January Fools: Part IV - Call in the Tanks!

 NOTE: Throughout this post, we will insert pictures of tanks approaching Tiananmen Square (as seen below) every time you are required, if you believe in the fairy tale of the stolen election, to accept a ridiculously unbelievable statement, swallow an absurdity as fact, overlook an outright lie, or ignore common sense. 

PART IV – CALL IN THE TANKS! 

12/11/20: I was right from the start – because I am not delusional and did not believe idiocy would prevail.  

Sadly, none of my right-wing pals took me up on my offer of a bet. (See: 12/10/20.) 

It took more than 18 words this time, but the U.S. Supreme Court shot down Team Trump once more. The State of Texas’s challenge to the election results in four other states went down in legal flames. The justices ruled: 

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.

 

In other words, Justices Alito and Thomas would have agreed to hear the challenge – and then would have shot it down.

        One for each justice.

 

But! But! Trump supporters can always turn to those experts in everything, Diamond and Silk, for the kind of news and views they love. 

Even after the Supreme Court slams the door on a second term for their Orange God, those two brainless buffoons have a plan to keep Donald in the White House. The Newsmax hosts, who describe themselves as the soon-to-be-ex-president’s “Most Loyal Supporters,” start tweeting calls for the U.S. military to intervene and stop the inauguration of Joe Biden. Democrats, they hint darkly are attempting to “overthrow the Government by exploiting a Pandemic.”  

For good measure, they add, “If the Supreme Court can’t save our Republic, then where is the Military?” In fact, they insist, “There needs to be a Forensic Audit done by our Military in all the Swing states in question. The ballot boxes need to be open, and the Dominion machines need to be examined for irregularities. All Illegal Ballots and Illegal tabulation counts should be removed!” 

It’s the Tiananmen Square Plan for democracy in America. When I check the requisite tweet, I find the buffoons have garnered 7,141 “likes” and 1,203 clueless fans have retweeted their idiot post. 

Someone who goes by “Ronald” comments, with cluelessness equal to theirs: “yes , declare martial law NOW & do so, also needs to push for indictment on biden b4 it is too late , enuf corruption to make him ineligible once indicted” 

Diamond, and Silk, and Ronald, and even Donald Trump might want to consider a few more examples of what happens when the military takes control of elections – which often cease entirely, thereafter. For example: Napoleon, Hitler, Mussolini, Saddam Hussein, Chile in the 1970s, Argentina in the 1980s, with its death squads, Egypt in 2016, and the military of Myanmar.

___

 

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 U.S. Supreme Court. Bibles were also thumped, since many Trump fans 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 the horn tootling, it was a tough day for the president and his loyal 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 settled over the land. According to Maggie Haberman, a reporter for The New York Times, Trump was so bummed that he skipped his own White House Christmas Party last night. 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 when we checked the president’s Twitter feed, it quickly became clear he was having a devil of a 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 till dawn, roused himself from bed, 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, similarly mistake interpretation 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 roadkill 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 likewise have shot it down. 

According to Professor Steve Vladeck of the University of Texas School of Law, 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 [emphasis added] 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. He had insisted they overturn the election results in their states. They said no; and he said they were “RINO’s.” “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. 

Or, rounding up, as in Trump Math, 82 million. 

 

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, now ended in ignominy? 

You can check it out: 

Romney:         47.2%.

Trump:           46.9%.

Trump:           46.1%.

 

         

* 

A federal judge, and a Trump appointee to the bench, by the way, throws out another challenge to the November voting results, this time in Wisconsin. It’s Team Trump’s seventh court loss in ten days. 

Describing the case as “extraordinary,” U.S. District Judge Brett Ludwig rules that Wisconsin officials followed state laws when they conducted the Nov. 3 election.  

A sitting president who did not prevail [emphasis added] in his bid for reelection has asked for federal court help in setting aside the popular vote based on disputed issues of election administration, issues he plainly could have raised before the vote occurred. 

 

This court allowed the plaintiff the chance to make his case and he has lost on the merits. In his reply brief, plaintiff “asks that the Rule of Law be followed.” It has been.

 

On the flip side of the rule of law, Lin Wood, the pro-Trump lawyer who keeps getting smoked in court whenever he claims to have evidence the election was rigged, offers up a new strategy. Forget judges! He suggests that like-minded “patriots” who love America so much they’d be happy to kill not-so-patriotic Americans to save it, stock up on “Second Amendment supplies.” 

“Our leader is Donald Trump, not Joe Biden,” he adds. 

Let’s start shooting!

 

Other Republican leaders, like Sen. John Thune, the second ranking member of the U.S. Senate say it’s time to move on: Joe Biden won the election. Lindsey Graham, a Trump loyalist, Rob Portman, Roy Blunt, the Senate’s No. 4 Republican, and Shelley Moore Capito concur. Sen. Bill Cassidy is clear. On January 20, Joe Biden takes over. “Obviously, he is the president-elect. He has 270 Electoral College votes. As we’re a nation of laws, and this is the Constitution, and this is the law, and this is how it breaks out, and the courts have ruled, then President Biden’s going to be our next president.” 

“There comes a time when you have to realize that, despite your best efforts, you’ve been unsuccessful,” Sen. John Cornyn agrees, “that’s sort of the nature of these elections. You’ve got to have a winner. You’ve got to have a loser” he tells reporters at the U.S. Capitol.

 

The LOSER is Donald J. Trump.

 

Sen. Lamar Alexander says during an interview that he hopes the president will put the country first and congratulate President-Elect Biden. But we know that’s not going to happen. 

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.

___ 

 

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 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 record their votes (16) for the former Vice President. One elector wears a bulletproof vest on the way to vote. 

New York’s electors, including Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, tally 29 votes for Joe Biden. That had to please Mrs. Clinton, no doubt.  

BLOGGER’S NOTE: We won’t learn this until two days after Joe Biden takes over, but four top Department of Justice officials inform The New York Times that in the waning days of the Trump presidency, a new plot was afoot. On December 14, Attorney General Bill Barr resigned his position, rather than push unfounded “stolen election” investigations, as the president said he must. Not to be denied the chance to deny he had been thumped at the polls, Trump called in Acting AG Jeffrey A. Rosen and Deputy Attorney General Richard P. Donoghue, the following day. Again, he made it clear. He wanted investigations. He wanted DOJ to fight harder for him. 

For justice? 

No. Him. 

When Rosen balked – because, you know – the U.S. Constitution – Trump began working out a way to get rid of him, too, and put a more malleable lawyer, Jeffrey Clark, in charge of DOJ. With storm clouds gathering, top officials at Justice decided to hold a conference call and determine what they would do if Rosen were fired. The agreed unanimously. They would resign. 

Mr. Clark insisted, in talking with the Times later, that he had not been part of any plot to get rid of Rosen; but a Trump advisor did comment. Trump had been talking about combating “rampant election fraud that has plagued our system for years.” 

The president complained to Justice Department leaders that the U.S. attorney in Atlanta, Byung J. Pak, was not trying hard enough to find evidence for false election claims pushed by Mr. Trump’s lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani and others. Mr. Donoghue warned Mr. Pak that the president was fixated on his office, and that it might not be tenable for him to continue to lead it.

 

Mr. Clark was also focused on Georgia. He drafted a letter that he wanted Mr. Rosen to send to Georgia state legislators. That letter stated wrongly that the Justice Department was investigating serious accusations of voter fraud in their state, and that they should move to void Mr. Biden’s win. 

Clark met separately with Trump, who said he planned to replace Rosen – with Clark. Clark told Rosen about the plan, but said he could stay on as his deputy. 

A meeting was eventually arranged at the White House. Steven Engel, head of the Justice Department’s office of legal counsel was there. By this time, Trump’s illegal phone call to Georgia officials had been revealed by the free press. Engel and Donahue were blunt. If Rosen were fired, they would quit, as would others, leaving Clark to run DOJ by himself. 

White House Council Pat Cipollone also advised Trump not to fire Rosen. After three hours of discussion, the president backed off his plan. 

As for Clark, he seemed miffed, not because Trump had wanted to trample the rule of law, but because others involved in the meeting had talked about it openly. “There was a candid discussion of options and pros and cons with the president,” he admitted. Then he added, “It is unfortunate that those who were part of a privileged legal conversation would comment in public about such internal deliberations, while also distorting any discussions.”

 

BLOGGER’S NOTE #2 (10/7/21): We learn once again, if we need to learn, that The New York Times does not deal in “Fake News.” 

The above account is verified in all important details when, in the fall of 2021, a Senate Judiciary Committee report is released. 

This blogger is still digesting the report, but the Washington Post provides insight. Rosen, Clark, and Donoghue had a tense meeting in the Oval Office on January 3. The president made clear he wanted to replace Rosen with Clark. 

Donoghue was brutal in response: 

At some point during the meeting, Donoghue ... made clear that all of the Assistant Attorneys General would resign if Trump replaced Rosen with Clark. Donoghue added that the mass resignations likely would not end there, and that U.S. Attorneys and other DOJ officials might also resign en masse.

 

As the Post explains, “Not only that, White House counsel Pat Cipollone and his deputy said that they, too, would resign. Cipollone called Clark’s [proposed] letter to legislatures [asking them to appoint new slates of electors] a ‘murder-suicide pact.’” 

Trump finally backed down. 

Still, he had a plan. He shifted, over the next three days, to pressuring Vice President Pence to thwart the final electoral count.

___ 

 

12/15/20: No Twitter Thumbs tweet-rampage is complete without a suggestion that someone needs to be locked up, even if we never bother with 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. 

___ 

 

12/16/20: The president is not the only proto-fascist to be having trouble accepting the election results. On his show today, Rush Limbaugh tells listeners that Biden “didn’t win this thing fair and square, and we’re not going to be docile like we’ve been in the past, and go away and wait till the next election.” 

He goes on to exclaim, “Seventy-four million plus Americans are not going to shut up, and you tell them that their views don’t matter? You do not know what you’re creating. You do not know the enemy you are manufacturing.” 

 

BLOGGER’S NOTE: The New York Times will later do an analysis of transcripts from his show, between 11/22/20 and 1/5/21. Limbaugh will refer to the election as “fraudulent,” “stolen,” “rigged” or “illegal” on 32 of 45 episodes.

 

BLOGGER’S NOTE #2: We won’t know this until February 2022; but on this date, December 16, 2020, Trump allies are already drafting a plan which would allow President Trump to seize voting machines in several states in an attempt to prove the election was stolen. 

A draft report circulating states: 

I, Donald J. Trump, President of the United States, find that the forensic report of Antrim County, Michigan voting machines, released December 13, 2020, and other evidence submitted to me in support of this order, provide probable cause sufficient to require action under the authorities cited above because of evidence of international and foreign interference in the November 3, 2020, election. Dominion Voting Systems and related companies are owned or heavily controlled and influenced by foreign agents, countries, and interests. The forensic report prepared by experts found that “the Dominion Voting System is intentionally and purposefully designed with inherent errors to create systemic fraud and influence election results. The system intentionally generates an enormously high number of ballot errors... The intentional errors lead to bulk adjudication of ballots with no oversight, no transparency, and no audit trail. This leads to voter or election fraud.” The report found the election management system to be wrought with unacceptable and unlawful vulnerabilities—including access to the internet— probable cause to find evidence of fraud, and numerous malicious actions.

 

This order would have given the Department of Defense authority to seize all the machines in states Trump lost. Such as Georgia. 

For some reason, no one on Team Trump wants to examine the voting machines in, say, Florida, where Trump won. 

Or North Carolina. 

Or Ohio. 

This email is the work of retired Army Col. Phil Waldron, and retired Army Gen. Michael T. Flynn.

 

Fortunately, when the idea of seizing the machines is broached to the Department of Defense, the plan is shot down. (See 12/17/20.) 

We also know that in June 2021, a report produced by a Republican-led Michigan Senate committee blows to bits the idea that there was any significant voter fraud in Antrim County, which people like Waldron and Flynn believed there was. As the GOP chair of the committee explained, “We must all remember: ‘extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof’ and ‘claiming to find something extraordinary requires first eliminating the ordinary.’” 

Yet, Flynn and his crew, with the support of President Trump, had plans to overturn the vote for one fundamental reason. 

Trump lost.

___ 

 

12/17/20: We don’t know this at the time, but at 8:44 a.m., on this day, Russell Ramsland, a Texas entrepreneur, emails a plan, almost identical to the one mentioned in the Note #2 for 12/16/20. This time the plan to seize voting machines in states Trump lost is dropped in the lap of the Department of Homeland Security. 

If the Department of Defense won’t grab the machines, maybe DHS will. (It soon turns out DHS wants no part of the plan.) 

Politico notes: 

Chris Krebs, a former top DHS official who defended the election’s integrity and was subsequently fired by Trump, told POLITICO that the draft order was a mess.

 

“This draft executive order is more of the same sloppy, half-baked nonsense written by someone with only a Facebook Groups-level understanding of government authorities, capabilities, and responsibilities,” he said. “That it may have made its way to the Resolute Desk is hard to comprehend, and we should all be thankful that some sane person somewhere near the Oval Office killed this thing.”

___ 

 

12/18/20: The president and his loyalists are still sad, a week after the U.S. Supreme Court shot down their dream case to overturn results of the November election (see: 12/11/20). Press Secretary “Birther” McEnany appears on Fox News and insists the nine jurists failed. “There’s no way to say it other than they dodged,” she grumbles. “They dodged, they hid behind procedure and they refused to use their authority to enforce the Constitution.” 

Yes. The highest court in the land refused to use their authority by voting not to accept a stupid legal challenge to begin. 

 “This was on standing, dismissed on standing,” McEnany claims. “None of the justices gave a view on the facts of the case.” 

That’s a lie, of course; but McEnany holds her White House position largely because of her facile respect for the truth. 

One Trump loyalist who is even more 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, we must assume – until Trump wins. 

 

In the make believe world of Lame Duck Don and his unwavering, generally ill-informed fans, another loyalist, Georgia attorney Lin Wood, is hinting that Chief Justice John Roberts and others on the Supreme Court are part of a Deep State fix. 

Not only that, but Wood claims to have proof of evildoing behind the scenes – which at some future date he will reveal to the horror of all. Since someone named “John Roberts” once flew on a plane with Jeffrey Epstein, the notorious sexual predator, Wood insists that the American people are “entitled” to an explanation.” Can Chief Justice Roberts prove that wasn’t him on that flight? 

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

Dear Mr. Wood,

 

Don’t be such a dolt. “John,” and “Roberts” are common first and last names. 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. (You should try it, yourself.) So, for fun, 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 reside in Cleveland, the 39 in Dayton, and, frankly, the 869 people by that name who live in Florida, where Epstein used to hang out.

 

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. Trump. Then you had “David Dennison,” of hush money fame, which the president later admitted was him.

 

In closing, since you passionately believe that the American people are entitled to an explanation, could you ask former U.S. Secretary of Labor Alex Acosta a question for us?

 

Why, before he joined President Trump’s cabinet, did he grant Epstein a sweet deal when he was facing 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 awake and fuming. At 12:42 a.m., he tweeted to say that Peter Navarro had handed him a 36-page report (which I think we can be sure Trump didn’t 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,”  he said. “Be there, will be wild!” 

(See: General Flynn, above.)

 

Sean Hannity makes it clear where he stands, or kneels, to kiss the president’s ass. On his nightly Fox News harangue, he howls, “There’s no doubt this [election] was stolen. No doubt whatsoever.” 

 

BLOGGER’S NOTE: A later analysis of transcripts from Hannity’s show indicates that between November 22 and January 5, on 35 of 45 episodes, Hannity referred to the election as “fraudulent,” “rigged,” “stolen” or “illegal.” 

As for the president’s prediction that it will be “wild” in Washington D.C. on January 6, we all know what happened next. 

And how about that “John Roberts,” who flew on Epstein’s plane? We still don’t know exactly who that might have been. We do know, however, that Donald J. Trump took at least six rides with Epstein, over the years. 

___ 

 

12/20/20: 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.” 

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-claim-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, tweeted and then deleted a call for the president to declare martial law in seven states. Lindell thought it might be cool to send in the troops, overturn the vote, and maybe shoot any citizens who insisted that Joe Biden was in fact the next President of the United States.

 

Since our topic is folly and psychosis, we should note that this weekend Fox News was forced to air a rebuttal of “the-election-was-stolen-narrative” that multiple hosts and guests (Lou Dobbs, Sidney Powell, et al.) have been peddling since November 3. Smartmatic, which supplies software for voting machines that hosts like Dobbs have adamantly insisted were rigged, had threatened legal action. 

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. Mr. Perez quickly debunked all the nonsense Lou and company had been spewing. 

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

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

He cut to a commercial.

___ 

 

12/21/20: Down in Texas, Mark A. Aguirre, 63, a former Houston police captain, and working for a conservative group on high alert for ballot fraud, starts his morning off right by ramming the cargo truck of air-conditioner installer David Lopez-Zuniga and forcing it off the road. 

Aguirre then gets the drop on the unlucky air-conditioner installer and points a gun at his head. 

Lopez-Zuniga is suspected of transporting 750,000 fake ballots – the very kind of fraud that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton loves to talk about but somehow never manages to prove. 

Sadly, a search of the truck reveals zero ballots, neither fake nor real. Aguirre gets arrested and charged with assault with a deadly weapon. 

 

Attorney General Bill Barr tells reporters that while he is “sure there was fraud in this election,” he has seen no evidence to indicate that it was so “systemic or broad-based” that it would change the outcome. He could see “no basis now for seizing [voting] machines by the federal government.” Nor would he name a special counsel to explore the “stolen election” allegations of Trump and his allies. 

“If I thought a special counsel at this stage was the right tool and was appropriate, I would name one, but I haven’t, and I’m not going to,” he adds. 

___ 

 

12/22/20: The president remains as unwilling as ever to accept his defeat. On Tuesday, he did tweet once about vaccine distribution and how great it was 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 soon be 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 Constitution and the rule of law. He wants the votes of six states overturned; and he wants it 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 someone 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. Yay! Got that right! 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. 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 in 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. Wyoming gets three (3) electoral votes. Alaska also has three (3). Montana has three (3). North Dakota has three (3). South Dakota also 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 a combined 49 electoral votes. 

It’s bad enough we pick presidents based on how the Electoral College works, which is how Trump won in 2016. We absolutely do not pick presidents by how many counties they win. That would be like picking our leaders based on how many cornfields states have. Or which states have the biggest piles of horse manure. And you’d think even this 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 at all in this area.

 

Here’s the view (above) 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. There might be a few grizzly bears; but they don’t vote. 

 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 do. 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.

___

 

12/24/20: No day since the election would be complete without Mr. Trump arguing, without evidence, 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. 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. 

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 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’s mad at Fox, 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.

 

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 the bull, even if we did do it because that’s our 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 hide.

 

BLOGGER’S NOTE: We won’t know this until May 24, 2021, but on Christmas Eve, Trump lawyer Rudi Giuliani puts in a call to an Arizona elections official. Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates is recipient and Rudy leaves a message. The message eventually ends up in possession of the Arizona Republican. 

See if you can guess what Rudy wants. 

Bill, it’s Rudy Giuliani, President Trump’s lawyer. If you get a chance, would you please give me a call? I have a few things I’d like to talk over with you. Maybe we can get this thing fixed up. You know, I really think it’s a shame that Republicans sort of are both in this, kind of, situation. And I think there may be a nice way to resolve this for everybody.

 

Yes, let’s “get this thing fixed up.” Let’s get Trump enough votes to take Arizona away from Joe Biden. Gates apparently smells the same kind of rat smelled by Georgia election officials. He tells reporters from the Arizona Republican that he never called Giuliani back. 

___ 

 

12/25/20: Mark Levin decides to spread some Christmas cheer on his holiday broadcast. He tells his audience (of up to 11 million listeners), that stealing elections “is becoming the norm for the Democrat Party.” He says his listeners should “crush them, crush them. We need to kick their ass.” 

(Or they could try to build a more inclusive party and stop trying to count on the white supremacist vote.)

___ 

 

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

That means the soon-to-be-rejected-president has been spending 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. No empathy shown. (That’s to be expected from the man.) Instead, he implies that we have suffered “an act of war” since the election was stolen from his clutches. If the Democrats had been in this situation, 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 Don fumes. 

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 his picks for their 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 himself, will in his eyes live 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. 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 [emphasis added]!

 

Finally, the president cites the kind of “evidence” that has led his lawyers to file more than 60 lawsuits contesting the results – all now lost. 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 a plaintive, “Fake President!” 

In yet another tweet he talks of a “COUP” having been perpetrated. 

Then a Trump twitter pal invokes God in the battle that rages on (in Trump’s mind), and the president retweets it with thanks: 

 

Since two branches of the government have “failed” him, Trump has no recourse but to call for supporters to mass in Washington D.C. on January 6 and try to stop the certification of the electoral vote. 

Maybe General Flynn can bring a few tanks.

___ 

 

12/27/20: Trump continues to insist, via Twitter, that he has been the victim of the greatest cheat in American history. Let’s just lump a number of separate tweets into one giant glob of paranoia and victimhood: 

Time for Republican Senators to step up and fight for the Presidency….The 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), and much more. The numbers are far greater than what is necessary to win the individual swing states, and cannot even be contested.... Courts are bad, the FBI and “Justice” didn’t do their job…Freedom of the press has been gone for a long time, it is Fake News, and now we have Big Tech (with Section 230) to deal with....But when it is all over, and this period of time becomes just another ugly chapter in our Country’s history, WE WILL WIN!!!

___ 

 

12/29/20: To summarize the president’s Twitter output for the day, we offer a few pungent phrases: “Weak and tired Republican ‘leadership,’” say goodbye to “our great soldiers” being brought home “from foreign lands that do NOTHING for us.” “Disgraceful act of cowardice,” get a better bill, “or better leaders, NOW!” 

As expected, we had claims of rigged voting results. Four times did Trump “tirelessly” tweet on the topic. In Pennsylvania, “200,000 more votes were counted, than there were voters and “(100% went to Biden).” “All other Swing States show likewise.” “WE NEED NEW & ENERGETIC REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP.” The leaders we have only want to follow “the path of least resistance.” 

Finally, to sum it up, Trump exclaimed, “Our leaders (not me, of course!) are pathetic. They only know how to lose!” Not Trump. He got many lawmakers elected, and now, “I do believe they forget it.”

___ 

 

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 electoral votes of the fifty states and District of Columbia will be accepted by Congress, tallied, and 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 the election of 1876, when Samuel Tilden got stiffed.) 

To contest the certified electoral votes of a state, in Trump’s case, you would need one chucklehead in the House of Representatives and one dunderpate in the Senate to lodge protest. In the House, Rep. Louis Gohmert, is one of dozens of chuckleheads who has said he would be thrilled to step to the fore. 

Loony Lou has an interesting, one-man-rule kind of theory about how we count electoral votes. That is: the VP can decide on a whim what to do. Ohio cast its 18 electoral votes for Trump? Sure. Mike Pence counts them. Pennsylvania cast its 20 for Joe Biden? Pence doesn’t feel like counting those.

“Under the Constitution, he has the authority to conduct that proceeding [the tally of the electoral votes on January 6] as he sees fit,” Gohmert argues. “He may count elector votes certified by a state’s executive, or he can prefer a competing slate of duly qualified electors. He may ignore all electors from a certain state. That is the power bestowed upon him by the Constitution.” 

Republican fools in the Senate are harder to find, but there are several to pick from. Elected every six years, senators can show a bit more courage and count on most voters to forget if they let Dictator Don down.

 

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 clear. He will protest the vote! 

So far, Sen. Hawley admits he isn’t entirely sure. Should he protest the votes of several states? Or should he contest the electoral votes from 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 GOP colleagues. 

If he challenges votes in only one state, what’s the point? Trump would have to overturn the votes of Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Nevada, or some other combination, and have those votes handed to him, or Hawley’s challenge won’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 Trump, 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 next men’s New York City Marathon. Team Trump has already filed more than 60 court challenges to election results. In all, probably 150 judges have been involved in saying, in multiple ways, that the current vote counts are fair and accurate. 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.     Joe Biden won again. 

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. 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 that the votes of at least one, if not all of the following states, should be challenged and awarded to Donald J. Trump: Pennsylvania. Michigan. Wisconsin. Arizona. Nevada. And, yes, Georgia. 

Will this stunt do the American people any good? No. But it might allow Sen. Hawley to leap to the fore when it comes to heading the GOP ticket 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. Many Republican senators have proven that they do not have numbed skulls and have made clear they will vote against Sen. Hawley’s lame-ass plan.

 

It’s not often that Senate Leader Mitch McConnell shows any courage. In a phone call today, however, 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. “And in my view, just my view, this will be the most consequential I have ever cast.” 

It seems likely that Hawley will fail even to get a majority of 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. If challenges are issued to the Pennsylvania results, he promises to respond in 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. Even if they fire on January 6, they can’t do any real harm. But now we know. If Trump had a gun loaded with real bullets, he’d shoot democracy right between the eyes. 

Fortunately, most Republican senators believe that Mr. Biden won, and that the election was fair. Those likely to vote down Hawley’s challenge 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.” 

Well, before Trump.

___ 

 

1/2/21: Trump and his supporters refuse to give up hope of overturning election results and telling 81 million Biden voters they can leap into Hades. Now there’s a new plan afoot. God and firing squads! 

One Trump stalwart is Mike Lindell, the MyPillow guy. “This president won by a lot, by a landslide! I know there was fraud,” he tells 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 continues. 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 just four more days 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 as well. God had nothing to do with it. A majority of 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 $1 million in support of Trump’s dozens of 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: 

0 wins, 60 losses. 

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

Trump lawyer L. Lin Wood has attacked a number of top Republicans and listed a variety of entities he believes are working to hand the election to Joe Biden. Included in Wood’s list of those engaged in the theft: “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 state and federal judges, Wood 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.” 

Wood has no doubt what should 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.)

___ 

 

1/3/21: The Washington Post and other media outlets reveal a call made by President Trump, the day before. That call, lasting a little more than an hour, goes to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. 

We already know that you can’t indict a sitting president; but the plan the president is floating would guarantee a felony charge for anyone else.

 

* 

If you can bear to listen to the entire 62-minute recording, you’ll hear Trump saying, in essence, he’s not asking for much. Just 11,780 votes, one more than needed to take the state’s 16 electoral votes away from his opponent and put them in his winning column. Really, just one little felony was all he needed! 

During the call, he repeatedly claims to have won the state by “hundreds of thousands” of votes. 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 the 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. People who had moved out of Georgia and died came back (from heaven) to cast ballots. Some Democratic lady pulled 18,000 votes out of a “suitcase,” hidden under a table. Those votes were counted once … twice … three times. 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. 

 

Amoral on a good day, immoral on a bad. 

THIS CALL captures the soul of Donald J. Trump. He’s 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 there’s no way he could have lost the election in Georgia because his rallies drew bigger crowds than Biden’s.

(A total irrelevancy, of course.)

 

In Fulton County, the president says, the “rumor” is that thousands of ballots were “shredded.” 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?”  

Trump does most of the talking. He justifies his request by piling up massive numbers to show he was cheated out of a landslide win. He just needs a little nudge to get him over the 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. 

 

Naturally, 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, “Sleepy 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.

 

Trump 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.” 

 

“The data you have is wrong.” 

Trump and Meadows, and several lawyers on the White House end may be careful not to come out and say, “Steal the goddam votes we need, Brad.” They’re awfully close. Trump insists he won by hundreds of thousands; and now all he needs is a little boost. 

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. It turned out, only two were fraudulent. 

The president insists 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.” 

He 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 [Center] 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.

 

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.” 

 

“People can say anything.” 

Balked at one turn after another, the president 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.

 

Trump’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 poured out to vote.

 

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

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 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.

 

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 [emphasis added throughout, unless otherwise noted].

 

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

 

Flummoxed in regard to the imaginary shredding, the president and his team try a new tack. 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 Democratic leaders in Georgia who organized 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. 

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

 

“Flipping the state.” 

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 [Abrams] 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.)

 

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 ignore the law.

 

“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.

 

Trump has made this clear before. He hates a three-branch form of government. If he had his way, there would be one. The president hints that he’ll make sure Raffensperger’s career in politics is over if he doesn’t cave. 

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…” 

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 Duck Donald sees it, with time running out.

___ 

 

1/4/21: Bill Cunningham, a syndicated radio host and big fan of Donald J. Trump tells listeners, “I will never surrender and collapse and act as if it’s OK when hundreds of thousands have voted illegally.” 

(The blogger caught this line on WLW 700, while driving that day.)

 

That same day, Glen Beck, another right-wing radio star, tells his audience of more than ten million that, “It is time to rip and claw and rake. It is time to go to war, as the left went to war four years ago.”  

This blogger decides to check. Didn’t Hillary Clinton concede defeat almost immediately in 2016? According to USA Today, the Associated Press called the race at 2:30 a.m. on November 9, technically the day after Election Day. Clinton called Mr. Trump “about ten minutes later.” 

“Concession made,” the paper noted. “Democracy served.”

 

 

The paper also highlighted concession speeches in previous elections. Despite a close and contested vote in Ohio, in 2004, John Kerry conceded the following day. “In an American election,” he said, “there are no losers because whether or not our candidates are successful, the next morning we all wake up as Americans.” 

By late evening, on Election Day, in 2008, Sen. John McCain knew he had been beaten by Sen. Barack Obama. With his wife Cindy by his side, he assured supporters gathered (they had hoped) to celebrate victory, “It’s natural, tonight, to feel some disappointment. But tomorrow, we must move beyond it and work together to get our country moving again.” The defeated candidate appealed to all Americans to help Obama “find the necessary compromises to bridge our differences.” 

In 2012, it was Mitt Romney’s turn. He conceded in the early morning hours of the day after the election. I went to the Washington Post to find a transcript of his speech. “I have just called President Obama to congratulate him on his victory,” Romney told those who had hoped to make him the next president of the United States. 

The defeated candidate continued: 

His supporters and his campaign also deserve congratulations. I wish all of them well, but particularly the president, the first lady and their daughters.

 

(APPLAUSE)

 

This is a time of great challenges for America, and I pray that the president will be successful in guiding our nation.

 

* 

OR, YOU HAVE Team Trump. When news broke today about Trump’s phone call to Georgia officials, the president’s lawyer, Kurt Hilbert, had no choice but to admit he was disappointed. 

In Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger! 

The nerve of that guy, recording a conversation in which Trump basically asks him to gift him enough votes to win the state. Hilbert said it was too bad a “confidential settlement discussion” had been recorded and released to the free press. 

Also weighing in on the call, and calling it “disgusting” that Georgia election officials found it necessary to record the president, is Sen. David Perdue. He really wants to win a special election on Jan. 5. 

“I guess I was raised differently,” he says. 

Apparently, Perdue was raised to have the strong principles and moral character of a mushroom. 

Meanwhile, Sore Loser Don visits Georgia in person. In theory, he’s there to campaign for Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, running in a special election to keep their seats in the U.S. Senate. He tells the crowd he would have conceded his own loss graciously, if he had been defeated fairly, “but when you win in a landslide and they steal it and it’s rigged, it’s not acceptable.” 

He goes on to insist, “There’s no way we lost Georgia. That was a rigged election, but we’ll see what’s going to happen.”

___ 

 

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

It should be telling (but for many Trump fans it won’t) that the ten living former Secretaries of Defense have signed a letter of stark warning. That such a missive is necessary tells us all that 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.

 

You wish Trump fans would think this over, and it would sink in: The ten living men who have led the Department of Defense 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. 

 

POSTSCRIPT: Rejected Don still has his supporters, ready to help him burn the house down. Glen Beck, who talked about going to war on Monday (see: 1/4/21), now advises his audience that they should “channel their inner Martin Luther King Jr. and avoid violence.” 

Dan Bongino isn’t ready to concede anything. He tells listeners to his popular podcast that Democrats “rigged the rules to make sure that any potential outcome would go their way.”