April 12, 2025: WELL, TRUMP FANS, what
did we learn this week and has what we learned made any patriots want to jump
off a very high bridge?
If you binge on right-wing
news, which most MAGA’s do, one story you almost certainly did not see would be
#1, below.
*
1. A
judge in Delaware has ruled that Newsmax defamed Dominion Voting Systems
in days and weeks after the 2020 election – when reporters and hosts insisted
Dominion helped rig the vote.
The Newsmax
case now goes to a jury, with Dominion asking for $1.6 billion in damages. That makes this another possible
loss to add to a lengthy string of definite losses, for right-wing “news” organizations,
when the “news” they peddled was propaganda, offered up to unwitting viewers as
righteousness indignation, and spewed at intense and angry decibel levels.
PREVIOUSLY,
WE HAD LEARNED:
2.
Newsmax lost a defamation case filed by Smartmatic, a
computer software company, after the same reporters and hosts who allegedly lied
about Dominion, definitely lied about Smartmatic. Newsmax insisted that the
company was central to the 2020 election fix. In that case, Newsmax was ordered
to hand over $40 million.
3. If
you have not been paying strict attention, we should remind you that Fox News,
the Big Kahuna of right-wing bullshit, was destroyed – also by
Dominion – also for massive, sustained lying about how the 2020 vote was
rigged.
Those
lies cost Fox $787.5 million, if you’d enjoy keeping track.
4. Fox
is also being sued for defamation by Smartmatic, which I had
forgotten myself. No decision yet.
At this
point, a rational human being would start to notice a pronounced trend,
but that would assume the rational human was not gobbling up a massive dose of daily,
right-wing nonsense.
Consider the case of Rudy Giuliani.
5. Rudy
insisted, repeatedly, that two Georgia poll workers, Ruby Freeman and her
daughter Shaye Moss, stole at least 54,000 votes during the 2020
election.
6. Two
statewide recounts in Georgia, including one recount of all five million
paper ballots, showed that 54,000 votes were not stolen – including zero by
Freeman and Moss. The Republican secretary of state, and the Republican
governor (both of whom had worked to help Donald Trump win in 2020), assured
everyone the voting in Georgia had not been rigged.
The
Georgia Bureau of Investigation cleared Freeman and Moss.
7. So
did the F.B.I.
8. Not
to mention the Georgia State Election Board. The final
tally in Georgia showed a gain for President Trump of 1,779 votes, with more than 800 of that gain coming
in Floyd County, where Republican officials were in total control of counting.
9. Still
not seeing the pattern? Mr. Giuliani couldn’t
stop lying and insisting that the poll workers were crooks. On at least one
occasion, he upped the tally and said Ruby and Shaye stole 192,000 votes.
(See #8, above, if you need help with the math.)
The poor
poll workers were inundated with death threats, and Freeman’s home was invaded,
and both mother and daughter went into hiding. They, too, eventually sued for
defamation. Rudy couldn’t stop himself – possibly because he was too busy
drinking – and refused to turn over documents demanded by the court. A jury
found for the plaintiffs, and ordered Giuliani to pay $148.2 million in damages, which I think we can all agree is
a high price indeed for lying.
10. Who
else lied repeatedly about those two women and nearly got them killed? We hate
to break the news, loyal MAGA fans, even if it is more than four years old, but
it was Donald! In a bonkers call to Georgia election officials he
claimed that hundreds of thousands of votes had been stolen, and insisted that the
Georgia folks “find” 11,790 votes, just enough for him to “win”
Georgia’s electoral votes.
(You can still listen to that call yourself.)
11. Trump
45 caught a break when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that asking state officials
to “find” magical votes might be seen as part of his duties as president, and
so he might be covered by presidential immunity, in the matter of this call.
Trump 47 still lies constantly about being cheated out of the win in
2020, but he is careful never to say exactly who did the cheating.
(See, by way of warning: His $5 million loss for defaming E. Jean
Carroll.)
((And his second loss, for $83.3 million, for defaming her again.)
12. Even
Rudy caught a break of sorts, when a judge reduced his damage settlement to $145,969,000,
reflecting the fact that Freeman and Moss had already collected more than $2.2
million in damages from One American News Network. Because
OANN also peddled malicious lies.
13. You
would think by now that the point would be impossible to miss, even for people
who own multiple MAGA-style baseball caps to wear to weddings, and funerals, and while
engaging in sex. The two women also won a defamation suitfiled against Gateway
Pundit, although lawyers for the right-wing website managed to craft a deal
which kept details of the settlement secret.
You
could tell who won, however, when Gateway removed twenty articles in its feed
related to the alleged misdeeds of Freeman and Moss.
14. And
we’re still not done. Smartmatic has also sued
MyPillow guru Mike Lindell for spreading “Stolen Election” lies. Recently, a
federal judge ruled that Mr. Pillow was in contempt of court after
refusing to provide documents plaintiffs demanded, which they said would prove
their case.
If you
love Donald Dumpling, we should politely mention, that you are not “winning” in
court, if a judge holds you in contempt.
Did you know Lindell urged Trump to declare martial law and overturn the 2020 vote? Now you do. Not funny.
15. Mike
is also famous for losing his cool during a different court
hearing, this one regarding his alleged defamation of Eric Coomer, the Dominion
official in charge of company cybersecurity.
Mike
called him a “scumbag” for daring to sue.
16. Here,
I should note that all this right-wing lying about the “Stolen Election” of
2020, might be funny, save for the fact that the poor dopes who fell
for all the lies marched on Congress on January 6, 2021, and attacked. So:
let’s remember that Mike Lindell said he had mathematical proof to show that millions
of votes were stolen – and promised to pay anyone who could disprove his evidence
$5 million.
It
didn’t take long – because a computer expert quickly showed that Mike’s
evidence was computer gibberish – mostly random code – and demanded his
reward. Lindell balked. So a judge ruled he owed the expert the dough.
17. Adding
insult to injury, Lindell must also pay the expert, Robert Zeidman, $4,508
in attorney fees.
18. Then
you might have noticed that the courts ordered poor Mike to pay $56,369 in legal fees to Smartmatic, after a
judge ruled he had filed a “frivolous” counter suit.
19. Even
Lindell’s lawyers are afraid they’re going to get stiffed, saying he owes them millions
in unpaid defense costs.
20. And
we should go ahead and mention that Smartmatic is suing Mr. Pillow for
defamation, as well.
(Just for fun, we should note that Trump paid $6 million for an
Arizona recount in 2020.)
(Biden gained 361 votes.)
(Then Trump paid $3 million for a Wisconsin recount – and Biden
gained votes.)
So,
there you have it, MAGA fans. Defeat after defeat in court, for those claiming
the 2020 election was rigged.
FUN FACT: As of
today, April 12, 2025, 1,621 days have passed since the 2020 election was held.
(So far, NO COURT has found evidence of any significant voter
fraud.)
That
means, barring new revelations, Donald J. Trump has been lying ever since, and he’s
likely to go to his grave, with a lie on his dying lips.
January 6: Trump fan, Edward Jacob Lang, acting on the basis if lies.
FUN FACT
#2:
The president also faces a defamation suit filed by the Central Park Five. In
1989, five young black men were accused of raping and beating a white jogger in
that New York City park. Donald took out a full-page ad, calling for them to
receive the death penalty.
Then DNA
evidence proved all five were innocent. Donald has refused to admit he was
wrong, even claiming during a debate with Kamala Harris, that the five men had admitted
their crimes (they had not) and insisting their victim had been killed
(fortunately, she survived).
“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.”
Stephen Saltzburg
__________
Pedaling along in Petroleum County, 2024.
IN PART ONE, we provided 82 examples of proven
lies told by Donald Trump or his cronies, or uncomfortable facts, showing why the
Orange Dumpling from Mar-a-Lago can never be trusted. In Part II, we pick up
with the 2020 election.
Trump’s lying intensifies.
___
November 3-4, 2020 (Election Day/Night): As millions of
votes pour in it looks as if Donald may win a second term. Election experts at
Fox News, however, watch Joe Biden’s lead in Arizona grow to more than 88,000 votes. They call
the state for the challenger. Only 3,500 votes separate Trump and Biden in
Georgia. Pennsylvania has only started counting millions of mail-in votes.
83. Just after 2 a.m., the “Fat
Lady sings,” you might say. Donald declares victory, nationwide. Just as Steve Bannon
predicted. (Steps 79-80, Part I.)
84. Millions of votes are still
being recorded, mostly from Democratic-leaning areas. This always happens,
not because voting is rigged, butbecause many Democratic areas are
heavily populated, and getting accurate counts takes time. Fulton County in
Georgia, for instance, will have half-a-million
ballots.
Petroleum County, Montana (pop.
498) has only 348 votes to tally, and Trump cleans Biden’s clock.
The blogger has pedaled a bicycle
through the county – while traveling across the country in the summer of 2024.
There’s one person for every three square miles.
FUN FACT: Petroleum County is larger
than Rhode Island.
85. November 5: Votes are
still being counted. Trump insists counting in Pennsylvania (where he has a
lead) must stop.
In Nevada, and also in Arizona (where Biden leads), the
president demands that countingmust continue.
(The MAGA folks fail to see the incongruity.)
86. Behind the scenes, Roger Stone is fleshing out a plan
to claim the election was stolen. It’s pretty much the
same plan he worked on four years earlier (See: Step #31, Part I), but had cause to implement.
He’s probably working on an updated version for 2024, if Trump
loses – although that is just the blogger’s supposition.
Roger Stone's tattoo of his favorite president. Trump is second?
87. Senator Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) chastises Trump for claiming the
Pennsylvania vote has been rigged. “There is simply no evidence that
anybody has shown me – or anyone else I’m aware of – of any kind of widespread
corruption or fraud.”
88. On November 7, 2020, election experts at the major news
outlets, including Fox News, agree.
Biden is declared winner. MAGA types erupt with fury, aiming their wildest
screams at Fox News. Fox News decides to fire its head elections
expert, Chris Stirewalt, sacrificing him on the Altar of Lies.
89. We won’t learn for years (until
Fox News gets destroyed in a massive defamation judgement – related to claims
that the election was stolen), but Tucker Carlson texts his producer
and admits allegations of massive vote stealing, which he and other Fox hosts
have already begun touting, are “absurd.”
(Fox News motto: “We keep the ill-informed ill-informed.”)
90.
On November 8, President Trump phones in to Maria Bartiromo’s show on Fox
Business. He insists a story he just read proves tens of thousands of dead
people voted in Michigan. CNN decides to look into
the matter.
They check the first 25 names on Team Trump’s list of “Dead Men Walking to the
Polls.” Then they check 25 at random. Thirty-seven of the alleged dead voters
were in fact stone cold. For obvious reasons, none of them had voted. Five of
the fifty had voted – those dead rats – except that CNN found those five
very much alive and kicking. That left eight more, all still walking the earth.
Sadly, none had bothered to cast ballots.
91. Donald also warns that Democrats are about to steal two U.S. Senate
seats, which will be decided in special Georgia elections. “You’re using the
same garbage machinery, Dominion [Voting Systems],” he whines. “And she’s going
around, [Stacey] Abrams [a leader of the Georgia Democrats], she’s going around
screaming that she’s got 800,000 or 850,000 ballots.”
92.
The blogger is no dope – at least, he thinks. So he does a little checking. Abrams
is actually “screaming” that voters have sent in 750,000 requests for mail-in ballots
for the election on January 5.
In
every tweet she links to Georgia’s online “Absentee Ballot Request Form.”
93. The blogger is diligent in pursuit of Truth. So he
consults the website for the National
Council of State Legislatures. It turns out that red states like Texas, Ohio,
and Florida allow early voting by mail. Trump won them all in 2020. For some
odd reason, if he wins, voting by mail is kind of cool.
94.
Trump voted by mail in the 2020 Florida
primaries, himself.
95. November 12, 2020: Members of the
Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council Executive Committee,
including Director Chris Krebs of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure
Security Agency (CISA), as well as two other Trump appointees, issue
this unanimous 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.”
96. North Carolina sorts out its last votes the next day. Donald is
declared victor. He doesn’t mind if votes take time to count – so long as he prevails.
97. Team Trump gets busy pushing claims of massive fraud in Georgia. This
gets embarrassing quick. Trump lawyers
cite the shocking case of James Blalock, Jr., a World War II veteran, who voted
in Georgia, despite having died fourteen years earlier. Mr. Blalock has not in
fact voted. His wife, Agnes, has, under her properly registered name:
“Mrs. James E. Blalock, Jr.”
98. Team Trump also spreads
the tale of a U.S. Army raid on the office of a
Spanish election software company with an office in Frankfurt, Germany. There,
votes are supposedly being harvested for Democrats. When asked about the “raid”
an Army spokesperson replies tersely, “Those allegations are false.”
No raid ever happened.
(And thank you for your
service!)
99. Another tale is told of Italian satellites beaming down billions
of bogus votes for Joe Biden from space!
100. QAnon fans, a silly subset of the MAGA faithful – people who will
believe anything – believe the satellite story.
101. The same kind of QAnon folks will later claim that President Joe
Biden is actually being played by a robot.
102. Gen. Flynn (who did meet with Russians in 2016) will later claim you
could hack thermostats and steal votes. (See: Steps #45 and #56, Part I.)
Really, it’s pathetic for good people – which most MAGA folks are – to be
so misinformed. Also: It’s dangerous to our democracy.
103. November 16: Georgia Secretary of
State Brad Raffensperger, another Republican, unloads in aninterview. With a hand recount of all
votes in the state nearing completion, he says he is being pressured to find
ways to exclude legal ballots. After a statewide recount, Trump is still losing by 12,284 votes.
104. We should also
mention that in dozens of counties with smaller populations, the machine counts,
and hand counts, perfectly match.
(Sadly, I
fear, if you love Trump, you won’t dare.)
105. Director Krebs (See: #95)
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.
Election officials in Clark County, Nevada announce
that they are unable to call one race
with confidence. Ross Miller, the Democrat, appears to have defeated Republican
Stavros Anthony by 10 votes – out of 153,000; but 139 ballots have
“discrepancies.”
107. Fox News jumps all over the story! Trump is glued
to Fox, and tweets exultantly. “Big victory,” he shouts. “Large scale voter
discrepancy” He claims this case will have a “major impact” nationally, and
prove the whole election system is rigged and there are poltergeists in the
machines.
(Fox News loves stories about voting fraud – because Fox News loves
ratings.)
108. A recount follows. Miller’s lead grows to 30 votes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That’s one exclamation point for each vote gained.
109. In other words: It’s no big victory for Donald.
110. Not even a tiny one.
November 19: Rudy Giuliani, accompanied by two other lawyers, Sidney Powell and Jenna
Ellis, holds a press conference. Ellis refers to efforts to prove massive voter
fraud as work that must be performed by an “elite strike force.” That “elite
strike force” includes Rudy, Sidney, and herself.
During their
press conference, Powell describes the plot against President Trump. There’s “massive
influence of communist money through Venezuela, Cuba, and likely China.” She
insists 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.
111. Jumping ahead, for fun, Ellis will eventually be
forced to admit, during a disciplinary hearing in Colorado, that she was lying about
the 2020 election being stolen. Her license to practice law will be revoked for
three years.
112. Ms. Ellis will also cop to a felony for
her part in a conspiracy to steal Georgia’s electoral votes for Trump.
Ellis is now a felon.
113. Then she will agree to
cooperate with prosecutors in Arizona, looking into another leg of the plot to
steal the 2020 election from Biden.
114. None of the prosecutions we will mention (known as
“witch hunts” to the MAGA faithful) will be possible unless ordinary citizens,
forming grand juries, vote to return indictments.
115. Powell will also cop to
six misdemeanors, in the Georgia case, and be fined and placed on
probation for six years.
116. Kenneth Chesebro, yet another Trump lawyer,
will also take a dive in Georgia, and cop to a felony.
Chesebro mugshot.
(An alert reader might notice there are a lot of felons
in this story.)
117. Rudy will tell so many lies about two Georgia poll
workers “stealing votes” that he will get his ass sued for defamation. He will refuse
to supply documents the court demands; and a jury will award
plaintiffs – the two workers, who end up facing a storm of death threats – $148.2
million.
118. Meanwhile, on November 19, 2020, a suit
is filed in
Georgia by prominent private attorney L. Lin Wood. The Trump ally calls on a
federal court to block certification of the state’s electoral votes. U.S. District Court Judge
Steven Grimberg, a Trump appointee, rules that any “evidence of
improprieties,” as presented, “falls far short” of what would be needed to
justify stepping in to alter election results.
119. Next, Trump summons Republican
lawmakers from Michigan to the White House. He pressures them to declare him
winner of that state’s electoral votes, despite Biden’s 154,000-popular vote
lead.
120. After exiting, the lawmakers announce: “We have not yet been made aware of
any information that would change the outcome of the election in Michigan,
and as legislative leaders we will follow the law and follow the normal process
regarding Michigan’s electors just as we have said throughout this election.”
121. Referencing the
president’s ploy to convince state legislators to do his bidding, 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. It
is difficult to imagine a worse, more undemocratic action by a sitting American
President.
122. Stephen Saltzburg, who served in the
Justice Department under Reagan and Bush 41, tells ABC, “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.”
(That statement proves to be prophetic.)
(Also note: Per our practice, we are almost exclusively
quoting Republicans.)
123. Asuit
filed by The Election Integrity
Project, a group led by a pro-Trump activist, is tossed by Clark County
District Judge Gloria Sturman. The suit alleges that 1,400 people who had
registered to vote in Nevada, moved to California, and still voted in
Nevada. Sturm essentially calls the people who filed the lawsuit a bunch of nitwits.
For example, military personnel, at bases like Camp Pendleton in California,
but whose permanent homes are in Nevada, might legally send in a vote
from a California address. Same for their spouses and adult children.
The blogger, at Camp Pendleton in 1970.
124. Team Trump lawyers ask for election returns for the state of
Pennsylvania to be voided. U.S. Middle District Judge Matthew Brann rules that they have presented
“strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations.”
125. Sidney Powell “realizes” – after
the statewide Georgia hand
recount goes against Trump – that Brian
Kemp,the Republican governor, is in on the fix. She tells reporters for Newsmax
that an election lawsuit she has filed in Georgia will “be biblical.” She
promises to “unleash the Kraken.”
The Kraken: A mythical destroyer of ships.
126. Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan says the
president’s refusal to admit defeat is harming
the country. It’s time for Trump to “stop golfing and concede,” he
says.
127. Next we have a
statementsigned by more than 100 leading Republican national
security experts: “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.”
128. Another
challenge to Pennsylvania voting results is tossed. Judge
Stephanos Bibas, a Trump appointee, with the concurrence of two other
Republican-appointed judges, responds. “Free, fair elections are the
lifeblood of our democracy,” Judge Bibas writes. “Charges of unfairness are serious,
but calling an election unfair [emphasis added] does not make it so.”
129. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court also throws out a lawsuit
asking for 2.5 million mail-in ballots to be disqualified.
130.A two-county recount
demanded by the Trump campaign in Wisconsin ends. At a cost of $3 million, paid
by Team Trump, the recount in heavily Democratic Milwaukee and Dane counties
proves that if there was massive fraud, and machines magically cheated Trump out
of millions of votes, it didn’t happen in Milwaukee and Dane. Joe Biden gains a pocketful of
votes.
131. Mr. Blogger does a deep dive while editing his blog. He discovers that
in the 2020 election, Democrats piled up 77,529,619 votes for 435 candidates
for all seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Republicans polled
72,760,036. As was true, regarding Trump vs. Biden, Democrats piled up millions
more votes.
132.Arizona Gov. Doug Duceymakes it clear.
Trump lost his state. This fact ricochets off MAGA skulls.
133. Governor Kemp says Trump lost the Georgia vote, as
well. That fact ricochets off the skulls of people in red baseball caps.
134. A federal judge agrees to freeze
Dominion voting machines used in three of the most populous blue counties in
Georgia. Alas, the skies darken
quickly for Trump lovers, when U.S. District Judge Timothy Batten notes
that there is “precious
little proof” to back any claims of haunted voting machines.
Still,
it’s a kind of win for Team Trump. (See: #150.)
A rare courtroom win!
135. On December 1,
2020, Attorney General Bill Barr announces that the Justice Department
has uncovered no evidence of widespread voter fraud that could change
the outcome of the election.
136. The next day, Trump offers up a multitude of false
claims in a speech, insisting that he won the election. In
Antrim County, Michigan, he claims, voting machines “wrongly switched” 6,000
votes from his column to Biden’s, and “this is just the tip of the iceberg.” He
goes on to insist that sleuths have uncovered hundreds of similar examples. “Are
there 1000s?” he wonders.
137.
The mistake Trump refers to occurred in a county where the Board of
Elections is in GOP hands. The mistake has nothing to do with Dominion
systems being
rigged. (See: December 17, below.)
138.
In Detroit, Donald says, “there were more votes than there were voters. Think
of that. You had more votes than you had voters.” The blogger does “think of
that.” He thinks Donald is bullshitting.
“According to unofficial election
results on the City of Detroit’s website,” the Associated Press points out,
“on Nov. 3, there were 250,138 votes cast and 504,714 registered voters
[emphasis added]. Detroit has an estimated population of 670,000.”
139.
A federal judge now orders Trump lawyers to pay the State of Michigan and the
City of Detroit $175,000 for filing a “frivolous” lawsuit in
an attempt to challenge voting results.
140. Arizona Speaker of the House
Rusty Bowers is taking regular phone calls from Rudy Giuliani and the
president. They want him to help overturn election results. He says he won’t –
because he took an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution.
“It would violate that oath,” Bowers
later tells congressional investigators, “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.”
Bowers refused to break the law or violate his oath.
141.
This one is funny. Testifying before a panel of Michigan lawmakers, a “star witness” in the
fight to overturn Biden’s victory turns out to be quite the character. Mellissa
Carone, who swore she had been witness to massive voter fraud, is on probation in an earlier case,
involving a sex tape in which Carone played a starring role, her boyfriend
(co-starring), a computer, and her boyfriend’s ex-wife. Carone sent the video to
the ex-wife and then tried to frame her and make it seem as if she had stolen
the tape.
FUN FACT: Her testimony proves so bizarre, Saturday Night Live presents a parody. And,
yes, Rudy did punctuate her claims with a barrage of gaseous omissions, caught
on microphones inside the hearing room.
142. On December 4, Team Trump suffers five
brutal court defeats. At 4:30 p.m. the Minnesota
Supreme Court tosses a suit, after lawyers ask that the state’s electoral
vote not be certified.
143. The Michigan Court of
Appeals tosses a challenge to certification of the vote in Wayne County,
home to Detroit.
144. A Nevada judge shitcans a
claim by several “alternate Republican electors” that there had been widespread
fraud in the vote. Judge James T. Russell
rejects their argument, writing that he can find “no credible or reliable
evidence that the 2020 general election in Nevada was affected by fraud.”
145. Those alternate electors (i.e.
“fakes”) are eventually hauled before a grand jury, and two of their
leaders are indicted.
(Questions related to that case are
currently before the Nevada Supreme Court.)
146. A Wisconsin judge blows up
another lawsuit. Asked to overturn the state’s popular vote and let a
Republican-led legislature decide who gets the electoral votes, Judge Brian
Hagedorn expresses shock. “Judicial acquiescence to such
entreaties built on so flimsy a foundation would do indelible damage to
every future election. This is a dangerous path we are being asked to tread.”
147. At 7 p.m. a judge in
Phoenix denies a request by
Arizona Republican Party chairwoman Kelli Ward to invalidate the results of
that state’s election. Judge Randall H. Warner rules definitively: “The
court finds no misconduct, no fraud, and no effect on the outcomeof the
election.”
148. We should probably mention here that Ms. Ward is later
called to testify as part of a congressional investigation looking int the
events related to the attack on the Capitol Building on January 6. She decides
to plead the Fifth to just about every question
investigators can think of.
149.Georgia Lt. Governor Geoff Duncan explains, during an
appearance on CNN, that Trump’s “mountains of misinformation” about stolen
votes are hurtingthe Republican Party. “If I had a chance to spend five
minutes with every single person in Georgia that doubted the election results,”
he says, “I think I’d be able to win their
hearts over, show them the facts and figures, separate fact from fiction”
(Good luck with that, sir. We’ve been trying for the last
four years.)
150. December 7: A federal
judge throws out a lawsuit asking to overturn
Biden’s victory in Georgia. Plaintiffs, Judge Batten rules, were 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
that, Team Trump lawyers’ only “win” in court, an earlier decision by Batten
(See: #134), becomes a loss.
Their
record is reduced to 0 for 2020.
151. U.S. District Court Judge Linda Parker tosses
another lawsuit seeking to overturn the Michigan vote. Parker
is scathing in rebuke. “This lawsuit seems to be less about achieving the relief
Plaintiffs seek …and
more about the impact of their allegations on People’s faith in the
democratic process and their trust in our government.”
152. Fifteen hundred attorneys, from across the country,
Republican, Democrat, and independent alike, sign a letter condemning the antics
of the president’s legal team. “President Trump’s barrage of
litigation is a pretext for a campaign to undermine public confidence in the
outcome of the 2020 election,” they warn, “which inevitably will subvert
constitutional democracy.”
BLOGGER’S NOTE: This
is the first time I have used any Democratic voices to prove my case. As
before, names inbold are people who know, or have ample cause to
believe, that Trump is a shameless liar.
153. Thepresident’s lawyers briefly advance a case to the U.S.
Supreme Court, asking the justices to block certification of Pennsylvania’s 20
electoral votes. In a bizarre
development Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has
filed suit – against
sister states Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Georgia. Paxton claims
those states’ electoral votes for Biden should not count.
Texas electoral votes for Trump
should.
154. “At one point,” the WashingtonPost
notes, “the [Paxton] 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 were “less than
one in a quadrillion.”
(Since
the world population is eight billion, it’s unclear how that math works.)
155. Texas allows mail-in votes, just
like the four states Paxton is suing! In Paxton’s state, however, only people over age 65 can be trusted
to sign mail-in ballots, provide proof of who they are, fold them, put them in
a special envelope, lick the flap, put the first envelope in a second, lick the
flap, and affix correct postage.
156. You can even vote from jail in Texas, under certain
circumstances, which is oddly amusing.
157. In the lawsuit filed by Paxton and crafted by a lawyer, Dr. John
Eastman – soon to be famous – it is cited as evidence that no person has ever
been elected president if they met defeat in both Ohio and Florida. This is irrelevant.
And wrong. Even the simple blogger knows that, without needing to look it up.
Dr. Eastman muffs an easy one. President Kennedy lost both Ohio and Florida, but won.
158. Next, we had several other irrelevant claims. This blogger’s favorite: Trump won
18 of 19 “bellwether counties,” which had not failed to pick the presidential
winner since 1980. According to Paxton and Eastman that meant there was no
way Donald could have lost.
We should point out, of course, that we don’t vote by
“counties” in America, or count only “bellwether county” votes. We total up all
the votes of all the people in all the counties in this great land.
One blue county has more people than all the red counties.
159. It was fun to find out that just
four years earlier, Hillary
Clinton beat Trump in 14 other “bellwether counties.”
160. Biden won those same 14
“bellwether counties” in 2020. So, take that, Dr. Eastman, you dolt.
161. We should also point out that Paxton
will later be found
liable for retaliating against whistleblowers
in his office, after they accused him of bribery and fraud. He agreed to pay
$3.3 million in damages.
162. But not before he tried to stick Texas
taxpayers with the tab.
163. Like his hero, the Orange
Dumpling, Paxton later gets impeached – but survives his trial.
164. No matter. None of this bellwether BS mattered.
Just forty minutes after the case was filed, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled:
“DENIED.”
“Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest
in the manner in which another State conducts its elections,” the Court
explained. “All other pending motions are dismissed as moot.”
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