Political reporter David Sanger wrote a fascinating analysis of Trump’s attempt to reverse the results of the election. Trump lost the electoral college; Biden won 306 votes, surpassing the necessary 270. Trump lost the popular vote by nearly six million votes. He obviously forgot that he swore an oath on the Bible to defend the Constitution. He is actively subverting it.
David Sanger wrote:
President Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election are unprecedented in American history and an even more audacious use of brute political force to gain the White House than when Congress gave Rutherford B. Hayes the presidency during Reconstruction.
Mr. Trump’s chances of succeeding are somewhere between remote and impossible, and a sign of his desperation after President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. won by nearly six million popular votes and counting, as well as a clear Electoral College margin. Yet the fact that Mr. Trump is even trying has set off widespread alarms, not least in Mr. Biden’s camp.
“I’m confident he knows he hasn’t won,” Mr. Biden said at a news conference in Wilmington, Del., on Thursday, before adding, “It’s just outrageous what he’s doing.” Although Mr. Biden dismissed Mr. Trump’s behavior as embarrassing, he acknowledged that “incredibly damaging messages are being sent to the rest of the world about how democracy functions.”
Mr. Trump has only weeks to make his last-ditch effort work: Most of the states he needs to strip Mr. Biden of votes are scheduled to certify their electors by the beginning of next week. The electors cast their ballots on Dec. 14, and Congress opens them in a joint session on Jan. 6.
Even if Mr. Trump somehow pulled off his electoral vote switch, there are other safeguards in place, assuming people in power do not simply bend to the president’s will.
The first test will be Michigan, where Mr. Trump is trying to get the State Legislature to overturn Mr. Biden’s 157,000-vote margin of victory. He has taken the extraordinary step of inviting a delegation of state Republican leaders to the White House, hoping to persuade them to ignore the popular vote outcome.
“That’s not going to happen,” Mike Shirkey, the Republican leader of the Michigan State Senate, said on Tuesday. “We are going to follow the law and follow the process.”
Beyond that, Michigan’s Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, could send Congress a competing electoral slate, based on the election vote, arguing that the proper procedures were ignored. That dispute would create just enough confusion, in Mr. Trump’s Hail Mary calculus, that the House and Senate together would have to resolve it in ways untested in modern times.
Federal law dating to 1887, passed in reaction to the Hayes election, provides the framework, but not specifics, of how it would be done. Edward B. Foley, a constitutional law and election law expert at Ohio State University, noted that the law only required Congress to consider all submissions “purporting to be the valid electoral votes.”
But Michigan alone would not be enough for Mr. Trump. He would also need at least two other states to fold to his pressure. The most likely candidates are Georgia and Arizona, which both went for Mr. Trump in 2016 and have Republican-controlled legislatures and Republican governors.
Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona has said he will accept the state election results, although only after all the campaign lawsuits are resolved. Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, where a hand recount reaffirmed Mr. Biden’s victory on Thursday, has not publicly said one way or another who won his state.
Mr. Trump has said little in public apart from tweets endorsing wild conspiracy theories about how he was denied victory. Yet his strategy, if it can be called that, has become clear over two days of increasingly frenetic action by a president 62 days from losing power.
In just that time, Mr. Trump has fired the federal election official who has challenged his false claims of fraud, tried to halt the vote-certification process in Detroit to disenfranchise an overwhelmingly Black electorate that voted against him, and now is misusing the powers of his office in his effort to take Michigan’s 16 electoral votes away from Mr. Biden.
In many ways it is even more of an attempted power grab than the one in 1876. At the time, Hayes was governor of Ohio, not president of the United States. Ulysses S. Grant was, and when Hayes won — also by wrenching the vote around in three states — he became known as “His Fraudulency.”
“But this is far worse,” said Michael Beschloss, the presidential historian and author of “Presidents of War.” “In the case of Hayes, both sides agreed that the outcome in at least three states was in dispute. In this case, no serious person thinks enough votes are in dispute that Donald Trump could have been elected on Election Day.”
“This is a manufactured crisis. It is a president abusing his huge powers in order to stay in office after the voters clearly rejected him for re-election.”
He added: “This is what many of the founders dreaded.”
Mr. Trump telegraphed this strategy during the campaign. He told voters at a rally in Middletown, Pa., in September that he would win at the polls, or in the Supreme Court, or in the House — where, under the 12th Amendment, every state delegation gets one vote in choosing the president. (There are 26 delegations of 50 dominated by Republicans, even though the House is in the hands of the Democrats.)
“I don’t want to end up in the Supreme Court, and I don’t want to go back to Congress, even though we have an advantage if we go back to Congress,” he said then. “Does everyone understand that?”
Now that is clearly the Plan B, after the failure of Plan A, an improvisational legal strategy to overturn election results by invalidating ballots in key states. In state after state, the president’s lawyers have been laughed out of court, unable to provide evidence to back up his claims that mail-in ballots were falsified, or that glitches on voting machines with software from Dominion Voting Systems might, just might, have changed or deleted 2.7 million votes.
Those theories figured in a rambling news conference that Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, held with other members of his legal team on Thursday. The group threw out a series of disconnected arguments to try to make the case that Mr. Trump really won. The arguments included blaming mail-in ballots that they said were prone to fraud as well as Dominion, which they suggested was tied to former President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela (who died seven years ago), and had vague connections to the Clinton Foundation and George Soros, the philanthropist and billionaire Democratic fund-raiser.
“That press conference was the most dangerous 1hr 45 minutes of television in American history,” Christopher Krebs, who was fired Tuesday night by Mr. Trump as the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency of the Department of Homeland Security, tweeted Thursday afternoon.
“And possibly the craziest,” he went on. “If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you’re lucky.”
Mr. Krebs has often noted that the purpose of a reliable election system is to convince those who lost elections that they have, indeed, lost.
Even some of Mr. Trump’s onetime enthusiasts and former top aides have abandoned him on his claims, often with sarcastic derision. “Their basic argument is this was a conspiracy so vast and so successful that there’s no evidence of it,” said John R. Bolton, Mr. Trump’s third national security adviser, who was ousted last year.
“Now if that’s true, I really want to know who the people are who pulled this off,” he said on Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” “We need to hire them at the C.I.A.”
On this subject, here is another excellent article:
WHY TRUMP IS LIKELY TO FAIL IN HIS EFFORTS TO UNDERMINE DEMOCRACY.
trump is a DESPERATE person.
His behavior is that of a spoiled CHILD and is MOST DISGUSTING.
trump turns my stomach.
His behavior is that of a trapped felon.
The longer they can keep you focused on this fake “coup”, the longer it will be until you notice and care that Biden is stacking his Cabinet and advisory positions with the same greedy, bloodthirsty, corporate neoliberal/neoconservative cabal that got us into Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya and plan to get us into many more, as well as the same corporate toadies who have polluted our planet and denied us any hope of reasonable healthcare, debt forgiveness, and housing/wage protection.
Cedric Richmond – Outreach on the climate crisis who has accepted hundreds of thousands from the fossil fuel industry.
Michael McCabe – EPA – former DuPont exec.
Cecilia Munoz – Immigration – Deporter-in-Chief Obama’s yes-woman for deportations.
Ron Klain – Chief of Staff – Has been a lobbyist for every sleazy industry at its sleaziest moment.
Steve Richetti – Counselor to the President – Lobbyist for sleazy industries.
Mike “Soul of the Nation” Donilon – Senior Advisor – No experience outside of running campaigns with bad slogans.
And then the latest three: Antony Blinken, Jake Sullivan and Michele Flournoy. https://jacobinmag.com/2020/11/joe-biden-administration-national-security-picks-defense-department
This is the “most progressive president since FDR! Let’s “push him left!”
In case you’re tempted to say I’m cherry-picking, please point out any progressive picks I have overlooked.
BTW, “But Trump” is no longer a defense. Trump did not force any of these choices on Biden. Personnel is policy. Biden is telling you loud and clear what he’s going to do. And in any case, in four years time, Trump will be rehabilitated, talking on the Ellen show about how extreme Candidate Tom Cotton is and why we have to support incumbent Kamala Harris.
SCOTUS. RBG as opposed to Kavanaugh, for example.
“Will no one rid us of the turbulent pest?”
Hey, turbulent pests have the right to be bothered far more about AOC-approved Ron Klain as Chief of Staff than they are bothered by Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett.
They have the right not to be bothered by the far right, because the moderates approved by AOC bother them more.
They hate AOC now, which is another thing they have in common with the far right whose views don’t bother them nearly as much as having AOC-approved Ron Klain as Biden’s Chief of Staff.
Vlad isn’t going to be happy. Better shoot him a memo. A number of highly experienced intelligence professionals in the group just named. That group:
Tony Blinken, Sec. of State
Jake Sullivan, National Security Adviser
Avril Haines, Director of National Intelligence
Alejandro Mayorkas, Sec., Dept. of Homeland Security
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Amb. to the UN
John Kerry, Special Presidential Envoy on Climate
Trump must be seething. LMAO! Biden is giving the country exactly what Trump wanted to destroy–experienced national security people who actually know what they are doing.
From the dailyprincetonian: Dr. Céline Gounder ’97 and Dr. Eric Goosby ’74 were recently named as members of President-elect Joe Biden’s COVID-19 Advisory Board, which aids the Biden transition team’s response to COVID-19. [snip] After graduating, Gounder deferred her enrollment to Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health to work with former presidential candidate and activist Ralph Nader ’55 on Capitol Hill, where she observed policies being created in real time. end quote
https://www.dailyprincetonian.com/article/2020/11/princeton-covid-19-transition-team-biden-advisory-board-celine-gounder-eric-goosby
Both highly qualified professionals in the health field.
If you don’t think the progressive left is racist, one only has to see Cedric Richmond’s new position reduced entirely to “outreach on the climate crisis” and see his entire career fighting for racial justice reduced to “has accepted hundreds of thousands from the fossil fuel industry.”
Here is what Alexandria Ocasio Cortez tweeted when Ron Klain was announced as Chief of Staff:
“Good news and an encouraging choice”
But who do you believe, AOC or the person who told us that Trump making 3 Supreme Court picks and filling the federal judiciary with far right wing judges was no big deal.
It’s hard to take seriously the racists who claim to be on the progressive left who are far more upset about Ron Klain being Chief of staff than having Kavanaugh, Gorsuch and Barrett on the Supreme Court!
I think their blithe acceptance of the most far right wing Supreme Court Justices tells you how much manufactured outrage this is.
For the record, I absolutely wish that Biden had chosen the most progressive cabinet in history. But that’s not what he campaigned on.
Every single one of these picks is much better than the person currently holding office. But if you read this post, you would think they were worse!
And these are DEMOCRATS! The Republicans got us into Iraq and Afghanistan. Now the democrats are responsible for the bad things that the Republicans do? Biden will be blamed for the horrible things that Trump’s EPA did that this poster said she was fine with as long as the evil HRC didn’t win
Progressives need to keep fighting.
But we need to marginalize dishonest voices whether it comes from the far right or (supposedly) the left.
And what is a “fake coup”?
Is it a coup that isn’t successful? Is it a coup that Americans ignore until it is successful?
Anyone who condones what Trump is doing right now and attacks those concerned about it by pretending what Trump is doing is “fake” should be marginalized as a right wing troll.
If I wanted to read attacks on progressives as falling for “fake news” by those who have rabidly defended Trump’s most abhorrent actions, I could read them on InfoWars. Sad that I have to read them here.
Seriously, Dienne? You don’t think Trump has been trying to engineer a coup? He has said as much. He hasn’t minced words about it. Mangled them, macerated them, as usual, but not minced them.
His Plan B: Pretend to his deplorables to be the rightful President in exile.
If I were advising the Repugnicans (lol), I would say, the sooner you unhitch your wagon to the Trump star, the better for you. Yes, he built this big following, but your next star can pick that up where he left it, but having this nutcase continue playing kingmaker and kingbreaker from the sidelines will be problematic for you. In addition, you were willing to toady to Trump because when he had real power–for example, to wipe out regulations that caused your donors grief–he was a Useful Idiot to you. Out of office, he can no longer play that role. Face it. He’s done. He and the rest of the Trump racketeering organization.
Unless Trump is in jail, he will block the path to every Republican who wants to run in 2024.
Superb point, Diane!!!!
You can watch the discussion of Michigan State Board of Canvassers about whether to certify the state vote
https://twitter.com/i/events/1304088385565286401?s=20
Bob,
You are arguing with the person who attacked the democrats for impeaching Trump for a “nothing burger” and who said the Mueller Report exonerated Trump. What would a coup be something to worry about?
If 3 far right Supreme Court Justices don’t bother her, but she is absolutely outraged at Ron Klain being Chief of Staff and Cedric Richmond doing outreach to racial justice groups, her priorities are very clear.
Nailed it, NYC PSP!!!
Interesting, isn’t it, that attempting to impede military assistance to an ally at WAR with a mutual enemy is a “nothing burger”? Bizarre.
Bob,
Do you know why this is so worrying? Think about it.
This person has been posting constantly about how evil and awful Biden’s choices are and demanding we focus only on that and amplify the message that Biden’s choices are very dangerous and not pay any attention to what Trump is doing.
That way, when Trump’s coup is successful, there is already a willing cohort of useful idiots on the left who all accept that Trump will be president for life because at least those awful and evil Biden picks were prevented.
It’s very scary. It’s all about promoting the view that another 4 years of Trump is no big deal but having these supposedly evil Dems in office was the REAL danger.
And the post was full of the same type of lies you can hear from any Trump supporter (and I have). “Fake coup”. And blaming the Democrats as if they are responsible for all of the evil things the Republicans do! The Republicans had no part in it at all!
If Vlad were posting here, he would be saying precisely the same stuff. What you really need to worry about is those Democrats who want a strong and united Europe.
What Vlad fears most is a united Social Democratic Europe with this powerful American ally inclining, itself, in the direction of Social Democracy. It’s the alternative to rule by the strongman.
dianeravitch, it’s possible that Republicans will dump Trump. 😐
I hope you are right.
dienne77 says “the “most progressive president since FDR”
What is odd is that dienne77 is concerned with foreign policy and FDR was surely an INTERVENTIONIST in foreign policy, trying to make the world safe for democracy.
If anything, these foreign policy choices are MORE progressive than FDR, since they aren’t advocating that the US go to war with 3 major countries to “help spread democracy”, as FDR wanted.
dienne77 could certainly make much harsher criticisms of FDR being one of those neocons she despises who are only out for evil.
Is FDR one of the “same greedy, bloodthirsty, corporate neoliberal/neoconservative cabal” that got us into WW II?
Charles Lindbergh and Father Coughlin agree with you.
Michigan just certified the vote results.
Corporate leaders call on Trump to start the transition.
It’s over.
IT’S OVER!! Poor Trump can now go to his bunker and pout.
…………………………
Biz Leaders Tell GOP: Get Trump Out or No Georgia Donations
Jamie Ross
Reporter
Updated
Nov. 23, 2020
10:58AM ET
Reuters/Hannah McKay
Shame clearly hasn’t forced Republican leaders to put pressure on President Donald Trump to begin the transition—but perhaps demands from national-security experts and top business executives will. The Washington Post reports a group of more than 100 leading GOP national-security experts, including former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, have urged their congressional counterparts to demand Trump administration immediately acknowledge Joe Biden’s victory and start the handover. “President Trump’s refusal to permit the presidential transition posts significant risks to our national security, at a time when the U.S. confronts a global pandemic and faces serious threats from global adversaries, terrorist groups, and other forces,” a statement signed by more than 100 GOP luminaries said. The statement also called on “Republican leaders—specifically those in Congress—to publicly demand that President Trump cease his anti-democratic assault on the integrity of the presidential election.”
Also on Monday, more than 100 top business leaders are issuing a letter demanding the same from the Trump administration. According to The New York Times, if a concession from Trump doesn’t happen, the executives may threaten to withhold campaign donations from the two Republican candidates in Georgia whose runoffs will determine the Senate’s balance of power. In the letter, the business leaders will demand that Emily Murphy, head of the General Services Administration, issues a letter to confirm that Biden has won and that the transition can begin.
Read it at The Washington Post
Diane Ravitch,
I sincerely hope you are right. It is over when Trump concedes and the White House starts cooperating with the transition.
I feel as if as soon as we take our eye off the ball, the White House does something else that is the precursor to fascism.
Until I hear a concession, I expect this to end up in the Supreme Court, just like Trump does. But I would love if this is over! I want to be able to exhale. (And gather energy for the fight to insure Biden promotes progressive policies). But I thought it was over when the Georgia recount showed Biden’s victory!
Exhale. The GSA has authorized the transition, which means the Biden team will get space in every agency and several millions to cover costs.
Bolton, whose foreign policy I always considered too bellicose, apparently joined the ranks of republicans trying to contain the wayward trump who failed. Where are the rest of them?
It is my theory that republicans who are now silent on the antics of trump know that they are required by the structure of their new party require that they be silent or lose their chance to ride the extremist vote to office. Moderate republicans have now been silenced by the fear that only trump will deliver them the policies they want.
How ironic this is. Republicans used to be the party of a balanced budget. This claim is now spurious due to the whopping budget deficit that preceded Covid due to his tax cut. They used to be the party of reliable allies until trump threw the Kurds under the bus. What is there left for republicans except the idea of white nationalism and fake news?
Trump is, indeed, a desperate person. He knows that when he leaves office, he will be facing literally hundreds of criminal and civil cases that can send him to jail and cost him many millions of dollars. And he is also, of course, incredibly stupid. Remember that this is the guy who thought that stealth planes were actually invisible, that Denmark might want to sell Greenland to us, that a dementia test was a test of general intelligence, and that we should try injecting disinfectants. Bannon, Sessions, and Miller picked up the standard fascist playbook and taught it to poor, dumb Trump prior to the 2016 election. He’s their gollum. Trump wasn’t capable of doing this on his own. And when he was first stumping for the Presidency, he would stand up before crowds and ramble, and a political operative had to come up with the idea of building the wall expressly for the purpose of trying to keep the Idiot on topic. Some time back, Mate Wierdl pointed us all to Bannon’s Youtube Channel, where Bannon was laying out the plan that Trump and his bat-villain attorney been trying to carry out–challenge the mail-in votes, get states to appoint Trump electors, and take it to the conservative-majority Trump Supreme Court. Trump, of course, is too ignorant and stupid to have come up with this on his own. He is carrying out Bannon’s hair-brained scheme.
It won’t work. However, Trump is doubtless right now considering his options for countries without an extradition treaty with the United States, and he has made it clear that he hopes to start a Trump news network to compete with Fox and keep his very real constituency fed with raw meat. And he and his spawn have signaled that they expect to maintain control of the Republican Party and be kingmakers and kingbreakers, and that they intend to run again. Trump got over 47 percent of the vote. This is very real and very disturbing. He’s a wannabe fascist. It’s quite possible that he will go to jail, like Hitler, and while there, produce his Mein Kampf (to be written by Miller or McInany?). Trump is seeing the 2020 election as prelude. We should too. It’s his failed Beer Hall Putsch.
We need to gird up. This is going to be a long battle. However, sending Trump and his spawn to prison would be a great start. I am sickened that Biden has expressed his opposition to that, though I understand the reasons why. He wants to bring the country together, and he doesn’t want to set a precedent for prosecution of ex-presidents.
But I think that as with many other matters, Biden reads this wrong. There is not bringing Trumpeteers into the fold. We need to be directing our attention and energy and teaching where it can work–to communities of color and to young people. If Biden want to make some progress with the blue-collar Trump crowd, he needs to revitalize the union movement in this country and associate it with the Democrats. But despite Biden’s union credentials, I’m not holding my breath for that.
We’re teachers. What can we do in the fight against resurgent fascism? We can teach the kids coming up, with special attention to kids of the working poor and kids in communities of color. We need to give the Repugnicans what they most fear–a generation of young adults who loathe everything they stand for.
“Trump is seeing the 2020 election as prelude. We should too. It’s his failed Beer Hall Putsch.”
I see this more as a Putsch for the distant right led by Eric Parker (Malheur NWR sniper), Alex Jones (Alec?), and a host of other far right people who essentially believe like the Russian Alexander Duggan that the direction of Western society is degenerative. their idea of degenerative is any movement away from European dominance as envisioned in the imperialism of the period from 1880 through World War II.
Trump is too old for 2424. Already the republicans are looking for other people to be the mouthpiece of the new party. Are there smart people who can be manipulated the way Trump was? Of course.
The next Trump will be far scarier because he or she will be younger, more charismatic, more articulate, and equally fascist.
The emerging world is going to look a lot different. The economies of China, India, and Brazil are now enormous. China’s GDP, measured in terms of purchasing power parity, is now the largest in the world. It has put down deep, deep, local roots throughout the developing world. It is carrying out, highly successfully, its Belt and Road Initiative. It is militarizing and building military bases on artificial islands in the South China Sea. We’re going to have to maintain overwhelming defensive power and to sharpen our diplomatic skills.
Hi Roy. 🙂 Probably, a lot of us won’t be here in 2424. 😐
Eddie: Thanks for catching that. Funny how you miss the obvious when it is yours
Bob, who or what is hare brained? 😁
Roy, Trump is also too poor to run in 2024. Pence won’t run or would be defeated. 😐
Eddie, I spoke of Bannon’s being hair-brained. Should have been harebrained. Warm regards, Bob
Harebrained or birdbrained?
Crows are equally opportunist, but they are smarter.
I guess that should have been harebrained. LOL. Another Covfefe from Bob Shepherd!
Bob, thanks for the harebrained reply. 😁
LOL!
And learn how to play well with others.
…”assuming people in power do not simply bend to the president’s will.”
So far, this is the heart of the problem.
The Republican party is now the party of Trump. Trump’s attacks on anything he views as “democratic” have been so unrelenting that ”two-thirds of Republicans say the 2020 election was not free and fair: 44 percent of Republicans say it “definitely” was not free and fair, and another 23 percent say it “probably” was not.
That’s nearly twice the share of Republicans who said the race would not be free and fair just before the election. “ Trump’s Twitter Tantrums, his lawyers frantic antics to reverse the election results, and media seeking clicks and long dwell times from this bizarre spectacle has done the job of undermining public support for the election outcome.
Prior to the election, 66 percent of GOP voters said they had at least some trust in the U.S. election system. In the latest poll, that dropped to 35 percent. Democratic trust, meanwhile, jumped from 63 percent to 80 percent.
Source https://morningconsult.com/form/tracking-voter-trust-in-elections/
Too little too late, but it was nice, for a change, to have Carl Bernstein start naming names of the some of the two-faced Senate Republicans.
Trump’s “legal shock troops?” Shockingly inept, stupid, bumbling and fantastical (working overtime creating fantasies). Trump lawyer Sidney Powell was just dumped because she made accusations that were even too nutty for Trump and Rudy!!!! How the hell has that maniac, Rudy Oooziani, managed to hang on this long with all his gaffes and lies?! All these legalistic shenanigans are doing incalculable damage to our democracy and the health of the nation.
Biden is hoping to govern from somewhere right of center and bring the two sides of our divide together. A tall task. He holds a huge ace in Kamala Harris. That was an incredibly smart choice. It’s going to be an interesting four years.
I’d give anything live in less interesting times again. I’ve had enough of the curse, “May you live in interesting times.”
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/11/21/1996620/-Trump-s-not-the-first-disgraced-president-to-do-major-damage-on-his-way-out-but-he-may-be-the-worst
Trump has been tweeting the names of election officials in the states that having been recounting votes.. These officials and their families have been threatened, and the officials have received death threats. Trump is a dangerous thug.https://www.11alive.com/article/news/politics/elections/gabriel-sterling-threats-georgia-election-official/85-42ad50cb-f123-4b35-938e-9b513cecefb1
retired teacher,
Are you falling for that “fake coup” thing, again? You are supposed to reserve all of your outrage for Cedric Richmond and Ron Klain. Who may or may not actually get to serve since Biden may or may not actually get to be president. But no need to worry about what Trump is doing to remain president for life. “Keeping your eye on the ball” means attacking even the Biden picks that AOC likes!
He has always been a thug. The Don, Cheeto “Littlefingers” Trumpbalone. He has bullied his way through life. Others have saved him from himself again and again and again.
Bob, that’s the problem-people saving him. He has never been held accountable. ☹️
Nailed it, Eddie! His father bailed him out. The Russians bailed him out. The Repugnican Party bailed him out. And now? Well, he can be the Teflon Don 2.0 only for so long. These chickens come home to roost.
My concern has nothing to do with a fake coup. My concerns are about the safety of civil servants trying to do their job. Extremism is dangerous. By targeting officials this way, Trump’s may incite some of the fanatics to violence.
I’m sure that as the certified election results come in from various states, the Dear Orange Leader will be screaming about the injustice of it all. Who will he blame this time?
……………………………………………
NYT
BREAKING NEWS
Michigan’s top elections board voted to certify the election results, a blow to President Trump, who had been trying to subvert Joe Biden’s win there.
Monday, November 23, 2020 4:42 PM EST
After reviewing the state Bureau of Elections’ report, which showed Mr. Biden winning the state by 154,000 votes over Mr. Trump, the board, comprising two Democrats and two Republicans, voted 3 to 0 with one abstention to certify the results.
Repugnicans have, during Trump’s tantrum, shown themselves to be invertebrates. Completely spineless.
GSA just released transition funds. It’s definitely over. But Trump will continue to claim to be the rightful President in exile. Of course he will. Because, moron.
Yea! I can exhale. Although I will remain in a watchful waiting mode because I know how untrustworthy this White House is. I’m not letting my guard down until the inauguration. Or at least a clear concession speech.
Although I hope Trump doesn’t invite Biden to the White House or Biden is smart enough not to go. Just worried about some “illness” he catches there, courtesy of Putin. The one that Putin’s critics all seem to catch.
To the tune of “O Donnie Boy”
O Donny boy, your cuckoo coup has faltered.
Time runs away, like dye down Rudy’s cheek.
What’s done is done. The vote count can’t be altered.
You’ll soon be jailed. Your prospects sure look bleak.
Will you come back, when Biden’s term is over?
Will Princess Sparkle run then in your stead?
Will your scam businesses roll then in clover?
Well those cloud castles, Donnie boy, are made of lead.
make that “cloud castles” Thanks
We’ll have a blue, blue Christmas without you.
We’ll be so happy, not thinking about you.
Burn those caps of red, the Dumb Damn Don has fled.
Bye, bye Donald. And curses on your head.
Here, my previous version of “O Donnie Boy”:
O Donnie Boy, your handler Putin’s calling,
extending thanks for the Ukraine delay.
He wants to say, impeachment’s surely galling,
but still the tape won’t see the light of day.
But come ye back to Moscow, if you’re worried.
We’re here to help you grab ‘em at the polls,
and if you lose, you won’t see jail, I promise.
O Donnie boy, just fly on home to Sochi Bay.
Interesting profile of UN Ambassador nominee: https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/politics/article_6a648a88-2d9f-11eb-9555-5f844fe18aec.html
Wow.
Wow is an understatement. For the [insert word you know I’d use here] who claim it’s more of the same with President Biden, this is a telling refutation of that [insert word you know I’d use here].
And she’s got it right about red beans, which is as elemental a food that exists. Like Senate bean soup, it is ridiculously easy if you take pay attention to the basic details. The first thing you have to do is discount anyone who uses ingredients like cayenne pepper, garlic or any other seasoning other than salt, white pepper and bay leaves. First and most essential, only Camellia brand red beans. Will post recipe below.
My concern is the reaction of the Trumpers who have swallowed the conspiracy theories hook, line, and sinker. When Bush won, I felt that Gore had been cheated out of his rightful election. However, I accepted the Supreme Court ruling and didn’t attend anti-Bush rallies or go on public media to spread rumors and innuendos.
The Republicans can dish it out but they can’t take it. What sore losers, but there are those who applaud their actions. That’s the scary part.
As far as Biden’s appointees – there is no one experienced in government that doesn’t have some connection with lobbyists who represent issues many of us deplore. We must take a wait and see stance, hoping that our new President will make unbiased decisions based on what is good for our country and the free world.
My concern is the reaction of the Trumpers who have swallowed the conspiracy theories hook, line, and sinker. When Bush won, I felt that Gore had been cheated out of his rightful election. However, I accepted the Supreme Court ruling and didn’t attend anti-Bush rallies or go on public media to spread rumors and innuendos.
The Republicans can dish it out but they can’t take it. What sore losers, but there are those who applaud their actions. That’s the scary part.
As far as Biden’s appointees – there is no one experienced in government that doesn’t have some connection with lobbyists who represent issues many of us deplore. We must take a wait and see stance, hoping that our new President will make unbiased decisions based on what is good for our country and the free world.
Red Beans and Rice (All southern Louisianans know this is the best American comfort food; Louis Armstrong used to cook them when he was on the road.)
This is the traditional Monday dish in New Orleans. Legend has it that the women would prepare it in the morning and then go about their household chores and washing and occasionally check and stir the dish during the day. It is almost impossible to overcook this dish.
Important: use a medium to large heavy pot, like a stainless steel-lined copper pot or Dutch oven. This dish will take 4-6 hours to cook and needs a pot to hold in the heat and prevent scorching.
Ingredients:
1 dollop of vegetable shortening (Crisco) or better yet, a heaping dollop of bacon fat
4-5 stalks of celery, sliced very thin, preferably with a mandolin
1 large onion and 1 large green bell pepper, chopped into small diced pieces
1 14-16 oz. package smoked sausage or Polska kielbasa (I prefer the latter, but either will do) — cut curved ends into small pieces and put in food processor to grind finely (about 10-15 % of sausage), cut remaining pieces into fairly thin slices
1 pound Camellia brand red beans (available online)
3 ½ cups of chicken stock
3-4 bay leaves
1-2 teaspoons of salt (better to start low and then season to taste when near the end)
1 teaspoon of white pepper (more can be added later to taste)
Soak red beans in large bowl of water overnight.
Heat pot to medium heat, hover hand over bottom to feel when hot.
Melt shortening.
Add celery, cook until fragrant for about 2-3 minutes.
Add onion, cook about 2-3 minutes.
Add bell pepper, cook all together for about 4-6 minutes until most of moisture is cooked out of veggies. Stir often to release steam.
Stir in ground sausage, cook for about 1-2 minutes until incorporated.
Stir in soaked beans. (Do not save or use water beans soaked in, pull out beans using laced fingers so that any dirt or sediment settles at the bottom.)
Add chicken stock until beans are covered, set aside any remaining, add later, or if all used, add a little water as it cooks if needed.
Stir together ingredients thoroughly.
Add bay leaves, salt, white pepper, and slices of sausage stir in and add liquid if not covered.
Cover, bring to boil. As soon as boiling begins, stir bottom, turn down heat to lowest setting and cover.
(optional for more creaminess: add one smoked ham hock, take out and let cool after an hour, cut off fat and bone to discard, carefully take out meat, chop, and add back to red beans, not essential, but wonderfully glutinous)
Cook for 4-6 hours, stir every 30-40 minutes checking if anything sticks to bottom in second half. As beans get soft, every now and then smash some of them against the side of the pot and then stir in (not needed if a lot sticks to bottom between stirs). This will help with the creaminess. Be sure to taste near the end in case you need more salt. Since there is salt in the sausage, you usually don’t, but it depends.
When beans have cooked down to a creamy consistency, they are ready to eat. Remove and discard the bay leaves.
Like all good stews, this tends to be better when warmed up as a left over.
Prepare 1-1 ½ cups of rice 20-30 minutes before ready to serve.
Put a large spoonful of rice at bottom of shallow bowl or plate. Spoon over red beans and sausage.
Chop up 4-5 green onion tops to sprinkle over top. Add finished red beans.
Mix thoroughly.
A few drops of Crystal hot sauce are recommended. It’s not real hot, but more flavorful than Tabasco. Yeah, you right.
“Trump lost the popular vote by nearly six million votes. ”
It has passed 6 million by 30 thousand:
Biden 79,823,247
Trump 73,792,412
https://www.cnn.com/election/2020/results/president
Trump is definitely a poor loser. Will he ever concede? It should be interesting to see how he behaves when Biden is officially inaugurated as president. Will he have to be dragged out of the WH?
…………………………………………
Trump Says He’ll ‘Never’ Concede in Furious Late-Night Tweet, Transition Begins Anyway
Jamie RossReporter
Published Nov. 24, 2020 5:32AM ET
Reuters/Hannah McKay
As usual, President Donald Trump was up late raging against the election result—but his fury is becoming more and more irrelevant. In his latest blast on Twitter, Trump posted that he’ll “never” concede to President-elect Joe Biden, and said that his doomed legal action to overturn the results in several states is “moving full speed ahead.” Despite Trump’s anger, the work to replace him in the White House is already underway. General Services Administrator Emily Murphy declared Biden the “apparent winner” of the election in a letter Monday evening, unblocking millions of dollars in government funding, data, and personnel to the transition team. In a statement, Biden-Harris Transition Executive Director Yohannes Abraham wrote that the transition process can now “formally begin.”
Read it at NBC News
And, whaddya know, just like that, the coup is over. It’s a good thing we spent the last 6 months panicking.
Now you can all take a well deserved nap while Biden and the Dems pack the administration with decent, diverse female POC warmongers, torturers and corporate grifters.
Congratulations!
dienne77; It will be a monumental task to do worse than the Dear Leader. Trump is a grifter who wouldn’t know about doing anything decent even if by pure chance he had seen something decent on Fox, his ‘used to be’ daily intelligence briefing network.
Are you still saying that Trump is much better and should have won the election?
“female POC warmongers, torturers and corporate grifters.”
It is shocking that you never used those kinds of words to characterize the Trump White House, but you use them to describe Biden’s female POC picks.
I don’t know why you suddenly started to care about the quality of the people appointing to high level White House jobs — you certainly weren’t attacking Trump’s appointees with this kinds of virulence.
If you had spent the last 4 years criticizing the Trump White House with even half this much anger, your criticism of Biden’s picks might ring more true. As it is, you just don’t sound credible at all.
Thank you fOR not mentioning AOC
Diane,
I’m truly trying to be better at replying to these kinds of posts. Hopefully it’s working.
I feel so strongly that these kinds of replies need to be immediately countered and not just ignored because otherwise these kinds of arguments take on the same kind of legitimacy that they have on sites like Infowars and Parler, where people read them and think “that’s a really important point” because they don’t see any counter argument.
In my mailbox this morning from Politico
53% of Republicans say they would vote for TRUMP in the 2024 GOP primary.
12% say they would vote for PENCE.
In third place: DONALD TRUMP JR. with 8%.
Monday night Trump attempted to soothe fears among his supporters by tweeting he wasn’t conceding and cited multiple debunked conspiracy theories.
Trumpsters will not go away when Trump leaves the WhiteHouse. The party of Trump will be doing everything possible to limit the power of democrats. They know how to cheat, market conspiracy theories, and suck up money for more of the same.
I would love to be more optimistic.
What a relief it will be to have in office someone who isn’t Donald Trump, the self-proclaimed “stable genius” who thinks that we should nuke hurricanes, that climate change is just weather, that we could send astronauts to the sun, that Alabama is in danger from hurricanes skirting the East Coast, that windmills and low-energy light bulbs cause cancer, that stealth planes are actually invisible, that a dementia diagnostic is a test of general intelligence, that we need to return to using asbestos in our buildings, that HIV and HPV are the same thing, that the primary cause of California wildfires is failure to sweep our forests, that coal and natural gas are “clean energy,” that “the ice caps” are “at a record level,” that global warming is a hoax invented to reduce U.S. competitiveness with China, that we are better off without federal regulation of pollutants of air and water, that Denmark would be happy to sell Greenland to us, that exercise needs to be avoided because it uses up energy, and that injecting disinfectant might be a great way to treat Covid19. But remember that Trump has told us that “nobody knows technology like Donald Trump,” and that he is on top of “the cyber.”
That self-absorbed malignancy is not going away. Patient, heal thyself!
I have long been aware of a tendency in myself toward intellectual narcissism, mansplaining, pomposity, verboseness. It’s an issue with which I struggle, aware, deeply aware, of how little, after all these years, I know about how much!
Bob, we love you just the way you are!
And that’s one reason, Diane, why your work is such a pleasure to read. I’m always tickled pink when I meet someone whose expertise lies in some other field–in neuroscience or the history of education, for example–who writes beautiful, clear, succinct, well-argued prose.
Most of the time, not always, I try to follow the Strunk & White rule:
Don’t use four words when three will do.
Good rule!
It all sounds so silly, but not while you have to live through it. It’s a wonder that the only major crisis was COVID. So much more could have gone wrong. Luckily Biden can undo most of the disruptive policies which were put in place over the past four years.
Who knows how much the national security of the country has been compromised by Vlad’s Agent Orange.
Lord knos, flos, how compromised our national security is after 4 years of Vlad’s Agent Orange!
Repugnicans have, during Trump’s tantrum, shown themselves to be invertebrates. Completely spineless. And even worse, they haven’t stood up to him because they want in the future to avail themselves of the same craven white nationalist appeal to deplorables that gave us Trump.
You and all know it’s stolen
. 50,000 here 160,000 there.. all 5 swing States.. look at the facts as presented by audit findings..
Paul, I believe that there was some cheating in Florida and that Al Gore won the election, not George Bush. I never thought to storm DC. I also believe the world would have been a better place if Gore had won, but I believed in the democratic process, even if it’s rigged.
George W. Bush was lucky in that the election came down to the finish line in a state where his brother was governor.
Remember that recount with the funky placement of names plus the hanging chads.