Paul Waldman, a regular columnist for the Washington Post, lays out a nightmare scenario in which Senate Majority Leader McConnell stifles Biden’s presidency.
It now looks likely that on Jan. 20 of next year, Joe Biden will become president of the United States. And after the inaugural balls are over that evening, he will take off his tuxedo, put on a scratchy jumpsuit and check into a prison cell whose keys are held by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
For months, we’ve been contemplating a world in which Biden wins the White House and Democrats narrowly take control of the Senate. We asked ourselves if they should get rid of the filibuster (yes, they should) or grant statehood to the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico (also yes).
But we didn’t spend nearly enough time contemplating what it now looks like will be the reality: a Democratic president and a Republican Senate.
We’ve seen this before, most recently in the last two years of Barack Obama’s second term. But this will be far, far worse than it was then. We’re about to witness something unprecedented in American history.
In 2014, McConnell became majority leader after Obama had already achieved most of his major legislative goals, including passing the Affordable Care Act. But now he has a chance to sabotage a Democratic president right from the start. Just as important, he knows that no matter how far he goes, the Republican Party is likely to pay only a small political price. What they get in return will be worth every penny and more.
As of now, Democrats lost one Senate seat and gained two, giving them 48. While it’s theoretically possible for them to get to 50 given the races where votes are still being counted, it looks extremely unlikely. Which means McConnell will remain as majority leader.
What does that mean? For starters, you can take all those meticulously prepared policy plans Biden and his team devised during the campaign and toss them in the trash. There will be no expansion of health coverage, no aggressive legislation to address climate change, no move toward universal child care, no increase in the minimum wage, no new Voting Rights Act and no infrastructure spending. None of it.
Nor will there be a new stimulus bill to help the economy recover from the pandemic, since McConnell knows that Biden will be blamed if the economy continues to struggle. At most — and even this is no guarantee — McConnell may allow continuing resolutions that keep the government open at its current funding levels. There will be no other significant legislation as long as Republicans retain control.
That’s just the beginning. McConnell now clearly believes that conservative domination of the courts is his most lasting legacy. Between now and January, during Trump’s lame duck period, McConnell and Judiciary Committee Chair Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) will run a conveyor belt to confirm judges to every last open seat at every level.
And then the confirmation process will simply shut down. Forget about filling a Supreme Court vacancy if one occurs; McConnell won’t permit Biden to fill any judicial vacancy. Not one.
“Oh, come on,” you might be saying. “He’d never go that far.” You don’t think so? Just wait.
We’re not done. The president gets to fill about 4,000 positions throughout the executive branch, and a remarkable 1,200 of those require confirmation by the Senate. What if McConnell and the Republicans just decided to confirm none of Biden’s appointments? No secretary of the Treasury, no EPA administrator, no assistant secretary of the Interior for Land and Minerals Management — none of them. We’ve already got all those bureaucrats, Republicans will say, why do we need to keep adding more?
Or at the very least, they’ll tell Biden: You can have a secretary of State if you really want one. But we get to tell you who it can and can’t be. First rule: It has to be a Republican. Take it or leave it.
Such a comprehensive stonewall would be unprecedented in American history. But McConnell has shown not just a willingness but an eagerness to violate any norm or rule if it serves his party’s purposes and he thinks he can get away with it. He’ll come up with some ludicrous justification (“No president whose election was decided when it was 52 degrees in Washington in a year ending in zero has ever had his Cabinet confirmed!”), then every Republican will dutifully repeat it, and eventually Democrats will stop complaining, because what are you gonna do?
Biden’s presidency would then limp along pathetically until the midterm elections in 2022, when there would be at least a glimmer of hope. More Republican Senate seats will be up that year; I count six that could be vulnerable, especially in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
But midterm elections usually favor the opposition party. Are Democratic voters going to turn out in droves to help a president who has been unable to deliver on any of his promises?
Of course, this all depends on every Republican senator going along with McConnell’s plan for the Mother of All Stonewalls. Which they will. They’ve shown again and again that they don’t care what norms are violated — if they can do it, they will do it. Just ask Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
Then in four years, Republicans will say, “Look what a failure President Biden has been! Democrats can’t get anything done!”
I wish I could say that the voters will rise up in outrage and cast them out. But right now it’s hard to feel optimistic.
Biden and McConnell have a thirty year relationship.. they’ve horse traded for decades .. an uneasy bipartisanship awaits us …
This, but with the caveat that bipartisanship means you should check your wallet, make sure your house is still standing and count your limbs and your children because you know when Republicans and Democrats agree (which they do far more than partisans are willing to admit), someone benefited and it wasn’t you.
If Democrats and Republicans don’t agree, the government can do nothing. No change is possible.
I know that when Republicans don’t have to consider Democrats at all, that what you get is their packing the judiciary, disenfranchising voters, and ignoring science and causing huge harm to our environment. And encouraging racism and encouraging violence against those who disagree.
Some on the left believe that the world is much better when Republicans have sole power to rule.
FLERP! Your are correct and there will be two. We can always pray the Moscow Mitch drops dead and Beshear replaces him with a democrat. From Jan 1 to November 2021 .
Yes, Mr. Biden has been all too willing to give in to Republican/Donor demands.
Please tell me which Republican donors to Biden are demanding that the Affordable Care Act not be repealed, but instead expanded?
Can I assume that you believe that people with pre-existing conditions should die and that’s why you don’t like Biden, because he doesn’t agree with you about that?
NYC public school parent
So how do you propose Biden saves the ACA after the court strikes it down. Pray for a runoff in Georgia. And one of the two Dem winning .
I think Dems are going to need two runoffs in Georgia.
Joel,
I propose that Biden make it clear that the Republicans repealed the ACA and now Republicans will let Americans die without health insurance. Put pressure on Susan Collins and Mitch McConnell and frequently make speeches in their states (and states of other Republicans) that voters in their states should consider a referendum to replace them with Senators who won’t lie to them and take away their health insurance.
And then he gets public support for increasing the number of Supreme Court Justices.
Oh well, that’s my dream.
plus two new democratic Senators in Georgia. Make it an election to save Medicare and the Affordable Care Act.
There is no way either Dem will win in a runoff in GA. It’s going to be a 52-48 obstructionist Senate. If they would take my advice, the Biden administration would work closely with the House to pass an orderly stream of appropriations bills before the August recess and then pound the Senate for not considering and passing them as individual bills.
We must stop the continuing resolutions, late omnibus bills. If that can be accomplished, it will free up the legislative calendar to actually work on authorizing bills. McConnell does not want to see this happen.
The goal now must be to focus on midterm elections to reverse the trend of Republican gains/stasis in Congress. Cruz, Graham, McConnell, etc. must be tarred and feathered for what they are: the heirs of Joe McCarthy. The American people rejected that in the 1950s, they rejected McCarthy-lite in the 1970s, they must be seen to reject it in 2022 so that they can see how actual governance can work from 2022-2024.
GregB,
Stacey Abrams should be given an unlimited budget and hire everyone she wants and be entirely in charge of the run-off campaign. She is given anything and everything she wants for the run-off campaign and no one does anything without an okay from Stacey Abrams. And she doesn’t hire anyone she doesn’t want to or use any contractors she doesn’t want to use.
Dem + 2 in the Senate.
And then Stacey Abrams should be offered $10 million/year to be completely in charge of the DNC and she picks her own staff and has an unlimited budget. I know that if Biden does end up winning that she deserves her pick of any White House job she wants — maybe chief of staff?? — but if she is in charge of the DNC, we could have another LBJ era of progressive legislation.
I do hope Abrams has a prominent role in a Biden administration. Just as I would have hoped for Andrew Wiggins, but his personal issues recently would likely preclude it. I bet many people in Georgia and Florida are having buyer’s remorse about Abrams and Wiggins.
GregB,
I almost always agree with you, but on this I don’t. You insulted Stacey Abrams by putting her side by side with Andrew Gillum (I assume you mean him and not Andrew Wiggins, the athlete!)
Stacey Abrams did a lot of hard work. Not sure that Gillum really accomplished that much with his Florida efforts. (If I’m wrong, please correct me). Change involves more than PR, and most people aren’t up for the hard work. That’s why I’m so in awe of Stacey Abrams.
It’s the difference between AOC and her squad, who all got out and worked hard to campaign and get elected, and the privileged Bernie supporters who just complained that the process wasn’t “fair” and helped elect Trump and were happy to re-elect Trump again.
Yes, I did mean Gillum. Don’t know why I wrote Wiggins.
No, it’s not an insult. Andrew Gillum is a gifted man who was ruined by depression. I doubt Stacy Abrams would be insulted. Severe depression can’t be treated by hard work. It is a serious disability.
Wow, it’s amazing how stupid you all are!
Pgmkuyff: Wow, it’s amazing how stupid you all are!
Who is included in your “all are”, and please elaborate on your wisdom. What exactly do you know that we are missing?
I often get Trumper comments. Like their hero, they are invariably rude and aggressive. Before the elections, I deleted most of them because they were so insulting. It doesn’t matter much now, but I will continue to delete the most offensive.
LOL. Schumer and company, and the house, did nothing but stonewall Trump for his entire administration.
After foolishly ending the fillibuster for judicial nominees in 2013, because they were so overconfident Hillary would win…..they threw literally every plus the kitchen sink, fridge, their grandma’s kitchen sink, their sister’s, aunt’s, divorced dad’s, and twenty of their neighbors sinks at Trump.
Literally have labeled hald of the country as Nazi monsters hell bent on ruining the world, and worthy of nothing but concentration camps and genocide at worst. “Re-education” camps and denial to their children at best.
Yeah. Those blasted GOPes! They should totally work with Biden! LOL
Best of luck with that!
Everything Trump wanted to do, like tax breaks for plutocrats and repealing Obamacare and appointing rightwing judges, was offensive to Democrats. Of course, they should have opposed them.
The difference is that republicans even blocked initiatives they had previously supported just to deny Obama any wins. Dems did not do that.
I just hope that Biden exposes what they’re doing consistently and constantly. Make it clear what initiatives are dying in the Senate. I don’t think Obama did that effectively.
Honest, I don’t think Obama really cared. He did what Wall Street told him to, and hit the $64 million jackpot upon leaving the White House. Now he goes kite sailing will billionaires when he’s not lecturing us to go out and vote.
I agree, Elea. No politician leaves office poorer than entering. ☹️
Obama lost his voice
In talks with Jamie Dimon
The fawning made him hoarse
“I so adore your diamond”
Out of his six year term (2005-2011), Obama supposedly served (2005-2008) which really amounted to (2005-2006).
The (2006-2008) were gobbled up by the book tour and running for president. One year US Senate experience doesn’t necessarily prepare one for the US Presidency. ☹️
Member of Congress would seem to be the only job that you can continue to hold (and keep getting the salary) while you run for President.
Can you imagine if the average Joe or Jolene working at a grocery store or office said to their boss “I’m going to run for President, so need to take the next two years off to campaign. You don’t mind do you? I expect to keep getting that $174,000 per year. ”
The idea that these people are actually DOING their Senatorial or House job when they are running is just a joke.
Of course, if we had federally funded elections , more “ordinary” people could run.
Right now , pretty much the ONlY people who can afford to do so are the members of Congress and the Billionaires.
During the primaries, a significant fraction of the Senators are absent because so many people are running.
Great true points, SomeDAMPoet.
🙂
Before that, Barack “stole” a state senate seat from Alive Palmer.
☹️
cx: Alice Palmer
Somebody has not been paying any attention to the mighty many who have spent the last virus-ridden year marching in the streets of this afflicted USA. Mitch is finished. His plantation pathology is kaput. He doesn’t run America any more than Biden does. We The People do and we are finally wrapping our backbone and imagination around this fact. Stop denying us and talking us down. There is no shoving this humanizing energy back in the box. Even blind, deaf and dumb Helen Keller could see the light.
Much as I want to agree with every word you wrote, Mitch is far from finished. Especially when people who vote for Biden would vote for Republicans in the House and Senate.
If Mitch was finished, he would have retired. Finished politicians don’t usually seek reelection. 🤔❓
I don’t agree that the Grim Reaper is finished. I enthusiastically agree that he works for We the People. It’s now OUR responsibility to force him and other Republicans to bring the Senate back to life.
I think let’s not go there yet. Did you know that CO voters passed a proposition that all Electoral College votes would go to the winner of the popular vote? So–were CO votes prematurely counted into Biden’s E.C. total thus far? This is too frightening.
But Biden will win the popular vote. Not sure if you meant something different than what you wrote.
That’s the “compact” that would kick in only once enough states (representing 270 electoral votes) have also signed on to the compact.
I just hope Biden is not as nice ‘n’ naive as he sounds. I hope he knows what he’ll be up against from Day One. It took Obama 6 years to get a clue about that and by then it was too late. Hilllary knew … and they knew she knew … so they had to sink her come hell or high water …
Of course he knows. He is far from the newby that Obama was. Gee! People voted for someone who expressed hope for the future– someone who said he would be everyone’s president. So now he’s nice and naive?
More likely that most Democrats didn’t have a clue that Obama had one.
Joe Biden is smart, seasoned and ready for this job. Just knowing he will be our president has made me feel calmer. I am even tuning out the temper tantrums and theatrics that are happening from you know who.
She sunk herself. No one like that ols cold fish.
I can’t believe that McConnell, a vile blob of flesh, got reelected. I also can’t believe that Graham was reelected. People seem to want to shoot themselves in the foot time and again and then complain that it hurts every single time. I just can’t understand the thought process of about 50% of Americans…it boggles my mind that people are so stupid, uneducated and blind to facts and truth. I am embarrassed to be an American.
Yes, my thoughts exactly! Fifty percent of the electorate are OK with these lying pieces of human flesh?!!? The people who voted for McConnell, Graham and Trump live in a very different universe than you or I. They appear to hate democracy and human values.
I am so saddened for the people of Kentucky and South Carolina. These are both states full of poor, ignorant people who go to the polls (or Poles, as Trump calls them) and vote against their own interests.
Consult the Poles
The Poles will tell us
Who has won
And Polish fellas
Like the Don
This just in: Trump accuses Santa of employing elves to fill out and deliver mail-in ballots. Trump campaign statement: “Enough, Santa! Keep those Pole-ish peoples of yours, those Claus-ette cases, from helping Biden steal the election! We’ve seen the reports of the sleighs over Philadelphia!”
Maybe, SomeDAM, this year we won’t have to listen to counterfeit-Christian Trump blathering about the War on Christmas.
Now, everybody sing:
Rudolph, Don’s Brown-Nosed Reign Dear | Bob Shepherd
(to the tune of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”)
Rudolph the Ghouliani
had a very brown, brown nose,
squandered his former goodwill,
stroking Trump on TV shows.
All of the other Trumpties
used to laugh and call him names.
Even those abject toadies
thought him crooked and insane.
Then one Foggy Bottom eve,
Trumpty called to say,
“Rude one with your nose so brown,
won’t you take Joe Biden down?”
What happened then’s sheer folly:
thanks to lows the two men reached,
history will most remember that
Trumpty Dumpty was impeached.
Ivana emigrated from the Czech Republic, next door to Poland. Surely, Donald knew the difference between Poles and polls. It looks like he didn’t. ☹️🔔❗
Eddie; “Donald knew the difference between Poles and polls.”
Trump doesn’t know how to spell or speak intelligent English. It’s casualty of dementia. Regan hid it but Trump wouldn’t let anyone do that.
carol malaysia, I thought, it was lack of education. ☹️
I am sure they feel for you too.
There is no question that McConnell will try to thwart and obstruct Biden at every possible opportunity………..assuming that Biden even gets to enter the White House. Big assumption. Trump, his evil spawn and all the armed goon squads across the country are working overtime to derail this election, shut down the count and bully their way into a 2nd term for the destroyer-in-chief.
I tend to believe R. Kuttner. there is one thing POSSIBLE in my view.. It may be that the young folks making something of a splash recently and are pretty much anti Republican agenda MIGHT cause McConnell to rethink HIS agenda.
It is probably wishful thinking but if our country is going to hold together some things have got to change. We can learn to live together or tear ourselves apart in division, something cultivated by Trump. It is a MAJOR concern of mine.
It’s a good thing the Democrats worked so hard to crush Charles Booker in favor of Trump supporter Amy McGrath, whom they spent about $100 million on to lose to McConnell.
Are you also angry that the democrats spent so much money on Jaime Harrison against Lindsay Graham? And on Gideon to defeat Susan Collins?
Or maybe you hate Jaime Harrison, too? Do you? He is a democrat, so that does mean he is evil to you, right?
The Democrats also spent a lot of money on Jaime Harrison against Lindsay Graham. Why in the world would you complain about that?? Because Jaime Harrison lost?
It is disheartening that the party often discourages progressive candidates.
What’s really disheartening is all the $$$$ that is spent on elections…period. These millions add to billions that could be better spent on the welfare/common good of We the People. It’s sickening to me that children are starving and families are facing eviction, and ALL of these stupid politicians won’t put an end to the big bankrolling of elections. I really am looking to leave this country in the next 4-5 yrs as I have never been more disappointed in people in my entire life.
LisaM
Many (maybe even most)politicians only care about getting re-elected.
I think we need term limits as badly (if not worse) than limits on spending.
There is no reason that anyone (no matter how “good”) should be able to make a career out of being a politician.
Some of them are like the baggage that keeps going around on the carousel because no one bothered to take it off.
Strom Thermond was the best example of the latter.
Bob,
I object to that narrative that has done so much damage. The democrats – like every party – aren’t especially welcoming of primary challenges to incumbents, whether those incumbents are very conservative or very progressive.
But – I give you Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She decided to mount a primary challenge to one of the most powerful democrats in Congress. And she won. Because instead of whining about how “the party” didn’t give an unknown candidate lots of help, she ran a campaign! She did the hard work to win. And she won. As did all the members of her squad! As did City Councilman Ritchie Torres, who just won a Congressional seat by working himself up the political ranks!
No one tried to “stop” AOC — they just didn’t help her. Just like they don’t help many moderate and conservative unknowns! Some anti-Biden (and secretly pro-Trump) leftists push the false narrative that progressives are “sabotaged”. They are not. They are treated like other challengers and if they work hard instead of believing they are entitled to the nomination, they can win. And sometimes they lose. And sometimes they lose just because the people in their district prefer a candidate who is more moderate.
By the way, Ritchie Torres just did a remarkable thing, finding out that the NYPD official who works out of the NYPD office that is supposed to stop workplace harassment was posting racist, sexist, anti-Semetic and offensive comments online. Shocking! Good for you, Ritchie Torres for shining light where there has been very little.
You have a right to object.
As much as I loved me some Charles Booker, anyone who thinks, in a head-to-head race with McConnell–in Kentucky!–would do better than McGrath, who is as Republican-lite as it gets, is Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. Anyone who argues otherwise has never set foot in Kentucky nor could likely identify it on a map.
Exactly, Greg.
I think McConnell and some of the Republicans are tired of Trump. They used him for the tax breaks for billionaires and the Coney Barrett appointment, and they have no more need for the useful idiot. They may think a second term would do more damage than good to the party. McConnell was careful to postpone a second stimulus check until after the election. Thus, they put Trump in a more vulnerable position. McConnell will be an impediment to Biden for sure, but he may be willing to make a deal to avoid a full blown depression.
They will only tire of Trump the second that Biden is sworn in (assuming that happens).
Otherwise, they won’t tire of him because he gives them nearly everything they have been trying (with little success) to get for decades
The establishment Repugnicans in and out of office (McConnell, Graham, Gingrich, Santorum) are NOT tiring of Trump. Thus their silence and at least lukewarm support for the Democracy-bashing that Trump is doing right now. They are more than willing to continue to “put up” with the Idiot as long as he is useful to them.
Why is Trump claiming, insanely, that the election is being stolen? Because he is attempting to build the fury, among his supporters, that he will ride over the coming years as the unofficial but de facto continued leader of the the Limbo Party (how low, how low, how low can we go). The establishment Repugnicans see that the Orange One is likely to be successful in this. Whatever one might make of the 2020 election, this much is clear: The blind monster of Trumpism is going to be crashing around in our politics for a long time, trampling reason and decency.
Bob Shepherd: My hope is that Trump gets put in prison for many years and that his ability to communicate gets cut off. Maybe at some time, Twitter will tire of his lies? Living with this IDIOT’s ramblings for years is going to wear people out. I believe he is demented and the rambling will increasingly be further removed from any reality but his own.
This is the solution. No doubt about it.
Twitter (the company) absolutely loves Trump.
He is their wildest wet dream.
He epitomizes Twitter: a means of stoking massive , polarized controversy.
I thi k one of the things we have learned over the last four years is that Twitter is for Twitiots.
This morning, I read that the GOP might keep the Senate majority. The piece I read in VOX said that Georgia was the best chance the Democrats had to change that. If Democrat Cal Cunningham did not have an e-mail sex scandal, the odds would still be in his favor. The problem is Democratic morals. Any hint of a scandal of any kind may end a political career if you are a Democrat. For most Republicans, it doesn’t matter to their voters. Someone like Trump could rape a toddler (boy or girl) on camera and brag about it on Twitter, and he would probably not lose one vote from his deplorable base of supporters.
Curious, I checked how many Senate seats will be up for election in 2022, that will offer another chance to kick Moscow Mitch out of his majority seat in the Senate.
“The 2022 United States Senate elections will be held on November 8, 2022, with 34 of the 100 seats in the Senate being contested in regular elections, …
“All 34 Class 3 Senate seats are up for election in 2022; Class 3 currently consists of 12 Democrats and 22 Republicans. If vacancies occur in Class 1 or Class 2 Senate seats, that state might require a special election to take place during the 118th Congress, possibly concurrently with the other 2022 Senate elections.”
Click the Wiki link to learn what states will be electing US Senators.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_United_States_Senate_elections
The key here is for the Democrats to use the media like Trump does and place the blame on McConnel and the GOP controlled Senate every chance they get, to motivate turn out during the midterms in 2022 to flip the Senate two years from now.
MM is also 78 and he might not be that healthy.
https://www.health.com/mind-body/mitch-mcconnell-hand-discolored-causes
If you are a Republican, a sex scandal is a plus. Unless it’s gay sex with a consenting adults, of course. In which case you are burnt toast.
Consenting adult (singular) — but plural would be even worse, of course
That happened to Republican Anti-Gay, Former State Representative (Ohio) Wesley Goodman, who cheated on his wife with men. She was horrified and divorced him. 😮☹️
Unequivocally, yes.
Even if President Biden has 100 Democratic US Senators and 435 Democratic US Congresspeople, there’s no guarantee Biden would have his way 100% of the time. 🤔❓
Axios:
Don Jr. tweeted: “You didn’t see all of these games, statistical impossibilities, and magic ballots in 2016 because the Democrats figured they had it in the bag and wouldn’t have to break out all the stops.”
Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien said on a campaign call: ”The Democrats are lying, cheating and stealing. It’s happening all over this country.”
Rudy Giuliani, Eric Trump and other surrogates have been holding news conferences and appearing on Fox News shows to discuss plans for litigation.
Reality check: Ben Ginsberg, a Republican election lawyer who has been critical of Trump’s tactics told Axios: “This just smacks of a little bit of desperation.”
The bottom line: Close elections are common, and there’s no proof of widespread irregularities. But, as Trump has shown over and over: He can quickly get 40% of the public to believe him, and elected GOP officials to fall in line.
So, good advice for Biden: lead with some extremely popular legislation that will show McConnell and Co. for the obstructionists they are and put some pressure on the Turtle.
Give that man a cigar! Right (I mean, correct) answer.
About that cigar. I’ll take one from Cuba, please, after Biden makes that possible again.
The problem is that most people don’t understand “how” government works…..How legislation gets intorduced/passed/enacted. My gosh, I’m no genius on the subject, but I loved me some School House Rock when I was a kid growing up.
The first thing they should work on fixing is the annual appropriations process. It’s been mostly dead since 1994 and restoring order would do much to make Congress function again.
I loved the School House Rock rendition, too, but it hardly tells the whole story. Writing and passing a bill is likely to require a lot of horse trading. It’s hard to get the lion(s) to lie down with the lamb(s). Perhaps there is a good analogy in here about lion taming… sorry, my mind is meandering.
Speduktr……What the kids get in school now is nothing. I am amazed at how much young people DON’T know about social studies and civics. School House Rock didn’t tell the whole story, but the tunes were like an ear worm…..it just added some fun to what was taught in school.
Now I’ve got the “Lolly, lolly, lolly, get your adverbs here” ear worm burrowing in my head. Sheesh.
I memorized the preamble to the Constitution from watching Schoolhouse Rock as a kid! Still love that song!
Biden needs to challenge McConnell directly and consistently. He needs to document the Senate’s inaction as frequently as Trump lied. He must also challenge McConnell’s willingness obstruct forward movement on increasing health care and climate. It must be clearly pinned repeatedly on him.
No matter what happens with a Biden presidency, it will be better than four more years of Trump insanity. 2021 will be better than 2020.
Amen
If Trump got re-elected, everyone here who criticized him would probably be locked up in the klink.
Anonymity does not help when they have a Palantir.
I think of this often. But silence is complicity.
As Obama noted in Miami, if Biden is President, you won’t see him on TV every day, and you won’t have to think about him much. You’ll sleep much better.
How the Country Finally Dumped
“I Like Winners, Not Losers” Trump
Trumpty Dumpty hated the call,
“Slidin’ toward Biden,”
his numbers did fall,
and all his Supremes
and lawyering men
couldn’t make Trumpty
a winner again.
Never say never
Til Biden’s sworn in
You don’t understand, SomeDAM. That’ verse is a magic spell. You know that we Social Democrats are in league with Satan! LOL.
Bob Shepherd: OMG. You do know that all of us who vote for evil politicians like Bernie, Warren or Biden are being influenced by Satan? My brother was right!!!
Shhhhh, Carol!!!! Don’t tell anyone!!!!
Should have thrown in an abracadabra, or some curses and names of demons spelled backward: pmurt, ecnep, llennoccm, rellim, nacilbuper, llereggub,
One of the place names in Dylan Thomas’s delightful play “Under Milk Wood” is Llereggub Hill. I suspect that most readers or audience members just think this another weird Welsh place name.
Oops. That’s Llareggub Hill.
Thank goodness! I just spent about five minutes trying to find out what the heck buggerell meant.
Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray to S my soul to keep
Pray that pizza’s in the oven
Pray that Clinton’s in my coven
Pray that Donald don’t come here
Else I’ll have to move, I fear
From trollbuster9090 Democratic Underground. Let’s Play Ball!
Well, there’s a very simple solution. Let’s call it The TRUMP/MCONNELL RULE!
Nominate relatively liberal cabinet members. And, when the Senate blocks them…
Appoint a bunch of FAR LEFT ‘ACTING’ Secretaries.
Presumably you find far left acting secretaries in Hollywood?
Exactly. Casting Calls go out in all directions. Costumes required. Scripts and Soundbites supplied. Could be fun. Think The YES MEN.
Hey, this clearly works, doesn’t it, Kathy!
Well, Don and Don Jr., Dumb and Dumber, were just on television claiming that hundreds of thousands of ballots were just showing up, at the last minute, all for Biden and that pizza boxes were being placed over the windows to hide what the vote counters were doing. This is their story, and they are sticking to it.
That’s going to be the Con from the Don going forward. I won the election. They stole it. This is an illegitimate government. Glorious Leader Who Shines More Orange Than the Sun is really still President.
Remedial lesson in government for Don and Don:
When you count the votes, that’s not called “stealing an election,” that’s called “an election.”
Pizza Hut delivery just dropped off a pizza box full of Trump ballots. I guess they mixed up my order for a baloney pizza. And ballots falling off the trees made my raking leaves a real chore this afternoon. The Sharpie ink kept staining the grass.
ROFLMSAO (the “S” stands for “sweet”).
Collect that Sharpie ink! It has magical powers!!!!
I am terribly saddened to have witnessed the most egregious delivery of supposed grievances, that went way beyond anything the most talented fiction writer could have imagined voiced by a US President in the middle of an presidential election.
Dr Strangehate has only one person in the audience he is addressing: his taskmaster father. ” It’s not my fault , dad, I’m being cheated”. In a threatening situation, his behavior goes on automatic, using the exact same brain mechanisms the warrior uses in the heat of battle or the athlete uses in the fray of the game
There is a difference though, the training that his behavior is a function of is that which occurred before puberty. Neural representations of those childhood memories he is in the grasp of permanently lurk in the background of his executive function.
The world is agape, no doubt wondering when the men in white will be summoned with a straitjacket.
I am terribly saddened, both that a child could have been so terribly treated, as well as to have witnessed what we just saw on a tragic stage.
Agreed. Pinch me and wake me up, please. What absurdist nightmare is this?
Sad and absurd – yes. Only choice is to tune out at this point. I don’t think the networks should give his tantrums and theater as much air time as they do.
Mick Mulvaney guaranteed a peaceful transfer of power but said Trump will run again in 2024?? There is a lot of work to do between now and then. He may not be physically able to run by then…. but maybe one of his children will. 😦 Exhausting.
Exactly what I was thinking listening to Dummy Jr. This guy thinks that this is the first speech of his 2024 election campaign.
The only president to serve two non-consecutive terms was Grover Cleveland (1885-1889) & (1893-1897). 😁
Of course, there’s Richard Nixon losing (1960), winning (1968 & 1972) and resigning (1974). 😐
Odds are against Trump (2024). ☹️
I think the only running Trump will be doing after (if?) he leaves office is from the NY Southern District Attorney.
Dr. Strangehate. Oh, Lord. That’s perfect.
And I completely agree. Putting aside for a moment Trump’s separating parents and children, putting children in cages, and instructing his Secretary of Homeland Security to have officers shoot asylum seekers, this is doubtless the new low.
Congrats, Don and Don, Dumb and Dumber, on setting this record. The plumbing of the nadir? Nope. You know how it is with these guys. There is worse to come.
I think we just have to hope there are rational heads in the White House preventing irrational actions between now and Jan 20.
Rational heads in this White House?
We’re screwed.
Here’s what Bannon says that he wants to do with the rational heads in the Whiter House:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election-2020/steven-bannon-behead-fauci-fbi-christophre-wray-trump-b1627108.html
Bob Shepherd: Yes, we’ve all noticed that Trump is a kind-hearted man. /s [I think Bannon wants to be pardoned.] Somehow, locking children in cages and wanting to shoot immigrants in the legs doesn’t strike me as being ‘kind-hearted”.
Maybe Bannon’s idea of being kind is a tiny bit lower than mine. Firing Fauci and Wrap is definitely better than putting their severed heads on spikes.
“Second term kicks off with firing Wray, firing Fauci, no I actually want to go a step farther but the president is a kind-hearted man and a good man,” Mr Bannon said.
OK. This will be my headline when the election is finally called for Biden:
Joe Biden Steals Election by Convincing Majority of Americans to Vote for Him
Maybe you can sell it to The Onion.
Those poor writers at The Onion! Think of what a job it is to come up with satirical stories more ludicrous than the stuff that Trump says in real life.
It should make their job easy
They can just change their name to The Trumpian.
Or maybe just add a D –The Donion.
Go with the flow, Glasshopper
The Donion
Onion tries
To trump the real
But Donion always
Wins the deal
Go with the flow, Grasshopper! ROFLMAO!!! SomeDAM, you kickle me (that’s a portmanteau of “kill” and “tickle”).
Gee, I left “gracious,” as in “gracious in defeat” off my list of adjectives to describe Trump. IKR? Shocking.
Did you mean gratuitous in defeat?
When it comes to leaving office, Trump is bound to be glacierous in de feet
Must be the die-ah-beet-eez in his feet. He’s the only person upon whom I’d wish a very slow moving, deliberate flesh-eating bacteria. The slower, the better.
Mendacious and Glacierous
Trump’s mendacious
In the tweet
And Trump is glacierous
In de feet
And Trump is dangerous
In the heat
So we had better watch out between now and Jan 20
We have now learned that Trump is a sore winner and a sore loser.
He came on TV tonight and delivered deranged remarks. He claimed he had already won the election when legal votes are counted. Apparently he believes that mail in ballots are “illegal.”
He is saying, as he has said many times, that Democrats are stealing the election.
Biden’s lead in the popular vote is 4 million.
I don’t know how to post images here, didn’t watch it, but here’s the Anderson Cooper quote that had a great image with it: “That is the President of the United States. That is the most powerful person in the world. And we see him, like an obese turtle on his back, flailing in the hot sun, realizing that his time is over.”
I love me some Anderson. Even more these days. (Still smarting from when he was left at the alter by Stefon.)
Gollumish?
Gangrenous?
Golden-goitered?
Grafty?
Groan-goading?
I think Ghouliani-ish pretty well covers it.
Imagine meeting Ghouluani in a dark alley.
Talk about a nightmare.
He’s scary enough under the Tv spotlights.
Reminiscent of the vampire Barnabas Collins in Dark Shadows
I do not agree. He looks as pitiful as Princess Trumpkin.
All of this was completely predictable. My fantasy is that the democrats at least propose changes to the electoral college vote so that close states split the electoral vote. Not only would that make all this caterwauling unnecessary, it would also make minority voters worth something to the various parties. Who am I kidding? Which party wants real government?
At least it is starting to look like a trump ouster.
I just had to switch off the TV because some bleary-eyed talking heads were going on about how XLV is not going away and will still be a force to (w)reckon with for years to come. Yes, the Trump International Crime Syndicate is not magically going to disappear — not unless the Democratic Party grows the gumption (and maybe it will have to be New York standing alone) to get his whole gang’s taxes, prosecute them for their crimes, and put them away for good.
So, what if things got…better?
It’s been 20 rotten years in the United States -sprinkled with some wonderful stuff, too. (Personal as well as around the world. For example, I didn’t know Diane Ravitch in 2000…and her blog didn’t exist to give us all a voice.)
20 years ago we lived through one royally screwed up election.
What if this miserable era is bookended by another wacked out vote – though this time with the Democrats prevailing?
In between we had 9-11, disastrous military decisions, two financial meltdowns and a pandemic to boot -on top of environmental destruction reaching the tipping point.
But within these two decades we can see the seeds of change.
My students want a different world. They don’t have patience for the old men and women running the country into the ground.
They are the next decade. I can only hope.
I hope the Orange Moron is writhing in self-pity and lashing out at everyone in his family. He CANNOT admit defeat. Hope he is pulled, screaming, out of the WH by the police. I’m tired of his lies, cons and his destruction of everything good in this country.
…………………………………………….
The Hill
04:28 AM EST
The president Thursday evening offered a statement from the White House attacking the electoral process in the battleground states and blaming Democrats, local officials, pollsters and the media for his situation.
“If you count the legal votes, I easily win. If you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us. If you count the votes that came in late, we’re looking at them very strongly,” Trump told reporters.
Trump offered no specific evidence of fraud or of illegal votes having been cast, but his remarks echoed arguments that had been made earlier in the day by some of his family members and associates.
The Trump comments were widely condemned, including by a number of GOP office holders.
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) said Trump should either take the evidence he has of his claims to court or “stop spreading debunked misinformation.”
“We want every vote counted, yes every legal vote, of course,” Kinzinger said. “But, if you have legit concerns about fraud present evidence and take it to court. Stop spreading debunked misinformation. … This is getting insane.”
Counting to Insanity
“If you count the legal votes
–the votes for Trump —
I win!! ”
Without a doubt, his mind is toast
— it’s for the dump —
And bin!!
Yeah, we should just count those votes which were cast on Princess Trumpkin. 🙂
“If you count the votes that came in late, we’re looking at them very strongly,” Trump said, incoherently.
I know. I know. “Incoherently” is implicit in “Trump,” so the modifier of the speaker’s tag is redundant.
I believe Doncoherent is the word.
Doncoherent! The New Logic. LMAO!
Doncoherence
Doncoherence
Trumps it all
Incoherence
Takes the fall
Doncoherence
Is complete
Incoherence
Can’t compete
Donnie, Jr., has been taking grammar lessons from Daddy.
“[D]ead/no longer in-state voters . . . has been going on for far too long,” he railed deliriously last night.
NYT:
Trump’s legal team has been in courtrooms across the country, challenging vote counts and demanding the right to send supporters into ballot-counting locations. Judicial decisions came down on those cases in a range of states throughout the day, most of them bearing bad news for Trump’s team.
A judge in Pennsylvania shot down his campaign’s attempt to halt the counting of ballots there, but ruled that poll watchers could move to within six feet of officials as they counted ballots, allowing the observers a better vantage to look for absentee ballots lacking the required signatures.
In an address to reporters last night, Trump continued to falsely argue that ballots that haven’t yet been counted are illegal. Speaking from the White House briefing room, he marshaled the optics of the presidency to his advantage even as he unleashed a string of falsehoods intended to undermine a legitimate election.
“If you count the legal votes, I easily win,” he said, offering no evidence.
While the president’s claims were echoed by a number of allies, including Lindsey Graham and Kevin McCarthy, he appeared to be increasingly isolated.
If the vote count were stopped right now, Biden wins.
The Onion managed to come up with something. [Has to be difficult since…well…we know. Reality is a mirage and fake is truth, etc.]
Trump Files Lawsuit In Pennsylvania Alleging Election Officials Totally Disregarding His Feelings
Yesterday 4:30PM
VOL 56 ISSUE 44
WASHINGTON—Blasting the complete lack of empathy, campaign attorneys for President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit in Pennsylvania Thursday alleging state election officials were totally disregarding his feelings. “A lot of these ballots clearly contain information that makes me sad and scared, and it’s just not right,” said Trump, who cautioned the media to refrain from issuing any results that would hurt him. “I’m angry and confused, and I demand that election officials cease being mean immediately. All this vote counting completely flies in the face of my emotions, and I won’t stand for it. We won’t let the Democrats make me cry.” At press time, an angry mob of Trump supporters had surrounded a vote counting facility to demand election officials make the president smile.
The Donion
Onion tries
To trump the real
But Donion always
Wins the deal
WaPo:
Trump: “I predicted that. I’ve been talking about mail-in voting for a long time. It’s really destroyed our system. It’s a corrupt system and it makes people corrupt, even if they aren’t by nature, but they become corrupt. It’s too easy. They want to find out how many votes they need and then they seem to be able to find them.”
Another conspiracy theory. A mountain of evidence shows that mail voting has been almost entirely free of fraud through the decades. Yet according to our database of Trump claims, more than 100 times this year, Trump has peddled false claims or imaginary threats about voting by mail. Election experts say that mail voting is slightly more vulnerable to fraud than voting in person but that both methods are trustworthy because of the safety measures state officials use to verify ballots.
A Washington Post analysis of data collected by three vote-by-mail states with help from the nonprofit Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) found that officials identified 372 possible cases of double voting or voting on behalf of deceased people out of about 14.6 million votes cast by mail in the 2016 and 2018 general elections, or 0.0025 percent.
I do not understand: in Georgia both senate seat are going to runoff, the last time I checked. And, according to Fox, the senate count is 48-48. So not all is lost for the senate, is it?
https://www.foxnews.com/elections/2020/general-results
Yeah, the 1st senate seat in GA is also heading for runoff since neither senators reached 50%. There is only a very slim chance that this will change.
https://www.foxnews.com/elections/2020/general-results/state/georgia
Are you having a conversation with yourself?
I confirmed my own statement after checking where my info came from. But yeah, I talk to myself all the time during this lonely pandemic existence. 🙂
It looks as though, in the end, Biden will be our president. We might even, if we are really lucky, pick up three more Senate seats, including two in the Jan., 5th run-off elections in Georgia, giving Kamala Harris ( ❤ ) the deciding vote in the Senate. It’s wait and see time.
But make no mistake about this: the 2020 election clearly WASN’T the Great Repudiation, the Great Awakening, that sane people had hoped for. Jabba the Trump, aka Don the Con, will lose both the Electoral College and the presidency, but he has already received the second highest number of votes EVER in a US presidential election.
Yes, of course, Trump’s lack of graciousness and refusal to accept that Biden won is entirely predictable, given his defining pathology, his malignant narcissism. However, there’s more going on than just this. It seems clear that Trump’s intention is to remain, once out of office, the unofficial, de facto leader of the Repugnican Limbo Party, and though given his physical and mental condition, it’s unlikely that he will be in any shape to run again in 2024, Donnie Jr.’s dumb, deranged, ungrammatical expostulations last night about how Biden is stealing the election by getting the majority of the votes sounded to me like his first speech in his 2024 election campaign to establish, once and for all, an American Idiocracy. The Trumplings have built a fire, and they are going to keep feeding it. Will McConnell work across the aisle on occasion, going forward; will he continue throwing fuel on that fire; or will the do a little of both? Answers B and C seem to me most likely.
The operation wasn’t successful. Trump will be a gangrenous growth on the body politic, here in the United States for a long time to come.
That dumpster is CRAZED and doesn’t want to go to jail. Thus, he put DeJoy in charge of the postal system. Gotta admit, that dump does look ahead re: the crime lords he puts in charge.
Trump’s high-stakes swing-state legal blitz: Where his campaign says it’s suing, and why
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/trump-s-high-stakes-swing-state-legal-blitz-where-does-n1246424
The president’s niece dissected her uncle’s highly controversial press conference during a Thursday evening appearance on MSNBC.
Anchor Lawrence O’Donnell asked Mary Trump what she saw watching Donald Trump’s address to the nation.”
Well, we’re seeing a man who is in a unique position,” she replied. “Donald has never been in this place before where there’s nobody to bail him out, there’s nobody to buy him out. He’s desperate, he’s flailing, and there’s literally nothing he can do legitimately except to watch this play out helplessly.”
“This wasn’t just Donald obfuscating or lying. This was Donald talking about an attempted coup,” she explained. “The leader of a country trying desperately to de-legitimize an election. it is obscene and somebody has to step in and stop him.”
O’Donnell noted reports her uncle is in a downwards spiral mentally.
“What would be your imagined view of what your uncle is going through in the White House now?” O’Donnell asked.
“Oh, he’s in an uncontrollable rage, I would imagine,” she replied.
Mary Trump
Nov 5, 2020
Bob Brigham
So maybe he’ll go to the nuthouse instead of prison. Doesn’t matter, does it?
I have a comment about this in moderation. One of these alternatives is the only way to stop the Idiot. He has already received the second highest number of votes EVER in a US presidential election. He’s going to continue to be the de facto leader of the Repugnican Limbo Party for a long, long time, UNLESS he goes to jail or to the nuthouse. Even in exile in a country without an extradition treaty with the US, he will remain an ever-present danger to Democracy.
Speaking of dangerous people: have you guys seen this:
Twitter permanently suspended an account associated with former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon after he suggested in a video posted online Thursday that Dr. Anthony Fauci and FBI Director Christopher Wray should be beheaded.
https://www.npr.org/2020/11/06/932052602/twitter-permanently-suspends-steve-bannon-account-after-beheading-comments
Excellent. People have been banished from Twitter for less.
Horrific. Bannon is one of the evil architects of Trumpism–he, Sessions, and Miller
Bannon talks about his dream at 10m 50s. It’s worth listening starting earlier to see how he gets there.
https://listen.warroom.org/e/ep-476-pandemic-not-the-end-of-the-world-w-fog-city-midge-and-richard-baris/
Oh my Lord. This is psych ward stuff.
His fans try to explain that it was not meant literally, and when you start comparing him to Hitler or Stalin, they say, it’s blown out of proportion. What people forget that neither Hitler nor Stalin talked explicitly about mass murders. Hitler never said “gas all the Jews”, and he probably would have fainted if he had visited Auschwitz. The way Bannon talks in that podcast (and others, where he talks about power and how to get it and what to use it for), he exhibits all the symptoms of a monster. Nothing less. Unlucky for him, and lucky for us, it’s highly doubtful that he can develop further. All he can do in this country is tape podcasts.
The same applies to Trump. People are all gloomy about these elections, but I am ecstatic because truly monstrous things got prevented by the vote. It really was up to the people to reject Trump, and they made the right choice—unlike many other, otherwise cultured and well educated, nations in history.
Really freaking beautifully said!!!!
What does someone need to do in order to be charged with a crime related to hate speech? Have some nut job carry out your malignant fantasies and tell everybody that is why they did it? I think we are losing the boundaries between free speech and impinging on the rights of others.
“You go black lives matter, well this is votes that matter, up until November 3 . . . This is a war for power. . . . He’s already won. Let the killers handle this. . . . We control the courts.” –Steve Bannon
Bannon claims that whatever happens, Trump will place his hands on the Trump family bible and be sworn in for his second term. In other words, he is not going to leave the office peacefully.
It doesn’t matter anymore what Trump plans to do. He cannot and will not prevent Biden from taking office. He’ll appear in Bannon’s podcasts, will be interviewed on Fox and by Limbaugh, but those things will happen behind our radars and he’ll be forgotten as one of those presidents who couldn’t hold on to power for a second term.
This is the looniest thing I’ve heard in a long time. But Ghouliani is also there, and this is precisely what Trump has been saying. Votes counted after November 3 are fraudulent. I won. I’m not going anywhere. The Supremes will back me up on this.
Things could get really crazy. LMAO.
We’ll see. But I think Trumpkin and his lawyers will find that they are powerless in these matters.
Wait, what? There is a “Trump family Bible?”
Not only there is a Trumpkin bible, but there is a holy story attached to it.
Could a Bible sitting in the Oval Office be America’s connection to a coming revival? The same Bible used during the inauguration ceremony of Donald Trump?
https://metrovoicenews.com/the-amazing-story-of-the-trump-family-bible-and-its-revival-connection/
Here is a picture
I feel goosebumpy from all this holiness and wholesomeness.
Even if Fauci were beheaded, he would still have more brains than Bannon, Trump and the rest of the White House gang combined.
That would be the Holey Bible in Trump’s case.
Holey Swear in, Batman!
Trump was sworn
With Holey Bible
Wholey torn
And wholey tribal
Holey as
The blackest coal
Holey ass
And wholey hole
“This was Donald talking about an attempted coup”
The irony is that Trump is trying to do precisely what he accuses Biden of doing: steal the election.
But irony is not one of his strong suits and certainly not his trump suit.
Trump always projects his flaws on others. “Democrats are trying to steal the election” means “Republicans are trying to steal the election.”
Thank you, carolmaylasia.
Mary Trump sure does know that dump.
Yup, that dumpster wouldn’t go quietly.
He doesn’t want to go to jail.
What gets me are his enablers. Guess the dump must have some pretty BAD DIRT on them.
You have undoubtedly noticed, but Dumpsters always make a horrible racket when they are being emptied.
Emptying the Dumpster
Dumpsters make a lot of noise
When they’re emptied in the truck
Hard to empty out with poise
When it’s full of ick and yuck
@speduktr, I was thinking the same thing about hate speech and when are we going to draw some legal boundaries with how hate and disinformation quickly and easily spreads on social media. That is the larger problem we are battling. A news story just came across my phone about someone threatening to kill democrats in LA. Steve Bannon etc. puts this crap out there, knowing that there are fragile people he is influencing. Criminal. Absolutely criminal.
It’s really sad that vulnerable people are being used by these thugs.
Congrats, President-elect (almost) Biden and VP-elect Harris!
Just a friendly reminder, Mr. Biden:
Audience member at MSNBC Education Forum recently: “Given that standardized testing is rooted in a history of racism and eugenics,” the audience member asked, “if you are elected president, will you commit to ending the use of standardized testing in public schools?”
Your answer: “Yes, As one of my friends and black pastors I spend a lot of time with . . . would say, you’re preaching to the choir, kid.”
I suspect that the person who asked that question has been reading our premier historian of education, Diane Ravitch!
This is exciting. So hopeful.
PATIENT: I won! I won the election!
WARD ASSISTANT/ORDERLY: Sure, sure you did. Now take your meds.
PATIENT: I’m Joan of Arc!
WARD ASSISTANT/ORDERLY: Of course, Ms. Arc. Open up. What a good boy you are Ms. Arc.
PATIENT: Don’t count and recount the votes!
Don of Dark
Joan of Arc
Was saintly martyr
Don of Dark
Was Twitter barker
Joan of Arc
Was burned at pole
Don of Dark
Got burned at poll
Or pole, from Don’s perspective
Biden just pulled ahead in PA by a hair
“The Grand Delusion
“I really won!!
And Bigly!!
The Biden run
Is riggly”
He really lost
And shortly
The final cost
Is courtly
The bit of news that I did watch tonight (& I’m trying not to) showed McConnell kind of backing off. In fact–& even though Bill Maher can be a real jerk–Maher had a really good show tonight. Really good (if you missed it & have HBO, make sure to see it). Malcolm Nance was on tonight, & he made some very important points, as did Rosa Brooks (Georgetown U. Law Professor, & daughter of Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickled & Dimed) & John Ehrenreich, author (latest book 3rd Wave Capitalism: How $, Power & the Pursuit of Self-Interest Have Imperiled the American Dream.) This “backing off” was discussed–politicians already distancing themselves from it45.
Mary Trump has said that Donald most likely is in a rage. This is the first time in his life that he can do nothing.
………………………………
With No Evidence of Fraud, Trump Fails to Make Headway on Legal Cases
The president appeared to have little path through the courts to shift the outcome of the election, leaving him reliant on long shots like recounts or pressure on state legislatures.
…Officials with the Biden campaign said they would meet every legal challenge Mr. Trump brought but said they were confident that none of the cases they had seen so far seemed likely to loosen Mr. Biden’s tightening grasp on the presidency.
“The Republican legal claims are utterly baseless and have failed and will continue to fail in the courts,’’ said Bob Bauer, a senior adviser to the Biden campaign. “They serve no purpose other than to echo Donald Trump’s discredited and shameful attack on the democratic process.”
In a statement, the Republican Party’s chief counsel, Justin Riemer, said, “We are focused on protecting the integrity of the vote and ensuring all legally cast ballots are counted,” but he was not made available for further comment on the particulars of the party’s legal strategy.
The intensive Trump effort was the endgame of a long-planned contingency in which the president planned to challenge any possible loss through claims that the voting system was “rigged” against him. The campaign has been abetted by a robust pro-Trump media ecosystem, with Mr. Trump’s own social media accounts at its center, amplifying his false claims.
As the legal push has failed to make substantial headway this week it has taken on an urgent, at times desperate, tone.
On Thursday, Eric Trump, one of the president’s sons, said on Twitter, “I truly hope the @FBI/@DOJ engages immediately.”
The former Republican Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich,echoed the president’s son on Fox News, calling for the jailing of poll workers and more involvement from Attorney General William P. Barr.
But in the days since the election, Mr. Barr and the Justice Department have been largely silent. After initially echoing Mr. Trump’s warnings about electoral fraud, Mr. Barr muted his statements, and Mr. Trump complained to aides about the department’s lack of action.
But a supportive outside group, True the Vote — one of the most prominent promoters of the false narrative that “voter fraud” is rampant in the United States — sought to help Mr. Trump build his cases. On Friday, it announced it had formed a $1 million “Whistleblower Defense Fund” to “incentivize” witnesses to step forward with charges of malfeasance…
Republicans have been unsuccessfully fighting the secretary of state’s decision to allow election officials in Pennsylvania to count mail-in ballots that arrived at their offices by Friday as long as they had postmarks from Election Day or before. The Supreme Court had twice passed up opportunities to rule on the dispute, though the case is still technically pending, giving the justices the opportunity to weigh in if they saw reason to do so.
But even if the court were to take the case and rule in favor of the Republicans to wipe out all of the ballots in question — votes from mail ballots have overwhelmingly gone to Mr. Biden — it would not affect the current vote totals, which do not include the ballots that came in after Election Day. By early Friday evening, Mr. Biden had a lead of about 17,000 votes in Pennsylvania…
I wonder what Trump toady Bill Barr will do after the election? Will Republican groups pay him fat speaking fees to defend Trump’s actions?
We haven’t heard much from Barr lately. I wonder if he has been trying to lay low.
How many people have died or gotten sick because of the ‘efforts to play down the COVID-19 throughout the summer? Keeping facts hidden doesn’t seem to be working…however the NYT is “fake news”. Grrr.
…………………………………………….
Mark Meadows, Trump’s Chief of Staff, Has the Coronavirus
Mr. Meadows aided President Trump’s efforts to play down the virus throughout the summer. A Trump campaign adviser and four other White House aides also tested positive.
Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff who abided by President Trump’s efforts to play down the coronavirus throughout the summer, has contracted the virus himself, a senior administration official said on Friday night.
Mr. Meadows tested positive for the virus on Wednesday, the official said, and he told a small group of advisers. A Trump campaign adviser, Nick Trainer, has also learned he has the virus, a person briefed on his diagnosis said.
And four other White House officials tested positive for the virus, a person familiar with the diagnoses told The New York Times. Bloomberg News also reported on the additional cases.
One White House official, who asked for anonymity because the official was not allowed to speak publicly about internal discussions, said people were told to keep quiet about the various cases. That follows how Mr. Meadows reacted when there was an outbreak in Vice President Mike Pence’s office a few weeks ago. At the time, Mr. Meadows sought to keep those cases from becoming public…
United States records over 1,000 deaths for fourth straight day.
As the eyes of a tired nation remained transfixed on the results of the presidential election, the United States set a daily record for new cases for the third straight day, with more than 132,700 new cases on Friday. And it reported more than 1,000 deaths for the fourth straight day, the first such stretch since August.
The United States first reported a record of over 107,000 cases in a single day on Wednesday. On Thursday, it was over 121,000 new cases, another record, according to a New York Times database.
The country recorded more than 1,220 deaths on Friday. It was the first time over 1,000 deaths had been recorded for four consecutive days since Aug. 25-28.
At least 17 states reported single day records for new cases on Friday. And four states reported record deaths: Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota and Utah.
In 27 states, there have been more cases announced in the past week than in any other seven-day stretch since the pandemic began. More than 54,800 people were hospitalized with the virus on Friday, according to the Covid Tracking Project.
Chicago Tribune
NOVEMBER 6, 2020
BREAKING NEWS
Illinois hospitalizations could soon break pandemic record, raising concerns about capacity
Illinois COVID-19 hospitalizations are rising so quickly that, in roughly a week, the number could surpass the highest tally seen in the spring surge, a Tribune analysis has found.
Sorry, if I’m on a roll with COVID-19 but I am FURIOUS that there is no guidance from the top. Trump is consumed with the fact that he might lose the election, and nothing else matters.
Gov. Holcomb doesn’t care as long as there are hospital beds in the ICU units and there is an availability of ventilators. Indiana is now totally ‘normal’ on Stage 5, except that we are still being asked to wear a mask. Nothing will happen if you don’t.
………………………………………………………
Saturday, November 07, 2020 1:00 am
Coronavirus hospitalizes 2,000 patients in state, a first [Indiana]
SHERRY SLATER | The Journal Gazette
The number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients in Indiana has spiked to 2,001 – the first time it has crossed the 2,000 threshold since the pandemic began, according to state data.
The Indiana State Department of Health’s dashboard Friday also showed 541 of those patients are in intensive care unit beds, occupying 25% of the state’s total ICU beds.
But only 7% of Indiana’s ventilators are being used by coronavirus patients; 77% are still available, the online dashboard showed. The remainder are in use for patients with other diagnoses.
As of Friday, 4,714 more Hoosiers had been diagnosed with COVID-19 to bring the total confirmed Indiana cases to 200,823.
Statewide, 37 more Hoosiers have died from the coronavirus to increase the total to 4,306. Officials note those deaths were updated Friday but occurred over multiple days.
They were added to the state total based on when data were received by state officials…
https://journalgazette.net/news/local/20201107/coronavirus-hospitalizes-2000-patients-in-state-a-first
Evidently red states don’t care about COVID
Last Hundred Days?
Lawfare
By Benjamin Wittes
Monday, November 2, 2020, 1:31 PM
..The bottom line? Even if there isn’t a seriously contested election, even if Trump’s efforts to delegitimize a result fall completely flat, and even if he keeps abusive lame-duck actions to a minimum, Trump’s last hundred days are going to see a grossly mishandled transition—one that may well leave the incoming administration blind on important issues as it takes office.
Put simply, if Trump loses on Tuesday, so begins a fateful period. It may well test the system’s resilience against a president who feels entitled to remain in office, election results be damned. It will certainly test the electoral system’s ability to generate its own legitimacy in the face of sustained presidential efforts to deprive a result of legitimacy. It will provide ample opportunity for the sort of abuses the man has shown himself eager to use his power to commit. And it will, at a minimum, offer the country a model of how not to transfer power in the American system.
It is a mark of how low President Trump has brought his office that this terrifying outcome is, hands down, the best the country can hope for when the votes are tallied.
http://www.lawfareblog.com/last-hundred-days?utm_campaign=PANTHEON_STRIPPED
Pure CR*P to keep Trumpers happy. The video and this article has no link. Trump is an evil racist who wants to take down the country. Whomever wrote that small comment was right. “Lock him UP!”
…………
RenewedRight.com
A shocking video proving major voter fraud just came out of Detroit
The media is doing their best to cover up voter fraud.
But the truth continues to come out.
And a shocking video proving major voter fraud just came out of Detroit.
Left-wing strongholds like Detroit are where voter fraud is most prevalent.
With Michigan being such a key state to the presidency, what goes on there is extremely relevant.
The media claims that Michigan has gone to Joe Biden, and aren’t even questioning any possibility otherwise.
But with it being as close as it is, irregularities are very important to take into account.
And one woman on the ground is blowing the whistle on one of these possible irregularities.
She claims that at 4AM the morning after the election, around 130,000 ballots came in in three different vehicles, a white van, a Chrysler 300, and a Ferrari with 100% of the votes going for Biden.
“As they started counting the ballots, he was astonished that every single ballot, literally 100 percent of 130,000 ballots, were all Biden ballots that hadn’t been delivered to the precinct before the cut off time,” she explained.
“We literally have people that watched it happen,” she continued. “We have poll challengers that have been barred from being able to go into this room to challenge ballots. We’ve had GOP members removed from the room.”
Further on, she talks about how after the ballots came in, Republican poll watchers were being blocked from the counting room, while Democrats were unencumbered.
130,000 ballots could make or break the state, with Biden leading by less than that.
This is why Trump supporters are raising the alarm, and the media and Big Tech platforms are working overtime to prevent this news from getting to people.
Twitter has put a warning label on most of Trump’s Tweets since the election, and prevented them from being directly shared.
If Democrats had any reasonable explanation, she could simply explain themselves.
But instead they are preventing anybody from talking about it, even going so far as to censor the President of the United States.
They are clearly willing to do anything to win, and Democrats are no stranger to cheating to get their way.
After spending four years claiming that Trump is an evil racist destroying the country, is it any surprise that they are going all-out to take down Trump.
Renewed Right will keep you up-to-date on any developments to this ongoing story.
This comes from the PatriotEagle:
Today’s Top News Story
Thousands of Michigan ballots that were meant for Republican candidates were wrongly counted for Democrats in at least one Michigan county, according to Michigan Republican Party chairwoman Laura Cox, who said 47 other counties used the same software that experienced this “glitch.”
Cox revealed the stunning error that occurred in Michigan’s Antrim County, which saw thousands of ballots going to Democrats instead of Republicans.
“If all this wasn’t enough, in Antrim County, ballots were counted for Democrats that were meant for Republicans, causing a 6,000 vote swing against our candidates,” she said during a Friday press conference alongside Republican National Committee (RNC) chairwoman Ronna McDaniel. Local election officials “identified” and “reviewed” the issue on Wednesday.
READ MORE HERE…
Thank you. You have given me hope in case Captain Depends and Willie Brown’s girlfriend actually pull this fraud off!
What fraud? Winning the election? Winning the electoral college and beating the Orange Idiot by 5 million votes? I assume you believe in Trump but not democracy.
Indeed, according to Fox Biden leads the electoral college 290:214 which means he leads there by 15%. In the popular vote count he leads by 3.4% but it surely will go up to 4% or 6 million. That’s more than twice the population of the city of Chicago. Looks like a landslide to me.
Trump’s Frivolous Lawsuits Are the Tip of the Iceberg in His Refusal to Concede
November 11, 2020
None of Trump’s lawsuits risk changing the results of the election, but his refusal to concede does not bode well.
…Trump probably thinks the Supreme Court, with his three appointees, will respond to his court challenges by handing him the presidency. That won’t happen. But his flurry of lawsuits is also designed to cast doubt on the integrity of the election. As Robert Reich noted, “Trump backers are trying to push Republican-controlled state legislatures to appoint their own slates of Trump electors. That’s why the campaign has launched empty legal challenges to perfectly normal vote counts – trying to sow enough doubt to give the state legislatures political cover to appoint their own electors.”
In his desperation to maintain power, we can expect Trump to pull out all the stops in the next two-and-a-half months before Inauguration Day.
He plans large rallies to rile his gun-toting base. He has enlisted most Republican leaders, including Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham, to collaborate with his attempted theft of the election.
Since the election, Attorney General William Barr told department officials that he didn’t see massive voter fraud or a systemic problem. But on Monday, under pressure from Trump, Barr authorized federal prosecutors to investigate “substantial allegations of voting and vote tabulation irregularities.” He limited the investigations to what he described as “clear and apparently-credible allegations of irregularities that, if true, could potentially impact the outcome of a federal election in an individual State.” Weeks before the election, the department had removed its prohibition on voter fraud investigations prior to an election.
In response to Barr’s directive, Richard Pilger, the Justice Department official directing voter fraud investigations, immediately stepped down from his job in protest.
Barr’s authorization will give McConnell and other GOP leaders ammunition to oppose Biden’s victory.
Trump is mounting a full-court press to steal the election from Joe Biden. The refusal to accept the election results by Trump and his congressional and Justice Department accomplices, coupled with his obstruction of the transition process, do not bode well for a peaceful transfer of power.
https://truthout.org/articles/trumps-frivolous-lawsuits-are-the-tip-of-the-iceberg-in-his-refusal-to-concede/?utm_source=Truthout&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Truthout+Share+Buttons
I was afraid of something like that. I’ve been a Republican, an independent and a Democrat. After what we have been going through I will never consider being a republican again. I honestly think that the Lincoln Group are some of the best, smartest people I have ever heard speak. They are what are used to think the Republicans were. Too bad that people like Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham even exist no matter what party what day in. Somehow we can’t split old farts like Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham ruin any more lives or kill any more people. I am so sure that it is not going to be good for them once they hit to the other side. I just wish that God would put a rush on that. LOL
The old Republican Party was in favor of fiscal responsibility (Trump is not).
The old Republican Party was in favor of personal responsibility (Trump is not).
The old Republican Party was in favor of character (Trump has none).
The old Republican Party favored immigration (Trump does not).
The new Republican Party is: Whatever Trump says.
Here is an opinion piece from South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. How interesting that they are putting down the Orange Ignoramus.
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Last thing world hit by coronavirus needs is US political chaos
Shared from South China Morning Post [Hong Kong]
Last thing world hit by Covid-19 needs is US political chaos
The smooth transition of power that the world had hoped for from the United States presidential election has not materialised.
Republican incumbent Donald Trump, rather than conceding defeat to his Democratic rival Joe Biden, is continuing his still unproven claims of voter fraud and legal challenges of counts and making decisions that create greater confusion. America is the world’s only superpower, so the expected uncertainty in coming months has implications for global stability.
For China, the region and world, this is a setback for major challenges, including the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic, the possibility of economic recovery and a return to normal trade, supply chains and travel.
Each day Trump refuses to accept defeat has an ever-higher cost for people in the US and around the world. The country still has no effective nationwide strategy to deal with the disease, and mixed messages are still being sent on mask-wearing…
https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3109831/last-thing-world-hit-coronavirus-needs-us-political-chaos?utm_source=email&utm_medium=share_widget&utm_campaign=3109831
There are nearly 1,200 execulive-level presidential appointments requiring senate approval, that President Biden cannot replace without the senate. https://www.thoughtco.com/presidentially-appointed-jobs-requiring-senate-approval-3322227
We need McConnell replaced as Senate Majority Leader, so a Democratic win for both senate seats in Georgia’s US Senate runoff elections is crucial.
Go to Stacy Abrams website at: https//fairfight.com , scroll to the bottom and click ‘Donate’. It will bring you to https://secure.actblue.com/donate/fair-fight-1 , where you can donate to Stacy Abram’s people in influencing Georgia’s US Senate runoff election.
We Have To Thank Stacey Abrams For Biden’s Win In Georgia
https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2020/11/10153283/stacey-abrams-joe-biden-georgia-win-presidential-election
In Denver, as an aging retired janitor with limited income, I donated $100 to Stacy Abram’s fight for a Democratic Senate majority. If we don’t win two Democratic US senators in Georgia, we’ll have to wait two years until the next senate race.
Could be worse….they could impeach Biden, refuse to work with him… literally. Come up with a voting hoax and call him illegitimate his whole presidency. Bring up all his faux pas insensitive racial comments and label him a racist. Then have a mysterious ” super bug ” get released in 2023 just to ensure everything tanks…that was a coincidence I’m sure.
This is the beginning of war in the United States. There won’t be healing and coming together. There’s 70 million people who hate democrats as much as those democrats hate Republicans. It might take 2 or 4 or 10 years to really kick off, but there’s no stopping it now. God help us all
Your numbers are exaggerations. It’s doubtful that these 79 vs 73 million people hate each other. Even here, where most posters are on the very left in the 79 million, there is no such generic hate.
Jan 20 will come and go, with Trumptler somewhere is Russia, trying make his next deal in the real estate criminal enterprise, while Rudy will be in one of the har salons in Brooklyn, trying to fix his leaking hair.
Trump’s last fizzle on the national stage is a disgrace to this country. He went golfing before the virtual meeting ended.
Exactly how did Trump’s administration work to get a vaccine? Oh, I know. Trump wanted a vaccine so scientists worked to please him. /s
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WaPo:
By Ishaan Tharoor
with Benjamin Soloway
Leaders of the Group of 20 major economies convened in a virtual summit this weekend that prioritized the global challenge of countering the coronavirus pandemic. Trump was conspicuous in his indifference. At a Saturday session on international vaccine production and distribution, Trump delivered a perfunctory set of remarks where he made no commitment to expand the availability of U.S. vaccines. Then he left to play a round of golf while his counterparts were still speaking.
According to audio obtained by the Guardian, Trump also told the leaders assembled virtually that he looked forward to working with them “for a long time,” even though most of them had already congratulated President-elect Joe Biden on his election victory. His brief address on the pandemic touted the might of the U.S. military and economy and his administration’s role in helping to create a vaccine. “His was the anomalous speech,” a diplomatic source said to the Guardian. “Everyone else talked about global matters of life and death.”
The next day in a meeting on climate change and the environment, Trump once again waved his “America First” standard, decrying global efforts to reckon with climate change. “The Paris accord was not designed to save the environment,” he said. “It was designed to kill the American economy.”
The mounting impatience of his counterparts is not difficult to imagine. Trump’s foray into foreign policy began in pomp and splendor as a guest of Saudi King Salman in Riyadh in May 2017. Nearly four years later, it was fizzling out in a virtual session hosted by the same monarch, whose own officials made statements that seemed to criticize Trump’s approach to the pandemic, including his withdrawal from the U.N.’s World Health Organization.
The summit’s closing joint communique supported strengthening the WHO and boosting overall global coordination. It could be read as “a retort to the Trump administration and its go-it-alone approach to international challenges ranging from the pandemic to climate change,” reported my colleague Kareem Fahim.
“As best we know, no G-20 participants told Trump to his virtual face that his time is up, and no one here will write him off until he is finally gone,” noted CNN correspondent Nic Robertson. “But he seemed to make the point himself as the G-20 wrapped and the King delivered the final communique while surrounded by leaders in their zoom boxes, Trump was not in his chair — instead a disinterested underling, an apparent final gesture of contempt.”
This is the ultimate case of projection. Where have you been for the last 4 years? The Dems and their MSM marketing department have berated, belittled and demonized Trump and anybody supporting him. Verbal assaults aside, they employed the 21st century brown shirts ( ANTIFA) funded by an anti-American NY billionaire. Stop the gaslighting, Moron.
You are insinuating that a group that opposes fascism is financed by George Soros. Where is your evidence? Are you a garden variety anti-Semite? I am anti-fascist. Aren’t you?
First off Mcconnell is so happily drunk on the power that not only his friends in the senate will gladly give him daily but the position the ignorant masses from his home state keep giving him by continuing to vote for the narcissistic jerk regardless of how much of an ass he continually proves himself to be. If they won’t vote him out we need to find a way to get him out.
The GOP is really afraid of crossing Trump.
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The Washington Post
News Alert
Dec. 5, 8:24 a.m. EST
Just 25 of the 249 congressional Republicans acknowledge Joe Biden’s win over President Trump, Post survey finds
The Post contacted all 249 Republicans in the House and the Senate as the president continues to perpetuate falsehoods about widespread voter fraud and a rigged election.
Two Republicans actually consider Trump the winner despite all evidence showing otherwise. And another 222 GOP members — almost 90 percent of all Republicans serving in Congress — will simply not say who won the election.
Wow! They live in terror of Trump.
I think they just do not trust each other and the republican party itself that they will survive without a Trump-like figure. I think they are right. Their conservative ideas are outdated, especially their beliefs in punishments as a cure for all and uncontrolled freedoms, and only with an aggressive stance they can survive for a few more years. After Biden, there could very well be 3 or more parties instead of 2.
The Washington Post is a propaganda opinion tag for the far left swamp. Dont believe anything coming out of this toilet.
Betty White: Welcome to being one of the Trump supporters whom Diane says can ‘come into her living room’. I believe many don’t have that honor.
Please send us all of the links to the news that you get.
Please also list what Trump has has done to Make America Great. Make that list specific and you will get a lot of comments back.
PS. The Washington Post is a respectable newspaper. I’d be more likely to say that the toilet media comes from Fox, Newsmax, Breitbart, Breaking Christian News, Patriotic Times, Sinclair or any publication or TV media that continues to tell of the wondrous things Trump has done for this country.
Biden has been a failure for the last 50 years. If these fascists are successful in stealing the election for him, it will just be more of the same. China will become the definitive world power, the middle class be knee capped, and the age of socialist america will begin.
“the age of socialist america will begin.”
I certainly hope so, so that we can catch up to the rest of the world
Máté Wierdl: Ohhh. GOOD comment.
Medicare for All would be a great start. Imagine everyone in the U.S. having health insurance that they can afford during a pandemic.
When I come back spending the summer in Europe, it always takes me at least a month to get used to the three basic fears here: health care, child care, higher ed. Even after almost 4 decades as a univ prof, I won’t be able to retire here for fear of not being able to afford proper health care.
” If these fascists are successful in stealing the election for him,”
What does the “if” do there? The election has been decided, and the Fascist lost.
Do you wonder if she knows what the word “fascist” means? Lots of word salad and and not much evidence of understanding.
I’m not sure where to put this article so I’ll get posted here.
Boise and Meridian aren’t doing very well. [They are Ada County.] What is infuriating is that the anti-maskers were protesting so loudly that a board that was considering making wearing masks a mandate were terrified out of doing anything. One lady had to rush home because they were causing a big disturbance in front of her house and her two children were home alone while their grandmother had been out walking a dog.
Idaho is getting ready for ‘crisis standards’ health care rationing.
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Since Dec. 1, Ada County’s COVID-19 daily case rate has risen 50% — and topped 400
DECEMBER 12, 2020 4:00 AM
Since Dec. 1, Ada County’s COVID-19 daily case rate has risen 50% — and topped 400
Ada County set a record seven-day moving average for COVID-19 cases for the fourth time this week, hitting an average 408.6 new confirmed cases per day — an increase of nearly 50% since the beginning of the month.
According to data from the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, Ada County added 371 new COVID-19 cases Saturday, bringing its total for the pandemic to 27,086. The average daily case rate for the county has increased 49.6% since Dec. 1, when Ada County was reporting 273.1 new confirmed cases per day.
Ada County’s Saturday total accounted for nearly half of the day’s 773 new confirmed cases reported statewide. Canyon and Kootenai counties also reported significant numbers of new cases, but neither total neared Ada’s. Canyon reported 94 new cases for a total of 15,950 to date, while Kootenai reported 80 new cases for a total of 8,957…
DAILY DETAILS
Overall hospitalizations: Health and Welfare reports that there have been 4,746 hospitalizations of people with COVID-19, 875 admissions to the ICU and 5,874 health care workers infected. Hospital and health care numbers are based on cases with completed investigations into contacts, not the full number of positives.
St. Luke’s Health System: As of Dec. 11, the health system was reporting 120 patients in its hospitals with confirmed COVID-19 out of 461 patients overall. The health system reported a 14-day coronavirus test positivity rate of 17%.
Saint Alphonsus Health System: As of Dec. 11, the health system was reporting 107 patients in its hospitals with confirmed COVID-19 out of 293 patients overall. The health system reported a 14-day coronavirus test positivity rate of 26%….
Testing totals: At the end of the day Saturday, Health and Welfare reported that 504,213 people had been tested statewide. About 20% of those have been positive for COVID-19…
Read more here: https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/coronavirus/article247808940.html?ac_cid=DM343036&ac_bid=-1161313429#storylink=cpy
https://www.idahosta
Omg, and big boo hoo. Ridiculous column from typically biased Dem. I can’t wait to sit back & laugh when you morons reap what you sow. You have no life of your own & are so jealous of those that do that you’re trying to suck the life out of us, too. Probably had Mommy issues, or Daddy issues, or were bullied for being mean & ugly or some other such nonsense. Sorry you’re life has always sucked. Quit trying to take your anger out on the stable part of America.
You mean those stable idiots who were rampaging around Washington D.C. or the stable pretend electors casting their “votes” for Trump? How about the A.G.s with their fake lawsuit trying to overturn the elections in the states they didn’t win?
a.r. loiselle: “Quit trying to take your anger out on the stable part of America.”
Why do you think I have any mommy or daddy issues when I know that Biden won the election. If you are the ‘stable part of America’, please elaborate on why?
McConnell has recently decided to congratulate Biden on his win. That in no way means that he will support any of the important policy issues that Biden wants passed.
Personally, I like the thought of having legislation that would address the problems that Trump cares nothing about.
Trump denies climate change because corporations can make money by not having to clean up their messes. There is no Plan B when the planet becomes uninhabitable. Other countries have child care. Why can’t the U.S.? The current minimum wage is $7.25. Nobody can work full time and exist on that. Republicans are against having a new Voting Rights Act because gerrymandering and voter suppression are helping them get elected. [Is this a stable part of America…fewer people voting?] Our infrastructure is falling apart. Fortunately we have magnificent roads and bridges that were built years ago. They’d never be funded now.
Trump appointed, and they were confirmed by the Senate, some judges that even the American Bar Association deemed unfit to serve.
Germany is having another lockdown because that country is concerned about the spread of COVID-19. Trump isn’t interested in helping slow the spread of the virus. Boasting about how much he did to create a vaccine is nothing more than his violating air space.
McConnell, who is very wealthy, cares nothing about helping average or poor people by passing a meaningful stimulus.
There will be no other significant legislation as long as Republicans retain control.
Who would have guessed that Lincoln knew that someone like Trump would ever be elected? I”m sure that Lincoln would have parted with Trump before he got elected. SDNY is doing a good job of finding out how wrong, and crooked, this con man is.
Abraham Lincoln, “Stand with anybody that stands right. Stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong.”
All of us will suffer unless Biden undoes this damage to our environment and our health. It is Trump’s ignorance that is ‘sucking the life” out of everyone on the planet.
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The Trump administration’s major environmental deregulations
Over the last four years, the Trump administration has taken on a massive deregulatory effort. With the issuance of Executive Order 13771, the administration’s two-for-one rule, federal agencies were directed to eliminate two regulations for each new rule issued. Much of this effort has focused on scaling back previous Obama-era regulations and weakening agencies’ statutory authority. Notably, environmental regulation has proven a prominent and easy target, as many existing policies and regulations had never been enshrined into law. The Trump administration has replaced the Clean Power Plan, redefined critical terms under the Endangered Species Act, lifted oil and natural gas extraction bans, weakened the Coal Ash Rule, which regulates the disposal of toxic coal waste, and revised Mercury and Air Toxic Standards–just to name a few[1].
Over the past few months, various federal agencies have finalized major environmental deregulations marking the end of, in some cases, years-long processes. The rules vary in consequence, from walking back pesticide bans to encouraging fossil fuel extraction on federal lands, weakening emissions standards, and even countering previous Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) findings. The Center on Regulation and Markets has been tracking these ongoing deregulations. A sampling of some of the most consequential environmental revisions and rescissions to date are listed below…
https://brook.gs/3a7zSyY
Axios:
Mitch McConnell alerted Kevin McCarthy, House Minority Leader [R-Calif.], this morning that he would congratulate Joe Biden for winning the Electoral College vote, but McCarthy is refusing to do the same, and a group of 26 incoming GOP House members sent Nancy Pelosi a letter asking the Speaker to investigate alleged voter fraud, Axios’ Alayna Treene reports.
Why it matters: While the Senate majority leader is trying to return a sense of equilibrium to his chamber, McCarthy — who’s already plotting his run for House Speaker in 2022 — is refusing to do anything that could upset President Trump.
On Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who had been noticeable mum on the subject, stepped to the chamber podium to congratulate Biden on his victory. Fellow GOP Senate leaders Lindsey Graham and Roy Blunt seconded that motion, and even Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized Biden’s win…
Trump responded to news of the expanding consensus behind Biden with another off-the-wall tweet that drew another warning flag: “Tremendous evidence pouring in on voter fraud. There has never been anything like this in our Country!”
The stupid keep giving $$$. The Trump organization has sent out 498 fundraising emails.
The rules on spending by leadership PACs are far more relaxed than those for campaign committees and do not restrict politicians from using donors’ funds for personal expenses.
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Trump campaign asks supporters if the President should run in 2024
By Betsy Klein, CNN
Updated 9:42 PM ET, Tue December 15, 2020
(CNN)President Donald Trump has not conceded the presidential election, but it appears a fundraising appeal from his campaign may have finally done so.
“Should President Trump run in 2024?” a fundraising email from the campaign sent to supporters Tuesday evening asked.
Like most campaign fundraising emails from both parties, Tuesday evening’s note — one of seven sent just on Tuesday — appealed to its recipients with bombastic, urgent language.
“Let’s make something clear: the Radical Left STOLE this Election from President Trump,” the email said.
There is no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election, and the Electoral College officially affirmed President-elect Joe Biden’s victory on Monday.
The email continued, “He’s always been able to count on the American People for advice, which is why he asked us to reach out with ONE very important question,” linking to a poll.
Once participants complete the “Yes” or “No” poll, they are encouraged to contribute to what it described as the “Senate Runoff Election.”
The White House press secretary could not answer that same question when standing at the White House briefing room’s podium earlier Tuesday.
“I will leave that to the President, but he’s still pursuing ongoing litigation at the moment for this election,” Kayleigh McEnany said when asked whether Trump intends to run in four years and whether she would like to be part of his campaign.
The legal fine print on the donation page, which says Trump is raising money for the US Senate runoff elections in Georgia, shows that 75% of the funds donated up to $5,000 will go to Save America, a new Trump fundraising leadership PAC launched after the election. Save America could become an avenue for Trump to continue funding political operations as he weighs a presidential bid in 2024.
It’s part of why the Trump campaign has blitzed supporters with so many solicitations. Since 11 p.m. ET on Election Day, the Trump campaign has sent at least 498 fundraising emails and 170 text messages.
The rules on spending by leadership PACs are far more relaxed than those for campaign committees and do not restrict politicians from using donors’ funds for personal expenses — a use forbidden in a presidential campaign account.
So far, it’s been a lucrative effort — the campaign had raised more than $207 million since Election Day amid Trump’s baseless election fraud claims as of December 4.
CNN’s Fredreka Schouten contributed to this report.
Poor Trump. Who would want that lying no-good for a neighbor?
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Mar-a-Lago Neighbors Tell Trump That They Don’t Want Him to Live There
Jamie Ross
Reporter
Published
Dec. 16, 2020
4:51AM ET
Reuters/Carlos Barria
President Trump is expected to make Mar-a-Lago his legal residence and home when he becomes an ex-president next month—and his would-be neighbors are absolutely horrified by the idea. According to The Washington Post, neighbors of the waterfront Florida complex have formally communicated to the president that they don’t want him to live there when he’s forced from the White House after Joe Biden’s inauguration. A demand letter was reportedly delivered to the town of Palm Beach on Tuesday asserting that Trump lost his legal right to live at Mar-a-Lago when he converted the estate from his private residence to a private club in the 1990s. In the letter, the neighbors reportedly say the town must tell Trump that he can’t live at Mar-a-Lago to “avoid an embarrassing situation” if the outgoing president moves to the club and later has to be made to leave.
Read it at The Washington Post
This is off topic but is great news. If pastors push for this type of abuse, they should be criminalized.
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BBC
Gay conversion therapy: Hundreds of religious leaders call for ban
More than 370 religious leaders from around the world are calling for a ban on conversion therapy – the attempt to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.
The signatories to the declaration represent all the world’s major faiths and many are known LGBT advocates.
They include South African cleric Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former Chief Rabbi of Ireland David Rosen.
Other religious figures said a ban could risk criminalising pastors.
A declaration calling for a ban will be launched at a conference sponsored by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) on Wednesday.
The Anglican Bishop of Liverpool, Paul Bayes, and Mary McAleese, the former president of Ireland, are also among those who have signed the declaration.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has repeated a promise to ban conversion therapy, saying in July that the practice was “absolutely abhorrent” and “has no place in this country”.
The government has yet to publish details of the ban but said it had commissioned research and would outline its plans “in due course”.
The term “conversion therapy” refers to any form of treatment or psychotherapy which aims to change a person’s sexual orientation or to suppress a person’s gender identity.
It can range from electric shock treatment to religious teachings or talking therapies designed to change someone’s sexuality.
The practice is already outlawed in Switzerland and areas of Australia, Canada and the US…
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-55326461?xtor=AL-72-%5Bpartner%5D-%5Bgnl.newsletters%5D-%5Bheadline%5D-%5Bnews%5D-%5Bbizdev%5D-%5Bisapi%5D&xtor=ES-213-%5BBBC News Newsletter]-2020December16-[top+news+stories]