;)
The Commentariat -- Nov. 28, 2020
Afternoon Update:
Incredible Shrinking Man lashes out at conspirators who downsized his desk.Peter Baker & Kathleen Gray of the New York Times: "If the president hoped Republicans across the country would fall in line behind his false and farcical claims that the election was somehow rigged on a mammoth scale by a nefarious multinational conspiracy, he was in for a surprise. Republicans in Washington may have indulged Mr. Trump's fantastical assertions, but at the state and local level, Republicans played a critical role in resisting the mounting pressure from their own party to overturn the vote after Mr. Trump fell behind on Nov. 3.... In the end, the system [-- although vulnerable --] stood firm against the most intense assault from an aggrieved president in the nation's history because of a Republican city clerk in Michigan, a Republican secretary of state in Georgia, a Republican county supervisor in Arizona and Republican-appointed judges in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. They refuted conspiracy theories, certified results, dismissed lawsuits and repudiated a president of their own party, leaving him to thunder about a supposed plot that would have had to include people who had voted for him, donated to him or even been appointed by him." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Pretty much what I wrote in a comment this morning, albeit Baker & Gray do it with better words.
Marie (with a little help from my friends): Trump has not had time to take care of the nation's business because he was otherwise occupied designing his library. It's quite nice, although I'm pretty sure Trump will be adding plenty more faux gold finishes. While the lie-berry is not yet open, you can order Christmas presents (not "holiday gifts") from the grift shop. No money-back guarantees, but Trump assures us that mail orders, unlike mail-in ballots, are totally safe and will not be ripped off by criminal Democrat mail carriers. Thanks to RAS for the link. And do click on it. Whoever put this together did a great job.
Andrew Solender of Forbes: "Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-Va.) pulled no punches against President Trump and his fellow Republicans in Congress in an interview with Forbes, accusing them of a 'massive grift' in refusing to acknowledge the results of the election and claiming Trump appeals to groups that are 'anti-Semitic' and 'anti-American.' Riggleman, one of just 10 GOP House members acknowledging Joe Biden's victory, said the Republican refusal to acknowledge the result is 'just money-making for the 2024 election' and 'completely unethical,' saying he's spoken to 30 or 40 GOP members of Congress who privately acknowledge the result despite public silence.... Riggleman was even harsher toward colleagues who are 'true believers' of Trump's unfounded claims of widespread election fraud, asserting it 'really speaks to where your intelligence level is --- to believe in that type of operation.'"
It Takes a Crackpot. Will Sommer of the Daily Beast: "Former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne left behind a cloud of confusion when he resigned in 2019 from the internet retailer he'd founded after panicking investors with his bizarre claims that he had romanced a Russian agent at the behest of 'Men in Black' working for the United States government. Now he's back, with what he has described as his own personal 'army,' touting what he claims is proof that Democrats stole the election from Donald Trump. 'I've funded a team of hackers and cybersleuths, other people with odd skills,' Byrne said in a Tuesday interview at One America News, where OAN personality Chanel Rion praised Byrne as the head of an 'elite shadow cyber security team.'"
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Robert Hart of Forbes: "Less than a day after saying he would leave the White House should President-elect Joe Biden be voted in by the electoral college..., Donald Trump backtracked, baselessly insisting Friday that Biden 'can only enter the White House as President if he can prove' his 80 million votes were not 'fraudulently or illegally obtained,' and effectively recanting his closest admission to electoral defeat." MB: That's fine with me as long as whoever frog-marches the Kaiser out of the White House allows cameras to roll. Watching Trump kick, scream & wail as officers drag him across the White House lawn as Joe Biden delivers his inaugural address would be the best split screen in television history.
Michael Shear & Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. moved quickly this past week to name the first two members of his cabinet, picking one of his closest confidants to be the nation's top diplomat and choosing an immigrant to lead the Department of Homeland Security for the first time. But as he fills out the rest of his team in the days and weeks ahead, the task will get more complicated, forcing him to navigate tricky currents of ideology, gender, racial identity, party affiliation, friendship, competence, personal background and past employment.... Republicans in the Senate will try to reject some of Mr. Biden's nominees. But his team is just as worried about opposition from Democrats.... Whom Mr. Biden will tap to be the next attorney general is among the most talked about -- and politically fraught -- decisions that the president-elect will make as civil rights issues roil the country and some Democrats expect investigations into President Trump and his associates." The article names contenders for various top jobs.
The "Deep State" Fights Back. Lisa Friedman of the New York Times: "With two months left of the Trump administration, career E.P.A. employees find themselves where they began, in a bureaucratic battle with the agency's political leaders. But now, with the Biden administration on the horizon, they are emboldened to stymie Mr. Trump's goals and to do so more openly.... Current and former E.P.A. staff and advisers close to the transition said Mr. Biden's team has focused on preparing a rapid assault on the Trump administration's deregulatory legacy and re-establishing air and water protections and methane emissions controls. 'They are focused like a laser on what I call the "Humpty Dumpty approach," which is putting the agency back together again,' said Judith Enck, a former E.P.A. regional administrator who served in the Obama administration." MB: Sorry, Donald, real people don't go to work for the EPA because they hate science.
Like Groundhog Day All Over Again
Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "In a blistering decision, a Philadelphia appeals court ruled on Friday that the Trump campaign could not stop -- or attempt to reverse -- the certification of the voting results in Pennsylvania, reprimanding the president's team by noting that 'calling an election unfair does not make it so.' The 21-page ruling by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals was a complete repudiation of Mr. Trump's legal effort to halt Pennsylvania's certification process and was written by a judge that he himself appointed to the bench.... Judge Stephanos Bibas [-- MB: a Trump appointee --] wrote on behalf of the appeals court in a unanimous decision, 'Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here.' Many courts have used scathing language in tossing out a relentless barrage of lawsuits filed by the Trump campaign and its supporters since Election Day; but even so, the Third Circuit's ruling was particularly blunt. 'Voters, not lawyers, choose the president,' the court declared.... 'Ballots, not briefs, decide elections.' The court accused the Trump campaign of engaging in 'repetitive litigation' and pointed out that the public interest strongly favored '... not disenfranchising millions of Pennsylvania voters who voted by mail.'... ~~~
~~~ "The Pennsylvania decision came on a day of baseless tweets from Mr. Trump that the election was 'a total scam,' that he 'won by a lot' and that the news media 'refuse to report the real facts and figures.'... Moments after the three-judge panel from the Third Circuit handed down its ruling, Jenna Ellis, one of Mr. Trump's lawyers, wrote on Twitter that she and Rudolph W. Giuliani ... planned to appeal to the Supreme Court. In her Twitter post, Ms. Ellis accused 'the activist judicial machinery in Pennsylvania' of covering up 'allegations of massive fraud' despite the fact that all three judges on the panel were appointed by Republicans." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Uh, Jenna, the "activist judicial machinery" is covering up "allegations"? That doesn't make sense. You made the allegations. The pleadings you presented, chockful of said allegations, are public records, and rather than hiding those allegations, the appeals court ruling highlights the falsity of said allegations & excoriates you & Rudy for repeatedly making them. ~~~
~~~ A BuzzFeed News story is here. A Politico story is here. ~~~
~~~ KDKA Pittsburgh: "Pennsylvania Republican lawmakers have introduced a resolution intending to dispute the 2020 election results on Friday. The resolution intends to declare the 2020 election results as being 'in dispute,' delay the certification of votes from Pennsylvania for both the state and presidential races and asks for the U.S. Congress to also declare the 2020 presidential race to be in dispute.... They also accuse Secretary of the Commonwealth Kathy Boockvar [D] of certifying the results of the election 'prematurely ... despite ongoing litigation.' The resolution does not specify how the state or presidential electors would be determined if the resolution were to pass.... The resolution ... is not expected to get a vote before lawmakers' terms end on Monday." MB: Am I missing something or are these people not too bright?
Wisconsin. Losing Loser Pays $3MM to Lose Bigger. Alison Dirr of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "Milwaukee County's recount of the presidential election vote tally came to an end Friday, with Democratic President-elect Joe Biden adding 132 votes to his margin of victory over ... Donald Trump in Milwaukee County. In all, Biden gained 257 votes and Trump added 125.... The Dane County [Madison] recount was expected to continue into the weekend, after a day off for Thanksgiving. Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell tweeted Friday morning that the recount was about 65% done and he expected to finish Sunday.... Trump's campaign paid $3 million for the partial recount in the Nov. 3 presidential election, requesting a retallying of the votes only in the state's largest and most liberal counties of Milwaukee and Dane. Trump lost the state by nearly 21,000 votes to Biden.... Political observers believe the challenges Trump representatives lodged during the recount process were intended to set the stage for a lawsuit.... [During the recount,] there were tense exchanges between board Chairman Tim Posnanski, a Democrat, and Trump campaign attorney Joe Voiland, a former Ozaukee County judge, over the enforcement of a policy limiting the taking of photos by observers. At one point, Posnanski told Voiland he was reminded of the peasant from 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail' who yells, 'Help, help I'm being repressed.' And, of course, there was the brief squabble over the poop emoji wristbands handed out Tuesday by the Wisconsin Center to denote that those who entered the building were fever-free."
Georgia. Sidney Files Claim in Distrcoict Court. Colin Kalmbacher of Law & Crime: "Former Trump campaign and alleged freelance attorney Sidney Powell filed her so-called 'Kraken' lawsuit in a Georgia federal court on Friday. The case seeks to de-certify the Peach State's 2020 election results which indicated Joe Biden won a slim but decisive victory. The lawsuit was previewed late Wednesday evening when it was made available on the conservative lawyer's personal website -- around the same time that a similar complaint was filed in Michigan federal court. Initially hyped up to intense fanfare among Trump's stalwart followers, the Georgia petition ... quickly led to a cascade of Twitter-based mockery and scorn as legal observers noted several clumsy formatting and typographical errors. Freshly filed with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, the actually-submitted lawsuit appears to repeat each and every one of those ... errors. 'If you thought Sidney Powell and her Kraken team of lawyers might have fixed the typos prior to filing their Georgia lawsuit, you were wrong,' noted Democratic election attorney Marc Elias via Twitter."
Lisa Rein of the Washington Post: "The outgoing Trump administration is racing to enact the biggest change to the federal civil service in generations, reclassifying career employees at key agencies to strip their job protections and leave them open to being fired before Joe Biden takes office. The move to pull off an executive order the president issued less than two weeks before Election Day -- affecting tens of thousands of people in policy roles -- is accelerating at the agency closest to the White House, the Office of Management and Budget. The budget office sent a list this week of roles identified by its politically appointed leaders to the federal personnel agency for final sign-off. The list comprises 88 percent of its workforce -- 425 analysts and other experts who would shift into a new job classification called Schedule F.... If enough employees are viewed as disloyal to the outgoing administration, they could be fired or reassigned, leaving Biden with an empty budget office.... The Office of Personnel Management is also rushing to shuffle many of its own roughly 3,500 employees into the new category, a senior administration official said.... Democrats on Capitol Hill are trying to block the effort [to reclassify career employees]."
The Trumpidemic, Ctd.
The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Friday are here: "The number of coronavirus infections in the United States shot past 13 million on Friday, worsening the world's largest outbreak. The milestone came a day after Americans celebrated Thanksgiving against a backdrop of national travel patterns that, while diminished, still raised the prospect of an even greater rise in infections around the country.... And every day for more than two weeks, the country has set records for the number of people in the hospital, with the latest figure surging past 90,000 for the first time on Thursday."
Reed Richardson of Mediaite: "United Airlines has now begun flying charter flights to pre-position initial doses of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine all around the country. According to the Wall Street Journal, the airline has taken this step so that once the FDA issues the expected emergency use authorization for public distribution of the vaccine, it can be pushed out rapidly. Pfizer's vaccine, it should be noted, requires it to be stored at extremely cold temperatures for it to remain viable up to the point of inoculation."
Kent Babb of the Washington Post: "... when it comes to coronavirus testing, this is a nation of haves and have-nots. Among the haves are professional and college athletes, in particular those who play football. From Nov. 8 to 14, the NFL administered 43,148 tests to 7,856 players, coaches and employees. Major college football programs supply dozens of tests each day, an attempt -- futile as it has been -- to maintain health and prevent schedule interruptions. Major League Soccer administered nearly 5,000 tests last week, and Major League Baseball conducted some 170,000 tests during its truncated season. [Meanwhile, nurses & other front-line coronavirus workers are among the have-nots.]... This month, registered nurses gathered in Los Angeles to protest the fact that UCLA's athletic department conducted 1,248 tests in a single week while health-care workers at UCLA hospitals were denied testing. Last week National Nurses United, the country's largest nursing union, released the results of a survey of more than 15,000 members. About two-thirds reported they had never been tested. (Also linked yesterday.)~~~
~~~ MEANWHILE, in the U.K. Karla Adam of the Washington Post: The city of Liverpool, England, "[is] attempt[ing] to quash its [coronavirus] outbreak by swabbing its entire population.... After three weeks of screening, British politicians say the campaign is a success. [Mayor Joe] Anderson said nearly 1,000 people who hadn't known they were infected had tested positive and are 'self-isolating and not spreading the virus.' Prime Minister Boris Johnson said mass testing in Liverpool contributed to a 'very substantial' fall in infections and was a 'success story we want other parts of the country to replicate.'" MB: Donald Trump was playing golf on his private course. ~~~
~~~ Denis Campbell of the Guardian: "Hospitals [in England] have been told to prepare for the rollout of a coronavirus vaccine [manufactured by Pfizer/BioNTech] in as little as 10 days' time, with [National Health Service] workers expected to be at the front of the queue.... Regulatory approval [is] anticipated within days.... One senior hospital executive told the Guardian: 'We've been told to expect the vaccine on 7 December and plan to start vaccinating our staff all that week. However, it's the Pfizer vaccine we're getting, so it can't be moved again once it gets to us and we then have to use it within five days, as that's its shelf life.'"
Julie Turkewitz & Isayen Herrera of the New York Times: "... millions of migrants -- Afghans, Ethiopians, Nicaraguans, Ukrainians and others -- have lost work in their adopted countries and headed home.... International aid groups have begun to call these people the pandemic's 'stranded migrants' -- men, women and children who have been trying to get home since the virus began to spread. The International Organization for Migration said recently there are at least 2.75 million of them. Among the most affected have been Venezuelans, who even before the pandemic formed one of the largest migration waves in the world. As the oil-rich nation crumbled in the grip of its authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro, hunger became widespread and nearly five million people fled."
No Lives Matter. Marie: In a peculiarly cruel nod to racial equality, Donald Trump has made "I can't breathe!" a cry by millions of Americans of all races & political persuasions.
Daniel Burke & Delia Gallagher of CNN: "During an installation ceremony planned for 4pm [Saturday] in Rome, [the Archbishop of Washington, D.C., Wilton] Gregory, will become the first African American cardinal in Catholic history. Gregory will be one of 13 men -- and the only American -- elevated to the College of Cardinals during Saturday's ceremony. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, two bishops will not be in Rome, another first in church history, according to Vatican News. In keeping with the Pope's concerns for Catholics who have been historically marginalized, the other soon-to-be cardinals include men from Rwanda, Brunei, Chile and the Philippines." A Washington Post story is here.
Way Beyond the Beltway
Patrick Wintour & Oliver Holmes of the Guardian: "An Iranian nuclear scientist described as the guru of Iran's nuclear programme has been gunned down in the street in a town near Tehran. Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was ambushed in the town of Absard, about 40 miles east of Tehran. Four assailants opened fire after witnesses heard an explosion.... An adviser to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, vowed that the country would retaliate against the perpetrators.... Iran's foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, identified Israel as the likely culprit. 'Terrorists murdered an eminent Iranian scientist today,' he tweeted. 'This cowardice -- with serious indications of Israeli role -- shows desperate warmongering of perpetrators. Iran calls on international community -- and especially EU -- to end their shameful double standards & condemn this act of state terror.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Julian Borger of the Guardian: "The assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh may not much have impact on the Iranian nuclear programme he helped build, but it will certainly make it harder to salvage the deal intended to restrict that programme, and that is -- so far - the most plausible motive. Israel is widely agreed to be the most likely perpetrator. Mossad is reported to have been behind a string of assassinations of other Iranian nuclear scientists -- reports Israeli officials have occasionally hinted were true. According to former officials, the Obama administration leaned on Israel to discontinue those assassinations in 2013, as it started talks with Tehran that led two years later to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), by which Iran accepted constraints on its nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief. It would be a fair guess that Joe Biden would also oppose such assassinations when he takes office on 20 January and tries to reconstitute the JCPOA -- which has been left wounded but just about alive in the wake of Donald Trump's withdrawal in 2018."
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Here's Nick Schifrin in a discussion with Norman Roule, former national intelligence manager for Iran at the office of the director of National intelligence (whew!) re: the impact of the assassination of Iran's top nuclear scientist: (video and transcript)
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/irans-top-nuclear-scientist-reportedly-killed-in-an-attack
The experience of Zooming with family rather than BEING with them was better than expected but still left me feeling somewhat empty. Ain't nothin like the real thing, baby.
The nation's Idiot-in-Chief likely may--in fact I believe it likely that he does-- think he's making sense, demanding that his opponent prove a negative, the presence of the absence of voter fraud.
Not exactly a logical fallacy, proving a negative is still a mare's nest the law is not eager to visit.
Hence the legal burden is on the prosecutor to prove that some act actually occurred rather than that it did not, which is why the Stable Genius'--aka the Idiot-in-Chief's--court record is abysmal and will remain so.
Which unfortunately does not mean that millions of Trumpbots won't believe he's making sense, thereby attesting to their entire absence of intellect, which in turn might be taken as ironic proof that in rare circumstances it is possible to prove a negative after all.
@Ken Winkes: Yes, Trump's latest "demand" is pretty hilarious, but it's also an admission of his own flaming failure to identify any significant voter fraud. Trump spent millions of taxpayer & donor money to prove rampant voter fraud so pervasive that it flipped election results in multiple states. The Trumpian effort failed spectacularly. Now he demands that Biden prove no-fraud -- as you say, prove a negative of the very thing Trump himself could not produce any evidence for in the positive.
In one sense, however, he has succeeded. He asks his fan base to believe a conspiracy of monumental proportions involving not just millions of crooked Democrats but thousands of Trump-loving Republican officials: judges -- including at least two of his own appointees; local officials at every level -- governors, secretaries of state, other state officials, county & city elections officials, precinct workers, poll watchers. All of these people worked for Trump's re-election, contributed to his campaign, and/or voted for him.
And then and then ... as the ballots began rolling in -- these very same Trumpbots suddenly -- as if possessed by the "Democrat Devil" -- turned on Trump en masse. They tossed Trump ballots, rigged voting machines, counted Biden voters' ballots but not Trump's, certified fraudulent vote counts & ruled against him in court. Not only that, this was apparently a coordinated effort across many states, involving Democrats & thousands of Trumpies. All of them acted in concert and in secret, and they all have kept that secret for weeks now. As Trump would say, "Nobody's ever seen anything like it."
It is, in short, a preposterous theory. And apparently millions of Trump's fans tell each other, or at least say to themselves (and poll-takers), "Yeah, makes sense."
I read somewhere that the main event at the trump presidential* library will be the grift shop.
Happy weekend everyone.
@Marie: The " "Nobody's ever seen anything like it," phrase, according to HIM, pertained to almost everything HE supposedly accomplished but it also pertained to historical references that he connected with himself and even hurricanes that happened on his watch as though the weather itself was also somehow connected. I visualize the head of Trump in the middle of the planet with everything and anything revolving around him. He is, he thinks, the pivotal center of a universe that is ready to explode and when that happens there will be no tail between those legs, no gracious acknowledgment of defeat, no tip of the hat to a new administration. What ever happens we can be sure that "Nobody's ever seen anything like it."
Forrest,
Good one. And you know, of course, since it’s a Trump “library”, there won’t be any books. Unless he gets another ghostwriter to fart out a “book” titled “I Was Screwed!” by little donnie trumpy. There won’t be a forward. Anything connected to Fatty only has a backward.
Articles say DiJiT's campaign paid $3 million for the PA recount.
Probably not "paid" , but "agreed to pay".
But since they did not get the result they wanted, I expect DiJiT will renege, just like with his non-Mafia contractors in Atlantic City. (I doubt he stiffed the Mafia.)
Watch for the story.
The continued idiocy surrounding each Trump demand, descending further into nonsense and insanity, stop counting votes, recount, court injunctions, decertification, now a demand that Biden prove his votes are legitimate (sorry, baby donnie, the states already did that), and next, I’m sure a big fat “au secours!” to “his” Supreme Court, all miserable failures (except the SCOTUS part; who knows what those crazies will do), serves to keep the loony base simmering on the hob, ready for action, and lays pipe for the next round of assaults.
To be sure, the tocsins in right wing world and much of the media, soundless and untouched during the most dangerous and dastardly four years in this country since the Civil War, will begin pealing across the land on a daily basis: Biden! Kamala! Democrat commies! Aieeee!! Alarum! Clean the guns! Man the barricades!
And you know who will be tweeting like a demented, craven vulture from his golf cart.
Maybe Biden can demand that the Fat Fascist prove that he’s not a traitor. Or an asshole.
Good luck with that.
Yeah. The politicians on the right, in the legislature and various other spots, in PA: not that bright. But very very nasty and vengeful. No one is mentioning the lawsuit filed by one of 'em, Mike Kelly, who wears one o' them ugly MAGA hats in his picture, old white guy, who says that a year ago, the decision to make accessible the mail-in, no-fault ballots available is un-constitutional. So, that... So, all of us who did that are at fault and our votes don't count. Sheesh.
T****s fan fiction
Here is the Trump Library and it does include a Grift Shop. You even get to vote for the Hall of Enablers nominees.
I’m thinking that Rikers Island will be a good location for the T**** Library. Guaranteed high admission numbers, with a captive audience. T**** can personally greet the guests.
@Patrick: Wisconsin officials aren't as dumb as you might think. They got their $3MM up front.
Oh, but the Grift Shop makers misspelled "Covfefe"!?!
@NiskyGuy: Isn't that proof this is a gen-u-wine #RealDonaldTrump project?