The Last Days of Lame Duck Don

1/19/21: With less than 24 hours remaining in his term as president, I think we can all agree that Donald J. Trump is probably putting in some serious overtime to finally achieve his most cherished goals. 

In fact, his official White House schedule hints at his diligence as the minutes trickle away. For the seventh day in a row, it reads simply, “President Trump will work from early in the morning until late in the evening. He will make many calls and have many meetings.” 

We know, for example, that the Art of the Deal leader promised in April 2019 that he and the Republicans would roll out a cool new healthcare plan after the November election. 

So, we wait with bated breath for that. 

Also, he promised he would eliminate deficit spending. That means he and his advisors no doubt have pencil and paper out, marveling at how the Trump Tax Cuts “paid for themselves.” 

The federal deficit for the first quarter of Fiscal Year 2021 was “only” $572 billion, a mere $216 billion higher than the first quarter of FY 2020. And what a job of deficit reduction it has been! 

Great work in FY 2020, that’s for sure! That deficit set an all-time record, at $3.1 trillion, more than twice as bad as any previous year. 

No doubt, Donald has penned another love letter to Kim Jong-un, and the North Korean dictator’s response is winging its way to the White House, just in the nick of time. We can guess it will read something like this: 

Dear Lover Boy Don,

 

Okay, I surrender all my nukes, since up until now I have not surrendered a single one.

 

I have been busy lately, murdering a few more of my citizens, and building a submarine that can carry nuclear-tipped missiles. See you at Mar-a-Lago soon.

 

Sorry you lost.

 

XOXO and smooches,

Jong-un 

* 

EVEN MR. TRUMP needs an occasional break. Safe to say, he takes an occasional peak out a White House window and wonders. Has the coronavirus gone away yet, as he said it would, multiple times last year? 

That would be a “no,” for sure. 

According to the CDC, COVID-19 continues to take a deadly toll: 

1/15:  3,683 dead.

1/16:  3,557 dead. 

Lives lost, so far, in the United States:  394,495. 

As of yesterday, 123,848 persons were hospitalized with the coronavirus in the United States. 

After that brief glimpse at the sunlit streets of the nation’s capital, perhaps Donald turns back to work. He’s back on the phones, working for the American people, to the bitter end. He’s checking up on vaccine deliveries, which aren’t going so well. He’s still hatching plans to get more Americans back to work. 

 Because – major bummer – there will be more people unemployed when Joe Biden takes office, than when Trump did himself. 

And let’s just hope, he didn’t see Sen. Mitch McConnell’s on television today. The “mob” that attacked the Capitol on January 6, McConnell said, was “fed lies.” The attackers were “provoked by the president and other powerful people.” 

We wouldn’t want that harsh assessment to distract President Trump from all his last minute tasks or make him sad. With only a few hours left in the White House, he’s got plenty of serious business to complete. 

Hey, maybe a call to Mexico might help! You know. Finally get them to pay for that big, beautiful border wall. 

 

Postscript: We know, Trump aide and White House Prevaricator, Hogan Gidley, hit back at the media on Sunday, and said they had been silencing the president in recent days, for example, by taking away his Twitter account. In an interview on Fox News, Gidley said he wanted everyone to know how unfair it was, that his boss could no longer communicate with the American people! 

(I, for one, had to fight back tears as I watched.) 

Gidley said it was totally unfair to blame Trump for not condemning the January 6 violence with more force. He wanted to condemn it. But how could he get that message out to the public if he couldn’t use Twitter? 

I scratched my head briefly, flicked away a tear, and said to myself, hey, the president could hold one last press conference! Or he could go on Fox News! Or he could agree to an interview on ABC, or Comedy Central, or show up by surprise on the set of The Price is Right, and say what he wanted to say about the violence. If he wanted to condemn the violence, we’d all listen. 

Now, it’s probably too late.

___ 

1/18/21: With two days remaining in the presidency of Donald J. Trump, you would think that serious evidence of widespread election fraud would have been uncovered – in Georgia, for sure. 

The president has certainly insisted the evidence is there. But the people in charge of finding it keep insisting they’ve looked, and, like the Yeti, the evidence never quite turns up in the flesh. 

Last week, Bobby Christine, Acting U.S. District Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, a recent Trump appointee to his post, announced that his office would not bother to pursue two challenges to the Georgia election results filed by President Trump’s legal team. 

“I can tell you I closed the two most – I don’t know, I guess you’d call them high profile or the two most pressing election issues this office has,” he explained to top staff, in a recording obtained by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. 

“I said I believe, as many of the people around the table believed,” Christine is heard saying, “there’s just nothing to them.” 

Christine also indicated during the conversation that he would like to go public with the findings but could not. “I would love to stand out on the street corner and scream this, and I can’t.” 

His former boss, Byung J. “BJay” Pak, also a Trump appointee, had been forced to resign just days before the Georgia senate runoff election on January 5. Pak’s sin? He failed to find the Yeti in the snowstorm.  

* 

IN REALITY, it seems likely we will see plenty of dirt being spilled soon, regarding the many machinations of members of Team Trump. 

Example A: Dirt on Jared and Ivanka. Likely source: Members of their own Secret Service detail. 

It seems that although agents had to guard the couple round-the-clock at their home, the president’s daughter and son-in-law did not want those agents to be pee-peeing in any of their six-and-half bathrooms. 

So agents who had to answer the call of nature had to find other facilities. For a time they used bathrooms in a garage annex at former President Obama’s home in the same neighborhood. Later, they would drive a mile to the home of Vice President Pence, where they could pee or poo in a guard station bathroom. A porta-potty was set up on the sidewalk outside Ivanka and Jared’s place. This was a ritzy neighborhood and people complained. In September 2017, a solution was found. The U.S. government started renting a basement apartment, with a bathroom, from a neighbor of the Kushner family. 

Cost: $3,000 monthly. By the time the lease on the basement apartment ends, taxpayers will have paid: $144,000. 

* 

A STORY you probably missed as the days of President Trump dwindle to “a precious few,” comes from CBS – by way of a report to the United Nations Security Council – by way of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Iran is “advancing its nuclear program and making a point of doing it in plain sight.” 

The incoming Biden administration will attempt to “steer Iran back into compliance with the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement – and then bring the U.S. back onboard, too.” 

(This, of course, is the agreement Trump hated, and tore up, and replaced with nothing except bombastic threats.) 

CBS News warns that IAEA has evidence that “Tehran has started to manufacture equipment used to produce uranium metal at a facility in Isfahan. Uranium metal can be used to make the core of a nuclear warhead, but it’s unclear yet when or if Iran might start producing the material.” 

The 2015 deal prohibited Iran from producing uranium metals for fifteen years, but Trump promised he could get a better deal signed, sealed and delivered, because he was a genius when it came to making deals. (See also: 1/19/21.)

___ 

 

1/16-17/21: We will soon have a post edited, focused on all the rioters who have been arrested since the attack on Capitol Hill. 

It’s already myth on the right, that the attackers weren’t right-wing types at all. Nope. Nope. Nope. 

Antifa, they were. Liberal scum in disguise. That is why, even now, more than 25,000 troops are in position, guarding the city of Washington D.C. and making sure the Biden inauguration is safe. 

Because….Antifa plans an attack???? 

I’m sorry to say this, but if you’re a Trump fan, and you believe that, you’re either ill-informed, or you’re just nuts.

___ 

1/14-15/21: So much news is breaking, so fast, that for now we’re just going to throw it out in chunks, in any order stories come up. 

We’ll sort it all out later, our simply punt, and let historians bring order from the chaos of current events. 

____________________ 

“America First: Dictator Version.”

____________________ 

Someone's idea of fun.

First, a tip of the hat to the good work done by Proxy President Mike Pence in recent days. With Lame Duck Don in hiding, Mr. Pence has had to show up and thank the National Guard troops guarding the city of Washington from the violent fringe elements of Lame Duck’s fans. Pence had to confer with officials at FEMA, to make sure preparations to keep the city and members of the incoming administration safe. Pence called Kamala Harris to offer congratulations and promise assistance in any way he could. Mr. Pence, who for all his flaws has followed Trump without complaint for almost four year, has shown he has a common decency, that his “superior” lacks. Mr. and Mrs. Pence will show up for the Biden inauguration. 

Trump might as well be frozen in ice for all the good he has done in the last two months. In fact, when the mob smashed its way into the House and Senate chambers nine days ago, it was Mr. Pence – his and his wife and daughter’s lives at risk – who had to call in the D.C. National Guard. 

Since the riot erupted, Trump has done nothing but stew. He has not thanked the Capitol Hill police or the D.C. police or anyone else for their courageous defense. He has not dared to call the family of Brian Sicknick, the officer who was killed defending lawmakers’ lives and democracy itself. Trump lacks the courage to face the bitter truth. He has “bone spurs” on his personality, you might say. 

Today, January 15, his schedule reads, fictitiously, “President Trump will work from early in the morning until late in the evening. He will make many calls and have many meetings.”

His schedule has been the same on January 8, 9, 10, 11, 13 and 14, as well. For all we know, he could be dead. 

Or he could have already fled the country, one step ahead of the law. 

* 

IF YOU THINK, as this blogger does, that Trump was a terrible president from the start, you are not surprised by the way his term in office is ending. According to a final Pew Research poll on the matter, only 29% of the American people approve of the job the president has done. 

That compares with 26% who approved of Richard M. Nixon on the day he resigned and left office in disgrace. 

Historians will judge in the end, but it’s not a bad bet to say that someday, when they rate all the presidents who have ever held the job, Donald J. Trump will be considered the worst to ever hold the highest office in the land. The ghost of James Buchanan, at least, will rest easy at last. 

* 

ACCORDING TO the handful of aides who will still speak for the man, President Trump will flee the capital on the morning of January 20. He won’t concede his loss. He won’t meet with Mr. Biden before he skips town. And for all we know, he may make off with the White House spoons. The current First Lady will never greet Jill Biden at the White House and show her around. 

For the best, perhaps. “Be Best,” and away we go! 

Meanwhile, COVID-19 ravages the country. The president we’re stuck with right now, couldn’t care less. Daily death totals since we last checked: 

1/8:    3,623 dead.

1/9:    3,432 dead.

1/10:  2,083 dead.

1/11:  1,957 dead.

1/12:  4,131 dead.

1/13:  4,096 dead.

1/14:  3,904 dead. 

Death toll (total): 387,255. 

Another week as bad as this, and we will pass the death toll the nation suffered in World War II. 

Americans currently hospitalized: 127,235, that number down slightly in the last few day. Yet, for 44 days straight, at least 100,000 people in this country have been hospitalized with the coronavirus. 

And Trump has not offered a word of sympathy in that entire time. 

This was never the flu, no matter who said it was. Not the flu, Donald J. Trump, you fool. Not the flu, Sean Hannity, you dope. Not the flu, Rushbo, you chump. 

Not the flu. Not the flu. Not the flu. 

* 

NOR ARE WE in some kind of “V-shaped” recovery, as President Trump once predicted we would be by now. We’re not in a recovery at all, not one shaped “A,” “B,” “C,” or “D.” Unemployment numbers continue to be grim. Seasonally adjusted, for the week ending January 9, there were 965,000 initial claims for jobless benefits. An additional 284,470 workers sought help for the first time under the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program. 

* 

AS FOR “America First.” Who could have guessed? The Trump administration will go out bragging about having reduced the number of U.S. troops fighting overseas to the lowest levels in twenty years. 

(All they had to do to manage that feat was abandon every ally we had.) 

Instead, 25,000 U.S. troops will be on guard this coming Inauguration Day. They will be armed and ready to fight off any attack by the kinds of people who President Trump has spent four years stirring up. 

* 

ONE DIEHARD FAN of the president visited the White House on Friday, to urge his god-chosen leader to rise up. 

Mike Lindell, who has insisted against all evidence to the contrary, that God chose Trump to be president for eight years, not four, was seen entering the West Wing around 3 p.m. yesterday. 

Jabin Botsford, a Washington Post cameraman with a telephoto lens got a snap of Lindell’s notes. 

We’ll let the Independent, a British newspaper, explain what the cameraman was able to pick up:

 

One of Donald Trump’s fiercest supporters, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, went to a meeting at the White House with notes suggesting “martial law if necessary”.

The notes, captured by a photographer as Mr Lindell entered the Oval Office on Friday, come after Mr Lindell tweeted then deleted calls for the president to “impost martial law” in the seven battleground states that won the election for Joe Biden.

 

The page is curved and not fully visible, but the heading is titled “[illegible] taken immediately to save the [illegible] constitution”.

 

It references a “cyber” attorney and “Kraken” attorney Sidney Powell, while recommending “Kash Patel to acting CIA”.

 

“Insurrection Act now as a result of the assault on the… martial law if necessary upon the first hint of any…”, it read.

 

“… foreign interference in the election trigger [ineligible] powers. Make clear this is China/Iran.”

 

So, let’s be clear. If Lindell had his way, we’d all be in for a grand surprise in just five more days. 

Trump would give the order, and those 25,000 troops on guard today would turn on Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and Mike Pence and all the rest. Martial Law. “America First: Dictator Version!”

What other nutty ideas are hidden behind the coffee cup?

 

* 

EVEN WITH WASHINGTON D.C. under guard, and Lindell hinting that God really wants Trump to be like Hitler, this next item may be the most important story of all in the grand scheme of life. 

According to scientists from thirteen institutions, the world’s oceans were hotter in 2020 than ever before. Hotter, even, than in 2019, when they were at that time hotter than ever before. 

Research published in Advances in Atmospheric Science, a magazine you no doubt keep on your nightstand for fun, notes that 90% of the heat generated by human activity is absorbed by the waters of the world. 

As reporters explain, 

Researchers emphasized that warmer ocean waters intensify hurricanes and other storms that travel over the sea, and warmer water also expands to take up more room, causing sea level rise and coastal flooding. The disruption in rainfall patterns also leads to droughts and wildfires.  

U.S. government scientists at the NOAA also report that 2020 was, on land and sea and in the air, the second hottest year since records have been kept. The year 2016 maintains a slim lead, and 2020 knocks 2019 down to third place. 

Even more telling, the year just ended was the hottest ever for the Northern Hemisphere, 2.3°F hotter than average. 

On a positive note, President-Elect Biden has already announced several choices to head up a White House Office of Domestic Climate Policy. Proof again, that not all politicians are alike. Under Trump, there was no such office and no policy to deal with the matter at all. With the Big Orange Buffoon in control, climate change was always seen as a “hoax.” 

If Trump (or most Trump supporters) ever heard of NOAA, which has been sounding dire warnings every year, it did not show. Look up what NOAA stands for if you don’t happen to know. 

* 

SINCE THE TOPIC is stupidity, I think it might be time to nominate the new dumbest member of Congress, with several fresh candidates rushing to the fore. For this blogger, the current favorite is incoming Sen. Tommy Tubberville, famous mainly for being a successful football coach. 

Apparently, Coach Senator never had time while charting X’s and O’s to read the U.S. Constitution. He suggested this week that a great way to lower the temperature – not the global temperature, of course – but the political temperature in our country, would be to delay Mr. Biden’s inauguration until the COVID-19 crisis abates. 

(Sure: Since President Trump is doing such a fantastic job of focusing on that crisis right now!) 

“We probably could have had a swearing-in and inauguration later after we got this virus behind us a little bit,” Coach Senator told baffled reporters back home in Alabama. “Again, we’re talking about Washington, D.C.,” Tuberville added, in a snarky stab at the people who muck about in the “Swamp.” 

Alas, the fact that the 20^th Amendment sets January 20 as the day, and noon as the time for a new president to be sworn in, somehow escaped Coach Senator’s feeble intellectual grasp. 

* 

ONE LAWMAKER who is definitely smarter than Coach Senator, is Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. The Republican senator said in a statement released this week that the decision to impeach President Trump was “appropriate.” She promised to listen to “both sides” when the Senate trial begins. As for Mr. Trump’s role in the tragedy that took place on January 6, she was clear: 

President Trump’s words incited violence, which led to the injury and deaths of Americans...the desecration of the Capitol, and briefly interfered with the government's ability to ensure a peaceful transfer of power.

 

For months, the President has perpetrated false rhetoric that the election was stolen and rigged, even after dozens of courts ruled against these claims. When he was not able to persuade the courts or elected officials, he launched a pressure campaign against his own Vice President, urging him to take actions that he had no authority to do.

 

Such unlawful actions cannot go without consequences and the House has responded swiftly, and I believe, appropriately, with impeachment.

 

Amen. And see below. 

* 

Proving that Republicans have their priorities straight, there is outrage from their side, after Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver, who happens to be a United Methodist minister, ended a prayer in Congress with the words, “Amen and a-woman.” Cleaver says he was simply acknowledging all the women now serving in the House and Senate, even Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is nuts. 

In any case, it’s not exactly a major issue. You know: Compared to the fact that more than 4,000 Americans died from COVID-19 in a single day and some of these same Republican voices have been coddling President Trump all along. For instance, when he made stupid statements like: “Hey, drink disinfectant, and the virus will go away.” Or: “Don’t worry. This coronavirus will go away when it gets warm.” 

Some Republican noted that “amen” is Latin for, “So be it.” Which this blogger definitely did not know. 

Anyway, GOP members were furious. Rep. Lauren Boebert was seen waving her pistol in the air, and fake shooting Cleaver for fun. 

Okay, that last part is a joke. 

Amen. 

* 

MEANWHILE, federal prosecutors in Arizona allege that the rioters who invaded Capitol Hill had plans “to capture and assassinate elected officials.” 

Explaining their decision to ask a judge to block bail for Jacob Chansley, photographed dressed in Viking garb during the riot, they noted that Chansley, a QAnon conspiracy theorist, was still a threat to others. 

And himself. 

Inside the Senate chamber, Chansley is said to have left a note at the Vice President’s desk, warning, “It’s only a matter of time, justice is coming.” 

In seeking to deny bail, prosecutors warned, “Strong evidence, including Chansley’s own words and actions at the Capitol, supports that the intent of the Capitol rioters was to capture and assassinate elected officials in the United States government.” Charges against the defendant “involve active participation in an insurrection attempting to violently overthrow the United States government.” They told the judge that “the insurrection is still in progress.” 

In another kick to the Viking’s shins, authorities noted that he suffers from drug abuse and mental illness, a fitting leader for any QAnon crew. “Chansley,” they explained, “has spoken openly about his belief that he is an alien, a higher being, and he is here on Earth to ascend to another reality.” 

Chansley’s lawyer had a great idea, though. His client should receive a pardon from the current President of the United States. After all, Albert Watkins explained, “My client had heard the oft-repeated words of Donald J. Trump. The words and invitation of a president are supposed to mean something.” Such as, let’s go to the Capitol and “fight like hell,” as Trump suggested, and maybe lynch VP Pence. 

“Given the peaceful and compliant fashion in which Mr. Chansley comported himself [inside the Capitol building],” Watkins added, “it would be appropriate and honorable for the president to pardon Mr. Chansley and other like-minded, peaceful individuals who accepted the president’s invitation with honorable intentions.”  

Plus, he might as well have said, “My client is crazy; and so is the President of the United States.” 

Also, Mike Lindell!

___ 

1/13/21: With just one week remaining in his first and almost certainly only term in office, President Trump makes history again. 

On a vote of 232 to 197, with nine Republicans and one former Republican voting in favor, and four Republicans not voting at all, Lame Duck Donald gets impeached again.

Future high school history books will describe the impeachment process, as set up under the U.S. Constitution, and will include a picture of this guy: 

If they had a Mt. Rushmore for impeached presidents, Trump would be carved twice.

____________________ 

“There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution.” 

Rep. Liz Cheney

____________________ 

 

If you have any brains in your head, you already understand that the man deserves to be impeached, even if it might prove no more than symbolic in the end. And if you really follow the news you know he should have been canned when he pressured Ukraine in 2019, in an effort to make sure he won reelection this past November. This second try was different, however, because even Republicans have awakened. Rep. Liz Cheney, the third-ranking member of the party in the U.S. House of Representatives, issued a blistering statement in support of Trump’s removal from office. 

Referencing the shocking attack on Capitol Hill, she explained:

 

Much more will become clear in coming days and weeks, but what we know now is enough. The President of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack. Everything that followed was his doing.

 

None of this would have happened without the President. The President could have immediately and forcefully intervened to stop the violence. He did not. There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution. 

Rep. Adam Kinzinger, an Air Force veteran, also voted to impeach. “There is no doubt in my mind that the President of the United States broke his oath of office and incited this insurrection,” Kinzinger wrote in a statement of explanation. “So in assessing the articles of impeachment brought before the House…if these actions – the Article II branch inciting a deadly insurrection against the Article I branch – are not worthy of impeachment, then what is an impeachable offense?” 

Rep. John Katko of New York was equally clear: “It cannot be ignored that President Trump encouraged this insurrection.” 

Certainly, the risk for Republicans of voting to impeach was clear, but not the political risk alone. Rep. Pete Meijer, 33, of Michigan was one of only nine GOP freshmen lawmakers to vote to uphold Joe Biden’s victory. That move alone meant he became the subject of death threats. 

“We realize that was a vote we cast that put our safety at risk and going forward, I am expecting there will likely be more political violence,” said Meijer. “So my expectation and the expectation of some folks I’m talking to who are trying to vote our conscience on this, there will be folks that try to kill us, and that’s something we have to grapple with every day.” 

 

Rep. Meijer noted that one Republican colleague told him that he or she wanted to vote to uphold Mr. Biden’s election, but “concern about the safety of that individual’s family” dissuaded him or her from voting to certify the electoral college votes. “That is where the rhetoric has brought us,” Meijer said with great sadness. “That is the degree of fear that’s been created.” 

Still, to his credit, he voted today to impeach. 

The same pressures will be there when the Upper House gets the impeachment resolutions and Republicans decide how to hold a trial and how to vote. In the U.S. Senate, Ben Sasse has said he is considering a “yes” vote. Sen. Mitt Romney is likely to vote to impeach, since he was the only Republican last time to agree that Trump should be removed. Even Senate Majority Leader McConnell is signaling that he might vote to convict Trump the second time around. 

(McConnell is said to be anxious to “rid” the Republican Party of Donald Trump, in light of his many disastrous missteps in recent months.) 

* 

MEANWHILE, with right-wing groups still threatening violence in days ahead, 20,000 U.S. troops have been sent to Washington D.C. to keep the peace.

Today, Rep. Brian Mast led National Guard troops on a special tour of the Capitol. Mast, a Republican who lost both legs in combat, thanked Guard personnel for their service. At the same time, troops were warned that extremist groups promising to protest the election of Joseph Biden and may deploy improvised explosive devices (IED’s) in the nation’s capital. So the soldiers should be on the alert. 

“Make America Great Again,” right? 

* 

UNABLE TO JUSTIFY the attacks by Trump supporters on Capitol Hill, other Trump supporters have been reduced in recent days to denying that any Trump supporters were involved at all. 

No less a political sneak than Rep. Matt Gaetz has continued to peddle the myth that the attack was actually the work of leftist Antifa radicals. 

This line of horse manure was picked up by janitors today, during debate on the Articles of Impeachment. Just minutes after Gaetz stood in the House of Representatives to repeat that ridiculous claim, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said there was “no evidence” that Antifa played any role. 

McCarthy was clear. He did not support an impeachment charge. But his explanation for his position was no defense of the President of the United States. Trump, he said, “bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters. He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw [on January 6] what was unfolding. These facts require immediate action by President Trump.” 

“Some say the riots were caused by antifa. There is absolutely no evidence of that,” he continued. “Conservatives should be the first to say so.” 

(Then again, we on our side have already made that point.) 

McCarthy also said it was not “the American way” to contest a fairly decided election. “Let’s be clear, Joe Biden will be sworn in as president of the United States in one week because he won the election.” 

Amen.

___ 

1/12/21: I am going to venture a guess and say most Trump fans have never read Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes. 

In addition, I am going to guess that their tangerine god-hero has read almost nothing at all during his seven-plus decades on earth. 

(That would include his daily White House briefing reports.) 

Still, Cervantes seems to be describing a man like Trump, four centuries ago, when he wrote: 

____________________ 

“People like him can’t lie, unless the fancy happens to take them or they find it very convenient to do so.” 

Cervantes

____________________ 

 

Having listened to his lies, having believed them all, his followers are badly confused today. The truth is hitting them hard – although they are fighting back in an effort to ignore it. Consider, for example, the cruel fate of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who has been a Trump enabler for years. 

Zero nukes surrendered.

Pompeo had an exciting trip planned to Europe, to lead off an exciting second term for President Trump, which he predicted confidently lay ahead. At one point, he had noted proudly that with Donald Trump in the White House, America was respected again. Then reality smacked him upside the head. 

The North Koreans announced that their greatest enemy was still the United States. Oh, and by the way, they weren’t giving up any nukes. 

Those “love letters” they sent Trump? Fake out, Donald! Kim Jong un doesn’t love you and never did. 

As reported by Voice of America, the government agency tasked with spreading truth around the globe: 

In a speech at an important meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party, Kim called the U.S. his country’s “biggest enemy” and repeated his long-standing assertion that the U.S. must lift its “hostile policy” in order to establish better ties, according to the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

 

Kim also called for his country to continue developing nuclear weapons. Notably, he said North Korea should acquire new capabilities, such as solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missiles, hypersonic missiles, and tactical nuclear weapons.

 

A reporter had the audacity to ask Secretary Pompeo if he regretted some of what he had said about Trump and his second term. 

Quicker than you could say, “Pompeo is a poopiehead,” that reporter was reassigned to a new post.

To the north, but from a friendlier direction, the Prime Minister of Canada watched the shocking riot on January 6, and condemned the actions of Mr. Trump. “What we witnessed was an assault on democracy by violent rioters, incited by the current president and other politicians.” 

(Rep. Mo Brooks comes to mind.) 

“As shocking, deeply disturbing, and frankly saddening as that event remains, we have also seen this week that democracy is resilient in America, our closest ally and neighbour,” Trudeau continued. “Violence has no place in our societies, and extremists will not succeed in overruling the will of the people.” 

Then, the “other shoe” fell, assuming the nations of the world were a centipede. Secretary Pompeo had a trip to Europe planned to talk with our allies. Tiny Luxembourg dropped its shoe next, announcing that it no longer wanted to meet with the U.S. Secretary of State. Jean Asselborn, Luxembourg’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, was blunt in a way that diplomats rarely are. In a radio interview he called President Trump a “criminal” and a “political pyromaniac,” to boot. 

That had to sting, but there was still a meeting scheduled in Brussels, with representatives of the European Union. Then that shoe also dropped. A diplomatic source told reporters that EU officials were “embarrassed” to be meeting with Pompeo, who had stood by Trump so blindly, for so long. 

Iran, of course, had a shoe, as well and announced that it would begin enriching uranium to levels not seen since President Obama and several U.S. allies, Russia, and China, all agreed on a deal to ease restrictions on Iran. In return, Iran had agreed to halt its nuclear arms development program. 

Pompeo then decided it would be a great idea to pick up that particular shoe and hit himself repeatedly in the head, warning that Al Qaeda had now “burrowed” deep inside Iran. There, he said, they had set up an operational base, before admitting that the U.S. had few options that would allow for it to be dug out. In other words, so much for “respect.” It was time, Secretary Pompeo continued, “for America and all free nations to crush the Iran-al-Qaeda axis.” 

Suddenly, the United States needed help! 

We could ask the Kurds, again, since they had proven instrumental in crushing ISIS. But Trump had screwed them for sure. We could ask France, England, and Germany to pitch in; but Team Trump had ignored their support for the Iran deal. We could ask our NATO allies to do more; but Trump had mocked their sacrifices in Afghanistan, where hundreds of their troops had been killed or wounded over the years. 

They were probably more than a little sore, too, to have discovered one day that Trump was pulling U.S. troops out of Syria, where they were then helping us fight, without asking them what they thought. 

 

Postscript: As this blogger has said repeatedly, you can’t blame many foreign policy problems on anyone, not even Donald J. Trump. The world is a messy place and diplomacy, as the blogger always admits, is a bitch. 

It has been irksome, however, to listen to Trump brag about how great a job he has done on the international scene, and know how he has condemned the “mistakes” of his predecessors without end. 

Trump came into office knowing almost nothing about how diplomacy works; and he will leave office soon, knowing no more than on the day he came in.

___

1/11/21: Only nine more days until the 45^th President of the United States finishes his term and goes on to fresh criminal pursuits. 

____________________ 

The only man ever to have been impeached twice.

____________________ 

 

But the hammer blows continue to fall, in the wake of his alleged incitement to riot of his loyal fans. 

Also, we have his alleged felonious phone call to Georgia election officials, asking them to steal him about 12,000 votes. 

We learn this afternoon that the U.S. House of Representatives will move tomorrow to impeach Donald Trump for a second time, meaning the president will slink out of Washington D.C. on or about January 20, the only man in U.S. history ever to have been impeached twice. 

First president ever impeached; but not twice!

Trump loyalists continue to defend the indefensible, but reality sinks in with each passing day. We see video of the rioters on January 6, dragging a police officer down the steps on Capitol Hill, beating him, ironically, with flags, and shouting that he should be killed. We see a scaffold and noose set up outside by the mob. We hear men and women who have lost their senses, chanting, “Hang Mike Pence.” We learn that at least fifty police were injured by rioters. We see a member of the mob in tactical gear, carrying a fistful of plastic restraints, apparently looking for lawmakers to take hostage and possibly have hanged or torn apart by his friends. 

Fortunately, not all Americans are delusional. The PGA decides to withdraw from an agreement with the Trump Organization to hold its championship tournament at Trump National in Bedminster, N.J., in 2022. 

Bill Belichick, coach of the New England Patriots, informs the White House he won’t be showing up to get his Presidential Medal of Freedom, either. 

(Of course, Rep. Jim Jordan did.) 

Equally telling, Randall Lane, the editor of Forbes magazine, has warned companies not to hire former communications officials from the Trump administration. Should they do so, he explained, “Forbes will assume that everything your company or firm talks about is a lie.” 

Lane named five individuals, specifically, as “Trump’s fellow fabulists.” Namely: Sean Spicer, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Stephanie Grisham, Kayleigh McEnany and Kellyanne Conway. 

In related news, Gen. Colin Powell said today he could no longer consider himself a Republican in the wake of the mob attack last Wednesday. Would he support impeachment again? “Of course,” he told a reporter, although he doubted there was enough time for it to do any good.

___

1/10/21: These are tough times to be a Trump apologist, but that doesn’t mean leaders of the cult aren’t doing their best. 

Unfortunately, evidence is almost entirely against them. For example, one last line of defense has been: Trump didn’t stir up the mob and incite insurrection. (It just sounded exactly like he did.) 

Oh, no! Fake out! The people who rampaged across Capitol Hill were….liberals, Antifa and BLM types in disguise! 

Apparently, the BLM guys were wearing “whiteface.” Because that mob, to steal a line I read once, “looked like a mayonnaise sandwich on white bread.” 

(We will put together a list soon of all the individuals so far under arrest for their part in the breach of Congress.)

Nope. Don't be a dope. Not Antifa.

*

FOR NOW, President Trump remains in hiding, like Hitler in his Berlin bunker in April 1945, as Allied forces closed around him. 

His official schedule today reads, as it has for several days: “President Trump will work from early in the morning until late in the evening. He will make many calls and have many meetings.” 

While he hides out, more and more Americans are calling for any of these three outcomes. Feel free to pick your favorite: 

A). Trump agrees to resign.

B). Congress impeaches the fool.

C). VP Pence and the cabinet invoke the XXV Amendment and shitcan Don. 

In other pertinent news, fresh details of the president’s plot to steal the election he says Biden stole from him are revealed. We already have the tape of his phone call to Georgia officials asking them to “find” just enough votes for him to “win” the state’s 16 electoral votes. 

That call, alone, would, in a perfect world where the rule of law is honored, win Lame Duck Don a state felony charge. 

Now we know he also put in a call to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. We’re not talking the “tip line” here, either. What Trump asked a lead investigator in charge of running down rumors of election irregularities, was to “find the fraud.” If he or she did, the president promised, they would be “a national hero.” 

Without further detail, we can’t be sure this call would merit another state felony count. We do know it’s absolutely unethical to call and pressure investigators to get the result you want. 

It’s worth adding that the investigator has asked to remain anonymous for fear of riling up the pro-Trump nuts. 

* 

YOU HAVE to be paying careful attention, of course, not trying to smash down doors and kill cops on Capitol Hill, to chase down the truth. But in recent days two more gaping holes were shot in the bottom of the “Election Was Stolen” boat. First, Sen. Kelly Loeffler conceded defeat in a special election in Georgia and called Rev. Raphael Warnock to offer congratulations. In a video to her supporters she explained, “Unfortunately we came up slightly short in the runoff election. Earlier today I called Rev. Warnock to congratulate him and to wish him well in serving this great state.” 

Sen. David Perdue, acting like a normal human being, conceded next, admitting that he, too, had lost a Georgia runoff and congratulated the Democratic winner, Jon Ossoff. 

Unlike the president, neither Loeffler nor Perdue insisted that the voting machines in Georgia were rigged. They did not claim they lost because dead voters rose up from their graves and voted in ghoulish mobs. They did not hire crackpot lawyers like Sidney Powell to peddle idiotic “votes were stolen by the billions” claims. 

They bowed out with grace. It can’t be easy to lose; but not everyone goes off their rocker when they do. 

Perdue’s statement read: 

Bonnie [his wife] and I are deeply grateful for the support millions of Georgians have shown us this year and in the six years since we first ran for the United States Senate. Serving our home state has been the honor of a lifetime, and I am very proud of how our team in Georgia and Washington, D.C. fought every day to deliver real results for all eleven million Georgians. 

 

Although we won the general election, we came up just short of Georgia’s 50% rule, and now I want to congratulate the Democratic Party and my opponent for this runoff win. Bonnie and I will continue to pray for our wonderful state and our great country. May God continue to bless Georgia and the United States of America.  

See how easy that was.

___

 

 

 

1/9/21: This post will deal with the riots on Capitol Hill; still being edited.

___

1/8/21: The December jobs report is out and it’s not a good one. The “V-shaped” recovery predicted by President Trump and all the yes-men and yes-women surrounding him, has failed to materialize. 

Jobs lost in December: 140,000. Total jobs lost for the year: 9,839,000, subject to slight corrections later. 

Trump-loving Americans probably won’t notice. Or they may have to fall back on an old favorite line: The jobs numbers, once favorable to their orange boy, are back to be “rigged.” Unemployment now stands at 6.7%, which is two full points higher than it was when Trump took over from Obama. The Labor Participation Rate is 61.5 percent. It was 62.8 percent when Obama left the White House. Even Trump’s promise to win the “War on Coal” has fizzled. There were 50,900 coal miners at work in this country on Inauguration Day in 2017. Today that number has fallen to 44,100. 

If you’re not math averse you can check this out yourself. First, we total up the 6,840,000 jobs added under President Trump, in his first 37 months in office (February 2017-February 2020). Next, we subtract the jobs obliterated by the pandemic in March and April of this year (22,160,000). We then count the jobs regained between May and November (12,461,000) and subtract the 140,000 lost in December. We punch a few calculator buttons, and presto, we have an almost complete record for the “greatest job creator” in the White House ever. 

Jobs created in four years: 0 

The Trump jobs report, with one month left to show up in Bureau of Labor Statistics: 

-2,999,000 jobs! 

* 

IN OTHER BAD NEWS, today the U.S. set a record for new cases of the coronavirus, with 314,093. Another 3,623 Americans are dead. 

The president couldn’t tweet about the topic (or anything else) because Twitter has banned him for stoking violence.

___

 

1/7/21: I’m going to have to spend some time analyzing  the events of January 6. So, for now, let’s see what else the President of the United States-for-13-More-Days is doing lately. According to the White House, his schedule for today reads, “President Trump will work from early in the morning until late in the evening. He will make many calls and have many meetings.” 

Just three days ago, the schedule sounded a little more impressive: “During the Holiday season,” the White House insisted, “President Trump will continue to work tirelessly for the American People. His schedule includes many meetings and calls.” Now, it’s like aides have given up. 

By next week, the schedule may just read, “The President no longer gives a f**k. He spends his days playing with himself and doesn’t care what happens to the American people or the county he was elected to lead.” 

While he was busy stirring up his followers to attack the U.S. Capitol, the toll from COVID-19 was growing. According to CDC, we lost another 1,800 Americans on January 4. 

On January 5, the toll was 3,541 dead. 

On January 6, the loss was 3,844. 

On January 7, an even grimmer toll: 4,180, and a seven-day average of 2,790 American lives lost, the highest ever. 

The number of Americans hospitalized also hit a new high yesterday, 132,370, with no sign of any decline ahead. For comparison purposes, on November 3, Election Day, a little more than 50,000 were hospitalized. 

According to the Centers for Disease Control, a total of 364,029 Americans have now died from the virus. 

That figure is greater than all the deaths, combined, from regular flus, in the last decade. So, dummies, wear masks.

___

 

1/6/21: When I awoke this morning, and rose from bed, there was a lightness in my step. The Georgia senate runoff elections Tuesday, I assumed, had put a coda to Lame Duck Donald’s political career. 

Originally, I was going to note that six days short of the fiftieth anniversary of the end of Gov. Lester Maddox’s term as governor of Georgia, an African American man had been chosen to be the next U.S. senator from that state. Maddox, for those of you too young to remember, rose to fame in 1965 after threating to use a pistol or the handle of a pickaxe to club any “Negroes” who tried to enter his restaurant in Atlanta. The Pickrick specialized in skillet-fried chicken with a side order of racism and a possible knock to the head. (Maddox was a Democrat, by the way, that party in the South in those days being shot through with racists, for sure.) 

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 had just been passed, as well as the Voting Rights Act of 1965, but in those days, civil rights advocates in the south were still being murdered on a regular basis, and their killers were being acquitted on the same regular basis in court. You know: the “good old days” when black lives definitely didn’t matter. 

In the case of Lester, he proudly explained, how he “stood up” for liberty and states’ rights when the n-----s came calling:

 

Mostly customers, with only a few employees, voluntarily removed the twelve Pickrick Drumsticks [pickaxe handles] from the nail kegs on each side of the large dining room fireplace. They had been forewarned by the arrival of Atlanta’s news media of an impending attempted invasion of our restaurant by the racial demonstrators and once the demonstrators and agitators arrived, the customers and employees pulled the drumsticks from the kegs and went outside to defend against the threatened invasion.

 

The invaders? Three black seminary students, who thought, in a free country, they might get a bite to eat. 

Now, here we were, half a century later. Rev. Raphael Warnock, himself a former seminarian, was headed for Congress, having defeated incumbent Sen. Kelly Loeffler in a tight race. Rev. Warnock was born in Georgia in 1969, the eleventh of twelve children, when Maddox was governor. His father had served in the U.S. Army during World War II, but could not have ordered a plate of fried chicken in Lester’s place once he returned. But a former Nazi, in civilian clothes could have had seconds, if he liked. 

(Think about that, next time you puzzle out your stance on expanding freedoms for all.) 

Almost as exciting, I thought on Wednesday morning, Jon Ossoff, 33, who happens to be Jewish, held a 17,500 vote lead over Sen. David Perdue. There were still ballots to be counted; but it was clear that Perdue had little chance of overcoming that lead. QAnon people, a growing part of the Republican Party’s base, I knew, would be horrified to learn that not only an African American, but a Jew, would soon be representing the Peach State in Washington D.C. 

(If you’d haven’t seen Ossoff’s blistering response to Perdue’s attack ads during the campaign, it’s worth a look. He puts his opponent on the stop and asks if Perdue can justify an add that lengthened and distorted his nose – a not-so-subtle reminder of who the Democrat “was,” a Jew, of course.) 

With those two wins, I also knew Milksop Mitch’s days as Senate Majority Leader would soon come to an end. 

* 

MY WIFE and I decided to go out for lunch (we’ve already had COVID-19, so we feel pretty safe), but before we left, we heard Lame D. rile up a huge crowd of supporters. He said he, and they, weren’t going to stand for having the election stolen. Clearly, his rhetoric was dangerous, because if you weren’t going to stand for it, and Congress was about to vote to certify the election, what course would you have to take to stop it? (We learned what course that was, later in the day.) 

Ironically, dozens of Republican lawmakers were planning a last-ditch challenge of the electoral vote count. Included in a group of thirteen GOP senators who said they would challenge were two who deserved special mention. One: soon-to-be-former Sen. Kelly Loeffler, who lost her seat to Rev. Warnock. 

Two: Sen. Ted Cruz, who shall live in infamy for his craven support of the man he once labeled a “sniveling coward.” 

If you have forgotten, Lame Duck Don was new to politics in February 2016, when he faced Cruz in the Iowa Republican primary. When Cruz, “Lyin’ Ted,” as Trump liked to call him, prevailed, Trump had his first chance to claim an election that didn’t go his way was fixed. 

“Ted Cruz didn’t win Iowa,” Candidate Don howled, “he stole it. That is why all of the polls were so wrong and why he got far more votes than anticipated. Bad!” 

Ah, yes, the patented “rigged polls” angle, too! 

Just to be sure his fans got the message, three days later he retweeted a post from a fan: “IA caucus hasn’t picked nominee in 16 years! Cruz dirty tricks stole it. Trump way ahead in primary states.” 

So, the Iowa primary was fixed. 

Then the 2016 general election was rigged, even though Trump won, by virtue of the Electoral College, which is how our system of government works. Then Mr. Touchy insisted he really won the popular vote, because Democrats got millions of votes from illegal immigrants and Bigfoot and Tupac and tried to steal his win. (Somehow, Democrats stole most of those votes in California, where they didn’t need them, and not Pennsylvania and Michigan, where they did). 

Then the 2018 midterm elections, with Democrats getting 59 million votes, vs. 50 million for candidates in the House of Representatives, were rigged and fixed and unacceptable and a travesty, for sure. 

Then, Lame D. piled up 74 million votes in November, which was way better than Mr. Duck had done four years before. And it was perfectly believable to Duck and all his fans that he had increased his vote by eleven million. (In fact, he did.) But it was perfectly unbelievable that Joe Biden piled up 81 million votes (in fact, he did), and so, yes, the election, ipso facto, had to have been rigged. 

The November vote in Georgia made Lame D. especially mad. It was fixed and fraudulent and Republicans who run the system in the state had to be RINO’s, shysters, and human scum. Trump lost the state by 11,779 votes. 

Then the state did two recounts. He lost again. Then he lost again. 

Then this past weekend he called and begged Georgia officials to “find” 11,780 votes, or round up to 12,000, so he could win. 

(Try that yourselves, Trump fans. Try to bribe an election official where you live to “find” some extra votes. You’ll get slapped with a felony faster than you can say, “Make America Great Again!”) 

Then Trump campaigned for Loeffler and Perdue, even though he said the runoff election was going to be…rigged. With his “help,” Perdue went from having had an 88,000 vote lead over Ossoff in November, to losing by 33,000, instead. Loeffler did worse, too, compared to Trump two months ago, because Democrats turned out a greater share of their support. 

That meant that the final score in Georgia elections was: 

Democrats:       5 

Team Trump:   0.

 

They say, “It’s not over until the fat lady sings.” But by the time I headed for lunch, the lady sounded like she was warming up her pipes. 

(We will try to cover the events of the afternoon separately.)

According to some of my conservative friends these are members of Antifa.

___

1/5/21: Lame Duck Don has fifteen days left to screw up the country and he’s doing his best. 

That means, for most of Americans, and all of us who cherish the rule of law, he’s doing his worst. 

____________________ 

“We did not swear it to an individual or a party.” 

Letter signed by the ten living former Secretaries of Defense

____________________

  

It should be telling (but for many Trump fans it won’t be, because they’ll never see the truth, or admit it if they do) that the ten living former Secretaries of Defense have signed a letter of warning. That such a warning is necessary tells us everything we need to know about the menace that is President Trump. Signatories include the first two Defense secretaries he hired, and then fired. These are men who know what he’s like behind closed doors. 

The bipartisan group writes: 

As former secretaries of defense, we hold a common view of the solemn obligations of the U.S. armed forces and the Defense Department. Each of us swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. We did not swear it to an individual or a party.

 

American elections and the peaceful transfers of power that result are hallmarks of our democracy…This should be no exception.

 

Our elections have occurred. Recounts and audits have been conducted. Appropriate challenges have been addressed by the courts. Governors have certified the results. And the electoral college has voted. The time for questioning the results has passed; the time for the formal counting of the electoral college votes, as prescribed in the Constitution and statute, has arrived.

 

As senior Defense Department leaders have noted, “there’s no role for the U.S. military in determining the outcome of a U.S. election.” Efforts to involve the U.S. armed forces in resolving election disputes would take us into dangerous, unlawful and unconstitutional territory. Civilian and military officials who direct or carry out such measures would be accountable, including potentially facing criminal penalties, for the grave consequences of their actions on our republic.

 

…Acting defense secretary Christopher C. Miller and his subordinates – political appointees, officers and civil servants – are each bound by oath, law and precedent to facilitate the entry into office of the incoming administration, and to do so wholeheartedly. They must also refrain from any political actions that undermine the results of the election or hinder the success of the new team.

 

We call upon them, in the strongest terms, to do as so many generations of Americans have done before them. This final action is in keeping with the highest traditions and professionalism of the U.S. armed forces, and the history of democratic transition in our great country.

 

Think about this, Trump fans (if any of you ever listen or care). The ten living men who have led Defense all concur. 

They must warn the military not to step in; and the only person who could order the troops to do so is the mendacious, unethical man currently occupying the White House. Donald J. Trump. 

Arsonist of democracy.

___

 

1/3-4/21: Remember way back – when Candidate Trump promised if elected, we’d all get so tired of winning, we’d have to go to therapy as a result? Well, now, the president (for sixteen more days) has a new plan for winning. 

____________________ 

“There’s nothing wrong with saying that, you know, that you’ve recalculated.” 

Lame Duck Donald

____________________ 

 

You are probably thinking, “He’s going to focus on winning the battle to get vaccines out to the American people. He’s going spend his last days in office battling the spread of COVID-19.” 

 Nope. 

Trump has lost interest. He says the death toll from the virus has been “exaggerated” and calls it “Fake News.” 

The CDC, however, posts the numbers every day. On December 31, another 3,298 Americans “fake” died from the coronavirus. That brought the total for December to

 

75,495 dead. 

The New Year isn’t starting off much better. People keep fake-dying and fake-getting sent to the hospital: 

1/1:  2,428 dead.

1/2:  2,321 dead.

1/3:  1,418 dead.

 

Another 128,210 Americans were hospitalized on January 4. That’s the worst figure since the start of the pandemic. 

*

Trump asks for help to steal the state.

WINNING? STEALING? In Trumpistan, what’s the difference? If Lame Duck Don has his way, we now know. There is none. 

Since Lame Duck can’t be sure that even most of his supporters are willing to turn to gunfire to overturn the election (see: 1/2/21), Saturday he hatched a brand new bonkers plan. Sunday that plan was revealed when various media sources released a recording of Mr. Duck trying to convince Georgia state officials to “find” just enough votes to eliminate Biden’s margin of victory in their state. 

We already know that you can’t indict a sitting president; but the plan the president was floating would involve felony charges for anyone else. 

If you can bear to listen to the entire 62-minute recording, you’ll hear Mr. Duck saying, in effect, he’s not asking for much. Just 11,780 votes, just one more than needed to take the state’s 16 electoral votes away from his opponent and put them in his win column. Really, was that so much to ask? One little felony! In the recorded call, Lame D. repeatedly claims to have won the state by “hundreds of thousands.” At one point, he says he won by “400,000 votes.” At another: “500,000.” All he’s asking for is a little help, you know, maybe Georgia officials could “recalculate” their totals. 

If they could just “find” 12,000 votes, a nice, round number, well, then, who could possibly complain? 

In an effort to spare you as much time and effort as I can, here are some key moments from the call. The first nineteen minutes consist of Trump rattling off huge numbers of votes, in multiple categories, that he claims were fraudulently cast or cast for him and then stolen for Mr. Biden. Dead people by the thousands voted. People who had moved out of Georgia still voted in Georgia. Dead people who had moved out of Georgia came back (from heaven) and cast ballots. Some evil Democratic lady pulled 18,000 votes out of a “suitcase,” hidden under a table. Those votes were counted once…twice…three times. And all those 54,000 votes went to…Joe Biden. 

The Georgia officials on the receiving end of the call – three Republicans – Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, his deputy, Jordan Fuchs, and a state lawyer, Ryan Germany, listened patiently. Only in the second half of the call did they have much chance to try to talk sense into Trump. 

(As you might guess, it did them no good.) 

If you listen to the last 43 minutes, Trump repeatedly pushes Raffensperger and Germany to overturn the official vote count. 

* 

THIS CALL captures the essence of Trump. Lame Duck Don is amoral on a good day, immoral on a bad. He’s crude. He’s unethical. He’s ill-informed. He’s logic-impaired. Twice he insists he couldn’t have lost the election in Georgia because his rallies drew bigger crowds than Biden’s. (Do we all remember that the Democrats told their supporters to wear masks and not gather in large crowds?) In Fulton County, the president says, the “rumor” is that thousands of ballots were “shredded.” And in his mind, a “rumor” equals proof. 

At one point, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, also participating in the call, interjects. “What I’m hopeful for is there some way that we can, we can find some kind of agreement to look at this a little bit more fully?”  

(Hint, hint.) 

You know: Why don’t we look at it more fully, pretend there haven’t already been three separate statewide counts, and find at least 12,000 more votes for Lame Duck Don? Presto, no more Duck. 

Donald gets a second term! 

 

“A 100 percent re-tally of all the ballots.” 

Lame Duck does most of the talking during the call, as anyone who has ever seen him in action would expect. He justifies his request by repeatedly piling up massive numbers to show he was cheated out of a landslide win. He’s not really asking for much! Just a little nudge to get him over the finish line. During the call he cites “5,000” as the figure for the number of dead people who voted, and that’s at “minimum.” He pulls another number out of thin air, insisting there were “300,000 fake ballots.” Next, we have a classic bit of Trumpian proof: 

Then the other thing they said is in Fulton County and other areas. And this may or may not be true . . . this just came up this morning, that they are burning their ballots, that they are shredding, shredding ballots and removing equipment. They’re changing the equipment on the Dominion machines and, you know, that’s not legal. 

Trump injects another dose of Trump Math (also known as “making shit up”), saying that “they supposedly shredded I think they said 300 pounds of, 3,000 pounds of ballots. And that just came to us as a report today. And it is a very sad situation.” 

Yes, “very sad.” Even though it might be 300 pounds. Or a ton-and-a-half. Just make some big number up. 

Georgia officials tell him bluntly that the rumor is not true. 

At one point, Trump hammers away at one of his bugaboos. Dominion Voting Machines were rigged! He and most of his fans believe that software used in those machines was set to steal votes from one deserving orange hero and give them to one underserving socialist, Joe Biden. Raffensperger says he can’t vouch for other states which used the machines, but notes, 

I don’t believe that you’re really questioning the Dominion machines. Because we did a hand re-tally, a 100 percent re-tally of all the ballots, and compared them to what the machines said and came up with virtually the same result. Then we did the recount, and we got virtually the same result. So I guess we can probably take that off the table. 

Lame Duck tries again. He has heard that county officials are getting rid of the machines, or replacing the software parts, to hide their crimes. 

All he needs is a little help. “What’s the difference between winning the election by two votes and winning it by half a million votes,” he wonders. “I think I probably did win it by half a million.” 

There’s no subtlety involved. Trump and Meadows, and several of their lawyers may be careful not to just come out and say, “Steal the goddam votes we need, Brad.” But they’re close. Trump insists he won by hundreds of thousands; and now all he needs is a helping hand. 

And the people of Georgia are angry, the people of the country are angry. And there’s nothing wrong with saying that, you know, that you’ve recalculated….I mean, they’re all exact numbers [the litany of claims Trump has just piled up] that were done by accounting firms, law firms, etc. And even if you cut ’em in half, cut ’em in half and cut ’em in half again, it’s more votes than we need. 

“Well, Mr. President,” Raffensperger replies, “the challenge that you have is the data you have is wrong.” 

He mentions a signature check done in Cobb County, involving 15,000 names. Only two were fraudulent, it turned out. 

Duck responds with a loud quack. He was robbed and that’s it. “I mean, look, you’d have to be a child to think anything other than that. Just a child.” 

 

“They sliced and diced that video.” 

Lame D. and his lawyers insist that they have video showing “suitcases” full of bogus votes for Biden being rolled out and counted in Fulton County. The Georgia officials tell them they’re wrong. 

This exchange follows: 

Trump:  For some reason, they put it in three times, each ballot, and I don’t know why. I don’t know why three times. Why not five times, right? Go ahead.

 

Raffensperger:  You’re talking about the State Farm video. And I think it’s extremely unfortunate that Rudy Giuliani or his people, they sliced and diced that video and took it out of context. The next day, we brought in WSB-TV, and we let them show, see the full run of tape, and what you’ll see, the events that transpired are nowhere near what was projected by, you know —

 

Trump: But that was — and Brad, why did they put the votes in three times? You know, they put ’em in three times.

 

Raffensperger:  Mr. President, they did not put that. We did an audit of that, and we proved conclusively that they were not scanned three times.

 

Mr. Duck continues to quack. Since there have been three statewide counts of the votes, and he has lost three times, he has to fall back on his final line of defense. 

Delusion. 

Ryan Germany, the attorney for the Secretary of State’s office, identifies himself on the call. The story of the thrice-scanned votes is false. “We had our law enforcement officers talk to everyone who was, who was there after that event came to light. GBI was with them as well as FBI agents.” 

Facts are stumbling blocks for most people. Not Trump. “Well, there’s no way they could — then they’re incompetent. They’re either dishonest or incompetent, okay?” Investigators couldn’t be right. “There’s only two answers, dishonesty or incompetence. There’s just no way. Look. There’s no way.” 

Balked at one turn after another, Lame D. shifts again. What about all the people who voted who didn’t live in Georgia? There were at least 4,500, possibly “in the 20s.” Or: 20,000 plus.  

Germany: We’ve been going through each of those [claims] as well…Every one we’ve been through are people that lived in Georgia, moved to a different state, but then moved back to Georgia legitimately. And in many cases —

 

Trump:  How many people do that? They moved out, and then they said, “Ah, to hell with it, I’ll move back.” You know, it doesn’t sound like a very normal…you mean, they moved out, and what, they missed it so much that they wanted to move back in? It’s crazy.

 

Germany:  They moved back in years ago. This was not like something just before the election. So there’s something about that data [Trump’s] that, it’s just not accurate.

 

The Duck’s lawyers complain at length about being denied information they need to prove their case: That billions of fraudulent votes were cast in Georgia. That the gates of Hell were sprung; and the dead came out to vote. 

The Georgia officials point out that information Trump and his lawyers are demanding is shielded by state privacy laws. 

 

“We believe that we do have an accurate election.” 

Once again, Trump makes it clear he won in a landslide and all he needs is a teeny-tiny bit of help. 

I won this election by hundreds of thousands of votes. There’s no way I lost Georgia. There’s no way. We won by hundreds of thousands of votes. I’m just going by small numbers, when you add them up, they’re many times the 11,000. But I won that state by hundreds of thousands of votes.

 

Trump circles back to an earlier claim he had made: That in Fulton County, tons of bogus votes had been shredded.

 

Trump:  Do you think it’s possible that they shredded ballots in Fulton County? Because that’s what the rumor is. And also that Dominion took out machines. That Dominion is really moving fast to get rid of their, uh, machinery. Do you know anything about that? Because that’s illegal, right?

 

Germany:  No, Dominion has not moved any machinery out of Fulton County.

 

Trump:  But have they moved the inner parts of the machines and replaced them with other parts?

 

Germany:  No.

 

Trump:  Are you sure, Ryan?

 

Germany:  I’m sure. I’m sure, Mr. President.

 

(For a moment, Trump seems to lose hope. He sounds dejected.)

 

Trump: What about, what about the ballots. The shredding of the ballots. Have they been shredding ballots?

 

Germany:  The only investigation that we have into that — they have not been shredding any ballots. There was an issue in Cobb County where they were doing normal office shredding, getting rid of old stuff, and we investigated that. But this stuff from, you know, from you know past elections.

 

Trump:  It doesn’t pass the smell test because we hear they’re shredding thousands and thousands of ballots, and now what they’re saying, “Oh, we’re just cleaning up the office.” You know.

 

Raffensperger:  Mr. President, the problem you have with social media, they — people can say anything.

 

Trump:  Oh this isn’t social media. This is Trump media. 

 

Honestly, at that point, I’m not sure why the three Georgians didn’t burst out laughing; but they controlled themselves. 

Trump media! Always the truth, and nothing but. Even the First Lady knows you can’t trust the Duck when you’re not around. 

Trump:  Social media is Big Tech. Big Tech is on your side, you know. I don’t even know why you have a side because you should want to have an accurate election. And you’re a Republican.

 

Raffensperger:  We believe that we do have an accurate election.

 

Trump:  No, no you don’t. No, no you don’t. You don’t have. Not even close. 

 

Balked again on the matter of imaginary shredding, the president and his team try again. Since the signature check proved the votes were tallied accurately in Cobb, Trump wants to know, how come they didn’t investigate Fulton County? 

“We chose Cobb County,” Mr. Germany explains, “because that was the only county where there’s been any evidence submitted that the signature verification was not properly done.” 

Trump switches to an attack on various Democratic leaders in Georgia who had the nerve to organize a turn-out-the-vote campaign. “Look. Stacey, in my opinion,” he grumbles, “Stacey is as dishonest as they come.” Stacey Abrams has “outplayed” and “outsmarted you at every step,” he tells the three Republicans. 

 

“That’s a big risk to you and to Ryan, your lawyer.” 

Trump continues to adhere to the basic line: “I think it’s pretty clear that we won. We won quite substantially.” 

Eventually, his frustration begins to show: 

Trump: We can go through signature verification, and we’ll find hundreds of thousands of signatures, if you let us do it…in Fulton, where they dumped ballots, you will find that you have many that aren’t even signed and you have many that are forgeries.

 

Okay, you know that. You know that. You have no doubt about that. And you will find you will be at 11,779 within minutes because Fulton County is totally corrupt, and so is she totally corrupt.

 

And they’re going around playing you and laughing at you behind your back, Brad, whether you know it or not, they’re laughing at you. And you’ve taken a state that’s a Republican state, and you’ve made it almost impossible for a Republican to win because of cheating, because they cheated like nobody’s ever cheated before. And I don’t care how long it takes me, you know, we’re going to have other states coming forward – pretty good.

 

I think you’re going to find that they are shredding ballots because they have to get rid of the ballots because the ballots are unsigned. 

 

The state officials have already explained that the machine count of votes, and the hand-count of votes and then a second machine count all substantially match. The ballots are still there. They weren’t “shredded.” 

They weren’t basted or broiled. 

They’re still there. 

Finally, the president makes what most listeners on such a call would consider a threat. Bad enough, he says, that Abrams and the Democrats stuffed ballot boxes. Worse: 

And you are going to find that they are — which is totally illegal — it is more illegal for you than it is for them because, you know, what they did and you’re not reporting it. That’s a criminal, that’s a criminal offense. And you can’t let that happen. That’s a big risk to you and to Ryan, your lawyer. And that’s a big risk.

 

Then you get the ask, in bluntest terms. Trump wants election officials to “flip the state.” 

And you can’t let it happen, and you are letting it happen. You know, I mean, I’m notifying you that you’re letting it happen. So look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state.

 

And flipping the state is a great testament to our country because, you know, this is – it’s a testament that they can admit to a mistake or whatever you want to call it. 

(As noted earlier, if most of us tried this, a jury would call it a felony.)

 

Lame D. makes a last, desperate plea: 

I don’t know, look, Brad. I got to get . . . I have to find 12,000 votes, and I have them times a lot. And therefore, I won the state. 

 

 So what are we going to do here, folks? I only need 11,000 votes. Fellas, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break. You know, we have that in spades already. 

 

The answer he wants is clear: What the Georgia folks are expected to do is “find” enough votes for Trump to carry the state. Say whatever else you want about the president’s claims. He’s asking officials to cheat. 

He’s on tape. 

 

“We can play this game with the courts.” 

Trump rehashes several of his claims, including the 18,000 fake ballots x’s 3. His frustration is mounting. His target is new – and his thinking increasingly dangerous: 

Trump:  And every single ballot went to Biden, and you didn’t know that, but now you know it. So tell me, Brad, what are we going to do? We won the election, and it’s not fair to take it away from us like this….And I think you have to say that you’re going to reexamine it, and you can reexamine it, but reexamine it with people that want to find answers, not people that don’t want to find answers. 

 

Raffensperger:  Mr. President, you have people that submit information, and we have our people that submit information. And then it comes before the court, and the court then has to make a determination. We have to stand by our numbers. We believe our numbers are right.

 

Trump:  Why do you say that, though? I don’t know. I mean, sure, we can play this game with the courts, but why do you say that? First of all, they don’t even assign us a judge.

 

Courts. What a pain in the ass. 

Trump has made this clear before. He hates a three-branch form of government and if he had his way, there would be only one. Come on, Brad, be a pal, he basically says. Get me those votes. The president hints that he’ll ensure Raffensperger’s career in politics is over if he doesn’t. Same for the governor of the state: 

You just say, you stick by, I mean I’ve been watching you, you know, you don’t care about anything. “Your numbers are right.” But your numbers aren’t right. They’re really wrong, and they’re really wrong, Brad. And I know this phone call is going nowhere other than, other than ultimately, you know — Look, ultimately, I win, okay? Because you guys are so wrong. And you treated this. You treated the population of Georgia so badly. You, between you and your governor, who is down at 21, he was down 21 points. And like a schmuck, I endorsed him, and he got elected, but I will tell you, he is a disaster.

 

The people are so angry in Georgia, I can’t imagine he’s ever getting elected again, I’ll tell you that much right now. But why wouldn’t you want to find the right answer, Brad, instead of keep saying that the numbers are right? ’Cause those numbers are so wrong?

 

Discussion follows about setting up a meeting to address some of the president’s concerns. He wants more. “I’m just saying, you know, and, you know, under new counts, and under new views, of the election results, we won the election. You know? It’s very simple. We won the election.  

____________________ 

“This is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong.” 

Ryan Germany, attorney for the State of Georgia

____________________ 

 

Kurt Hilbert, a Georgia attorney working for Trump, suggests that lawyers from both sides sit down and look at just four categories, totaling 24,149 votes. Why not “compromise?” 

Hilbert explains: 

That [number] in and of itself is sufficient to change the results or place the outcome in doubt….And if you can convince us that 24,149 is inaccurate, then fine. But we tend to believe that is, you know, obviously more than 11,779. That’s sufficient to change the results entirely in and of itself. So what would you say to that, Mr. Germany?

 

Meadows jumps in and says it sounds like they have an agreement to meet and discuss the numbers. “Is that correct?” 

Germany:  No, that’s not what I said. I’m happy to have our lawyers sit down with Kurt and the lawyers on that side and explain to him, hey, here’s, based on what we’ve looked at so far, here’s how we know this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong.

 

Germany makes clear again, that some of the information Trump’s lawyers are demanding is shielded by law. He doesn’t intend to violate state law. 

“But you’re allowed to have a phony election? You’re allowed to have a phony election, right?” Trump complains.

 

“No, sir,” Germany responds. 

Trump has the last word. He wants help. He deserves help. He expects help. And he has a warning, too. His supporters, 

…They hate the state, they hate the governor, and they hate the secretary of state. I will tell you that right now. The only people that like you are people that will never vote for you. You know that, Brad, right? They like you, you know, they like you. They can’t believe what they found. They want more people like you. So, look, can you get together tomorrow? And, Brad, we just want the truth. It’s simple.

 

And everyone’s going to look very good if the truth comes out. It’s okay. It takes a little while, but let the truth come out. And the real truth is, I won by 400,000 votes. At least. That’s the real truth. But we don’t need 400,000 votes.

 

He only needs one more than Joe Biden received. That’s the truth as Lame D. sees it, with time running out. 

Delusion, it’s called.

___

1/2/21: Trump and his supporters refuse to give up hope of overturning election results and telling 81 million Biden voters they can go to hell. Now, there’s a new plan in the works. God and firing squads! 

One typical stalwart is Mike Lindell, the MyPillow guy. “This president won by a lot, by a landslide! I know there was fraud,” he told reporters. “And I’m not just some pillow guy that they can mock out there.” 

(Actually, he is.) 

“You can’t give up. If these people [around the president] don’t end up standing up, they are just as bad as the people who tried to commit the crime,” Lindell continued. Trump also has key allies, including the Big Guy in the Sky. “God chose Donald Trump for eight years, not four,” Mr. Pillow says. “Even if Biden is inaugurated, there’s no statute of limitations [on election theft].” 

In four days the right-wingers’ last-ditch efforts to thwart the majority will come to a foreordained end. Sorry, MyPillow guy, but Biden got a record number of popular votes, and swamped Trump in the electoral vote, too. God had nothing to do with it. A majority of Americans – terrestrial beings, age 18 and above, who have the right to vote – never liked your boy. 

Meanwhile, Mr. Lindell has tried to help both God and Trump by giving more than a $1 million in support of Trump’s many failed court challenges to overturn the vote. I’ve lost track, but even with the Creator on their side, Trump’s legal team has a record something like: 

1 win and 61 losses. 

With voters having spoken, and state and federal judges slapping aside court challenges like picnickers swatting flies away from their baked beans, right-wingers have grown increasingly desperate in their search for recourse. 

Trump lawyer L. Lin Wood has attacked a number of top Republicans and listed a variety of institutions he believes are working to hand the election to Joe Biden. Included in Wood’s list of those working against his Orange Idol: “CCP & other foreign countries.” “Globalists like George Soros,” “Elitists like Bill Gates,” “the C.I.A.” and “the military industrial complex.” 

Even worse, he and other Trump supporters had overlooked one great enemy: “THE REPUBLICANS.” 

Since Wood and Trump’s other lawyers have been spanked repeatedly by judges, he has formulated a new plan. “When arrests for treason begin, put Chief Justice John Roberts, VP Mike Pence & Mitch McConnell at [the] top of the list.” 

In fact, Wood had no doubt what would come next. When someone on Twitter pushed back on his idea, that all the Republicans were suddenly working against Trump, he responded:

 

(Even worse, his call for “firing squads” had already garnered nearly 18,000 “likes” when I checked.)

___

January 1, 2021: Happy New Year, everyone! In just nineteen days, Lame Duck Donald will be gone. 

Iran decides this would be a good time to poke him in the butt on the way out, announcing that they will begin enriching uranium to 20% purity, five times the 4% level agreed to under the deal they made in 2015. 

You know, the deal Trump called the “worst deal” in history. So, having ripped up that deal, The Art of the Deal genius found out the hard way, that talking smack as a candidate and getting real diplomatic deals done, are two different species. The “worst deal” and other Obama moves kept Iran from getting nuclear weapons for a decade. The always petulant Mr. Trump tore it up, essentially because it had Mr. Obama’s fingerprints on it. (See also: The Affordable Care Act.) 

It will take 90% enriched uranium for Iran to build a nuclear weapon. So this is their way of firing a “warning shot.” 

* 

____________________ 

“A true liberal believes in advancing freedom not only here at home, but around the world.”

____________________ 

 

WE KNOW TRUMP FANS are having a difficult time at this point, what with their hero’s untimely political demise. And this blogger hates to be kicking then while they’re down. But what Mr. Trump learned the hard way (if he learned anything at all in three years in the White Houseˆˆ) is that diplomacy is hard. For instance, Mexico never did pay for the wall. North Korea spent the president’s entire term in office increasing its nuclear arsenal. All Trump got for his troubles were a few beautiful “love letters” from Kim Jong-un. China never did fully implement a trade deal and the U.S. trade deficit under President Trump increased. 

According to U.S. Census Bureau figures, the worst trade deficit in eight years under President Obama was $745.5 billion in 2015. 

The MAGA Man took over and slashed that fat deficit to…$792.4 billion in 2017. 

(Blogger scratches head. That does not look like an improvement!) 

Okay, maybe 2018: $872 billion. 

(Blogger blinks. Rubs eyes in astonishment.) 

Surely, a third time would be a charm. Deficit for 2019: $854.4 billion. 

(Blogger smacks forehead.) 

Well, then, surely, Mr. Trump got the hang of this trade deficit business in his last year in office before a majority of Americans tossed him out. Yes! The trade deficit is lower: $729.3 billion for 2020. 

Oh. Wait. That figure is only for the first ten months of the year. 

(Mr. Blogger works out math. Doesn’t use a calculator. Smart blogger. Yes!) 

January through October, we are running an average monthly deficit of $72.93 billion. So, move that decimal over one place. Then double that figure and add $145.86 billion ($72.93 billion x’s 2) for November and December. That allows us to estimate that the trade deficit for this year will be roughly $875.2 billion. 

(Mr. Trump has failed again.) 

To be fair (something this president has never been when attacking others), it does not appear that Census Bureau figures have been adjusted for inflation. Even if we allow for that, Trump has failed to fix our trade deficit problems and had to sit by and watch them grow instead. 

Much of this is beyond any president’s control, but that didn’t stop Trump from bashing his predecessors, particularly Barrack Obama. This liberal blogger might also point out that he was never sorry, personally, to hear President Trump talk about taking on the Chinese in regard to trade. After all, a true liberal believes in advancing freedom not only here at home, but around the world. Chinese communist leaders have always marched in the opposite direction. I, for one, have spent the last decade trying to avoid buying Chinese-made products whenever possible, rather than contribute to the support of a hostile government, which refuses to allow people basic freedoms. 

Avoiding Chinese-made goods is increasingly difficult since, for instance, a company like General Electric is content to produce all its lightbulbs in China. (That also makes a liberal mad.) 

* 

ANYWAY, Happy New Year to all. And best wishes to all the Trumps in 2021, as they embark on various new endeavors. 

Such as: giving depositions in various courts. 

 

(ˆˆNote: We mentioned Trump’s “three years” in office, above. We are subtracting the 432 days he spent at his own private clubs and golf courses.)

___

12/31/20: The latest, last-ditch effort to save Lame Duck Don’s useless ass has come into focus. On January 6, the certified votes of the fifty states and the District of Columbia will be accepted by Congress, tallied, and the result announced: 306 votes for Joe Biden, 232 for Trump. 

Biden then becomes the 46^th President of the…. 

Ah, not so fast! Those votes can be challenged. (See, for example, the election of 1876, when Samuel Tilden got stiffed.) 

To contest the certified electoral votes of any state, in the current case, you need one chucklehead or more in the House of Representatives and one numbskull or more in the Senate to lodge protest. In the House, Rep. Louis Gohmert, is just one of dozens who has volunteered to step to the fore. 

____________________ 

Adults don’t point a loaded gun at the heart of legitimate self-government.” 

Senator Ben Sasse

____________________

 

 

Republican numbskulls in the Senate are harder to come by, but there are a few. Elected every six years, not every two, like members of the House who must fear a president’s wrath, senators can show a bit more courage and count on most voters to forget, over time, that they let Mr. Trump down. 

Or upheld the U.S. Constitution if you prefer. 

No matter. One skull that is numb in the Senate will suffice. And that skull is supplied by none other than Missouri up-and-comer, Sen. Josh Hawley. He has made it clear. He will protest the vote! 

Yet, Sen. Hawley admits he isn’t entirely sure. Should he protest the votes of several states? Or should he contest the electoral votes from only one? If he chooses to protest votes in six or more battleground states, he stands a chance of antagonizing millions of voters, and more than a few of his GOP colleagues, too. 

If he challenges votes in only one state, what’s the point?  Trump would have to overturn the votes of, for example, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Nevada, and have those votes handed to him, or this challenge wouldn’t matter. 

Either way, both the House and Senate will have two hours to debate. Will they vote to accept the slates of certified electors, pledged to Biden, and already submitted by the states? Or will they vote to accept a slate of electors, say in Pennsylvania, this new slate pledged to vote for Lame Duck Donald, instead? 

To say that this parliamentary parlor trick stands no chance of success, is an understatement on par with saying Donald J. Trump has no chance to win the men’s Olympic marathon race in Japan next year. Team Trump has already filed more than 60 court challenges to the election results. In all, probably 200 judges have been involved in saying, in multiple ways, that the current vote counts are fair and correct. In Georgia, whose 16 votes went to Biden, and whose votes Trump craves for himself, court challenges led to three statewide counts. Those found, in order: 

1. Joe Biden won.

2. Biden won.

3. Okay, for slow learners, Biden still won.

 

Just to be safe, with Trump supporters clamoring about massive voter fraud, election officials did a signature check in Cobb County to test how the system had worked. President-Elect Biden won 56% of 387,000 votes in Cobb County, so an audit of 15,000 absentee ballots would surely turn up, according to Trump fans and the president himself, 300,000 dead people who voted. 

Alas, only two (2) signature mismatches were found. 

Two. 

* 

NO MATTER. Sen. Hawley is expected to stand up in the U.S. Senate on January 6, and claim the votes of at least one, if not all of the following states, should be challenged and awarded to Donald J. Trump. That is, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada and, yes, Georgia, too. 

Will this stunt do the American people any good? Not at all. But it might allow Sen. Hawley to race to leap to the fore when it comes to heading the GOP ticket for president in 2024. 

To overturn the certified votes of any of the challenged states, you would need majorities in both houses of Congress to agree. The Democrats in the House have the votes locked up to block this undemocratic ploy. 

If all the Republicans in the Senate had skulls that were numb, they could vote in favor of the challenge. It still wouldn’t matter in the end. But many Republican senators have proven that they do not have numbed skulls and will vote against Sen. Hawley’s lame-brain plan. It’s not often that Senate Leader Mitch McConnell shows any courage. But in a phone call today, he blasted Hawley’s announcement that he would challenge the vote. 

“I’m finishing 36 years in the Senate and I’ve cast a lot of big votes,” he told a reporter from Axios. “And in my view, just my view, this is will be the most consequential I have ever cast.” 

McConnell has already congratulated Mr. Biden on his win. 

In fact, it seems likely that Sen. Hawley will fail even to get a majority of the Republican senators’ votes. Every Democrat is going to vote to accept the certified results. (And, dear Trump fans – if any of you read this blog – and to be frank, I sometimes wonder if some of you read at all – remember that Arizona and Georgia have Republican governors who have said their elections were fair.) 

Sen. Pat Toomey, a Pennsylvania Republican has insisted that his state’s votes were counted fairly and says Trump lost. If challenges are issued, he promises to respond in great detail and at length. He has called the president’s efforts to throw out his state’s vote, “completely unacceptable.” The outcome has been “clear. Joe Biden won the election.” 

Sen. Ben Sasse, a Nebraska Republican, has been blunt, warning that “the president and his allies are playing with fire.” 

“Let’s be clear what is happening here,” he says. “We have a bunch of ambitious politicians who think there’s a quick way to tap into the president’s populist base without doing any real, long-term damage. But they’re wrong – and this issue is bigger than anyone’s personal ambitions. Adults don’t point a loaded gun at the heart of legitimate self-government,” he said. 

Only now we know. Guys like Gohmert and Hawley and Trump do. The gun may be loaded with blanks, and even if they fire on January 6, they can’t do any harm. But now we know. If President Trump had a gun loaded with real bullets, he’d shoot democracy right between the eyes. 

Fortunately, many Republican senators have made it clear. They believe Mr. Biden won and the election was fair. Those likely to vote Hawley’s challenge down, include Mitt Romney of Utah, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Marco Rubio of Florida, Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, Sen. Roy Blount of Missouri, Sen. Shelly Moore Capito of West Virginia, and Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio. “I think,” Portman told reporters, “we need to respect this process the Founding Fathers established, and we must respect the will of the voters. The orderly transfer of power is a hallmark of our democracy.” 

Or, before Trump, it was. 

Sen. John Cornyn, of Texas, has also weighed in, warning that it “would be a bad mistake” to challenge certified electoral votes. He said it was time to accept that despite the best efforts, and Lame Duck Donald did turn out tens of millions of votes, you might lose. Because Biden turned out even more. “There has to be a winner. There has to be a loser,” Cornyn said. 

And let this blogger say it for fun. In the Republic of Trumpistan: That loser is Donald J. Trump.

___

12/30/20: Hope springs eternal, as they say, or, in the case of Lame Duck Don, delusion is in play. 

Convinced that he still has an eight-lane freeway to a second term in office, he secretly decides to cut short his Florida vacation and fly back to Washington D.C. tomorrow to strategize with his dwindling band of friends. 

This means the 500 guests who paid $1,200 for tickets to a New Year’s Eve gala at Mar-a-Lago will not get to see the president in all his orange flesh. 

Before leaving, however, Mr. Trump squeezes in yet another round of golf, #321, before he starts packing to head north. 

He has reportedly been moody of late and got angry about renovations done at Mar-a-Lago, under the guidance of his wife. By the time he returns, he warned staff, he wanted all the white marble and dark paneling the First Lady had installed ripped out and done over again. 

 

Postscript: President Trump has often talked about how he has sacrificed his salary as president, all $400,000, every year. So, let’s do a bit of math. If 500 guests pay $1,200 each to attend the party at Mar-a-Lago, then the owner of the place rakes in $600,000 at one fell swoop. 

That, my fellow Americans, is not a bad gig! 

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

 In fact, in an interview with Bob Woodward, for his latest book, Rage, the president bragged that  in 2018, he had earned, “Four hundred and eighty-eight million, or something like that.” When Woodward checked, Trump was basically right for once. On his financial disclosure forms for 2018, he reported $434 million in income. So presidential business has been good.)

___

12/29/20: According to Lame Duck Donald’s official schedule for today, he is working “tirelessly” for the American people again. 

 

____________________ 

“Our leaders (not me, of course!) are pathetic. They only know how to lose!” 

Lame Duck Donald, commenting on the current state of the Republican Party

____________________

  

That would be working “tirelessly” for the less-than-half of all Americans who voted for him. With a monomaniacal fury, he continues the battle to overturn the November 3 election results. Latest fantasy on the right: The poor devil who blew himself and a good chunk of downtown Nashville to bits, is said to have been part of a plot! He parked his RV in front of the AT&T facility because…inside they were compiling proof that the Dominion Voting Machines were rigged. In “reality,” Trump won 96% of the popular vote and swept all 58 states. 

Today, the U.S. Senate must vote. Will the $600 stimulus checks targeted for individual Americans and agreed to in a compromise bill now signed into law, be increased? Will each and every American (below fairly generous income levels) get a $2,000 check, instead? Or will Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his merry band of GOP pranksters finally remember that they came to office as Tea Party folk? 

Once again, Lame Duck Donald spent most of today working “tirelessly” for the American people while playing golf. 

Round #321 while serving as President of the United States, or 321 more rounds than he promised he’d play while serving us all. 

* 

THE REALLY BIG QUESTION on most Americans’ minds is, Will we ever get through this pandemic mess? 

After what seemed like a lull, and perhaps a sign of hope, the numbers of cases of COVID-19, the hospitalizations, and the deaths are headed back up. According to CDC, the toll in recent days stands at: 

12/28:  1,783 dead.

12/29:  3,406 dead.

12/30:  3,764 dead. 

That brings the total, so far, to 341,199 Americans dead from a virus that was once said to be going away, “like magic,” by President Trump. 

By comparison, American dead during World War II numbered 407,316. Before this is over, we’ll surpass that. 

Trump doesn’t care how many of the citizens he was elected to serve die, or even how many died during World War II. (Trump’s never die in uniform, as we’ve said, again and again. They don’t even put on uniforms for Halloween.) The only American that Mr. Trump cares about right now is himself. 

He has certainly touted his part in getting coronavirus vaccines ready to roll (even though all the work of creation was done by scientists from around the world). Now Lame Duck Don says his job is done. 

Naturally, he explains in a tweet: 

It is up to the States to distribute the vaccines once brought to the designated areas by the Federal Government. We have not only developed the vaccines, including putting up money to move the process along quickly, but gotten them to the states. Biden failed with Swine Flu! 

The Trump administration had been promising to get 20,000,000 Americans vaccinated by year’s end. 

The actual number turned out to be 3,000,000 instead. 

But, sure, let’s talk about how Joe Biden and a previous administration “failed” when it came to Swine Flu. 

If Trump were grumbling about how President Woodrow Wilson failed during the Spanish Flu pandemic in 1918, it would make about as much sense. 

And what about that Yellow Fever outbreak in Philadelphia in 1793. George Washington, what a failure, right!

___

12/28/20: Last week, Trump aides realized it looked bad to keep putting out daily schedules that read: “The President has no public events scheduled today.” (As, we saw on November 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 23, 25, 28, and December 1, 4, 6, 9, 11, 13, 15, 19, 20, 21, and 22.) 

Some new formulation, even if it meant the same – that Trump was doing a whole lot of nothing – was clearly required. So, for December 24, 25, 26, 27 and 28, the official White House release has read: “During the Holiday season, President Trump will continue to work tirelessly for the American People. His schedule includes many meetings and calls.” 

Yes. TIRELESSLY! 

____________________ 

The death toll from the coronavirus will soon surpass the toll from all flus in the last ten years. This was never “just a flu.”

____________________ 

 

This is quite amusing, since at a 9:32 this morning, the president headed for his golf course in West Palm Beach again. 

There he squeezed in Round #320 since taking office, having sworn while a candidate in 2016 that he’d never take time off from working for the American people, because, really, all he liked to do was work, work, work. And occasionally put it to a porn star or some other female he was not married to at the time. 

* 

THE COVID-19 NUMBERS remain grim, although Lame Duck Don has now washed his hands of the matter. The man has the same level of empathy as a trout. On Christmas Eve, the country hit a high for hospitalizations, with 120,151 coronavirus patients filling the beds. There has been a slight decline since, which could be a ray of hope. More likely, it’s a function of people not wanting to go to the hospital during the holidays, and health agencies being closed and not reporting all the numbers in recent days. 

Hopefully, with vaccines slowly coming online, we’re seeing the start of a positive trend. Deaths from COVID-19 reported in recent days: 

12/24:  2,804

12/25:  1,692

12/26:  1,309

12/27:  1,345  

As of the 27^th, then, the toll for December, alone, is 63,260 American dead. That tops our losses during the entire Vietnam War. 

And if we consider how often the president and his right-wing media enablers said, “Don’t worry, this is just a flu,” that would mean this month’s toll would be greater than losses during any of the flu seasons in the last ten years. In fact, with CDC reporting 332,246 deaths, all told, the loss of life will undoubtedly surpass the combined total of flu deaths in the U.S. in the previous decade. 

So, for example, when Rush Limbaugh said this virus was no more than a “common cold,” he was full of shit.

(Total known and/or estimated death in the last ten U.S. flu seasons: 359,000.)

___

12/27/20: President Trump wakes up late, for him, and checks his presidential “To Do” list. 

1.     Play golf

2.     Tweet stupid shit again. 

That’s pretty much it for his list. 

He completes his morning ritual, brush teeth, comb and hair-spray that weird mess atop his head, slap on orange tanner, and dress in white golf shirt and khakis. He calls on an aide to bring him a Pop Tart for breakfast. Then off he goes, at 9:47 a.m., headed for Trump International Golf Club, in West Palm Beach. 

There he plays the 319^th round he has recorded since taking the oath of office, having sworn he would never be a lazy bum like Obama and go play golf all the time. In fact, he has a shot to break Obama’s personal record of 333 rounds recorded…over the course of two full terms. 

(Mr. Trump, of course, is going to have to beat Obama in one term. There won’t be a second.)

As for tweeting, Trump continues to insist that he has been the victim of the greatest cheat in American history. Let’s just lump a number of separate Twitter posts into one blob of paranoia and self-pity, and pick out a few key phrases. 

Time for Republican Senators to step up and fight… proof is irrefutable! Massive late night mail-in ballot drops in swing states…stuffing the ballot boxes (on video), double voters, dead voters....fake signatures, illegal immigrant voters, banned Republican vote watchers…MORE VOTES THAN ACTUAL VOTERS (check out Detroit & Philadelphia)…The numbers are far greater than what is necessary to win the individual swing states…Courts are bad…the FBI and “Justice” didn’t do their job…Freedom of the press has been gone for a long time…But when it is all over, and this…becomes just another ugly chapter in our Country’s history, WE WILL WIN!!! 

* 

AFTER DAYS of complaining about the compromise COVID-19 relief bill sent to him by Congress (even railing about provisions his administration asked lawmakers to include), the President of the United States does at least pick up his black Sharpie and scrawl that giant signature of his across the bottom page of the bill, turning it into law. Another $900 billion will go towards helping desperate families and individuals out. 

And with that, he’s done working for the American people for the day. He tosses the Sharpie aside and orders his Secret Service detail to haul him off to his golf club in West Palm Beach again. 

(Really, he went there twice in one day.)

___

12/26/20: Lame Duck Donald will be evicted from the White House in less than a month, and deep down, he knows his fates are sealed. Even a heavy dose of Florida sunshine, plenty of golfing, and basically ignoring the job he currently has, haven’t been enough to alleviate his black mood. 

That means the soon-to-be ex-president spent Saturday venting on Twitter. No mention of the bombing in Nashville yet. That seems odd. No mention of the growing death toll from COVID-19, either. No empathy shown. 

That’s to be expected, of course. Instead, the president implies that we have suffered “an act of war” since the election was stolen from his clutches. If the Democrats had been in his shoes, he insists, there would have been a “fight to the death.” 

“Mitch & the Republicans do NOTHING, just want to let it pass. NO FIGHT!” Lame Duck tweeted today. 

For some inexplicable reason, even the Justice Department – led until three days ago by Bill Barr – and the F.B.I., led by Christopher Wray – both men the president placed in those jobs, have also failed him. 

The “Justice” Department and the FBI have done nothing about the 2020 Presidential Election Voter Fraud, the biggest SCAM in our nation’s history, despite overwhelming evidence. They should be ashamed. History will remember. Never give up. See everyone in D.C. on January 6th. 

Even the nine justices on the highest court in the land, three of whom he appointed, will live forever in infamy. “The U.S. Supreme Court has been totally incompetent and weak on the massive Election Fraud that took place in the 2020 Presidential Election,” Trump now insists. “We have absolute PROOF, but they don’t want to see it - No ‘standing’, they say. If we have corrupt elections, we have no country!” 

Finally, Lame Duck Donald cites the kind of “evidence” that has led his team of lawyers to file more than 60 lawsuits contesting election results and rack up something like a 1-60 win/loss record. According to Trump, “A young military man working in Afghanistan told me that elections in Afghanistan are far more secure and much better run than the USA’s 2020 Election. Ours, with its millions and millions of corrupt Mail-In Ballots, was the election of a third world country.” 

Trump ends that tweet with two plaintive words, “Fake President!” We assume he means Mr. Biden, of course. 

In yet another tweet he talks of a “COUP” having been perpetrated. Then a Trump supporter invokes God in the battle that rages on (in Trump’s mind), and the president retweets it with thanks: 

Since two branches of government have already failed him, Trump has no recourse but to call for supporters to mass in Washington D.C. on January 6, and stop the certification of the Electoral Vote. 

Maybe General Flynn can bring the tanks.

___

12/25/20: Merry Christmas, America! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, Mr. Trump! I hope you stay out of jail in 2021. I know you’ll be looking for work soon and maybe living off Pandemic Unemployment Assistance checks until you get your feet back on the ground. 

____________________ 

“You’d feel less like a failed, one-term reject than you do now.”

____________________ 

 

So, I was thinking, sir. 

Maybe you could work in television again. You could do a new season of The Apprentice: White House Edition. You could do ten new seasons with all the big names you’d have to choose from to appear on your show. 

The first season could feature all your former press secretaries. That team of liars would be nearly impossible to beat. You bring back Sarah “Pinocchio” Sanders, and Kayleigh “Birther” McEnany, who could slide right in from her current job as White House liar to TV liar, instead. You’d have that other press secretary, the one who never gave a single press conference during the entire time she worked in the White House, and Sean Spicer. How can anyone forget the way Sean got the nation off to a perfect start. Who doesn’t remember, during his first day on the job, he claimed your Inauguration Day crowd was the largest ever, and roughly equal to the population of India. 

Right out of the box! “Pants on Fire!” It was a start of a glorious, mendacious four-year run of lies. 

(And you, sir! No one can ever say you didn’t do your share, what with your record-setting 157 “Pants on Fire” rated claims!)

Again, I am just thinking out loud. Trying, sir, to help a loser out. The show could be filmed from Mar-a-Lago. So you could “work from home” like millions of other Americans during this pandemic and you could keep ignoring the virus until, “like a miracle,” it disappears. Even better, the actual set for the show could be made to look exactly like the Oval Office. 

That way, you’d feel less like a failed, one-term reject than you do now. 

For the opening episode, Gen. Michael T. Flynn, the first man to be caught lying about Russia, could drive up to your estate in an M1A1 Abrams tank, since he and several of your obsequious friends have suggested overturning the 2020 election by sending the military into contested states. Think of the scene! (For TV, I mean. Not the crush-a-few-voters-with-tanks scene, Flynn has in mind.) The hatches would pop and the general and his team would pile out. You’d have the MyPillow guy, of course, and Allen West, chairman of the Texas GOP, who suggested that all the red states should secede unless the election results are overturned. 

There’d be a fourth member, Mr. Trump, sir, any random white supremacist of your choice. Those guys have been itching  to go to war against their fellow Americans for years. 

And they love you still. 

Anyway, I may have more ideas to share if you’d like. Contact me at vilejjv@yahoo.com when you have time. 

For now, Mr. President-but-not-for-Long, I wish you and your family, both the family members you may have to pardon, and the ones you won’t, the best for the coming New Year. 

 

Postscript: I heard you were working “tirelessly” for the American people again yesterday, and went golfing for the three hundred, and eighteenth time since you took the oath of office. Oh, those were the days, were they not! And you looked out at that crowd. And you were so proud. 

Largest Inauguration Day crowd in history, Sean Spicer said. 

(Not even counting all the Russians who showed up.) 

Remember, sir, you lost the election. I know it’s hard to accept; but most Americans already have. 

In the end, sir, you will be remembered by most Americans as the presidential equivalent of an ugly Christmas sweater, but one for which we were thankfully given the receipt by Aunt Mabel, and so we returned it as soon as we could.

___

 

12/24/20: President Trump will be spending Christmas Eve at his palatial Mar-a-Lago estate. 

____________________ 

More American will die from coronavirus in December than died during the Vietnam War.

____________________

  

Perhaps he will look into his orange heart and think about all the Americans who have died in recent days, and their families who won’t be able to celebrate the holidays with them ever again. 

CDC reports that another 3,165 Americans died of coronavirus on the 22^nd, meaning any wrapped presents that awaited will remain wrapped and unseen. 

On the 23^rd, the toll was 3,362, bringing the total for December to 56,010. When the official numbers for Christmas Eve come in tomorrow, we will doubtless pass – in just this month alone – the total for America’s dead the entire Vietnam War. 

In fact, the President of the United States did show he was focused on all the suffering, by going off again to play…motherf***ing golf ! 

* 

OF COURSE, no day since the election would be complete without Mr. Trump arguing, evidence-lessly, that he actually won. 

At 8:23 a.m. this morning, we had our first Christmas Eve tweet. It featured a video lasting one minute. Yet, even in that brief time, the president managed to include a quote from President-Elect Joe Biden, taken totally out of context. In that brief snippet of an already short clip, Biden “brags” about having the most extensive “voter fraud organization” in history. 

 

Newsmax admits it has “no evidence” at all. 

If you have a chance, watch the Trump version for fun. 

Then watch the full 26-minute-long Biden interview if you care about truth. Skip to a little past the 19-minute mark, if you’re pressed for time, and see what you think if you still think for yourself. Reuters labels the quote a “slip of the tongue.” USAToday explains the shocking Biden quote as not shocking at all, saying he “misspoke.” FactCheck.org labels the quote “taken out of context.” Politifact rates a similar claim, by Press Secretary “Birther” McEnany, echoing the video message, as “False.” The Seattle Times is just one of many newspapers to challenge the veracity of the pro-Trump video. 

“Bogus,” it calls the claim. 

You kind of assume, anyone who was a “Birther” would be happy to lie if it served their purpose. So, yeah. Trump. 

And, yeah, McEnany, for sure. She has previously won the coveted “Pants on Fire” rating for her absurd claims. 

This time she settles for a, “False.”

 Her boss, of course, is master of all lies, and a dozen times since the election he has won the fiery award. Two examples should suffice. 

The first is an error of fact easily checked:

 

In 1960, another president (who also ended up getting impeached), won both states but lost the election to John F. Kennedy. Richard M. Nixon grabbed Ohio and Florida’s electoral votes, but didn’t win the presidency until he ran again in 1968. 

(That erroneous “Florida and Ohio” claim also appears in this morning’s video, and it’s still “Pants on Fire” wrong.) 

And we all know the president has continued to advance claims that he was robbed of a landslide victory. For example:

 To understand how specious this claim has been, Dominion Voting Systems, and another election software company, Smartmatic, are threatening to sue various right-wing media outlets for defamation. 

Newsmax, Trump’s favorite cable news channel, now that he hates Fox News, realized they had been offering up plentiful lies, and went for a “mea culpa,” which they hope will help when they get hauled into court. 

Since election day, various guests, attorneys and elected officials have appeared on Newsmax TV and offered opinions and claims about Smartmatic and Dominion Systems, both companies that offer voting software in the U.S.

 

Newsmax would like to clarify its news coverage and note it has not reported as true certain claims made about these companies.

 

There are several facts our viewers and readers should be aware. Newsmax has found no evidence either Dominion or Smartmatic owns the other, or has any business association with each other.

 

We have no evidence Dominion uses Smartmatic’s software or vice versa.

No evidence has been offered that Dominion or Smartmatic used software or reprogrammed software that manipulated votes in the 2020 election.

Smartmatic has stated its software was only used in the 2020 election in Los Angeles, and was not used in any battleground state contested by the Trump campaign and Newsmax has no evidence to the contrary.

 

Dominion has stated its company has no ownership relationship with the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's family, Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s family, the Clinton family, Hugo Chavez, or the government of Venezuela.

 

Neither Dominion nor Smartmatic has any relationship with George Soros.

Dominion has stated its company has no ownership relationship with the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s family, Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s family, the Clinton family, Hugo Chavez, or the government of Venezuela.

 

Neither Dominion nor Smartmatic has any relationship with George Soros. 

If you still don’t get it, Newsmax is essentially admitting, “Our guests were full of shit and we are really, really sorry we helped them spread their BS, even if we did do it because that’s our entire business model.” 

Someone should absolutely notify Mr. Trump of this news. In fact, his lawyers should point out, that after January 20, if he continues to peddle his bogus claims, he’ll no longer be able to pardon himself. 

He’ll be a sitting duck for a libel case; and if this blogger knows even a little bit about the U.S. system of justice, not even a judge Mr. Trump appointed would be able to save his neck.

___

 

12/23/20: Hark, what light from yonder White House window breaks? It is a light in the president’s private quarters. 

Mr. Trump is up early, packing for a getaway to Mar-a-Lago, his first in weeks, and likely a sign that he knows in his orange heart he’s going to be ousted from office four years sooner than he dreamed. 

____________________ 

“Everyone depends on our elected representatives to protect our elections from foreign interference based on the facts.” 

Judge Amy Berman Jackson

____________________

  

For the good of the country, let’s hope (as even some of his aides have been predicting) that he heads for Florida and decides never to come back. Let Trump clump around his private golf courses for the next 27 days, shooting at least eighteen more rounds of golf, if his bone spurs don’t flare up. Should he manage that herculean feat, he could brag about having completed 334 trips around the links, or one more than Mr. Obama played in two full terms. 

Paul Manafort gets an early Christmas present.

* 

WE ALL REMEMBER the president talking about the “War on Christmas,” and how liberals were making it impossible to drape tinsel and wish all our friends, regardless of religion, “Merry Christmas.” 

Trump decides, just hours before jetting off for Mar-a-Lago (where I think we can assume none of his fat cat friends will be worrying about how to afford presents for their children or avoid getting evicted as money runs out), that he will poke out one of Senate Leader Mitch McConnell’s eyes. After months of negotiations, the Democratic controlled House of Representatives and the Republican Grinch Club in the Senate had hit on a compromise bill. They would finally get relief to struggling Americans in the shape of $600 checks, whereas Mitch had originally insisted on giving everyone coal in their stockings, and checks for $0. 

(Cash that, MAGA fans!) 

The Democrats held on as long as they could, calling for far bigger checks; but Mitch was immovable. So, a compromise was reached. 

And then Trump decided to throw fellow Republicans under the bus. He wasn’t going to sign a bill with shitty little checks going out to struggling millions. Bigger! He wanted bigger checks – kind of like the Democrats had been insisting all along. 

“HOW DOES $2,000 PER PERSON SOUND!!!” the Art of the Deal president suddenly shouted. 

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi immediately announced that she was for the bigger checks and had been (which is true) all along. 

* 

THE PRESIDENT wasn’t done poking people in the eye. Before hopping aboard Air Force One he found time to jab Lady Justice in the face. 

First, he pardoned two more accomplices in the 2016 effort to get Russia to help him win his current job. Paul Manafort was awarded a “Get Out of Jail Free” card. Roger Stone, who never spent a minute in jail, got a similar card and shall now be forever free, assuming he can curb his felonious ways. Charles Kushner, Jared Kushner’s dad, also received the pardon blessing. 

So, this blogger tried to puzzle it out. This trio has 35 felonies between them, give or take any I missed. The older Kushner leads with 18. Manafort has 10; but to be fair, he should hold the lead, having admitted in court that ten other felonies he had been charged with, but had been saved from conviction by a lone jury holdout, he did commit. Stone is a laggard with seven; but he may see a pardon as a green light to go out and sin no more than before. Even better, all three of these men earned at least one felony related to witness tampering or witness intimidation. 

I know members of the Trump cult don’t get it; but screwing with witnesses essentially destroys one of the pillars of justice. 

We’ll let Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who heard the case against Stone, explain why it matters. Here, she is speaking in reference to the 2016 election, during which both Stone and Manafort (not to mention Papadopoulos, Flynn, Cohen, Gates, Zwaan, Nader, and several others) consorted with Russians. 

The judge chastises Mr. Stone, 

Everyone depends on our elected representatives to protect our elections from foreign interference based on the facts. No one knows where the threat is going to come from next time or whose side they’re going to be on, and for that reason the dismay and disgust at the defendant’s belligerence should transcend party. 

 

Now we know. 

Stone could afford to be belligerent. He knew he need not show remorse. He knew where he stood with the president. A pardon was his if he made sure not to implicate Trump in any of his crimes. 

* 

MR. TRUMP plans to hang at his Florida estate until after New Year, and stay busy tweeting endlessly about how he was robbed of a second term. 

As for millions of the people he was elected to serve – who stand on the precipice of ruin, as their last savings disappear – they can twist in the wind. 

For now any relief package is stalled.

___

  

12/22/20: Make that ten days. Once again, “The President has no public events scheduled” Tuesday, as the White House reports. 

____________________ 

In other words, your tax dollars at work, to get Esformes a pardon, for stealing your tax dollars to begin.

____________________ 

 

From deep inside the bunker, however, Trump does lash out at his enemies, a growing horde, and pardon a few of his criminal pals. The president’s Twitter feed has always been a place to go if you like racism, paranoia, self-pity, petty insults, and half-baked policy, all with an authoritarian vibe. 

Now, we’re getting flat-out “crazy.” The president’s “enemies list” expands to include Sen. Mitch McConnell. Trump has blasted Republican “puppets” in Georgia and torched the U.S. Supreme Court. The soon to be ex-President of the United States is seeing enemies behind every door. VP Pence? Him, too. Lame Duck Don is said to believe his second in command has been “insufficiently loyal,” to use a reporter’s words. 

* 

WHEN OLD FRIENDS FAIL, make new ones by pardoning a whole bunch of disreputable characters! 

Top names on the list of pardons issued today are former congressmen, Rep. Chris Collins, and Rep. Duncan Hunter. Apparently, both deserve relief because they were the first members of Congress, back when Trump was just a terrible candidate running to trash the rule of law, to endorse the man. Sure, Collins, and his son, Cameron, and a whole pack of Cam’s in-laws, were convicted of insider trading. Cam, alone, managed to dump stock on poor dupes who didn’t have the same inside dish Dad had, and avoided $570,000 in losses as a result. 

But what’s a president supposed to do, if not pardon all his felonious friends? 

Duncan Hunter and his wife were found guilty of siphoning off a quarter of a million dollars in campaign funds and spending the money for family vacations and to pay other Hunter household expenses. 

Famously, that included using $600 in campaign cash to fly the family’s pet bunny along during a trip to Italy. 

Not to mention: Rep. Hunter using campaign donations to find an alleged five extra-marital affairs. 

Let’s all hope Lame Duck Donald pardons the bunny before he’s gone. Trump, we mean. Not the bunny. (See: 8/8/18 and 8/22/18.) 

Also snagging a pardon: George Papadopoulos, second among an impressive list of Trump campaign aides from 2016 to be caught, and Alex van der Zwaan, a Dutch lawyer. Both men had lied to investigators about contacts with Russians – or, in Zwaan’s case, contacts with other liars who had already lied about contacts with Russians. 

First to lie about schmoozing with Russians – and taking $45,000 for a speech he gave in Russia – and then taking $530,000 from Turkish interests (while prepping to become Trump’s first National Security Adviser), Gen. Michael T. Flynn, has already had his pardon awarded. 

Several of the pardons issued Tuesday hold up under scrutiny, but my favorite is the pardon of Philip Esformes, described by the New York Post as a “Florida nursing home tycoon.” Esformes had been sentenced to twenty years in prison after he was convicted in a $1 billion Medicare fraud scheme. 

In other words, your tax dollars at work, to get Esformes a pardon, for stealing your tax dollars to begin. 

* 

AT ANY RATE, the president remains just as unwilling as ever to accept his November defeat. On Tuesday, Lame Duck Donald did tweet once about vaccine distribution and how great it was all going – and all because of him. 

Mostly, he spent his day lashing out at all those who refuse to support his insane schemes to overturn the vote and secure a second term. Mitch McConnell continued to take fire, for having admitted that Joe Biden would in fact be the next President of the United States. New to the president’s hate list was “RINO John Thune, ‘Mitch’s boy,’” as Trump described him in a tweet. Thune represents a solid red state in the U.S. Senate, but the president has had about all he can stand of Thune’s concern for the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law. He wants the votes of six states overturned; and he wants it to now, or no later than January 6. 

“South Dakota doesn’t like weakness,” he raged on Twitter. Thune “will be primaried in 2022, political career over!!” 

For pure, unadulterated idiocy, the president’s retweet of a post by some gentleman named “Kevin McCullough,” may be my favorite of the day. 

We see this same lame argument every four years, when some knot head posts the kind of map (above), showing how much of America is “red” country, not “blue.” McCullough is just the latest – and, in Trump, we finally have a president so ill-informed as to buy the concept. And it’s worth noting that McCullough posted the wrong map, from the 2016 election, and that neither he nor the president noticed. We provide the correct map from 2020, as a service. 

“America is 50 states,” McCullough first notes. Focusing on several of those states where the voters chose Biden over Trump, which results Trump doesn’t like and still hopes to overturn, McCullough explains, “Minus the states in question Trump won 25, Biden won 16.” 

I don’t get the poor sap’s math. So, I check the electoral map. Sure enough, Trump won more states, especially if we don’t count eight of the states Joe Biden won! Such as Pennsylvania. My map does show that Trump received the electoral votes from 26 states. I also know conservatives love the Electoral College, because since 1992, they’ve only won the popular vote once. 

But really? President Trump thinks we vote by square mileage? 

Apparently, he does. 

That’s the argument McCullough is advancing, after all; and it’s an incredibly stupid argument from the start. “Those [pro-Trump] states house 2974 counties. Even with the ‘votes in question’ Trump won 2496 [counties], Biden [w]on 477. Trump won 84% of America, Biden ‘won’ 16%.” 

So, let a liberal blogger explain again – as he did in 2016. In 2012. And 2008. Consider California. The state has a population of more than 40 million. So that blue state has fifty-five (55) electoral votes. Trump did in fact win wide swaths of the country if we measure by square miles. That doesn’t change the fact he won states with low populations. Wyoming has six people per square mile. The entire state has 567,000 people; and for that reason Wyoming gets only three (3) electoral votes. Alaska also has three (3) electoral votes. Montana has three (3). North Dakota has three (3). South Dakota has three (3). Idaho has four (4). Nebraska has five (5). Kansas, Iowa, and Utah have six each (6, 6, 6), and Oklahoma has seven (7). 

If you are keeping track, those eleven states all went for Trump; but they have only a combined 49 electoral votes. 

It’s bad enough we pick presidents based on electoral votes, which is how Trump won in 2016. We absolutely do not pick presidents by how many counties they win. That’s like picking presidents based on how many cornfields states had. And you’d think even this most dimwitted president could figure it out. 

Here again are a few pictures I have taken while bicycling or hiking in various corners of this beautiful land. 

We count people’s votes. We don’t count counties. We don’t count open space. Here, for example, is what one chunk of Wyoming looks like:

 That’s my bicycle to the left, by the way. There don’t appear to be any voters in this area at all.

Here’s the view from the seat of my bicycle, in southwestern Utah, as I pedaled across the Sevier Desert in 2011. Not many potential voters for Trump – or Biden, or anyone else – in sight.

This portion of Montana, along the Beartooth Highway, north and east of Yellowstone Park, is more scenic; but there aren’t a lot of voters here. 

There might be a few grizzly bears; but they don’t get to vote, either.

South Dakota has more cows than most blue states. We don’t vote by pasture size. We let people vote. 

Cows don’t vote. People vote. And each person, over the age of 18, gets one vote. 

You’d think the right-wing types would figure this out and quit posting and retweeting stupid maps.

___

12/21/20: President Trump is having a nightmare time, trying to accept the fact that Joseph R. Biden Jr. will be replacing him soon. Today, he’s in hiding again. “The President has no public events scheduled,” the White House confirms. 

Same as yesterday. 

Same as Saturday. 

Sunday, another 1,584 Americans died from COVID-19. Today the toll is 1,725. That brings the total, as reported by the Centers for Disease Control, to: 

318,569 dead. 

A quick check of the world numbers shows that under President Trump, the U.S. is #1 in total cases of coronavirus, with a wide lead. We are #1, again, by a wide margin, in total deaths. 

Adjusted for population (deaths per million), we come in #12. 

San Marino:               1,619

Belgium:                     1,604

Italy:                           1,146

Bosnia and

     Herzigovina:         1,133

Slovenia:                     1,144

Peru:                           1,118

North Macedonia:     1,111

Spain:                          1,053

Andorra:                     1,048

Montenegro:                 997

United Kingdom:         994

United States:               981 

* 

STILL, A BIT OF HOPE: Congress has finalized a second stimulus package to save a flagging U.S. economy. Neither this blogger nor his wife will be receiving any money under the terms of this deal, because our combined incomes are too high, and, so, we have no reason to complain. 

Millions of our fellow Americans desperately need assistance, although whether the package is enough, at $900 billion is subject to debate. 

Key provisions include, an extra $300 per week for persons unemployed, $600 checks to adults making less than $75,000 per year, $1,200 to couples making less than $150,000, $600 extra to qualifying families for each dependent, and an extension of the ban on evictions through at least January 2021. Unemployment benefits will reportedly be extended for eleven weeks. 

The deal has been stalled in Congress for months. Yet, so far as we know, the Art of the Deal President has played no role in moving Democrats and Republicans to agreement. Frankly, Trump is no longer dealing. 

He’s in a dark place. 

As noted by ABC, Lame Duck Donald hasn’t been seen in public in nine days. Then again, that’s a blessing in itself.

___

 

12/20/20: Only one month until Inauguration Day, when most Americans bid a fond farewell to Donald J. Trump. 

A senior administration official captures the mood inside the White House. With Trump “retweeting threats of putting politicians in jail,” spending “time talking to conspiracy nuts who openly say declaring martial law is no big deal…it’s impossible not to start getting anxious about how this ends.” Will the president exit the White House with even a hint of class? Or will Secret Service agents have to pry his fingers from the Oval Office doorknob and usher him out into the real world again?  

____________________ 

“These are people who have endured arguably more insanity and mayhem than any administration officials in history.” 

Senior administration official, unnamed

____________________ 

 

Even worse, the source warns that Trump has been toying with Gen. Flynn’s idea of sending troops into several states and ordering new elections. Why not just say, the hell with democracy, and declare himself “President for Life.” 

The President-for-One-More-Month has also been floating the idea of appointing Sidney Powell, of crazy-stolen-election-Kraken-claims-fame, as a Special Counsel, so she can examine all the rigged voting machines! “People who are concerned and nervous aren’t the weak-kneed bureaucrats that we loathe,” the source tells a reporter. “These are people who have endured arguably more insanity and mayhem than any administration officials in history.” 

In keeping with the insanity, Mike Lindell, the MyPillow guy and huge Trump fan, tweeted and then deleted a call for the Orange Idol to declare martial law in seven states, send in the troops, overturn the vote, and maybe shoot any citizens who insist that Joe Biden was in fact chosen to be the next President of the United States. 

* 

SINCE OUR TOPIC is insanity, we should note that this weekend Fox News was forced to air a point-by-point rebuttal of “the-election-was-stolen-narrative” that various hosts and guests (like Sidney Powell) have been peddling in some variant every day since the November 3 election. Smartmatic, which operates voting machines that hosts like Lou Dobbs have adamantly insisted were rigged, had threatened legal action unless Fox allowed a rebuttal. 

Fox lawyers, knowing Dobbs and the rest of their stable of hosts had no legitimate evidence to support such claims, decided to air a point-by-point response by Eddie Perez, a voting technology expert, with Mr. Perez debunking all the nonsense Lou and company had been spewing. 

Dobbs got the legal wedgie first, with the Perez segment being aired during his Friday show. Saturday night, honors went to Judge Jeanine Pirro. This morning, Maria Bartiromo had her turn. 

Lou’s reaction said it all. After the Perez piece aired, the host who can work himself into a frenzy simply talking about which Girl Scout cookies are best, decided not to respond. 

Cut to commercial. 

No sense taking a chance of getting your ass sued when you can’t prove the claims you’ve been making for weeks. 

* 

LAST BUT NOT LEAST, what post is complete without another Trump administration scandal? 

Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie is under intense pressure to resign, after an investigation found he worked to discredit a female veteran who had filed a sexual harassment claim, rather than pursue the matter. 

If you love Donald J. Trump more than vanilla ice cream, you will likely decide that the six top veterans’ organizations are joining the “Deep State,” in an effort to bring the president and his administration down. 

Joining the call for Wilkie to exit his post: 

The American Legion

Veterans of Foreign Wars

Disabled American Veterans

AMVETS

Vietnam Veterans of America 

—and— 

 Paralyzed Veterans of America

 

Of Wilkie, the write in a joint letter: “His actions not only threaten to deter veterans from seeking care at VA, but also undermine the efforts of VA staff who have been working to bring an end to sexual harassment throughout the department.” 

Wilkie says he’s not going to step down. Because…sexual harassment…what’s the big deal with that? 

It probably won’t matter in the end since Mr. Trump’s attention (what little he still devotes to actually serving as president) is focused on firing F.B.I. Director Christopher Wray. Wray’s crime? He refused to announce ahead of the election that there was some kind, any kind, even an imaginary kind, of investigation into Hunter and Joe Biden. Trump would have liked something along the lines of: “The F.B.I. is closing in on the top name on ‘America’s Most Wanted List,’ longtime fugitive, Hunter Biden and his dad, the number #2 man on the list, ‘Amtrak Joe’ Biden.” 

That kind of announcement would have pleased Lame Duck Donald a great deal. Instead, the president is stuck trying to figure out how to order the U.S. military to send the tanks clanking into a few blue states.

___

 

12/19/20: President Trump is the first man to ever try proving he deserves a second term in office by doing next to nothing, except sulk, in the last three months of his first. As the extent of the Russian hack of a wide array of government and business entities becomes clear, the president spends a full week ignoring the issue. The full range of damage may not be known for weeks. We do know the city of Austin, Texas joins the ranks of those whose computer systems were compromised, as were networks of at least three states. So, too, giant Microsoft, Corp. 

____________________ 

“Everything is well under control.” 

President Trump

____________________

 

According to Bloomberg News, the path opened up when sophisticated hackers installed a “backdoor” on software used by the company SolarWinds, with tens of thousands of customers. At the highest level, U.S. Department of State computers, systems at the Pentagon, and private systems, including nuclear laboratories were hacked. Breaches also occurred at the U.S. Treasury, Department of Commerce, and Department of Homeland Security. In other words, this was a massive hack. 

In an interview Friday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had little doubt who was behind the hack. “I think it’s the case that now we can say pretty clearly that it was the Russians that engaged in this activity. This was a very significant effort,” and the administration was “still unpacking precisely what it is.” The bipartisan leadership of the U.S. Senate Armed Services committee agreed.

 

The Russians were to blame.

 

Finally, Lame Duck Donald stirred briefly from his post-election funk. It wasn’t Russia, he said. In fact, since the hack occurred while his fat ass was still planted in the White House, he had to insist that, whichever hostile foreign power was responsible, it wasn’t really that big a deal. 

Since the Lame Duck has been bunkered up for weeks since he got thumped by the voters, he issued his response in the form of two tweets, which allowed him to avoid interacting with any reporters: 

The Cyber Hack is far greater in the Fake News Media than in actuality. I have been fully briefed and everything is well under control. Russia, Russia, Russia is the priority chant when anything happens because Lamestream is, for mostly financial reasons, petrified of....

 

....discussing the possibility that it may be China (it may!). There could also have been a hit on our ridiculous voting machines during the election, which is now obvious that I won big, making it an even more corrupted embarrassment for the USA.

 

 

Postscript: In a stunning development, the CDC reports that on December 18, the United States recorded 403,359 new cases of coronavirus, almost double the number for the previous worst day.

 

This blogger has not seen any explanation; and the number for December 19, was more in the “normal,” dreadful range: 201,490 more cases.

 

(Likely, some statistical adjustment was required.)

 

The death toll rises apace. Another 2,756 Americans succumb on December 18. The next day, another 2,624 are lost.

 

Loss between December 1-December 19:

 

46,174. 

With an average of 2,430 Americans dying every day, we are now suffering the equivalent of a Pearl Harbor attack every 24 hours.

___

12/18/20: One Trump loyalist who is even more deeply disappointed in the Supreme Court is just-pardoned loose cannon, Gen. Michael T. Flynn. In an interview with host Greg Kelly, on Newsmax, he suggests that the president gas up a few M1A1 Abrams battle tanks and force select states that went for Joe Biden to hold new elections—as many as needed, until Trump wins. “He could order the, within the swing states, if he wanted to, he could take military capabilities,” Flynn says, “and he could place those in states and basically rerun an election in each of those states.” 

____________________ 

“He could take military capabilities and he could place those in states and basically rerun an election in each of those states.” 

General Michael T. Flynn

____________________

 

 

In the make believe world of Lame Duck Donald and his unwavering, ill-informed fans, a second loyalist, Georgia attorney Lin Wood, is now hinting that Chief Justice John Roberts and others on the Supreme Court are part of the Deep State fix. Not only that, Wood claims to have proof of shenanigans behind the scenes—which at some future date he will reveal to the amazement of all. In fact, since someone named “John Roberts” once flew on a plane with Jeffrey Epstein—the notorious sexual predator—Wood insists that the American people are now “entitled” to an explanation.” Can Chief Justice Roberts prove that wasn’t him on that flight? 

This blogger will send him the following letter, which he will share with readers of this blog first: 

Dear Mr. Wood,

 

     Don’t be a dumb ass. “John,” and “Roberts” are common first and last names. For example, when I Google “John Roberts Ohio” I get a John Roberts who owns several spas around the state, a tenured professor at Ohio University, and two doctors who practice in Cincinnati. I even find the number for one of the spas, if I want a pedicure to end the year on a high note.

 

     When calling out right-wing idiots, Mr. Wood, I try to get my facts straight. So, for the fun of it, I check “John Roberts Akron,” curious to see if there are any individuals by that name in the city where I was born. Fifteen possibilities pop up. John E. Roberts is first. There’s John S., and John Ray, and John Thomas, and John C., and F., G., L., and several more.

 

So, Mr. Wood, you need to check them out and see if they ever rode on Epstein’s plane.

 

     Also, you will need to call or write the 46 people named “John Roberts” who live in Cleveland, the 39 in Dayton, and, frankly, the 869 people by that name who live in Florida, where Epstein used to hang out.

 

In fact, I would like to mention that the name on the passenger manifest might be fake, as in when Trump, during his pre-president days, used to go by pseudonyms such as “John Barron” or “John Miller.” Even the apparently fictitious secretary, Carolin Gallego, who once wrote about how all the beautiful women in America were clamoring to go out with Mr. Trump—might in fact have been Mr. Donald J. Trump. Then you had “David Dennison,” of hush money fame, which the president later admitted was him.

 

In closing, since you passionately believe the American people are entitled to an explanation, could you ask former U.S. Secretary of Labor, Alex Acosta, why, before he joined President Trump’s cabinet, he gave Epstein a sweetheart deal when he was on trial in 2008?

 

Happy holidays and Merry Christmas to you. Or Happy Hannukah. Or whatever seasonal greeting works for you.

 

Sincerely,

John J. Viall

 

Postscript: In the late hours of Friday night, on into early morning Saturday, we know the President of the United States was still up and fuming. Peter Navarro, he tweeted at 12:42 a.m., had handed him a 36-page report (which I think we can be sure he didn’t bother to read). According to the president, Navarro had proven it was, “Statistically impossible [for him] to have lost the 2020 Election.” 

Then, he issued a call for action—even violence, you might think. “Big protest in D.C. on January 6^th,”  he said. “Be there, will be wild!”

 

See: General Flynn, above.

___

  

12/17/20: Russian hackers, likely the same crew who pried off the lid to the Democratic National Committee’s emails in 2016, have wormed their way into the computer systems of multiple U.S. government agencies. 

____________________

 A band of 651 billionaires in this country now controls $4 trillion in wealth. Income inequality reaches highest level in fifty years.

____________________

 

President Trump has not commented on the hack. He has, however, tweeted (twice) today about efforts to rename Abraham Lincoln High School in San Francisco. He has tweeted about the stock market reaching an all-time high. He has tweeted sixteen times about how the election was stolen from his grip, just because President-Elect Biden got 81 million votes. 

He has not tweeted about the Russians at all. 

Not only does he seem to be ignoring this massive breach of U.S. computer systems, he has had almost nothing to say about the pandemic. CDC reports that on December 15, another 2,960 Americans died. 

On December 16, that figure rose to 3,435. That made it the second worst day since the pandemic began. 

Then today, another awful 24-hours: 3,444 dead. That brings the death toll for December to:

40,794.

So, why not focus on a possible name change for one high school in San Francisco? Makes perfect Trump sense. 

* 

IN NEWS that matters more, by far, a new study by the London School of Economics finds that tax cuts for the superrich don’t benefit the rest of us and don’t cause economies to boom. 

You will be happy to note, however – if you are a billionaire – that 651 men and women in the United States now control $4 trillion of wealth. You will also be happy to know – if you are one of those 651, such as the president – that last year, income inequality reached its highest level in half a century. According to economists, Jeff Bezos is currently worth $184.4 billion. Elon Musk is second at $143.1 billion, followed by Bill Gates, $118.7 billion, and Mark Zuckerberg, $104.8 billion. This is why we cannot raise taxes on the suffering superrich. 

At the same time, since the pandemic began ripping through the economy, an additional eight million Americans have fallen into poverty. 

To show you how desperately people like Bezos, Musk and Trump needed the Trump Tax Cuts, let’s consider the tragedy that they would have faced, had the top rates on the richest Americans not been reduced. The old rate was 39.7% of income per year. That was cut to 37% under Mr. Trump. 

(Trump’s accountants and lawyers apparently figured out a way to cut taxes for the president to almost 0%.) 

Now consider Ivanka Trump and husband Jared Kushner. They have reportedly purchased a $30 million property in Florida , where they and their children can live a simple post-White House life. Had their taxes not been slashed, and had they been forced to pay that extra 2.7%, they might not have afforded their new abode. 

They would have had to settle for a cottage somewhere, three bedrooms, 1 ½ baths, for only $29,190,000, instead. 

 

Postscript: If you’d like to read about Jared and Ivanka’s amazing ability to pay almost zero taxes, feel free to regal yourself at this same blog. (See: 10/14/18.) There’s a good chance you – like this blogger, himself – pay more in federal income taxes that the First Daughter and her husband. 

Isn’t that fun!

___

12/16/20: An iceberg the size of Delaware, which broke loose in 2017, is floating in the South Atlantic. It may soon plow into the island of South Georgia and get stuck, melting slowly (perhaps over the next decade), and releasing enough fresh water into the ocean to drastically alter the environment around the island. According to scientists, the berg “weighs hundreds of billions of tons.” 

Asked about this development, President Trump tells reporters, “I won the election in South Georgia with ease.” 

* 

LOOK, WE KNOW Mr. Trump refuses to face the fact he lost, and in fact seems to be  growing angrier by the day, as he faces ignominious removal from the White House in 34 days. We have been updating the “Stages of Grief” as necessary. The original six became nine. Then yesterday: eleven. 

An astute former student, Mark Napier, suggested adding “grifting” all of the Seven Deadly Sins. All seven apply at some point, but not necessarily to the current situation. We highlight those which do apply in italics, and add another from Mr. Napier, plus one or two of our own. 

We now have: 

The Sixteen Stages of Grief 

Denial

Tweeting

Anger

Golfing

Grifting

Envy

Hiding out

Desperation

Stupidity

Hallucinating

Bargaining

Lying

Depression

More Lying

Wrath

Acceptance

Inauguration

At this point, it’s clear the poor fellow is never going to get to “acceptance.” So, we have a new final stage of grief.

The final stage of grief:  Inauguration.

___

 

12/15/20: President Trump suffers a stunning blow today when his most loyal pal admits he lost the election—six weeks ago—and congratulates President-Elect Joe Biden. 

We mean, of course, Russian strongman Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin has sent Mr. Biden a “congratulatory telegram” wishing him “every success” as he takes office, expressing hope that the two great powers can work together to solve some of the world’s most pressing issues.

Never a harsh word passed between buds.

 

* 

AS FOR PRESIDENT TWITTER THUMBS, we know he’s not one baby step closer to accepting his loss on November 3. 

Some days back, we highlighted the stages of grief the president must pass through. (See: 11/25/20.) 

Now we need to add a few steps, because the current occupant of the White House is still bogged down in the early stages. Steps added in italics: 

The Eleven Stages of Grief (so far) 

Denial

Tweeting

Anger

Golfing

Hiding out in the White House

Desperation

Bargaining

Lying

Depression

More Lying

Acceptance

 

Today, Lame Duck Donald’s itinerary reads: “The President has not public events scheduled.” (See also: 12/1, 12/4, /12/6, 12/9, 12/11, 12/13 and now today.) 

Then we have the “desperation” tweeting and retweeting. Today, for example: “Trump is in the process of proving he won, and Biden is pretending he did.” Lame Duck Donald also tapped out this claim, about voting machines being totally off: “Able to take a landslide victory and reduce it to a tight loss.” 

No Twitter Thumbs rampage is ever complete without a suggestion that someone needs to be locked up, even if we never bother to give them a trial. In this case, it comes in a retweet of a post by Georgia lawyer Lin Wood, who suggests jail time for two Republicans, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (left in the picture) and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (right). 

Their crime? Counting the votes in their state three times (two recounts demanded by Team Trump) and reporting that Mr. Biden won. 

Three times!

  

*

The good news today: the vaccine rollout offers promise that the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic is behind us. 

The bad news? We have passed the 300,000 dead mark since we recorded the first case in America on January 20. 

Not counting today, because the Centers for Disease Control report on a 24-hour delay, we have:

___

12/14/20: This has been a hard day for the President of the United States. The trouble begins when the Wisconsin Supreme Court rejects his fourth and final appeal to overturn the state’s November election results. Two hours later Wisconsin electors cast their votes (10) for Joseph R. Biden Jr. 

That has to sting. And the hornets keep stinging. Georgia’s votes (16) also go for Biden; then Pennsylvania’s (20). Michigan electors ignore “credible threats” of violence and cast their votes (16) for the former Vice President. One elector takes no chances and wears a bulletproof vest on the way to vote. 

New York’s electors—including Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton—tally 29 votes for Biden. 

Just before dinner time in Washington D.C., the State of California’s electors record their votes (55), giving Mr. Biden 302 total, more than the 270 needed to become the next President of the United States. 

It's official: Biden is the next President of the United States.

* 

AS FOR MR. TRUMP, he spends most of his day tweeting angrily about how the election was rigged; and he won by a mile. 

It gives him something to do with all his free time (see: 12/13/20). A winter storm is threatening the Eastern U.S., and it’s too cold to play golf. 

 

Postscript: Here’s an oddity of a minor sort. Since Election Night, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany has devoted most of her efforts to turning up on Fox News and insisting her boss actually won. 

She’s paid by taxpayers, like you and me. Yet, in her paid role, she has talked with reporters only twice in six weeks. 

Rather, she has devoted her time to appearing on Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News (19 visits) to make the case Trump has been robbed. 

Asked by one well-known political blogger to justify this imbalance, McEnany replied via email: “As White House Press Secretary, there are a variety of ways to communicate with the American People that don’t involve being shouted at by activists, including the manner in which I’m communicating with you right now.” 

So, if you think Trump is unworthy of a second term, you are paying this banshee to claim that he is.

___

12/13/20: In what has become a regular refrain since the election, we learn that Donald J. Trump is goofing off again today. 

His full agenda for Sunday reads: “The President has no official events scheduled today.” 

This is the same schedule he has followed on most days since he got thumped in the election, as, for example, December 1, December 4, December 6, December 9, and December 11. Plus today. 

On December 2, Trump worked like a dog for the American people, with his schedule packed with: “Lunch with the Vice President.” 

*  

MEANWHILE, the spreading virus continues to kill our friends, neighbors, and family members in staggering numbers. The Centers for Disease Control has posted these grim figures. 

12/6:              1,118 dead

12/7:              1,532 dead.

12/8:              2,566 dead.

12/9:              3,411 dead.

12/10:            2,760 dead.

12/11:            3,013 dead.

12/12:            2,283 dead.   

12/13:            1,448 dead 

That brought the total, in the first thirteen days of the month, to 30,964, equivalent to a  Pearl Harbor attack every day. 

To make matters worse, record numbers of people are hospitalized with coronavirus (109,331 as of Sunday). 

The president continues to focus on other matters, in the wake of yet another devastating court defeat on Thursday. And another on Friday. Yes, thousands of Americans are dying from disease. No, that’s not his worry. 

Rather, at 10:36 this morning, Trump fired off this emerald of Twitter wisdom: 

“MOST CORRUPT ELECTION IN U.S. HISTORY!” 

Tomorrow, the electors meet to cast their votes and seal Lame Duck Donald’s fate forever, as a LOSER. 

That’s right, the man who has labeled scores of his political opponents and personal enemies as “losers” on Twitter, and god knows how many more in press conferences and during rallies with the faithful, will join the club. 

LOSER. LOSER. LOSER. 

The Electoral College will make it official tomorrow. Trump might not concede. Yet he will be a: 

LOSER.

Say it in Russian:       “неудачник” (neudachnik)

Say it in French:         “perdant.”

Say it in German:       “verlierer.”

Say it in Chinese:       “失败者”  (Shībài zhě)

Say it in Gaelic:          “cailleanach” 

You get the idea. Pick you language. Trump is going down to defeat. 

 

Postscript: On the other hand, if playing a lot improves one’s game of golf, Trump has got to be getting good. Sunday, he carded Round #316 since he took the oath of office on January 20, 2017. 

We keep repeating this, but it is a perfect measure of both the man’s hypocrisy and his utter inability for self-examination. It bothered Trump—or so he said—when Obama played “so much golf” in office. 

That would be 333 rounds total. In TWO full terms.

As president, he really liked golf!

___ 

 

12/12/20: Take a final look at this building; because by the time you wake on Sunday the U.S. Supreme Court will be reduced to rubble. Not in the terrorist-bombing sort of way. 

In the God-has-spoken, “walls of Jericho” way.

U.S. Supreme Court.

 

Trump supporters rallied today, which meant lots of angry shouting, and chants of, “Lock them up,” now in reference to members of the Supreme Court. Bibles were also thumped, since many Trump supporters believe him to be God’s Chosen One, sent to save the nation from Obamacare, commies and minorities. Having already suggested helpfully that the president declare martial law and call for a new election, Gen. Michael T. Flynn spoke from the steps of the Court. 

Flags were waved and “patriotism” stressed. Finally, Trump supporters marched around various federal building, blowing horns, as of old, expecting the “walls of Jericho” to fall down, as is said to have occurred in biblical times. Because nothing says “patriotism” like having buildings collapse and crush any of your fellow Americans working inside on a weekend. 

(If you don’t remember the story, it is said in the Bible that the ancient Israelites marched round the city of Jericho, where the Canaanites, their enemies were holed up. Six days, they circuited the city, just once. On the seventh, they made seven trips around the city. Then they gave a “great shout,” blew rams’ horns, and the enemy walls tumbled down. See: Joshua 6: 1-27.

* 

OTHER THAN THE MARCHING and horn tootling, it was a tough day for the president and his fans. In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 7-2 vote to reject the State of Texas’s challenge to the vote in four other states, gloom had settled over the land. According to Maggie Haberman, a reporter for The New York Times, Trump was so bummed by the court’s decision, that last night he skipped his own White House Christmas Party. That story was later confirmed by a reporter for the Washington Post. 

If you love Trump, you believe the Times and the Post are “Fake News,” but if we checked Donald’s Twitter feed, it was readily apparent he was having a hard time processing the high court’s decision. Just before midnight on Friday, Trump made his unhappiness clear, tweeting, “The Supreme Court really let us down. No Wisdom, No Courage!” He stewed for half an hour. At 12:24 a.m. on Saturday, he began hammering the buttons on his iPhone again: 

So, you’re the President of the United States, and you just went through an election where you got more votes than any sitting President in history, by far - and purportedly lost. You can’t get “standing” before the Supreme Court, so you “intervene” with wonderful states.....

 

....that, after careful study and consideration, think you got “screwed”, something which will hurt them also. Many others likewise join the suit but, within a flash, it is thrown out and gone, without even looking at the many reasons it was brought. A Rigged Election, fight on!

 

At 12: 46 a.m., Trump quoted a supporter who called the Supreme Court’s decision “a legal disgrace, an embarrassment to the USA!!!” 

Trump fell into bed soon after, tossed and turned until Saturday morning, and went right back to Twitter. First, he offered a tip of the hat, in a retweet from one of his followers: “Thank you, Justice Alito. Thank you, Justice Thomas.” 

Then he cited a second, similar mistake from Sean Hannity: “Justices Alito and Thomas say they would have allowed Texas to proceed with its election lawsuit.” @seanhannity This is a great and disgraceful miscarriage of justice. The people of the United States were cheated, and our Country disgraced. Never even given our day in Court! 

The blogger found these tweets interesting, because he had already read the response of the Supreme Court to the Texas legal challenge. It was only two paragraphs. But it was clear seven justices thought the case was a loser from the start; but what did Alito and Thomas think? Alito wrote, briefly, and Thomas signed on to what he said, that he felt that since the Court had original jurisdiction, they should have taken the matter in hand. He would have granted the motion to file but said he “would not grant other relief, and I express no view on any other issue.” 

Did that mean, as Hannity seemed to believe, that the two judges were on the president’s side? To this blogger, it appeared Alito was saying, we should have taken up the challenge from Texas; but having done so, he and Justice Thomas would have also shot it down. According to University of Texas School law professor Steve Vladeck, I was correct in my surmise. And Hannity was full of skunk dung. Vladeck wrote: “For anyone wondering about Justices Alito and Thomas, they’ve been consistent about this technical objection across cases—that the Supreme Court has to at least grant leave to file in state-state disputes. The much bigger story is their emphasis that they’d grant ‘no other relief.’”

 

NPR also explained:

 

Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, wrote that in their view the court does “not have discretion to deny the filing of a bill of complaint in a case that falls within our original jurisdiction.”

 

But the two said that while they would have allowed the filing of the complaint, they would not have granted Trump or Texas, any of the relief they sought. 

 

Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE), spoke for most Americans—but not most Trump fans—when he issued the following statement: 

Since Election Night, a lot of people have been confusing voters by spinning Kenyan Birther-type, “Chavez rigged the election from the grave” conspiracy theories, but every American who cares about the rule of law should take comfort that the Supreme Court—including all three of President Trump’s picks—closed the door on the nonsense.

 

Saturday, however, Trump and his cult followers vowed to fight on! At one point, Trump tweeted: “I WON THE ELECTION IN A LANDSLIDE, but remember, I only think in terms of legal votes, not all of the fake voters and fraud that miraculously floated in from everywhere! What a disgrace!” 

He spent part of his day attacking the Republican governors of Georgia and Arizona, who had refused to bend to his authoritarian rule and overturn the election results in their states. They were “RINO’s,” the president fumed. “Never forget, vote them out of office!” At least, next time they run. 

As you might have expected, the President of the United States turned his fury on the U.S. Supreme Court. “The Supreme Court had ZERO interest in the merits of the greatest voter fraud ever perpetrated on the United States of America,” he tweeted. “All they were interested in is ‘standing’, which makes it very difficult for the President to present a case on the merits. 75,000,000 votes!” 

As is so often true, the poor dope couldn’t even get his basic facts straight. He didn’t get 75,000,000 votes, unless he was rounding up in some strange new mathematical system. He had 74,223,755. 

A solid showing. 

Unfortunately, for him, Joe Biden piled up an even taller stack of votes from the American people: 81,283,495. 

 

FUN FACT: Did you know that Mitt Romney earned a higher percentage of the popular vote in 2012, than Trump earned in either his first run for glory, or his second run, which has now ended in ignominy? 

You can check it out: 

Romney:         47.2%.

Trump:           46.9%.

Trump:           46.1%.

___

 

Blogger’s note: Save for minor editing, this post had been prepared prior to the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to reject the Texas lawsuit, challenging the vote in four sister states. (I had even explained that term, “sister states,” and the usage behind it.) You didn’t need to be a Rhodes scholar to know the case was going nowhere. 

Here’s why:

12/9-11/20: The big news these days would be the State of Texas’s ballsy challenge of the November election results. The Texas attorney general has filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court, in an effort to overturn the vote of four sister states, Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. 

“Sister states?” Sounds sexist, but that’s common usage in the English language for you. Inanimate objects, ships for example, were once routinely referred to as feminine, and were assumed to be controlled by men. 

As in “sister states.” 

____________________ 

“Charges of unfairness are serious. But calling an election unfair does not make it so.”

____________________ 

  

Anyway! What “crime” did those quadruplets commit, which Texas begged the Supreme Court to punish? Voters, in varying margins in those states, chose Joe Biden to be the next president, rather than stick with the old—mostly because a majority of Americans had long since decided that Trump was an insufferable ass. 

Also: a threat to democracy. 

Trump, whose crack legal team had already challenged voting results in more than fifty state and federal courts, and lost almost every time, had invested his last remnants of hope in this Texas gambit. He referred to it as “the big one” on Wednesday. That would be opposed to the previous “big one” on Tuesday, when the U.S. Supreme Court shot down an equally bizarre legal plea, after allies of the president asked the justices to throw out Pennsylvania’s election results on only slightly different grounds. 

In a legal nutshell: Trump and his team hated mail-in votes. Not all Pennsylvanians who voted by mail were treated exactly the same. Therefore, plaintiffs asked that all 2.5 million mail-in ballots recorded in Pennsylvania be thrown out and…viola...Trump would gobble up the state’s 20 electoral votes. 

The nine justices made short work of this request. They disposed of it in one eighteen-word sentence. Forty minutes after it landed in the court’s in-box, it was in the out-box again. The only word that mattered: “Denied.” 

Not a single member of the U.S. Supreme Court believed there was valid reason to hear the case.

 

To understand the Texas challenge, a few helpful notes: 

ONE: When a state sues another, over water rights or air pollution issues, the case goes straight to the U.S. Supreme Court. If New York sues Ohio, for example, New York would not want the case to be decided in Ohio’s courts. 

TWO: The high court must agree to take the case. If a majority of the justices find the Texas challenge is without merit, or that core issues have been settled by previous decisions, they may choose not to hear it at all. 

THREE: The president is pumped to learn that 18 red states have joined Texas in this last-ditch plea. On Thursday he tweeted, “19 states are fighting for us, almost unheard of support!” 

(Technically, you could argue there’s one more ditch if Trump is stymied by the highest court in the land—which this blogger is willing to bet will be the result. As the great American “patriot,” Rush Limbaugh suggested, if Trump loses, the red states should succeed.) 

Limbaugh suggests a new Confederacy, with Trump in Jefferson Davis's role.

 FOUR: The president did not mention that the four states named in the lawsuit, and 23 other states and the District of Columbia joined in opposition to the move. 

FIVE: This final challenge to the November results is the product of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s fertile imagination. 

(For more on Paxton—who was served with an F.B.I. subpoena at his office in an ongoing felony case this week—see my post for 12/8/20.) 

One legal expert, Amy Howe, explains the basics of the challenge: 

The filing… accuses government officials in the four states of using the COVID-19 pandemic to make changes to their states’ election laws through “executive fiat or friendly lawsuits, thereby weakening ballot integrity.” The state officials, Paxton writes, “flooded” their states with absentee ballots and “weakened the strongest security measures protecting the integrity of the vote—signature verification and witness requirements.”

 

As a result, Paxton contends, the 2020 election “suffered from significant and unconstitutional irregularities in those four states”—for example, treating voters in Democratic areas more favorably than in other areas.

  

SIX:  Did you know that Texas allows mail-in ballots? In some mysterious way, these ballots, cast in red states by people that vote mostly for Trump, are legit. In Paxton’s state only people over age 65 can be trusted to sign their mail-in ballots, fold them, put them in a special envelop, lick the flap, put the first envelop in a second, lick the flap, and affix the stamps. You can even vote from jail in Texas under certain circumstances, which is kind of fun. 

SEVEN: Texans may vote in person if they show one of seven kinds of photo identification, including driver’s licenses, and handgun licenses—because people who love guns, tend to vote Republican. 

EIGHT: Texas relaxed its regulations regarding voter ID last year, after federal judges found that old rules discriminated against poor voters, and had been written purposely to be discriminatory. 

NINE: We know this challenge will face serious headwinds, since almost every legal point raised has been shot down in the lower courts. In a previous lawsuit, filed on nearly identical grounds as the Paxton brief, a conservative justice on the Wisconsin Supreme Court joined liberal colleagues in rejecting the request to overturn the state’s vote. To do so, he said, in a case built “on so flimsy a foundation” would be to do “indelible damage to every future election.” 

Now Paxton and his pals were back…resting their new filing on the same flimsy foundation as before. 

TEN: A federal judge threw out a previous challenge to the Pennsylvania voting results, saying rather cheekily, “Charges of unfairness are serious. But calling an election unfair does not make it so.” 

ELEVEN: Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (a Democrat) had trouble taking the Paxton challenge seriously. “This lawsuit seems to suggest that the voters of Michigan messed with Texas,” she tweeted. “They didn’t. Case closed.” 

TWELVE: In the lawsuit filed by Attorney General Paxton and crafted by a lawyer named John Eastman, it was noted, as some sort of “evidence,” that no person had ever been elected president if they met defeat in both Ohio and Florida. 

Interesting, perhaps. 

Legally? 

Irrelevant. 

Trump’s lawyers might as well have said, “No man has ever been elected president who wore a toupee and enjoyed yodeling as a hobby.” 

Plus, check your facts! Nixon won both Florida and Ohio in 1960. Not until 1968 did he win a chance to take up residence in the White House and start tapping reporter’s phones and burglarizing people’s offices. 

THIRTEEN: The Texas filing is a piñata filled with lame complaints. Signatures weren’t checked! Ballot drop-off boxes were not secured with locks and chains and chastity belts! The voting machines were rigged. 

(By aliens, maybe?) 

We even had another irrelevant claim: Trump won 18 of 19 “bellwether counties.” According to the Texas challenge, that meant there was no possible way he could have lost. 

FOURTEEN: Just for fun, the blogger decided to see how many counties there are in various states. Pennsylvania has 67; and if you want, you can go this website and learn how all of them were named. Ohio has 88. I knew that because I have lived in the state most of my life. Georgia has 159. That includes Gwinnet County, named after the blogger’s ancestor, on his mother’s side. 

Button Gwinnett signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776, got a Georgia county named after him, and has been generally forgotten ever since. 

Gwinnett County went blue on Election Day, by the way, tallying 241,827 votes for Biden, 166,413 for Trump. 

In the hand recount—which the Trump team demanded—the president did see a net of 285 votes in Gwinnett, which is a lot, and a bit of a stain on the county name. The totals after that second tally: Biden 242,490, Trump 167,361. 

Statewide, however, Trump still lost. 

As for a third count of the state’s vote—a second machine tally—I can’t find results for individual counties. 

Trump lost again! 

FIFTEEN: Texas is not the only red state to sign onto this case and to have decided that under proper conditions, those conditions determined by their own lawmakers and implemented by their own officials, citizens can vote by mail! If you are over 65, and have certain health issues, in Missouri you can vote by mail. Indiana: if you are scheduled to work during the entire 12 hours the polls are open on Election Day, or you have a disability, you can vote by mail. South Carolina: students attending school outside of the county in which they claim permanent residence (i.e. college students, away from home) can lick a stamp and send in a vote. Kansas: “Advance voting by mail has been allowed to all Kansas voters since 1996.”  Incredible. The states complaining vociferously about other states allowing mail-in ballots—and not following their own rules—have their own different rules and allow mail-in ballots. 

SIXTEEN: I live in Ohio—which went (sadly) for Trump, by 53.3% to 45.3% for Joe Biden. 

This fall, Ohio was “flooded with ballots.” The blogger and his wife, who live in Cincinnati, each received from the state and various get-out-the-vote groups, four apiece (4). 

Having no interest in racking up felonies and spending our golden years behind bars, we each filled out and returned one (1). 

As in other states, certain rules made it safe for officials to believe the ballots we cast were legitimate. My wife and I each signed our ballots in the same way we would if we had appeared in person on Election Day and asked to vote. Had we voted in person we would have been required to show voter ID. Since we voted by mail, we were asked to supply either the last four digits of our Social Security number or provide the number from our Ohio driver’s license. 

So you had to ask: Why didn’t Texas challenge Ohio’s vote? 

SEVENTEEN: How about Florida—which also went for Trump—and which, unlike Ohio, has signed onto the Texas challenge? For god sakes, almost the first line we see on the website, MyFloridaElections.com. reads: “Under Florida law, all registered voters are permitted to vote by mail.” 

This. 

Is. 

So stupid. 

President Trump voted by mail in Florida for this election. What the hell! 

EIGHTEEN: Consider Utah, where the state’s attorney general signed onto the lawsuit. County clerks mailed out ballots to every registered voter, a practice the Texas A.G. and the president both were seeking to enjoin.

 

Utah Gov. Gary Herbert, and Utah Governor-elect Spencer Cox, both politicians of the Republican style, seemed surprised Wednesday to learn the state’s attorney general had signed the amicus brief (a “friendly brief”) supporting the challenge: “We don’t know what his motivation is. Just as we would not want other states challenging Utah’s election results, we do not think we should intervene in other states’ elections. This is an unwise use of taxpayers’ money.” 

NINETEEN: The Arizona attorney general joined the fight on the side of neighbor Texas. That is, he agreed that Arizona should sue Arizona to ensure voting had been fair. Who disagreed with that choice? Governor Doug Ducey—another Republican. The election in his state, he said, had been decided fairly. 

Trump lost. 

Gov. Ducey explained:

In Arizona, we have some of the strongest election laws in the country, laws that prioritize accountability and clearly lay out procedures for conducting, canvassing, and even contesting the results of an election. We’ve got ID at the polls. We review EVERY signature (every single one) on early ballots — by hand — unlike other states that use computers. Prohibitions on ballot harvesting. Bipartisan poll observers. Clear deadlines, including no ballots allowed after Election Day.

  

TWENTY: Even supporters of the president expressed serious reservations, which was another tipoff. Sen. John Cornyn—from Texas!!!!— was baffled by Paxton’s stratagems. He admitted to one reporter that he was struggling “to understand the legal theory.” 

Senate Whip John Thune of South Dakota was equally baffled. “I just don’t know why a state like Texas which never wants anybody telling them what to do, now wants to tell a bunch of other states how to run their elections. I doubt the Supreme Court will take it up.”  

Nebraska’s Sen. Ben Sasse, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, predicted the justices would dismiss the case. “I’m not a lawyer,” he said, “but I suspect the Supreme Court swats this away. From the brief, it looks like a fella begging for a pardon filed a PR stunt rather than a lawsuit—as all of its assertions have already been rejected by federal courts and Texas’ own solicitor general isn’t signing on.” 

(That solicitor would have had the job of arguing the merits of the case before the high court. Assuming it had any merits.) 

Two conservative lawyers, Carter Phillips and John Danforth, who are, CNN noted, “close friends with Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, respectively” also filed an amicus brief. 

Attorney General Paxton, they argued, was making “a mockery of federalism and separation of powers. It would violate the most fundamental constitutional principles for this Court to serve as the trial court for presidential election disputes.” 

* 

THEREFORE, it is with great confidence that this blogger is ready to place a bet of $100 with any Trump supporter who believes the U.S. Supreme Court is about to rule in the favor of their Orange God. 

I am betting the justices won’t. 

 

Postscript: I was right from the start because I am not delusional and did not believe idiocy would prevail. 

It took more than 18 words this time, but the U.S. Supreme Court shot down Team Trump once more: 

Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections. All other pending motions are dismissed as moot.

 

Statement of Justice Alito, with whom Justice Thomas joins: In my view, we do not have discretion to deny the filing of a bill of complaint in a case that falls within our original jurisdiction. See Arizona v. California, 589 U. S. ___ (Feb. 24, 2020) (Thomas, J., dissenting). I would therefore grant the motion to file the bill of complaint but would not grant other relief, and I express no view on any other issue.

 

I believe I’m reading that last part right. Justices Alito and Thomas would have agreed to hear the challenge—and then would have shot it down. 

* 

LAME DUCK DONALD should now get busy packing up his White House junk and preparing to move from Trumpistan to Loserville. 

Days remaining in office: 

39.

 ___

 

12/8/20: Today, the Trump campaign briefly managed to advance a legal case to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking the nine justices to block certification of Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes for Joe Biden. 

_____________________ 

Suddenly, it was all over but the quacking. With just eighteen words, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Lame Duck Donald in a crucial case.

_____________________ 

 

This was a “Hail Mary” pass that slipped from the quarterback’s hand and traveled only eighteen feet before skidding along the turf. The players in the end zone, sixty-five yards away, all gaped in stunned silence. 

Forty minutes after the case was filed, the court ruled: 

“DENIED.”

(The full court ruling follows, below.) 

Lame Duck Donald had pinned his fondest dream of being gifted a second term in the White House on this particular case. Tuesday afternoon, with the decision imminent, he explained his dream. 

“Now, let’s see whether or not somebody has the courage, whether it’s a legislator or legislatures, or whether it’s a justice of the Supreme Court, or a number of justices of the Supreme Court—let’s see if they have the courage to do what everybody in this country knows is right.” 

As it turned out, exactly zero judges on Supreme Court seemed to agree on what “everybody in this country knows is right.” 

Not even Justice Samuel Alito, who had agreed to allow the case to at least reach the high court, seemed inclined to rule in favor of Trump and advance his quixotic quest for reelection. 

The full decision, which affirmed a unanimous decision by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, read as follows: “The application for injunctive relief presented to Justice Alito and by him referred to the Court is denied.” 

Suddenly, it was all over but the quacking. With just eighteen words, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Lame Duck Donald in a critical case. The president won’t admit it, of course. His Narcissistic Personality Disorder won’t allow him to. But it’s time to quack. Trump’s loyal followers won’t admit it either, for a variety of sad reasons. Unbiased observers, however, know the judicial handwriting is on the wall (like 35 times or more). We can expect some of Lame Duck Don’s most dependable media enablers, like Lou Dobbs, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham, to now rail against the U.S. Supreme Court. 

It’s over. 

Admit or not, this was a death blow to the president’s failing, flailing, farting efforts to secure a second term. 

It’s time for all Trump lovers to face reality. Joe Biden is going to be the next President of the United States. 

And to the great credit of the Founding Fathers, the U.S. judicial system has weathered a severe storm. 

 

Postscript: In a bizarre development, also on Tuesday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed suit, on behalf of his state—against Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Georgia! 

In a nutshell, the nutjob is arguing that those state’s electoral votes for Joe Biden should not count. Texas electoral votes for Trump should. 

As the Washington Post explains, Paxton’s filing is a “grab bag” of discredited claims, spiced with comical conspiracy thinking. “At one point,” the Post notes, “the complaint repeats discredited theories that Biden was rescued by a late dump of ballots, saying that as of 3 a.m. on the morning after the election, Biden’s chances at winning all four states was “less than one in a quadrillion.” 

 

An impressive 100% error rate. 

If you’ve never heard of Attorney General Paxton before, allow Mr. Blogger to give you a taste of the fine work for which he has become known. He made headlines in January 2019 when he claimed to have evidence that 95,000 non-citizens were enrolled to vote in his state. 

President Trump tweeted out the shocking news—and probably believes the story to this day. 

And it came to pass. The search was on for non-citizens registered to vote, 58,000 of whom Paxton swore had already showed up at the polls. 

In short order these illegal voters turned out to be just about as common in Texas as leprechauns. 

Paxton and his pals kicked off the search by sending out lists of non-citizen voters to all 254 counties in Texas, to be checked. Within days, counties found error rates of 60 percent in their lists—and weren’t even done checking. Cameron County got a list of 1,500 names. Then state officials called and said, never mind. Only check 30 of those names. Then state officials called again and said, we’re not really sure what we’re doing. Your list might be 85 percent accurate. Sparsely populated McClennan County had a shorter list: 366 names, the “tip of the iceberg” so to speak. Like Santa Claus, county officials checked to see who had been naughty and who had voted feloniously and should be hauled off to court. It turned out all 366 individuals listed were U.S. citizens, giving Paxton and his pals an impressive 100% error rate. 

Not long after, the embarrassing search came to a dead stop; and the matter was dropped. 

Now? 

Baby, Ken Paxton is back! 

And Trump is counting on him to work some ballot-busting, Texas-style polling sorcery.

Hire the movers. The Bidens are coming soon.

___

12/7/20: Team Trump suffered a series of courtroom beat-downs today. First, a federal judge (and a Trump appointee to his post) threw out a lawsuit filed by conservative and-slightly-unbalanced lawyer Sidney Powell, asking to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in Georgia. 

Powell had promised to “unleash the Kraken,” in this instance a legal monster made up of irrefutable evidence of massive fraud. 

“No dice,” ruled Judge Timothy Batten. 

Plaintiffs in this case, he said, were in essence asking, “this court to substitute its judgment for two-and-a-half million voters who voted for Joe Biden. And this I am unwilling to do.” 

____________________ 

“With nothing but speculation and conjecture that votes for President Trump were destroyed, discarded or switched to votes for Vice President Biden, Plaintiffs’ equal protection claim fails.” 

U.S. District Court Judge Linda Parker

____________________ 

 

Nor did the “Kraken” fare any better in a second election-related lawsuit farther north. A second federal judge threw out a lawsuit seeking to overturn the vote in the state of Michigan. 

In this case, Powell had claimed that certain voters were treated differently in different counties, so that plaintiffs had been denied “equal protection under the law.” For example, in some counties election officials called voters who had flawed mail-in ballots and allowed those flaws to be “cured.” According to Powell, that mean all the mail-in ballots in Michigan should be tossed. 

Even if this were true, that some voters were treated differently than others, U.S. District Court Judge Linda Parker ruled, “alleged injury does not entitle [Plaintiffs] to seek their requested remedy because the harm of having one’s vote invalidated or diluted is not remedied by denying millions of others their right to vote.” 

Parker continued: 

This lawsuit seems to be less about achieving the relief Plaintiffs seek—as much of that relief is beyond the power of this Court—and more about the impact of their allegations on People’s faith in the democratic process and their trust in our government. Plaintiffs ask this Court to ignore the orderly statutory scheme established to challenge elections and to ignore the will of millions of voters. This, the Court cannot, and will not, do. The People have spoken.

 

With nothing but speculation and conjecture that votes for President Trump were destroyed, discarded or switched to votes for Vice President Biden, Plaintiffs’ equal protection claim fails.

 

The bad news for Team Trump piled up even higher for the day when Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, a Trump supporter, and also a man of principle, went ahead and recertified the state’s election results. 

“Today is an important day for election integrity in Georgia and across the country,” he said, and then couldn’t resist a little dig. “The claims in the Kraken lawsuit prove to be as mythological as the creature for which they’re named. Georgians can now move forward knowing that their votes, and only their legal votes, were counted accurately, fairly, and reliably.” 

The final tally, based on a second recount, like the original tally, and the first recount, showed Biden taking the Peach State by roughly 12,000 votes. 

* 

Team Trump took another punch to the glass jaw, when in an unrelated legal matter, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand a lower court order that threw out a lawsuit against Oregon’s Dallas School District No. 2. In a decision sure to outrage Trump’s evangelical base, the justices refused to overturn school district rules that allowed transgender students to use bathroom facilities that matched their “gender identity.” 

The school district had tried to walk a difficult line, noting that the boys’ bathroom and the boys’ showers at the school had private stalls—as, of course, did the girls’ facilities. It was felt this would mitigate any “embarrassment” or “discomfort” other students might feel sharing accommodations. The school allowed students to use single-occupancy bathrooms if they were bothered. The one transgender student involved, identified as female at birth, but identifying as male in high school, used the boys’ bathroom and showers for three years, and graduated in 2018.

School officials also noted that the transgender student and other boys “never actually did see each other undressing.” 

In 2018, the Trump administration, which fought the new bathroom rules, also banned most transgender individuals from serving in the military—even though an estimated 2,450 already were. 

This policy is under challenge, with cases slowly working their way up, we assume, to the U.S. Supreme Court. 

* 

IN NEWS THAT INVOLVES US ALL, of whatever gender, the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), a European scientific group, reports that this November was the hottest ever recorded. November 2019 and November 2016, which had been tied for first, have been knocked down a peg. 

“These records are consistent with the long-term warming trend of the global climate,” said C3S Director Carlo Buontempo in a warning statement.  

“All policy-makers who prioritise mitigating climate risks should see these records as alarm bells and consider more seriously than ever how to best comply with the international commitments set out in the 2015 Paris Agreement.” 

That would be the Paris Agreement that Trump withdrew from in a snit, so he could focus on keeping us from having to share bathroom facilities with people who pee in a different way—so he could make it safe for everyone (even the transgenders) to say, “Merry Christmas” at will, and so he could win the bloody “War on Coal.” 

He can’t even win that last fight. Since Trump recited and then quickly began ignoring the oath of office, the number of coal miners at work in the U.S. has fallen, from 50,900 when Obama left office, to 44,200 now.)

___

12/6/20: At this point, perhaps the best outcome we can expect as Donald Trump’s days in office dwindle, would be for him to suffer a complete emotional breakdown. The way he’s going, it wouldn’t surprise most Americans to see him strip off almost all his clothes and run down Pennsylvania Avenue, with only his elongated red tie flapping in the breeze, screaming that aliens stole all his votes, now inhabited Joe Biden’s body, and plan to harvest human babies for dinner. 

(Wait, isn’t that the QAnon story?)  

Dr. Birx: tired of the "parroting back."

Dr. Birx grows tired of fighting “myths.” 

So, what do we know today, for certain? We know Rudy Giuliani has COVID-19. We know that for real. 

Since he’s been wandering the highways and byways of America, lo, these many weeks, searching for lost Trump votes in rivers (false claim) and under rocks (also false), mask-less at every stop, he has been not only the nutty face of Team Trump’s legal campaign, but also a one-man super-spreader event. Team Trump was quick to announce that Rudy had tested negative twice before traveling to Arizona, Michigan, and Georgia in search of elusive machines with fairy-tale like powers to alter votes. The Arizona legislature decided not to take any chances, after holding a hearing with “Typhoid Rudy,” his sidekick lawyer Jenna Ellis, and a few zany witnesses. They closed down for a week. 

As for Rudy, he’s 76 years old, which puts him in a high-risk category, and he went, almost immediately, to the hospital. 

In fact, hospitalizations for COVID-19 reached an all-time high in the U.S. on Sunday, with Rudy and 101,486 other Americans taking up beds. 

Sunday morning, Dr. Deborah Birx, a key member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force—now apparently moribund, with the president showing zero interest in combating the spreading disease—expressed frustration that healthcare experts and frontline workers were still fighting “myths.” Dr. Birx has been on the road for weeks, talking to medical people around the country, and trying to get them help. 

Now she appears to have hit a breaking point. “I hear community members parroting back those situations, parroting back that masks don’t work, parroting back that we should work toward herd immunity, parroting back that gatherings don’t result in super-spreading events,” she said in a Sunday morning interview. 

“And I think our job is to constantly say those are myths, they are wrong, and you can see the evidence base.” 

The super spreader of those myths? 

Trump. 

In any case, Dr. Birx warned, “Every state across this country needs to increase their mitigation and every state needs to be critically informing their state population that the gatherings we saw in Thanksgiving will lead to a surge, it will happen this week and next week.” 

“This is the worst event that this country will face not just from a public health side, yet we know what behaviors spread the virus and we know how to change those behaviors to stop spreading the virus.” 

We do know. Wear a mask. Social distance. Wash our hands. No large gatherings. 

(Later this month, both the White House and State Department have large holiday parties on tap.) 

* 

SUNDAY, another top Georgia state official—another Republican—Lt. Governor Geoff Duncan made it clear he, too, had reached his breaking point. He had had about all of the president’s lies he could stand. 

____________________ 

“It’s not American, it’s not what democracy is all about.” 

Georgia Lt. Governor Geoff Duncan, commenting on Trump’s claims of voter fraud

____________________ 

 

Commenting on Trump’s Saturday evening rally in Valdosta, Duncan told Jake Tapper of CNN that Trump’s “mountains of misinformation” were hurting the Republican Party in his state. “I worry that this continuous…you know…fanning of the flames around misinformation puts us in a negative position with regards to the January 5 runoff,” he explained. 

Two seats in the U.S. Senate will be won or lost that day and may determine which political party controls the Senate for the next two years. 

Duncan also made it clear, he was “disgusted” by the president’s behavior since the election, an election in which he campaigned for Mr. Trump. Trump’s sustained allegations regarding a “stolen” election, and his attacks on Georgia officials for not helping him turn the state’s vote around, had led to death threats aimed at many of those officials and their family members. 

(Did we mention that Trump lost the election in large part because he never appeals to anyone but his base? And because he’s a dick—who doesn’t care if he stirs his supporters to make death threats?) 

Duncan continued: 

All of us in this position have got increased security around us and our families and it’s not American, it’s not what democracy is all about but it’s reality right now. So we are going to continue to do our jobs. Gov. Kemp, Brad Raffensperger and myself all three voted and campaigned for the President but, unfortunately, he didn’t win the state of Georgia but it doesn’t change our job descriptions. 

“If I had a chance to spend five minutes with every single person in Georgia that doubted the election results, I think I’d be able to win their hearts over, show them the facts and figures, separate fact from fiction,” he said during an interview on CNN’s State of the Union. He did not, of course, have the time. 

Duncan was clear. Trump lost the vote in Georgia. Biden would be the next President of the United States. 

“The Constitution is still in place. This is still America,” he added. 

“As the lieutenant governor and a Georgian, I’m proud that we’re able to look up after three recounts and watch and be able to see that this election was fair.” 

Gabriel Sterling, the voting systems implementation manager for the Georgia secretary of state’s office, and also a target of death threats, along with several lower-level poll workers and their families, spoke out Sunday, as well. He categorized Trump’s statements at the rally the night before as “false.” 

“They’re misinformation, they’re stoking anger and fear among his supporters,” Sterling—yes, another Republican—said in an interview on NBC’s Meet The Press. “And hell, I voted for him. The situation is getting much worse.” 

* 

IN OTHER President Pouty Face news, Axios reports (and even Fox News takes note) that sources inside the White House say Pouty Face is “considering a made-for-TV grand finale” if the vote in the Electoral Colleges goes Biden’s way. That finale, on January 20, his final day in office, would feature “a White House departure on Marine One and final Air Force One flight to Florida for a political rally opposite Joe Biden’s inauguration.” 

While Mr. Biden explains in a low-key inaugural address, minus most of the usual trappings in the face of the coronavirus, how he hopes to lead a great nation, Trump would hop a jet and skip town. No concession speech. No welcome to the White House for his successor. No attempt to observe the traditions of a democracy, in particular the peaceful transfer of power, based on the will of the people. Rather, Trump is planning to flee to Florida, and there announce that his hat is again in the ring. He will be running again for president in 2024, Grover Cleveland style. 

From pussy-grabbing, all the way through his four years in office, to this, Trump has never shown—or had—any class.

Cleveland was our 22nd president and our 24th.

Unlike Trump, he won the popular vote every time he ran.

___

12/5/20: While the President of the United States punts on his duties as leader of the Free World, COVID-19 rages across the land. 

CDC has reported three days in succession with more than 200,000 new cases of the disease. We have piled up more than 1,000,000 new infections in the first five days of this month. 

Health experts had predicted we were in for a brutal winter. President Trump had, of course, said we weren’t. 

The coronavirus death toll, each day, to begin the month: 

12/1:  2,461

12/2:  2,762

12/3:  2,861

12/4:  2,439

12/5:  2,310

_________________

          12,833

         

That toll would be roughly equivalent to losses in killed, wounded, and missing for the Union Army at the Battle of Antietam. 

With Trump’s grip loosening, as his time in office trickles away, the real scientists are speaking up. The CDC, for example, has recommended “universal mask wearing” for all Americans in all activity outside the home. 

Or you could attend President Trump’s rally in Valdosta, Georgia on Saturday and shout and scream and spread some germs:

They rallied and sneezed in Valdosta.

  

* 

The president and other members of a deranged cult. 

PRESIDENT TRUMP is pulling out every stop to overturn the clear vote of the American people. His Saturday evening rally in Georgia—ostensibly in support of the two U.S. senators from Georgia, who face run-off elections on January 5—had a message that could be boiled down to three words. 

I WAS ROBBED. 

The president babbled for an hour,  but that was his real message. Or, if you’d like more detail, a paraphrase: 

“I was robbed. Democrats are robbers. I was robbed by the robbers. Joe Biden is the worst robber of all. His middle initial, “R” stands for “robbery.” No way did that guy get 81 million votes. At least 60 million of those votes were robbed from me. This was the biggest robbery in the history of U.S. elections. It was like Bonnie and Clyde were in charge of the voting machines, robbing me of what I deserved. 

“We are going to prove that I was robbed, as soon as all the judges, several of whom I appointed myself, stop throwing my lawsuits out of court, left and right. Judges are robbing me. Also, Attorney General Bill Barr, who I appointed. The Republican governor of Arizona has robbed me of that state’s electoral votes. That stinking robber. The Republican governor of Georgia is even worse, the Jesse James of governors. The Georgia Secretary of State is a ‘RINO’ robber. I think we should execute all robbers and I should get my second term, and then I should get a third, because I was robbed. And remember, I am the only person you can trust to drain the swamp and uphold the U.S. Constitution! 

“Thank you, my loyal MAGA fans for listening this evening, chanting, “Lock (fill in the blank) up,” standing or sitting close, coughing on each other, not wearing masks, and acting like members of a deranged cult.”

 

As if we didn’t already have enough problems, on Saturday evening, likely provoked by the president’s baseless conspiracy theories about how the election was stolen, armed Trump supporters gathered outside Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s home. There they shouted…baseless conspiracy theories about how the election was stolen. Benson’s 4-year-old son was home at the time, and neighbors were drawn into the fray in her family’s defense. 

In a statement soon after, Benson thanked the Michigan Attorney General for quick action to protect her and her family (you’d think Trump might care about her son’s safety, but then again: Trump). “Through threats of violence, intimidation and bullying, the armed people outside my home and their political allies seek to undermine and silence the will and voices of every voter in this state,” Benson said, “no matter who they voted for.” She said she wouldn’t be intimidated. 

* 

MEANWHILE, a star witness in the fight to overturn Biden’s victory in Michigan not only embarrassed herself during her sworn testimony, she turned out to be a questionable character from the start. Mellissa Carone, who swore she had been eyewitness to massive vote fraud, turned out to have been on probation in an earlier case, involving a sex tape (in which Carone played a starring role), her boyfriend (also starring), a computer, and her boyfriend’s ex-wife. 

As HuffPost explained, Carone had been “charged under the name Mellissa Wright with first degree obscenity and using a computer to commit a crime. Under a plea agreement, she reduced her charge to disorderly conduct and received 12 months of probation,” that ended on September 13. 

That is, Carone sent the video to the ex-wife and then tried to frame her and make it seem she had stolen the tape. 

As for Carone, and her actual testimony before a hearing of Michigan lawmakers, with crack Trump campaign lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis at her side, this blogger could never do justice to the lunacy as well as did Saturday Night Live. 

And yes, Rudy did punctuate the testimony at times with a barrage of loud farts.

___

 

12/4/20: The latest jobs report is out. In November, the U.S. economy regained 245,000 of the jobs lost to the pandemic. October gains were revised slightly lower, to 610,000, and unemployment ticked downward, to 6.7 percent, which was good. More ominously, the labor participation rate also declined, from 61.7 percent to 61.5 percent, lower than the 62.8 percent the day Trump took office. 

____________________

 “Sometimes or often not having enough food to eat.”

____________________

  

The latest drop in the participation rate meant that an additional 560,000 Americans had stopped looking for work. 

Adding to the gloom, 12 million Americans are scheduled to see their unemployment benefits run out at the end of the year. 

More than one in three American families report they are having difficulty paying ordinary household expenses. 

One of every eight households with children (13%) report “sometimes or often not having enough food to eat.” 

The president might not have noticed, and if he did, there’s no sign he cares, but desperate families and desperate individuals are resorting to putting rent or mortgage payments on credit. Then they hope some miracle will come along and they can avoid paying all the high interest they accrue. 

If you are keeping track, Trump remains on sad schedule to leave office in January having created zero jobs during his term in office. 

When he took over from President Obama, the U.S. economy had added jobs for 76 months in a row. The string continued for 37 months with Mr. Trump in charge. Then the pandemic struck. 

If you total all the numbers, from February 2017, to December 1, 2020, Trump has seen a little more than three million more jobs lost. Plus, the labor participation rate has sagged. Many experts fear that the jobs numbers will turn negative again for December and January as the huge surge in coronavirus infections once again drains the lifeblood from the economy. 

*

____________________ 

“It would violate that oath, the basic principles of republican government and the rule of law if we attempted to nullify the people’s vote based on unsupported theories of fraud.” 

Speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives, Rusty Bowers

____________________

  

The president’s quixotic and crazy campaign to overturn the results of the November election continues—mostly because Trump is incapable of facing up to the truth: That he lost. 

As Politico notes, Team Trump continues to spin its wheels, unable to get much traction in the battle to steal the electoral votes of states Joe Biden won. In desperation, this week Pennsylvania Republican state legislators, including the speaker of the House, called on their “Republican-heavy congressional delegation to challenge President-elect Joe Biden’s victory when federal lawmakers certify the presidential election Jan. 6.” 

In their letter to their brethren in Congress, they wrote, we “the undersigned members of the Pennsylvania General Assembly urge you to object, and vote to sustain such objection, to the Electoral College votes received from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania during the Joint Session of Congress on January 6, 2021.” 

Originally, they claimed to have 75 signatories, more than half the GOP lawmakers in the state. 

Sadly, the letter had to be withdrawn when several “signatories” made clear they didn’t intend to sign on for the fight. 

It can also be interesting to compare this approach—to claim that the election was rigged—with what the state’s Speaker of the House said in October 2019, when Pennsylvania altered its election laws. 

As we noted, before the election (see: 10/28/20), when Keystone State lawmakers passed a voting reform law thirteen months ago, GOP leaders in both the House and Senate were on board. “This bill was not written to benefit one party or the other, or any one candidate or single election,” said House Majority Leader Bryan Cutler. “It was developed over a multi-year period with input of people from different backgrounds and regions of Pennsylvania. It serves to preserve the integrity of every election and lift the voice of every voter in the commonwealth.” 

* 

IN THE FACE of sustained attacks by the president and his legal minions and enraged and ill-informed supporters, many lawmakers in Pennsylvania lost their nerve. Republicans in the Arizona House of Representatives, however, did not balk. Speaker Rusty Bowers describe claims made by Rudy Giuliani—and repeated daily by President Trump—about fraud in the Arizona election as “breathtaking.” 

Not in an exciting way—rather a, “I can’t believe the nerve” way. 

“I and my fellow legislators swore an oath to support the U.S. Constitution and the constitution and laws of the state of Arizona,” Bowers said. “It would violate that oath, the basic principles of republican government and the rule of law if we attempted to nullify the people’s vote based on unsupported theories of fraud.” 

Rudy responded angrily via tweet, saying that, “Republican Legislature[s] let down America. I’m ashamed of them. They completely misled the President and me. All of us Republicans [who still believe in magic vote-switching machines should] let them know what we think of them.” 

To the surprise of almost no one, sources inside the White House told CNN that the president wasn’t budging from his position, no matter how many courts or state lawmakers shot down his claims of massive election fraud. “No one expects him to concede. No one!” a Trump adviser admitted. 

The president continues to pout.

___

12/3/20: If you have been wondering what the current President of the United States has been up to for the last month, on Thursday we had our answer. Trump has been directing, and starring in his own film about the 2020 election. 

Sadly, taxpayer dollars went into this production, and the president wasted his own time to produce a 47-minute video. 

____________________ 

Or? There might not be any evidence of widespread fraud!

____________________

 

You can boil his message down to this. Trump continues to insist that there is no possible way he lost a fair election. Unable to accept the fact he will forever after be known as a “loser” he simply refuses to accept facts. He offered up a litany of conspiracy theories, including the Big One. He insisted that the Dominion machines had to have been rigged. Christopher Krebs, head of the Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity office had said the machines were not. In his video, Trump insisted they were. Attorney General Barr said there was no evidence. Trump insisted there was. A hand-count of all ballots in Georgia turned up tallies in line with tallies recorded by the machines. Trump didn’t care. He said he was robbed. 

Trump and his dwindling band of allies now directed their rage at a new target: Attorney General Barr. Reporters asked the president if he still had confidence in Barr, after he downplayed the story of haunted voting machines. Trump refused to say, responding, “Ask me that in a number of weeks from now.” 

Judge Jeanine Pirro—a lunatic pundit at Fox News—savaged the Attorney General on her nightly show. No evidence of widespread fraud? Well, Pirro stormed, “We need answers. We need action. We need justice. And you Mr. Barr are so deep in the swamp you can’t see beyond your fellow reptiles.” 

Lou Dobbs, the only pundit at Fox crazier than Judge Pirro, also exploded. “For the attorney general of the United States to make that statement [that there was fraud], he is either a liar or a fool or both.” Dobbs suggested that Barr might also be, “uh, perhaps compromised. He may be simply unprincipled. Or he may be personally distraught or ill.” 

Or? There might not be any evidence of widespread fraud! 

Dobbs wasn’t done. He went on to claim that the A.G. had joined the “radical Dems and the deep state and the resistance.”

Postscript: If you’ve never watched the perpetually pissed off Mr. Dobbs, you might not know he was accused of peddling “North Korea levels” of pro-Trump propaganda this past March. In retrospect, the poll question he asked his Twitter followers to answer and the “choices” he provided look even more ridiculous now.

___

12/2/20: With seven bleak weeks left to run in the Trump presidency, let’s start cleaning out the junk drawers of this administration and prepare for Lame Duck Donald’s ouster from the White House. 

____________________ 

Pardons loom large in the presidential psyche.

____________________

  

It turns out, recently-pardoned former National Security Adviser Gen. Michael T. Flynn isn’t ready to see the moving van pull up at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue just yet. Taking his cue from an advertisement placed in the Washington Times on Tuesday he urged his former boss to declare “limited martial law” and order a new election. And if that one still turned out badly, maybe Trump could put Gen. Flynn in charge of a few armored divisions and let them clank across a few blue states. 

The ad in the Times cited Abraham Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War as a precedent. “Then, as now,” it read, “a President with courage and determination was needed to preserve the Union.” 

Pardon Mr. Blogger if he says he’s getting less of an “Abe Lincoln, with malice toward none” and more of a “Tiananmen Square squash the protesters” vibe.

 

One brave man stopped the tanks briefly.

The Chinese government slaughtered thousands soon after, at Tiananmen Square.

 

* 

WHAT OTHER NUTS, and loose screws, and degraded old batteries, and unidentified bits of hardware can we find in the Trump administration junk drawer, as Donald’s days in power dwindle?

Congress appears ready, on a bipartisan basis, to block sale of 50 advanced F-35 warplanes, a massive stockpile of missiles, and 18 Reaper drones, to the United Arab Emirates. The deal is worth $23 billion but is seen by many lawmakers as likely to destabilize the Middle East and spark an arms race. 

We have also heard that the president has been discussing pardons at some length recently. Pardons loom large in the presidential psyche. Sources say he has talked about pardoning his three adult children, Don Jr., Ivanka and Eric, and son-in-law Jared Kushner, to be safe. He has of course floated the idea of pardoning himself. There has also been discussion about pardoning Rudy Giuliani. 

And for good reason (see below). 

On a positive note, neither Mrs. Trump nor son Barron is thought to need a pardon of any kind. 

Nor Tiffany Trump. 

In other court news, a lawyer for the president has asked that a civil suit for damages, filed against the president and his three oldest children—but, again, not Tiffany—for actions taken when he was a private citizen, be moved from court to arbitration. As Reuters explains, the class action lawsuit involves American Communications Network, a multi-level marketing company (think: pyramid scheme by a gentler name) and Trump family links to an operation that plaintiffs call a scam. 

Four plaintiffs, including a hospice worker, accused Trump, his adult children Donald Jr., Eric and Ivanka[,] and an affiliate of their family company of promoting ACN in exchange for millions of dollars in secret payments from 2005 to 2015.

 

The plaintiffs said ACN charged $499 to sell videophones and other goods, and the Trump family conned them into thinking Donald Trump believed their investments would pay off.

 

The president and his grifter kids have said that the lawsuit is “politically motivated,” but echoes of the Trump University scam are hard to ignore. They insist they had no control over ACN and what it did, and just cashed those checks for fun. Besides, Donald J. Trump’s endorsement was only an “opinion.” This is a free country, and you can’t blame a guy for having opinions. 

Right? 

 

You get a pardon! And you get a pardon! And you get… 

We do know court victories have been in short supply for the president and family of late. First Daughter Ivanka was forced to give a deposition in a Washington D.C. court on Tuesday. Her testimony was requested as part of an investigation of—what else—the 2016 Trump Inaugural Committee. Basically, Team Trump has been accused of overpaying, to the tune of $1 million, for space and services at the Trump International Hotel in D.C., as part of the festivities. 

Saluting the president!

 

No doubt the mood around the White House soured further when the attorney general for the District of Columbia described Ivanka’s, “who, me” public comments regarding the case as “highly misleading.” 

We don’t know how this case will turn out, and Ms. Trump could be as innocent as a newborn lamb. We do know, however, that Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, at the time spokesperson for Melania Trump and the main planner for the 2016 inauguration, had expressed concerns about the price Trump International was charging for use of space for the celebrations. Wolkoff said she believed one rental should cost “$85,000” at most. That was less than half the hotel’s second offer, which was half of the first. 

Karl A. Racine, the D.C. attorney general, noted that the Trump Inaugural Committee paid $175,000 in the end. 

He also noted that later the same space rented for $5,000 for a Presidential Prayer Breakfast. Which seems odd. 

It also seems odd that Rick Gates, Paul Manafort’s right-hand man, was one of the top officers of the Inaugural Committee. Both Gates and Manafort have since been convicted of multiple felonies. 

Also tagged as a felon: W. Samuel Patten. Patten pled guilty in 2019, to steering foreign donations to…the Trump Inaugural Committee. That would be an absolute violation of federal law. 

And we’re not done yet. 

We know the office of the U.S. District Attorney for the Southern District of New York was looking into additional allegations of fraud involving donations to the Committee (including foreign money), “in exchange for access to the incoming Trump administration, policy concessions or to influence official administration positions.” That investigation was headed up by Geoffrey Berman—a Trump appointee—who was fired under questionable circumstances last June. 

Attorney General Bill Barr first announced that Berman had resigned and would be stepping down. Berman said that was news to him. He hadn’t resigned. Barr then told reporters that the president fired Berman, instead. 

Asked to comment, Trump played dumb. “Attorney General Barr is working on that. That’s his department,” the president insisted, “not my department. But we have a very capable attorney general. So that’s really up to him. I’m not involved.” 

Finally, we know in October, that Elliott Broidy, a major fundraiser for—yes, the Trump Inaugural Committee—pled guilty to one count of conspiracy. To be fair, the felonious activities involved in this case were carried out in a different context. Yet, the conspiracy charge he pled to should have a familiar ring. Broidy admitted he had taken money from a Chinese billionaire and lobbied the Trump administration for favors in the billionaire’s behalf. 

So much court news to consider! Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, two former associates of Rudy Giuliani, who worked with him in Ukraine to dig up dirt on the Biden family, were hit with additional “corporate fraud” charges this week and pled not guilty. Interestingly enough, Rudy was paid $500,000 by their fine company, for his excellent legal advice. And slowly but surely you begin to understand why the word “pardon” is being bandied about at the White House. 

 

A bribe offered in return for a presidential pardon. 

This week, you also had a story about a bribe being offered in return for a presidential pardon. 

In heavily-redacted court documents, and in subsequent follow-up by practitioners of the free press, we learned many of the details. The person needing a pardon: Berkeley, California psychologist Hugh L. Baras, who was looking at a 30-month prison sentence for tax evasion and other financial misdeeds. The lawyer who was hoping to get a pardon for his client: Sanford Diller. 

Allegedly, Diller promised to make a “substantial political contribution” to some person unnamed. 

Mr. Diller died in 2018, and the alleged plot may have been terminated at that point. According to court records, however, someone did approach the White House Counsel’s Office to ensure the “clemency petition reached the targeted officials.” Baras eventually went to prison, served his sentence, and got time knocked off for good behavior. No “government officials” are believed to be under investigation in this matter at this time. Still, this is pretty much exactly the kind of story you’d expect to read about involving a pirate crew, where scruples are rare. 

Here we have yet another Broidy sighting. We know he did his best to help out in the Baras matter, putting Diller in touch with a Washington D.C. lawyer he thought might be able to help. Broidy sent Diller to Abbe Lowe, Mr. Lowe also being the lawyer for Jared Kushner. 

So, Oprah-like, President Trump may be dispensing pardons to everyone in the White House in the next few weeks. 

* 

“Precious little proof.” 

SO MUCH court news to cover these days! In Georgia, there was a brief ray of sunshine where the Trump 2020 campaign was concerned, when a federal judge agreed to freeze the “rigged” Dominion voting machines used in three Georgia counties. This was in response to a lawsuit brought by Sidney Powell, formerly an important cog in the Trump legal campaign. 

Those “rigged” machines, according to Powell, are central to Trump’s efforts to overturn election results. 

In a four-page directive, U.S. District Judge Timothy Batten Sr. granted Powell her wish—to have the machines checked—writing: “Defendants are hereby enjoined and restrained from altering, destroying, or erasing, or allowing the alteration, destruction, or erasure of, any software or data on any Dominion voting machine in Cobb, Gwinnett, and Cherokee Counties.” 

Alas, the clouds returned when Judge Batten said there was “precious little proof” to back up any of Powell’s claims. 

Meanwhile, Powell and other lawyers working for, or in tandem with the Trump campaign, proved to be less than the finest legal minds in the land. Powell claimed to be representing a congressional candidate in one of the lawsuits she filed. The candidate said he had no idea who Powell was. An expert witness in another case, claiming voter fraud in Michigan, cited illegal voting in Edson County. This will be difficult to prove since there is no “Edson County” in that state. 

Minor details! 

Powell, and her legal sidekick, Lin Wood, a private Georgia attorney, insisted next, that since the Georgia election had been rigged, Trump supporters should boycott the January 5 runoff election, involving two critical U.S. Senate seats. In the resulting turmoil, attacks on Wood—as an Obama supporter in lawyer’s clothing—began spreading across the right-wing world. 

In the meantime, Attorney General Bill Barr poured a bucket of ice water over Sidney Powell’s head. “There’s been one assertion that would be systemic fraud and that would be the claim that [Dominion] machines were programmed essentially to skew the election results,” he told the Associated Press. “And the DHS and DOJ have looked into that, and so far, we haven’t seen anything to substantiate that.” 

Nor was the cause of keeping Trump in the White House for four more years (minus one year for all the days he’d spend at his own private resorts, including golfing) advanced when the Trump campaign demanded a second recount in Georgia. That maneuver flopped when the results of the original vote—and the results of the first recount—were confirmed by the second. 

That is, Joe Biden won the state and will receive its 16 electoral votes. 

 

Not even the proper legal remedy to seek. 

In Wisconsin, the Trump campaign licked fresh wounds, after a $3 million recount of two counties, for which they paid, showed Biden gaining votes. Having nothing to show for their efforts, they filed yet another legal challenge, asking the Wisconsin Supreme Court to disqualify 221,000 votes, most of which, for reasons we need not address, it was assumed had gone to Joe Biden. On a 4-3 vote, the  court passed on the chance to overturn the Wisconsin results. Two of the three judges, in dissent, said they would have taken the case under review, but questioned the idea that disqualifying hundreds of thousands of votes was the proper legal remedy to seek. 

As the Associated Press explained: 

Trump’s lawsuit challenged procedures that have been in place for years and never been found to be illegal.

 

He claimed there were thousands of absentee ballots without a written application on file. He argued that the electronic log created when a voter requests a ballot online—the way the vast majority are requested—doesn’t meet the letter of the law.

 

He also challenged ballots where election clerks filled in missing address information on the certification envelope where the ballot is inserted—a practice that has long been accepted and that the state elections commission told clerks was OK.

 

Trump also challenged absentee ballots where voters declared themselves to be “indefinitely confined,” a status that exempts them from having to show photo identification to cast a ballot, and one that was used much more heavily this year due to the pandemic.

 

Chalk it up as another loss for Team Trump, as the losses in state and federal courts continue to pile up. 

___

December 1, 2020: Lame Duck Don has fifty days remaining if office. Making the most of that valuable time, his calendar for today reads: “The President has no public events scheduled.” 

A quick check shows that’s the sixteenth day since the election, where Trump has essentially been in hiding. 

* 

THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN continues to wage a losing battle on multiple legal fronts, in an effort to overturn the election results. 

____________________ 

“That’s the sound of liberty dying. That’s the sound of a dictator taking over.” 

Jordan Harbinger, conservative podcast host, talking with Jenna Ellis about Trump in February 2016

____________________

  

In one case, Trump campaign lawyer Joe diGenova, tells a radio host that sprinkling the tree of liberty with a little gore might be a good idea, given the current situation. 

Since Christopher Krebs, the former head of the Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity unit, and a Trump appointee at that, keeps insisting the election was one of the most secure in U.S. history, diGenova has a novel idea. “That guy is a Class-A moron,” he tells one radio host. “He should be drawn and quartered. Taken out at dawn and shot.” 

We know Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (also a Republican), who the president called an “enemy of the people” for upholding Georgia voting returns, has faced death threats, as has his wife. So diGenova’s suggestion won’t help. 

* 

SINCE THIS BLOGGER IS RETIRED, and also recovering from COVID-19, which precludes getting most work in the yard done, he has plenty of time to study the story of the Trump campaign and its effort to overturn the vote. One of Trump’s key lawyers in this fight is Jenna Ellis.  

What did Ellis say about her current boss in 2016?

So it seemed like a good time to turn back to when Trump was just a seemingly-lame ass candidate for president, the first time around, and see what Ellis said about her current boss then. 

Once again, CNN did what any news network could have done—and this blogger did—to be sure they had their story right. They went to Ellis’s old social media posts and they (and I) replayed old radio appearances from February of that year. Even People magazine did due diligence. In one old Twitter post, from March 2016, Ms. Ellis referred to Trump as an “unethical, corrupt, lying, criminal, dirtbag.” In another post she wrote, “I could spend a full-time job just responding to the ridiculously illogical, inconsistent, and blatantly stupid arguments supporting Trump. But here’s the thing: his supporters DON’T CARE about facts or logic. They aren’t seeking truth.” 

In a radio interview from that period, Ellis talked about Candidate Trump and warned, “his crazy is coming out.” Her host, Jordan Harbinger, agreed. “I’m fearful for the republic right now,” he said. She also wondered, if Trump won the Republican nomination, how “we’re going to preserve the republic.” 

It’s a conservative talk show. So, Harbinger mentions two dictator wannabes. Obama, of course, is one. 

The other is Trump. 

“This guy can’t take criticism,” the host says of Candidate Donald, and Ellis agrees. She calls Trump a “typical bully” (go to around the 19:30 minute point on the tape if you like). The host plays a recording of Trump at one of his rallies, threatening to make it easier to sue newspapers for libel if he’s elected. “That is about one of the scariest things, and you know what’s even scarier than what he said?” Harbinger asks. 

“Is there something that’s scarier than that?” Ellis interjects. 

Yes, he says, “The crowd’s reaction.” 

Ellis agrees. 

“That’s the sound of liberty dying,” Harbinger posits. “It is,” Ellis agrees. “That’s the sound of a dictator taking over,” he says. 

Ellis warns that people don’t understand that “this is going against the First Amendment right to free speech, right to freedom of the press, that the government doesn’t give us that right, it’s an unalienable right.” 

Harbinger asks Ellis, in a joking reference to Trump, “Why do you hate the Supreme Leader?” 

“I still value my First Amendment rights,” she replies. 

Just before the 28:00 minute mark, Harbinger wonders if Trump—should he be elected—can even “work within the confines of the Constitution?” 

“I don’t think he wants to,” Ellis replies. She doesn’t think Trump is stupid. She admits he has run a successful campaign. But “he wants to go against the Constitution.” 

Ellis later explains that as a lawyer, her value is that she can explain to clients—predict—what will happen if they go to court. She says if she went in before a judge “that was as insane as Trump” it would be impossible to know what the outcome would be. 

Around the 37:00 minute mark, she warns that Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, the only GOP candidates left at the time who still had a viable chance to beat Trump for the nomination, really need to focus on “how unpredictable and insane this guy is.” 

Now, four years later, here we all are. 

Ellis is fighting to win the guy who she described as “insane” and a threat to the First Amendment, a second term. 

* 

IN BREAKING NEWS, Attorney General William Barr, who has heretofore pretty much puckered up on every occasion and smooched the president’s posterior when asked, has this to say about the recent election. “To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have affected a different outcome in the election.”  

As for one particular Trump campaign claim—that Dominion voting machines were rigged to steal Trump votes and give them to Biden—Barr is clear. “There’s been one assertion that would be systemic fraud and that would be the claim that machines were programmed essentially to skew the election results. And the DHS and DOJ have looked into that,” he says, “and so far, we haven’t seen anything to substantiate that.”

___

11/30/20: The president’s entire schedule today reads, “The President has lunch with the Vice President.” 

That’s it. 

Oh, to know what the two men might talk about. Possible topics: Golfing. Pardons. How COVID is going away. Hot women and pussy-grabbing (if Trump wants to make Pence get up and leave).

___ 

11/29/20: If Saturday was a tough day (minus the golf outing) for President Trump, Sunday wasn’t any better. A two-county recount demanded by his campaign in Wisconsin ended. At a cost of $3 million, with the bill going to the campaign, the recount in heavily Democratic Milwaukee and Dane counties proved that if there was massive voter fraud, and machines magically cheated the president out of millions of votes, it didn’t happen in Milwaukee and Dane. 

Joe Biden gained 74 votes. 

Trump does his first interview since the election.

* 

STILL, REALITY can be an ugly place. Trump decided not to visit Sunday. Instead, he placed a call to Maria Bartiromo of Fox News for his first interview since the election. It would be hard to say whose performance was more pathetic, Lame Duck Don’s or the pseudo-journalist’s. 

____________________ 

“I don’t think we even have to prove this.” 

President Donald J. Trump

____________________

 

Straightaway, Ms. Bartiromo asked the president to be “as precise as possible” and explain exactly what evidence he had that the election was rigged. This was the starting gun for a lengthy evidence-less diatribe. 

(Since Bartiromo failed to challenge the president, or even ask fundamental follow-up questions, I have included my own editorial observations.) 

Trump: Well, first of all, I have to start by saying the whole world is watching, and nobody can believe what they’re seeing. And you have leaders of countries that call me, say, that’s the most messed-up election we have ever seen.  

Blogger: Trump doesn’t mention any of the leaders by name. This is not evidence. Bartiromo doesn’t notice. 

Next, the president complains about the “Dominion machines,” which he says cheated him out of millions of votes. 

Trump: We have affidavits on—from many people talking about what went on with machines….we had glitches where they moved thousands of votes from my account to Biden’s account. And these are glitches. So, they’re not glitches. They’re theft. They’re fraud, absolute fraud. And there were many of them, but, obviously, most of them tremendous amounts, got by without us catching. We got lucky to catch them. I think we caught four or five glitches of about 5,000 votes each, and different states. 

Blogger: You didn’t catch most of the glitches; but still, you know they happened? Why not be precise and specify the local jurisdictions where the four or five 5,000 “glitches” occurred. 

In the Georgia recount there were two major mistakes. Two counties failed to upload all the votes from memory cards—votes that had been correctly recorded by the “Dominion machines.” In one case Floyd County failed to upload 2,600 votes, costing Trump a net gain of 696 votes. In Fayette County, a similar blunder meant 2,755 votes were missed, with Trump netting 26. 

Both were bright red counties; and no organized fraud was involved. Combined, I guess that would be one 5,000 vote glitch, involving zero Democratic crookery. 

Trump is on a roll and Bartiromo decides her job is to stay out of his way: 

Trump: That was fraud. And they got caught. But, for the most part, they got away with it. And what happened, if you watched the election, I was called by the biggest people, saying, congratulations, political people. Congratulations, sir. You just won the election. It was 10:00 [p.m. on Election Night]. And you looked at the numbers. 

Blogger: At 10:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, polls in many Western states would just be closing. North Carolina—one of two battleground states Trump would win in the end—would not sort out its final count for a week. By midnight, Eastern Standard Time, Biden would have already built decent leads in Arizona and Nevada, at a time most Americans had headed for bed. 

Trump rambled on about “dumps, big massive dumps” of votes, in “Michigan, Pennsylvania, and all over.” These dumps went against him in almost every battleground state. He complained about the Dominion machines again. He insisted one of the “great pollsters” said he would win Pennsylvania, but you had to allow “at least five percent for cheating, because they cheat.” 

A reasonable observer might remember that President-Elect Trump did not complain about “cheating” in Pennsylvania in 2016, when he won the state by a little more than 44,000 votes. 

We also know on Saturday (see: 11/28/20) that the Trump campaign’s lawsuit in the state was pitched by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, in part because no voter fraud was alleged. 

Trump’s just making sh*t up. The host doesn’t mind. 

Bartiromo: Right. 

Blogger: That’s her journalistic contribution. One word. She doesn’t ask questions. She lets the president rant. 

Trump: The mail-in ballots were—are a disaster. They sent millions and millions and millions of mail-in ballots. 

I’m sure you know people that got two, three, or four, because I do, where they said, you know, we got four ballots. They got one at a country home. Dead people were seeing ballots. But, even worse, dead people were applying to get a ballot. They were making application to get ballots, many. 

Blogger: Here in Ohio (a state Trump won handily) my wife and I did receive multiple ballots each. My daughter Sarah, who moved to Washington D.C. in 2008, and to Oregon this year, received one. (She notified the local election board years ago that she was no longer an Ohio resident.) 

My wife and I each sent in one. We signed our names, one safety feature, to protect the integrity of the vote. We included one or the other: last four digits of our Social Security numbers, or our driver’s license numbers. 

The state would count our ballots and add us to the computers. A second ballot in either of our names would set off alarms. 

Mail-in balloting can be made perfectly safe. 

Trump talked next about tens of thousands of dead people voting. Fourteen thousand corpses supposedly shuffled to the Michigan polls, according to one right-wing news story going the rounds. Some, Trump agreed, had been moldering in their graves “ten, fifteen years.” 

There was only one problem. CNN did what any news organization could. They examined this claim—amplified by several stalwart Trump supporters, including Newt Gingrich. And if you can’t trust a man who cheated on his first wife, then discussed divorce with her while she was hospitalized and recovering from cancer, and then cheated on his second wife to be with his third, if you can’t trust Newt, defending another man, who cheated on all three of his wives, who can you trust? 

So, CNN did what Bartiromo might have done. They checked the list of “Dead Men Walking” to the polls. They checked the first 25. Then they checked 25 at random. 

Thirty-seven of the alleged dead voters were in fact dead. Sadly, none had arisen, Christ-like from the grave, to vote. 

Five of the fifty had voted—those dead rats—except that CNN found those five were very much alive. 

That left eight others, all of them still walking the earth. None of those eight bothered to vote. 

When CNN checked back again, they discovered that the list of 14,000 had been “removed from the site hosting it.” 

But the zombie story of voter fraud refused to die. Trump, for one, still believed it, much like a five-year-old who still believed in Santa Claus. 

The president soon dropped another bombshell, although, like all the others, this one was a dud. 

Trump: And how the FBI and Department of Justice—I don’t know. Maybe they are involved. But how people are allowed to get away from this stuff—with this stuff is unbelievable. This election was rigged. This election was a total fraud. And it continues to be, as they hide. And the problem we have, we go to judges, and people don’t want to get involved. 

Blogger: So now the F.B.I. (led by a Trump appointee) and the Department of Justice (led by a Trump toady) were involved in a plot to steal the election? 

Trump whines about the media next, and how “the media doesn’t even want to cover” this story. He compliments his host however, telling Bartiromo, “I mean, you’re doing something. You’re actually very brave, because you’re doing something.” He talks about how only the New York Post went after the story of Hunter Biden. No one else in the media would. 

Hunter Biden is totally irrelevant, unless maybe he voted three or four times. And we might note—since Bartiromo won’t—that the New York Post has already published an editorial, telling Trump to stop with the “stolen-election rhetoric,” and all the “conspiracy-addled talk.” 

Bartiromo: Yes. 

Trump: (Fill in with blather here.) 

Bartiromo: Yes. 

Blogger: Next, the president turns his hand to math. He says “we don’t have freedom of the press in this country. We have suppression by the press.” The free press won’t touch this story, of how poor Mr. Trump was cheated out of a second term. “This is the whole ball game. And they cheated. Joe Biden did not get 80 million votes. Now, we were—we were planning—we—I got 63 million votes four years ago and won quite handily in the Electoral College, won quite handily.” 

We did very well. I got 63. We were hoping to get 68 or so. And we felt that was a path to an easy victory. I got 74 million votes— 

Bartiromo: Yes. 

Blogger: The Fox News shill doesn’t ask Trump about his claims, in 2016, that even though he won the Electoral College, he still insisted the election was “rigged,” and that he actually won the popular vote. 

Hillary Clinton won by almost three million votes. 

In fact, if Bartiromo had been on her toes, she might have asked about Trump’s claim in 2016, after Ted Cruz won the Iowa Republican primary, that that vote was rigged. 

See if his claim then rings bells now? “Ted Cruz didn’t win Iowa, he stole it,” Trump tweeted. “That is why all of the polls were so wrong and why he got far more votes than anticipated. Bad!” 

Back to the president: 

Trump: —the largest in the history of a sitting president, so much more, many millions more than anyone thought—you know, than we were even trying to get. And everybody said, this is over. I’m telling you, at 10:00, everybody thought it was over. 

Bartiromo: Right. 

Trump: And then the phony—the phony mail-ins started coming in, Maria. But, just so you understand, I got 74 million votes. It was over. And then mail-in started happening. 

Bartiromo: Yes. 

Blogger: Even the dimmest wits who followed the news would have know the mail-in ballots would come in last. In Pennsylvania, the Democratic governor and the Republican-controlled legislature had agreed in the act that created expanded mail-in voting, that mail in votes would not be counted until polls closed on Election Day. 

They were—by law—going to be counted last. 

By mid-October, ABC News was already noting that 2.8 million requests for mail-in ballots had been filed in Pennsylvania, including 693,670 from registered Republicans. There were 216,971 requests from unaffiliated voters, and 1,794,448 requests from Democrats. In other words, it was crystal clear that once the count of mail-in ballots started the totals were going to change drastically, and Biden would be slashing into Trump’s 10:00 p.m. “victory” totals. 

Bartiromo (responding to the president’s tirade): Yes. 

Trump: This election was rigged. This election is a total fraud. 

Bartiromo: Mr. President, these are obviously very serious charges. And I want to walk through them and ask you how you will prove this in the courts, because, as you know, what I have been saying on the air is that elections are the reason that our young men and women go on battlefields across the world and, in some cases, lose their lives, because they believe that their vote, my vote matters just as much as your vote. 

Blogger: The host has finally asked a “follow-up question.” Really, she’s setting up Trump to respond as he chooses. 

I should also point out that “our young men and women” on the battlefields aren’t just protecting Trump supporters’ votes. They’d be protecting mail-in ballots like mine, tallied in the red state of Ohio, or mail-in ballots in the blue state of Minnesota. They’d be serving on the battlefield for those extra 74 votes, now tallied in Wisconsin. They’d be serving for the 80 million votes Vice President Biden piled up, just as much as the 74 million garnered by Mr. Trump. 

Bartiromo: So, this is no longer about you, President Trump. This is about America. And many people agree with you. According to Reuters, 68 percent of Republicans and 28 percent of all Americans—that includes Democrats—believe there was fraud in this election. 

Blogger: Of course, 68 percent of Republicans believe there was fraud. The president has been crying “wolf” every day since November 3 and people like Bartiromo have been regurgitating his cries. 

At this point, Republicans will believe almost anything. In one recent poll, 56% said they believed QAnon conspiracy claims were “mostly or partly true.” If you went back to December 2017, you had a poll indicating that 51% of Republicans believed President Obama was born in Kenya—even after their Orange God admitted in September 2016 that Obama was, in fact, born in America. 

Besides, judges don’t agree. They keep tossing Trump campaign lawsuits out of both state and federal courts. 

Even Bartiromo would like the president to focus. She asks about the six key battleground states. What proof has he that the election was stolen? 

Trump: Well, we’re trying to put the evidence in. And the judges won’t allow us to do it. 

Blogger: Trump claims next that Democratic “thugs” threw poll watchers out of vote-counting rooms in “many cases.” 

Trump: Maria, there’s never been anything like this in history. And it all started with the mail-in. But it also goes to Dominion. It goes to a lot of things. But the mail-in, millions and millions of ballots being shipped all over, and ballots—as you know, there were a lot of ballots where it was just Biden on top. They [Democrats supposedly stuffing ballot boxes] didn’t do anything else, because they were in a rush. And from what everybody is saying, and from what—I don’t think we even have to prove this. They say that I was doing so much better than they thought that they panicked, and they started just doing ballot after ballot very quickly and just checking the Biden name on top. 

And they were just checked on top. Tremendous numbers of ballots like that. And that was done for the sake of speed. We have stories that are unbelievable. But we’re not allowed to put in our proof.  

Blogger: Did Trump just say, some of these stories “are unbelievable,” and “I don’t think we even have to prove this?” And the courts keep refusing to allow his campaign to “put in our proof?” 

He did. 

Trump also warns that the U.S. Senate runoff elections in Georgia are fixed. “Look at the election—look at the election you have coming up right now. You’re using the same garbage machinery, Dominion. And she’s going around, [Stacey] Abrams, she’s going around screaming that she’s got 800,000 or 850,000 ballots. 

Bartiromo: Right. 

Blogger: What Abrams is saying is that voters have already sent in 750,000 requests for mail-in ballots. In fact, in every tweet, she links to Georgia’s online “Absentee Ballot Request Form.” 

A mailed in ballot is the political equivalent of money in the bank. You’d think either Trump or Bartiromo would get that. 

They don’t. 

Trump: What kind of an election is it? She’s going around collecting votes. What kind of an election is this? What kind of a country are we living in now, where you can vote for months ahead of schedule? 

Blogger: A legal system? I check the website for the National Council of State Legislatures. Even red states like Texas and Florida, which Trump happily won, allow early voting by mail. 

Only five states have resisted the move to make voting easier, and not limited to Election Day.

 

Trump: And they had judges making deals. And they had electoral officials making deals, like this character [the Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger] in Georgia, who is a disaster. And the governor’s done nothing [Republican Brian Kemp]. He’s done absolutely nothing. I’m ashamed that I endorsed him. 

Blogger: If you’re keeping track, Trump had already called Raffensperger “an enemy of the people,” which sounds quite the fascist in sheep’s clothing. Trump has now told Bartiromo that the F.B.I. might be involved in fixing the election, and the Department of Justice. And you have this “character” messing with the vote and “judges making deals” and “electoral officials making deals” too. 

Trump: Joe Biden did not get 16 million more votes than Barack Hussein Obama. He didn’t get it. 

Joe Biden did not get 14 million more votes than Hillary Clinton. And, by the way, he didn’t beat Obama in the black communities. 

Blogger: You could easily find a story that debunks this kind of claim; but at this point it’s not worth it. Trump is a complete nut job, and his followers don’t care. 

You could dissect the causes of his defeat if you wished. Part of the reason Trump lost was that he got trounced by a growing youth vote (voters age 18-29), 61% for Biden, 36% for Trump. In fact, young people “voted majority blue” in all but six states (with seven more not reporting data).

 Trump also got thumped by women voters, losing that half of the electorate by nine points. 

Again, no fraud or rigging required. Democrats have won the majority of women by an average of 8 points in the last ten elections. 

Trump: But he beats Obama in swing states. Now, think of that. He beat Obama in swing states. You know that didn’t happen. They stuffed the ballot box. Everybody knows that. 

Blogger: Bartiromo agrees—at length—citing a story from The Federalist, explaining that based on five “election norms” there was no way Biden could have won. “They call it Biden magic,” she scoffs.   

See: youth vote, above, for example. 

Bartiromo: Biden won despite Democrat losses everywhere else in the House. Kevin McCarthy is still celebrating wins in the House of Representatives….So, there are certainly statistic impossibilities…Mr. President, will you be able to prove that the computers can circumvent the controls that are in place? A lot of people say, oh, no, we have controls in place. There are paper ballots. The computers cannot get through the controls that are in place. 

Blogger: Yes, for example, paper ballots in Georgia—which also showed the president was defeated there. 

Even Trump seems to realize he’s running out of options to steal the election himself. He insists that despite his campaign’s bleak record in the courts, it’s not really that bad. “A lot of the cases that have been lost haven’t been our cases,” he says, even though they’ve been filed in his behalf. In other words, the losing record isn’t as bad as it looks, legally speaking. 

It’s actually terrible. 

Bartiromo let’s that pass. Trump talks next about “the most dishonest political places” in the country, all Democratic-run, of course. He cites Philadelphia, of course, and Detroit and Milwaukee. 

Bartiromo does not bring up the Milwaukee County recount vote. 

Trump complains about the media again, and taps into his inner-fascist for real. “The—our—our newspapers, major newspapers and major networks are truly the enemy of the people in this country.” 

Bartiromo lets that attack on the First Amendment buzz right past her head. She asks the president, if you take out the six “tainted” states, is that the plan? If Trump can win six separate cases, then Biden has only 227 electoral votes. Trump has 232. 

Is that the plan? 

Trump: Everyone knows that people were not allowed to vote when they walked in, so preciously, so beautifully, to vote. An elderly woman—we have her deposition—was told—who longed to vote, looked forward to the day of November 3, was told when she got in there, I’m sorry, you voted. And then they give her another ballot to sign, which they don’t use, because she already voted. 

That’s how brazen they are. They will actually vote people, knowing that there’s a good chance that those people will come. And there were thousands of those people. 

Blogger: Not a single top state election official has claimed that there was significant fraud in their state. In the case mentioned above, the poor elderly woman would receive a provisional vote. Her provisional vote would count if records showed in the end that she had not voted already. 

Despite losing the machine vote in Georgia, and then losing the hand recount too, Trump tells Bartiromo, “if I lost Georgia by, let’s say, 12,000 votes, we have tens of thousands more votes than that.” 

He doesn’t say where these magical votes might be—or how he can prove they exist—and the host doesn’t feel a need to ask. 

The president starts babbling about dead people who voted again. Well, screw those zombies! We have “hundreds of thousands of votes more than we need in every swing state that we’re talking about,” he says. 

He calls Chris Krebs, who he appointed to head the Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity unit, whose job was to protect the election, “a fraud.” Krebs will be appearing on 60 Minutes later that evening. He has already called the 2020 election the most secure in U.S. history, and labeled Trump campaign lawsuits to overturn the results “farcical.” 

Bartiromo: Where is the DOJ and the FBI in all of this, Mr. President?  

Trump: Missing in action…You would think, if you’re in the FBI or Department of Justice, this is—this is the biggest thing you could be looking at. Where are they? I have not seen anything. I mean, I just—they just keep moving along, and they go on to the next president. 

You know, the votes in Dominion, they say, are counted in foreign countries, OK? Can you believe this? (See: December 1, 2020.) 

There are many mailmen that are in big trouble for selling ballots, getting rid of ballots. This is the craziest thing you have ever seen. 

But many ballots—many ballots with the name Trump on were thrown out. You have read that. They found ballots in a river with the name Trump on from the military. They were signed. And they were floating in a river. They found ballots under rocks that had the name Trump on. They were signed. They were signed with Trump. 

Blogger: I decided to check out these “mailmen” claims. I found a story about a mailman in West Virginia who changed absentee ballot requests from “Democrat” to “Republican. A total of nine votes were involved. 

In New Jersey, another carrier was arrested after 1,875 pieces of mail were found in two dumpsters. But only 99 mail-in ballots were involved. In a deep blue state those votes would make no difference at all. 

A Kentucky mail person was arrested for throwing “a large quantity of mail” in a construction dumpster, including 111 mail-in ballot requests. No actual ballots were involved. 

In addition, you had the case of a Massachusetts man setting a fire inside a ballot drop box outside the main library in Boston. Authorities retrieved 122 charred ballots, 87 of which were legible and would be processed anyway. 

Last, but not least, two USPS employees in Pennsylvania were arrested in early October and charged with tossing mail in the trash. In one incident federal agents recovered “314 items of First Class Mail, seven items of Certified Mail, one item of Priority Mail and 1,311 political advertisements or similar items of campaign mail.” One request for delivery of a mail-in ballot was found, but no completed ballots. The second arrest led to recovery of “75 items of First Class Mail and 25 items of political advertisements or similar items of campaign mail. The seized mail did not contain any mail-in ballots, but it did contain one request for a mail-in ballot.” 

None of these cases involved any “widespread election fraud,” and certainly there was no proof of a plot to screw Mr. Trump. 

None of these cases involved any “widespread election fraud,” and certainly there was no proof of a plot to screw Mr. Trump. 

Two days after the election, a New York postal worker was arrested and found to have delayed delivery of 813 pieces of mail—because he was too lazy at times to finish his route. Three ballots were involved. 

I kept going down the rabbit hole, hoping to find the elusive proof of massive mail-in fraud. There was the Ohio postal employee charged with dumping and destroying letters and newspapers he didn’t feel like delivering, and 32 Dolly Parton book club books. Only one absentee ballot request was lost. 

As for the Trump votes “dumped in the river,” a claim the president made during his first unhinged debate with Joe Biden, ABC News had already followed that claim to the river’s source. When White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany was asked which “river” the votes were found floating in, she accused reporters of “missing the forest for the trees.” 

In reality, three trays of mail had been found by a Wisconsin roadside, including “several” absentee ballots—but none from Wisconsin voters. 

No matter. Bartiromo finally asked what cases, specifically, Trump thought would make it to the Supreme Court? He’d need six. One to overturn the vote in Wisconsin. One for Nevada. One for Arizona. One for Michigan. One for Georgia. And one to block the Pennsylvania vote. 

Trump: Well, the problem is, it’s hard to get into the Supreme Court. I have got the best Supreme Court advocates, lawyers, that want to argue the case, if it gets there. But they said it’s very hard to get a case up there. Can you imagine? Donald Trump, president of the United States, files a case, and I probably can’t get a case, even with—and we have tremendous proof. 

We have hundreds and hundreds of affidavits, sworn affidavits. And it’s very hard to get a case to the Supreme Court.  

Blogger: You can get a case to the highest court in the land—but you have to have a case that has merit. 

So far, the Trump campaign has only ridiculous claims to spread. But the president isn’t quitting. He still has Rudy Giuliani on his side. 

Trump: Well, I’m going to use 125 percent of my energy to do it. You need a judge that’s willing to hear a case. You need a Supreme Court that’s willing to make a real big decision, based on everything that—it’s not like you’re going to change my mind. In other words, my mind will not change in six months. There was tremendous cheating here.” 

Blogger: No one expects the president to change his mind. He’s more likely to lose it than ever concede defeat. 

Bartiromo thanks him for his call, and that’s it. 

Trump’s mind is set in stone and if the courts don’t believe he has evidence enough, then the courts are probably in on the fix, too. 

___ 

11/28/20: President Trump plans to spend Saturday in seclusion at Camp David. He has no public events scheduled. 

In the wee hours of the morning, however, the soon-to-be-ex-president did fire off the first of several angry tweets. At 12:09 a.m. we had this: “The 1,126,940 votes were created out of thin air. I won Pennsylvania by a lot, perhaps more than anyone will ever know. The Pennsylvania votes were RIGGED. All other swing states also. The world is watching!” 

Bigfoot continued to march through Trump’s nightmares, voting for Joe Biden by mail, every time. (See: 11/27/20.) 

It would appear that the president is slowly moving beyond the first two stages of grief: “Denial,” and “Tweeting.” He has now reached the third and fourth stages: “Anger” and “Golfing.” 

(See: 11/25/20 for the full list of stages.) 

____________________ 

“This bill was not written to benefit one party or the other, or any one candidate or single election.” 

Pennsylvania House Majority Leader Representative Bryan Cutler, a Republican, in 2019

____________________

  

* 

AT 10:20 A.M. there’s a change of plans. Trump decides Marine One should fly him from Camp David to his golf club in Potomac Falls. 

Again. 

This will make three rounds of golf (#313, #314 and #315) in the last three days, forcing us to wonder if Trump really cares about finishing off his first term as president, let alone being gifted a second. 

You also have to ask. How much taxpayer money is Lame Duck Don going to waste before the White House door bangs on his fat behind for a last time? 

Friday night, as originally planned, he helicoptered north from the White House, roughly 60 miles by air, to Camp David. Saturday morning, a change, and he had Marine One carry him back to his golf course, ten miles from the White House. 

A round of golf followed; then the president jumped aboard Marine One again and flew back to Camp David.

CBS films Marine One landing at Trump's private golf course on Saturday.

 

* 

IF MR. TRUMP enjoyed his morning golf outing and flying hither and yon, his afternoon darkened. 

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court threw out his legal team’s lawsuit asking for 2.5 million mail-in ballots to be disqualified. 

The ruling was unanimous and ended the case with “prejudice,” meaning Team Trump could not rework a few details and resubmit. The Court cited a lack of “due diligence,” noting that the law creating no-excuse mail-in voting in Pennsylvania passed in October 2019. The lawsuit was filed a year late, too late for the judges to overturn an entire statewide election. 

In a concurring opinion, Justice David N. Wecht noted that petitioners “failed to allege that even a single mail-in ballot was fraudulently cast or counted.” 

Note: No fraud alleged. 

 

Postscript: The more you looked under the Team Trump rocks the more worms you found squirming. 

When Pennsylvania lawmakers passed the new voting law thirteen months ago, Republican leaders in both the House and Senate were clear. “This bill was not written to benefit one party or the other, or any one candidate or single election,” said House Majority Leader Representative Bryan Cutler. 

“It was developed over a multi-year period with input of people from different backgrounds and regions of Pennsylvania. It serves to preserve the integrity of every election and lift the voice of every voter in the commonwealth.” 

Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman was equally clear. “The people of Pennsylvania have sent divided government to Harrisburg and, with that, this is what governing looks like,” he said. “We are thankful for the governor’s willingness [Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf] to work with us to enact the most historic change in how we cast votes since the election code was enacted in 1937.” Corman went on to tout the law: “Compromise has given Pennsylvanians a modernized election code that preserves the integrity of the ballot box and makes it easier for voters to choose the people who represent them.”

___

  

11/27/20: On Friday, we had Trump at his absolute worst—which is just a few steps removed from unhinged, vengeful dictator. First, he tweeted out a new benchmark low for making way for Biden. “Biden can only enter the White House as President if he can prove that his ridiculous ‘80,000,000 votes’ were not fraudulently or illegally obtained. When you see what happened in Detroit, Atlanta, Philadelphia & Milwaukee, massive voter fraud, he’s got a big unsolvable problem!” 

So: f**k the vote. Trump would decide who sat in the White House after January 20. And, um…it would be him. 

Later, he referred to the Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State—a man already facing death threats, as was his wife—as “really, really an enemy of the people.” That put the President of the United States firmly in “Vladimir Putin territory,” if only he could get his way. You know. Maybe throw a few “enemies of the people” off balconies or serve them radioactive tea. 

And later (see below), Team Trump would once again attack the judicial branch of the government. 

Because. Yeah. Trump wants to rule like Xi Jingping, or Kim Jong-un, his love-letter sending pal.

 

____________________ 

“Calling an election unfair does not make it so.” 

U.S. Third District Judge Stephanos Bibas

____________________

 

Honest to god, when Trump fired off the tweet above, about how the door to the Oval Office was still barred for Joe Biden, he was headed once more for his private golf course in Potomac Falls. 

Round #314 since taking office. 

* 

By day’s end, however, it was clear that the man with the real problem was Lame Duck Don, himself. 

In Pennsylvania another legal challenge to the results of the Pennsylvania election was blown out of court. 

The Trump campaign’s continuing effort to prove “massive fraud” landed in the U.S. Third District Court. Writing for a three-judge panel, Judge Stephanos Bibas—a Trump appointee to the bench—with the concurrence of two other Republican-appointed judges—made short (relatively) work of the case. The three judges considered the evidence presented. “Free, fair elections are the lifeblood of our democracy,” Bibas wrote and tossed the hot mess out. “Charges of unfairness are serious,” he said in his ruling Friday. “But calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here.” 

“Voters, not lawyers, choose the President, Bibas wrote. “Ballots, not briefs, decide elections.”  

So: Trump’s legal team got smoked. 

Still, Jenna Ellis, one of the few lawyers left willing to continue the fight, responded to the defeat, insisting, “The activist judicial machinery in Pennsylvania continues to cover up the allegations of massive fraud.” 

Three Republican judges, folks. 

At this point, trying to convince the president, or Ellis, or any of Trump’s cult-like fans that there is no evidence—that Bigfoot did not mail in fraudulent ballots—that the Loch Ness monster did not use computer software to steal votes—that Elvis and Tupac and Jimmy Hoffa did not rise from the grave and vote—is no longer possible. It’s a cliché, but the purple Kool Aide has been mixed. 

* 

AS FOR “rounding the corner,” as the president insists we are, in terms of the coronavirus, Worldometers reports that the U. S. has recorded 13.3 million cases (#1 in the world). Total U.S. deaths stand at 269,802 (also #1), almost 100,000 more than second place Brazil. 

Adjusting for population and tallying deaths per million, under Trump’s guiding, golfing hand we stand in seventh place behind only: 

Belgium: 1,397.

Peru: 1,079

Spain: 955

Italy: 888

United Kingdom: 846

Argentina: 836

United States 813

 

Trump likes to claim that the whole world is suffering. That means we can’t blame him for anything that has gone wrong. Here are a few countries that are doing better (by far) in adjusted deaths per million: 

China 3 (hard to trust any numbers issued by an authoritarian government; we know)

New Zealand 5

South Korea 10

Japan 16

Australia 35

Norway 60

Finland 71

Germany 190

Greece 202

Israel: 309

Canada 312

Austria 320

Ireland 412. 

 

Postscript: Chris Krebs, Trump’s appointee to head the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency—fired last week for insisting the election was not rigged—has told 60 Minutes that fraud allegations made the president and his allies are “farcical.” 

As for claims of manipulated ballots, with mysterious foreign nations involved, Krebs adds, “All votes in the United States of America are counted in the United States of America. Period.” 

The full interview will run Sunday evening.

­­­­­­___

 

11/26/20: President Trump’s Thanksgiving antics perfectly encapsulate all that has gone before, marking his presidency as a travesty, from opening oath of office to now refusing to admit defeat.

 

First, on the simplest level, we had golf. Thursday the president played Round #313 since taking office. And this from a man who railed constantly at his predecessor for playing “more golf than Tiger Woods.”

 

(Obama played 333 rounds in two full terms.)

 

Most human beings would be embarrassed by such behavior. Not Trump. He never admits wrong. He never admits a mistake. He never apologizes to anyone. The poor lug has less self-awareness than a head of lettuce. Hypocrisy rides shotgun in the golf cart with him on every round.

 

Trump can’t see it. Or he can, but he’s incapable of admitting it.

 

*

 

AFTER ANOTHER morning wasted on the links, Trump returned to the White House and dialed up a cross-section of active duty troops around the world. It’s a Thanksgiving tradition for presidents to call our servicemen and women and thank them for defending the country, so the rest of us can enjoy our turkey and cranberry sauce—and our golfing—in peace.

 

But this was Trump talking to active duty troops—which meant plenty of presidential bragging—followed later by presidential venting. The conference call began with Trump calling the troops “great people.” He said he was “thrilled to be online with heroic members of the United States military.” He called them, “incredible people,” and wished them a Happy Thanksgiving, as planned.

 

Having used up almost a minute, Trump turned quickly to patting his own back. He told our fighting men and women around the world: “We’re going to have a great year. We have a year coming up, the foundations are ready for one of the best years we’ve ever had.”

 

Why were we in for “one of the best years we’ve ever had?”

 

Trump. Trump’s leadership. Trump was supposed be thanking the troops—but he was really thanking himself.

 

Units from all six U.S. military branches were represented, including his own baby, the U.S. Space Force. Trump did thank everyone for the “sacrifices” they made, all so far from home on this holiday. He did not mention his grueling round of golf. He did not mention that thousands of Americans were dying daily from COVID-19. “Our nation is doing very well,” he said.

 

He thanked Lieutenant Colonel Timothy Redhair and the U.S. Army’s 36th Infantry Division. He thanked Colonel Andrew Priddy and his Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force in Kuwait. Then he got down to the main business of the call—thanking himself. “We’ve been building up our military. We spent $2.5 trillion in the last three and a half years,” he told the troops, “and we've never had anything like it in terms of equipment and all of the elements that we put together. Space Force, we’re very proud of. Brand new. Nobody thought that could happen. So we spent 2.5—think of that, $2.5 trillion.”

 

He did not mention having run up the biggest federal deficits in history. He did not mention that in President Obama’s time in office, the U.S. spent more on defense every year than the next seven nations combined.

 

He thanked himself for providing the troops, “All new tanks and missiles, and rockets and everything is tippy top.”

 

He acknowledged our men and women at sea next: “Also with us are our men and women of the U.S. Navy aboard the USS Winston Churchill. It’s a beauty led by commander Timothy Shanley.”

 

This was another chance to brag. “Your magnificent ship is a powerful symbol of peace through strength. And that’s what we have now is peace through strength,” Trump said. “You look at what’s going on, no wars. They’re saying, ‘Wow, the president. Four years, no wars.’ We stopped the wars and we won, as you know, 100% of the ISIS caliphate in Syria, Iraq.”

 

He says, “we,” but he clearly means, “Me.”

 

Wow, the president!

 

Trump doesn’t say so out loud, but what Trump is thankful for on Thanksgiving is himself.

 

He definitely does not mention the Kurds, our most loyal allies in the fight against ISIS. He does not acknowledge the thousands of Kurdish fighters who died, so U.S. troops would not have to die instead.

 

He does not mention how he screwed over the Kurds.

 

The president introduces Major Tommy Rutherford and his 386 men on the other end of the conference line. Their U.S. Air Force unit is doing logistics work, “including transporting 18 tons of medical equipment during the China virus pandemic.” Next, he introduces Lieutenant Colonel Matthew Lomeyer and the 11th Space Warning Squadron, at Buckley Air Force Base in Colorado. Lomeyer’s unit is part of the Space Force and Trump wants everyone to remember, he created that new branch—and all taxpayers had to do was foot the bill for a few hundred billion dollars more.

 

“And I never said it during a campaign, I said it after I became president. I saw what was happening with China and Russia and others. And it’s really something, so we’re very proud of it.”

 

Yes. Space Force! They would help protect us from missile attack from, say, North Korea, which Trump promised to disarm but never managed. Also, Space Force would save us if the Iranians kept producing more and more nuclear material—since Trump ripped up the Iran Deal that kept them from making any bombs at all for more than a decade. But yea! Space Force!

 

“Finally, Trump said, “we have with us members of the U.S. Coast Guard Port Security Unit 308 under Captain General Rocco…

 

(His last name was inaudible on the tape.)

 

At any rate, the president thanked the Coast Guard for the great job they were doing. And how was it possible that they were doing a great job? Now “we have all new ships coming to the Coast Guard. You had old ships, and they were as good as they could be, but they were very old. And now you have brand new Coast Guard ships, and it’s my honor to have gotten them for you.”

 

See, Trump did it all by himself.

 

It dawned on Trump momentarily that the purpose of this call was to thank the men and women in uniform. “Today I send you the love, gratitude, respect, and prayers of our entire nation.” He wished them a Happy Thanksgiving again—told them they were doing an “incredible job.” But he couldn’t help himself. If Trump is talking you know he’s almost sure to be talking about himself. He assured his listeners again that “your country is doing well.” How so? “We just set a record in the stock market, over 30,000 in the Dow Jones Industrial Average,” he said, in typical, tone-deaf fashion.

 

You miss your families while you serve overseas? People shoot at you and try to blow you up? No big deal. The Dow Jones is up!

 

Trump continued:

 

Over 30,000, think of that. Nobody ever thought we were going to hit that during a pandemic. The whole world is suffering this tremendous pandemic, not just us. The world. And you wouldn’t know that to listen to the news reports, but the whole world is suffering and we are rounding the curve. The vaccines are being delivered, literally it’ll start next week and the week after.

 

And it’ll hit the frontline workers and seniors and doctors, nurses. A lot of people are going to start, and we’re going very quickly. Two companies already announced. A third one coming up, and a fourth and fifth one coming up soon also. Some people have called it a medical, really, a miracle. Could’ve taken four or five years to do this.

 

Normally it probably would’ve taken four or five years just getting it through the FDA.

 

At that point, several of our men and women overseas had a chance to talk briefly, or to be recognized by commanders. PFC Head from Sabine, Texas, got a shoutout. A Marine officer cited Sergeant Romero Vasquez, “sitting to my left. He’s from Los Angeles, California, and a great marine.” 

Romero added a few words. “It’s an honor to meet you, Mr. President. Just talking to you in person, it’s a really great honor.” 

Commander Tim Shanley, CO of the USS Winston S. Churchill, talked about his 352 men and the 30,000 miles they’d sailed on their most recent deployment. He introduced a number of sailors by name.

 

Trump saw another chance to brag. “Yeah, that’s great,” he interjected. “And your equipment is getting newer and newer, better and better. We’re building a lot of ships right now, as you know, and you’ll have them very soon. And I just want to congratulate you. Everybody, but I want to congratulate you.”

 

Really, he had just congratulated himself.

 

Major Rutherford, representing the Air Force, played it safe, stroking the president’s brittle ego. He told Trump he was “super excited to talk to you today.” He cited two members of the units he represented, who had been killed during their deployment, Sergeant Oulette and Senior… The second name was inaudible on the tape. He called the fallen troops “great Americans,” and assured Trump “your conversation with us is a great morale boost, so much appreciated for you doing that sir.”

 

I almost expected the major to agree that the stock market hitting 30,000 made the sacrifice of those lives worthwhile.

 

“Well, I appreciate it. I love doing it, actually, and I’m very proud of it because we’ve spent so much,” Trump replied, sensing yet another opening for bragging. “When we took over, our military was very depleted. You know that very well. You know it probably better than most with the Air Force because the planes were old. They were tired and now you have all brand-new F-35s coming and others.”

 

I, for one, had not realized that planes could be tired. I had also not realized that all the F-35s were coming because of President Trump. I thought that Congress authorized their deployment many years ago.

 

I checked to be sure.

 

Yes: the first F-35’s were authorized in 2006.

The F-35 predates Trump's time in office by more than a decade.

 

Indeed, in a story from last year, pilots who had flown the F-35 in training and in combat talked about “survivability.” The stealth capability would allow them to penetrate even the most sophisticated modern enemy air defenses. By 2019, Lockheed Martin had delivered 360 of these warplanes. But cost overruns had been massive. The final bill ran upwards of $400 billion. 

Was the new aircraft worth it? Lieutenant Colonel David “Chip” Berke, an experienced Marine pilot had no doubt, as he told Air & Space magazine. In an F-35, he said, “one of the most enjoyable things is being virtually undetectable until it’s way, way, way too late for the threat.” That is for the enemy air defenses—the threat—to react. If you managed the aircraft properly, he explained, “most of the time the threat doesn’t know you’re there. And that’s why I have extreme faith that the machine is going to be the most dominant aircraft ever built.” 

So, good job, President Trump! You had nothing to do with designing the warplane, getting the program authorized by Congress, or even paying your share of taxes to make it possible for our pilots to sit down in the cockpits of what we hope will be “the most dominant aircraft ever built.” 

But Trump didn’t just get the Air Force new planes, going back through a time warp to  2006. He did it all.

 

“And your tanks, your bombers, the whole thing, they’re all coming….,” he said. “When I came in four years ago, hard to believe almost four years ago, we were in sad shape and now we’re in phenomenal shape.”

 

Trump finally ran out of steam talking about himself to the troops. He finished up by talking again about what a great idea the U.S. Space Force was. He always believed the Space Force should be separate from the Air Force, “and as years go by, and as decades go by, people will see the importance of Space Force, there’s no question about it.”

 

No question at all.

 

Trump was the greatest military mind of the last fifty years.

 

*

 

BY NOW, nineteen minutes had elapsed. The president was tired of talking to the troops and decided to take questions from reporters. It was the first time since the November 3 election that he had dared.

 

The first question (and every other one that followed) seemed to touch a raw nerve. A member of the press asked Mr. Trump, do you have “any big plans for your last Thanksgiving in the White House?”

 

This sparked one of the greatest diatribes in the history of the Presidency of the United States. For the sake of my readers, I will add context, as necessary, to what Trump said, and try to cut down as many of the repeats as I can.

 

Trump began:

 

Well, we don’t know what is last. If you look at what’s going on, you have to really take a look at what’s going on. They’re finding tremendous discrepancies in the votes. Nobody believes those numbers. Those numbers are incorrect numbers. Uh, a lot of numbers have already been reported that’s incorrect.

 

No one listening really has any idea what “numbers” the president is talking about or who is finding these “tremendous discrepancies” or where.

 

He continues:

 

You’re going to see things happening over the next week or two that are going to be shocking to people. Uh, if you look at the numbers in Michigan, if you look at the numbers in Pennsylvania, if you look at fraudulent voting and fraudulent votes. So I can’t say what’s first and what’s last in terms of, “Is this the last one or is this the first one of a second term?” We’ll see what happens.

 

Technically, this is the last Thanksgiving of his first term. That’s how the calendar works. There may be a second term. No one who cares about their money should bet on Trump, though.

 

He’s still venting:

 

Nobody wants to see the kind of fraud that this election has, has uh, really come to represent. We are looking at things that are so bad in Georgia. They don’t want to show us signatures, the reason they don’t want to show us signatures is very simple. Because, uh, we will find thousands and thousands—A very close race, it’s hair thin.

 

Uh, but we’ll find thousands and thousands of discrepancies, fraud. Uh, why they aren’t wanting to show those signatures is amazing. Uh, they’re doing recounts, and even in the recount they found thousands of votes that were off. But now we want to look at the signatures, and you will find tens of thousands of false ballots, fro—forged ballots.

 

In point of fact, the recount in Georgia did not find “thousands of votes that were off.” When the hand recount was complete, Joe Biden’s lead in the state shrank from 13,558 to 12,284. The two biggest blunders of the entire Georgia election occurred in red counties, where Republicans controlled the count. In one red county alone, failure to upload votes from a memory card (properly tallied by the machines the state used) cost Trump 696 votes, which the recount properly caught.

 

No fraud was involved. No Democrats were involved in some plot. A Republican election official got fired, instead.

 

Yet, Trump saw crookery all over the place—although, oddly enough, never in any of the red states that went his way. Only in blue states. And red states that slipped from his orange grasp.

 

You’ll see it all over [he said of the fraud]. You’re going to see a lot of it. And, uh, you go to Pennsylvania, you saw the meeting we had yesterday with Pennsylvania. Uh, you saw people come up, and they went to vote and they said, “No, you can’t vote. Somebody else already sent in a ballot.” And a woman—But this is happening tens of thousands of times.

 

Trump cites one woman and multiplies her out to “tens of thousands of times.” If a person showed up to vote under such circumstances, they could cast a provisional vote; and the records could later be checked.

 

He rambled on:

 

I think it was 600 and some odd thousand, 687,000, uh, fraudulent votes cast in Pennsylvania. And I will tell you the, uh, if you look at the Statehouse now, the Republican Statehouse, they’re starting to see what’s going on there. But they’ve really known it for a long time. Then you go to Michigan and you look at what happened in Wayne County in Detroit.

 

I went through a list, I won almost every county and you see it. Almost every—By 78%, 72%, 68% going through the list. Then you get to Wayne and something happened. Tremendous numbers. You saw the canvassers, they refused to sign their document because they said, “We can’t sign a fraudulent document, horrible things went on.” That’s in Wayne County, Detroit.

 

When I was teaching, I used to have a rule. If you used the words “things,” or “things” in an essay, I’d give you an automatic “F.” You could rewrite what you had said for a higher grade; but you could not use words that had no meaning at all. “Horrible things,” happened in Detroit?

 

What?

 

Did cannibals eat Republicans who showed up to vote?

Michigan vote by county, 2016.

 

You could do a little work if you wanted to get closer to the truth. In 2016, Baraga County, in the Upper Peninsula, went for Trump over Clinton, 61.3% to 32.9%. Four years later, the same county went for Trump again: 62.2% to 36.6% for Joe Biden. Part of the Democratic gain could be attributed to the absence of the kind of third party candidates that cost Clinton so many protest votes. Marquette County, the only county in the Upper Peninsula to go blue in 2016, was the only county to go blue in 2020, too. In 2016, Clinton garnered 16,042 votes in Marquette County, and Trump scored 14,646. There was no “fix” four years later—no massive “fraud.” Trump had 16,236 votes in Marquette in 2020; but Biden had 20,465.

 

You could figure this out for yourself. Trump could figure it out too, assuming he wasn’t intellectually stunted. Cheboygan, in the Lower Peninsula, gave Trump 10,186 votes in 2020. Biden had 5,437. Trump had only 8,683 votes in Cheboygan four years before. Clinton had 4,302. Turnout across the state was much greater in the 2020 election; and turnout turned out to be key.

 

Not fraud.

 

One of the few Michigan counties to change color in 2020, Leelanau, went blue for Biden. The Democratic challenger piled up 8,795 votes (51.9%), to 7,916 (46.7%) for Trump. Third party votes were a non-factor, with three candidates sharing 209. In 2016, Trump defeated Clinton there, 7,239 to 6,724. Gary Johnson siphoned off another 510 votes. Again, turnout was up—for both sides. I checked Ogemaw County, picking at random. Trump improved there over 2016 by 1,400 votes. Biden did better than Hillary, but gained only 500. Lake County was the same. The Democratic challenger in 2020 outperformed Mrs. Clinton by 300 votes; but Trump picked up 800. In Alcona County, Trump did 600 votes better in his second run for office.

 

The pattern was clear. Higher turnout in every county I checked, in red counties, big gains for the President of the United States. If some mysterious machine was cheating Trump out of votes, it wasn’t doing much of a job.

 

Only two other counties changed color in 2020: Saginaw and Kent. Joe Biden squeezed past Trump in Saginaw, 51,088 to 50,785. In Kent, Biden piled up 187,915 votes, where Trump had only 165,741. The numbers in Saginaw were not much different than four years before, only the narrow margin of victory flipped. In Kent, Trump improved his showing by 17,000 votes, but his share, percentagewise, slipped. Fraud wasn’t involved. Biden outperformed Clinton by nearly 40,000 votes because, as Michigan reporters noted, Kent County demographics were changing every year. In 2000, the county went for George W. Bush, giving him 59% of the vote. In 2008, Obama won Kent by a handful of votes, with 49%.  In 2016 Trump carried the county, but with only 47.7% of the vote. This time, his share slid to 45.9%, and heavy turnout gave Biden a fat win. Demographics explained the difference, not dead people voting from the grave.

 

The other blue counties showed similar gains in turnout, as did the red counties next door. Genesee went for Biden by more than 20,000. Clinton won by 18,000. One county east, Lapeer went for Trump by 19,000 in 2020, vs. 17,000 four years before. Oakland County, a Democratic bastion, went for Clinton by 54,000 votes in 2016, with Trump getting 43.2% of the vote. His percentage dipped to 42.2% this time around, certainly nothing unusual from election to election. But Biden outperformed Clinton by 5% and rolled up a lead of 108,000.

 

Wayne County—the focus of Trump’s entire attack on the Michigan results—shifted only slightly. Clinton earned 66.4% of the vote in 2016; Biden improved the Democratic share to 68.3%. Trump improved, too, from 29.3% to 30.3%. But in a county with 872,000 votes to be counted, a shift of one percent and higher turnout meant a huge lead for Joe Biden. Clinton won Wayne County four years earlier by 290,000 votes. Biden won Wayne by 333,000.

 

Again, you could look all this up—and Trump could do too—but the evidence of massive fraud just wasn’t there.

Michigan vote by county 2020

 

Trump continued to grumble about voter fraud. “Wisconsin they’re finding tremendous discrepancy,” he insisted. Yet, where the counting was going on, in Milwaukee County, Biden actually added 132 votes to his lead. At 5:30 p.m. on Friday the Milwaukee County Board of Commissioners adjourned, noting that the recount demonstrated elections in the county were “fair, transparent, accurate and secure.” Dane County, where the Trump campaign had also asked for a recount, was livestreaming the entire process and officials expected to be done by Sunday.

 

Let’s just say, it wasn’t looking good for Trump and his fans.

 

Trump babbled on. He said he got 74 million votes, which was true, “but there were many ballots throw away, so I got much more than that,” which was a lie. “But I got 74 million, 74 million is 11 million more than last time.” Every one of his votes was legit. But Biden got more. “So, I don’t know what is going to happen. I know one thing,” Trump said, “Joe Biden did not get 80 million votes.” 

Trump noted that he got more votes than Ronald Reagan—when he won 49 states. So how was it possible he didn’t win 49 states! He grumbled because Joe Biden “beat Barack Obama with, uh, the black vote.” He didn’t believe it, mostly because he didn’t want to believe it. “And if you look at the numbers, the numbers are, uh, false. The numbers are corrupt. It was a rigged election, 100%, and people know it.” 

Trump insisted people were “marching all over the United States…They know it was a rigged election.” 

The president started complaining about Georgia again. He whined about Dominion and their voting machines. “People say the votes are counted in foreign countries and much worse than that, by the way, with Dominion.” 

“People say.” 

Not exactly the kind of evidence you expect to hold up in court. (See, for example: 11/27/20.)

“What about the upcoming runoff election in Georgia, with two U.S. Senate seats at stake?” a reporter asked. 

Yeah, that was rigged too. 

“I spoke with the two great senators. They’re great senators, Kelly and David. I’ll probably be going on Saturday,” the president said. “We’re looking for a site. We’re going to have a tremendous turnout, and we seem to always have a good turnout. The people are very disappointed that we were robbed. We were robbed. I won that [state] by hundreds of thousands of votes.” 

The recount said he lost by 12,000 plus. So how did he know that he won? “Everybody knows it,” the president said. “You go down the streets, there are Trump/Pence signs all over the place.” 

In other words, don’t count the votes. Just count the yard signs. 

Trump insisted that Stacey Abrams had “pulled the wool” over the eyes Georgia’s GOP Secretary of State. 

“He said he donated to you,” a reporter chimed in. 

Trump ignored that statement and complained again about not being able to see the signatures on every ballot in Georgia. He complained again about the vote in all the Michigan counties going against him. “The whole thing, one after another after another,” he said (which was wrong) “and then you get to Detroit and it's more votes than people. Dead people voting all over the place.

 

A reporter wondered if, on December 14, the Electoral College declared Biden the winner, would Trump concede?

 

“It’s going to be a very hard thing to concede because we know there was massive fraud,” he replied.

 

“But will you?” the reporter tried again.

 

Trump admitted that time to overturn the results of the election was not on his side. But “everything else is on our side. Facts are on our side. This was a massive fraud. This should never take place in this country. We’re like a third world country. We have machines that nobody knows what the hell they’re looking at.”

 

We know the machine votes—and the hand recounts, so far, have varied almost not at all.

 

He was cheated in Georgia he said once again. He was cheated in Pennsylvania too.

 “It was a rigged election,” he said, repeating himself several times.

 

A reporter asked again, would he concede if the Electoral College selected Joe Biden?

 

“If they do, they made a mistake, because this election was a fraud,” he responds.

 

“But will you?” another reporter shouts.

 

Trump says again, “this election was a fraud. They have Biden beating Obama, and Obama’s vote, in areas that mattered in terms of the election, in swing states, and yet he’s losing to Obama all over the place, but he’s beating Obama in swing states, which are the states that mattered for purposes of the election.”

 

Would he concede?

 

“No, I can’t say that at all,” Trump says.

 

A reporter named Jeff Mason, representing Reuters, tries to rephrase the question. His words on tape are inaudible. Whatever he says, Trump bristles.

 

“Don’t talk to me that way.”

 

“Sorry, sir,” Mason says, in an attempt to be polite.

 

Manners are not a strong suit of this President of the United States. “You’re just a lightweight,” he sneers. “Don’t talk to me that way. I’m the President of the United States. Don’t ever talk to the president that way.”

 

If this were Russia or China or Venezuela or Cuba, we know what would happen to Mason next.

 

Trump ignores any follow up and says he’ll take another question.

 

The next reporter hones in: “If the electoral college does elect President-Elect Joe Biden, are you not going to leave this building?”

 

“Certainly I will. Certainly I will, and you know that,” Trump says. “But I think that there will be a lot of things happening between now and the 20th of January, a lot of things. Massive fraud has been found. We’re like a third world country. We’re using computer equipment that can be hacked.”

 

According to the vote totals, he also lost Arizona. But the totals don’t matter. “Uh, I’ve had, uh, the biggest politicians in Arizona say there was no way you lost Arizona.”

 

He said there was no way he lost Pennsylvania either, what with Joe Biden saying he was “anti-fracking.”

 

No way did he lose.

 

He insisted he was going to win Wisconsin, too. Yes, the vote right now was close. “But when you look at the massive discrepancy that we’ll be revealing, that’s already been revealed, everybody knows it, they just don’t want to play. Between big tech and the fake news media, you just put out, like, this little railroad train.”

 

To be honest, listening to this diatribe, myself, I have no idea what “little railroad train” he means. I just know that in Milwaukee County the recount has added to Biden’s lead. Trump just isn’t buying the math. “No,” he grumbles, “I think it’s not right that he’s trying to pick a cabinet.”

 

As if he’s the next President of the United States…

 

Trump has faith, in the end, that he’s going to win. “But I can’t imagine whether it’s courts or legislatures, if you’re going to catch hundreds of thousands of false ballots, and I’m talking in each state, and just so you understand, many, many more votes that we’re talking about than we need.”

 

He can’t see any way he’s going to lose.

 

“We have tens of thousands votes more than we need in all cases, okay?” he says. “In all cases. So, I think you’re gonna see something. I mean, I think it’s gonna be a very big story….It’s gonna be not only a big story, it’s the most important story of our time.”

 

A reporter wonders if he plans to run again in 2024?

 

Trump makes it clear he expects to win in 2020, instead. “This has a long way to go. You’re gonna find tremendous fraud,” he says. “You’re gonna find fraud of hundreds of thousands of votes per state. You’re gonna find fraud of many, many times the votes that I need. Again, we’re not talking about less votes, where, you know, 20 votes, but it doesn’t turn the election. No, we’re talking about thousands and thousands of votes beyond what we need to turn a state.”

 

We know that Trump had called Joe Biden “the worst candidate” ever to run for president; and in Trump’s mind there’s no way he could lose to the worst candidate in history, no matter what the math is. There’s “no way that Biden got 80 million votes. By the way, the only way he got 80 million votes is through a massive fraud. There’s no way that he got 80 million votes.”

 

Trump promises he will release the evidence soon and the courts will see it and the lawmakers, too, and even the reporters will see it, and a miracle will occur, and he will win a second term.

 

He takes a few minutes to brag about all the accomplishments his administration has had. He insists that Joe Biden can’t take “credit for the vaccines.” Joe Biden, he says, “failed with the swine flu, H1N1, totally failed with the swine flu, don’t let him take credit for the vaccines because the vaccines were me, and I pushed people harder than they’ve ever been pushed before.”

 

That may be true, the pushing, at least. But the death toll from the swine flu—irrelevant as it is—was still only 12,469.

 

So, yeah. The math is the math. Nearly twenty times more Americans have died from the COVID-19 virus than died from H1N1. You would think even a man as supremely confident in his ignorance as Trump could figure it out. But he’s bragging again, not doing math. What he had done, he says, was push the federal agencies to act. “It’s a medical miracle,” he insists.

 

Then he reverts to complaining about the election again:

 

Don’t let anyone try and take credit for it, but with all of the things I’ve done, this could be the most important because there’s been voter fraud going on, but never at this scale. Tens of millions of ballots have been sent out to people that didn’t even want them. Many people, and I know you’ve heard, many people have received two, three, and four ballots, and many people have taken those two, three, and four ballots and they voted them.

 

This election was a fraud. This, it was a rigged election. I mean, I hate to say it, but this was a rigged, at the highest level it was a rigged election, so we have to figure it out…

 

Finally, Trump decides it’s time to wrap it up. He says the media is dishonest and won’t report the truth.

 

He says “Big Tech” is dishonest, too.

 

“If the media were honest and Big Tech was fair, this wouldn’t even be a contest. Uh, and I would’ve won by a tremendous amount, a tremendous amount, and I did win by a tremendous amount, but it hasn’t been reported yet, but people understand what’s happened. They know what happened…”

 

A reporter interrupts to ask, would he attend Joe Biden’s inauguration?

 

“I don’t want to say that yet. I mean, I know the answer. I’ll be honest I know the answer—But I just don’t want to say it yet. Look, a thing like this possibly has never happened before, but maybe people just didn’t catch it, but we’ve caught it—we’ve caught, we’ve caught hundreds of thousands of votes.”

 

After 45 minutes, Trump has vented enough. He exits the room, leaving a stunned press corps behind.

 

*

 

LATER THAT DAY, the president retweets Rep Matt Gaetz’s suggestion that he should take no chances on the way out the door, and should pardon himself.

 

*

 

AND ON THANKSGIVING DAY, the grim numbers are manifest again. Hospitalizations reach a new high, with 90,481 Americans too sick with the coronavirus to give up their beds.

 

Johns Hopkins University, which releases data more rapidly than CDC puts the death toll for this country at:

 

264,842.

 

The Viall family, almost without exception, is thankful on this holiday for good health (my wife and I are recovering from COVID, not headed for the hospital as so many Americans are) and the imminent removal of Trump from the office of the President of the United States.

___

 

 11/25/20: In a strange twist of political fate, Republicans in Georgia are suddenly calling on voters to cast supposedly fraud-prone mail-in ballots in the U.S. Senate runoff elections in January. 

Republicans are going to try to turn out the graveyard vote, since the president has been complaining that Biden won the state on the ghostly votes of untold numbers of deceased Georgians. 

* 

IN WHITE HOUSE NEWS, we learn that President Trump is bogged down in the initial stages of grief, following his defeat. Those stages are: 

Denial

Tweeting

Anger

Golfing

Bargaining

Lying

Depression

More Lying

Acceptance

 

For now, tweeting bolsters “denial.” Since the election, The New York Times notes, the president has rarely appeared in public and has not taken a single question from any reporter. He has, however, fired off 550 tweets, including more than 400 which attack the legitimacy of the election.  

In fact, Trump was up late last night, railing against the Fates on into Wednesday morning, insisting, once more that he was the rightful winner. 

Not only was the president in denial he was thrilled to announce that most of his supporters were too.

Trump fans failed to notice all the times their hero got clobbered in court.

 

* 

SPEAKING OF DENIAL, we know the president came out of hiding long enough yesterday to brag about how great the stock market was doing. No doubt his aides made sure not to tell him—and his supporters would be astonished to find out if they ever followed the news—the harsh truth. 

At this point in his first term, President Barack Obama had seen the Dow Jones rise by 62.8%. 

The Dow is up—even after a healthy post-election bump—under Trump by only 51.4%. 

Obama saw markets rise during his two terms in office by 148.3%. It does not appear that Mr. Trump will have a second term to work his market magic. 

* 

STILL, one America had a great day before Thanksgiving, and a few hundred didn’t live to see the sun rise. President Trump, in one of the least surprising moves of his presidency, pardoned General Michael T. Flynn. 

The day before, CDC reported, we had another 165,282 cases of COVID-19 and 1,989 Americans died. 

That brings the toll, so far, to 

259,005 dead. 

 

Postscript: If the Dow Jones hit the “sacred number” of 30,000 yesterday, it didn’t remain at that “sacred” level long. Wednesday, weak economic numbers caused the Dow to retreat to 29,872. 

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its report early, since tomorrow is Thanksgiving. What the weekly numbers show: 778,000 Americans, seasonally adjusted, filed for unemployment in the last reporting period. That was up for the second week, and up from levels that remain startlingly high.  

Including Americans receiving benefits under the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, and other federal and state programs, 20,452,223 men and women will carve the turkey and pass the gravy tomorrow, knowing they have no job to go to on Monday. That marks an increase of 135,297 Americans out of work, compared to the last weekly reporting period. 

And don’t expect President Trump to notice. He’s busy tweeting, golfing, and pardoning felons.

___

11/24/20: President Trump shows his sour mug for a 173-word “press conference,” which is over in 64 seconds.

 

Mike Pence is by his side, perhaps to grab him and bum-rush him from the podium if he goes off on some weird rant.

 

The president speaks in tone-deaf fashion:

 

Well, thank you very much, and I just want to congratulate everybody. The stock market—Dow Jones Industrial Average—just hit 30,000, which is the highest in history. We’ve never broken 30,000, and that’s just—despite everything that’s taken place with the pandemic.

 

I’m very, uh, thrilled with what’s happened on the vaccine front. That’s been absolutely incredible. It’s—nothing like that has ever happened medically, and I think people are acknowledging that, and it’s having a big effect.

 

But the stock market's just broken 30,000—never been broken, that number. That’s a sacred number, 30,000. Nobody thought they’d ever see it. That’s the ninth time since the beginning of 2020, and it’s the forty-eighth time that we’ve broken records in—during the Trump administration.

 

And I just want to congratulate all the people within the administration that worked so hard, and most importantly, I want to congratulate the people of our country, because there are no people like you. Thank you very much everybody. Thank you.

 

Exit, stage right.

 

Good news on the vaccine, for sure, with some hope healthcare workers and other frontline personnel can be vaccinated as early as the second week of December. But no comment from the president on all those for whom a vaccine has come too late. On Monday, the U.S. was hit with another 157,531 cases of COVID-19.

 

Another 1,058 Americans died. But the stock market was up again—30,000—“a sacred number.”

 

So f**k those dead people, right!

 

*

 

NO DOUBT, the president felt worse and worse as the day progressed. True, he managed to pardon the Thanksgiving turkeys, “Corn” and “Cob,” which I think should have been named “Donald J. Loser” and “Lame Duck Don” this year, instead.

 

That’s just me.

 

Then a double whammy. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania certified its election results and Governor Tom Wolf signed off on its 20 electoral votes—going not to Trump, but to Joe Biden.

 

Not long after, the Nevada Supreme Court certified Biden’s win and awarded the former Vice President six more electoral votes.

 

The handwriting had been on the wall since Saturday, of course, when Michigan certified its votes for the challenger.

 

That certification came after a federal judge also slapped aside a Trump challenge to the Pennsylvania vote. (That challenge had revolved around the claim that in some counties voters were allowed to fix errors on their mail-in ballots. In some counties that offer was not extended.)

 

Not long after the judge ruled, Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) urged the president to accept reality, face up to the fact he got a thumping, and move forward with the transition process, which Trump had so far blocked. “President Trump has exhausted all plausible legal options to challenge the result of the presidential race in Pennsylvania,” Toomey said in a statement. It was time to face the truth. 

* 

LATE TUESDAY, we learned that the U.S. had set another record, not just a stock market high. Hospitalizations for the coronavirus reached a new level, with 88,080 Americans too sick to go home.

 

Many of them are going to die and tens of thousands will miss Thanksgiving with their families.

___

 

11/23/20: President Trump’s efforts to overturn the results in several key battleground states continue to falter, as the courts slap away one lawsuit after another. And even many top Republicans are beginning to warn: It’s time to quit undermining American democracy. It’s time to admit Biden won.

 

On the court front, Reuters noted that last Friday, a suit filed by The Election Integrity Project, an organization led by a right-wing activist, was tossed by Clark County District Judge Gloria Sturman. The suit alleged to have identified roughly 1,400 people who had registered to vote in Nevada, moved to California, and then voted in Nevada.

 

Sturman explained that there was “an administrative remedy” for dealing with electoral fraud, but balked at “the civil remedy of throwing out an election,” which she described as “a shocking ask.”

 

Possible explanations for this number: 1,400. First, a person who moves out of a state within 30 days of an election may vote either in the state where they lived, or in the state where they currently reside. Second, military personnel, stationed at bases like Camp Pendleton, in California, but whose permanent homes are in Nevada, might send in a vote from a California address.

 

Same for their spouses.

 

Completely legal, by the way.

 

In response to this claim, the office of the Nevada Secretary of State issued the following statement: “Many voter fraud complaints lack any evidence and are more complaints about process or policy. Through these post-election processes, instances of actual or attempted fraud may come to light. If so, these instances will be thoroughly investigated.”

 

(This was at least the third defeat for Team Trump in Nevada, including one rejection of a request to stop counting mail-in ballots by the Nevada Supreme Court.)

 

*

 

THURSDAY, the federal courts handed the president another defeat in Georgia. This time, the case had been filed by a prominent private attorney, Lin Wood, calling on the court to block certification of the state’s electoral votes for Joe Biden now that the hand recount was complete.

 

____________________

 

“It harms the public interest in countless ways.”

 

U.S. District Court Judge Steven Grimberg

____________________

 

 

This time it fell to U.S. District Court Judge Steven Grimberg, after a three-hour virtual hearing, to blast a Trump legal case to smithereens.

 

Grimberg, a Trump appointee to the federal bench, first ruled that Wood lacked legal standing as an individual voter to mount a challenge to Georgia’s election procedures. But Grimberg didn’t stop there, noting that “evidence of improprieties,” as presented by Mr. Wood “seemed limited to isolated cases and far short of what would be needed to justify a federal judge stepping in to alter the state’s election results.”

 

“It would require halting the certification of results in a state election in which millions of people have voted,” the judge said. “It would interfere with an election after the voting was done.”

 

“It harms the public interest in countless ways, particularly in the environment in which this election occurred,” Judge Grimberg said. “To halt the certification at literally the 11th hour would breed confusion and potentially disenfranchisement that I find has no basis in fact or in law.”

 

* 

THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN did score a temporary win in Pennsylvania Thursday evening. This time a state appeals court ruled, 2-1, in favor of a bid to disqualify 2,349 mail-in ballots in the Pittsburgh area because they lacked a date next to the voter’s signature. That ruling was expected to be appealed further to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. If upheld, it could lower Biden’s vote total, but since the challenger had an 81,000 vote lead, the math still looked less than promising. 

The joy felt by the president, his wacky lawyers, and his blind, deaf and dumb followers, was certainly short lived. As The Hill reported, U.S. Middle District Judge Matthew Brann ruled that the campaign presented “strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations” that were “unsupported by evidence.”

 

Judge Brann continued in his opinion: “In the United States of America, this cannot justify the disenfranchisement of a single voter, let alone all the voters of its sixth most populated state. Our people, laws, and institutions demand more.” If that wasn’t quite clear enough, he continued, “One might expect that when seeking such a startling outcome, a plaintiff would come formidably armed with compelling legal arguments and factual proof of rampant corruption. That has not happened.” 

Rudy Giuliani, who handled the case in court, himself (after five other lawyers smelled a losing proposition and dropped out) insisted he was happy with the results—and the case would move on rapidly, reaching the U.S. Supreme Court, where no doubt the conservative block of justices would proclaim Donald Trump as America’s first king. Rudy might have been miffed, after Judge Brann described the legal case put forward by the president’s team as a “Frankenstein monster” badly stitched together. In any case, he pointed out more than once that Brann was an “Obama judge,” hinting that he was therefore not to be trusted. It took only a little quick digging to learn that Brann was a Republican official in Pennsylvania for many years and remains a registered Republican to this day. His nomination to the bench, involved President Obama getting “half a loaf” when facing a recalcitrant U.S. Senate, where Milksop Mitch McConnell was busy rejecting almost everyone Obama suggested for seats on the federal bench. Brann’s confirmation moved forward, for once, and he was unanimously confirmed. 

You can look it up if you like. 

* 

FRIDAY, of course, the president invited several Michigan lawmakers to the White House in hopes of convincing them to ignore election results, which saw Biden roll up a 150,000+ margin in their state.

 

Politico noted in a separate story, after Trump’s gambit with the Michigan lawmakers fizzled, that even Trump advisers were ready to admit the truth. “He’s running out the clock,” said one member of the Trump campaign. “I don’t expect any jaw-dropping developments out of today’s meeting and I certainly don’t expect the results to change between now and January.”

 

(There was a brief moment of joy in Trumpistan, when the Michigan lawmakers who came to town to meet with the president were caught on camera celebrating at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., before catching a flight home. Bottles of Dom Perignon were purchased (only $500 at the Trump bar) and happily consumed. A sign that champagne was flowing—and votes were coming Trump’s way?)

Then, over the weekend, and continuing into Monday, the blows continued to fall. The Dom Perignon wasn’t enough. On Monday officials in Michigan went ahead and certified the vote. 

Biden beat Trump and won the state’s electoral votes.

 

A new chorus of concerned Republicans could be heard, calling on the president to face reality for once. Trump’s biggest donor on Wall Street, Steve Schwarzman, said it was clear Biden had won. It was time to “move on.” Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland said the president’s refusal to concede was harming the country. “We were the most respected country in respect to elections,” he noted. “And now we’re beginning to look like we’re a banana republic.” It was time, he said, for the president to “stop golfing and concede.” Sen. Lisa Murkowski agreed it was time for Trump to face reality and stop insisting he had been cheated. His behavior, she said, was “inconsistent with our democratic process.” Even Sen. Kevin Kramer, of deep red North Dakota, said it was time (at least) for the Trump administration to start cooperating with the Biden transition team. Chris Christie—who pointed out that he had voted for Trump twice—described the conduct of the president’s legal team as “a national embarrassment.” He was not the only observer to note a strange anomaly in almost every court proceeding to that point. That is, Trump’s lawyers “allege fraud outside the courtroom, but when they go inside the courtroom, they don’t plead fraud and they don’t argue fraud.” Christie, a former federal prosecutor, noted that you can’t go into court and lie to a judge. He went on to add that “elections have consequences, and we cannot continue to act as if something happened here that didn’t happen. You have an obligation to present the evidence. The evidence has not been presented.”

 

Cough, cough. It doesn’t…cough, cough…exist.

 

Sen. Lamar Alexander added his voice to the growing chorus, telling reporters that “the presidential election is rapidly coming to a formal end.” He was hopeful, that the president would finally admit it. “Since it seems apparent that Joe Biden will be the president-elect, my hope is that President Trump will take pride in his accomplishments, put the country first and have a prompt and orderly transition to help the new administration succeed. When you are in public life, people remember the last thing you do.”

 

Finally, let’s wrap it up for today with a statement signed by more than 100 leading Republican national security experts. They write:

 

We are former senior national security officials who served in Republican administrations under Presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, and/or Donald Trump or as Republican Members of Congress. We believe that President Trump’s refusal to concede the election and allow for an orderly transition constitutes a serious threat to America’s democratic process and to our national security. We therefore call on Republican leaders – especially those in Congress – to publicly demand that President Trump cease his anti-democratic assault on the integrity of the presidential election.

 

It has been clear for over two weeks that Joe Biden won the 2020 Presidential election, garnering 306 electoral votes, far more than the 270 electoral votes required to be elected.

 

Despite this clear outcome, President Trump has refused to accept the results and begin the transition process. While the President is legally entitled to request recounts and file good-faith legal challenges, he has presented no evidence of widespread fraud or any other significant irregularities. Nearly every case filed by the President’s team across multiple states has been summarily dismissed. President Trump’s continued efforts to cast doubt on the validity of the election and to interfere in state electoral processes undermine our democracy and risk long-term damage to our institutions.

 

Although some Republican leaders have supported President Trump’s right to challenge aspects of the voting in various states, for the good of the country, they should now strongly oppose his dangerous and extra-legal efforts to intimidate state election officials and distort the Electoral College process

 

The signers included Tom Ridge, who served as homeland security secretary under President George W. Bush, former CIA director Michael Hayden and John D. Negroponte, the first Director of National Intelligence, also under George W. Bush.

 

 

Postscript: If you’d like to imbibe in a little Dom Perignon, yourself, but you can’t afford to visit the Trump International Hotel in Washington D.C., you can still order a bottle (free shipping!) from the Wine Express.

 

Only $189.95.

 

(The president had no public events scheduled for today.)

Vintage Dom Perignon will set you back quite a bit more.

___

 

11/22/20: The president spends another “busy” weekend:

 

A)    Denying he lost the election.

B)     Insisting that a leading member of his legal team was never really a member of his legal team.

C)    Pretending that COVID-19 is going away.

D)   Playing golf rather than bother addressing any real problems the nation is currently facing.

 

First, on Sunday, he manages to dash off and play Round #312 of golf since taking the oath of office.

 

Second, loose cannon lawyer and touter of absurd theories about how President Trump was cheated out of a “landslide” win, Sidney Powell, has been bounced from the “elite strike force” (see: 11/19/20) fighting to overturn the election results in court. On Thursday, she, Rudy Giuliani, and Jenna Ellis held forth in a press conference for 1 hour and 45 minutes, a batsh*t performance, with three legs to the stool. Rudy, the first leg, literally melted on camera, as hair dye-colored sweat ran down his face. Ellis, the second leg, railed at reporters and howled at the networks that refused to carry the entire performance live. Powell, the third leg, topped it all off—insisting that the ghost of Hugo Chavez, the deceased Venezuelan dictator, had managed to employ software to steal votes in multiple states without anyone (except people like Powell) noticing.

 

It didn’t help when she insisted—after the Georgia hand recount went against Trump, too—that she realized Brian Kemp, the Republican governor of the state, was also in on the Hugo fix.

 

So, on Saturday, she told reporters for right-wing Newsmax that an election lawsuit she had filed in Georgia would “be biblical.” She went on to add, “Georgia’s probably going to be the first state I’m gonna blow up.”

 

She even promised to “unleash the Kraken.”

 

Alas, Powell’s claims were so nutty, that even the other nuts realized she was making them look bad. Sunday the other nuts released a statement: “Sidney Powell is practicing law on her own. She is not a member of the Trump Legal Team. She is also not a lawyer for the President in his personal capacity,” Giuliani and Ellis insisted in a statement, which was interesting to say the least. During Thursday’s press conference, Giuliani identified Ms. Powell as a member of the team and the president identified her as someone working for him in a November 14 tweet. 

 

I look forward to Mayor Giuliani spearheading the legal effort to defend OUR RIGHT to FREE and FAIR ELECTIONS! Rudy Giuliani, Joseph diGenova, Victoria Toensing, Sidney Powell, and Jenna Ellis, a truly great team, added to our other wonderful lawyers and representatives! 

 

Yes, a “truly great team.” Powell suddenly not included.

 

*

 

WHILE TRUMP was flying around his private course in a golf cart, and whacking away at the pebbled white ball, he had no public comments to offer on the spreading pandemic. The CDC reported in his place that the country had piled up 184,591 cases on November 21. The death toll for the day: 1,476.

 

Total deaths from COVID-19:

 

255,076.

___

 

11/21/20: A weekend calm settles over the White House. At 8 a.m., the president even participates in a “Virtual 2020 G20 Summit,” from the White House Situation Room. Let’s hope none of the other world leaders made fun of the lame-duck by fake “quacking” under their breathe.

 

We do learn, however, that within thirteen minutes, the president lost interest in the Zoom-style meeting. He went back to tweeting about how he was being cheated out of a second term.

 

When other G20 leaders broke for a special session on the global pandemic, Trump decided not to participate in the discussion.

 

Instead, he called on his Secret Service detail and off they went to his private resort in Potomac Falls, Virginia for yet another round of golf: Round # 311 since Trump took office—and swore he would be too busy working for the American people to ever play golf.

 

Like that bum, Obama (333 rounds in two full terms as president).

Trump can't face the facts.

 

*

 

VARIOUS “fake news” organizations spend time compiling examples of growing concern in Republican circles.

 

This is sometimes known as, “reporters going out to find quotes.”

 

____________________

 

“It is difficult to image a worse, more undemocratic action by a sitting American President.”

 

Sen. Mitt Romney

____________________

 

 

Sen. Lamar Alexander, chair of the influential Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, tells reporters,

 

If there is any chance whatsoever that Joe Biden will be the next president, and it looks like he has a very good chance, the Trump Administration should provide the Biden team with all transition materials, resources, and meetings necessary to ensure a smooth transition so that both sides are ready on day one. That especially should be true, for example, on vaccine distribution.

 

Three Republican members of the U.S. House go on record. When asked about Trump’s efforts to overturn the election results, Rep. Kay Granger, a veteran Texas lawmaker, told CNN she has “great concerns about it,” adding, “I think that it’s time to move on.” Granger insisted that Trump should be transparent about the situation. “I think it’s time for him to really realize and be very clear about what’s going on,” she said. 

When asked if Trump should concede, Fred Upton, a senior Michigan Republican who was targeted by Democrats but won reelection bid by 16 points, said, “Yeah. I think it’s all said and done.” 

What about voter fraud in his home state? “No one has seen any real identification of any real fraud,” Upton said. 

Even more to the point—long term—Rep. Adam Kinzinger, an Illinois Republican, said he worried Trump’s claims were shaking the core of democracy. “What I have a real issue with is making unfounded claims of fraud and illegitimacy,” Kinzinger said. “And that has a real damaging effect.” 

Referencing the president’s ploys to convince Michigan election officials to do his bidding, and just give him the state’s 16 electoral votes, Sen. Mitt Romney is brutally honest. Having failed to make even a plausible case of widespread fraud or conspiracy before any court of law, the President has now resorted to overt pressure on state and local officials to subvert the will of the people and overturn the election,” he warned. “It is difficult to image a worse, more undemocratic action by a sitting American President.” 

In a similar vein, Stephen Saltzburg, who served in the Justice Department during the Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations, and now serves as a professor at the George Washington University School of Law, told ABC that what was happening was a scandal. “If any other president were to have ever attempted what this president has been doing, people would begin to look at conspiracy to violate election laws.” 

Reporters for The Hill applied a little shoe leather to the story and tracked down a number of other concerned Republicans. 

“This is delusional,” Mark Braden, the former chief counsel at the Republican National Committee admits. “I’m a professional Republican so it’s not easy for me to have to deal with my friends on this. Look—voter fraud occurs. I’ve seen it. It happens. But you have to be realistic about the size and scope of it.”

 

Republican lawyers told reporters that Trump’s “early legal challenges on voter fraud were defensible and reasonable, even if they had no chance of changing the outcome of the election.” Now, they admit to being “disturbed by the dark turn things have taken,” and worry that Trump’s claims were “undermining democracy and misleading millions of his own supporters.”

 

Braden, for one, had no use for the bizarre argument put forward earlier this week, by Rudy Giuliani and the rest of Trump’s current team. “The Venezuelans didn’t screw around with the voting machines,” he grimaced.

 

That’s 100 percent total nonsense. I don’t know what’s going on here. It’s very dangerous that we’re undermining the system. Democracy isn’t a God-given right. It’s a fragile process. The two most important things are that the person with the most lawful votes wins, and that the people who voted for the losing side also believe their candidate lost. This is undermining that idea and it’s a dangerous thing.

 

Sen. Ben Sasse mocked the president’s legal team for making an allegation of “grand fraud” but so far refusing to take the claim in front of a judge.

 

“When Trump campaign lawyers have stood before courts under oath, they have repeatedly refused to actually allege grand fraud because there are legal consequences for lying to judges,” Sasse explained.

 

Support for the president’s scorched earth defense of his “victory,” was beginning to wear thin among leading Republicans. The editorial board at the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which endorsed Trump twice and is owned by billionaire GOP megadonor Sheldon Adelson, said the president was doing a “disservice to his more rabid supporters by insisting that he would have won the Nov. 3 election absent voter fraud.”

 

The editorial board at the Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post called on Mr. Trump to “stop the stolen election rhetoric” and to “get Rudy Giuliani off TV.” Tranquilizer darts, a big net, tackle the poor sweating fool. Just get him off the screen. 

Rep. Anthony Gonzalez (R-Ohio) called the Giuliani press conference “embarrassing,” and said that comments from Sidney Powell undermined voters’ confidence in the democratic process. He argued that the president’s lawyers needed to hold “real investigations” focused on “real claims. Not whatever it was Sidney Powell was talking about.” 

Gonzalez was aghast. “I mean the Sidney Powell claims were, I don’t even know how to describe it, I mean they were beyond the pale. If you’re going to allege that communists’ money and Hugo Chavez rigged the Dominion voting system to overturn millions of votes over decades, you better have sufficient proof, and I didn’t see anything that was even close to that.” he told The Hill. 

“So, that was disappointing because at the end of the day, what we really need to do is build confidence in our electoral process,” he continued. “That’s what we have to do, because this will now be the second election in a row where one side of the aisle is going to be heavily disputing your outcome, and that’s not healthy.” 

Writing for the Wall Street Journal, GOP strategist Karl Rove, who has been close to the top brass at the Trump campaign, was also blunt. “This election won’t be overturned,” he said. 

Jonathan Turley, the constitutional scholar who defended the president during the impeachment hearings in the House may regret what he said at the time, when he did not think Trump’s conduct merited removal from office. “They’re claiming to have evidence,” he said of the president’s legal team, “but that evidence has not been filed. They’ve filed a large number of affidavits stating voting irregularities, but they haven’t filed anything to support these sweeping claims about an international conspiracy. That’s what breathtaking.” 

Reporters kept asking and top Republicans started to answer. Rep. Liz Cheney said it was time for Trump’s legal team to start producing real evidence, not make absurd claims about Venezuelans and the ghost of Hugo Chavez screwing with a U.S. election. She explained: 

America is governed by the rule of law. The President and his lawyers have made claims of criminality and widespread fraud, which they allege could impact election results. If they have genuine evidence of this, they are obligated to present it immediately in court and to the American people.

 

I understand that the President has filed more than thirty separate lawsuits. If he is unsatisfied with the results in those lawsuits, then the appropriate avenue is to appeal. If the President cannot prove these claims or demonstrate that they would change the election result, he should fulfill his oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States by respecting the sanctity of our electoral process.

 

He should. But of course, this is Donald Trump, so he hasn’t. For eighteen straight days, and counting, he has devoted his main efforts as president to claiming he was electorally screwed.

 

Meanwhile, the usual sycophants could be trusted to slobber in defense of a president who had not provided any real evidence yet in court. Asked on Thursday if his state should delay certifying the election, Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar told CNN: “I believe it should.” Gosar also said the “state has the ability” to name its own electors to the Electoral College if the results aren’t certified as part of the “system set up by our founders.” When asked if he supported the idea of the legislature naming its own electors, Gosar said: “I do.” 

(When last we checked, Arizona returns showed Joe Biden with 1,672,143 votes, to Trump’s 1,661,686.)

 

Postscript: I, for one, was having trouble forgetting some of the claims that the Trump campaign and Trump sycophants had already made up. One favorite involved a story that the U.S. Army had raided the office of the Spanish election software company Scytl in Frankfurt, Germany. There they supposedly seized several computer servers that had evidence of voting irregularities in the recent U.S. election. 

 

“Those allegations are false.” 

First, that story took a major hit when the U.S. Army denied having raided any offices of any company in Frankfurt. When asked by the Associated Press about the purported raid, and the Army’s “seizure” of some mythical servers, a spokesperson for the Army replied tersely, “Those allegations are false.” 

Second, Scytl announced that it did not have any offices or servers in the city, although it did do work there in 2019 for the European Parliament. 

Still, this was Team Trump we were talking about, where no matter how absurd the charge, that charge will be believed and spread through the ether. Social media users Saturday began sharing reports that the servers—the ones U.S. military forces says it didn’t confiscate—would reveal wrongdoing in the U.S. election. Right-wingers suggested the servers housed information from Dominion Voting Systems. 

Who helped get this tall tale moving first on social media? None other than Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas. Louie is best known for insisting in the spring of 2015, that a plot was afoot in the Obama administration to use U.S. soldiers to invade Texas, somehow using secret tunnels connected to abandoned Walmart stores. (The U.S. Army denied that far-fetched claim at the time.) In his remarks on the current story, Gohmert acknowledged that the information about the alleged raid in Frankfurt came only from a “German tweet in German,” and he admitted, “I don’t know the truth.” 

But he’d still be happy to spread the rumor! 

The New York Times noted that Gohmert talked to Charlie Kirk, a star in the right-wing blogosphere. Kirk naturally bought the story. Lin Wood, another right-wing name on Twitter, then amplified the tale, noting, “Biden & his criminal cronies are not going to sleep well tonight. Well, Biden might, because he probably forgot the name Scytl. His co-conspirators know name well. They also know the name Paragon, company which purchased Scytl in 10/20.” 

In other words, the story was flawed at its heart, but Trump and some of his looniest allies were happy to spread it.

___

11/20/20: All day, Friday, the votes trickled in from the Nov. 3 election. Joe Biden’s lead in the popular vote continued to grow, passing six million:

 

Biden:        79,816,557

Trump:      73,781,603

 

By Friday evening you could argue it was official: The President of the United States was full of beans.

 

Having insisted that Dominion Voting Machines used in Georgia (and other states) were secretly manipulated to cheat him out of hundreds of thousands—even millions—of votes, we now had our first statewide “proof” of that shocking claim.

 

______________________

 

“Election systems across the country are found to have deleted millions of votes cast for President Trump.”

 

One America News Network’s Lilia Fifield; claim not substantiated

______________________

 

 

The hand recount in Georgia, completed by the office of the Georgia Secretary of State, showed no significant change from the original electronic tallies.

 

Mr. Trump, of course, spent his time alternately complaining that the recount was a “scam” and then expressing confidence that Georgia would “flip Republican” when all the votes were counted a second time. At one point, Trump called upon the governor of Georgia to help a brother out. “Get it done! @BrianKempGA,” the president tweeted.

 

Alas, there was nothing “@BrianKempGA” could do to “get it done” and alter plain math. Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger announced that the recount again showed Biden had won and officially certified the results on Friday, as required by state law. The Trump campaign responded in a statement that, “This so-called hand recount went exactly as we expected because Georgia simply recounted all of the illegal ballots that had been included in the total.”

 

Nor were any of the right-wing “experts” willing to swallow the bitter pill represented by this “so-called hand recount,” which was, in fact, a full, statewide, hand recount. One America News Network’s Lilia Fifield reverted to retelling the big lie pushed before the recount. “Election systems across the country are found to have deleted millions of votes cast for President Trump,” she wailed. “According to an unaudited analysis of data obtained from Edison Research, states using Dominion Voting Systems may have switched as many as 435,000 votes from President Trump to Joe Biden.”  And yet, the full Georgia recount showed the president had been “cheated” out of less than 1,300 net votes—more than half of that number in a red county where election officials blundered and failed to download a memory card.

 

Fifield, however, continued to insist that the “the author [of the Edison Research] also finds another 2.7 million Trump votes appear to have been deleted by Dominion including almost one million truckloads in Pennsylvania alone.”

 

That votes “appear to have been deleted,” wasn’t really evidence, and the “one million truckloads in Pennsylvania alone” line was bizarre. How many votes were there per “truckload,” one would clearly want to know.

 

Let’s just make up a number, multiply it out, and run with it, like Trump and his legal team. I’ll say “1000.” Clearly, a truckload of votes could be 1,000. So, I am ready to “report” that 1,000,000,000 votes were stolen “in Pennsylvania alone.” I realize this is an impossible number to claim; but the President of the United States has been making equally outlandish claims because the President of the United States is an ill-informed lout. Thursday, with the recount going badly, he had tweeted:

 

Report: Dominion deleted 2.7 million Trump votes nationwide. Data analysis finds 221,000 Pennsylvania votes switched from President Trump to Biden. 941,000 Trump votes deleted. States using Dominion Voting Systems switched 435,000 votes from Trump to Biden.

 

But now we had absolute “data analysis” in Georgia. We had proof. When all was said and done in Georgia, and five million votes were checked again…

 

Trump lost again.

 

* 

NOR WAS THE NEWS from Georgia the only blow Team Trump suffered on Friday. The president also summoned leaders of the Michigan legislature to the White House, to suggest they ignore the will of the people, declare him the winner despite Biden’s 150,000 vote lead, and send a slate of pro-Trump electors to the Electoral College to gift him Michigan’s 16 electoral votes. The Michigan Senate and House leaders listened to the president, but came away unmoved. 

“We have not yet been made aware of any information that would change the outcome of the election in Michigan and as legislative leaders,” they told the free press, “we will follow the law and follow the normal process regarding Michigan’s electors, just as we have said throughout this election.”                              

Axios was soon reporting that the president was “on an island.” Even most of his closest advisers had “completely distanced themselves from his legal effort” and most had psychologically “checked out.” They were waiting for reality to take hold, for Trump to realize he was finished, so they could start looking for new work. Sources told Axios that even Jared and Ivanka believed this strategy of denying vote counts was leading nowhere. Yet, the same sources admitted it had been impossible to have any conversation with the president about the election without it turning into a rant about the Dominion Voting Machine conspiracy.   

*

 

AS FOR MR. TRUMP’S other great prediction—that we had turned the corner on the coronavirus—and if Biden won, we’d never hear about it again after Nov. 4, that, too, has proven epically in error. 

Sen. Rick Scott is the latest big-name Republican to contract COVID-19. “I am feeling good and experiencing very mild symptoms,” Scott said in a statement. Still, he added correctly: “I want to remind everyone to be careful and do the right things to protect themselves and others. Wear a mask. Social distance. Quarantine if you come in contact with someone positive like I did.” 

In related news, HHS Secretary Dr. Ben Carson has recovered from his bout with the virus, but in yet another reality check for those who insist the threat is overrated, Dr. Carson admits he had a very close call. His initial symptoms were mild, he explained, but then he fell “desperately ill.” He had “several co-morbidities” that played a role. “President Trump was following my condition and cleared me for the monoclonal antibody therapy that he had previously received, which I am convinced saved my life,” Carson continued. He said he is now “out of the woods.” 

But not all Americans have been so fortunate, as to be able to command the best medical care. 

CDC reports we had another 165,087 cases on Nov. 18. And 1,836 more Americans died. 

On November 19, we had another 185,095 cases of COVID-19 and 2,045 additional citizens will no longer be celebrating this holiday season—or any other for the rest of eternity—with their bereaved families. 

On November 20, while Trump was focused on getting Michigan lawmakers to hand him 16 electoral votes he hadn’t earned, the U.S. hit a new high for cases: 192,673 in one day, and another 1,885 Americans died, without every enjoying their Thanksgiving turkey and stuffing in gravy. 

Total lost lives: 253,600. 

Even the celebration at the White House will be muted this year. Don Jr. has tested positive  and is said to be self-isolating at a cabin somewhere in the woods. 

 

Postscript: On Thursday we had another depressing weekly unemployment report. The number of first-time claims rose to 742,000, higher than Wall Street expected. 

Another 320,000 Americans filed for help under the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program. And an estimated 20.3 million Americans are currently receiving government help.

___

 

 11/19/20: Thursday shall go down in history as the day Rudy Giuliani melted on live TV. Years from now political scientists will still be studying what has to be one of the weirdest press conferences ever held by a team purportedly representing the President of the United States.

 

____________________

 

“An elite strike force.”

 

Jenna Ellis

____________________

 

 

And not just any team!

 

Mr. Giuliani was accompanied by two other Trump lawyers, Sidney Powell, and Jenna Ellis, who both spoke at length. Ellis referred to their efforts to prove massive voter fraud as the work of an “elite strike force.” (See: 11/22/20.) 

Leader of an "elite strike force."

Rudy, of course, had recently been filmed looking for an elite strike force in his pants, after being caught in a Sacha Borat Cohen movie sting. That sting featured Rudy in a room with a young woman he believed was a teenage reporter. After she helped him adjust his microphone, Rudy lay down on the bed and the search commenced—only to be rudely interrupted by Cohen in his character as the teen reporter’s cross-dressing father. 

Rudy next showed up at the Four Seasons in Philadelphia, apparently believing he was going to present a talk about election fraud at the four-star hotel. It turned out to be a classic f**k up, with Rudy talking from a podium in front of a garage door at the Four Seasons Total Landscaping company, in a poorer section of town. On one side you had a crematorium. On the other was a sex shop. Keen-eyed reporters noted the shop was running a special called “DILDO MADNESS.” 

* 

If any of this sounded like the work of an elite strike force, it only got worse once today’s press conference began. 

Rudy was mad about voter fraud in multiple states—that is any state that failed to vote for Donald J. Trump. 

“It’s not a singular voter fraud in one state,” Giuliani warned, this time speaking from the Republican National Committee headquarters. He was adamant—that he and his team had proof—and Trump had been robbed: 

This pattern repeats itself in a number of states, almost exactly the same pattern, which any experienced investigator prosecutor, which suggests that there was a plan—from a centralized place to execute these various acts of voter fraud, specifically focused on big cities, and specifically focused on, as you would imagine, big cities controlled by Democrats, and particularly if they focused on big cities that have a long history of corruption.

 

I know crimes, I can smell them. You don’t have to smell this one, I can prove it to you, 18 different ways. I can prove to you that he won, Pennsylvania, by 300,000 votes. I can prove to you that he won Michigan, probably 50,000 votes. 

 

But to be honest, it was hard not to be distracted, while “America’s Mayor” talked. Someone must have turned the thermostat up to 95° in the room. Sweat poured down Rudy’s cheeks. A recent hair-dye job (maybe to enhance his sex appeal where teenage reporters are involved) proved problematic. The beads of sweat turned into brown streaks, and he had to keep mopping his face. 

Sidney Powell didn’t bring the melting hair dye; but what she did bring was the absolute confidence of a person who would believe anything she heard and then want you to believe it too. She spun a fairy tale with so many moving parts that reporters would have been within their rights had they burst out laughing on the spot. 

Here’s how Powell described the main plot against President Trump. There had been, 

…massive influence of communist money through Venezuela, Cuba, and likely China and the interference with our elections here in the United States. The Dominion voting systems…were created in Venezuela at the direction of Hugo Chavez to make sure he never lost an election after one constitutional referendum came out the way he didn’t want it to come out.

 

She went on to claim, 

We have one very strong witness, who has explained how it all works. His affidavit is attached to the pleadings of Lin Wood [a prominent attorney] and the lawsuit he filed in Georgia. It is a stunning, detailed affidavit, because he was with Hugo Chavez, while he was being briefed on how it worked, with Hugo Chavez when he saw it operate, to make sure the election came out his way, that was the express purpose for creating the software, he has seen this operate, and as soon as he saw the multiple states shut down the voting at the…on the night of the election…he knew the same thing was happening here, that that was what had gone on.

 

Powell then made it “clear” that George Soros was involved in this fraud—and the Clinton Foundation had also played a role. Antifa had a hand. Black Lives Matter did too. Really, if she had said aliens from a distant galaxy landed their spaceships in a field in Pennsylvania and started screwing with that state’s vote, it would have made just as much sense. 

Ms. Powell was just getting warmed up, too. And she would go on radio the next day to insist that Biden had received ten million bogus votes. Seven million of those were switched from Trump’s column to the Vice President’s tally, all through the use of Dominion Voting Machine-related shenanigans. 

For good measure, she insisted that several million dead people had voted, apparently, all for Joe Biden. 

Powell went on to say, in her radio interview, that the Trump campaign had plans to file a whole bunch of winning court challenges. That despite the fact, that as of Thursday, the Day Rudy Melted, Team Trump had already filed 30 legal challenges to the vote, and won exactly one. 

Powell had plenty to say, most of it nuts. At the press conference with Rudy and Jenna, she went on to claim that both Democratic and Republican politicians had paid bribes to the Dominion folks to get the election results they desired. 

It was mesmerizing to watch Powell speak—a woman absolutely brimming with confidence, yet possessed with a head filled with coconut. At one point, she insisted, “this is the 1775 of our generation and beyond,” which sounded like a threat involving muskets and Minutemen if Trump didn’t win.

 

Naturally, like every right-wing shill in the last fifty years, Powell claimed the mantel of patriotism for her zany side.

 

We will not be intimidated. American patriots are fed up with corruption from the local level to the highest levels of our government. And we are going to take this country back….we are not going to be intimidated, we are not going to back down, we are going to clean this mess up now, President Trump won by a landslide, and we are going to prove it. And we are going to reclaim the United States of America for people who vote for freedom.

 

While Powell talked, Ms. Ellis stood behind her, a smirk on her face—not noticing or perhaps not caring that her colleague was talking about civil war. Still, anything was better than watching another human being melt on camera.

 

Finally, Ellis got up and ranted about “fake news” and how almost no one (save Fox News) was broadcasting their press conference live.

 

“This is what you can expect to see when we get to court, to actually have a full trial on the merits, to actually show this evidence in court, and prove our case,” she fumed. “This is not a Law & Order episode where everything is wrapped up neatly in sixty minutes.”

 

Clearly, she grumbled, most of the reporters in the room had never been court reporters. They didn’t realize what a great case the “elite strike force” was presenting right then and there. “This is basically an opening statement so the American people can understand what the networks have been hiding and what they refuse to cover because all of your fake-news headlines are dancing around the merits of this case and are trying to delegitimize what we are doing here.”

 

* 

I, FOR ONE, found it impossible to look away. In the end, it was bad enough that the case for massive voter fraud in the November 2020 election, rested on the work of Hugo Chavez, dead since March 2013. 

It was interesting, too, that the election-stealing technology Powell insisted was used in 2020 was around in 2016, yet the Clinton Foundation had failed to use it to swing the votes in three much closer state races that year. 

So, why not let Christopher Krebs, until earlier this week, the head of U.S. cybersecurity tasked with protecting our elections, have the last word.

 

“That press conference was the most dangerous 1hr 45 minutes of television in American history. And possibly the craziest,” he tweeted. “If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you’re lucky.” 

 

Postscript: The day after attending the press conference Andrew Giuliani, Rudy’s son, tested positive for COVID-19. 

So, if Rudy’s flop sweat was evidence of a positive test coming, no one would have been surprised. 

As ABC noted: 

Andrew Giuliani works a sports liaison at the White House, with an annual salary of $95,000, according to government document.

 

His Twitter profile says he is “Currently serving the American public as Special Assistant to President Donald J. Trump until January 20, 2025.”

___

 

 

11/18/20: Donald J. Trump, who badly desires a second term, is spending the end of his first term in hiding.

 

Once again, he has no public events scheduled for today

 

*

 

SADLY, while the president hides out in the White House and pouts, the corner he says we turned on the coronavirus leads us straight down Infection Street, where everyone we meet is ill.

 

In just the last week, eight members of Congress have tested positive. At greatest risk may be Sen. Chuck Grassley, 87. The elderly Iowa Republican attended a meeting with other GOP Senate leaders on Monday and tested positive Tuesday. Seven members of the House, Reps. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., Ed Perlmutter, D-Colo., Don Young, R-Alaska, Cheri Bustos, D-Ill., Tim Walberg, R-Mich. and incoming Rep. Ashley Hinson, R-Iowa, have also been infected. 

 

Rep. Young, also 87, and just reelected for a 25^th term, has been one of those who insisted that it’s up to the individual to show responsibility and wear a mask if he or she wants. Young has been reluctant to wear one. So, it was no surprise when he ended up in a hospital for three days. 

In fact, you could say Young went down swinging (and missing), after speaking to other Alaska seniors last week. “They call it the coronavirus. I call it the beer virus. How do you like that? It attacks us senior citizens. I’m one of you,” Young joked. “I still say we have to as a nation and state go forth with everyday activities.” 

Yes, go forth with everyday activities, such as 911 calls, ambulance rides to the hospital, and trips to the morgue! 

Young proved to be singularly ill-informed, telling his audience that the deadliness of COVID-19 has been “blown out of proportion.” He insisted, “it’s not nearly as deadly as the other viruses we have. Whether you realize it or not, we are at war now,” he told his audience. “But mostly because of the presentations by the mass media.”

 

So, let’s see what the “mass media” is saying. According to experts at CDC: the U.S. piled up 164,382 cases of COVID-19 on November 17. And 1,602 Americans died as a result of “presentations by the mass media.”

 

Total deaths reported by the Center for Disease Control, from the “beer virus:”

 

247,834.

 

As far as his own bout of sickness, Rep. Young admitted Monday that it had been hard. “Very frankly,” he said in an email to a reporter, “I had not felt this sick in a very long time.”  

Young had gone forth with his “everyday activities,” including a birthday party at the Little Italy restaurant in Anchorage on Nov. 6, where he was photographed without a mask. Several prominent Republicans who attended, Young included, soon tested positive for the virus. Former Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell was another. “Well, I think I’m going to live,” Treadwell, 64, told Alaska Public Radio. “I’ve had a cough coming from pretty much every part of my respiratory system. And what is it now? Early afternoon. I want to go back to bed.” 

So, “go forth with everyday activities,” American people! Maybe you can end up in the hospital for three days, like Rep. Young.

 

Or, as cases spiked across Alaska, you could listen to the warning issued by the governor instead of to Rep. Young. “No matter what you believe about the virus, the facts are the facts,” said Gov. Mike Dunleavy, also a Republican. “Hospitalizations and sick health-care workers are reaching untenable levels.”

 

Postscript: Even many Republican lawmakers are taken aback by the president’s decision to fire Chris Krebs. (See: 11/17/20).

 

Sen. Shelly Moore Capito had intended to meet with the head of DHS cybersecurity on Wednesday. “I was going to tell him thank you for a good job,” she told reporters. “I’m still going to tell him that—just not today.”

 

Capito said she was “disappointed” and flummoxed by the president’s personnel decisions: “I can’t explain it.”

 

(I can: this is Trump being Trump, a giant dick acting like a giant dick.)

 

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) called Trump’s move a “terrible mistake,” adding that Krebs is “an extraordinary talent who does a superb job overseeing the protection of our cyber capabilities.”

 

“It’s the president’s prerogative, but I think it just adds to the confusion and chaos,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, admitted to reporters. “And I’m sure I’m not the only one that would like some return to a little bit more of a—I don’t even know what’s normal anymore.”

___

 

11/17/20: Chris Krebs, the head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) at the Department of Homeland Security continues to stand by this statement: “There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised,” during the recent election

 

*

 

IN FACT, CISA has continued to update a website exposing what it calls election-related “rumors.”

 

Most of those rumors, of course, have been trumpeted by Lame Duck Don .

 

For example, could some rigged computer software program steal all kinds of Trump votes and give them to Biden? CISA explains:

 

The vast majority of votes cast in this election will be cast on paper ballots or using machines that produce a paper audit trail, which allow for tabulation audits to be conducted from the paper record in the event any issues emerge with the voting system software, audit logs, or tabulation.

 

What about dead people voting by the tens of thousands?

 

“Election officials regularly remove deceased individuals from voter registration rolls based on death records shared by state vital statistics agencies and the Social Security Administration,” CISA notes. “In other instances, a voting-age child with the same name and address as their deceased parent could be misinterpreted as a deceased voter” casting a ballot, “or lead to clerical errors.” 

 

What about vote totals for president in some districts that are higher than vote totals for down-ballot races? Is this proof that local officials are “padding” the vote for Joe Biden?

Nope.

 

CISA explains that voters typically vote for most of the top offices on any ticket, president, senators, governors in requisite years. They may skip voting for school board candidates or judges about whom they know nothing.

 

Was it true that the Department of Homeland Security was monitoring for counterfeit ballots?

 

No.

 

What about this particular rumor? “If results as reported on election night change over the ensuing days or weeks, the process is hacked or compromised, so I can’t trust the results.”

 

Don’t be stupid! CISA lays out the obvious case:

 

In fact, no state requires that official results be certified on election night itself. Fluctuations in unofficial results reporting will occur during and after election night as more ballots are processed and counted, often including military and overseas ballots, and validated provisional ballots. Variations in state processes may also mean ballots cast through different methods (e.g., early in-person voting, mail-in voting, and election day voting) are counted and unofficially reported in different orders. Official results are released after rigorous canvassing (verification) and certification by local and state election officials.

 

How about this: An observer for Team Trump saw an official in (name a state) filling in ballots for Biden!

 

Not really what was happening:

 

Some ballots cannot be read by a ballot scanner due to issues such as damage or misprinting. Some jurisdictions hand count such ballots, while others create duplicate ballots so they can be read by a ballot scanner. Some jurisdictions permit election officials to enhance markings on ballots that are too faint to scan following a process to adjudicate the voter’s intent based on state law. In jurisdictions where duplication of unscannable ballots is permitted, election officials duplicate the ballot precisely to ensure all the voter’s choices are transferred correctly to the new ballot. Both the original and duplicate ballot are labeled and logged so that the two ballots can be tracked and audited. Many jurisdictions require bipartisan teams of two or four personnel to complete this process and verify that votes are accurately transferred to duplicated ballots.

 

If you like, you can go to the website, yourself, in particular, if you are an ill-informed doofus.

 

A few more examples should suffice.

 

True or false: A malicious actor can easily defraud an election by printing and sending in extra mail-in ballots?

 

False, you dolts!

 

Security measures meant to weed out fake ballots include signature matching, bar codes, water marks, and even precise paper weights.

 

Finally, what about those dirty rats in Arizona who gave Trump voters black Sharpies to mark their ballots! What about that? They marked their ballots proudly, but machines couldn’t read the marks!

 

Okay. Nope.

 

Election jurisdictions allow voters to mark ballots with varying types of writing instruments, based on state law and other considerations such as tabulation system requirements. Poll workers are required to provide approved writing devices to voters.

 

Although felt-tip pens, like Sharpies, may bleed through ballots, some election officials have stated that ballot tabulation equipment in their jurisdictions can still read these ballots. Many jurisdictions even design their ballots with offset columns to prevent any potential bleed through from impacting the ability to easily scan both sides of ballots. 

 

If a ballot has issues that impact its ability to be scanned, it can be hand counted or duplicated, or adjudicated by election officials, who use defined procedures such as chain of custody to ensure protect [sic] ballot secrecy and integrity. Many states additionally have “voter intent” laws that allow for ballots to be counted even when issues such as bleed-throughs or stray marks are present, as long as the voter’s intent can still be determined.

 

*

 

AND IN ONE of the least surprising developments since the election was held, and the votes were tallied, President Trump has a hissy-fit and fires Krebs, specifically for saying that the election was not rigged.

 

 

Postscript: We regret to inform our readers, but the Trump administration has formally canceled a planned campaign where celebrities would discuss COVID-19. The original cost was estimated to be $300 million, and the celebrities would do their best to help us ordinary Americans in “defeating despair” over the rampant spread of the virus.

 

One contract, for $15 million to Atlas Research, had drawn close scrutiny, since Atlas was run by a business partner of HHS spokesman Michael Caputo, and tasked with lining up the actual celebrities to speak about the coronavirus.

 

And it turned out, most celebrities had no interest in shilling (basically) for the Trump administration and telling the American people, basically, “Hey, it’s not as bad as you think, and President Trump is doing a great job—even if people keep keeling over dead every day, by the hundreds.”

 

Total number of public service ads actually run, before the campaign was shelved: zero. Yes. Zero.

___

 

 11/16/20: Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger—a Republican—unloaded in a Washington Post interview Monday. 

With a hand recount of all votes in the state nearing completion, he said he was being pressured to find ways to exclude legal ballots. One of those pressuring him was Sen. Lindsey Graham.

Graham, of course, is not from Georgia. Graham would have no insight into how votes were cast in Georgia. Graham would have no legal standing to interfere. And when reporters asked him about his call to Raffensperger, Graham played coy. Oh, no, they had a fine conversation—and if Raffensperger got the idea that Graham wanted him to find a way to make sure Trump won…well, Graham was shocked. 

Just shocked. 

In 2016, Graham called Trump a "xenophobic, race-baiting bigot."

Raffensperger refers to himself as a Trump supporter, but told the Post he and his wife had been receiving death threats. “You better not botch this recount,” one caller warned. “Your life depends on it.” 

Naturally, according to Trump the fix is in. Dominion Voting Systems, a Colorado-based manufacturer of Georgia’s voting machines, is, he claims, a “leftist” company with ties to Venezuela. Dominion, the president and his supporters have said, left thousands of Trump votes out of the original count.

 

In reality, Raffenspeger noted Monday that several counties had completed hand recounts and tallies exactly matched the numbers reported by the Dominion machines.

As the day progressed, we learned that forty-two counties, with smaller populations had zero votes lost or gained for either candidate in the recount. Another 35 counties showed gains for the president of five votes or less. Peach County, for example, found six more votes for Biden, but eleven more for Trump, for a net gain of five, out of a total of 12,422 votes cast.

 

Hardly evidence of massive fraud.

 

In fact, 20 red counties, all uncovered minor counting errors in Biden’s favor: giving him a net gain of 45 votes.

 

Washington, a blue county, found six more votes, net, for Biden. Then you had several red counties, finding net votes for Biden: +6, +6, +7,+7, +8. Then a blue county, +10 for Biden. Calhoun, a blue county, netted Biden 16 votes. So did Coweta, a deep red county, giving Biden 9 and taking away 7 from Trump. Bartow County, another red jurisdiction, took away 59 Trump votes, added seven for the challenger, and netted Biden +66 votes. The biggest gains for Biden came in four blue counties: DeKalb, where Biden picked up 560 votes out of a total of 366,509 cast, Cobb—where Biden lost 30 votes in the recount, but Trump lost 345, for a net gain for Biden of 315 out of 387,305—and Dougherty and Henry counties (+117 each).

 

There were two major developments, however, when it turned out some election official in Floyd County forgot to upload 2,600 votes from a memory stick in the first tally. Those votes were uncovered during the hand recount. Floyd is a red county, so no “Democrats” were to blame.

 

The president managed to gain 686 votes from just that single mistake, the biggest change in any county in Georgia.

 

A second red county uncovered a second error—again thousands of votes not uploaded. Fayette County also failed to record 2,755 votes from a memory stick that correctly tallied the votes. But even when those votes were counted, Mr. Trump had a net gain of only 26.

 

Then Douglas County (a blue country) found a smaller error, with votes on a memory card from one precinct not uploaded (Biden 156, Trump 128).

 

 Walton County (red) also found a memory card with 284 votes not previously tallied. Trump netted another 86 votes.

 

The recount rolled on, with little net gain for either candidate. Five blue counties, Fulton, Gwinnett, Rockdale, Clayton, and Bibb, with a total of more than 1,152,000 votes, retallied their numbers. Trump gained, respectively: 345, 285, 241, 145 and 88 votes.

Clarke, another blue county, netted the president +78 votes, Newton +26, Macon +24, Muscogee +12, Terrill +10, and a few other blue counties showed lesser gains.

 

Yet the following red counties made similar mistakes, all in Trump’s favor: Walton +86, Thomas +84, Ware +74, Lowndes +70, Columbia +69, Forsyth +65, Hall +46, Wayne +40, Appling +38, Screven +37, Grady +33, Glynn +25, Whitfield +23, Brantley +19, Jackson +13, Wilkinson +11, Cherokee, Paulding and Tattnell, +10 each. 

 

So, when the smoke finally cleared, little was changed:

 

                                    First count                  Recount                      Gain

 

Joseph R. Biden Jr.   2,473,383                  2,475,141                  +1,758

 

Donald J. Trump       2,459,825                 2,462,857                  +3,032

 

Margin:                           13,558                      12,284

 

 

Trump, of course, wasn’t happy with the recount. Monday, he tweeted angrily about signature-matching in Georgia and criticized Raffensperger for his management of both the first election and the hand tally. “Georgia Secretary of State, a so-called Republican (RINO), won’t let the people checking the ballots see the signatures for fraud. Why? Without this the whole process is very unfair and close to meaningless. Everyone knows that we won the state.”

 

Um…not everyone does.

 

*

 

 

IN OTHER NEWS, after firing most of the top civilian leadership at the Pentagon, Lame Duck Don is rushing to withdraw thousands of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia.

 

Even Senate Leader McConnell has a hard time with the decision, saying such a withdrawal will “delight” the terrorists.

 

And while Trump was at it, he apparently had another great idea. Having learned that Iran now has 12 times more nuclear material than was allowed under the old Iran deal (which Trump tore up and replaced with a stack of Mar-a-Lago menus), Lame Duck Don thought it might be a great idea if he just went ahead and bombed the shit out of Iran’s main nuclear production site.  

 

Fortunately, even the sycophants who remain in top positions in this dysfunctional administration balked at that one.

 

So, call it a good day for America, I suppose.

___

 

11/15/20: President Trump spent another busy day denying that anyone in America really voted for Joe Biden. Or, if they did, they were “Antifa scum.” If Joe Biden voted for Joe Biden, Joe Biden’s vote was rigged!

 

*

 

WELL, WHAT TO DO with time hanging heavy on presidential hands? Trump could address the skyrocketing COVID-19 numbers. He could call on all of us to make sacrifices. He could call on Trump fans, and those of us who are not Trump fans, to do anything we can to help cut the spread.

 

He could actually lead.

 

We all benefit—as Americans—if we get a grip. My favorite restaurant guy here in Cincinnati, and a Trump supporter for sure, would love to see people come back to his establishment. But last time my wife and I were in, only three tables were occupied. My son wants the Deer Park, Ohio schools to remain open so his daughter Ellora can go to second grade classes. But if the coronavirus hits her school, his system of childcare fizzles, since three grandparents cover parts of every day. My son-in-law in Georgia voted for Trump; but at the car dealership where he works two associates have developed the virus. One almost died.

 

My wife and I are both infected. She has a mild case, which is good. Me? Seventeen days (so far) of what could pass for the worst case of flu ever.

 

Then again, I keep sweating so much, I’m losing weight.

 

*

 

IN ANY CASE, the President of the United States decided that the best way to spend Sunday would be to…go play golf!

 

That’s Round #310 since he took office.

 

While Trump worked on his short game Sunday, another 138,025 citizens he was elected to serve and protect fell ill.

Playing golf, playing president.

___

 

11/14/20: No doubt Trump was feeling better Saturday, since tens of thousands of fans descended on Washington, D.C., to show their support. Trump aides even managed to organize a motorcade which left the White House, passed through the adoring throngs, and then headed for Potomac Falls, Virginia, where Trump managed to squeeze in Round #309 of golf, since taking office.

 

____________________

 

“I’m going to be working for you, I’m not going to have time to go play golf.”

 

Donald J. Trump, making a promise to his supporters during his 2016 campaign

____________________

 

 

At this point, it would be difficult to say who is more deluded—the president, who refuses to concede defeat—or fans who believe he is being cheated out of a second term.

 

Benjamin Hovland, Chairman of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, tells CNN that while the president has made a number of “bold claims” of voter fraud, “we’ve seen zero evidence.” There’s “nothing that we’ve seen that would cause any real doubt in the integrity of the election.”

 

Again: Hovland is a Trump appointee.

 

*

 

DEEP INSIDE THE WHITE HOUSE, the president continues to insist that victory had been snatched from his deserving grasp.

 

In one tweet, he cites the claim of  “Top US Pollster and Statistician Richard Baris,” who Trump also refers to as the “People’s Pundit.” Baris was “SUSPENDED” from Twitter, Trump groans, for reporting on the “Disputed Election.”

 

(That only happens when you lie.)

 

It would seem the president also had help with this tweet, since he makes a passing reference to the book 1984, noting, “Political ‘WrongThink’ Not Allowed.” Baris, “Said 10,000 DEAD PEOPLE VOTED IN MICHIGAN. When will this RIGGED ELECTION be overturned!”

 

This could get embarrassing quick. As proof of such claims, the Trump campaign cited the shocking case of James Blalock, a World War II veteran, who voted in Georgia this election, despite having died fourteen years ago.

 

Yet, only the most minimal effort was required to show that Mr. Blalock had not in fact voted. His wife, Agnes, had, under her properly registered name: “Mrs. James E. Blalock, Jr.”

 

Team Trump also cited the case of “Linda Kesler,” a Georgia woman dead since 2003. She too had “voted” from the grave.

 

Once again, the ghost story proved not to be scary at all. Lynda Kesler—different address—different birthday—different zip code—and, for god sakes, different spelling of the first name—did vote.

 

As might have been expected, however, Tucker Carlson picked up this story when it began running, and reported with horror on this travesty of dead World War II veterans and other corpses voting

 

Then…um…okay….he had to admit he had been duped.

___

 

11/13/20: The coronavirus refuses to go away.

 

The same can be said of President Trump, who insists against all evidence that he won the election with a bazillion votes to spare. 

In Arizona, however, an attempt by the Trump legal team to block the counting of votes in Maricopa County, was withdrawn. As Axios explained, Kory Langhofer, a Trump campaign attorney, admitted in court today, that the campaign was not alleging any kind of widespread voter fraud. 

Trump’s lawyers instead “claimed that poll workers had submitted ballots with errors and did not give voters the opportunity to correct them.” 

Since the number of ballots involved was less than 200, and many of those who were complaining probably failed to understand the vote “curing” process, the futility of pursuing the lawsuit apparently dawned on even Trump’s lawyers at last. Joe Biden led in Arizona by more than 11,000 votes.

 

Picking up a few here would do zero good.

___

 

 

11/12/20: President Trump is lobbing claims of voter fraud like a mad chimpanzee hurling feces at his trainer. He was robbed, he barks, in every state that was close but didn’t vote for him. The voting machines were rigged to steal his votes and give them to Joe Biden. Dead people by the millions voted for the challenger. Mail-in balloting was rigged, with stamps and envelopes.

 

And licking. Lots of licking!

 

____________________

 

“The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history.”

 

Members of the Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council

____________________

 

 

By contrast, the members of Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council Executive Committee, including Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Assistant Director Bob Kolasky, U.S. Election Assistance Commission Chair Benjamin Hovland, National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) President Maggie Toulouse Oliver, and National Association of State Election Directors (NASED) President Lori Augino—whose job it was to safeguard the election—have issued the following statement:

 

The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history. Right now, across the country, election officials are reviewing and double checking the entire election process prior to finalizing the result. 

 

When states have close elections, many will recount ballots. All of the states with close results in the 2020 presidential race have paper records of each vote, allowing the ability to go back and count each ballot if necessary. This is an added benefit for security and resilience. This process allows for the identification and correction of any mistakes or errors. There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.

 

Other security measures like pre-election testing, state certification of voting equipment, and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission’s (EAC) certification of voting equipment help to build additional confidence in the voting systems used in 2020.

 

While we know there are many unfounded claims and opportunities for misinformation about the process of our elections, we can assure you we have the utmost confidence in the security and integrity of our elections, and you should too. When you have questions, turn to elections officials as trusted voices as they administer elections.

 

As for who they might have in mind, spreading “unfounded claims” and “misinformation about the process of our elections,” you can puzzle that out for yourself.

 

It’s worth noting that Mr. Hovland is a Trump appointee, Bob Kolasky at CISA, works for Charles Krebs, also a Trump appointee. The other signatories represent bipartisan groups of state election officials. These people have no reason to lie.

___

 

 

11/11/20: President Trump makes his first public appearance since the election, in a ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. It’s short, sweet, and silent, as far as the president is involved.

 

In fact, you had to wonder if the First Lady, the Vice President, and Mrs. Pence had to drag Mr. Trump to the ceremony to begin. According to reporters, the observance had already begun, and the guns were firing in salute to the fallen men and women who had worn the uniform, when the presidential motorcade finally rolled into view. The president did not speak; and in less time than it would take you to get a draft deferment for bone spurs, his job was done. Back to the cars he and the others went, and off to the White House again, for another busy day of tweeting.

 

*

 

AS FOR COVID-19, November 11 proved to be another terrible day. The U.S. set a single-day record with 143,408 new cases. Trump had predicted that after November 4, if Biden won, all the talk of “COVID, COVID, COVID” would end. Not likely: as another 1,479 Americans died. That brought the total number of dead to 241,069, as we continue to lead the world in coronavirus fatalities.

 

As for this blogger, he has done his part to jack up the number of cases by

 

A)    Getting infected himself.

B)     Passing the infection on to his wife.

___

 

 

11/9-10/20: Someone is having a hard time coping with the results of the recent election, and that someone is not this cheery blogger.

 

____________________

 

“And then God help us.”

 

Former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper

____________________

 

 

Let’s take a look at the president’s official schedule. Tuesday, November 10: “The President has no public events scheduled.”

 

And November 9: “The President has no public events scheduled.”

 

November 8: “The President has no public events scheduled.” (Trump did work in a Sunday round of golf.)

 

November 7: “The President has no public events scheduled.” (A round of golf was played.)

 

November 6: “The President has no public events scheduled.”

 

*

 

ALSO HAVING A HARD TIME: Former Rep. Michelle Bachmann, who called for God to smash the clay jar of Biden’s win. 

And let’s not forget Trump’s fraudster spiritual adviser, Paula White, who promised African angels were on the way to grab the win for the president.

 

 

*

 

WHILE the 45^th President of the United States hunkered down in a White House bunker issuing tweets and waiting for the angels to arrive, President-Elect Biden had already spoken about his plans to tackle the spread of the coronavirus.

 

 

New cases and new deaths

 

November 4:    106,537                                                       1,141

November 5:    117,988                                                       1,135

November 6:    132,830                                                       1,211

November 7:      93,811                                                       1,072

November 8:    105,142                                                          490              

November 9:    122,910                                                          704

November 10:  134,383 new cases                                     1,859 deaths

 

Among those new cases of COVID-19: Dr. Ben Carson, Secretary of Health and Human Services. Carson is just the latest high-level member of the Trump administration to get infected, after attending a fun gathering, mostly mask-less, at the White House on election night.

 

*

 

IN OTHER NEWS, another cabinet member bites the orange dust. This time it’s Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, who gets fired via tweet.

 

In an interview with Military Times magazine, Esper admits he expected to be ousted. In particular, he said he knew he was in trouble when he pushed back hard in June, after Trump floated the idea of invoking the Insurrection Act and sending in active duty U.S. troops to quell protests in Washington, D.C.—an 1860’s “Civil War” kind of move. “The option to use active-duty forces in a law enforcement role should only be used as a matter of last resort, and only in the most urgent and dire of situations,” Esper said at the time, directly countering the president’s threatening message. “We are not in one of those situations now,” he continued, adding, “I do not support invoking the Insurrection Act.”

 

Now he explained: “I was really concerned that that continued talk about Insurrection Act was going to take us in a direction, take us into a really dark direction,” Esper told Military Times. You don’t need any great reading skills to figure out what Esper was worried about most—and it wasn’t protesters. “And I wanted to make clear what I thought about the situation as secretary of defense and the role of the active-duty forces. And to kind of break the fever, if you will, because I thought that was just a moment in history where…” He hesitated a moment and then continued, “…if somebody doesn’t stand up now and say something and kind of push the pause button, then ... it could spiral.”

 

Trump, himself, had tagged Esper with a demeaning nickname, “Yesper,” for what he saw as his secretary’s habit of going along with whatever the president asked; but Sec. Esper was critical of the other 17 cabinet secretaries, none of whom, he felt, dared push back. “At the end of the day, it’s as I said—you’ve got to pick your fights,” he explained. “I could have a fight over anything, and I could make it a big fight, and I could live with that—why? Who’s going to come in behind me? It’s going to be a real ‘yes man.’ And then God help us.”

 

He did not mean, “God help us,” because our enemies were on the march. He meant, “God help us,” if Trump had free rein.

___

 

11/8/20: If yesterday was the first day of the rest of soon-to-be former President Donald J. Trump’s life, I think we can all agree he’s not ready for the transition from White House to Loserstan. He and his supporters have continued to rail against the unfair system of voting. It was the same system Candidate Trump blasted in 2016, when he claimed the system was “rigged” against him.

 

And he won.

 

Today, the votes continue to run in Joe Biden’s favor. His lead in the popular vote stands at 4.4 million.

 

Biden:   75,241,849

Trump: 70,818,393

 

The margin in the popular vote is irrelevant; but Trump’s hopes of proving the system was rigged, and that ballot-box-stuffing Democrats screwed him over, look increasingly grim. Biden’s lead in Georgia, where Republicans control the government, has risen to 10,352. Biden’s lead in Pennsylvania stands at 43,251. Even in red counties, mail-in ballots have been running heavily in favor of the challenger. The former Vice President leads the incumbent by 19,341 votes in Arizona, another state where the machinery of government is mostly in Republican hands. Finally, Mr. Biden leads Mr. Trump by 31,464 votes in Nevada, a state where Team Trump insisted every vote must be counted.

 

Now, almost every vote has been. The president is still trailing.

 

*

 

FORMER President George W. Bush announces this afternoon that he has called President-Elect Biden to congratulate him on his victory. Former presidents Carter, Clinton and Obama have also congratulated Mr. Biden.

 

I think we can agree, none of the other living men who have held the office will be sad to see Mr. Trump go.

 

*

 

MICHAEL COHEN, Trump’s personal lawyer for more than a decade, and a man indicted and convicted on several felony charges along with an unidentified co-conspirator labeled “Individual 1,” makes a bold prediction.

 

He tells a reporter he doubts “Individual 1” will ever concede. At Christmas, he predicts, President Trump will leave the White House and head for Mar-a-Lago. And he will never come back.

 

No inaugural for him!

 

That means, of course, that as the pandemic continues to hamstring the country, Trump has only a few weeks to finish the great job he did of getting us down to zero cases of COVID-19. Today, he buckled down to business, studied the most pressing issues related to the science of the spread…and went golfing again.

 

According to Hallie Jackson, a reporter for MSNBC, a person close to the White House told her no one wanted the job of telling the president he lost. “No one wants to tell King Lear the truth,” the source said.

 

*

 

WORLD LEADERS have also begun to call and congratulate Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris. More than a few were reacting like the Munchkins when Dorothy’s house landed on the Wicked Witch of the East. “The world sort of survived four years with a somewhat restrained Trump,” the former Swedish prime minister, Carl Bildt, tweeted on November 4. “A world with a triumphant Trump could well (have been) a different thing,” he said. In Paris, church bells rang at the news of Trump’s defeat. The mayor tweeted, “Welcome back, America.” The implicit condemnation of the current occupant of the Oval Office was clear. The prime minister of Sweden tweeted: “Looking forward to strengthening excellent US-Swedish relations and to work jointly for multilateralism, democracy and global security. Together, we can lead a green transition creating jobs for the future.” “We have a lot to do to overcome today’s challenges,” President Emmanuel Macron of France wrote, adding, “Let’s work together!” With Trump, of course, that had proved nearly impossible.

 

Heiko Maas, Germany’s foreign minister no doubt spoke for many of our allies. “This is a moment of relief and joy,” he admitted.

 

While it may be true that the nations of the world do not know exactly what they must do to address the threat of climate change, there was palpable relief that now, at least, the greatest nation in the world would be led by a man who doesn’t deny science. The prime minister of the Fiji Islands realizes his tiny nation could be submerged if nothing is done to halt the slow rise in ocean levels. “Now, more than ever, we need the USA at the helm of these multilateral efforts (and back in the #ParisAgreement – ASAP!),” Frank Bainimarama wrote. Jacinda Ardern, Prime Minister of New Zealand, sounded a similar note in a congratulatory message to Biden and Harris. “With so many issues facing the international community, your message of unity is one we share,” she said. “New Zealand looks forward to working with you both!”

___

 

 11/7/20: You know what they say, “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.” So true, for President Trump.

 

As votes pile up, Joe Biden’s lead in Pennsylvania grows. The trend is clear. He’s going to gain the state’s twenty electoral votes and send Trump packing after one tumultuous term.

 

Symbolically, Trump happens to be golfing—symbolically, again, at one of his private courses—at the moment Fox News, CNN, the Associated Press, and other news services declare Mr. Biden, “President-Elect.” (The BBC does have film of the president playing golf again.)

 

*

 

Liquor store owners in Washington, D.C., announce that sales of champagne on Saturday are higher than during the last two New Year’s Eve celebrations, combined.

 

*

 

Back at the White House after his round of golf ends, the president tweets angrily:

 

THE OBSERVERS WERE NOT ALLOWED INTO THE COUNTING ROOMS. I WON THE ELECTION, GOT 71,000,000 LEGAL VOTES. BAD THINGS HAPPENED WHICH OUR OBSERVERS WERE NOT ALLOWED TO SEE. NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE. MILLIONS OF MAIL-IN BALLOTS WERE SENT TO PEOPLE WHO NEVER ASKED FOR THEM!

 

*

 

IF ARIZONA STAYS BLUE, let’s give it up for the Navajo Nation! In the three counties that overlap their lands, the Navajo people gave Joe Biden 73,954 votes.

 

Trump got 2,010.

 

Biden’s lead in the state when I last checked: under 20,000.

 

*

 

KANYE WEST’S run for the White House has come up short, although he did get 1,266 votes from the people of Essex County, Vermont.

 

I am going to assume this was the “humorous protest” vote, since Essex went for Biden by a 2-1 margin. Otherwise, I think it’s safe to say, no one who voted for Kanye should ever get to vote again.

 

*

 

MARK MEADOWS, Trump’s fourth and last White House chief of staff, will be recovering at home next week, if he’s lucky, or headed for a hospital if he’s not. It’s going to be a good week to stay away from the White House, since Trump will be raging at everyone he sees, as he comes to grips with defeat. Meadows and four other staffers, plus Trump’s campaign director of battleground strategy, have contracted the coronavirus. Meadows, of course, scoffed at wearing a mask. In fact, he showed up for the White House Election Night celebration without one. Meadows enjoyed himself—good food—good drink—good company—spewing droplets of COVID-19 infection wherever he went.

 

Meadows has also been quick to defend the president’s “handling” of the coronavirus by saying we’re not going to control the spread; and the real path to victory is to get vaccines ready.

 

(I’m going to assume you can figure out why this is a stupid position to take, since no vaccine will be widely available for months.)

 

Trump, of course, insists we’re turning the corner on COVID-19. Actual numbers seem to indicate otherwise. Texas has become the first state in the nation to pass 1,000,000 cases of coronavirus. For the day, 17 states report their highest one-day totals of new cases; 14 report record daily numbers of hospitalizations.

 

In fact, Saturday was the worst day yet for new cases: 132,830 according to the CDC, with 1,211 Americans dying.

___

 

11/6/20: I woke up very this morning to news that the State of Georgia had gone blue, at least for now.

 

Joe Biden had a 3,500-vote lead and the president’s chances of being reelected were slipping away. I peeked out the curtain. I figured Antifa mobs would be rampaging thru the normally quiet streets of the Village of Glendale, Ohio, where I live.

 

No one was stirring. But it was obvious that a beautiful fall day in southern Ohio was taking shape.

 

As the hours passed, it was increasingly clear that the President of the United States was losing the last marbles he possessed. He tweet-ranted and tweet-raved. He stalked to the podium in the White House press room and insisted that the election was being stolen from his deserving grasp, because state election officials insisted on counting all the votes they had received. In Pennsylvania, what had been a large Trump lead, built on votes from those who showed up in person, began to disappear as several million mail-in ballots were tallied.

 

Stop counting, Trump shrieked!

 

In Arizona and Nevada, however, where Trump trailed, Republicans insisted that only communists would try to stop the counting before every vote was tallied! For good measure, Trump and his pals howled about a plot they said was afoot when one news network “called” Arizona for Biden with votes still left to record.

 

I admit, that as I watched the Arizona numbers come in all day, and the former vice president’s lead was reduced by half, I wasn’t sure Mr. Biden would hold the state. I could see where Trump might win. So, we needed to count the votes.

 

Nevada, too, might slip from Biden’s grasp.

 

So. Count the votes. If Fox, or any other network had made a wrong call: count the votes. Nothing about this was hard to grasp. Yet, President Trump refused to grasp it, much less face the grim facts.

 

____________________

 

By October 12, Pennsylvania had already received 1,794,448 mail-in ballot requests from Democrats.

____________________

 

 

Meanwhile, as hundreds of thousands of mail-in ballots were counted, Trump’s once impressive lead in Pennsylvania vanished. Biden moved ahead. This had nothing to do with “fraud” and everything to do with the fact Democratic leaders had urged supporters to get ballots in early, by mail.

 

Money in the electoral bank, so to speak.

 

In fact, if you were not an idiot, you would have known this was coming. On October 12, it was reported that Pennsylvania had received 2.8 million mail-in ballots requests. That figure included 1,794,448 Democrats but only 693,670 Republicans. It was clear then, that Republicans might have a lead when in-person votes were counted. But it would have to be huge.

 

  1,794,448

–   693,670

         ???          Potential Democratic gain in mail-in voting

 

This math problem was much too hard for the president, or Lou Dobbs, or Sean Hannity, or all of them together, to figure out.

 

So, as the president’s lead shrank and then disappeared, he and they squealed like punctured pigs.

 

Fraud was rampant in Pennsylvania, they bellowed.

 

Actually, it was math.

 

Even Pennsylvania’s Republican senator, Pat Toomey, chastised the president for making wild, unsubstantiated claims of voting fraud.

 

By Friday night, additional counting showed Biden with a lead in Georgia that had grown to more than 4,000. In Nevada, Biden’s lead had also grown. In Arizona it continued to trickle away. The biggest prize, Pennsylvania, was getting away from Mr. Trump. Biden’s lead passed 20,000. Even in counties where the same-day vote had given Trump 2-1 leads, mail-in ballots were running in favor of Mr. Biden.

 

Once it became clear that Biden was going to end the day with a small lead in Georgia, Trump supporters who had been shouting that it was past time to stop the count, suddenly started shouting anew. “Let the counting go forward!” they cried.  Several thousand ballots from U.S. military men and women overseas were still coming in. Trump could still carry the Peach State.

 

Count every vote!

 

*

 

IN OTHER NEWS, Trump supporters hatched various plans to turn the electoral tide in favor of their favorite president. Two followers of “Q” showed up outside a Philadelphia vote-counting facility. Their Humvee turned out to be loaded with weaponry, including an AR-15, plenty of ammunition, and allegedly boxes of fake ballots that they thought they could get turned in. Fortunately, the two men were arrested before they could fix the tally in Trump’s favor.

 

(Or open fire.)

 

If that plan sounded stupid, recently indicted, former Trump campaign adviser Steve Bannon floated a plan for how Trump could enforce iron discipline in the federal government if he won a second term. Find Dr. Fauci, find F.B.I. Director Christopher Wray, he said. “I’d like to go back to the old times of Tudor England,” Bannon explained during an epically unbalanced podcast. “I’d put the heads on pikes, right. I’d put them at the two corners of the White House, as a warning to federal bureaucrats. You either get with the program, or you’re gone.”

 

His sidekick chipped in with a lovely story about two Philadelphia Tories, who were hanged for consorting with the British during the American Revolution. “This,” he said, “was what we used to do with traitors.” So, you could argue that the stakes in this election were high, at least for those of us who didn’t want to get our heads stuck on pikes outside the White House.

___

 

 11/5/20: My wife and I spend the day watching the vote counts change. In Pennsylvania, something like 500,000 mail-in ballots remain to be processed. Trump’s fat lead has slowly shriveled to 136,000. But if Democrats continue to rack up huge margins in mail votes (since we were told to vote by mail and not risk catching COVID-19), Biden has an excellent chance of wiping out Trump’s lead.

 

I know the Keystone State could go either way; but I would bet a milkshake on Mr. Biden’s chances, if I could find a conservative friend who would promise not to spit in my shake.

 

Biden trails in North Carolina by 77,000 votes, with six percent of the vote not recorded. If more than 300,000 votes are left to tally, and they’re from the bluest corners of the state, that could get my boy Joe over the hump. When I check a North Carolina newspaper, however, they say only 117,000 votes remain. I like facts; but here, I can’t be sure where we stand.

 

Nevada is still reporting only 75% of the votes. Trump trails by only 8,000. So: he could still win that state.

 

And here’s a final oddity—a Trump scam, if you will—for his fans to ponder. Right now, Team Trump is insisting that vote counting in Pennsylvania (where he leads) come to a screeching halt.

 

In Arizona, however, where Biden leads by 68,000, the president is demanding that the tallying continue to the bitterest end.

 

If Biden holds Arizona and Nevada and wins a recount in Wisconsin (almost a certainty if you know how recounts go) he has exactly the 270 electoral votes he needs to send Trump packing.

 

I head for bed Thursday feeling good. Georgia is teetering. There’s a chance it may turn light blue.

 

 

Postscript: While Americans wait to see how voting shakes out, they are also waiting to see if the coronavirus goes away. The president insists it will, but he may be going away, first. According to the CDC, yesterday was the worst day yet for our country, with 106,537 new cases.

 

Another 1,141 Americans also died from COVID-19. So, even if the virus isn’t going away, plenty of loved ones, some of whom loved Trump, and some who didn’t, were definitely going away.

 

Forever.

 

We still don’t know who will win the election. We know for sure: The latest weekly jobs report is only a little better than all the other awful reports we’ve seen since April. Adjusted seasonally, another 751,000 Americans filed first-time jobless claims in the week ending October 31. Another 362,833 persons filed under the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program.

___

 

 11/4/20: Leading up to Election Day, I pored over the opinion polls relentlessly. In mid-October, I was thrilled to see Joe Biden had a sizeable lead. In the last week before the election, I noticed it start to shrink.

 

That worried me a little.

 

Still, I understand how numbers work. Pollsters said the former vice president had a 6.5-point lead.

 

I assumed the pollsters were probably right.

 

 

____________________

 

On Election Night, I admit I went to bed depressed.

 ____________________

 

 

Besides, I assumed most Americans were smart enough to see through the president’s swindles.

 

Now I feel dumb.

 

I couldn’t imagine anyone would want to give Trump four more years to ruin the country. I like facts. So, I looked at the facts the Bureau of Labor Statistics posts every month. I knew this president had “created the greatest economy in U.S. history” by not adding a single job to the U.S. economy so far.

 

I did the math. I figured Trump supporters could do the math too. If you take jobs added in Trump’s first 37 months in office, and jobs regained since the pandemic began, and subtract jobs lost once the virus exploded—which he swore it wasn’t going to do—he’s 3,903,000 jobs in the hole. If the unemployment rate was 4.7 percent in January 2017, when Trump took over, and the rate now is 7.9 percent, I thought that meant the economy wasn’t doing so great.

 

Yes, yes. I know. No president could have dealt with this pandemic without there being pain.

 

Still.

 

Here we had a president who kept telling us we were turning the corner on the coronavirus and we should vote for him again; but I couldn’t believe anyone would fall for that. Instead, I trusted scientists, not the guy we know lied to three wives in a row. I checked out the CDC website to be sure.

 

I believed it when the experts in infectious diseases said that we had 86,190 cases on November 2, another 88,427 on Election Day, and that 231,988 Americans were dead. If the people who study disease for a living said we had had 604,450 cases in the last week, I was sure Trump fans would realize their orange hero was wrong when he said last February that we were headed to zero cases soon.

 

I couldn’t imagine Trump winning a second term. I was sure the American people would realize how dangerous it was to have a president calling members of the free press “the enemies of the people.” I thought Trump supporters would hear the echoing roar of the Hitler crowds.

 

(Then again, some Trump supporters who did were secretly thrilled.)

 

I had to think that even the president’s fans were going to finally realize he was a carnival barker, promising a new and better healthcare plan, but not showing it to anyone except Jared and Ivanka in the last four years.

 

I thought by now they’d understand how the whole “my taxes are under audit” spiel made no sense.

 

As a former Marine, I was positive they’d see through Trump’s patriotic charade. The guy doesn’t pay taxes if he can avoid it. I assumed his fans would realize that what George Washington said might still pertain: “In modern wars the longest purse must chiefly determine the event.”

 

I assumed the American people would reason it out. We’d realize that if the fat cats avoid paying taxes, maybe we can’t afford all the bombs and bullets we’d need in a pinch. I was sure all good citizens would notice that the guy with imaginary bone spurs, talked a good game, but see that his patriotism ended with his lips.

 

By the time Election Day rolled around, I was almost sure Biden would win. I thought if scientists around the world said 2020 might end up the hottest year on record that Trump fans down in Texas might notice the sweat dripping from their brows. I gave the MAGA-hat crew the benefit of the doubt. I never thought they’d put faith in some orange-tinted clown who once ran a scam university and warned—while serving as president—that windmills cause cancer.

 

I checked the NASA website to be sure. I do like facts. And I saw all kinds of warnings about climate change. I believed the experts at NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration when they pointed out that the ten hottest years on record (so far) were: 2016, 2019, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2014, 2010, 2013 and 2005 (tied), and 1998.

 

What a numbskull I was! I believed the people at NASA were right.

 

I thought if Trump said in the summer of 2018, that North Korea was no longer a nuclear threat (and bragged about winning the Nobel Peace Prize), that his supporters would notice by now that North Korea is still a nuclear threat.

 

And Mexico was going to pay for the wall! I couldn’t believe anyone would fall for that. But people did.

 

Honestly, I thought more Americans would read the Mueller Report. I thought they’d find out that it says—specifically—that the evidence investigators compiled in no way exonerates the President of the United States.

 

I would see stories about people who worked in the first Trump campaign, and got accused of lying to investigators about contacts with Russians—not to mention racking up felonies of all kinds, including child sex trafficking—and then went to court and got convicted. I thought Trump fans would be keeping track. I assumed all good Americans cherished the rule of law.

 

I figured people couldn’t be blind. They’d have to see Michael Cohen and Roger Stone and Paul Manafort get hauled into court and convicted by juries or watch them plead guilty and cop pleas. I believed voters could add 2 + 2 and not get 7. They’d see Flynn and Gates, Patten and Zuberi, van der Zwaan, Papadopoulos and Nader all slapped with felonies of some kind. Voters would know—because they’d be informed—that Sater was a felon when he went to work for Trump. Then they’d notice that Bannon got indicted for wire fraud. And Broidy plead guilty for influence peddling. They’d read about Rudy Giuliani and his shady pals. Two have been indicted—Parnas and Fruman—and a third—Correia—took a plea deal and agreed to cooperate with investigators last week.

 

I wasn’t thrilled with some of the antics Hunter Biden pulled. Still, I thought his dad would win—because I assumed everyone could count the felons in the paragraphs above and sniff out a criminal trend.

 

I thought Trump fans—such as the Tea Party crew—would be upset about the massive deficit spending that had occurred under his hand. 

 

I felt if the President of the United States called other Americans “scum,” and “animals,” and “psychos,” and “sick,” and even “treasonous,” voters would notice the dehumanizing language. I thought everyone would be appalled.

 

I was sure Trump fans would scratch their heads and stop chanting, “Lock her up!” And “Lock him up!” And “Lock them up!” I thought they’d come to their senses and realize: Hey, have we gathered evidence that would stand up in court? Have we indicted these people we so happily say we want to lock up? Are we going to pretend the IV, V, VI, VII, VIII and XIV amendments no longer matter?

 

Stupid me. I thought the MAGA crowd loved the U.S. Constitution and all the amendments, not just the one about guns.

 

I thought more Americans would catch a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty now and then and remember our heritage of welcoming all kinds of immigrants over the decades. I thought, if your family had Irish or Cuban or Slovenia roots, you’d have sympathy for people still “yearning to breathe free.”

 

I thought people would notice, when not listening to Trump howl about the fearful dangers of “chain migration,” that the First Lady, her sister, her mother, and her father all managed to enter the United States in a family chain. Good for them, by the way. I’m a fan of immigration under most circumstances.

 

And I was positive voters would notice the president’s hypocrisy on this issue, and thought they’d get wise.

 

If we kept seeing reports, and those reports were proven, if nothing else than by Eric Trump’s own words, that the Trump Organization had employed undocumented workers for many years, I thought people would pay attention.

 

I absolutely thought the American people would hear what Trump said last week. When asked by the hosts at Fox & Friends, which country had been the hardest for him to deal with during his first term, this was his response. He said friends would ask, “They’ll go, ‘Mr. President, tell me, who’s the country that’s most difficult to deal with? Is it Russia? Is it China? Is it North Korea? Sir, is it North Korea?’ And I go, ‘No. Well, by far, the most difficult country to deal with is the U.S. It’s not even close,’” he continued. “And they all say, ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’ And I say, ‘No, I’m actually probably not kidding.’ We have very, very deceptive people.”

 

That’s right.

 

The President of the United States told the Fox & Friends fools that the hardest country in the world to deal with was…the country he was chosen to lead. And that country was chock full of “mean” and “horrible people.”

 

And I said, “John,” speaking to myself, because I’m a good listener, “This is going to be a disqualifying statement, even for Trump fans.”

 

I thought if Trump said he was having a harder time dealing with Rep. Adam Schiff and called him “sick,” the president’s supporters’ eyes would bug out. They’d wonder why Trump never calls the murderous Kim Jong-un a “sick” person. They’d ponder the fact that he failed to mention Putin and Russia as a threat. They’d realize that Trump never condemns the Saudis for slicing up a journalist with a bone saw. I was sure they’d wonder what kind of president would label Americans the biggest problem he had to face.

 

*

 

Dimwitted as I am, I thought, if  Trump said—before a single vote had been cast—that any outcome other than a victory for him would be proof the election was shot through with fraud and stolen from the start, that his fans might awake. I thought they’d notice the flavor of authoritarianism in what he had said.

 

On Election Night, I admit I went to bed depressed. It looked to me as if Trump had won again, although millions of votes remained to count. I knew states allowed people to vote by mail in huge numbers.

 

So, I had a sliver of hope.

 

Then Trump said early the next morning, around 2 a.m., that he had won, and counting should end.

 

How dumb I felt then!

 

I believed we lived in a free country and even those who love Trump would say, “Wait. We need to count every vote.”

 

I believed that almost all Trump fans were good Americans, just like almost all of us who aren’t fans. I thought the other side would realize before it was too late, how dangerous a second term for this man would be in the end.

 

*

 

I rose Wednesday morning, after a fitful night of rest, and I watched all day as more and more votes were counted.

 

The trends in almost all the battleground states were running light or dark blue. I realized that we had a real chance to win. I knew, for example, that in Pennsylvania at least a million more Democrats voted by mail than Republicans.

 

That meant, if Trump had a lead of 700,000 in the Keystone State, that as the ballots were opened and tallied, his lead might evaporate.

 

Late returns from Milwaukee pushed Biden into a lead in Wisconsin. The “red mirage” faded in Michigan. Trump voters had showed up at the polls in person on Election Day, and their votes had been counted first. Now, as blue mail-in votes were recorded, the “mirage” of a Trump win in Michigan died.

 

Biden also built a lead in Arizona—and Fox News called the state for Biden. President Trump was furious.

 

I was worried the call had come too soon, myself; but I knew we’d keep counting the votes until we found out if Fox was right.

 

Biden got beat in Florida. Texas remained red; but Nevada appeared to be voting blue again. And Georgia? Georgia was the palest pink, not red at all. Those who studied voting numbers pointed out that almost all remaining votes in the state, where the president had a very narrow lead, were going to be reported out of the blue areas in and around Atlanta.

 

When I went to bed Wednesday night, I was no longer depressed. I was fairly sure we had the votes to win.

 

We’d just have to keep counting and find out for sure.

___

 

 11/3/20: No more polling required! Americans trudge to the polls, or the mailbox, as it were.

 

We won’t know until later, but turnout will be huge.

 

Much to this blogger’s surprise, watching early returns Tuesday night, it appears that Trump might win again.

 

First, he takes Florida with relative ease, the victory not unexpected, but the margin a surprise. Ohio also goes for Trump by an eight-point margin, which makes this Ohioan sad. Even worse, Trump rolls up a big lead in Pennsylvania.

 

I stay up till 1:30 a.m. looking for signs of hope. Then I turn in, but sleep fitfully for only a few hours. At 4:30 a.m. I wake and start checking my phone for news. Frankly, I am appalled to think that so many Americans have seen Trump in action these last four years—and still decide to support him again.

___