Our democracy is under attack by the man who took an oath to protect the Constitution. Donald Trump gave a 46-minute speech denouncing the outcome of the election, which he insists was fraudulent despite the fact that his own Attorney General concluded that the Department of Justice did not find evidence of widespread fraud that would change the outcome of the election. Trump’s legal team has filed dozens of lawsuits, almost all of which were rejected in court by judges of both parties, including judges appointed by Trump. The few cases that went in Trump’s favor were over minor issues that did not affect the outcome of the election in any state.
The Washington Post reported on Trump’s speech:
Escalating his attack on democracy from within the White House, President Trump on Wednesday distributed an astonishing 46-minute video rant filled with baseless allegations of voter fraud and outright falsehoods in which he declared the nation’s election system “under coordinated assault and siege” and argued that it was “statistically impossible” for him to have lost to President-elect Joe Biden.
Standing behind the presidential lectern in the Diplomatic Reception Room and flanked by the flags of his office and of the country whose Constitution he swore an oath to uphold, Trump tried to leverage the power of the presidency to subvert the vote and overturn the election results.
The rambling and bellicose monologue — which Trump said “may be the most important speech I’ve ever made” and was delivered direct-to-camera with no audience — underscored his desperation to reverse the outcome of his election loss after a month of failed legal challenges and as some key states already have certified Biden’s victory.
The president’s latest salvo came a day after his attorney general, William P. Barr, said the Justice Department had found no evidence of voting fraud that could have changed the outcome of the election.
Trump delivered in person many of the claims he previously has advanced on social media or that his lawyers have brought on his behalf in courts, which have been debunked or summarily dismissed because there is no evidence to support them. Trump claimed in Wednesday’s video, again without evidence, that “corrupt forces” had stuffed ballot boxes with fraudulent votes. He claimed the fraud was “massive” and “on a scale never seen before.” He called on the Supreme Court to “do what’s right for our country,” which he suggested entailed terminating hundreds of thousands of votes so that “I very easily win in all states.”
Although Trump last week authorized his administration to cooperate with Biden’s transition, he still has refused to concede. With Wednesday’s remarks, the president intensified his protest of the results and threatened to disrupt the nation’s long history of a peaceful transfer of power. “
This election was rigged. Everybody knows it,” Trump said. He added, “Our country needs somebody to say, ‘You’re right.’ . . . If we don’t root out the fraud, the tremendous and horrible fraud that’s taken place in our 2020 election, we don’t have a country anymore.”
Trump also claimed that Dominion Voting Systems, which manufactures voting machines used in many states, was “very suspect” and that many voters who pressed the button for “Trump” had their votes counted for Biden. There is no evidence that votes were in any way compromised, and Dominion has said there is no merit to Trump’s claims.
Biden decisively won the election with 306 electoral college votes to Trump’s 232. In the national popular vote, Biden leads with 80.9 million to Trump’s 74 million, a difference of 4.4 percentage points and nearly 7 million votes.
A majority of states already have certified their results ahead of the Dec. 14 meeting of the electoral college to finalize the national result. Those states include Georgia, which delivered Biden one of his narrowest victories and where officials conducted a hand recount that still had Biden winning by about 13,000 votes. Trump’s video Wednesday represented his most comprehensive remarks yet about the election and came after he has spent the month since the election largely hidden from public view, save for a handful of official appearances and a call-in appearance on Fox News Channel.
Any hope that the president might be slowly coming to grips with his loss and accepting the fact that Biden will be sworn in as president on Jan. 20 was dashed by his combative and emphatic tone, which amounted to a call to arms to his supporters. The fight is paying dividends so far, with Trump’s political operation using a blizzard of misleading appeals to supporters to raise more than $170 million since Election Day on Nov. 3.
As he invariably has throughout his presidency, Trump spun an alternate reality. Although his words actually worked to undermine democracy, he cast himself as the protector of democracy, saying his single greatest achievement as president would be to restore “voter integrity for our nation.”
Trump released a two-minute edited version of the video on Twitter, which the social media company labeled as “disputed,” and included a link to the full 46-minute video on Facebook, where the company applied a label explaining that voting by mail has long been trustworthy and that voter fraud is “extremely rare.”
As Trump released his video, his personal attorney, Rudolph W. Giuliani, was in Michigan making a similar case to state legislators and citizens there. The former New York mayor alleged at a video news conference in Lansing that there were extensive voting irregularities in the state, largely in Detroit, a majority-Black city that voted heavily for Biden. Giuliani claimed a similar pattern of fraud emerged in several other large urban centers with municipal governments controlled by Democrats.
“It was a plan to steal this election,” Giuliani said. There is no evidence to support this claim. Giuliani cited affidavits that had been used in lawsuits that have so far been rejected in the state.
Giuliani gave a pugilistic exhortation to Trump supporters at the late afternoon press conference. “We have to fight. The president does not intend to give up,” he said, urging Michigan Republicans to put “pressure on state legislators” to uphold their constitutional obligation to decide state results in a disputed presidential election.
“You have to get them to remember that their oath to the constitution sometimes requires being criticized,” Giuliani added. “It sometimes even requires being threatened. But you don’t back off of an oath because a vote is too hard.”
On Wednesday evening, Giuliani and Trump campaign attorney Jenna Ellis made similar arguments before a Michigan House panel. In her opening statement, Ellis referred to Trump’s video message and said the state legislature has a constitutional mandate “not to allow a corrupt” election. She said the nation’s founders provided “a tool — state legislators — to combat corruption” in elections.
That interpretation of a constitutional mandate is disputed by many election experts, who nonetheless worry that it could lead some state legislators to attempt to overturn certified election results.
Norm Eisen, a former Obama appointee who serves as counsel to the bipartisan Voter Protection Program, called that interpretation “constitutional disinformation that has no basis in law.”
This activity comes as Trump prepares to visit Georgia on Saturday to hold a campaign rally for Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, both Republicans facing runoff elections on Jan. 5.
Trump’s baseless allegations of voter fraud in Georgia have roiled the race, with Republicans divided over whether to trust the election system or, as former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell argued, stay home in protest.
Powell led a rally in a northern Atlanta suburb Wednesday in which she exhorted hundreds of the president’s supporters not to participate in the Senate runoffs, in part because she said the state’s voting machines are not trustworthy.
“I would encourage all Georgians to make it known that you will not vote at all unless your vote is secure,” Powell said. “There should not be a runoff. Certainly not on Dominion machines.”
Powell claimed falsely that Dominion machines were rigged to weight Biden’s votes more heavily than Trump’s, that a hand recount was a sham, and that state and local election officials have been destroying ballots and other evidence of fraud. She has presented no proof of her claims.
L. Lin Wood, another Trump ally who helped lead Wednesday’s event, made similarly baseless claims. “We’re not going to vote on your damn machines made in China,” Wood said. “We’re going to vote on machines made in the USA!”
Wood took aim at just about every state Republican leader in Georgia, including Perdue, Loeffler, Gov. Brian Kemp, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and the state party chair, David Shafer, even though some of them have stood by Trump and echoed his false claims of fraud.
“If they don’t fight for Donald Trump, including Loeffler and Perdue, send them all home!” Wood exclaimed to the crowd. “You are criminals!”
Trump is mentally disturbed. His niece Mary Trump was right when she said that he has never been in a situation like this before. He doesn’t know how to handle having lost the election.
Let the Republicans stay home when the run off election for Senators is done. That is helping to Make America Great!! The Senate needs two more Democrats.
Trump is a spoiled toddler pretending to be a man. Toddlers, most of them, grow up. Trump is still 3 years old and holds temper tantrums. What is very disturbing is that some people believe his tantrums.
Whatever happened to Giuliani’s brain? He has lost the respect that came after 9/11.
“Donald today is much as he was at three years old: incapable of growing, learning, or evolving, unable to regulate his emotions, moderate his responses, or take in and synthesize information,” Mary wrote in her scathing analysis of her uncle.
The problem is less the Idiot than his cult and its timid enablers. It is hard to get truthful ideas into those skulls. But his morning in my local paper a LTE writer opened an interesting crack with a beguilingly simple argument about the pandemic. He asked, “If the virus is a hoax, if like a miracle it is going to disappear, if it really not dangerous, why has [the Idiot] invested $10 billion into Operation Warp Speed to develop vaccines to stop the virus?” It’s so obvious once you see it in print. So astute.
A LOT of people in my very conservative Ohio county believed it was a hoax because conservative political leaders told them it was.
Then the recent spike hit rural areas, and a lot of people started getting sick.
It’s been sad to watch. It’s a tragedy, really. You feel there’s nothing you can do, because any effort to talk with them about how the virus would reach places like this eventually and it was just sensible to take precautions was perceived as an affront and an attack on their intelligence and this is people I have known for decades and like.
We’re all vulnerable to propaganda – sales and marketing work for a reason- but Donald Trump and Republicans really did a number on these people. I have never seen anything like it. Horrifying to watch.
I see it here every day as well. The new form of protest is to not cover one’s nose, now generally known as a dicknose.
It is obvious to you Greg . I assure you it is not obvious to them till someone in their circle of acquaintances is seriously ill or dead from the virus. As long as the virus was attacking Blue States and minorities it was retribution from God on their enemies,minorities and heathen liberals. It was an occasion to prove their better genetic stock by flouting public health measures. Only magnified exponentially when the Orange buffoon received monoclonal antibodies probably days before the debate. Then seemed to recover very fast . “Good genes the best” that my tax dollars could pay for.
What should be obvious about Warp Speed is how wonderful SOCIALISM is . For starters NIH and mostly NIH for the better part of 2 decades since SARS had been funding research into Corona viruses. Not enough money in the common cold for Big Pharma. SARS and MERS being distant and relatively contained. It was no accident that within weeks of the outbreak all major efforts were targeting the spike protein that had been identified in basic GOVERNMENT FUNDED research as likely weak point to target.
So after the basic research is funded by NIH , Warp Speed picks up the Tab for Development, Clinical trials and guarantees that the Pharmaceuticals Co’s. will be paid for the production of vaccine whether the Vaccine works or not, at all but Pfizer. And the beauty they get to keep a patent for work they did not finance.
Long live Socialism. Hail Trump the Socialist !
The core Republican illness: “I don’t need to know or care about anything that I don’t directly experience. And even then, I’m generally not convinced.”
& still not obvious, Joel. Did you see that pitiful video of the nurse in South Dakota who was so sad–& angry–crying, because on their deathbeds, a # of patients continued to insist that covid is a “hoax?”
I fear many health care workers, like the nurse from SD, will experience long-term symptoms of PTSD. Another health consequence of the pandemic.
I must admit that I do get a certain amount of pleasure seeing Republicans savaging each other over (in)glorious leader, Trump. And Sidney Powell, who was thrown under the bus, still is obsequiously and slavishly supporting her lord and master. I guess the pay is good enough to sell her soul to a third rate demon/demagogue. I hope all the Republicans do stay home and don’t vote in the runoff election in Georgia, as Powell is advising. Do Trump, Giuliani, Powell, etc., actually believe what they are saying? Or is this just so much maneuvering and calculated obfuscating to gain some sort of advantage, bargaining chip for Trump’s eventual exit? To say the least, this whole Trumpian brouhaha/tragi-comedy (it’s tragic for the American people) is unprecedented and unpresidential in US history. No other president has been this nutty, unhinged and so obviously anti-democratic (small d).
Powell is a fascinating case. Trump’s lawyer who is not his lawyer.
I have long suspected that Trump is not the only high-level US official on whom the Russians have significant kompromat. This would explain the behavior of some US Senators and some Trump officials and lawyers who have completely trashed their own reputations with extremely ludicrous support for the Idiot.
Trump is a deer in the headlights right now. Every time I’ve seen him lately, he looked frightened and angry. He has reason to be. What awaits him, legally, isn’t pretty.
A number of reports from those present to watch the 2016 election results with the Trumps have noted that Trump himself was shocked that he had won and that Melania was horrified. I suspect that Melania knew that if Jabba the Trump became president, people would look into his business and personal affairs over the years and uncover a LOT of ugliness that Trump had been able to keep hidden with legal delays and intimidation. Now, all those chickens are ready to come home to roost.
“Of coups and poops”
The chicks that left the coup
Have now come home to roost
And roost is full of poop
That court will introduce
” I have long suspected that Trump is not the only high-level US official on whom the Russians have significant kompromat. This would explain the behavior of some US Senators and some Trump officials and lawyers who have completely trashed their own reputations with extremely ludicrous support for the Idiot.”
BINGO . What do you suspect Trump and Putin discussed in those private meetings and Phone conversations! Since when did Republicans ever have any concern about what was good for their ignorant base or what they wanted. Certainly their policy for 40 years has hurt the Blue collar worker. While they diverted with racist appeals since Goldwater.
Trump/ Putin has the dirt on the whole party probably revolving around NRA money. As well as the fact that they were well aware of the interference in 16 and stayed silent.
Long ago they could have abandoned Trump for Pence who would have been a dream come true for Mitch.
Not just NRA money, ofc. A number of these folks walk around in a perpetual air of sexual scandal, widely rumored but not proved. The Russians have long had a lot of agents in the US. What happened to the vast trove of photos and videos compiled by Epstein? What’s the story about certain male escort agencies in Washington and South Carolina that cater to a certain Senator?
And isn’t it interesting that Bill Barr’s Dad gave Epstein his first job as a teacher at a wealthy private school in Manhattan even though Epstein had no teaching credentials?
Joel, I’m betting Sen. Blanche Graham is high on that list. Even though everyone knows her secret.
Who’s Blanche Graham?
“Who’s Blanche Graham?”
Well, it’s either a reference to an obscure elementary school in Naperville, IL ( https://www.greatschools.org/illinois/naperville/4124-V-Blanche-Graham-Elementary-School/ ) or it’s transphobia that’s okay because it’s a liberal doing it.
The biggest critics of Lindsay Graham are gay men because he has built his political career on promoting homophobia. His first Senate campaign was based on his demand to expel gays from the military. On Twitter, he is referred to as #LadyGraham.
I find it incomprehensible how anyone goes out of their way to gratuitously smear “liberals”. Instead of simply criticizing or calling out an action, which is what normal people who are actually concerned about transphobia do, there are some people who only see an opportunity to attack the entire liberal movement that opposes their beloved Trump (who they claim not to love as they refuse to criticize him for any transphobia, racism, xenophobia, or anything else that only seems to be an issue they care about if they can use innuendo to make false claims about how the “liberals” condone it.
For the record, GregB, if that was some reference to Lindsay Graham’s gender identity, that was offensive.
For the record to the critics, instead of being snide and childish, act like adults and say what you mean.
Or, maybe it is okay to be snide, dishonest, lie, tear gas peaceful protesters because they are protesting against racism and not protesting against having to wear masks, and try to turn the US into a fascist country because it is the beloved President Trump doing it and President Trump hates “liberals” just as much as they do.
Aie yie yie, Dienne, NTY. I, for one, believe that sex work should be legalized and regulated and welcome having transgender and homosexual Americans serving in political office and the military. But being a national security risk because one is hiding one’s gender identity and sexual orientation or activities is another matter altogether. Obviously.
Wait, Bob — are you suggesting that Lindsay Graham is hiding his gender identity and is thus a national security risk?
I made no such suggestion.
Ok. I’m just confused generally, I’ll bow out.
Bob,
I agree with you and I wasn’t criticizing your comment at all.
Mostly, I could not understand why a certain hater of democrats who defends Trump would suddenly profess concern with transphobia and make the outrageously dishonest innuendo that liberals are fine with transphobia if one of their own does it.
What I find most incriminating is that most progressives – from Noam Chomsky to Bernie Sanders to AOC – criticize things the democrats do and criticize Trump and the Republicans as much or even more. But right wingers only criticize what the democrats do and come up with cockamamie rationalizations for Trump’s reprehensible actions.
Anyone concerned with transphobia who only sees vast transphobia among democrats and not Trump and the Republicans is not concerned with transphobia at all.
Agreed, NYC.
And yeah, there were few critics of the Obama administration as intense as Noam Chomsky was and is.
Yes, a (barely) closeted, venal politician who propels an anti-gay agenda, that’s offensive. If you’re offended by my joke, you should hear what my gay friends call her (as they refer to “him”).
It wasn’t just the Republican “rank and file” either. We have had one local prominent and respected Republican who was an avid and loud covid denier die of the virus and another is in a ICU. Now, maybe they would have caught it anyway- it’s ripping thru the whole place, but how many people did these people persuade to ignore precautions?
This stopped being funny or clever or even “political” a long time ago. Now it’s just sad. There’s an actual body count. When I think of all those slick political operatives pulling down massive cash to promote this garbage and how ALL of them will continue on without any consequences for this I just feel hopeless.
No one will be held accountable for any of it. They’ll all get promoted.
It’s a hard thing to do, but personally, I think we should ignore all this noise and bluster and keep ourselves focused on the future…..a future without trump! Jan 20th is not that far away and vaccines are getting ready for delivery. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard over the passed few weeks from these “crazy” people that this is just plain funny. Most know Biden won, but they are enjoying “throwing red meat to the libtards”. It’s low class and crass, and oh how we have morally fallen as a nation, but what should we expect from a con-man turned bad reality TV star when we give him power and attention? These folks are providing us with some gross entertainment now and maybe even a Dem controlled Senate (yay….McConnell may finally get silenced!) very soon. This is turning into a really bad Shakespearean comedic tragedy and we all know how it will end.
Lisa,
I understand your desire to ignore Trump’s mad ravings but it’s impossible to ignore him while he is still president, had the nuclear codes, and is Commander on Chief of the military. He’s acting like a crazy person and it’s still a long ways until Jan 20.
But this is just noise and a distraction. A 46 min video screed posted to a social media site with no press corps is nothing more than an attempt to distract both sides from real issues. I’m not saying we should ignore important issues which are many, but we need to ignore the stupid playground antics that distract. This is just a distraction….a show and acting part being played by one of the biggest con men on the earth. He has tracks to cover….and he will be very silent about what those really are.
Reason to pay attention
Trump’s bestowed
With nuclear code
And might explode
Iran’s abode
Trump has blustered about Iran because this served his purpose, but Iran is a Russian ally, and Trump wouldn’t actually do something significant there because this wouldn’t please his master, Vlad.
Bob….EXACTLY on bombing Iran. People hear Nuclear War and they perk up an ear. Connect the dots and look at the history and this was just noise. I am more concerned with Pompeo’s visit to the Middle East prior to the assassination and why Jared Kushner is over there right now and what he is doing….covering tracks, I suspect.
Bob
If Trump were rational , I might agree.
But in case you have not noticed. Trump is not rational.
Personally, I don’t think anyone in the military would go along with any command by Trump to launch nuclear missiles and that would have nothing to do with Vlad or anyone else in Russia.
LisaA
Nuclear war is always a concern and a much greater concern than most people realize.
There is a reason the Doomsday clock set by the Bulletin of Atomic scientists is closer to midnight than it has ever been and if he not because talk of nuclear war is just noise.
And if Russia IS the reason that Trump would not order a nuclear or any other type of strike on Iran, I would consider that good any way one looks at it (whether Trump is doing it go help Vlad or not)
Attacking Iran would be insane.
Here’s why he can’t be ignored: 47 percent of the electorate voted for him, and he is positioning himself to be the “Actual President” in Exile to these people. He’s likely to start a “news” network that will make Faux News and QAnon and Sidney Powell’s legal filings and Ghouliani’s Four Seasons Total Landscaping/hair dye dripping press conferences look like exercises in Socratic skepticism, one that pushes a completely fascist agenda. And I expect that someone like Stephen Miller will write the President in Exile’s Mein Kampf for him. This is why, despite what Biden is saying, it’s important that Trump be prosecuted and jailed.
Newly pardoned Michael Flynn is calling for Trump to suspend the constitution and declare martial law to redo election. He is another mouthpiece trying to overturn the rule of law.
Brig. Gen. Jack D. Ripper……oops, I mean Retired Army Lt. Gen. Flynn, QUOTE: who was Trump’s first national security adviser and before that his most important military validator, circulated a petition for martial law in a Tuesday tweet. “Freedom never kneels except for God,” Flynn commented.
The petition, from a Tea Party affiliate named Tom Zawistowski, implored Trump to proclaim “limited martial law” and order the military to conduct a do-over of the presidential election so as to reflect what it claims is “the true will of the people.” It explicitly envisioned “temporarily suspend[ing] the Constitution and civilian control of these federal elections.” And it also reflects a recent rise in desperation from MAGA now that Trump’s efforts at overturning the election have fallen apart in multiple courtrooms.
The petition even compared America’s bloodiest conflict to the current Trumpist inability to cope with an election loss. “Today, the current threat to our United States by the international and domestic socialist/communist left is much more serious than anything Lincoln or our nation has faced in its history—including the civil war,” it reads. End quote
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/when-the-bombs-go-off-the-blood-is-on-mike-flynn-s-hands-retired-officers-blast-his-calls-for-martial-law/ar-BB1bzBd2?ebsb=2
All I have to say is, “Lock him up, lock him up!” Flynn was the one who exhorted a mob to “Lock her up, lock her up!” meaning Hillary Clinton. Hillary never engaged in such insane rantings and linguistic obscenities. Trump, Flynn and the rest of the crazies want to foment a civil war, all because Trump can’t admit and accept that he lost.
Flynn’s calling for this is treason.
Bob, excuse my ignorance, but what is NTY?
Also, I happen to agree that not only lindsay is most likely a national security risk (& wasn’t his call to the GA Sec. of State an act of sedition?), but he is one who would more than gladly–perhaps gleefully–take away the rights of LGQTB Americans? After all, he signed, sealed & delivered ACB to the SCotUS.
I wouldn’t step into name-calling (“Blanche”), or criticize the escort business (due to covid, the employees may now be unemployed, evicted & hungry) but, it is that he is a hypocrite & is powerful enough to hurt so very many Americans, is absolutely criminal.
Perhaps the Senate elections in his state were rigged, fraudulent!!!
Anyone have the ca$h to pay for a recount?
NTY = no thank you.
Yesterday another person tested positive every 0.8 seconds and someone died every 27 seconds in our country. Meanwhile, Trump and his staff spent their time yesterday drafting that 46 minute rant that is approaching sedition.
The Republican Party is gone. McConnell stood by yesterday with faux tears as Lamar Alexander bid farewell because he knows that he has lost it all. Republicans who stand by silently are as guilty as those nut jobs that are supporting Trump’s destruction of Presidential norms.
Democracy is alive and well as demonstrated by the remarkable numbers that came out to vote. Make no mistake about it however, we are in the midst of a cold civil war. A war between ideals that will shape our future. The numbers are undeniable. More of us voted for democratic norms than those who voted for division, scapegoating, racism, and Trumpism.
We need to stay the course as we guide our nation towards a just future. It will take years to fix this mess, but we will.
The rant, as crazy as it was, wasn’t written by Trump, clearly. It was in complete, if incoherent, sentences without many of the usual characteristics of Trump’s ungrammatical Toddler English. I wonder which Trump flunky drafted it to the boss’s specs–Miller? McEnany?
Miller immediately came to mind, Bob!
Make no mistake about it however, we are in the midst of a cold civil war.
Yes, indeed, we are.
Trump is no Grover Cleveland. 😐
There is a speculation that all of this is a prelude to Trump announcing that he is running for President in 2024, perhaps on the day of Biden’s inauguration. Not since Andrew Jackson went back to Tennessee in 1824 screaming about the “corrupt bargain” that made Henry Clay Secretary of State and John Q. Adams president has such bitterness at a vote manifested itself in the persona of an individual.
Jackson’s vigorous accusations and political organizing produced the first real political party of modern times, the Democrats. Will Trump use his personality to tear apart the Republican coalition of populist nationalists and business conservatives that has carried the day since Ronald Reagan first aligned those groups in 1980?
Will Trump be opposed, creating a real third party in America for nationalist zealots that spins off of the now compromised Republican Party? Stay tuned.
You pose a fascinating question, Roy.
Currently, nobody really cares about Andrew Jackson and Andrew Johnson anymore. 😐
Might agree about Johnson, but, actually, Jackson statues have come down all over the U.S.fairly recently.
Andrew “Trail of Tears” Jackson. One of the most tragic events in American history.
My post was not to suggest the good or bad i Andrew Jackson. It was, rather to state that the last time I remember a president suggesting that he had been ripped off was Jackson and the corrupt bargain in 1824. The Tilden election was controversial, but it was, as I recall, decided in the smoke-filled room i 1876.
The point is that Jackson took his toys and created a new way of doing politics. Much of it was to the detriment of the new country when he did get elected in 1828. Still, Jackson behaved the way he did in the White House largely because he felt a great weight on his shoulders that related to keeping the union together as job one.
Trump seems to feel the need to divide and rule, a ploy of the European monarchies of the seventeenth century. I expect him to try to start his campaign for the 2024 election soon i order to control the dialogue within the republican party. Old-line repubs like Bush will be much more forceful in their opposition to his antics now that they have seen what he has done to their party and perceive the threat of his making the party go away in favor of a populist nationalism. He could well split the party, ending in another democratic victory in 2024.
Actually, Roy, I was responding to the short reply that Eddie wrote, so was just responding that Andrew Jackson has, indeed, been in the center of controversy lately…but not for the good stuff you wrote about.
Johnson…not so much.
Roy, don’t forget about the Movement for a People’s Party, headed up by Cornell West. They need to be taken seriously. They are and will be an irreversible force to be reckoned with as they grow and develop . . . . I proudly support them as well as the Democrats.
Dominion’s vote-counting machines were used in 24 states including states that Trump won. Trump is only going to court in five of the six states that he lost and is hammering through Social Media and fake Alt-Right news media outlets like extremist conservative propoganda sites NewsMax and OAN.
“Verified Voting, the non-governmental, nonpartisan organization focused on the role technology plays in election administration ( verifiedvoting.org/about/ ), shows 24 states where Dominion Voting products were used in November 2020, including the six states highlighted in the social media posts ( here ). It also includes states that Trump won, such as Louisiana, Iowa, Missouri and Ohio ( here ).”
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-dominion-software-trump-law/fact-check-dominion-softwarewas-notusedonlyin-states-where-trump-is-filing-lawsuits-idUSKBN27S2Z9
More than one reputable media site/publication has fact checked Trump’s allegations.
“Based on our research, the claim that Dominion Voting Systems deleted votes for Donald Trump or switched votes to Joe Biden is FALSE. A national election security coalition announced on Thursday that “there is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.” Other experts and Dominion itself also condemned the claims.”
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/11/14/fact-check-dominion-voting-machines-didnt-delete-switch-votes/6282157002/
The Washington Post reported, “Swing-state counties that used Dominion voting machines mostly voted for Trump” NOTE: Behind a paywall and won’t even provide a direct link to the piece.
Of course, none of this fact-checking will change the minds of Trump’s hardcore, fascist, deplorable, racist, ignorant, easy to manipulate and fool base “willing to die” to keep him in the White House, maybe 10-to-20 thousand AR-15 carrying freaks at most.
The majority of Trump’s supporters will stay glued to their recliners or couches shouting at their TVs and will not be taking their rage to the streets. Instead, they will probably go out and get drunk at a local bar, attend COVID-19 maskless parties as their way to support the mask-less, always lying president, and many will die from the virus or end up being long haulers in denial until they day they die or become brain dead and kept alive on machines.
One irony here is that the sub-contractor here is the natural ally of the Republican party. Dominion is a typical company, no doubt run by entrepenuers who accept the idea that there is a good reason for a public/private relationship as would any government sub-contractor.
Irony from a trup administration? Who could have guessed?
The critical factor with voting machines (and electronic vote tabulation systems) is whether they allow for modification of results by those operating them.
I’m not saying this is what happened (or even that the Dominion systems allow such a thing), but it is at least possible.
In fact, it has been shown that a widely used vote tabulation system does possess such a capability.
https://blackboxvoting.org/fraction-magic-1/
That’s of concern whichever party is operating the systems.
Neither party operates voting systems
While in theory that may be true, in practice it may not be.
But my main point is that it is dangerous to have systems that can be manipulated.
I’d suggest that before anyone conclude that voting systems are safe, they read the stuff at the Black Box voting .
I read a fascinating article, yesterday, that I’ve been trying to find again and verify. The author was saying that the Vice President, as President of the Senate, can assert his or her right to recognize Senators to introduce motions and carry out other activities, such as calling for a vote on legislation. The VP, the author was saying, has but to assert this right of recognition as president of the body. The Senate rules about this, the author was arguing, are not binding. It’s a fascinating idea, given that Kamala Harris will have that power, whatever happens in Georgia, but the Constitutionality of this sounds questionable and like something that would be decided in the courts. Anyone have any relevant expertise and ability to address this question?
I do know, however, that any Senator can call for a vote.
One more downer for Trump:
…………………………………….
The Washington Post
News Alert
Dec. 3, 1:29 p.m. EST
Wisconsin Supreme Court declines to hear Trump campaign challenge to election results
Wisconsin’s high court ruled Thursday that under state law, President Trump’s campaign should have sought a hearing first in a lower-level court.
Trump’s campaign could still seek to challenge President-elect Joe Biden’s more than 20,000-vote lead in Wisconsin circuit court. But the refusal of the state’s highest court to consider the petition is a new blow to Trump’s floundering efforts to overturn the election — and a particularly stinging rebuke, given that conservatives hold a 4-to-3 majority on the elected panel.
Here is my understanding of the key dates in Trump’s effort to cause havoc in the election process.
Dec. 8: By Congressional mandate, the last possible date for Trump to mess around with Electoral College votes.
Dec. 14: Electoral College delegations hold meetings in each state and vote for president. The delegations meet separately in their respective states (and Washington, D.C.) at places designated by the state legislatures. Trump can urge protests at these locations.
Dec. 23: Results delivered to designated officials. The electors seal Certificates of Vote and send them to the Office of the Federal Register (OFR) and to Congress.
Jan. 3, 2021: New Congress seated except for Georgia’s senators
Jan. 5: Georgia Senate runoffs and with little time for anyone to request a recount or question the results, because….the results of that election determines which party can cast a deciding vote on Jan 6.
Jan. 6: Joint Session of Congress to formally count electoral votes and declare official election results.
Trump’s last hope is to persuade enough Republicans to throw objections into this final January 6 process. This could happen if his Congressional cronies ( including two new QAnon members) declare the election was rigged. Working for “collective impact” they could cause mayhem, aided by the continuing silence of Congressional Republicans before this date.
ONLY if two Democrats are elected in the Georgia Senate election on January 5 is there a prospect of controlling whether this all important day ends without planned interference from Trump’s Republican loyalists in Congress, including Mike Pence or with an outcome that will give many, including me, a huge relief.
Jan. 20: Inauguration Day Trump is rumored to have a planned MAGA rally on this day and may announce his own candidacy for reelection and perhaps with Don Jr. speaking to enlist support for his run for political office.
If we can get through this next round of Trump’s maniacal dreams of being declared a winner of this election, you can be sure he will still be seeking some way to satisfy his addiction to being at the center of our daily news. He will not go quietly into the night.
Perhaps it45 is planning to use some of that $170 million he’s just made to bribe some of the electoral college votes, eh?
My God, He’s Completely Insane
By Charles Pierce, Esquire
03 December 20
With “the most important speech he’s ever made,” the president announced he will bring the temple down on his own head.
God, he’s completely bloody insane. He wants to bring it all down on his own head.
“The most important speech” he’s ever made?
46 minutes?
Gawdamighty.
We were leading in all swing states far greater than they ever thought possible.
Tens of millions of ballots sent to unknown recipients.
It’s a widely known fact that voting rolls are packed with people who are not lawfully eligible to vote….this is not disputed. It has never been disputed.
In Wisconsin…where we were way up on election night. [Holds up poster]…at 3:42 in the morning, there was this, a massive dump of votes, almost all Biden. I went from leading by a lot, to losing by a little.
If we are right about the fraud, Joe Biden can’t be president.
They would fill out ballots not even knowing if these people were going to show up and when they did show up, they said, “Sorry. You’ve already voted.”
It’s name is Dominion. With a turn of a dial or the change of a chip, you can take a vote for Trump and change it to Biden.
It’s already been out that 100s of thousands of absentee ballots have been requested. Who’s getting those ballots?
It is statistically impossible that the person, me, who led the charge lost.
And, perhaps, the greatest Sir Story of them all.
The speaker of the house of a certain state said, “Sir, I expected to lose my seat. And instead, because of you, because of that incredible charge, and because of all those rallies, we had a tremendous victory. And everybody knows it. You were much more popular than me, sir, except I got many more votes than you did. And it’s impossible for that to happen.” There is something wrong. And I will tell you what’s wrong…voter fraud.
Millions of votes were cast illegally in the swing states. If that’s the case, then the results of the individual swing states must be overturned and overturned immediately. Some people say that’s too far out. That’s too harsh. Well, does that mean that we take a president, and we’ve just elected a president who was elected with votes that were fraudulent? No, it means you have to overturn the election.
You can watch the whole thing. He does everything except rub dirt in his hair. Me? I have a very brief tolerance for sedition in high places.
If the Democrats were able to rig the presidential election, why didn’t they also rig the Senate and House elections?
Sure, why not? It makes sense. 🤔
Indeed!
Let’s be clear here: Republicans are the problem. They detest democratic governance, but they love power. They don’t care about the country. They care about money.
Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein – two of the most respected Congressional scholars in the country – put it this way nearly a DECADE ago:
“We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional. In our past writings, we have criticized both parties when we believed it was warranted. Today, however, we have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the problem lies with the Republican Party…The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition…When one party moves this far from the mainstream, it makes it nearly impossible for the political system to deal constructively with the country’s challenges.”
It’s only gotten worse – much worse – since then.
How bad is it? Volume five of the Senate Intelligence Committee investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election made it clear. From NBC News:
“the Senate Intelligence Committee painted a stark portrait of a Trump campaign eager to accept help from a foreign power in 2016, as well as a candidate closely involved in the effort…The Senate report, the most detailed account to date of the Trump campaign’s embrace of Russian election interference, also asserted that the allegations that Ukraine interfered in the election — which President Donald Trump perpetuated — originated with Russian intelligence agencies…The report, which the committee’s Republican majority approved, said the committee assessed that Trump discussed hacked emails with his longtime associate Roger Stone — even though Trump told special counsel Robert Mueller that he didn’t recall having done so…the Trump campaign eagerly embraced Russian help in 2016 and knew the material had been stolen by Russian intelligence…”
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/bipartisan-senate-report-describes-2016-trump-campaign-eager-accept-help-n1237002
And, it’s only gotten worse since 2016…
We only have one political party that is committed to the Constitution and its embedded values. Republicans are willing to jettison the Constitution and democratic values at any and every opportunity if it serves their purposes.
Meanwhile, in Republican-dominated states, things are not going well. Covid cases and deaths are spiking, threatening the health and well-being of everybody. Take Iowa, for example:
“To visit Iowa right now is to travel back in time to the early days of the coronavirus pandemic in places such as New York City and Lombardy and Seattle, when the horror was fresh and the sirens never stopped. Sick people are filling up ICUs across the state. Health-care workers are being pushed to their physical and emotional limits…hospital CEOs are begging Iowans to hunker down and please, for the love of God, wear a mask…Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds followed Trump’s lead in downplaying the virus’s seriousness. She never imposed a full stay-at-home order for the state…She imposed a mask mandate for the first time this month and has questioned the science behind wearing masks at all…This week, the state’s test-positivity rate reached 50 percent…Iowa is what happens when a government does basically nothing to stop the spread of a deadly virus.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/12/how-iowa-mishandled-coronavirus-pandemic/617252/
Remember. Seventy-four million people voted FOR an ignorant, self-absorbed autocrat who is a serial liar, a racist, a misogynist, and a traitor who tried to overturn a free and fair election in 2020 and took lots of help from Russian intelligence agencies in 2016 to win* that election.
A republic, if you can keep it. Indeed.
By the way, the Senate Intelligence Committee’s work can largely be credited to Virginia Senator Mark Warner…
Volume 5 is here:
Good comment by Romney.
CNN:
It’s unfortunate that this became a political issue. It’s not political. This is public health, and unfortunately we have not made that message clear enough to the American people, and people are dying because of it.
GOP Sen. Mitt Romney, who lamented the politicization of face masks during an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and said President Trump’s leadership during the pandemic has been a “great human tragedy.”