Brazilian research centre coordinating the trial claimed the volunteer’s death was not related to the vaccine.
The broadcaster TV Cultura reported on Tuesday that the “event” was suicide, saying it had seen the coroner’s report showing the trial volunteer had taken their own life.
The CoronaVac is being developed in partnership with the São Paulo-based research centre Butantan and has been championed by São Paulo’s state governor, João Doria, who is one of Bolsonaro’s biggest political foes.
That rivalry has placed the CoronaVac at the centre of a growing political brawl with Doria, who many believe will challenge Bolsonaro for the presidency in 2022, who promised to implement a compulsory vaccination scheme in his state while the president opposed such a move.
On Monday night Bolsonaro wrote on Facebook: “This is the vaccine Doria wanted to force everyone in São Paulo to take. Another victory for Jair Bolsonaro.”
Those comments caused immediate anger. “163,000 dead in Brazil. And Bolsonaro says he’s won,” tweeted Flávio Dino, the leftwing governor of Maranhão state and one of the key figures in Brazil’s opposition….
So sorry for the profanity I used on air last hour. I was experiencing some technical difficulties and mistakenly hung up on the control room, though my mic still was on. Perils of playing producer, cameraman and tech support all at the same time from home. #2020
No need to apologize. It was a bright spot in the day.
Biden has now spoken with Trudeau, Macron, Johnson, and Merkel. He’s publishing readouts. He’s set up a cornavirus task force and is getting pandemic briefings. He’s speaking publicly about national challenges. He’s presidenting.
“Atlanta Journal-Constitution says Trump pressured GA Sens. Loeffler and Perdue to call for Sec/State Raffensperger’s resignation. Profiles in courage right here…”
The U.S. Federal Reserve for the first time called out climate change among risks enumerated in its biannual financial stability report, and warned about the potential for abrupt changes in asset values in response to a warming planet.
…
Monday’s report comes just days after Joe Biden won the U.S. presidential election against President Donald Trump, who has downplayed the risks of climate change. Biden has promised to put fighting climate change back on the U.S. policy agenda.
GOP insiders may not see a “downside” to “humoring” Trump for a “little bit of time,” but their base doesn’t see the wink and the nod.
[…] Trump attacking his own country’s democracy, pretending he won, fighting to disregard the votes he doesn’t like, and making every possible effort to discredit the results that didn’t go his way. The outgoing president is throwing an elaborate tantrum, indifferent to the fact that he looks like a small, petulant child.
Perhaps more important, however, nearly everyone surrounding Trump — White House officials, congressional Republican leaders, et al. — is going through the motions, pretending his tantrum has merit. The Washington Post quoted one GOP insider on the party’s rationale:
“What is the downside for humoring him for this little bit of time? No one seriously thinks the results will change,” said one senior Republican official. “He went golfing this weekend. It’s not like he’s plotting how to prevent Joe Biden from taking power on Jan. 20. He’s tweeting about filing some lawsuits, those lawsuits will fail, then he’ll tweet some more about how the election was stolen, and then he’ll leave.”
To borrow a page from Dan Drezner, this senior Republican official sounds a bit like a babysitter: sure, pitiful Donnie is throwing a fit now, but he’ll soon tire himself out, at which point the grown-ups can move on.
[…] But let’s not be too quick to dismiss the implications and possible consequences of the outgoing president’s latest tantrum.
For one thing, the excerpted quote suggests Trump and his team are treating their own supporters as fools. Insiders may not see a “downside” to “humoring” the president for a “little bit of time,” but the Republican base is being led to believe that their own country’s election really is illegitimate.
In other words, Trump voters aren’t in on the game. […] These Americans have no idea that Republicans are merely “humoring” their flailing leader. On the contrary, they genuinely are under the impression that the losing candidate is actually the winning candidate, and that there’s an elaborate scheme underway to deny power to the rightful winner — because that’s the ridiculous message Trump is telling them […]
This won’t soon fade in the minds of far-right voters, who may very well spend the next four years insisting that the election was “stolen” from them, from Democrats who “cheat,” reality be damned.
As Michael Gerson added in his new column, “[I]t is Republican leaders who are responsible for poisoning whatever wells of goodwill still exist in our republic. Having aided Trump’s autocratic delusions, they are now abetting his assault on the orderly transfer of power. Through their active support or guilty silence, most elected Republicans are encouraging their fellow citizens to believe that America’s democratic system is fundamentally corrupt. No agent of China or Russia could do a better job of sabotage. Republicans are fostering cynicism about the constitutional order on a massive scale.”
There are also practical consequences to the GOP “humoring” Trump for a while. The presidential transition period is always a difficult sprint, and every day it’s delayed, the harder it gets for those involved.
Why should the typical voter care? Because everyone benefits when a new administration is able to hit the ground running on Jan. 20. Concerned about distributing a coronavirus vaccine? Then you should care about a smooth transition process. Care about national security? Then you should care about a smooth transition process.
The sooner Republicans focus less on humoring and more on governing, the better off we’ll all be.
In a smirking exchange with reporters, Trump Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was just asked whether his State Department will be cooperating with the the transition team of President-elect Joe Biden. Pompeo’s response: “There will be a smooth transition to a second Trump administration.”
Pompeo, an arch-conservative ex-House Republican who refused to testify to Congress about impeachable acts by Donald Trump that he himself was involved in, chose to give the answer of a corrupt autocrat’s lackey rather than defend this nation’s elections. By falsely calling Trump’s loss into question, each statement like this one escalates the likelihood of domestic terrorism by Trump’s addled base.
Pompeo filled the remainder of his answer with platitudes about the election process, world confidence in American government, and similar bromides […] Pompeo seems content to humor Trump’s orders that Biden not yet be acknowledged as the winner. That it undermines our democracy and poses very real risks of violence and terrorism seems of no concern to him.
As The New York Times reports, McConnell didn’t just say that Trump was “100% within his rights to look into allegations of irregularities and weigh his legal options,” he applauded Trump’s refusal to accept the results of voting, while claiming that Democrats “just spent four years refusing to accept the validity of the last election.”
Biden is answering (smart) questions after a (nice) speech. He was just asked about Trump’s refusal to concede, and said it was an “embarrassment.” He doesn’t think it’ll make any real difference to the transition. Said he wasn’t really interested in legal action re Trump’s people blocking the official transition – they don’t need the funds or the PDB, are moving along in any event. Kind of mockingly chuckled about Pompeo, repeated “Secretary of State Pompeo” while smiling and chuckling. Smiled while answering several of these types of questions.
Donald Trump Jr. is already eying his next big move once the Trump crime family is forcibly removed from the White House. He wants to run the Republican National Committee, when he’s not qualified to run an Orange Julius stand.
CNN reports that Trump Jr. and his girlfriend for at least the next three months, Kimberly Guilfoyle, are “making moves to expand their influence” at the RNC. Junior was court-ordered to social distance from any charity in the state of New York, but sure, put him in charge of the RNC. (No, really, we mean it. That’d be hilarious.)
[…] have made it clear to campaign and White House officials they are unhappy with RNC chairwoman Ronna [Romney] McDaniel, who they view as not having done enough to win a close race.
Yeah, blame somebody else for your daddy’s loss.
[…] Trump is an albatross not an asset.
Sources claim that Trump Jr. and Guilfoyle “could seek leadership roles at the RNC to position the committee for a comeback run for [Trump] in 2024,” when he’ll be 78 and in prison. [LOL]
[…] The great thing about this story is that it provides an excuse to talk about another story. You’ll recall Guilfoyle’s unhinged rant at the Republican National Convention where she attacked the decadence and corruption of the Weimar Republic. Turns out that was Guilfoyle on her best behavior. […]
Politico reported Sunday about “Donald Trump’s 2020 undoing,” and Guilfoyle was the breakout character in this disaster movie.
Senior campaign and GOP officials vented that Trump’s finance team, led by former Fox TV host and Donald Trump Jr. girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle, underperformed and was an HR nightmare.
Wait, hold up, the candidate’s son’s girlfriend wasn’t up to the task at hand? […]
Trump couldn’t compete with Biden’s small-dollar fundraising machine, and some donors were horrified by what they described as Guilfoyle’s lack of professionalism: She frequently joked about her sex life and, at one fundraiser, offered a lap dance to the donor who gave the most money. [classy!]
[…] I’ve attended my fair share of fundraisers, but no one ever offered motivational lap dances. […] This might explain why the Trump campaign went broke. Donors kept lowballing each other so they could avoid Guilfoyle’s promised lap dance. […]
Senior campaign officials, meanwhile, had been getting reports that Guilfoyle had been berating her staff. Appearing together at fundraisers, Guilfoyle and her boyfriend, Donald Trump Jr., would banter in sexually suggestive ways that made some donors uncomfortable.
Trump Jr. and Guilfoyle reportedly joked at an event in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, that Guilfoyle raised money while in hot tubs. An attendee claimed that instead of a lap dance this time, Guilfoyle offered a “hot tub party” to whoever in the audience raised the most money. It’s as if they’re all scuzzy D-list celebrity types and not actually defenders of traditional American values.
[…] In conclusion, Wonkette officially endorses Donald Trump Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle for head of everything important at the RNC. […]
One of the biggest fears of the presidency of Donald Trump, one that was realized almost immediately upon his taking office, was that he is a man who has zero business knowing our nation’s secrets. The day after he fired FBI Director James Comey, he had these Russians in the Oval with him, and told them how great it was that he had gotten rid of that CRAZY GUY, and that now that Comey was gone, he was totally free to hot tub it up with the Russians.
[…] as a way of impressing the Russians, he [spilled] a bunch of highly classified intelligence we got from the Israelis all over those Russians, in the Oval. Code-word level intel. […]
Trump […] tweets out operational information about military positions, as well as covert US satellite images. He blurts out classified intel in press briefings. Remember when he blabbed to Bob Woodward about a secret nuclear weapons system nobody was supposed to know about?
[…] And now, the Washington Post reports, officials are worried he will use his post-presidency to [spill] more state secrets he never had any business knowing in the first place. This, of course, would undermine President Biden, and endanger American national security […]
He knows where covert spies are. Or, we should say, he knows whatever they’ve let him know, or whatever he remembers […]
“A knowledgeable and informed president with Trump’s personality characteristics, including lack of self-discipline, would be a disaster. The only saving grace here is that he hasn’t been paying attention,” said Jack Goldsmith, who ran the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department in the George W. Bush administration[.]
Of course, the Post’s sources note that Trump is VERY MAD AT AMERICA, a country he never really seemed to love in the first place, and whose troops he views as losers. This makes him literally prime rib for American adversaries seeking to use him to gain intel: “Not only does Trump have a history of disclosures, he checks the boxes of a classic counterintelligence risk: He is deeply in debt and angry at the U.S. government, particularly what he describes as the “deep state” conspiracy that he believes tried to stop him from winning the White House in 2016 and what he falsely claims is an illegal effort to rob him of reelection.”
[…]
Experts agreed that the biggest risk Trump poses out of office is the clumsy release of information. But they didn’t rule out that he might trade secrets, perhaps in exchange for favors, to ingratiate himself with prospective clients in foreign countries or to get back at his perceived enemies. When he leaves office, Trump will be facing a crushing amount of debt, including hundreds of millions of dollars in loans that he has personally guaranteed.
[…]
Can President Biden do anything about this? The Post says Biden might cut off Trump’s access to the classified briefings other ex-presidents get, because as former CIA guy and author David Priess points out in the Post, within that tradition is embedded the idea that current presidents might need to call former presidents for advice, and thus it’s good for the ex-prez to know what the new prez knows.
Everybody pause to laugh at the idea of Joe Biden needing to call upon the national security expertise of Donald Trump.
[…] go to Politico, where Natasha Bertrand reports that everybody’s freaked out the Trump administration will likely flagrantly violate the law and destroy all kinds of its own records, especially intelligence secrets, like the […] TRANSCRIPTS! of his top secret calls with foreign leaders […]
And then there’s the way Trump people like Jared Kushner use encrypted apps like WhatsApp to hide their contacts with foreign officials like the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, and the way they all use personal and private EMAILS!, and the way Trump goes to “extraordinary lengths” to hide his conversations with Putin, even one time stealing the translator’s notes, and yeah, wow, that fucker is going to be a national security threat for generations to come.
“Well, I just think it’s an embarrassment, quite frankly,” Biden said of Trump’s insistence that he won the race. “The only thing that — how can I say this tactfully? — I think it will not help the president’s legacy.”
Biden chose his words carefully, noting several times in his exchange with reporters that “there’s only one president at a time.” But he also maintained that “nothing’s going to stop” the transition effort as he moves forward with selecting Cabinet nominees and take other steps in the next two months.
“I’m confident that the fact that they’re not willing to acknowledge we won at this point is not of much consequence in our planning and what we’re able to do between now and January 20th,” Biden said. He added that he hopes to “be in a position to let people know at least a couple [Cabinet members] that we want before Thanksgiving.”
The president-elect referred to his conversations with a half-dozen world leaders since the race was called in his favor last week. He said those leaders “are hopeful that the United States’ democratic institutions are viewed once again as being strong and enduring.”
[… “I think that the whole Republican Party has been put in a position — with a few notable exceptions — of being mildly intimidated by the sitting president,” Biden said.
Biden also pushed back against Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s statement earlier Tuesday that there will be a smooth transition to a second Trump administration.
“So far, there is no evidence of any of the assertions made by the president or Secretary of State Pompeo,” Biden said. Then he laughingly repeated: “Secretary of State Pompeo.”
Ultimately, Biden said, “it’s all going to come to fruition on January 20th, and between now and then, my hope and expectation is that the American people do know, do understand that there has been a transition — even among Republicans who are people who voted for the president.”
“I understand the sense of loss,” Biden said. “I get that. But I think the majority of the people who voted for the president … I think they understand that we have to come together. I think they’re ready to unite. And I believe we can pull the country out of this bitter politics that we’ve seen for the last the last five, six, seven years.”
As the news conference concluded, a reporter asked one final question: How do you expect to work with Republicans if they won’t even acknowledge you as president-elect?
“They will,” Biden responded with a smile. “They will.” […]
‘My faith is shaken’: The QAnon conspiracy theory faces a post-Trump identity crisis. Washington Post link
[…] Q has gone quiet before. But the abrupt lack of posts since last Tuesday — Election Day, which the anonymous figure had touted for months as a key moment of reckoning — has sparked speculation and alarm among the movement’s most ardent followers.
Some QAnon proponents have begun to publicly grapple with reality and question whether the conspiracy theory is a hoax. “Have we all been conned?” one user wrote Saturday on 8kun.
Wrote another: “HOW CAN I SPEAK TO Q???? MY FAITH IS SHAKEN. I FOLLOWED THE PLAN. TRUMP LOST!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT NOW?????? WHERE IS THE PLAN???”
Trump’s defeat threatens to undermine the tale that Q, a supposed top-secret government operative, has woven over years: that Trump and his allies would soon vanquish a cabal of “deep state” child abusers and Satan-worshiping Democrats, exiling some to the U.S. detention facility in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
[…] One QAnon account, known as Praying Medic, told its more than 400,000 Twitter followers that many supporters “had to be talked off the ledge” in the past week but that Trump’s strategy remained in motion. Praying Medic tweeted: “He’s going to stick the knife in and twist it. He has no plans to leave office. Ever.”
[…] “The majority reaction from QAnon followers has been outright denial,” View said. Many expect Trump will seal his reelection through his team’s so-far-unsuccessful legal skirmishes, and “if that doesn’t happen and Joe Biden is inaugurated on Jan. 20, the cognitive dissonance will be absolutely as big as it’s ever been for QAnon followers.”
[…] Trump’s senior adviser Stephen Miller further bolstered the conspiracy theory last month by baselessly claiming that Biden would incentivize “child trafficking on an epic global scale.” Trump’s former adviser Stephen K. Bannon also said on a podcast last month that QAnon “appears directionally to be correct.”
[…] “It’s a dangerous network. It’s a dangerous movement that truly believes that Biden and other Democrats are killing kids,” Katz said. “And now, with Biden’s projected victory, the QAnon movement believes with the same zealous certainty that the whole thing is a sham. And that’s a major problem, because … these aren’t a bunch of harmless keyboard warriors — they’re adherents of a movement that has resulted in real-life violence.” […]
As the military leadership continues to be purged of anyone who can’t bring themselves to place personal loyalty to Donald Trump completely above duty, honor, and country, it’s creating some … opportunities. For example, with Defense Sec. Mark Esper heading out the door over his refusal to bring active duty military forces into the streets of Washington, D.C., and the departure of Undersec. James Anderson for also not wanting to see troops pointing bayonets at peaceful protestors, there are now a couple of open slots within the Defense Department.
And it appears that one of those slots is likely going to someone who has demonstrated the level of spinelessness necessary to limbo under any bar, no matter how low. Not only has Retired Army Brig. Gen. Anthony Tata been more than willing to push for Trump’s violations of posse comitatus, he also get’s big Trump points for being an open racist who has called President Obama a terrorist Kenyan Muslim. And that’s just the start.
[…] Obama was far from Tata’s only target. He also accused Hillary Clinton of treason and sedition. And he went at length into a theory that former CIA Director John Brennan—who Tata accused of being an ally of Vladimir Putin— was sending out coded messages to assassinate Donald Trump. For reasons that have to be read to be properly laughed at.
Naturally, all this endeared Tata to Trump, who named him to the No. 3 role at the Pentagon back in June. With Esper and Anderson gone, it’s Tata’s chance to move ahead.
[…] Everyone Trump appoints from now on will simply be an “acting” appointment, without getting the Senate involved. […]
Tata probably won’t be moving on up on his own. Previously, Anderson had pushed back against several other potential nominees that the Trump White House tried to plant at the Defense Department. That includes right-wing radio host Frank Wuco, who shares Tata’s Islamophobia in a bigly way. That includes making claims that Hillary Clinton had ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, that former Attorney General Eric Holder was a secret member of the Black Panthers, and that John Brennan had converted to Islam. He also endorsed the idea that the U.S. should just turn Syria “into glass” and suggested that the best way to handle Afghanistan would be to drop “a couple of low-yield tactical nuclear weapons.”
But wait, there’s more. Anderson was also the person who blocked the appointment of Rich Higgins. As CNN reports, Higgins wrote a book in which he accused a conspiracy made up of ”the media, Islamists, Black Lives Matter, the ACLU, the United Nations and cultural Marxists,” who all conducted a coordinated attack against Trump. Which is pretty impressive. If there’s someone who can coordinate all those disparate groups, maybe they should be offered a job at the Pentagon.
Tata, Wuco, and Higgins are emblematic of the kind of selections made by Trump—the kind of selections that, until now, have been held back by the last remaining layers of experienced professionals, or by some level of concern over public perception. But all that is gone now.
The only thing to hope for is that these people won’t be there long, and they won’t do lasting damage.
I’m thinking Biden might be onto something with the way he talks about Trump’s coup-tantrum. It is his personality, and he also does want to cool things down in the country, but also psychologically it could be an effective way to deal with Trump (like that Gayle King interview with R. Kelly…). Trump is constantly trying to throw off, rattle, intimidate, and anger his opponents. But Biden and Harris are remaining cool, calm, and confident, just like Obama always did, which drove Trump up a wall. Biden knows he’s won and isn’t getting into any back-and-forth with the nonsense Trump claims. He’s also suggesting the Republicans are just intimidated, which makes them look weak rather than frightening. He gently mocked Pompeo, and really just responded to the episode with disappointment. All of this makes Trump and his sycophants look even more desperate and pathetic, which must infuriate him.
Facebook is removing some of Steve Bannon’s sludge:
Facebook removed a network of pages linked to former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon that were spreading misinformation about voter fraud.
The company removed seven pages which collectively had over 2.45 million followers, according to activist organization Avaaz, which notified Facebook of the network of Bannon-linked pages on Friday as part of the group’s investigation into election disinformation.
Asked about removing the network, a Facebook spokesperson confirmed the company “removed several clusters of activity for using inauthentic behavior tactics to artificially boost how many people saw their content.”
[…] The pages sought to “delegitimize the election with claims of ‘voter fraud’ and ‘Stop the steal,’” […]
Facebook has not removed Bannon’s own page, but the company did reportedly take away Bannon’s ability to post new content on his page.
Twitter went one step further than Facebook last week, suspending Bannon’s account over violating the platform’s policy on the “glorification of violence.”
[…] “In 2016, Steve Bannon was buoyed by the Facebook algorithm and helped define the political narrative for millions of Americans. Over the last few months, pages and groups connected to him pushed ‘voter fraud’ and other misinformation content to millions. Now, he is seeking to further divide America and spread chaos in this post-Election Day landscape, again using Facebook,” Quran said in a statement. “Facebook has finally acted after Avaaz’s pressure, but the question is: Why did the company not act earlier?” […]
Trump may be “infuriated” as you point out, but his fury is more impotent by the day. I’m glad Biden isn’t legitimizing the temper tantrums being thrown by the Orange Toddler.
More re Lynna’s #361: “US defense official confirms: chief of staff Jen Stewart replaced by Kash Patel, a former Devin Nunes staffer who worked to discredit the Russia investigation. Also out, Vice Admiral Joseph Kernan, ret Navy SEAL who was Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence.”
Agency review teams are responsible for understanding the operations of each agency, ensuring a smooth transfer of power, and preparing for President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Harris and their cabinet to hit the ground running on Day One. These teams are composed of highly experienced and talented professionals with deep backgrounds in crucial policy areas across the federal government. The teams have been crafted to ensure they not only reflect the values and priorities of the incoming administration, but reflect the diversity of perspectives crucial for addressing America’s most urgent and complex challenges….
Top Republicans in the U.S. Congress for now are supporting President Donald Trump’s attempt to challenge President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, but some senior aides said Trump must soon produce significant evidence or exit the stage.
A handful of Republican senators have said they recognize Biden as last week’s winner. Many more have not but are suggesting limits to their patience in giving Trump the benefit of the doubt.
Senator Rob Portman of Ohio, a state that Trump won handily last week, said in a statement that Biden is leading in enough states to win election “and President Donald Trump’s campaign must produce evidence to support allegations of election fraud.”
Portman added that he hoped states and courts would move “expeditiously” to resolve the matter.
Behind the scenes, some were more explicit.
“I think the goal here is to give the president and his campaign team some space to demonstrate there is real evidence to support any claims of voter fraud. If there is, then they will be litigated quickly. If not, we’ll all move on,” said one senior Senate Republican aide.
A second such aide, while noting that most Republican senators support Trump’s right to refuse to concede, added that failing any surprise revelations, “At some point this has to give. And I give it a week or two.”…
(Also, please stop letting them get away with responding to factual corrections with “People have different views” or “People have different opinions.” If you have to explain the difference between a belief and an opinion, then do.)
Claire McCaskill was just talking about how we’re going to have to count on Milley and the Joint Chiefs to do the right thing. So we have to rely on the military now to prevent a coup because one fucking party is so utterly craven that they can’t publicly recognize reality?
2016:
Stop calling him a fascist, do you have any idea how hysterical you sound?
2020:
Pompeo just now: “There will be a smooth transition to a second Trump administration.”
BREAKING NEWS: Erie, Pa. #USPS whistleblower completely RECANTED his allegations of a supervisor tampering with mail-in ballots after being questioned by investigators, according to IG….
Our daily update is published. States reported 1.2 million tests and 131k cases, the highest single-day total since the pandemic started. There are 62k people currently hospitalized with COVID-19. The death toll was 1,347.
Today’s number of currently hospitalized people—62k—is also a record. A total of 17 states have reported single-day record hospitalizations.
Deaths are also rising. Today’s death count is the highest since August 19, pushing the 7-day average up to nearly 1,000.
The increase in hospitalizations and deaths confirms the main pattern we’ve identified in the data—after cases go up, a rise in these figures follows. We explain the relationship between the three metrics in this post….
Today’s numbers do not include a complete update from North Dakota and Hawaii.
CNN is reporting that Pence has canceled his vacation – not to address the coronavirus catastrophe, but to help Trump try to subvert the will of the people…and because the weather is supposed to be bad in Florida.
Sen. Warren: “Anthony Tata is an Islamophobic conspiracy theorist who is so unqualified and ill-suited for a senior defense position that his confirmation hearing was pulled. He doesn’t belong within 100 miles of the Pentagon.”
Guardian world liveblog (support the Guardian if you can!):
Brazil’s polemicist president, Jair Bolsonaro, has generated further revolt by declaring that citizens needed to cease fretting over a coronavirus pandemic that has killed 163,000 Brazilians and “stop being a country of poofs”.
Bolsonaro, who has become notorious for his insensitive, politically-driven handling of the crisis, made the homophobic remark on Tuesday as another 201 citizens were reported to have died from Covid-19.
“I’m sorry about the deaths, I really am. But we’ll all die one day … There’s no point in trying to escape this reality. We’ve got to stop being a country of maricas,” Bolsonaro told an event in the capital Brasilia.
The homophobic slur roughly translates as poof or pansy in English.
That widely condemned comment came just hours after the rightwing populist celebrated the suspension of a trial of a Chinese coroanavirus vaccine after the one of the participants committed suicide. “Another victory for Jair Bolsonaro,” a message posted on the president’s official Facebook account.
Some believe Bolsonaro’s latest offensive remarks were designed to distract from snowballing corruption scandals involving two of his politician sons, Carlos and Flávio. Last week prosecutors filed embezzlement and money laundering charges against Flávio, while reports on Wednesday morning suggested anti-corruption investigators were also closing in on Carlos.
“Sec Pompeo heads to France, Turkey, Georgia, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia on Friday.
Pompeo has not recognized president-elect Joe Biden’s victory but the leaders in all of the 7 countries that he will visit on this trip have congratulated Biden.”
The White House just released a Veterans Day proclamation. About half of it isn’t about veterans at all but propaganda singing Trump’s praises, and one long paragraph ends with “We will continue to build on these efforts and work to create an economic environment that fosters growth and prosperity for veterans, ensuring all of our veterans have the opportunity to live productive civilian lives.”
Update to #345 from the Guardian world liveblog: “Brazil’s health regulator has approved the restart of clinical trials of the Chinese coronavirus vaccine after their suspension sparked a furious political row in one of the country’s worst-hit by Covid-19.”
Oh, yeah. Not only is Johnson talking animatedly about working with Biden and Harris on climate change, he’s already referring to Trump as the “previous president.” Video atl.
This is what the “Save Our Majority” rally looks like. Speaking before this crowd in a windowless room, Sens. @marcorubio @KLoeffler. Approx 1/3rd to 1/2 of the room is maskless, as Georgia #COVID19 infections enter a red zone.
…
My entire @CNN team has physically left this indoor rally. It’s not safe given the #Covid19 numbers in Georgia. Again, this is the “Save our Majority” rally in Cobb County
The way I look at Trump and his minions’ nonsense is that they’re like a bunch of drunks trying to take down a skyscraper with a blowtorch. I don’t think they have the remotest chance of succeeding, but I also don’t think we should allow them to start a fire while they try.
SC @366 and 370, I saw that interview with Frank Figliuzzi. That guy is such a professional. I think he was absolutely correct to talk about Trump as a “barricaded subject.” The implication here is also that, like other subjects who barricade themselves against intervention, Trump is mentally unbalanced.
Figliuzzi was right to praise Joe Biden’s approach, which was almost like that of a hostage negotiator talking to a barricaded subject.
As far as statements from Republicans go, (saying this will all be resolved in a week or two, as in your comment 369), I don’t agree with them. Do they really think that Trump will stand down? Trump is stacking the Pentagon leadership with yes-men and Devin-Nunes-like lackeys. Trump has plans to execute more nefarious deeds. I am shocked by Republican senators and representatives who fail to recognize the severity of the situation.
As Freedom House watches Trump, it sees parallels between his antics and “the tactics of the kind of authoritarian leaders we follow.”
Freedom House is a non-profit organization that exists in large part to promote the value of democracy and the idea that “freedom flourishes in democratic nations where governments are accountable to their people.”
Keep this in mind when reading the comments the group’s president made to the New York Times about Donald Trump refusing to accept the results of his own country’s elections.
“What we have seen in the last week from the president more closely resembles the tactics of the kind of authoritarian leaders we follow,” said Michael J. Abramowitz, the president of Freedom House, a nonprofit organization that tracks democracy around the world. “I never would have imagined seeing something like this in America.” Mr. Abramowitz doubted there was much danger of Mr. Trump overturning the election. “But by convincing a large part of the population that there was widespread fraud, he is seeding a myth that could endure for years and contribute to an erosion of public confidence in our electoral system,” he said.
[…] it’s worth dwelling on Abramowitz’s observation: as Freedom House watches Trump, it sees unmistakable parallels between the incumbent president’s antics and “the tactics of the kind of authoritarian leaders we follow.”
Indeed, it’s not difficult to imagine the reporting on the latest developments if they were unfolding in a different country:
“After four years in which the autocratic leader sought to undermine his country’s democratic institutions, the head of state rejected the results of a national election, borrowing a page from the authoritarian playbook and pointing without evidence to fraud that international observers insisted did not exist.
“The autocrat, plagued by corruption allegations and a scandal that led to his impeachment, launched a series of futile lawsuits, hoping the judiciary he’d helped politicize would overturn the will of his own country’s voters, though to date those efforts have failed.
“Nevertheless, the autocrat maintained the backing of his parliamentary allies, most of whom know their leader had just suffered an embarrassing electoral rebuke, but who fear the consequences of telling the truth and defending the divided nation’s political system.
“It was against this backdrop that the autocrat’s chief diplomat told dubious jokes to journalists about his boss maintaining his grip on power; the chief executive’s justice minister announced plans to investigate non-existent election crimes; and the autocrat took steps to stack his nation’s military leadership with fierce partisans and loyalists.”
[…] for the next 70 days, we’re a country led by someone who would gladly take a sledgehammer to the pillars of our political system for the most pernicious of reasons: he is a failed, flailing vandal, desperate to avoid looking like a loser.
A Washington Post report added the other day, “Trump is pulling out a playbook perfected by Russian President Vladimir Putin and other authoritarians. It relies on sowing doubt about the institutions of law and government, spreading misinformation or outright lies that serve a leader’s political ends, and relying on a cadre of loyal supporters to believe what they are told, Putin scholars said.”
The familiarity of these circumstances are far from comforting.
Bits and pieces of campaign news, as summarized by Steve Benen:
* In North Carolina yesterday, Senate hopeful Cal Cunningham (D) conceded his race against incumbent Sen. Thom Tillis (R). Practically every public poll showed Cunningham ahead going into Election Day, but Tillis appears to have won by a little less than two percentage points.
* […] NBC News this morning projected incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan (R) has won re-election in Alaska. This brings the Senate Republicans to 50 seats headed into next year, with two runoff elections in Georgia still remaining.
* […] the Washington Post reports that Republican efforts to delegitimize Joe Biden’s victory is tied to the party’s strategy in Georgia: the GOP is apparently hoping to keep Donald Trump’s followers engaged and agitated ahead of the Jan. 5 runoffs.
* And speaking of Georgia, Stacey Abrams’ organization, Fair Fight, has reportedly raised nearly $10 million since Friday evening, much of which will go towards boosting Jon Ossoff’s and Raphael Warnock’s Senate candidacies.
* The New York Times did a thorough, state-by-state review, contacting election officials who believe their state confronted voter fraud this year. The investigation, not surprisingly, turned up empty, “amounting to a forceful rebuke of President Trump’s portrait of a fraudulent election.”
[…]* California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has the unenviable task of appointing a new U.S. senator to succeed Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris. The list of leading contenders reportedly includes California Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D) and Secretary of State Alex Padilla (D), both of whom have excelled in recent statewide elections.
The President of the United States is absent without leave.
President Donald Trump made his first public appearance in six days Wednesday when he visited Arlington National Cemetery for a somber ceremony commemorating Veterans Day alongside first lady Melania Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. He did not speak at the event.
But as he mounts a fierce battle to remain in office and refuses to concede the election he lost, Trump has shown little interest in the work of being President. Since he vowed to fight the election results in the wee hours after Election Day, Trump, who has spent four years producing television moments showcasing his office, has made few efforts to show the American people he is still governing.
Instead, he is firing off inflammatory and baseless claims on his social media accounts, many of which have been flagged by Twitter as misinformation, and hitting his golf course.
…
Trump did meet with his political and White House advisers on Tuesday to discuss the next steps in his legal strategy, a person familiar with the matter said, and offered no signs he plans to concede the election. Behind the scenes, Trump’s refusal to concede has prompted senior officials across the government to spread word that any cooperation with Biden’s team is forbidden, officials at agencies and the White House said.
But he remains absent when it comes to doing the work of the federal government.
President-elect Joe Biden, meanwhile, is keeping a presidential schedule, holding a news conference on Tuesday, fielding calls from world leaders and meeting with his newly appointed coronavirus advisory board.
A review of Trump’s daily public schedule since October 2, when he was diagnosed with Covid-19, shows a paucity of official White House events in the lead-up to the November 3 election and in the subsequent days….
I already got my copy of Ruth Ben-Ghiat’s Strongmen, and reading it alongside following the day’s news is an odd experience.
[…] As U.S. allies contemplated the prospect that Joe Biden would succeed Donald Trump as president after a less-than-landslide election, it was possible to detect hints of the same sourness that afflicted many Americans last week. Sure, it’s a relief to be rid of Trump, some were saying: But if nearly half of the country was ready to give four more years to him and America First-ism, no one could, or should, count on the United States to resume its traditional global leadership. […]
Commentary from Steve Benen:
[…] “[A] terrible question looms,” Roland Paris, a former foreign policy adviser to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, tweeted last week. “How could tens of millions of [Americans] reward this lying demagogue [Trump] after everything he’s done? People knew exactly what they were voting for. How deep are America’s democratic convictions, really?”
After the 2016 elections, Americans could plausibly make the argument to the world that Trump’s election was a bit of a fluke. His rise to Republican prominence was the result of radical shifts in GOP politics, but Trump’s election, the argument goes, was an accident of history.
There was a unique set of circumstances — the late-October Comey letter, Russian interference, Hillary Clinton’s pneumonia, etc. — which happened to unfold at roughly the same time, which led to an unfortunate fiasco that the United States was eager to undo.
The thesis was bolstered by Democratic electoral gains in 2017, 2018, and 2019, each of which made it easier for Americans to tell the world, “See? We’re correcting the mistake. The accident of history is being gradually undone.”
[…] But that’s what made this year’s presidential election problematic: 2020 helped disprove the idea that 2016 was a fluke. While support from roughly 46% of American voters was enough to put Trump in office, he appears likely to finish with roughly 47% of the vote this year.
Or put another way, the United States saw nearly four years of Trump’s corruption, failures, lies, and desperation to divide the nation, and when subjected to an electoral test, the Republican’s support went up, not down.
To be sure, most American voters rejected him. In fact, Joe Biden will almost certainly end up with the strongest support of any presidential challenger since FDR’s election in 1932. The president-elect’s victory, by any fair measure, is impressive and heartening for those who hope to see our democracy persevere.
But 47% of the American electorate saw what Trump did and said they wanted more. Writing for USA Today last week, Michael J. Stern added, “[W]e’ve been slapped with the heartbreaking reality that nearly half our country voted to reelect President Donald Trump after spending four years watching him spew unbridled bigotry, engage in blatant corruption, and tell so many lies you’d need a magnifying glass to read The Washington Post’s running list of false and misleading claims.”
As the United States tries to reclaim its global leadership role, asking the world to trust us anew, it’s a difficult detail to explain away.
[…] During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing yesterday, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) tried to compare Biden’s calls this week to Michael Flynn’s calls to Russia during Donald Trump’s 2016 transition period.
Around the same, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) tried to pitch a similar line via Twitter:
“I remember when Democrats [and] some in the media demanded the indictment of people in the incoming Trump administration for ‘having phone calls’ with foreign leaders to discuss upcoming changes in U.S. foreign policy.”
This is one of those instances in which I don’t understand what it is that Republicans don’t understand.
In December 2016, after the Obama administration imposed sanctions on Russia in response to its attack on our elections, Flynn specifically discussed sanctions policy with the then-Russian Ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak, and undermined existing U.S. foreign policy.
Soon after, Flynn — who worked as a foreign agent while advising the Trump campaign — lied to the FBI about his Russian conversations.
Flynn did not have benign chats with foreign officials, and it was federal law enforcement, not Democrats and journalists, who indicted him. Flynn later admitted he lied, and twice pleaded guilty, under oath and in open court.
To see this as comparable to the president-elect having perfunctory chats with foreign leaders is hopelessly bonkers. Indeed, at some level, folks like Marco Rubio must know this — since he is the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
So why play dumb? Why pretend there’s some similarity between Biden’s routine diplomacy and Flynn’s suspected felonies?
Sweden’s government plans to ban the sale of alcohol in bars, restaurants and night clubs after 10pm as it fights to contain a surge in Covid-19 infections….
They’re not even closing restaurants, bars, and nightclubs. And this doesn’t even take effect until the 20th. I can’t take these stupid people.
From comments post by readers of TPM articles about team Trump’s various election-related lawsuits:
Damn it. That “real evidence” requirement is really screwing up Cadet Toadglans mit der Bone Spurs pipe dreams again.
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Slick as hell these clowns. Accuse military families of fraud [a reference to absentee military ballots in Nevada]. If you’re lucky maybe they’ll be gentle when they escort you out of the WH. It would be instructive to consider what’s going to happen to you as soon as you’re out of power as you burn bridges and threaten with abandon.
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It’s maddening that only Republicans get to throw tantrums and bloviate bullshit and practically every institution has to go out of their way to “stroke their tummies” because, “well, they have a point of view.”
Just because the goopers wrap themselves in the flag and religion, doesn’t mean they get a never ending supply of mulligans.
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Let’s not overlook the criminal activity of accessing the USPS database. Seems like that should be front and center in these articles when discuss the BS voter fraud allegations.
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On Veterans Day, no less. Nice goin’, GOP!
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It’s always good to see Trump’s A-Team on the case! It seems like real lawyers with real experience in absentee ballots would know the rules about NCOA and military absentee voters, but these people clearly just slapped together the first thing that showed any sign of “irregularity” and then patted themselves on the back for a “job well done.”
Well, this is an exercise in futility: Georgia’s Secretary of State announced a hand recount in a state Biden leads by over 14,000 votes. But as James Carville said, let them count the votes again, we’ll beat Trump twice.
The delays bother me though. The longer state certification of votes takes, the more time Trump has to spread disinformation.
[…] “With the margin being so close, it will require a full, by-hand recount in each county,” Raffensperger said during a press conference. “This will help build confidence. It will be an audit, a recount and a re-canvas all at once. It will be a heavy lift but we will work with the counties to get this done in time for our state certification.”
The hand count goes beyond the “scan” recount required by law.
“This race has national significant, national importance,” he said. “We get that.”
[…] “Does it rise to the numbers or margin necessary to change the outcome to where President Trump is given Georgia’s electoral votes? That is unlikely,” he said. […]
From comments posted by readers:
A hand recount of five million vote by the 20th? That’s ridiculous! They couldn’t do a machine recount before then. They haven’t even finished the election day counting. They are just dicking around with it for their own reasons.
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The hand recount is more likely to add votes to Biden than not. He won Georgia. It won’t change. It’s just a face saving exercise.
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Who is paying for this???
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It’s within the margin that Georgia requires for an automatic recount.
Georgia is paying for it.
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If GA was going to an automatic recount because of the margin anyway, that’s one thing, but a recount is not the tally itself, and Biden has clearly won the vote tally — so why hasn’t GA been called for Biden? There is ZERO chance that Trump has won the vote tally, and virtually zero chance that a recount changes 15,000 votes. A recount is fine, but why hasn’t the state been called the first time? Why give in the GOP narrative and leave a vacuum?
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This is basically an expensive “nothing burger” to keep Trump and his party happy. The margin is so large, and the process will be under such heavy scrutiny, it is difficult to see the possibility for much ratf*cking by republicans.
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Prepare for a steady diet of nothing-burger, because Trump won’t stop until the messaging changes from describing him as a loser to a victim. Just listen to the tone on Fox today.
While Sens. Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham play fast and loose with the concept of democracy, at least one of Donald Trump’s “top evangelical Christian allies” is going to try and follow the doctrines he professes to believe in. In a column published on Fox News’ website entitled Pastor Robert Jeffress: Biden is president-elect—how should Christians respond? the Texas pastor argued that while this is a “bitter pill to swallow” for many Trump-supporting evangelicals, it’s God’s will.
The Dallas News reports that specifically, Jeffress figures that if God installed President Obama and then Donald Trump, He is also behind the installation of Joe Biden. It’s a classic Catch-22, as Christians who believe that Trump won his 2016 election because God chose him to become president must also accept that God has changed his mind. No word yet on how the pious philanderer and con man shyster Donald Trump is receiving this loss of support for totalitarian rule.
Jeffress has a long career of being everything one has come to expect from an American evangelical leader. For example, you can watch Jeffress, below [video available at the link], explain that “you can’t be saved, being a Jew,” and other awesome things. But Jeffress has been consistent in his support of elections and their outcomes. Back before Trump won the 2016 election, he was asked whether or not he would support a Hillary Clinton presidency, to which he responded: “Absolutely. I – absolutely. And I’ll go one step further. I’ll certainly be praying for her, too.” […]
[…] Raffensperger might have tried to spare Georgia taxpayers from bearing the full cost of the recount. That’s because not only is there no automatic recount in Georgia law, there is nothing in the law that says the state picks up all the costs. Raffensperger could easily have done what Wisconsin did: offer to do a recount at the request of the Trump campaign, if the Trump campaign were willing to cover the costs. He might even have offered to split the costs in order to reduce the burden on both sides. But nope, he just dove right in and gave Trump an extra large, extra deluxe freebie.
It might be worth noting that while there was a recount in Wisconsin in 2016, that recount request didn’t come from Hillary Clinton. Clinton called the Trump campaign literally seconds after the AP called the race at 2:30 in the morning to offer her concession and promise to help with the transition in any way she could. The reason there was a recount in Wisconsin was because it was requested by … Jill Stein.
Stein fundraised off her own donors, and off heartbroken Clinton supporters, with the promise that donations to her would go toward conducting recounts in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Despite collecting an unknown amount of money, Stein’s requests for a recount in Michigan and Pennsylvania were denied. […] the margin in Georgia is more than 10 times the largest change ever discovered by a state-level recount.
What Raffensperger is doing isn’t coming from any real concern that the outcome of the election might be inaccurate. Trump is not going to find a tenth as many votes as he needs to alter the recount, no matter how many hands sort the votes. This recount is all about Raffensperger and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp surrendering to the pressure from Republicans in Washington who have been whipping their state with claims of fraud.
So the Georgia recount will be costly, pointless, embarrassing, and driven by state officials wilting under attacks they know are false. It will require hiring thousands of counters, paying out millions of dollars, and is unlikely to be complete before someone is forced to dust off a little Supreme Court decision called Bush v. Gore. It’s going to be perfect. Just perfect.
Excerpt from an MSNBC interview on Ari Melber’s show, as presented by Wonkette:
[…] Trump’s former personal lawyer, fixer, and current felon, Michael Cohen told MSNBC’s Ari Melber that he’ll likely just stay home and pout.
COHEN: After Christmas, he usually comes back January 5th, January 6th. He likes to go to Mar-A-Lago. I suspect he doesn’t even come back to Washington. I don’t believe he’s going to go to the inauguration because he himself fundamentally cannot sit in a chair knowing that the cameras are on him and that the world is looking at him as a loser. He cannot do that.
Yeah, he’s right. Trump is a loser.
COHEN: He does not have enough inner strength in him to be gracious. He needs to keep his base rallied around him. He’s going to say for the next 30 years that they stole the election from me. […] He’s going to keep his MAGA army active and engaged and going to constantly blow this dog whistle and be a menace.
From Wonkette: “Fake Billionaire Donald Trump Sets Up Post-Presidency GoFundMe PAC”
Donald Trump’s supporters are an assortment of all-day, fool-flavored suckers. That’s admittedly harsh, so it’s only fair to add that they’re also racist. They refuse to accept that they are a minority within this country and that even with the Electoral College biased in their favor, their mad king still lost decisively. Now, like President Projection, they insist the only way Joe Biden could’ve won is if there was rampant voter fraud. (There wasn’t.)
Talking Points Memo reports that Trump is currently sending inflammatory, unhinged emails to his cult members: “THE DEMOCRATS WANT TO STEAL THIS ELECTION!” and “We can’t allow the Left-wing MOB to undermine our election.” They are urged to donate to President Lame Duck’s “election integrity” fund so he has the “resources” to combat democracy. Trump is supposedly a billionaire. If your broke ass is sending money to a sort-of billionaire so he can laugh in your face and give more tax breaks to his golf buddies, you are beyond stupid. You missed the last exit for stupid four years ago.
It shouldn’t surprise anyone that there is no “election integrity” fund. That’s because Trump has already lost this election and he has no integrity. As we’ve mentioned already, he’s used a good portion of the donations so far to pay down his campaign debt. (Alas, Kimberly Guilfoyle’s lap dances didn’t generate as much revenue as hoped.) However, on Tuesday, most of the free money from fools started going to Trump’s new leadership PAC called “Save America.” This PAC’s a little late, because Black women just finished saving America.
In the fine print of the fundraising blasts, it lays out that 60 percent of the contributions will first go to the new PAC, up to the maximum contribution of $5,000. The remaining 40 percent goes to the RNC up to the maximum $35,500. If that first 60 percent of the donation exceeds $5,000 the remnants go to the campaign’s “recount account”; if the 40 percent exceeds the $35,500 RNC maximum, only then does it go to the RNC’s legal defense fund. […]
Republican Philadelphia City Commissioner Al Schmidt said Wednesday that his city had “the most transparent and secure election in the history of Philadelphia,” pushing back on claims of widespread fraud that he said have “no basis in fact at all.”
The comments come after […] Trump and his campaign have leveraged baseless attacks on the integrity of the election, waging fizzling legal battles against fraud without evidence exclusively in battleground states that reported a projected loss […]
“What evidence of any widespread fraud have you seen in the count in Philadelphia?” CNN’s John Berman asked the elections official during an interview on Wednesday morning.
“I have not,” Schmidt said. […]
“I have seen the most fantastical things on social media, making completely ridiculous allegations that have no basis in fact at all and see them spread,” the Republican elections official said. While acknowledging that many people were unhappy with the results he said he unable to comprehend “how hungry people are to consume lies and to consume information that is not true. ”
He cited among a long list of examples, a false claim that “dead voters” had cast ballots in the city, a conspiracy theory that was shared last week by both Giuliani and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), among others.
Schmit said that elections officials had taken the time to look at the ballot history of each deceased voter.
“Not a single one of them voted in Philadelphia after they died,” Schmidt said.
Giuliani, had falsely told Fox News over the weekend that Philadelphia is “an epicenter of voter fraud” adding that the campaign was “going to be looking at dead persons’ ballots, which may actually be very, very substantial.”
When asked to address efforts by the Trump campaign and its allies to spread falsehood about the integrity of the vote, Schmidt urged voters to be “mindful that there are bad actors who are lying to them.” […]
Jennifer Jacobs: “NEWS: Yet another Trump ally who attended the White House election night party, Healy Baumgardner, has coronavirus. @healybaum attended as a guest of @RudyGiuliani, I’m told. She is a former Trump campaign aide and a private equity adviser.”
One Republican poll watcher said the independent lawyers observing the process seemed pretty liberal to him.
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One Republican poll watcher found it suspicious that members of the military would vote for Joe Biden.
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They further allege that Democrats were mean.
Commentary:
1. No allegation of fraud.
Just like the entire stack of affidavits, this is not an allegation of fraud. It is an allegation of … nothing, really. He observed ballots be counted. The only crime committed here is that he didn’t like the results.
2. The conservative media bubble makes you stupid.
This is the problem with being trapped in the right-wing media bubble—you aren’t presented with reality. Fact is, rank-and-file service members are disproportionately Black and brown. They come from lower socio-economic backgrounds. And as would be expected, Black and Latinos are more liberal, while poor (heavily Southern) whites are more conservative. This isn’t rocket science. When I served in the Army, the white boys had confederate flags flying in their barracks rooms, Black and Latinos did not. So it would make sense that if you’re observing ballots, in Detroit, from local military personnel serving outside the state, that those ballots would reflect the rest of Detroit—likely heavily Black, and heavily Democratic.
Not to mention, we had a president who didn’t just disrespect Sen. John McCain, a war hero, but also called service members who died in war “suckers” and “losers.” It’s likely why a Military Times poll of our troops found Joe Biden leading 41-37, with 50% of them holding an unfavorable view of Trump.
This is the problem with living in the right-wing media bubble is that it really does make you stupid.
3. Republicans going for volume over substance
It’s one thing for some ignorant Republican poll watcher to puzzle over the results of military ballots. It’s another for Republican lawyers to write it up and then release it to the public. It’s clear that this isn’t a serious effort to detail wrongdoing. They’re just going to say “WE RELEASED 234 PAGES OF WRONGDOING!” in order to con people into thinking that Trump has been robbed. The Washington Post’s David Weigel […] detailed that strategy—get lots of media attention making allegations and filing frivolous lawsuits, fully expecting the media (including their right-wing outlets) to ignore stories of judges or other information and analysis dismissing those claims.
[…]
And to what end? To THIS end: “Nearly a third of Trump voters said mail ballots should not be counted. (About half said they should only be counted if received by Election Day, which is the law in some states but not in others.)”
“NEW: Barr’s spat with prosecutors over voter fraud investigations came a year after prosecutors thought he tried to quash an investigation into Trump’s Ukraine call and stymie charges against former DOI Secretary Ryan Zinke”
SC @412, I wonder when there will be so many trumpian cult followers sick with coronavirus that they won’t be able to implement Hair Furor’s planned coup?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution puts its editorial above the banner today:
“Sens. Loeffler and Perdue have assaulted Georgia’s election system”
From the editorial:
“Perdue and Loeffler offered no specifics… And that is what should make their campaign-speak attack message so unacceptable … Specific, actionable allegations can be assessed and investigated.
Hyperbole and sly accusations cannot”
The @ajc has been doing stellar work, for months on end. You can subscribe here…
Also of note: their top headline is “Georgia back in COVID-19 red zone.”
Two-time popular vote-losing impeached lame duck Donald Trump is getting nowhere with his legal efforts to fight his election loss. To call his claims “specious” is an understatement. Ridiculous, laughable, unserious, corrupt—there are hardly enough words to describe what he’s trying to do. To their credit, the traditional media is saying so. The AP says so.
“The U.S. presidential election was not tainted by widespread voter fraud or irregularities in how ballots were counted, despite a huge effort by […] Trump to prove otherwise,” AP declares. The New York Times talked to election officials in every state and in every state were told there was no election fraud. “Election officials in dozens of states representing both political parties said that there was no evidence that fraud or other irregularities played a role in the outcome of the presidential race, amounting to a forceful rebuke of President Trump’s portrait of a fraudulent election,” the Times reports.
Even in Georgia, where harassment from Republican senators has forced the Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, to declare a recount, there was no fraud—no whiff of it. Before he caved, he called Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue’s charges that the count wasn’t transparent and could be fraudulent “laughable.” In a statement before the caving, he said: “We were literally putting releases of results up at a minimum hourly. […] I and my office have been holding daily or twice-daily briefings for the press to walk them through all the numbers. So that particular charge is laughable.” Any irregularities, he said, were not a threat to the outcome of the election. Yet the ridiculous charges continue.
That’s because this is what Trump does, explains ABC News […] “There is no truth to the claims that there was widespread voter fraud in the election, yet the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee are pursuing lawsuits in several states claiming that there was,” ABC says. “This is not the first time Trump has made claims about election fraud when the results do not please him. It has been a part of his playbook for years—long before he entered politics. […]
Republican leaders in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania responded with silence Wednesday after President Donald Trump leveled false attacks against Al Schmidt, offering neither support for Trump’s claims nor a defense for one of the most visible Republicans in the city right now.
Trump targeted Schmidt with a tweet Wednesday morning, falsely claiming he “is being used big time by the Fake News Media to explain how honest things were with respect to the Election in Philadelphia. He refuses to look at the mountain of corruption & dishonesty. We win!”
Trump lost Pennsylvania.
Twitter labeled the tweet with a disclaimer: “This claim about voter fraud is disputed.”
The tweet came 13 minutes after Schmidt, one of the three elected city commissioners who run elections, appeared on CNN to discuss conspiracy theories about widespread voter fraud in the city. Trump has pushed many of them.
“I have seen the most fantastical things on social media, making completely ridiculous allegations that have no basis in fact at all,” Schmidt said.
…
Lawrence Tabas, a Philadelphia attorney who chairs the Pennsylvania Republican Party, did not respond to a request for comment. The state party’s executive director, Vonne Andring, also remained silent.
State Rep. Martina White, chair of the Republican City Committee, also did not respond to requests for comment.
Republicans across the state have parroted Trump’s false claims since Joe Biden was projected to win Pennsylvania on Saturday, a victory that secured enough Electoral College votes to make him president-elect….
Schmidt is getting death threats. These people, up to and including McConnell, need to get more of the focus. Their silence is an act. Their complicity is an act. They’re responsible for what’s happening.
76,983,892 Americans who voted for Joe Biden as the 46th president have had their votes counted by early Wednesday US time, compared with just 71,915,939 for Donald Trump. That is a lead in the popular vote of more than five million. This is now a certified shellacking.
Several million more votes are yet to be added with just 69 per cent of votes tallied so far in Alaska, only 80 per cent in New York, 87 per cent in New Jersey and 92 per cent in California.
Steadily over the days since last week’s vote, Biden’s lead has increased. This is not a close election. Frustratingly slow, yes. But close, no.
[…] Biden’s winning margin now beats those of Al Gore in 2000, George W Bush in 2004, Barrack Obama in 2012 and Hillary Clinton in 2016.
It is still well behind Obama’s margin of 9,550,193 in 2008 and Bill Clinton’s 8,203,716 in 1996. But gaining.
Trump’s level of defeat is being reported in France as ‘la ruine bleue’, in Germany as ‘ein katastrophe’, in Spain as ‘un colapso’, in Italy as ‘la devastazione’, in China as 崩溃, in Romania as ‘crăpătură’ and in Botswana as ‘tötta-lifugt’.
Figures quoted here are from Associated Press, taken at about 03.00 New York time on Wednesday 11th November, 2020. The count continues.
A former Voice of America (VOA) producer filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against the Trump administration, alleging the head of the federal agency overseeing U.S. international media inserted himself into the decision to remove her.
In her lawsuit, Vardha Khalil, who worked as a multimedia journalist for VOA’s Urdu division, called out U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) CEO Michael Pack for rescinding a firewall safeguard that ensured the organization’s broadcasters could operate without political interference.
Pack announced last month that he had rescinded the “firewall rule,” saying it was “based on flawed legal and constitutional reasoning.”
Khalil’s attorney, Faisal Gill, said in a statement Wednesday that Pack’s “egregious actions in personally undertaking the day to day management of the Voice of America blatantly violated the protections of the statutory firewall which were set to keep Voice of America and its employees and contractors an independent broadcasting network safe from political bias and influence.”
[…] Khalil says officials launched a probe after she produced a story about President-elect Joe Biden’s participation in the Emgage Action Online Summit. [reference to a political organization for Muslim Americans]
“The Voice of America is regarded around the world for its utmost journalistic integrity and reliability and is relied upon worldwide for unbiased non-partisan news,” Gill said. “I am hopeful that we can achieve a favorable outcome that shows that a political appointee cannot overstep their role in order to make Voice of America a puppet for any specific administration.”[…]
The lawsuit comes after five suspended officials in the USAGM filed a separate lawsuit last month against the agency and Pack for promoting a pro-Trump agenda.
These officials alleged that Pack, who the GOP-led Senate confirmed in June, and other agency officials have punished journalists for publishing negative stories about Trump, as well as stories about Biden and the racial justice protests in the U.S. […]
The United States on Wednesday reported more than 140,000 new coronavirus cases, the latest all-time high. Almost every metric is trending in the wrong direction as states add restrictions and health officials warn of a dangerous fall ahead. […]
From Jennifer Rubin, writing for the Washington Post:
A central tenet of the outlook of many conservatives is that “elites” look down upon them and regard them as bigoted, uneducated rubes. Well, they have a point: That’s exactly how Republican politicians and the revenue-generating, right-wing media machine regard them.
It was not the Democratic nominee who thought suburbanites would be afraid of integration; that was President Trump. Using George Soros — a Hungarian Jewish immigrant — as a slur and anti-Semitic code word is a right-wing tactic; Democrats have no such Jewish bogeyman. It is Trump who believes fear of immigrants is what motivates his base; Democrats trust voters to understand that immigration is essential to the United States. And it is Republicans such as Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) — not Democrats — who are convinced that constituents will buy into the anti-Ukrainian Kremlin agitprop that they dish out in generous portions.
Fox News is apparently convinced that its viewers want a steady diet of Hunter Biden conspiracy theories, horror stories linking immigration and crime, false and ludicrous claims of voter fraud from anonymous witnesses and climate change denial. Rupert Murdoch and his clan, not to mention producers and executives, surely know this is bunk; its own reporters on the news side know it is claptrap. But, hey, this is the slop they figure their audience craves.
Republicans’ contempt for the masses is nowhere more obvious than in the latest Trump scam — his claim of a “stolen election.” I have zero doubt that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and every Republican senator knows the election was definitive. Biden won. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who said he has “nothing to congratulate” Biden for, must figure members of his base are so ignorant and irrational that they will think better of him if he practices election denial. And when educated senators call on election officials to count only “legal” votes — as is always the case — they must think bamboozling and enraging voters is the way politics is practiced.
The entire GOP strategy for the Georgia Senate elections apparently centers on a belief that Georgia voters are irrational and will rise up in fury because they think they have been wronged — again — by conniving Democrats. The Post reports: “Fear over losing the Senate majority by falling short in the upcoming runoff elections for two U.S. Senate seats in Georgia has become a driving and democracy-testing force inside the GOP, with party leaders on Tuesday seeking to delegitimize President-elect Joe Biden’s victory as they labored to rally voters in the state.” […]
Democrats, meanwhile, operate under the assumption that voters are not idiots. Per the Post: “The first ad by [Georgia’s Democratic Senate nominee Jon Ossoff] for the runoff campaign asserts that his priorities, if he joins the Senate, will be managing and fighting the coronavirus, helping small businesses and passing an infrastructure bill.” In other words, Ossoff thinks voters are rational, appreciate policy choices and expect politicians to address real-life concerns. It’s almost as if he does not think politics is performance art for self-pitying cultists.
[…] The metaphor in the closing days of the Trump campaign was striking: Trump held campaign rallies that apparently became superspreader events. He also left supporters stranded in the cold in remote locations without transportation back to their homes or vehicles. Total disregard for their well-being is part and parcel of the Trump campaign. Respect? Hardly.
[…] The MAGA voters are right: Many politicians and media personalities regard them with contempt. But they come from their own party and movement, and they are laughing all the way to the bank. There is nothing they think their voters won’t buy.
Humor/satire from Andy Borowitz, writing for The New Yorker:
In his latest legal action, Donald J. Trump has filed a lawsuit to overturn former President Barack Obama’s election in 2008.
Throwing out Obama’s win seems like a long shot to most legal scholars, who note that the former President won in 2008 by more than nine million votes and racked up three hundred and sixty-five Electoral College votes in a resounding landslide.
Further complicating Trump’s case is that his lawsuit refers to no tangible evidence of voter fraud in 2008, other than a cryptic statement that “there were a lot of bad things going on.”
Reached at his office at Netflix, Obama seemed unconcerned by the prospect of his 2008 election being overturned. “Look, I’m a TV producer,” he said. “I’ve got scripts to read and rough cuts to watch. I don’t have the kind of free time that Donald Trump has.”
The far-right Proud Boys gang has long denied that it is a white nationalist organization and has instead claimed that it only exists to defend “Western Civilization.”
However, Newsweek reports that some members of the group are ready to openly embrace being a racist organization and are dropping any pretenses of wanting support of non-white people.
The civil war within the Proud Boys started when Kyle Chapman, the founder of the Proud Boys’ so-called “tactical defense arm,” sent out a message to supporters that he no longer wanted to pretend that he wasn’t a white nationalist.
“Due to the recent failure of Proud Boy Chairman Enrique Tarrio to conduct himself with honor and courage on the battlefield, it has been decided that I Kyle Chapman reassume my post as President of Proud Boys effective immediately,” Chapman wrote. “We will no longer cuck to the left by appointing token negroes as our leaders. We will no longer allow homosexuals or other ‘undesirables’ into our ranks. We will confront the Zionist criminals who wish to destroy our civilization.”
He also made clear that he believed talk of defending “Western Civilization” was really just a racist dog whistle all along.
“We recognize that the West was built by the White Race alone and we owe nothing to any other race,” he wrote.
Tarrio is Cuban and the Florida state director of Latinos for Trump, according to WP. A+ job voting, Florida Cubans.
Mehdi Hasan’s Peacock show is substantive and worthwhile. He just interviewed Jason Stanley and Ruth Ben-Ghiat, and I recommend it (Ro Khanna’s comments about Democrats and foreign policy as well).
@RonaldKlain is a superb choice for Chief of Staff. He understands the magnitude of the health and economic crisis and he has the experience to lead this next administration through it. Ron has earned trust all across the entire Democratic Party.
I’ve known @RonaldKlain for years and he is guided by his belief in public service and building opportunity for America’s working families. Let’s get to work!
Hugh Hewitt: “The estimable @RonaldKlain is a terrific choice by the president-elect. He’s been a serious student of the risk of pandemic for a long time:…”
Go fuck yourself, you slimy opportunistic unprincipled hack. No one is going to forget who you’ve been for the last four years.
Petty, useless dunderheads: “State Department is preventing Biden from accessing messages from foreign leaders”
A stack of messages from foreign leaders to President-elect Joe Biden are sitting at the State Department but the Trump administration is preventing him from accessing them, according to State Department officials familiar with the messages.
Traditionally, the State Department supports all communications for the President-elect, which is why many countries began sending messages to State over the weekend. But with Biden prohibited from accessing State Department resources by the Trump administration, because President Donald Trump refuses to accept Biden’s victory, dozens of incoming messages have not been received.
Biden’s team is contacting foreign governments on their own and he has held numerous calls with leaders, including Germany’s Angela Merkel and Canada’s Justin Trudeau. But they are operating without the logistical and translation support that the State Department operations center provides.
“They would prefer to be using the State Department resources,” said a source familiar with the situation, who noted that the Biden team is having to deal with the unexpected challenge of facilitating these calls. […]
Foreign leaders have begun to figure out that State cannot get them in touch with the President-elect and their teams have reached out to former Obama-era diplomats for their assistance on how to send congratulatory messages to Biden’s team, sources told CNN. Some foreign governments feel they are navigating an unfamiliar maze, foreign diplomats have told CNN. […]
Here’s a link to the November 12 Guardian coronavirus world liveblog.
From there:
A controversial French professor who touts the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a coronavirus treatment – without evidence, scientists say – will appear before a disciplinary panel charged with ethics breaches, an order of doctors said today.
Marseille-based Didier Raoult is accused by his peers of spreading false information about the benefits of the drug.
His promotion of hydroxychloroquine was taken up by the US and Brazilian presidents, Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro respectively, who trumpeted its unproven benefits in a way, say critics, that put people’s lives at risk.
No clinical trials have yet found in favour of using hydroxychloroquine against Covid-19. Critics say that due to potential serious side effects, treating coronavirus patients with hydroxychloroquine is worse than no treatment at all.
In June, the British-led Recovery trial team said that hydroxychloroquine does nothing to reduce coronavirus mortality.
A group representing 500 specialists of France’s Infectious Diseases Society (SPILF) filed a complaint with the national Order of Doctors of the Bouche-du-Rhone department, which includes Marseille, in July.
They accused Raoult of breaking nine rules of the doctors’ code of ethics. Other doctors and patients have also lodged complaints.
On Thursday, the group of doctors confirmed it had given the go-ahead for a disciplinary hearing after reviewing the complaints against Raoult. A hearing will likely only take place next year.
Raoult’s lawyer, Fabrice Di Vizio, confirmed they had received notice of the decision, but insisted his client would be cleared. If found guilty, Raoult could be fined, warned, or barred from practicing.
Raoult, who heads the infectious diseases department of La Timone hospital in Marseille, said in March that his study of 80 patients showed “favourable” outcomes in four out of five treated with hydroxychloroquine.
But his peers insist there is no scientific evidence to back up the claim.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, visited the scientist on 9 April at the height of the pandemic, when the French were observing strict stay-at-home rules.
Dr Anthony Fauci says unprecedented ‘polarisation’ has intensified an anti-science feeling in the US and led people to threaten violence against him.
While the top infectious diseases expert commands respect among much of the public, he has received personal death threats as a result of his high-profile statements about the coronavirus pandemic.
The health expert Prof David Heymann, who joined Fauci in a Chatham House webinar, said science had become highly politicised to the point that a mask wearer was seen as a Democrat and a non-mask wearer as a Republican.
“New – Sen. Chuck Grassley, who is the most senior Republican in the Senate, told me that President-elect Joe Biden should have access to classified briefings to prepare for the transition.
‘I would think – especially on classified briefings – the answer is yes’, Grassley said.”
Kayleigh McEnany IS the WH Press Secretary, though she is appearing on FOX as a Trump 2020 adviser.”
Video atl. It would be funny if they went to a commercial and then she was back on in a different shirt with a different background speaking for the WH.
President Trump has told friends he wants to start a digital media company to clobber Fox News and undermine the conservative-friendly network, sources tell Axios….
More atl. Good. Concede and resign already and do it now.
“First Sheldon Adelson’s paper had that huge ‘Biden Wins’ headline. Today, it has a brutal editorial telling Trump he lost: ‘(Trump) does a disservice to his more rabid supporters by insisting that he would have won the Nov. 3 election absent voter fraud. That’s simply false’.”
Donald Trump’s adviser Corey Lewandowski has become the latest member of the outgoing president’s staff to test positive for coronavirus.
Lewandowski recently traveled to Pennsylvania to assist Trump’s efforts to contest the state’s election results. He said today he believes he was infected in Philadelphia and is not experiencing any symptoms.
Lewandowski appeared with Rudy Giuliani at an event on Saturday outside a landscaping company and lobbed unfounded accusations of voter fraud as the race was called for Trump’s challenger, now-President-elect Joe Biden.
Lewandowski was also at the election night party at the White House last week linked to several virus cases.
Numerous White House and campaign officials have tested positive in this latest wave of infections, including Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows.
Update to #441: “Two sources said Liz Uihlein, an outspoken critic of Gov. Tony Evers stay-at-home order earlier this year, ‘tested positive after attending Trump’s election night watch party in the White House last week’.”
The RNC chief of staff, Richard Walters, has also tested positive.
“An evidentiary hearing is about to begin in Arizona’s Maricopa County in a suit involving the debunked ‘Sharpiegate’ conspiracy, rebranded as ‘Marking Device’-gate after the Trump campaign jumped in as a plaintiff….”
Trump appears to be “joining a club of truculent leaders who, regardless of what voters decide, declare themselves the winners of elections.”
[…] “The people have spoken,” George H.W. Bush said, “and we respect the majesty of the democratic system.” Though the sting of defeat was still fresh, the outgoing president reminded supporters, “There is important work to be done, and America must always come first.”
Donald Trump, evidently, has chosen a very different course. [He] has decided to reject the results he doesn’t like, brazenly lie to the public, concoct foolish conspiracy theories, and attack his own country’s democracy in ways no living American has ever seen from their president.
[…] Thomas Edsall reached out to a rather large group of historians and constitutional scholars “to see how they explain what should be an inexplicable response to an election conducted in a modern democracy.” Several used the “U” word.
For example, James Kloppenberg, a professor of American history at Harvard, responded to the inquiry in great detail, though he acknowledged at the outset, “Trump’s refusal to acknowledge defeat is unprecedented.” Samuel Moyn, a Yale historian, added, “I think we will come to understand him as the weakest recent president, and this ‘unprecedented’ situation in which he refuses to acknowledge election results is just more proof.”
[…] Jonathan Gienapp, a professor of history at Stanford, added, “[N]one of these earlier examples featured what we see now: a completely manufactured controversy based on no evidence whatsoever, purely to maintain power, and to overturn a legitimate election.”
[…] while the United States is wholly unaccustomed such autocratic tantrums, these are familiar circumstances across much of the world. The New York Times noted today the degree to which Trump is “joining a club of truculent leaders who, regardless of what voters decide, declare themselves the winners of elections.”
That club counts as its members far more dictators, tyrants and potentates than leaders of what used to be known as the “free world” — countries that, led by Washington, have for decades lectured others on the need to hold elections and respect the result.
[…] While [Trump] is in the midst of an ugly tantrum, there is no doubt that he will vacate the White House in 69 days.
“[T]he United States has never before had to force an incumbent to concede a fair defeat at the polls,” the Times added. “And merely by raising the possibility that he would have to be forced out of office, Mr. Trump has shattered the bedrock democratic tradition of a seamless transition.” The article went on to note:
Among the anti-democratic tactics Mr. Trump has adopted are some that were commonly employed by leaders like Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela and Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia — refusing to concede defeat and hurling unfounded accusations of electoral fraud. The tactics also include undermining confidence in democratic institutions and the courts, attacking the press and vilifying opponents.
Serhii Plokhy, a Harvard historian, said, “Trump’s behavior is without precedent among leaders in Western democracies. Even in military dictatorships, the dictators more often than not honor the results of elections and they retire if they lose them.”
I hope Republicans who stand with Trump take note of just what they’re endorsing.
[…] the Atlanta Journal-Constitution published a striking editorial yesterday, admonishing Republican Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler for attacking the integrity of the state’s electoral process without evidence. “Reckless barely begins to touch on what Perdue and Loeffler have done,” the editorial board said. “Without presenting reasons, they have assaulted Georgia’s election system. That is dangerous behavior in this tense moment, both for this state and for the nation that is watching this risky sideshow.”
Massive amounts of disinformation are flooding social media.
Four viral videos falsely suggest ‘voter fraud’ led to Biden’s victory. Washington Post link
News organizations have called the 2020 presidential election for Democrat Joe Biden, but that hasn’t stopped President Trump’s surrogates from sharing misleading, fake and debunked videos that cast doubt on the election results.
Election officials have swatted away Trump campaign claims of voter fraud, and no evidence presented by the president’s team — or anyone else — has supported these allegations.
Still, nearly a week later, several of these videos — including this manipulated clip of President-elect Biden and claims about votes cast in Sharpie — are still circulating on social media in an effort to seed doubts about the outcome of the 2020 election.
The manipulated clip of Biden shows him supposedly claiming that “Democrats built the biggest voter fraud operation in history.” Bullshit. I’m still not sure why millions of people would buy into such obvious disinformation.
[…] A video appearing to show an election official destroying a vote for Trump racked up tens of thousands of views on Twitter and YouTube. It was viewed hundreds of thousands of times on Instagram and posted by several prominent conservatives nearly a week after polls closed.
The video, which was originally published by the TikTok account @bigchoppadoe, shows a person appearing to be a poll worker sorting ballots. When he comes to one ballot for “Donald J. Dumb Trump,” the person rips it in half. Reuters reported @bigchoppadoe is a Facebook user named Dale Harrison. […]
No senior staffers who are tasked with hiring election workers recognized him, and the office had no paperwork for the required background check. Moreover, anyone who was associated with vote counting was issued a specialized lanyard, according to the office. In the video, Harrison is not wearing one. The office also said judges who work in vote processing do not wear yellow vests and the location where the video was filmed does not match the El Paso County Clerk and Record’s office or any of their facilities. The signage does, however, resemble a space where Harrison has filmed other videos posted to his social media accounts.
In other words, it’s a fake. No Trump ballots were ripped up by election workers.
[…] A video purporting to show ballot stuffing in Philadelphia has gained more than 300,000 views since Election Day.
Trump campaign director of Election Day operations Mike Roman wrote in a tweet accompanying the video: “Literally STUFFING the ballot box in Philly! You are only allowed to deliver YOUR OWN ballot to a drop box!! Trying to STEAL THE ELECTION in broad daylight.” (Twitter has since flagged the video with a warning “Some or all of the content shared in this Tweet is disputed and might be misleading about an election or other civic process.”) Neither Roman nor the Trump campaign responded to the Fact Checker’s request for comment.
The video shows a woman approach the box in broad daylight. She pulls out a stack of papers, shuffles them and then puts at least one ballot in the box. The camera is then obscured by passing cars. Still, by the end of the clip, it appears that she has placed at least two additional ballots in the box, while rifling through a mess of papers. […]
“It is lawful for people to act as agents on behalf of voters who cannot engage in the process of voting for themselves — due to illness, infirmity, etc. It is also lawful to drop mail in a mailbox on behalf of other people,” Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office spokeswoman Jane Roh said in an email.
Roh confirmed that her office had reviewed this video on Election Day. “Nothing in that video is conclusive of wrongdoing,” she wrote, adding, “Social media accusations of election interference from the Trump campaign and the Philly GOP circulated since Tuesday, including posts about this video, were never reported to authorities — which arguably raises questions about the actual intent of these posts.” […]
Put simply, there is no evidence that any wrongdoing took place here. […]
A viral video that local officials, fact-checkers and even our colleagues have debunked is still available for viewing on some social media channels. The video falsely shows a person burning ballots cast for Trump.
The video starts with two gloved hands holding three ballots up to the camera to reveal that they had been cast for the president. “Yeah, all Trump. You got to do what you got to do,” says the person off-camera before tossing the ballots into a plastic bag and lighting it on fire.
Election officials in the city of Virginia Beach dismissed the video in a statement on Election Day. “A concerned citizen” sent the video to the election office. In a freeze frame analysis, officials noted that the papers in the video do not have the bar codes present on official ballots. The ballots in the video are samples.
The video picked up more views after Eric Trump retweeted the video from a now suspended account a day after Virginia Beach officials debunked the clip. About an hour after President Trump’s son shared the video, the Virginia Beach Twitter account replied to his thread: “Those were sample ballots. Addressed this yesterday.”
[…]
Wagon rolling into Detroit vote counting center
It all started with a red wagon and a white unmarked van. Shortly after filming the scene, Kellye SoRelle shared the video with the website Texas ScoreCard […]
That same day, Eric Trump retweeted the video now published in a story for the Gateway Pundit. His tweet gathered over 40,000 retweets and 300,000 views. Trump wrote: “WATCH: Suitcases and Coolers Rolled Into Detroit Voting Center at 4 AM, Brought Into Secure Counting Area.”
A couple hours later, WXYZ investigative reporter Ross Jones responded to the article in a tweet: “The ‘ballot thief’ was my photographer. He was bringing down equipment for our 12-hour shift.”
WXYZ photojournalist Josh Bowren explained in a segment for the news channel that he was the one in the video and the red wagon he was using did not contain ballot boxes but a box full of batteries. […] The Texas Scorecard story […] is still listed as trending on the front page.
[…] it’s important to avoid jumping to conclusions about videos shared on social media. Anyone who shares these videos without casting doubt on their authenticity earns Four Pinocchios […]
Given what’s become of the GOP and its post-policy posture, Ron DeSantis’ new data analyst is proud of his lack of credentials and expertise.
The Republican Party has identified all kinds of perceived enemies of late, but “experts” have quietly become one of the party’s top targets. At the Republican National Convention, for example, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) declared with pride, “We are not and will not be the subjects of an elite class of so-called experts.”
Americans have heard similar derision of expertise from Donald Trump, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), and other prominent GOP voices, each of whom have argued that when it comes to making policy decisions — especially about a raging pandemic — the important thing is that no one listen too closely to those who know the most about the issues.
[…] when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ (R) administration decided to hire a new data analyst, the governor’s team chose “a little-known Ohio sports blogger and Uber driver whose only relevant experience is spreading harmful conspiracy theories about COVID-19 on the Internet.” The Miami Herald had this stunning report:
In his own words, Kyle Lamb of Columbus, Ohio, has few qualifications for the job at the state’s Office of Policy and Budget, which pays $40,000 per year. “Fact is, I’m not an ‘expert.’ I’m not a doctor, epidemiologist, virologist or scientist,” Lamb wrote on a website for a subscribers-only podcast he hosts about the coronavirus. “I also don’t need to be. Experts don’t have all the answers, and we’ve learned that the hard way.”
[…] The Herald went on to report that Lamb has peddled a series of discredited claims about the pandemic, but he’s nevertheless comfortable joining DeSantis’ team — working on, among other things, coronavirus data.
[…] “I have no qualms about being a ‘sports guy’ moonlighting as a COVID-19 analyst,” he wrote on his podcast’s website.
The article added, “Sports writers from Ohio were floored that the governor would hire Lamb for any position, calling the blogger ‘unhinged,’ a ‘crackpot’ and an ‘amateur, basement epidemiologist’ in interviews with the Herald. […]
Vish Viswanath, a professor of health communication at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, told the Herald that the blogger’s theories are “laughable.” The expert added, “It’s extremely disconcerting that you appoint somebody that has very limited technical qualifications and has made his agenda very clear. At the end of the day, the price will be paid by the residents of Florida to these steps. So my question is, what is the end game here? Who is going to benefit from this?” […]
As the pandemic rages, Trump’s involvement in the day-to-day governing of the nation “has nearly stopped.”
He never did much to begin with. Now he’s doing less … and so is his entire team.
Seven months ago, when the coronavirus pandemic reached its first peek in infections, the United States saw over 30,000 new cases per day, and Americans were right to see that as a public-health disaster. Yesterday, however, as the nation struggles with its third peek, the daily total for new cases topped 144,000.
[…] Hospitals are being pushed to the brink, and fatalities are climbing. The New York Times reported yesterday that as the crisis surges, the United States is struggling with a “federal leadership vacuum.”
[…] Donald Trump appears to have simply given up — not on undermining his own country’s democracy, but on responding to his own country’s public-health catastrophe. The Associated Press reported that the outgoing president checks in with “friendly governors” and conservative media personalities, but he’s effectively given up on governing.
Always an obsessive cable news viewer, he has been watching even more TV than usual in recent weeks, often from his private dining room just off the Oval Office. While he ponders his options, his involvement in the day-to-day governing of the nation has nearly stopped: According to his schedule, he has not attended an intelligence briefing in weeks, and the White House has done little of late to manage the pandemic that has surged to record highs in many states.
[…] even I’m a little taken aback by this fiddle-while-Rome-burns posture.
In the weeks and months headed into Election Day, the Republican incumbent insisted that interest in COVID-19 was part of an elaborate conspiracy: Democrats, journalists, and public-health officials were only pretending to care about the pandemic as a way of undermining political support for the president during his re-election campaign. Once Nov. 3 came and went, Trump insisted, the focus on the coronavirus would immediately evaporate.
The president had it backwards: the election is over, but it’s not our collective interest in the crisis that’s disappeared; it’s the pretense that Trump cares at all about the pandemic[…]
We the taxpayers should stop feeding him, stop paying him, and stop flying him around in Air Force One. No more rides in armored cars. No more super-spreader events at the White House.
“CISA Director Chris Krebs says he expects to be fired soon, per Reuters. He has been aggressively debunking viral disinformation and conspiracies about voter fraud circulating in conservative circles – many of them pushed by Trump himself
CISA’s ‘Rumor Control’ site was launched prior to the election to help voters navigate domestic & foreign misinfo, but ‘the website has now essentially morphed into a post-election fact-checking operation for the outgoing president & his supporters’.”
CISA is part of DHS.
lumipunasays
Re 426:
Humor/satire from Andy Borowitz, writing for The New Yorker:
In his latest legal action, Donald J. Trump has filed a lawsuit to overturn former President Barack Obama’s election in 2008.
Semi seriously, Trump actually defeated Obama’s voter turnout of both 2008 (though maybe not in % of eligible voters) and 2012. It’s really sad he can’t be happy with that, considering he’s been running against Obama this whole time.
Nat’l security officials resigned/fired this past week:
-Secretary of Defense
-Under SecDef for Intelligence
-SecDef’s Chief of Staff
-NSA General Counsel
-DHS Assistant Director for Cybersecurity
-DOE National Nuclear Security Admin chief
-DOJ Elections Crimes Branch chief
the Assistant Secretary for International Affairs at DHS, just in the last hour.
According to this article by Ron Kampeas from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump were asked to withdraw their children from the Jewish day school they attend in Washington, DC because parents became concerned the couple was flouting basic COVID mitigation protocols the school requires of parents. The Kusher/Trumps deny it but the reporting speaks for itself. It sounds like the school raised their behavior with the couple. They refused to change it. And then they were asked to leave.
How bad are impeached two-time popular vote loser lame duck Donald Trump’s utterly ridiculous, baseless, nuisance election lawsuits? So bad that two of the law firms with lawyers representing him, the bad guys in big law, are reportedly getting bothered by the fact that their work is undermining the rule of law. In Arizona, the largest law firm that’s been working on challenges for Trump requested to withdraw from a case in Maricopa County.
[…] they tried to get a judge in Maricopa County to seal the evidence they brought so the public couldn’t see how pathetic their case is. Trump’s lawyer in this case is alleging that poll workers “incorrectly rejected” Election Day votes. Attorney Kory Langhofer, on behalf of Trump, the Republican National Committee, and the Arizona Republican Party, is arguing that thousands of legitimate votes could have been left uncounted (county officials put the number in question at about 180). […]
Maricopa County attorney Thomas Liddy argued against sealing it, saying that the public “has a right to know how flimsy Plaintiffs’ evidence actually is.” The judge agreed. The “evidence” will be public, with proper redactions. But, boy, did Team Trump get blasted by Liddy. He said it was “not a standard, run-of-the-mill election law challenge” and that the Republicans were attempting to hide “significantly more than what is protected by statute with no legal or factual basis.”
[…] He wasn’t done yet. “Plaintiffs chose to bring this lawsuit, calling into question the integrity of the electoral process,” Liddy said. “The public deserves to see all the evidence so that it can have confidence in this election.” The judge agreed. All information that needs to be redacted will be redacted. The evidence will not be sealed and Arizona voters will be able to see exactly how Team Trump is trying to take their votes away.
When White House counsel Pat Cipollone opposes something Donald Trump is intent on doing, you know it’s got to be bad. But it’s exactly where Cipollone stands on Trump’s deep desire to declassify U.S. intelligence on Russian interference in the 2016 election, which would be incredibly damaging to national security and U.S. intelligence-gathering moving forward.
[…] his intention to declassify U.S. intelligence on Russia at any cost to national security has met with stiff opposition from CIA Director Gina Haspel and divided Republicans into two camps, according to The New York Times. You’re either a Trumpist or a traitor.
Trump also remains miffed at the CIA over the agency’s failure to neutralize the whistleblower complaint regarding the July 2019 call with Ukraine that ultimately led to his impeachment. But releasing the intelligence on Russia appears to be the main motivation behind Trump’s fixation on axing Haspel, who has shared her concern with congressional members.
The Times writes that GOP lawmakers “came subtly to Ms. Haspel’s defense” Tuesday when Majority Leader Mitch McConnell invited her to a meeting at his office—a signal of support for her, however weak. Of course, McConnell isn’t willing to do something more overt because he’s too busy kowtowing to Dear Leader so Republicans can get Trump’s help in the upcoming Georgia runoffs, which will decide the fate of the Senate majority.
Trump has already moved to consolidate power in the intelligence community, installing loyalists this week at key intelligence posts at the Defense Department and National Security Agency. Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, who oversees the 17-agency intelligence apparatus, is already a tried and true Trumpist. So the only major barriers to Trump’s near-total takeover of the intelligence community are Haspel and FBI Director Chris Wray, who reportedly have both been on Trump’s post-election chopping block.
Just imagine what Trump would have done if he had won.
Billing it as “the largest Trump rally in U.S. history,” an aggregation of red-hatted Donald Trump fanatics—comprised almost entirely of far-right extremists of a variety of stripes, working alongside ostensibly mainstream conservatives—have organized what they hope will be a massive demonstration of support for the defeated president Saturday in Washington, D.C.: the “Million MAGA March.”
The list of “prominent attendees” touted by organizers for the event is a virtual who’s who of the white-nationalist far right, […] not least being conspiracy-meister Alex Jones and his Infowars operation. The message of the whole event, in the words of Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes: “We must refuse to EVER recognize this as a legitimate election, and refuse to recognize Biden as a legitimate winner, and refuse to ever recognize him as the president of the United States.”
[video available at the link]
[…] he organizers are incorporating the “Trump train” concept into the Saturday event by sponsoring and promoting a cross-country “Million MAGA March” caravan, which they claim “will be driving through the entire country and arriving this weekend to protest the contested election.” The route being promoted […] originates in Texas and drives through the South and up through Georgia and the Carolinas to reach Washington.
[…] Nick Fuentes, the white nationalist social-media figure who leads the so-called “Groyper Army” of open anti-Semites and bigots, and his frequent cohort Michelle Malkin, who has managed to reinvent herself as an unapologetic white nationalist in recent years, as well as the heavily armed “Patriots” of Rhodes’ Oath Keepers’ outfit, which has been vowing “civil war” in the streets since August. The Saturday “march” is also being heavily promoted on white supremacist sites like The Daily Stormer and Stormfront.
[…] At the Trump-endorsed One America News Network, “reporter” Jack Posobiec—exposed this summer by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a highly active white nationalist with deep connections throughout the movement, as well as a million followers on Twitter—eagerly promoted the Saturday event […]
On his daily show, Jones proclaimed: “So don’t worry, President Trump. The cavalry is coming.” Biden’s election—which he insists only occurred through fraud—is the final apocalyptic straw for Jones, who concluded: “We must not comply. This is the final assault. It’s the takeover. And it’s here.”
And on Telegram, white nationalist Brien James—cofounder of the far-right street-brawling gang American Guard—posted a promotional video for the Million MAGA March that featured a neo-Nazi theme song being played with a stream of far-right messages over the event’s logo.
As Politico notes, the organizers have failed to file for any permits for the event, which has been alternatively dubbed the March for Trump and Stop the Steal DC. So it remains unclear how many people may show up, particularly given past far-right fizzles. However, researchers have estimated “anywhere from several hundred to several thousand may show up.”
[…] Jared Holt of the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensics Research Lab explains that not everyone at the event will be a white nationalist or extremist, “but this event is generating a fair amount of chatter in extremist communities online that we’re monitoring.”
[…] The lineup of “prominent attendees” featured in organizers’ promotional posts is revealing. In addition to Jones, Posobiec, Fuentes, Shroyer, and Malkin, far-right conspiracist Mike Cernovich is included, along with Jaden McNeil—a young man whose sole claim to fame is getting expelled from Kansas State for posting a vicious tweet about George Floyd after his murder by police—and Ashley St. Clair, best known for being expelled from the conservative campus group Turning Point USA after she posed with white nationalists.
But just in case anyone should accuse these white nationalists of being racist, they of course includeD two African American entertainment acts—pro-Trump rapper Bryson Gray, and the far-right Hodge Twins—on the list.
[…]
This election was stolen and this is a communist/Deep State coup, every bit as corrupt and illegitimate as what is done in third world banana republics. … This election was stolen by corrupt, law-breaking Democrat partisans on the ground, and by the manipulation of the CIA created HAMMR (“Hammer”) and Scorecard programs.
Rhodes also urged Trump to refuse to concede: “President Trump must refuse to recognize it as legitimate because it is not legitimate,” he wrote, adding that “by President Trump refusing to concede, he is stopping a coup rather than engaging in one.”
Rep. Don Young: “I have tested positive for COVID-19. I am feeling strong, following proper protocols, working from home in Alaska, and ask for privacy at this time. May God Bless Alaska.”
Update to #451: “Weirdest possible update to this situation: ICE changed the birthdate of @ICEgov account so that it was less than 13 years old, which then broke Twitter’s terms of service.
Europe’s second wave built slowly, starting in midsummer. At that time, charts comparing coronavirus cases in America and Europe highlighted the inadequacy of the U.S. response; there were days on which individual American states recorded more new infections than the entire European continent. But in July, cases in Spain started to tick upward, and in August the numbers in France began rising. By September, Spanish covid-19 deaths had increased by a factor of ten, and France, for the first time, had recorded more than ten thousand new coronavirus cases in a single day. […] Spikes soon followed in the U.K., Italy, Germany, and other countries. […]
At first, European governments tried to avoid a return to the restrictions they’d used in February. But, as the virus filled I.C.U.s, they realized that they had no choice. This month, the United Kingdom entered a second national lockdown, with bans on gatherings of more than two people. In France, only schools, factories, and essential businesses remain open. Germany has announced “lockdown light,” with heavy restrictions on bars, restaurants, gyms, and theatres. These measures seem to have come too late: Europe now accounts for nearly half the world’s new coronavirus cases. “They opened up much too fast,” Mitchell Katz, the president and C.E.O. of N.Y.C. Health + Hospitals, the largest public-hospital system in the U.S., told me. […]
as the Northern Hemisphere steps deeper into autumn and more activity moves indoors, the spread of the coronavirus is, predictably, accelerating. […] In the last week of October, the U.S. recorded more new coronavirus cases than it has at any point during the pandemic; there have been days in November on which more than a hundred and thirty thousand people have been found to be newly infected. A few states—Wisconsin, North Dakota, Iowa—have among the highest per-capita infection rates in the world. The new surge has no epicenter. Infection records are being set in more than half of U.S. counties, and large swaths of the Midwest and mountain West are struggling with skyrocketing hospitalizations. On many days, more than a thousand Americans are now dying of covid-19—a number that is certain to rise, since deaths lag behind infections by several weeks.
The mortality rate for the virus has fallen substantially since the start of the pandemic, probably because of improvements in care and a shift in viral demographics: many of the newly infected are young. But a lower death rate combined with a vast rise in infections will still create profound suffering. […] The American death toll could reach four hundred thousand by January. […] shift from anticipating the winter surge to recognizing that it is already here.
The character of the winter surge changes depending on where you live. Over the course of the pandemic, the virus has moved inexorably from cities to rural areas. Today, many first-wave epicenters, including New York City, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, have successfully suppressed the virus and are now working to prevent a second surge. Less populous states, such as Utah, Wisconsin, and the Dakotas, muddled through over the summer, accepting a certain level of infection without imposing significant restrictions—but they are now losing control, and face unprecedented waves of infection with limited resources. […]
Utah’s experience mirrors that of many states where the virus is surging. This week, eighteen states reported record numbers of coronavirus hospitalizations. Shortages of I.C.U. beds have forced hospitals across the country to build surge units. […]
[…] What’s to come for the small cities and rural counties where covid-19 is now surging? Unable to navigate the politics of the virus, many are now careening toward disaster. An irony of the pandemic is that leaders’ desire to avoid or delay government action means they’re often forced to introduce more severe restrictions in desperate circumstances. “If you introduce measures early, you have a chance at avoiding the more stringent ones,” Keegan said. “If you wait until you don’t have enough beds or doctors, you have to impose more drastic lockdowns.” […]
[…] But the N.Y.C. Test & Trace Corps now operated by the hospital system is working at a high level of effectiveness. Initially, tracers had trouble reaching many of those who tested positive; some wouldn’t answer their phones, and others refused to provide contacts. Ted Long, the physician who runs the program, introduced changes. The Corps made more of an effort to hire the majority of its tracers from affected communities—“Building trust is the key variable in getting people to participate,” Long said—and began sending them to patients’ homes. It made sure that, when rapid tests were administered in the system’s clinics, tracers were in the room when patients were given their result. Soon, the program was reaching more than ninety per cent of those who tested positive, and getting information about contacts for nearly eighty per cent of all cases.
[…] The fundamentals of effective pandemic response are the same today as they were when the crisis started. We know the drill. Unless we put mitigating measures in place, the coronavirus will spread, and sooner than we expect it will get out of control. The only way to avoid mass death is to move quickly and decisively, flattening the curve through masks, distance, testing, tracing, and lockdowns until a vaccine and therapies can avert the suffering caused by covid-19. Passivity is the enemy. The winter surge is here; we decide what happens next.
Thread: there’s been interesting discussion in the Scottish Parliament this afternoon about the use of Unexplained Wealth Orders to investigate Donald Trump’s deals to acquire his Scottish properties and ascertain the sources of the financing
@patrickharvie said there is a need to “protect Scotland’s good name from association with the toxic Trump brand” and highlighted “serious and long-standing concerns about Trump’s business activities,” both in Scotland and further afield
Those concerns, he said, include evidence to Congress citing patterns of buying and selling thought suggestive of money laundering, and which drew particular attention to the golf courses in Scotland and Ireland.
“The cause for concern is still growing,” Mr Harvie told the parliament. “It’s now reported that the Manhattan District Attorney’s office is investigating the Trump Organisation’s inflation of assets, and potential bank and insurance fraud.”
He added: “The Trump Organisation has been accused of repeatedly reporting fraudulent financial details to the US Office of Government Ethics, while reporting a different set of figures to the UK regulators in respect of the Trump golf courses here in Scotland.”
Turning to the issue of UWOs – he stressed that the Scottish Government is able to go to court and ask for an order so that it can “start getting answers,” but said that so far, the government has refused to either confirm or deny that an investigation is underway.
He added: “Now that Trump is set to lose immunity from prosecution in the US, he may finally be held to account there. Isn’t it time that he’s also held to account here? Isn’t it time for answers from the Trump Organisation and for the Scottish Government to go to court?”
Replying, First Minister @NicolaSturgeon said the decision on whether to pursue a UWO against Trump is one for prosecutors, not politicians – specifically, the Crown Office, which she said operated in a “right and proper” independent capacity from government ministers.
She added: “I think everybody is prob well aware of my views about the soon to be former president, and my views are probably no different to … many people across Scotland. The idea that I’d somehow try to protect him from due accountability I don’t think holds much water.” [Heh]
For what it’s worth, my understanding of the UWO process is that it’s the Scottish Government that can decide to go to court, under section 396A of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. The legislation doesn’t seem to leave much room for ambiguity:…
Scottish Greens UWO statement: “We can’t continue to turn a blind eye to red flags that surround [Trump’s] biz activities in Scotland, sending a signal to not just Trump himself but those who may be lured by our relaxed approach towards investigating possible financial crimes”
Here’s my original story from February on the growing calls for the Scottish Govt to pursue an Unexplained Wealth Order to determine the source of the Trump Organisation’s financing in Scotland:…
Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg told an all-staff meeting on Thursday that former Trump White House adviser Steve Bannon had not violated enough of the company’s policies to justify his suspension when he urged beheading two senior U.S. officials, according to a recording heard by Reuters.
“We have specific rules around how many times you need to violate certain policies before we will deactivate your account completely,” Zuckerberg said. “While the offenses here, I think, came close to crossing that line, they clearly did not cross the line.” [WTF]
Bannon suggested in a video posted on Nov. 5 that FBI Director Christopher Wray and government infectious diseases expert Anthony Fauci should be beheaded, saying they had been disloyal to U.S. President Donald Trump, who last week lost his re-election bid.
“I’d put the heads on pikes. Right. I’d put them at the two corners of the White House as a warning to federal bureaucrats. You either get with the program or you are gone,” Bannon said in the video.
Facebook removed the video but left up Bannon’s page, which has about 175,000 followers. Twitter banned Bannon last week over the same content.
Facebook spokesman Andy Stone said the company would take further action against Bannon’s page “if there are additional violations.”…
logicalcatsays
@428
Just as i suspected as soon as they dropped the pretext we cubans are back to negro status. I second the sarcastic remark of “good job voting florida cubans”.
As per @bbclaurak’s tweets, senior Govt figures confirm Dominic Cummings resigned today, following his close ally Lee Cain out the door, and will leave No10 before xmas. This was agreed with the PM in a meeting this afternoon.
I’m told his last roll of the dice was to try to persuade Boris Johnson to appoint another No10 ally and his deputy Cleo Watson as the PM’s Chief of Staff. Boris again refused, and it was then agreed that he would leave.
Figures close to the PM tonight say he has finally grown tired of all the fighting, and was also very disappointed by the Vote Leave clan’s scheming over the last 48 hours, as well as by the lockdown leak. Appears Boris has at long last decided it’s time for a new broom.
The final straw for the PM appears to be the lockdown leak inquiry, which No10 insiders say is leading to Cain and Cummings as an attempt to bounce him into it. No conclusive evidence yet, but it is being seen as “breath-taking disloyalty”. It apparently wasn’t the first time.
logicalcat @ #481, I was on the phone with a friend when the FL results were coming in, and I brought up the Law & Order episode “Blood Libel” (ripped from the headlines) about some high school students who put a coded anti-Semitic slur about a teacher, who was later murdered, on their yearbook pages. One of them is a Hispanic kid, Eddie Camarillo. The detectives, including Rey Curtis (who’s half Peruvian), are interrogating him:
DETECTIVE: Well, Eddie had a key made on the machine at his dad’s store. You gave him the key, Eddie. That’s how he got out, after he killed Mrs. Aronson.
EDDIE: That’s not true. I don’t have a key.
DETECTIVE: Our witness says you do. That makes you an accomplice to murder. And whatever plans you had for the next 20 years, you better put them on hold. Now you serve up Matt Hastings, your future gets a little brighter.
EDDIE: I can’t. I’m down with him.
CURTIS: Hey. Be down with this. When Hastings talks about the mud people, who you think that is? That’s you, Eddie. That’s you and me. We’re the mud people.
EDDIE: You’re wrong. My people come from pure Spanish blood, white Christian blood.
CURTIS: Come on. After they’re done with the Jews, the blacks, the Asians, the Arabs, who’s next? Sooner or later, the mailman comes to your gate, hermano.
Tarrio, according to WP, does identify as Afro-Cuban, and they obviously used him as a front to claim they weren’t what they obviously are, but I doubt it would have made a difference if he’d been a Cuban who identified as white. White/male/Christian supremacists are who they are, and will always revert to form. People like Tarrio who try to identify with them remind me of the women who sided with the misogynists during Elevatorgate.
P.S. to logicalcat: I hope I didn’t come across as blaming all Cubans in Florida. The refusal of solidarity by some people when lives are at stake makes me super angry and frustrated.
President Donald Trump has publicly disengaged from the battle against the coronavirus at a moment when the disease is tearing across the United States at an alarming pace.
Trump, fresh off his reelection loss to President-elect Joe Biden, remains angry that an announcement about progress in developing a vaccine for the disease came after Election Day. And aides say the president has shown little interest in the growing crisis even as new confirmed cases are skyrocketing and hospital intensive care units in parts of the country are nearing capacity.
Public health experts worry that Trump’s refusal to take aggressive action on the pandemic or to coordinate with the Biden team during the final two months of his presidency will only worsen the effects of the virus and hinder the nation’s ability to swiftly distribute a vaccine next year.
The White House coronavirus task force held its first post-election meeting Monday….
But Trump, who does not take part in the task force meetings, remains preoccupied with last week’s election results. He has yet to weigh in on the recent spike in virus cases that has state and local officials scrambling and hospitals concerned about their ability to treat those stricken.
With more than 100,000 new confirmed U.S. cases reported daily for more than a week, Trump has been more focused on tracking the rollout of a vaccine, which won’t be widely available for months. He has fumed that Pfizer intentionally withheld an announcement about progress on its vaccine trial until after Election Day, according to a White House official who was not authorized to publicly comment and spoke on condition of anonymity. Pfizer said it did not purposely withhold trial results.
Although the president has consistently played down the pandemic, which has killed more than 240,000 Americans and infected more than 10 million people in the U.S., public health experts expressed worry about Trump’s silence on the troubling spike in cases, as well as his refusal to begin coordination on virus issues with Biden’s transition team.
“It’s a big problem,” said Dr. Abraar Karan, a global health specialist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. “The transition is not going to happen until January, and we are in a complete crisis right now. We already know where this is headed. … It’s not good enough to say we’re going to wait until the next president to address this.”
The president’s silence comes as numerous White House and campaign officials have tested positive for the virus in recent days.
…
Meanwhile, state and local officials around the country are scrambling in the midst of mounting caseloads….
…
Lawrence Gostin, a public health expert at Georgetown University’s law school, said Biden will only be able to “scratch the surface” of tackling a pandemic that could be a “raging forest fire” by the time he takes office on Jan. 20.
He added that even the good news on Pfizer’s development of a vaccine that showed 90% efficacy in early trial results could be diminished if Trump doesn’t begin coordination efforts with Biden’s team on how to roll out the vaccine. Some public health experts believe the task of persuading Americans to take the vaccine and widely distributing it could be as complicated as the vaccine’s development.
“I fear the next three months ahead could be the worst we’ve faced during the pandemic,” Gostin said. “America is like a ship at storm, and the captain has decided to go play golf.”
“Wow. #DHS Statement in bold letters: ‘There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised’.
Rebuffs Prez Trump claims, says #Election2020 was ‘most secure in American history’.”
CDC: “#COVID19 cases continue to rise with 94% of U.S. jurisdictions experiencing increases. On 11/11, CDC reported 143,408 new cases, the highest for a single day. Help slow the spread. Wear a mask, wash your hands, and stay 6 feet from others.
#COVID19 cases and deaths in non-urban areas are increasing steadily. Case and death rates are now highest in small cities and rural communities….”
“Latest insanity from Hill Republicans: House @GOPLeader Kevin McCarthy says about President-elect @JoeBiden — I ‘don’t know if he’ll be president January 20’.”
Like Paul Mooney said “looks can be deceiving. There are cubans, dominicans and puerto ricams who look white. They aint. Cubans puerto ricans and dominicans are just niggas who can swim.”
Seems the proud boys have the same viewpoint. Right wing Cubans especialy need to wake up.
logicalcatsays
Oh and SC dont worry. I know that when you talk about cubans you mean a specific group. The right wing ones. Its all good.
SC@482,
Cummings has of course issued an “I meant to do that” statement, saying he always intended to go at the end of the year. Utter crap – one of his main aims was to Trumpise the Civil Service (traditionally non-party-political to much higher levels than in the USA, although as you would expect, small-c conservative), and you can’t do that in a year, particularly while failing to deal with a pandemic. As your quote mentions, one of his cronies, Lee Cain, who gives me the impression of being one of the undead), failed to get the job of Chief of Staff (formally vacant until now), and there were rumours he’d threatened to resign if Cain was not appointed, then not followed through. But I don’t think we know the underlying reasons for the strife within No.10 that led to his departure. Trump’s defeat may have been a factor, prompting Johnson to decide he needed a “reset”, Johnson may have decided to buckle in the negotiations with the EU (again partly as a result of Trump’s defeat, but opposed by Cummings who was said to be a no-dealer), or there may be undeniable evidence of corruption in the granting of government contracts to his associates to come out. Or just personal rivalries and hatreds.
Here’s a link to the November 13 Guardian coronavirus world liveblog.
From there:
Russia has reported a record 21,983 new coronavirus infections on Friday as Moscow prepared to close restaurants and bars overnight in an effort to contain the Covid pandemic, Reuters is reporting.
Despite a recent surge, Russian authorities have resisted reimposing the lockdown restrictions of earlier this year, stressing instead the importance of hygiene, social distancing and bringing in targeted measures in certain regions.
Moscow, which reported 5,974 new cases in the past 24 hours, has ordered bars, restaurants and nightclubs to close between 11pm and 6am from Friday until mid-January. Officials warned of raids and fines for establishments that do not comply….
Just a criminally terrible response.
Early in the pandemic, a few cities and countries around the world began testing sewage for evidence of rising infections.
Now some researchers are fine-tuning that strategy by moving upstream to test waste from single hospitals or other buildings, aiming to quickly pinpoint burgeoning outbreaks and stop them with testing and isolation.
While the virus primarily spreads through droplets expelled from the mouth and nose, it can also be shed via human waste.
Testing sewage is cheaper and less invasive than swabbing hundreds of people, and it could be done more frequently. With the virus again surging across much of the world, schools, hospitals and care homes badly need to catch new cases early.
What we’re trying to do is identify outbreaks before they happen,” said Francis Hassard, a lecturer at Cranfield University, part of a project that started collecting samples at 20 London secondary schools last month.
Hassard’s UK government-funded team will expand sampling to at least 70 schools. The program is a research project, meant to test the approach, and is not yet a full-fledged surveillance system.
More than 300 drones lit up the sky over Seoul on Friday in a show the government said was meant to give “comfort and hope” to residents enduring the pandemic.
The devices lined up in synchronised light displays, forming multi-coloured images of people wearing masks, and spelling out slogans promoting the government’s “Korean New Deal” programme to rebuild the economy. Kim Sang-do, the deputy minister for aviation policy, said:
I hope this drone show serves as an opportunity to convey joy and hope for a moment to our people experiencing pandemic fatigue.
The show was designed to thank residents for their efforts to prevent the spread of the virus, he added. The first such show in July was held over the city’s Han River without notice, as organisers wanted to prevent crowds from gathering.
This time, the event was announced in advance and held above the park built to host the 1988 Summer Olympics.
South Korea’s aggressive campaign to control the outbreak has won international praise, helped the country avoid lockdowns and insulated its economy from some of the worst impacts of the crisis.
But the country has continued to battle small and persistent clusters of infections, with 191 new cases reported on Friday as daily infections creep higher. As of Friday, South Korea will begin fining people who fail to wear masks in public.
Authorities in Belarus have ordered banks to seize money raised in small donations and paid out as compensation to victims of a police crackdown on protesters.
The funds were transferred to people who were beaten or fined after taking part in ongoing demonstrations against the regime of Alexander Lukashenko.
After a presidential election, believed to have been rigged, in which Lukashenko declared an overwhelming victory, hundreds of people were left with injuries after systematic police violence on the streets and in jails. Thousands of people were also given fines, which prompted activists to set up fundraising efforts to provide compensation or support to pay the fines.
The BY_help fund, set up by the London-based Belarusian Andrei Leonchik, raised £2m within a few days of putting out the call in August, mostly from small donations from Belarusian citizens keen to show solidarity. After telephone consultations, it made payments ranging from small amounts to cover fines to several thousand pounds for those left with serious injuries.
By the beginning of this week, the group said it had received more than 8,700 applications for financial support and had paid out in more than 3,300 cases where people had been detained, injured or fined.
But authorities have now ordered banks to freeze any funds transferred by Leonchik, as well as opening a criminal case against him, according to leaked documents….
…
Hundreds of people have been affected by the crackdown on the payments. On Tuesday morning, reports started coming in from people who had funds in their accounts frozen, and the numbers have grown since.
Some, who had already spent the money to pay off fines or on other expenses, found their accounts were overdrawn. In some cases, people had all access to their accounts blocked. The order to banks refers to a sum of 1.4 million Belarusian roubles (£415,000). Leonchik said some people were transferred funds from other accounts and so were not yet affected.
After the initial crackdown in August, Belarusian authorities have continued on the path of repression,…
Hey! Check out our Halloween fundraiser!
“Steve Bannon calls for Dr. Fauci and FBI Director Wray to be beheaded ‘as a warning to federal bureaucrats’
@youtube prohibits ‘inciting others to commit violent acts against individuals'”
Video at the link. This is outrageous.
A bit of levity (Hitler movie meme): https://twitter.com/shreyas/status/1324020849230319616?s=21
“Hard to overstate how angry Trump’s advisers are at Fox right now. Just incandescent.”
It’s so stupid. Mishkin is standing by the Arizona call, by the way, and they’ve said if Pennsylvania tips over to Biden tonight they’ll call the election for Biden.
Damn you, John Morales. :) I was going to make that yesterday’s tweet o’ the day, but I was saving it for when the election is soundly over.
Here’s a link to the November 5 Guardian coronavirus world liveblog.
Their recent summary:
France is bad. Italy is bad….
Also in the Guardian – “Russian MPs consider lifetime immunity for former presidents”:
uh, the link to the previous thread appears to be missing all the posts for the last week?
…actually, it’s missing all the posts since oct 20.
Sorry, SC. Had I known, I would have not.
In Oz, COVID news is still good: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11-06/victoria-records-0-coronavirus-cases-for-seventh-straight-day/12853882
Ichthyic, link updating is stuffed.
Last comment on previous page: https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2020/10/20/discuss-political-madness-all-the-time-17/comment-page-2/#comment-2068113
(Naming conventions allow you to manually navigate, but you have to nut it out)
I believe what Ichthyic is looking for is the link below the most recent posts labeled “Older Comments”.
NBC reported that Defense Secretary Mark Esper has prepared a letter of resignation, but I don’t believe it’s been confirmed by anyone else.
MSNBC cut away from Hair Furor to the Sec. of State for Arizona. Clinched tentacle salute!!
In Georgia, Chatham County vote – 15,000 outstanding votes – will be released “imminently” according to Steve Kornacki (via local reporters). They had said earlier today that it wasn’t going to be out until tomorrow.
“CHATHAM, GA UPDATE:
Biden – 78128
Trump – 53173
Biden Net: 5570
Trump +3906″
That’s not fantastic. Some other votes came in and the lead dropped to 3,600. Really close.
Nerd @ #12, I read several other networks did the same. Good for them.
David Rothschild:
“NEW: Trump & his aides want to move ahead w/firing a few top officials like Esper and Wray and signing a slew of executive orders to make Trump look as presidential as possible, as his campaign disputes ballots and Biden kicks up his transition team.”
Politico link atl.
For the convenience of readers, here are some links back to the previous chapter of this thread.
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2020/10/20/discuss-political-madness-all-the-time-17/comment-page-2/#comment-2068113
“Steve Bannon calls for Dr. Fauci and FBI Director Wray to be beheaded ‘as a warning to federal bureaucrats’
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2020/10/20/discuss-political-madness-all-the-time-17/comment-page-2/#comment-2068102
Social media platforms can’t keep up with the lies spewed by Team Trump.
Nerd @12, glad they cut away. MSNBC had Nicole Wallace watch it and then give us a summary afterward. She looked shocked. Trump said if the legitimate votes are counted, he won. He said Democrats are counting fraudulent votes.
Trump claimed that a conspiracy of the media, election officials in various states, Democrats and a few other supposed enemies of Trump supposedly all got together to steal the election from him.
He claimed that all ballots received after election day or counted after election day are fraudulent and shouldn’t be counted. He claimed that “as far as I know” the law says that all ballots have to received on election day.
He is wrong at every level. He is lying. He is going to get people killed.
Some coverage from Daniel Dale of the batshit bonkers speech Trump gave this evening:
Yikes! Trump has shocked me before, but this is just unfuckingbelievable.
Dangerous!
Coverage of Trump’s speech from Aaron Rupar, and from some readers of Rupar’s thread:
Trump’s mind is completely gone.
From Fox News:
From Tim Miller:
From the Washington Post:
I wonder if Trump’s batshit bonkers display tonight will affect the run-off races coming up in Georgia? A plus for Jon Ossoff, the Democratic senate candidate?
From Talking Points Memo:
“On the ground outside of the Convention Center – video speaks louder than anything I could type.”
Video atl.
From comments posted by readers of the TPM article (see comment 23):
In both GA and PA, Biden is holding his own in even the red counties, because the mail ballots are so favorable. In some, he’s even netting more votes out of the mail ballots. That’s very good.
Update:
Taniel:
NV: 6 EVs
AZ: 11 EVs
GA: 16 EVs
PA: 20 EVs
Nate Silver on the new batch of Maricopa (AZ) ballots: “A bit lower than yesterday’s margin for Trump and a bit behind the pace he needs. Somewhat good news for Biden.”
Some more GA votes came in (Biden got 87% of them.), and now Trump’s lead is under 2,500.
The shitshow is that it’s even tight.
Over the last few weeks, I’ve deliberately been reading differing perspectives; takeaway: far far too many people in the USA aprove of Trump and Trumpism (or, more correctly, think they do). For whatever reason: he will repeal lawful abortion (an awful lot of people); he is genuine and strong and not a politician (!); he has made things better (somehow); he is making the USA stronger; he fights “the system” — all these are common claims.
(as with people who are religious, I cannot understand how they can hold those opinions, but there it is, nonetheless. They do.
I must conclude they’re genuine, remarkable and unpalatable as it may be)
—
One thing is for sure: no “blue wave”.
@ 30
So, essentially white, heterosexual, Christians afraid of everyone who isn’t white, heterosexual, and/or Christian.
There were more than 120,000 new coronavirus cases today in the US.
‘Just Pathetic’: Trump Widely Condemned For Wannabe Dictator White House Statement
Link
From Josh Marshall:
“Here’s Hannity arguing that Pennsylvania should do a ‘do over’ election”
Video atl.
“Tonight’s lying on Fox News is out of control. Hannity, Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham & Pam Bondi have all repeated Trump’s lie that Philadelphia is blocking his poll watchers from observing the ballot counting. Bondi herself has been watching the ballot count. I watched her walk in.”
Biden has taken the lead in Georgia – by 917 votes. Note that there are still military and overseas votes to count, as well as remaining domestic mail-ins (which are likely to favour him), so this doesn’t necessarily mean he will win Georgia.
@John Morales #30
I don’t think that’s quite accurate. It’s not that there wasn’t a blue wave. It’s that it crashed right into a red wave. More people have voted for Trump this time than voted for Hillary last time*. He’s actually become more popular. In any other year, this kind of turnout for for an incumbent would have been an automatic re-election.
65.8m for Hillary in 2016 vs. 69.6m for Trump so far. Latest numbers, quickly googled.
Ryan Matsumoto:
Reuters – “Federal watchdog probing Trump campaign’s use of White House – lawmaker”:
LykeX, #38
I was shocked by this at first but it makes perfect sense. Over the last four years, he gave them more of what they loved about him in 2016. So why wouldn’t he be more loved?
Useful thread – “ALRIGHT Y’ALL. ELECTION FRAUD DEBUNKING MEGA THREAD. I’m following claims of fraud and looking into them. I think I’ve solved most now. Nothing is holding up under any scrutiny so far so I’m making a thread to track in one place. Please RT!…”
“@VaughnHillyard says MSNBC has moved their crew away from the Maricopa County Election Center for their safety and that reporters who are still on site are wearing ballistic vests. Alex Jones is there riling up armed Trump supporters. This is so dangerous.”
“Abraham Lincoln was elected President 160 years ago today”
Chris Hayes: “At some point we need to talk about consistent and illegal abuse of the apparatus of the entire federal government to aid Trump’s campaign.”
Yes!
“Expecting we’ll see a revocation of bail hearing for Bannon hit the docket shortly as well.”
What? Just because he incited violence against the FBI director?
Biden now in the lead in Pennsylvania.
“Decision Desk HQ projects that @JoeBiden has won Pennsylvania and its 20 electoral college votes for a total of 273.
Joe Biden has been elected the 46th President of the United States of America.
Race called at 11-06 08:50 AM EST”
Message to Trump: You’re FIRED!
Another message to The Orange Toddler-Tyrant: You are a LOSER!
So beautiful.
“More people have voted for Trump this time than voted for Hillary last time.”
Ok, in absolute numbers. However overall voter turnout is way up as well. Sort me out.
I’m sure the base is more dug in, though.
As an aside, I’m sure the Redhead’s ghost is pleased that a woman will be a heartbeat way from being POTUS. She was sorely disappointed when Hillary lost.
@Saad #41
Sadly, it does make sense. I was just holding out hope that maybe a few of his supporters weren’t horrible people, but just misinformed or short-sighted. That once they saw him in action, they’d think better of it.
Well, maybe a few of them did, but apparently an even bigger number liked what they saw so much, they got out to vote, when they otherwise wouldn’t have. Trump has captured a bigger number of fence-sitters than the number of votes he has lost on his corruption, racism, lies, and general incompetence. By several million.
Somebody is going to step up to capture that voter base. Somebody more competent than Trump. It’s sad to say, after four years of mayhem, but the fight has only just started.
Pardon me for ranting. I’m honestly quite worried where this is headed. Biden winning is good, but this wasn’t the sweep that was needed.
@ 54
Yeah, it’s been pointed out that this isn’t a repudiation of Trumpism, and that the lesson Republicans will have learned from this is that it works.
I will say that I don’t know if it’s fence sitters going over so much as activation of normally passive fellow travelers.
Voter turnout for Biden is up over Clinton as well. The loss of seats in the house is very disturbing though.
Nate Cohn is saying the networks usually don’t call until the recount threshold has been surpassed (.5% in PA).
LykeX@54,
The fight is always just beginning! :-p At least, that’s been the case ever since 1968 (the year I began – at least emotionally – engaged in politics). But the next battle, in the USA, is to prevent Trump and his henchpersons stealing the election.
Well that would have been good on balance, but would probably have entrenched the centrists in the Democratic Party. They and the left have already begun blaming each other for the failures in Congress and the state legislatures, but I think this will now be a more even fight than if Biden had won a sweeping victory. At the same time, we can expect a massive falling-out within the Republicans, between unregenerate Trumpkins, and those eager to pretend they hardly new him – wasn’t he just someone who served the coffee?
But the Secret Service has added to its Biden detail and the air space over the Biden home has been restricted by aviation authorities.
“Is Parler a Republican gym?
They all talk about it but no one ever seems to go.”
I would be astonished if it doesn’t turn out that Biden’s victory is down to the votes of women, with a majority of men still supporting Trump. Expect the fascists’ calls for women to be disenfranchised to grow in volume.
Re 54
At this point, I’m honestly wondering whether the popularity of fascism is at all affected by whether the fascist candidate is a traditional strongman vs. some weird mess of amateurish incompetence, blatant corruption, personal immaturity and tired senior appearance. It seems like obviously it should, but who the hell knows any more.
@ 62
Good point. At the core maybe it comes down to appeals to petty resentments, however they are framed.
In any case, unless traditional strongmen actually make fascism less popular, America’s long term prospects seem bleak. At least Republicans would be hard pressed to find another candidate as weird as Trump, if that were the secret to success.
LykeX, #58
Agreed. I’m also worried that he’ll be appointing conservatives to various posts.
Abortion measures:
(CNN)Voters in two states weighed in on abortion rights on Election Day.
Nerd @53, I’m with the Redhead’s ghost. Kamala Harris will make a fine vice president!
Another fairly large batch of votes has come in from Maricopa County (AZ). Trump got 51%, which isn’t on par with what he would need to overtake Biden’s lead (they were saying 59%, but now that he’s getting under the target it’ll be higher for future batches). It does seem in keeping with the Fox/AP pre-election analysis that led them to predict Trump would get around 55% of the remaining votes, and thus to their early call. We’ll see. McSally was already running behind Trump, so this put her out of the running. NBC has now called the AZ Senate race for Mark Kelly.
A large batch has come in in Clark County, Nevada, which Biden won 68% of, has upped his lead there from around 11,000 to around 30,000.
Jon Ralston:
SC @35, Hannity is claiming that, “they violated the law, and nobody can contest that.” He is referring to the election process in Pennsylvania. Almost everyone except Trump and Hannity contests that baseless claim.
Hannity is actively making his Fox News audience more stupid.
“Quite an accomplishment for Martha McSally – singlehandedly responsible for erasing Arizona Republicans from the US Senate in the space of two years. It’s the first time in 68 years the GOP hasn’t held at least one of those seats.”
Kevin McCarthy is prime example of a Republican dunderhead.
Kevin McCarthy goes further than most to echo Trump’s worst claim
Plenty of leading Republican lawmakers have offered Trump support this week; only one has said Trump actually won the election.
“Back To Normal: McConnell Invokes Bogus Austerity Cudgel For Smaller Stimulus,” from text posted by Josh Kovensky of TPM.
I could see this coming. As soon as McConnell started making noises about passing a stimulus bill during the lame duck session, I thought that he was probably looking for a way to screw the incoming Democratic administration while simultaneously pretending that it is Republicans who help ordinary people.
SC @71, so glad to see Martha McSally voted out. She continued to be a lickspittle for Trump even after he publicly humiliated here. Even more happy to see Mark Kelly elected. He will be a great addition for the Democrats in the Senate.
We have voted incompetence out of office.
In related news: Trump’s ‘deeply stupid’ Wisconsin campaign staff try to get Pennsylvania Republicans to commit fraud
Warning for irony meter breakage. The Trump campaign is urging Republican voters to commit fraud using absentee ballots.
Schadenfreude moments—from several angles:
LOL
Link
Talk grows of Trump firings at Pentagon, CIA
The giant, orange, tantrum-throwing toddler is going to fire everybody.
Since when has Trump informed the House Armed Services Committee before he takes action?
Philly today! Awesome.
https://twitter.com/oliverdarcy/status/1324721461458800641
Asshats.
@JakeTapper says if you’re a Fox reporter who obeys the instruction, “You might as well hand in your press credential.”
Rick Santorum on CNN literally saying “Democrats need to give Republicans, including Trump, time and space to work through their feelings about losing.”
Follow-up to comment 79.
More stuff that makes me laugh:
Newt Gingrich is calling for mass arrests of poll workers.
A question going on in newsrooms all over the country now: what do you call the president-elect when the old president won’t concede?
Peter Alexander on MSNBC reporting from the White House, direct quote: “Apparently no one is willing to tell King Lear the truth.”
From Wonkette:
Link
Noted by Steve Benen:
Ooo, that’s a tough one. How about “the president-elect”?
Peter Alexander’s comment reminds me (this shows my age) of the joke going round when Franco died:
He’s been very ill for some time. A special messenger dashes in to the room where his cabinet is meeting and gasps out the news of the expected death. Long silence, then one of those present says: “Yes… but who’s going to tell him?”
Democrats can still win the Senate! Donate now to win the Georgia runoffs!
KG @83, funny!
Map and coverage from Politico
Why Mark Kelly’s Senate victory in Arizona is so striking
For several reasons, Mark Kelly’s Senate victory in Arizona is likely to reverberate for a while.
More at the link, including a discussion of the outstanding Senate races.
Link
Trump’s new, (still disingenuous), statement:
You can tell that someone else wrote that for him.
From Wonkette: “Let’s Get Stacey Abrams Her Nobel Prize, Please.”
See https://twitter.com/mayaharris_/status/1324645788434268160 Such a pleasure to watch John Lewis dance.
See https://twitter.com/johnlegend/status/1324645845740920833 Lovely interlude.
Link
From the Washington Post: “The refrain from state officials is consistent: The Trump campaign’s fraud claims are unfounded.”
Link
More at the link.
Follow-up to comments 17, 27, and 46.
Following beheadings comments, Bannon’s troubles get a little worse
“When accused felons are out on bond, they’re not supposed to speak out in support of beheading public officials — including the head of the FBI.”
Awww, so sad. Trump is failing again and again in the courts.
Link
Philadelphia police arrest armed men allegedly heading to vote-counting center
See photos at https://twitter.com/RobertMoran215/status/1324585236227854343
There was also a QAnon hat in the vehicle, as sell as an additional firearm.
PA Lt. Governor John Fetterman (pictured here :)) just told Erin Burnett on CNN: “The use of a mail-in ballot in this election was about as predictive for Democrats as driving a Subaru.”
I’m really tired of headlines that say “Biden takes the lead in Pennsylvania” or wherever. If Biden is leading it’s because he’s always had the lead and the counting is merely being completed. These mail-in ballots that they’re counting now were cast weeks ago and they’ve just been sitting there. These headlines feed Trump’s delusions that he was ahead and these ballots appeared and now he’s behind. It’s ridiculous.
I normally read speeches instead of watch them. I happened to catch this speech where Trump is going on about “legal votes” and “illegal votes”. It reminded me of the second season episodes of Rick and Morty where they were watching interdimensional television and you can tell there was ad-libbing of comedy going on except he was exhaustedly ad-libbing political spin.
Better him exhausted than his victims.
“There has not been a formal White House coronavirus task force meeting since October 20 reports @albamonica – even as new daily records for infections are being set.”
Ben Collins:
It’s such a cult. These fools are in Rhode Island.
“The only real place Biden improved among WWC voters was in New England and the Pacific Northwest — both hubs of secularism. Trump kept the religious WWC firmly in his camp.”
Overwhelmingly won white Evangelicals. I think Catholics were about evenly split, but I could be wrong.
“Biden’s lead is over 4,000 in Georgia, after new Gwinnett County ballots. I don’t think we’re getting a call here for weeks, but given that we have such a good accounting of what’s outstanding, it’s hard to see Trump winning this without a tabulation error”
OMG: “I have finally found the best twitter and folks it is Nevada slow counting twitter”
“New Clark County ballots expand Biden’s lead in Nevada. I am not aware of a reason to believe that Trump can overcome his deficit in the state”
Trump tweeted: “I had such a big lead in all of these states late into election night, only to see the leads miraculously disappear as the days went by. Perhaps these leads will return as our legal proceedings move forward!”
They will not!
“Reporter: ‘We were told that you would be laying out specific violations, but we haven’t heard any yet’.
RNC Chair: ‘I do have specifics. But I was told to hold off on those’.”
Video atl. The chair of the Republican Party. Of the United States.
Cartoon: How’s the vote counting going for Donald Trump?
New Yorker link
AOC:
This is so pathetic. And funny.
Washington Post link
Bernie Sanders: “I want to thank progressive grassroots organizations for their extraordinary efforts in helping to make Biden’s victory possible. Together, you built widespread support for Biden among young people, people of color and the working class. Congratulations. Let’s keep going forward.”
From Steve Benen:
And there’s this:
By TPM’s count, Biden has 264 electoral votes and Trump is still stuck at 214. Some other media outlets report that Biden has 253 electoral votes. Everybody still has Trump at 214.
As far as Senate races go, Jo Ossoff has already kicked off his race to win the runoff in Georgia. You can watch a video of him speaking here: Link. Scroll down for the video.
Excerpt from the transcript:
Why does Steve Kornacki keep suggesting many PA mail-in ballots won’t be counted? What did I miss?
Good for her.
“Our daily update is published. States reported 1.5 million tests and a record 126k cases. There are 55k people currently hospitalized with COVID-19. The death toll was 1,186.
…
Deaths are increasing across the US, particularly in the Midwest. Today’s national total is the highest since Sept 16. The 7-day average for deaths is the highest since Aug 31.
Since Tuesday, over 6k people have been hospitalized with COVID-19. Regional per capita hospitalizations in the Midwest are quickly approaching the summer surge in the South.
IL reported a record 12K cases today. 7 states reported over 5k cases.”
This is a catastrophe.
I would call this tweet o’ the day, but I’m waiting for a very specific one.
A batch of Maricopa County votes just came in. Trump got 55%, which is, again, below the percentage he needs (60%) to be on track to overtake Biden in AZ. (55% is also precisely the AP/Fox prediction.)
Yay!
Josh Marshall: “Perhaps we can have a compromise where the networks agree to report that in a vote sense Trump lost. But in a feelings sense we don’t know yet.”
“New: Allegheny Co., PA latest count adds 5,425 votes to Biden’s margin, pushing his statewide margin over 27k.”
Why has no network called Nevada?
“Kornacki is basically now laying out the case for calling Pennsylvania and it’s almost like he’s talking to his own decision desk instead of us.”
Seriously.
AP: “BREAKING: Democrat Jon Ossoff advances to runoff election for U.S. Senate in Georgia. #APracecall at 10:05 p.m. EST.”
There’s a lot of speculation about the provisional ballots in PA, but the fact is they have no idea. It could be that the provisionals skew to Trump, even in blue counties. So I really don’t get the push to call PA.
From what I’ve seen, the only reason people were even talking about the provisional ballots was that Kornacki raised the subject, but he seems to have backed away from it now.
@ 120
The explanation I heard earlier was that, like Pennsylvania, there is a question about provisional ballots being an unpredictable mix of red and blue regardless of where they came from. In other words, whereas Democrats in the past have been more likely to cast provisional ballots than Republicans, that’s not holding this time around, and these ballots are being counted last with a significant number still outstanding.
Mind you, the situation being somewhat volatile, they are probably being extra cautious about their predictions.
Meanwhile Trump is twisting in the wind.
I love how the NBC hosts keep suggesting that their decision desk is in some sort of isolation chamber.
stroppy @ #125, that was something like what Kornacki had suggested earlier, but, as I said @ #121, he definitely appears – as I type this! – to be going in the other direction.
Biden and Harris are coming onstage to speak.
“Biden’s now up by 28k votes [in PA], putting him up by .43 points–just short of the .5 point threshold. No clue whether any decision desks are really waiting for Biden to clear this figure, but we are approaching it”
MSNBC is reporting that Mark Meadows has tested positive.
Meadows is 61.
“I’m starting to envision scenarios where Kornacki kicks in the door of the decision desk room and starts pounding people.”
Video atl.
“NEWS: Along with Mark Meadows, at least two other White House aides currently have coronavirus, sources tell me.”
“NEWS: Along with Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, at least FOUR other White House aides currently have coronavirus, per sources.
Pains were taken to keep Meadows’ illness a secret, I’m told. And people around him who knew were told to keep quiet.”
These are like crime scene videos at this point.
Rachel Maddow was off tonight after a close contact tested positive.
“Sorry for just realizing this — but Biden is winning Nevada by TWO POINTS with mostly Dem ballots in Clark remaining and they haven’t called it? Forget Pennsylvania. That’s just bananas. Any other cycle they would have called it.”
@138
The percent spread is irrelevant at this point. Biden is leading by 22,000 votes, but there are still about 180,000 ballots yet to be counted.
They have a legal deadline of Nov. 12 to finish the count but officials expect the majority of the remaining votes will be counted by Sunday.
I don’t get why people are so much wanting a network to make a pronouncement on a winner. It means nothing. The votes will be counted and the finally tally will be whatever it is, whether a network calls it or not.
I like the idea floating around that everybody is waiting on FOX to make the final call.
Trickster Goddess @ #139, the networks who haven’t called Arizona (everyone but Fox and AP) can call Nevada without calling the entire race for Biden. I’m not an expert on this (to put it mildly), but what the people I’ve quoted appear to be saying is that the reluctance to call Nevada is unusual for the networks – not in keeping with how they’ve made calls in previous races. The lead margin is very relevant given that it’s what Trump would need to overcome, and the remaining votes are overwhelmingly from a Democratic county.
Ichthyic @ #140, I like it.
Olivia Nuzzi:
Tim Miller: “Good to know that the Trump White House’s lack of transparency about covid diagnoses wasn’t just about election concerns but also complete indifference to the health and well-being of those around them.”
“Meadows pranced around without a mask at the campaign head quarters and the White House on Election Day. Says something of you as a boss (and a human) to put your subordinates at risk like that. Reckless and selfish.”
Hahaha.
Politico is reporting that Matt Gaetz has tested positive.
What on earth…?
This is a big deal.
Los Angeles DA Lacey Concedes Election to Reform Candidate Gascón
November 6, 2020 MARTIN MACIAS JR
Marc Elias:
He says the Trumpers are 0-8.
The Four Seasons in Philadelphia just tweeted:
See #146 above. This is deeply weird.
Jake Tapper:
Ryan Goodman:
“Just in: newly counted Philadelphia ballots push Biden’s PA lead past 30k.”
NBC has called the election for Biden!!!!
SC @151, Yay! and … thank goodness.
MSNBC finally called PA for Biden. Now President-Elect.
CNN, too!!!
AP: “BREAKING: Joe Biden wins Pennsylvania. #APracecall at 11:25 a.m. EST.”
SC @146, equipment for digging a grave?
The BBC has also called the race for Biden. Yay for Kamala Harris!
Madam Vice President has a nice ring.
“NBC News calls the election (and Pennsylvania) for Joe Biden.
The country has ousted Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, Jared Kushner (and so many others) from the White House.
And it elected the first woman on a POTUS/VP ticket.”
“FOX NEWS CALLS PENNSYLVANIA AND NEVADA AND THE WHITE HOUSE FOR JOE BIDEN”
Congratulations everybody!!!!!!!
Taniel already tweeted “onward to the runoffs!” and I love it.
Celebrating Kamala Harris:
Link
Con man to the end: Most of Trump’s ‘official election defense fund’ to be used for his debts
I guess that’s one reason why Republicans wanted to slow down the vote count: it would give them more time to raise money.
From North Carolina:
From Justin Trudeau:
From Julia Louis-Dreyfus:
https://twitter.com/OfficialJLD/status/1325123962041364481
The tweet is accompanied by a great photo of Harris.
Tweet o’ the day.
“Please be careful today, tonight, and tomorrow. Wear masks. Keep some distance from others. There is still a catching respiratory disease abroad in the land, and recent data shows it is spreading rapidly.”
ENDORSE.
Also tweet o’ the day.
Link
“No joke: I’m in rural Mexico and cheers just erupted throughout the town”
Biden and Harris will address the nation tonight at 8PM Eastern.
Meanwhile, Trump is doing what we expected:
Link
Trump’s blustering and whining are becoming increasingly irrelevant.
He is stalling and running out the clock.
It won’t take the GOP/Trump long to figure out they have 2 1/2 months of power left to continue wrecking the USA. I’m sure it will be an ugly finish to an ugly term.
From California:
From DC:
From NYC:
From Massachusetts:
From Madison, Wisconsin:
From my house: my neighbor has taken down his gigantic Trump flag.
raven @173, I agree. Trump and his lackeys are going to try to destroy everything they can before they are dragged out of the White House. Lots of them having coronavirus might slow them down just a bit, but I am still worried.
I also have some hope that Trump’s influence on all the levers of power will diminish a bit.
From Edward Norton:
https://twitter.com/EdwardNorton/status/1325120744435585025
Nasty comment from a Trump supporter:
Biden to announce COVID-19 task force Monday
Hans Nichols
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris updated their Twitter bios to say “President-Elect” and “Vice President-Elect.”
Biden and Harris have been congratulated by Trudeau, Merkel, Johnson, Martin (Ireland), Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, London mayor Sadiq Khan.
“If you’re in a 500-person conga line screaming in victory with honking traffic, STAY IN LINE”
Donald Tusk: “Trump’s defeat can be the beginning of the end of the triumph of far-right populisms also in Europe. Thank you, Joe.”
From Wonkette:
Link
From Van Jones, a CNN host:
From Josh Marshall:
From Jill Biden:
Great photo at the link.
https://twitter.com/DrBiden/status/1325146858763718658
Nevada was just called for Biden.
From MSNBC:
Follow-up to comments 149 and 156.
See video at https://twitter.com/sarah_micheleg/status/1325128465696387072
Zelenskyy congratulating Biden.
From Emmanuel Macron:
From the prime minister of Fiji, Frank Bainimarama:
From Nancy Pelosi:
From Dan Rather:
One of my many personal thoughts: For vice president, we elected a woman who can dance!
Every time I’ve seen Susan Rice, who is part of the Biden/Harris transition team, I think Secretary of State.
#185 I agree Steve Kornacki deserves a raise, and an extra week off.
From António Costa of Portugal:
From the Swedish PM:
From Richard Engel:
From Mark Sumner:
All the countries sending their congratulations now, even Modi.
“Holy shit the crowd outside the White House right now!!”
Video clip atl. Singing YMCA.
From David Remnick, writing for The New Yorker:
Link
More at the link.
The Vindman family celebrates.
Mary Trump celebrates.
“Trump plays against himself; Biden declared winner”
This is truly one of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen.
“Watch Van Jones after the call for Biden. Just watch this.”
Bells ringing across Paris.
I take it that malarkey is now illegal, whatever that is.
Republican-led lawsuit over Sharpie-marked ballots in Arizona to be dropped
By Hannah Knowles and Aaron Schaffer
From the QAnon fever swamp:
And then there’s this, an example of a less excited and perhaps even more confused follower of QAnon:
From Dahlia Lithwick: “Goodbye, Ivanka.”
Slate link
From Lowen Liu, “Goodby, Stephen Miller.”
Slate link
From Rebecca Onion, “Goodbye, Chad Wolf.”
Slate Link
From Nitish Pahwa, “Goodby, Andrew Wheeler.”
Slate link
Cross-posted from “Finally”; my initial thoughts on the political position after the election:
This election was primarily about whether the USA would become a nuclear-armed fascist superpower. That possibility has by no means vanished – over 70 million Americans voted for it – but it’s been averted for the next four years. There is the possibility that Trump will attempt an outright seizure of power with the connivance of the Supreme Court and the police unions, or start a war with China, or nuke Philadelphia, and Americans need to be alert to these dangers, but I don’t expect them to happen. Trump has no friends, and few if any among those with significant power actually feel any loyalty to or admiration for him; they will act in self-interest, and in most cases that’s likely to mean distancing themselves from this loser as fast as possible. (“Trump? I hardly knew him. Of course, he had won the election, and you had to respect the office, but really, the vulgarity of the man…”) Of course, Biden is a standard-issue conservative, Harris, judging by her Senate record, somewhat more liberal, but certainly not a serious progressive, let alone a socialist. And even if they wanted to enact the kind of policies desperately needed on health care, economic equality, reform of the police, and above all climate disruption, the Republican lock on the Supreme Court and probable control of the Senate would not allow it. But what our sourly flatulent friends up-thread (most notably mnb0 and drew on this occasion, consciousness razor at least found something positive to say, which I’ll come back to) overlook, or indeed appear to actively resent, and attempt to counter, is the huge boost to the morale of those on the left who disagree with them, and the corresponding blow to the right, domestically and internationally. In political struggle, momentum is of the first importance. For the past decade, in the USA and globally, that has lain with the far right: the rise of the “Tea Party” culminating in the election of Trump, the rise of mini-Trumps across much of Latin America, Europe and Asia, the baleful influence of Putin. Trump’s defeat is the latest and largest of a number of very recent signs that it may be shifting: the elections in South Korea, New Zealand and Bolivia, the overwhelming vote to replace Pinochet’s constitution in Chile. Of course, across much of the world the right and far right remain in the ascendant – but they have no answer to the pandemic, let alone to the climate and ecological crises; and in Trump’s downfall, they will see the shadow of their own.
QFT.
From consciousness razor@46:
If Ryan Knight’s point holds in general, or on average – I’d need to see more systematic evidence, but I certainly hope it’s there and think it might be, then there, precisely, is the leverage that drew@32 and seachange@36 are convinced is absent. Biden and Harris are not progressives, but they are politicians: they want to win the Georgia runoffs, to avoid the usual losses of the party holding the Presidency in the mid-terms, to hold the Presidency in 2024. They are not under any circumstances going to initiate the glorious ecosocialist revolution the USA and the world need, but if they are convinced a leftward shift will win votes, they’ll make it.
The fact that the election results were well short of a triumph may itself give the (relative) progressives within the Democratic Party more leverage than they would have had if the “blue wave” had materialised. Pelosi has already been making excuses for the losses in the House, and anyone can see that Biden’s strategy barely succeeded – just as in 2016, a few tens of thousands of votes difference in a few states and the electoral college would have gone the other way. Conversely, we can expect to see an instant descent into infighting within the Republican Party, between Trump and his family and cronies on the one hand, and the free-traders and neocons (who want the TPP, a strong NATO, an anti-Russian stance, better relations and a revival of trade talks with the EU) on the other; as well as jockeying for position between those with Presidential ambitions for 2024. We can also see that the Supreme Court Republicans will be faced with serious dilemmas, not only over any election-related cases that reach them (would they really risk a far larger and more blatant political interference than in 2000?), but over the Obamacare case. If they rob 20 million Americans of health care in the depths of a pandemic, they give the Democrats the most potent issue possible for the Georgia runoffs. I don’t know which way they’ll jump – most probably, try to punt the issue into next year – but the dilenmma for them is real. One of the biggest errors of the likes of mnb0, The Vicar and that crowd, typical of purity fetishists of all stripes, is the failure to understand that the political and personal divisions and conflicts between our enemies are real, deep and lasting – they can’t even admit the reality of those between the Republicans and the Democratic Party establishment, let alone those within the Republicans. Admit them, study them, exploit them.
OK, this made me smile.
https://twitter.com/PDChina/status/1325110445162848257
Yay, Ireland!
AMAZING fireworks show after the Harris and Biden speeches.
Kamala Harris: “While I may be the first woman in this office, I will not be the last—because every little girl watching tonight sees that this is a country of possibilities.”
Hooray:
Rock and Roll Part 46.
Joe Biden:
“This is truly one of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen.”
Yes, yes indeed.
perhaps we had misheard Trump all along, and he was really saying he was the “Lawn Order” president?
Here right matters.
Ah, the yelp review page for “The Four Seasons…”
https://www.yelp.co.nz/biz/four-seasons-total-landscaping-philadelphia?sort_by=date_desc
have fun!
“I am so honored to be an American right now, and my heart swells, and what an incredible night, and also my goodness I’m not sure anything has ever been funnier than The Four Seasons Total Landscaping thing and I might never get over it.”
My top four from the Biden/Harris victory speeches.
1) The fireworks.
2) Kamala Harris’ speech. Ready for 2024 or 2028.
3) Biden mentioning Kamala and Doug are now part of the Biden family, and bringing them onstage as part of the Biden family.
4) Seeing Joe Biden bring himself to the level of one of the small Kamala/Doug family while on national TV.
“Friends, please avoid close-proximity and stationary crowds. Masks and being outdoors help reduce risk a lot, but they’re not foolproof. If you’re next to an infected person in the crowd for an extended period, you could still be exposed.”
“‘Be kind. Be hopeful. Be optimistic. Never get down. It’s all gonna be okay…We’re one people. We’re one family. We all live in the same house’. – John Lewis”
“If Hunter Biden ever worried that his struggle with addiction would derail his dad’s career, I hope he goes to bed tonight knowing that in the end it did not.
I don’t mean that as a political statement, just a hope from one recovering addict to another.”
Leaving aside such things as domestic violence and incest, I suppose so. Just fine.
(Yeah, I know… one should not take such vague bromides anywhere near literally)
Mehdi Hasan: “I don’t know if I can overstate how much it means to me and to millions of others, and what a big bloody deal it is, that today we learned the Muslim ban will be gone in January 2020. Lifted. Repealed. Reversed.”
Kamala Harris:
Yup.
“Joe Biden’s German Shepard, Major, will make history as the first rescue dog to live in the White House.”
Gas Station of the US.
Shepard? Must be a Jewish dog …
GSOTUS.
(By the way, I love that the gas station is a 76. 76 flags fly in New England.)
For Caine. Rest in power.
#232 link.
Nice.
Ha!
https://digg.com/video/alex-zdan-local-reporter-buzz-off
Well said.
From Daniel Lippman:
SC@232
Caine’s been on my mind as well. I wish she’d lived to see the day.
I suspect Trump will never concede, and frequent golf trips will allow him to ignore the transition.
It would be best if he spends the rest of his term – or at least the hours he’s awake – playing golf.
arids@237,
Me too.
Saturday Night Live videos, made available on vox.com.
From the Washington Post, the news flavored with snark:
Link
Follow-up to comment 205.
States challenge unlawfully appointed Chad Wolf’s effort to further decimate DACA
It’s not all bad news out of Ohio.
NYT:
Woman Who Says She Was Fired for Being a Lesbian Is Elected Sheriff
By Maria Cramer
Nov. 8, 2020
Wow: “Richard Nixon went by helicopter to Mar-a-Lago a month before quitting the Presidency, 1974:…”
“#Belarus Despite detentions, armed riot police, blocked streets, closed metro stations, disrupted internet, people were able to gather. Again and again. This persistence, strength and defiance are phenomenal. It’s been three months of the protests. Honestly, I didn’t expect that”
Video atl.
From the Washington Post: It began on a gold escalator. It may have ended at Four Seasons Total Landscaping.
Not with a bang, but a whimper.
Jake Tapper:
A little-known Trump appointee is in charge of handing transition resources to Biden — and she isn’t budging
Lisa Rein, Jonathan O’Connell and Josh Dawsey
November 8, 2020
KG, comment 207
Thank you for that. Beautiful, uplifting and convincing.
Guardian – “Covid-19 vaccine candidate is 90% effective, says manufacturer”:
Here’s a link to the November 9 Guardian coronavirus world liveblog.
Guardian – “‘Crush the fascist vermin’: Belarus opposition summons wartime spirit”:
More atl.
“Not nearly enough attention has been paid to the amazing quantities of disinformation circulating among US Hispanics, in Spanish, both before the election and now…”
NYT link atl. I’ve been wondering about this for a while.
NBC – “TikTokers post videos of themselves appearing to troll Trump voter fraud hotline”:
Examples atl. Here’s another. Also, LOL.
From the Biden-Harris transition: “Biden-Harris Transition Announces COVID-19 Advisory Board.”
They will have public briefings today.
Random tweet, that I thought was well put:
Guardian world liveblog:
jessem@249
blushes – Well, thank you!
Supreme Court oral arguments, challenging the constitutionality of the health care law, will be aired live on C-Span tomorrow, Nov 10, at 10 AM ET.
HUD Secretary Ben Carson has tested positive. He’s 69.
Ukrainian president Zelenskyy has tested positive. He’s only 42.
Biden really needs to be extremely vigilant. A number of people in governments around the world, even those taking precautions, have gotten the virus.
CNET – “McDonald’s will reportedly test McPlant line, meat-free burger next year”:
Follow-up to SC @255.
Link
From the Philadelphia Inquirer:
Follow-up to SC @247, if Trump holds a lot more rallies they will all be super-spreader events. Even if the vaccine trials, preparation and distribution go well from here on out, there will be no vaccine for most of the population until well into next year.
I expect Trump to spew disinformation, promote violence, and spread coronavirus over the next two months. And he will also use the super-spreader events to raise money.
Key witness for Giuliani’s Four Seasons total humiliation press conference is convicted sex offender
All the best people ended up in the best location.
Cartoon. “The year-long week.”
Lying right to the end.
Pence falsely credits Operation Warp Speed for Pfizer’s announcement; company did not join the initiative
By John Wagner and Carolyn Y. Johnson
Private Prison Stocks Drop As the Reality of Biden’s Win Sinks In
But quitting for-profit detention won’t be so easy.
Private prison stock price graph is available at the link.
What is wrong with the US Green Party?
KG @271, it is not the Green Party that is faulted here. Brooks is a “perennial candidate” who runs for whatever office under whatever banner. In other words, a scam artist. The main think wrong with Brooks is that he is a convicted sex offender. The next most important factor is that it looks like Brooks was claiming to live in Philadelphia while actually being a resident in New Jersey.
It is doubtful that he would make a good defendant in a court case making claims to have seen voter fraud while serving as a poll watcher in Philadelphia.
Trump lashing out — does anyone care anymore?
Trump fires Defense Secretary Mark Esper
Shawna Chen
Christopher Miller, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, will replace Mark Esper as acting secretary of defense, President Trump tweeted on Monday.
Sheesh, mistakes in comment 272: “think” should be “thing,” and Brooks was touted by Giuliani as a witness, not as a “defendant.” My apologies.
Trump has fired Defense Secretary Mark Esper.
Sorry, tomh – I missed your #273.
tomh @273, I think this kind of thing only makes a difference if Trump is planning to start a war; or if Trump is planning to use national security as a reason to arrest/detain protestors; to declare martial law … or whatever other stupid move he dreams up.
Trump can’t be ignored just yet. He can still do damage.
I am not sure that Christopher Miller would do Trump’s bidding though. Miller was confirmed by the Senate, and he may not be a Trump lackey. We’ll see. If he is not enough of a Trump lackey, then we can assume that Trump was just being his usual vindictive self in firing Esper.
Guardian world liveblog:
Link
Steve Vladeck:
“Ben Carson, who has tested positive for COVID, attended the WH election night watch party along with a number of Trump cabinet and WH officials.
I talked to several aides last Tuesday who were worried the event would become a super spreader and felt pressured to go to save face.”
From Wonkette: “Fox News Idiots So Mad Trump Not Getting Credit For Coronavirus Vaccine He Didn’t Create”
“According to the Federal Aviation Administration, Pence is scheduled to travel to Sanibel, Florida, Tuesday through Saturday.”
?
Hillary Clinton had Trump’s number and was aware of the danger he posed.
“Fox News pundit refuses to admit Joe Biden won the election.
The anchor reacts but doesn’t realize she’s live on air.”
Video atl.
Guardian world liveblog:
He’s 55.
“Big picture on Nov. 9th: McConnell, the most powerful Republican in Congress, stands firmly with President Trump as the president fights his legal battles. Rails against ‘far left mobs’, minutes after meeting with AG Barr at the Capitol. Wants ‘no lectures’ from Democrats.”
He was (is?) speaking on the Senate floor, which I shut off because I hate him.
Wow:
Joint statement atl. No evidence of a single thing, naturally.
“Based on my convos with Rs over wknd, most everything McConnell does from here on isn’t about January 20th (inauguration day & working with Biden) but January 5th (the Georgia run-off elections). To win the latter, Rs believe the base must be stoked, esp in a fast-changing state.”
Re #288: “the ONLY explanation I can think of for doing this is that Trump demanded it as a condition for supporting their runoff efforts.”
Seems likely.
CNBC – “Biden coronavirus advisor Osterholm says U.S. is ‘about to enter Covid hell’”:
Today is the 82nd anniversary of Kristallnacht. Merkel spoke about it (DW link):
Endorse. Twitter should shut down Trump’s account. He’s violated their rules multiple times, is willfully endangering people, and is doing immeasurable harm to democracy.
“Fox News just cut away from @PressSec, saying the network could not in good conscience continue to air her false claims, for which she has provided no supporting evidence.”
More re #294:
Sorry – video atl @ #295.
Update to #s 288 and 290:
Here’s Raffensperger’s full statement.
Eta. 2020 gonna 2020.
God-emperor my ass, Trump has Nurgle’s favor. The chaos god of disease and decay would love how Trump has been spreading covid.
Utah, with a Republican governor, is now on lockdown. They overwhelmingly voted for Trump last week.
From 60 Minutes last night: “Republican Philadelphia City Commissioner Al Schmidt says his office, which runs the vote count, has received death threats.”
Video atl. “From the inside looking out, it feels all very deranged.”
Meanwhile, the Biden transition is releasing a readout of his call today with Trudeau.
SC #303, exactly what I would expect from a President. Good statesman like call, and good protocol for the call.
I hope somebody is making a list of all these cases, so they can be properly prosecuted in the near future.
“Trump has found lawyers willing to ask a federal court to disenfranchise all Pennsylvania voters.
I am pasting below their request and their signature block.”
“WASHINGTON (AP) _ Barr authorizes DOJ to probe ‘substantial allegations’ of voting irregularities despite little evidence of fraud”
This is bullshit.
Twitter bits:
And responses:
Links: 1, 2, 3
Cartoon: Everything Must Go!
https://www.newyorker.com/cartoons/daily-cartoon/monday-november-9th-halloween-sale-trump
NBC News link
“DOJ Policy that Barr’s memo appears to overturn:
‘Should NOT ordinarily be taken in matters involving alleged fraud in the manner in which votes were cast or counted until the election…has been concluded, its results certified, and all recounts and election contests concluded'”
Link atl.
From Steve Benen:
From NBC News:
Follow-up to comments 11, 16, 76, 273, and 277.
From Steve Benen:
Link
Cartoon: “Caged”
AP – “Refusing to concede, Trump blocks cooperation on transition”:
“For those retweeting the AP headline, here’s the slightly more watered-down basis for it:…”
OK. Still seems to conflict with DoJ policy (@ #311), as does making it public like this.
re #315:
Either their base is not their voters, or this has it both ways.
(Also, that’s a fucking lengthy quotation!)
Tiffany Cross is telling Joy Reid how important it is that her voice was such a big part of the campaign coverage, and I agree. I think it made a difference that Chuck Todd and Chris Matthews were sidelined in favor of Reid, Wallace, and Maddow. Morning Joe was garbage this morning.
Yup.
I have a question: Can cable news show (or play the audio of) the court arguments in these election cases? The lawyers keep pointing out how when they bring these nonsense conspiracies into court they get shot down – of course, because they have no evidence. And they’re 0-10 (at least) so far. I’ve seen some quotes on Twitter from the courts in the various states, and the judges are basically laughing them out of court, but I don’t think I’ve seen or heard anything directly from the hearings. Is it not allowed?
LOL.
Joe Biden: “I won’t be president until January 20th, but my message today to everyone is this: wear a mask.”
Kamala Harris: “I want to speak directly to the Black women in our country. Thank you. You are too often overlooked, and yet are asked time and again to step up and be the backbone of our democracy. We could not have done this without you.”
“NEW: Richard Pilger, the official who oversees election crimes has stepped down over Barr’s memo:
‘Having familiarized myself with the new policy and its ramifications… I must regretfully resign from my role as Director of the Election Crimes Branch’.
Pilger is staying at the Justice Department and will return work as a line prosecutor in the Public Integrity section prosecuting corruption cases.”
signal boost
https://freethoughtblogs.com/cuttlefish/2020/11/09/four-seasons-total-landscaping/
.
Estonia’s minister of interior Mart Helme was forced to resign after he publicly entertained the Trumpian conspiracy theory of US “election fraud”. Not to be confused with his son Martin Helme, who is the minister of finance and represents the same rightwing nationalist Ekre party. The parliament also tried to oust him, but failed.
Various Ekre politicians, most notably Mart Helme, have frequently made “non PC” comments in public, sometimes forcing Estonian government to apologize to foreign governments. There doesn’t seem to be an effective way to shut them up, since ousting of one racist Ekre politician would result in him being replaced by another racist Ekre politician. However, in this case, alliance with the US is deemed so important for Estonia that a mere apology wouldn’t do.
Mart Helme claims he resigned “voluntarily” after being (once again) “mispresented and persecuted” by Estonian media. He said he has “not said anything that has not already been recounted by the American media, the American free media” as if that’s a good standard for political speech.
Link to some of the above in English:
https://news.err.ee/1157023/vote-of-no-confidence-in-martin-helme-fails
I’m stuck on the fact that Pence is going to Florida for a vacation (?!) for the rest of the week and no one’s talking about it.
lumipuna @ #325, thanks for sharing that. Very interesting.
“BREAKING: Saeb Erakat – Palestinian chief negotiator – dies of COVID-19 at the age of 65″
Biden spokesman Bill Russo:
“President-elect Biden is defending the Obama administration’s signature health law as it goes before the Supreme Court in a case that could overturn it. He’s delivering an Affordable Care Act speech today, when the high court hears arguments on its merits.”
AP link atl.
“For those keeping score, we’ve now seen 7 veteran career prosecutors resign from 4 different high-profile cases (Stone, Flynn, Durham, now this) to protest Barr’s political weaponization of DOJ.”
Miami Herald – “Experts wonder and warn: Is Florida the nation’s test case for COVID-19 herd immunity?”
Well, that’s a terrifying read.
Here’s a link to the November 10 Guardian coronavirus world liveblog.
From there:
Tangentially related to covid, this year’s flu vaccine is reportedly already sold out here in Finland. That should mean slightly more people than usually are vaccinated, and earlier than usually. We already saw last spring that covid precautions can slow down flu at least as much as they slow down covid.
I procrastinated on taking the shot, in part because I’m lazy, but also I figured my hermit-like life situation should keep me rather well protected, so most other people need the vaccine more than I do. Plus I’ll get some benefit from herd immunity anyway.
“This is the seventh day in a row for @realDonaldTrump with nothing on his public schedule. This is tied for the 2nd longest stretch without items on his public schedule.”
Trump has now called a lid for an entire week.
SCOTUSblog is livetweeting the ACA hearing at the Supreme Court right now.
“In 2016, Trump won MI/PA/WI by 77K votes, got 306 EVs and received a concession speech from Clinton + WH meeting from Obama
In 2020, Biden won same states by 214K+ votes, is on track for same 306 EVs and most of GOP is refusing to recognize outcome”
“In July, I interviewed Jose Garza, who is now the incoming DA of Travis County (Austin): he since beat the incumbent in Dem primary & won again last week.
I asked him about the calls to reduce, or shrink, the criminal legal system. Here’s what he told me….”
Quote atl.
MSNBC just tried to go to Ken Dilanian, who didn’t realize he was on and was looking at his phone saying “Oh, shit. Fuck.”
“#BREAKING Turkey’s Erdogan congratulates Biden, urges closer US-Turkish relations: presidency”
southpaw: “I’m always hesitant to say oral arguments mean anything about what the final opinion will be, but Kavanaugh and Roberts both effectively said they didn’t buy Texas’s non-severability argument. Not as hypotheticals; they just said it. Make of that what you will.”
SCOTUSblog:
Steve Vladeck:
SC @339, I saw that. Makes me wonder what he saw on his phone.
Bits and pieces of campaign news from Steve Benen:
Link
Guardian world liveblog:
Guardian – “Jair Bolsonaro claims ‘victory’ after suspension of Chinese vaccine trial”:
More atl.
“@SecPompeo at a briefing just now: ‘There will be a smooth transition to a second Trump administration’.”
This is totally unacceptable.
Sunday’s tweet o’ the day.
Ken Dilanian:
No need to apologize. It was a bright spot in the day.
Biden has now spoken with Trudeau, Macron, Johnson, and Merkel. He’s publishing readouts. He’s set up a cornavirus task force and is getting pandemic briefings. He’s speaking publicly about national challenges. He’s presidenting.
“Atlanta Journal-Constitution says Trump pressured GA Sens. Loeffler and Perdue to call for Sec/State Raffensperger’s resignation. Profiles in courage right here…”
AJC link atl. The tweet @ #290 got it.
“Head of Trump’s COVID-19 taskforce takes vacation same day as hospitalizations reach all-time high.”
I still can’t get over this. If he tested positive, Jennifer Jacobs will find out.
Reuters – “In first for Fed, U.S. central bank says climate poses stability risks”:
I can feel the support for Trump’s wild claims that he won. I can feel it in my own neighborhood. The longer this goes on, the worse it will be.
The downside of ‘humoring’ Trump following his election defeat
GOP insiders may not see a “downside” to “humoring” Trump for a “little bit of time,” but their base doesn’t see the wink and the nod.
Follow-up to SC @346.
Link
As The New York Times reports, McConnell didn’t just say that Trump was “100% within his rights to look into allegations of irregularities and weigh his legal options,” he applauded Trump’s refusal to accept the results of voting, while claiming that Democrats “just spent four years refusing to accept the validity of the last election.”
aarrgghh
Biden is answering (smart) questions after a (nice) speech. He was just asked about Trump’s refusal to concede, and said it was an “embarrassment.” He doesn’t think it’ll make any real difference to the transition. Said he wasn’t really interested in legal action re Trump’s people blocking the official transition – they don’t need the funds or the PDB, are moving along in any event. Kind of mockingly chuckled about Pompeo, repeated “Secretary of State Pompeo” while smiling and chuckling. Smiled while answering several of these types of questions.
From Wonkette:
Yeah, blame somebody else for your daddy’s loss.
Link
Everybody Scared Ex-President Trump Will Leak Secrets To Our Enemies, Just Like Current President Trump
Follow-up to SC @356.
Washington Post link
‘My faith is shaken’: The QAnon conspiracy theory faces a post-Trump identity crisis.
Washington Post link
Dear Leader Trump is cleaning house of insufficiently loyal military brass
I’m thinking Biden might be onto something with the way he talks about Trump’s coup-tantrum. It is his personality, and he also does want to cool things down in the country, but also psychologically it could be an effective way to deal with Trump (like that Gayle King interview with R. Kelly…). Trump is constantly trying to throw off, rattle, intimidate, and anger his opponents. But Biden and Harris are remaining cool, calm, and confident, just like Obama always did, which drove Trump up a wall. Biden knows he’s won and isn’t getting into any back-and-forth with the nonsense Trump claims. He’s also suggesting the Republicans are just intimidated, which makes them look weak rather than frightening. He gently mocked Pompeo, and really just responded to the episode with disappointment. All of this makes Trump and his sycophants look even more desperate and pathetic, which must infuriate him.
Facebook is removing some of Steve Bannon’s sludge:
SC @362, thanks for that. I think you are right.
Trump may be “infuriated” as you point out, but his fury is more impotent by the day. I’m glad Biden isn’t legitimizing the temper tantrums being thrown by the Orange Toddler.
More re Lynna’s #361: “US defense official confirms: chief of staff Jen Stewart replaced by Kash Patel, a former Devin Nunes staffer who worked to discredit the Russia investigation. Also out, Vice Admiral Joseph Kernan, ret Navy SEAL who was Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence.”
Lynna @ #364, Frank Figliuzzi is on MSNBC saying he thinks Biden is handling it just right – comparing it to negotiations with a “barricaded subject.”
The Biden-Harris transition has released the list of agency review teams:
“CIA Director Gina Haspel just entered Mitch McConnell’s office.”
Reuters – “U.S. Republicans hint at limited time for Trump to make his post-election case”:
Video of #366 above.
…”Aaaaaaand the Pentagon just made Michael Flynn aide Ezra Cohen-Watnick acting undersecretary for intelligence.”
Tweet o’ the day.
(Also, please stop letting them get away with responding to factual corrections with “People have different views” or “People have different opinions.” If you have to explain the difference between a belief and an opinion, then do.)
Claire McCaskill was just talking about how we’re going to have to count on Milley and the Joint Chiefs to do the right thing. So we have to rely on the military now to prevent a coup because one fucking party is so utterly craven that they can’t publicly recognize reality?
Tweet:
House Oversight Committee:
Update to Lynna’s #163 – Kate Riga at TPM – “Trump Is Fundraising For Legal Help Fighting A ‘Stolen’ Election. Nearly All The Money Is Actually Going Elsewhere.”
More re #375: “Witness for GOP, a postal worker who claimed vote tampering, admits he was lying. GOP donors gave him $130,000.”
LOL.
“First on 4: Pa. US Sen. Toomey says Trump administration should start cooperating with Biden transition team”
LykeX, #374
Also some liberals right now: “The important thing is to extend love and compassion to people who support Trump”
COVID Tracking Project:
Marc Elias: “Today in court, a Pennsylvania judge asked a lawyer for Trump point-blank whether he was alleging fraud.”
Transcript atl. Answer: “To my knowledge at present, no.”
Here’s a link to the November 11 Guardian coronavirus world liveblog.
CNN is reporting that Pence has canceled his vacation – not to address the coronavirus catastrophe, but to help Trump try to subvert the will of the people…and because the weather is supposed to be bad in Florida.
Sen. Warren: “Anthony Tata is an Islamophobic conspiracy theorist who is so unqualified and ill-suited for a senior defense position that his confirmation hearing was pulled. He doesn’t belong within 100 miles of the Pentagon.”
Eta, heading toward Florida’s west coast, is now a hurricane.
@Saad
I know. Can’t we at least wait until they’ve actually admitted that they lost? Is that too much to ask?
Guardian world liveblog (support the Guardian if you can!):
“Sec Pompeo heads to France, Turkey, Georgia, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia on Friday.
Pompeo has not recognized president-elect Joe Biden’s victory but the leaders in all of the 7 countries that he will visit on this trip have congratulated Biden.”
The White House just released a Veterans Day proclamation. About half of it isn’t about veterans at all but propaganda singing Trump’s praises, and one long paragraph ends with “We will continue to build on these efforts and work to create an economic environment that fosters growth and prosperity for veterans, ensuring all of our veterans have the opportunity to live productive civilian lives.”
Tweet o’ the day.
Update to #345 from the Guardian world liveblog: “Brazil’s health regulator has approved the restart of clinical trials of the Chinese coronavirus vaccine after their suspension sparked a furious political row in one of the country’s worst-hit by Covid-19.”
Oh, yeah. Not only is Johnson talking animatedly about working with Biden and Harris on climate change, he’s already referring to Trump as the “previous president.” Video atl.
Kyung Lah, CNN:
From George Conway:
SC @366 and 370, I saw that interview with Frank Figliuzzi. That guy is such a professional. I think he was absolutely correct to talk about Trump as a “barricaded subject.” The implication here is also that, like other subjects who barricade themselves against intervention, Trump is mentally unbalanced.
Figliuzzi was right to praise Joe Biden’s approach, which was almost like that of a hostage negotiator talking to a barricaded subject.
As far as statements from Republicans go, (saying this will all be resolved in a week or two, as in your comment 369), I don’t agree with them. Do they really think that Trump will stand down? Trump is stacking the Pentagon leadership with yes-men and Devin-Nunes-like lackeys. Trump has plans to execute more nefarious deeds. I am shocked by Republican senators and representatives who fail to recognize the severity of the situation.
Jennifer Jacobs: “Two White House political affairs office staffers have coronavirus, including Brian Jack, sources tell me, confirming @maggieNYT.”
‘I never would have imagined seeing something like this in America’
As Freedom House watches Trump, it sees parallels between his antics and “the tactics of the kind of authoritarian leaders we follow.”
Bits and pieces of campaign news, as summarized by Steve Benen:
Link
CNN – “Trump’s public schedules show little interest in work as he protests Biden’s legitimate election”:
I already got my copy of Ruth Ben-Ghiat’s Strongmen, and reading it alongside following the day’s news is an odd experience.
From the Washington Post:
Commentary from Steve Benen:
Link
Oh, FFS.
Link
Also, let’s remember that Biden provides readouts of his phone calls.
Guardian world liveblog:
They’re not even closing restaurants, bars, and nightclubs. And this doesn’t even take effect until the 20th. I can’t take these stupid people.
From comments post by readers of TPM articles about team Trump’s various election-related lawsuits:
Well, this is an exercise in futility: Georgia’s Secretary of State announced a hand recount in a state Biden leads by over 14,000 votes. But as James Carville said, let them count the votes again, we’ll beat Trump twice.
The delays bother me though. The longer state certification of votes takes, the more time Trump has to spread disinformation.
From comments posted by readers:
One of Trump’s top evangelical supporters says it is time to recognize ‘president-elect Joe Biden’
Follow-up to comment 405.
From Mark Sumner:
Link
Excerpt from an MSNBC interview on Ari Melber’s show, as presented by Wonkette:
From Wonkette: “Fake Billionaire Donald Trump Sets Up Post-Presidency GoFundMe PAC”
GOP Commissioner Debunks Conspiracy Theory About Dead Voters Casting Ballots In Philly
LOL at this tweet and the response thread.
Jennifer Jacobs: “NEWS: Yet another Trump ally who attended the White House election night party, Healy Baumgardner, has coronavirus. @healybaum attended as a guest of @RudyGiuliani, I’m told. She is a former Trump campaign aide and a private equity adviser.”
The Trump campaign released a 234-page stack of affidavits from poll watchers in Detroit alleging supposed intimidation.
See examples here;
https://twitter.com/bradheath/status/1326396217170026497
Excerpts:
Commentary:
Link
“NEW: Barr’s spat with prosecutors over voter fraud investigations came a year after prosecutors thought he tried to quash an investigation into Trump’s Ukraine call and stymie charges against former DOI Secretary Ryan Zinke”
NYT link atl.
SC @412, I wonder when there will be so many trumpian cult followers sick with coronavirus that they won’t be able to implement Hair Furor’s planned coup?
Bill Grueskin:
Also of note: their top headline is “Georgia back in COVID-19 red zone.”
From Joan McCarter:
Link
Philadelphia Inquirer – “Philly and Pennsylvania Republicans offer only silence after Trump’s false attacks against Al Schmidt”:
Schmidt is getting death threats. These people, up to and including McConnell, need to get more of the focus. Their silence is an act. Their complicity is an act. They’re responsible for what’s happening.
The not-so-close-after-all election:
Link
Voice of America update:
Link
“Veterans Day is about honoring soon-to-be-former-President Trump.”
Video atl. Just like the proclamation @ #390. All about him. Always. The military is a prop.
From Ivanka Trump:
From Wonkette:
From the Washington Post, coronavirus update:
“Arizona’s Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich to Cavuto: ‘There’s less than 50,000 votes to count and the President would have to get about 65% of them to win Arizona. So it does appear that Joe Biden will win Arizona’
…and then he knocks down all the frivolous lawsuits.”
Video atl.
From Jennifer Rubin, writing for the Washington Post:
Humor/satire from Andy Borowitz, writing for The New Yorker:
Hahaha.
Raw Story – “Civil war brewing inside Proud Boys as top leader says he’s done pretending he isn’t a Nazi”:
Tarrio is Cuban and the Florida state director of Latinos for Trump, according to WP. A+ job voting, Florida Cubans.
“Oklahoma’s @SenatorLankford tells me if @JoeBiden doesn’t have access to intelligence briefings by Friday, he will get involved.”
Mehdi Hasan’s Peacock show is substantive and worthwhile. He just interviewed Jason Stanley and Ruth Ben-Ghiat, and I recommend it (Ro Khanna’s comments about Democrats and foreign policy as well).
Biden has chosen Ron Klain for his Chief of Staff.
Sen Warren:
Hugh Hewitt: “The estimable @RonaldKlain is a terrific choice by the president-elect. He’s been a serious student of the risk of pandemic for a long time:…”
Go fuck yourself, you slimy opportunistic unprincipled hack. No one is going to forget who you’ve been for the last four years.
Petty, useless dunderheads: “State Department is preventing Biden from accessing messages from foreign leaders”
Link
“On January 30 @TheAtlantic published this from President-elect Biden’s pending White House chief of staff @RonaldKlain:
‘Coronavirus Is Coming—And Trump Isn’t Ready'”
Link atl. So many people could die before they take over.
Lynna @ #434, atrocious. Biden’s now spoken with the leaders of Australia, Japan, and S. Korea, and published readouts.
“‘Math doesn’t care about his feelings’ — Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman about Trump”
Video atl.
YAY!
“Decision Desk HQ Projects Biden (D) Has Won The State Of AZ And Its 11 Electoral Votes
Race Called At 10:29 PM EST”
Here’s a link to the November 12 Guardian coronavirus world liveblog.
From there:
“Elizabeth and Richard Uihlein, the billionaire shipping magnates who are among Trump’s biggest donors, have tested positive for the coronavirus”
Bloomberg link atl. I don’t know if they were at the election-night WH event. Seems distinctly possible. He’s 75; she’s right about the same age.
Apologies it this has already been noted.
Evidence suggests several state Senate candidates were plants funded by dark money
https://www.local10.com/news/local/2020/11/11/evidence-suggests-several-state-senate-candidates-were-plants-funded-by-dark-money
“New – Sen. Chuck Grassley, who is the most senior Republican in the Senate, told me that President-elect Joe Biden should have access to classified briefings to prepare for the transition.
‘I would think – especially on classified briefings – the answer is yes’, Grassley said.”
Not political, but holy shit it’s like Jurassic Park.
“The US is in the worst days of the pandemic to date. The current President is retweeting complaints from Fox News viewers who’ve switched to more sycophantic media outlets.”
“WAIT. When asked about whether Joe Biden will receive access to intelligence briefings, Kayleigh McEnany says, ‘That would be a question more for the White House’.
Kayleigh McEnany IS the WH Press Secretary, though she is appearing on FOX as a Trump 2020 adviser.”
Video atl. It would be funny if they went to a commercial and then she was back on in a different shirt with a different background speaking for the WH.
Axios – “Scoop: Trump eyes digital media empire to take on Fox News”:
More atl. Good. Concede and resign already and do it now.
“First Sheldon Adelson’s paper had that huge ‘Biden Wins’ headline. Today, it has a brutal editorial telling Trump he lost: ‘(Trump) does a disservice to his more rabid supporters by insisting that he would have won the Nov. 3 election absent voter fraud. That’s simply false’.”
Guardian world liveblog:
He’s 47.
“This morning, @JoeBiden spoke with @Pontifex and expressed his appreciation for His Holiness’ leadership in promoting the common bonds of humanity around the world.”
Readout atl.
“Looks like ICE’s Twitter account, @ICEgov, was taken down.
It doesn’t appear to be suspended by Twitter, as its page would denote that. I’ve reached out to Twitter to see if they know more.”
There’s some speculation they’re trying to purge their DMs.
Update to #441: “Two sources said Liz Uihlein, an outspoken critic of Gov. Tony Evers stay-at-home order earlier this year, ‘tested positive after attending Trump’s election night watch party in the White House last week’.”
The RNC chief of staff, Richard Walters, has also tested positive.
“An evidentiary hearing is about to begin in Arizona’s Maricopa County in a suit involving the debunked ‘Sharpiegate’ conspiracy, rebranded as ‘Marking Device’-gate after the Trump campaign jumped in as a plaintiff….”
FFS, this is embarrassing.
“Cornyn, who serves on Intel, says Biden should get access to top level intelligence briefings”
Trump’s antics are without precedent ‘in Western democracies’
Trump appears to be “joining a club of truculent leaders who, regardless of what voters decide, declare themselves the winners of elections.”
Link
Massive amounts of disinformation are flooding social media.
Four viral videos falsely suggest ‘voter fraud’ led to Biden’s victory.
Washington Post link
The manipulated clip of Biden shows him supposedly claiming that “Democrats built the biggest voter fraud operation in history.” Bullshit. I’m still not sure why millions of people would buy into such obvious disinformation.
In other words, it’s a fake. No Trump ballots were ripped up by election workers.
“the main difference between how it started and how it’s going right now is that a lot more people just seem pro-Covid. The virus is building a real populist coalition.”
The amazing tale of Florida’s self-described COVID-19 data analyst
Given what’s become of the GOP and its post-policy posture, Ron DeSantis’ new data analyst is proud of his lack of credentials and expertise.
Tweet o’ the day.
“ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia secretary of state to quarantine, wife tests positive for coronavirus as state starts audit of presidential race”
As pandemic intensifies, Trump curtails ‘day-to-day governing’
As the pandemic rages, Trump’s involvement in the day-to-day governing of the nation “has nearly stopped.”
He never did much to begin with. Now he’s doing less … and so is his entire team.
We the taxpayers should stop feeding him, stop paying him, and stop flying him around in Air Force One. No more rides in armored cars. No more super-spreader events at the White House.
“CISA Director Chris Krebs says he expects to be fired soon, per Reuters. He has been aggressively debunking viral disinformation and conspiracies about voter fraud circulating in conservative circles – many of them pushed by Trump himself
CISA’s ‘Rumor Control’ site was launched prior to the election to help voters navigate domestic & foreign misinfo, but ‘the website has now essentially morphed into a post-election fact-checking operation for the outgoing president & his supporters’.”
CISA is part of DHS.
Re 426:
Semi seriously, Trump actually defeated Obama’s voter turnout of both 2008 (though maybe not in % of eligible voters) and 2012. It’s really sad he can’t be happy with that, considering he’s been running against Obama this whole time.
It’s now at 12 Republican Senators calling for Biden to get the full classified security briefings.
“Here comes the full austerity pivot to grind the working class into dust from the party that wants to rebrand as the party of the working class.”
In purge news:
the Assistant Secretary for International Affairs at DHS, just in the last hour.
“NEW: Stacey Abrams will run for governor again, @HCTrudo reports.”
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/miscellany
See also: JTA link
Seriously.
Trump’s lawsuit in Arizona is so pathetic, they’re trying to keep evidence hidden from the public
CIA director hanging by a thread as Trump eyes releasing US intelligence on Russian interference
‘Million MAGA March’ Saturday will commingle white nationalists, conspiracists, Trump fans
“Lankford walking back his positive comments from earlier to leave room for Trump’s nonsense election contests. Disappointing.”
Video atl.
Rep. Don Young: “I have tested positive for COVID-19. I am feeling strong, following proper protocols, working from home in Alaska, and ask for privacy at this time. May God Bless Alaska.”
He’s 87.
Update to #451: “Weirdest possible update to this situation: ICE changed the birthdate of @ICEgov account so that it was less than 13 years old, which then broke Twitter’s terms of service.
It’s now back online.”
New Yorker cartoon: “Election Defense Fund”
The Pandemic’s Winter Surge Is Here
New Yorker link
Much more at the link.
Martyn McLaughlin:
Reuters – “Zuckerberg defends not suspending ex-Trump aide Bannon from Facebook: recording”:
@428
Just as i suspected as soon as they dropped the pretext we cubans are back to negro status. I second the sarcastic remark of “good job voting florida cubans”.
Tom Newton Dunn:
logicalcat @ #481, I was on the phone with a friend when the FL results were coming in, and I brought up the Law & Order episode “Blood Libel” (ripped from the headlines) about some high school students who put a coded anti-Semitic slur about a teacher, who was later murdered, on their yearbook pages. One of them is a Hispanic kid, Eddie Camarillo. The detectives, including Rey Curtis (who’s half Peruvian), are interrogating him:
Tarrio, according to WP, does identify as Afro-Cuban, and they obviously used him as a front to claim they weren’t what they obviously are, but I doubt it would have made a difference if he’d been a Cuban who identified as white. White/male/Christian supremacists are who they are, and will always revert to form. People like Tarrio who try to identify with them remind me of the women who sided with the misogynists during Elevatorgate.
P.S. to logicalcat: I hope I didn’t come across as blaming all Cubans in Florida. The refusal of solidarity by some people when lives are at stake makes me super angry and frustrated.
AP – “Trump, stewing over election loss, silent as virus surges”:
“Wow. #DHS Statement in bold letters: ‘There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised’.
Rebuffs Prez Trump claims, says #Election2020 was ‘most secure in American history’.”
Statement atl.
“…On cross-examination, a witness concedes to being the business partner of the Trump campaign’s lawyer in today’s proceedings….”
More from the AZ lawsuit thread.
CDC: “#COVID19 cases continue to rise with 94% of U.S. jurisdictions experiencing increases. On 11/11, CDC reported 143,408 new cases, the highest for a single day. Help slow the spread. Wear a mask, wash your hands, and stay 6 feet from others.
#COVID19 cases and deaths in non-urban areas are increasing steadily. Case and death rates are now highest in small cities and rural communities….”
Graphs and link atl.
“Latest insanity from Hill Republicans: House @GOPLeader Kevin McCarthy says about President-elect @JoeBiden — I ‘don’t know if he’ll be president January 20’.”
Josh Jordan:
“Lindsey Graham is the guy in the spy thriller or heist movie ‘who double-crosses everyone to save his own skin’. — @BarackObama in his memoir.”
Perfect.
OMG. “The Abolitionists Again.”
@483
Like Paul Mooney said “looks can be deceiving. There are cubans, dominicans and puerto ricams who look white. They aint. Cubans puerto ricans and dominicans are just niggas who can swim.”
Seems the proud boys have the same viewpoint. Right wing Cubans especialy need to wake up.
Oh and SC dont worry. I know that when you talk about cubans you mean a specific group. The right wing ones. Its all good.
Just in from Arizona; Biden leads by 11,434 with 10,315 ballots to be counted.
SC@482,
Cummings has of course issued an “I meant to do that” statement, saying he always intended to go at the end of the year. Utter crap – one of his main aims was to Trumpise the Civil Service (traditionally non-party-political to much higher levels than in the USA, although as you would expect, small-c conservative), and you can’t do that in a year, particularly while failing to deal with a pandemic. As your quote mentions, one of his cronies, Lee Cain, who gives me the impression of being one of the undead), failed to get the job of Chief of Staff (formally vacant until now), and there were rumours he’d threatened to resign if Cain was not appointed, then not followed through. But I don’t think we know the underlying reasons for the strife within No.10 that led to his departure. Trump’s defeat may have been a factor, prompting Johnson to decide he needed a “reset”, Johnson may have decided to buckle in the negotiations with the EU (again partly as a result of Trump’s defeat, but opposed by Cummings who was said to be a no-dealer), or there may be undeniable evidence of corruption in the granting of government contracts to his associates to come out. Or just personal rivalries and hatreds.
Here’s a link to the November 13 Guardian coronavirus world liveblog.
From there:
Just a criminally terrible response.
Guardian – “Belarus tells banks to seize money raised to help out protesters”:
The NYT and the networks have now called Arizona for Biden. And China has congratulated Biden.