The Washington Post explains how Trump’s choice for the GSA has blocked Biden’s transition planning:
A Trump administration appointee is refusing to sign a letter allowing President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team to formally begin its work this week, in another sign the incumbent president has not acknowledged Biden’s victory and could disrupt the transfer of power.Follow the latest on Election 2020
The administrator of the General Services Administration, the low-profile agency in charge of federal buildings, has a little-known role when a new president is elected: to sign paperwork officially turning over millions of dollars, as well as give access to government officials, office space in agencies and equipment authorized for the taxpayer-funded transition teams of the winner.
It amounts to a formal declaration by the federal government, outside of the media, of the winner of the presidential race.
But by Sunday evening, almost 36 hours after media outlets projected Biden as the winner, GSA Administrator Emily Murphy had written no such letter. And the Trump administration, in keeping with the president’s failure to concede the election, has no immediate plans to sign one. This could lead to the first transition delay in modern history, except in 2000, when the Supreme Court decided a recount dispute between Al Gore and George W. Bush in December.
“An ascertainment has not yet been made,” Pamela Pennington, a spokeswoman for GSA, said in an email, “and its Administrator will continue to abide by, and fulfill, all requirements under the law.”
The GSA statement left experts on federal transitions to wonder when the White House expects the handoff from one administration to the next to begin — when the president has exhausted his legal avenues to fight the results, or the formal vote of the electoral college on Dec. 14? There are 74 days, as of Sunday, until the Biden inauguration on Jan. 20.
“No agency head is going to get out in front of the president on transition issues right now,” said one senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly. The official predicted that agency heads will be told not to talk to the Biden team.
Here’s the General Services Administration letter in 2008 authorizing the presidential transition
The decision has turned attention to Murphy, whose four-year tenure has been marked by several controversies involving the president, an unusually high profile for an agency little known outside of Washington.ADhttps://1172e0dead972cb9362ac3bba9372937.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.html
“Her action now has to be condemned,” said Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.), who leads a House oversight panel on federal operations. “It’s behavior that is consistent with her subservience to wishes of the president himself, and it is clearly harmful to the orderly transition of power.”
The delay has implications both practical and symbolic.
By declaring the “apparent winner” of a presidential election, the GSA administrator releases computer systems and money for salaries and administrative support for the mammoth undertaking of setting up a new government — $9.9 million this year.
Transition officials get government email addresses. They get office space at every federal agency. They can begin to work with the Office of Government Ethics to process financial disclosure and conflict-of-interest forms for their nominees.
There are two laws, one signed by Obama, the other signed by Trump, that mandates this transition steps. I have not heard if Biden can go to the courts to enforce these federal laws.
I’m surprised one of them is working, even if she is working to overturn an election.
There’s a lot of criticism of the Trump Administration but all the noise they make and the lies and other nonsense obscure what is really true of these public employees- they don’t do any work. They make no positive contribution at all. We’ve been paying thousands of Trump appointees for four years and all they accomplish is defending Donald Trump and attacking anyone who criticizes or otherwise threatens Donald Trump.
It’s a shame we have to pay them until January 20th.I don’t know how they square collecting paychecks when they produce so little of value. What a waste.
Maybe that’s why the Trump employees are refusing to recognize they lost. If they recognize it they’ll have to do some work on the transition and after four years of featherbedding and producing nothing other than campaign slogans and “tweets” they’d prefer to spend the next 70 days doing nothing while getting paid.
They don’t object to Biden. They object to working.
I’ve just never seen anything like it. Is this the position of the Republican Party now? If you’re unlucky enough to elect one of them they won’t leave unless they’re forcibly evicted?
Seems like a real incentive to never hire another one.Their position is you’re stuck with them for life once they burrow in.
I hope I’m wrong but I don’t think Donald Trump and his cult-like employees are leaving voluntarily. These people are absolutely bonkers. We’ll need a crowbar to dislodge them from these paychecks and no-work jobs.
The president does not care that 100,000s people have died and been hospitalized on his watch – even after his lame defense that he banned travel from China (8 months ago and then did nothing).
Senators and representatives and his lackeys spread the myth that the president government were doing something while disrespecting experts and common sense.
All of their names should go under accomplice to “cause of death.”
SO – what makes us think that putting national security at risk, military in harms way, and increasing our vulnerability to our enemies would be any more important than 100,000+ deaths.
We learned today (WAPO and other outlets) from Bush Chief of Staff that the 9/11 Commission cited the delay in transition contributed to missing information prior to the attack.
The president is now appointing clueless friends to the Pentagon. Decades-long civil service employees are resigning or stuck because they can’t lose their jobs.
G-d forbid an enemy uses this President-caused dysfunction (the situation and the president’s) as an opportunity.
Those same senators and representatives and enabling lackeys would once again be cited in the “cause of death” section of the form.
I could see this spreading all through the Right. They’ll refuse to turn over championship trophies at sporting events, “contest” ACT and SAT scores, appeal college admissions decisions, insist the coin was weighted in a coin toss.
One would be crazy to enter any kind of competition with them- the only valid outcome is they won. We’ll have to get sworn statements from the players before the soccer game starts that the conservatives on the team will respect the final score and even then they may not.
They really want this as an approach to losing a competition? They tell each other they really won and have a 2 week tantrum rather than concede?
Many years ago, we were taught the maxim that “It isn’t whether you win or lose, but how you play the game.” The Republicans never heard of that.
That was always nonsense and every parent telling their kid that knew it.
Winning is everything in our society.
The only way I have found to send a message to Emily Murphy, administrator of GSA came from the Region 10 administrator ‘s office. Go to comments@gsa.govu I’m
Emily Murphy is also on Twitter.
@GSAEmily
Here’s a link to the GSA Presidential Transition that also has a link to send comments.
https://www.gsa.gov/about-us/mission-and-background/gsas-role-in-presidential-transitions
Cheryl: Thanks for the link. I sent in a comment.
Mail-in ballots are only fraudulent if Democrats win. Biden is still ahead in the Electoral College tally with 290 to Trump’s 217.
………………………
Trump Team Suddenly OK With Election Results After Alaska Win
GET YOUR SH*T STRAIGHT
Rachel Olding
Breaking News Editor
Published Nov. 11, 2020 2:45PM ET
Prominent Trumpsters, after claiming for days that election results were fraudulent and media outlets were in no place to announce winners, celebrated a call by media outlets on Wednesday that Trump and Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan had won Alaska. The Trump campaign and GOP have made unproven accusations of ballot fraud and irregular counting in several states—all of them won by Joe Biden or projected to go to Biden. Unsurprisingly, they were happy to accept the will of the voters and trust election officials in Alaska, a state that set a record for mail-in voting.
“BREAKING: President Trump and Senate Republicans win Alaska, overwhelmingly and by a massive 20 point spread! Put AK in the books for @realDonaldTrump!” Ivanka Trump wrote while retweeting a call from the Associated Press—the same outlet that has called the election for Biden. Trump campaign adviser Stephen Miller, Trump-loving Fox News host Laura Ingraham and several pro-Trump media outlets also noted the win. Trump’s Electoral College tally is now 217 compared to Biden’s 290.
If Trump were operating the Star Trek transporter and Biden asked to beam aboard, Trump would undoubtedly beam him into deep space
Beam me up, Emily
Emily , beam me up!
Nix that Em, make haste!
Make it really tough
Beam him into space
This is off-topic. Holcomb just got re-elected as governor.
My protest letter to Gov. Holcomb [R-IN]:
You falsely claim that we Hoosiers were mistaken in the belief that Stage 5 meant going back to normal? Stage 5 was normal except for saying, “Please wear a mask.” There was no ruling for any type of retribution against those Trump lovers who continued to demand their FREEDOM to infect others and wouldn’t wear a mask.
YOU denied waiting until after the election to crack down on the rising cases and deaths in Indiana due to COVID-19 – even though metrics have been moving in the wrong direction for a month. How many deaths are on YOU for wanting so badly to get re-elected?
On Wednesday, the state set a new record for daily positive cases at 5,156.
Your lack of leadership caused Indiana’s positivity rate rising from 3.9% in September to 10.3%. Your inaction has resulted in Indiana hospitals being overrun and health care workers nearing exhaustion. You are NOW taking action to give relief to the stressed health care system. BETTER LATE THAN NEVER.
There is no restriction on the number of people who can attend church services. You are still afraid of Trump’s church loving people who would scream about the government’s overreach. Let them infect themselves…but it’s innocents in the state who will be infected by these people who cannot pray at home.
SHOW SOME LEADERSHIP OR THIS STATE WILL CONTINUE TO HAVE RISING NUMBERS OF COVID-19. DON’T GIVE IN TO THE TRUMP LOVERS.
Karl Rove, in his Wall Street Journal column (subscription), is definitive: “This Election Result Won’t Be Overturned. Recounts occasionally change margins in the hundreds, never in the tens of thousands.”
……………………………….
My brother informed me that he doesn’t watch Fox anymore. He has switched to NewsMax. Gee. Even Karl Rove in the WSJ must be too far L since he is admitting that the election will go to Biden. I hate to think of the garbage any media started by Trump would send out. Of course, he would continue to tell everyone that he is the “Chosen One’ who will fix everything if given another chance. Hope he is in prison by 2024.
…………………………………
Axios:
President Trump has told friends he wants to start a digital media company to clobber Fox News and undermine the conservative-friendly network, sources tell me.
Some Trump advisers think Fox News made a mistake with an early call (seconded by AP) of a Joe Biden win in Arizona. That enraged Trump, and gave him something tangible to use in his attacks on the network.
“He plans to wreck Fox. No doubt about it,” said a source with detailed knowledge of Trump’s intentions.
With loyal viewers and longtime dominance, Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch said on a Nov. 3 earnings call:
“We love competition. We have always thrived with competition. … Fox News has been the number one network, including broadcast networks, … from Labor Day through to Election Day.”
Here’s Trump’s plan, according to the source:
There’s been lots of speculation about Trump starting a cable channel. But getting carried on cable systems would be expensive and time-consuming.
Instead, Trump is considering a digital media channel that would stream online, which would be cheaper and quicker to start.
Trump’s digital offering would likely charge a monthly fee to MAGA fans. Many are Fox News viewers, and he’d aim to replace the network — and the $5.99-a-month Fox Nation streaming service, which has an 85% conversion rate from free trials to paid subscribers — as their top destination.
Trump’s database of email and cellphone contacts would be a huge head start.
Trump’s lists are among the most valuable in politics — especially his extensive database of cellphone numbers for text messages.
I’m told Trump may use vote-count rallies to undercut Fox.
“He’s going to spend a lot of time slamming Fox,” the source said.
Trump has increasingly complained that Fox News interviews more Democrats than it used to. He has needled the network by promoting other conservative outlets, including One America News and Newsmax.
“Fox has changed a lot,” Trump said during the most recent interview he has given anywhere, with “Fox & Friends” on Election Day. “Somebody said: What’s the biggest difference between this and four years ago? And I say Fox. … It’s one of the biggest differences this season compared to last.”
If Karl Rove has given up, you know it’s time to throw in the towel. His “analysis” is usually skewed waay waaaaay toward Unreality.