November 20, 2020: "This So-Called Hand Recount"

 

11/20/20: All day, Friday, votes trickled in from the Nov. 3 election. Joe Biden’s lead in 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 had been manipulated to cheat him out of hundreds of thousands, even millions, of votes, we now had our first statewide “proof” of that shocking claim.

 

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“Election systems across the country are found to have deleted millions of votes cast for President Trump.”

 

One America News Network’s Lilia Fifield

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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 spent his time, leading up to the recount, alternately complaining that the recount would be a “scam” and then expressing confidence that Georgia would “flip Republican” when all the votes were recounted. 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 Raffensperger announced that the recount again showed Biden had won. Results were officially certified 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 beforehand. “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.” 

 

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.

 

 

How many votes are in a truckload?

 

No matter. Fifield 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 evidence, and the claim of “one million truckloads in Pennsylvania alone” was bizarre. How many votes were there per “truckload,” one would 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 “1,000.” 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, but the President of the United States has been making equally outlandish assertions because the President of the United States is a dunce. 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.

 

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.

 

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“We will follow the law.” 

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. He suggested 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 electoral votes. The Michigan Senate and House leaders listened to Mr. Trump, 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 advisors 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 a dead horse. 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.  

 

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“Which I am sure saved my life.”

 

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.” 

HHS Secretary Dr. Ben Carson has also 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 close call. His initial symptoms were mild. Then he fell “desperately ill.” He had “several co-morbidities” that played a role. “President Trump was following my condition,” Carson said, “and cleared me for the monoclonal antibody therapy that he had previously received, which I am convinced saved my life.” Now he was “out of the woods.” 

Not all Americans have been so fortunate as to be able to command the very best medical care. 

CDC reports that we had another 165,087 cases on Nov. 18. And 1,836 more Americans died. 

On November 19, we had 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 sixteen 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 enjoying Thanksgiving turkey and stuffing in gravy. 

Total lost lives: 253,600. 

Even 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.