Last Call For How To Steal An Election, Con't

The Trump regime plan to steal the election now is to create enough chaos and doubt in the election process to provide cover Republicans in red states that Biden won so that they can then prevent certification of election results, stopping them from being able to send electors to the Electoral College by the December deadline, and forcing the presidential election to go to the House. The test run for this is Michigan, where Republicans began their coup attempt last night, and were foiled, at least for now.

The Wayne County Board of Canvassers unanimously certified its ballot count Tuesday evening, reversing itself just hours after Republicans on the board blocked the typically uneventful task of approving the results of the presidential election.

Democrats and voting rights advocates had expressed outrage after the board, which is made up of two Democrats and two Republicans, deadlocked on party lines over whether to certify. Had it held, that outcome would have punted the question of who won the state's most densely populated region to a state regulatory board that meets Nov. 23.

But the board made a late agreement to conduct an independent audit of the results, which mollified the Republicans, who had been under pressure from Trump’s supporters not to certify the results.

“I appreciate putting our heads together to come to a solution,” Republican board chairwoman Monica Palmer said, with the agreement coming after two hours of back-to-back public comments.

Joe Biden holds a lead of nearly 148,000 votes in Michigan, and Democrats here believe the partisan split of the board in Wayne County — home to heavily Democratic Detroit — simply delays an inevitable official victory for Biden in the state.

The brief period of chaos created when the board failed to certify the results provided a small win to the Trump campaign and a group of Republican lawyers and activists who have questioned the legitimacy of the count in Detroit, which went overwhelmingly for Biden.

“I am proud that, due to the efforts of the Michigan Republican Party, the Republican National Committee and the Trump Campaign, enough evidence of irregularities and potential voter fraud was uncovered resulting in the Wayne County Board of Canvassers refusing to certify their election results. This action will allow more time for us to get to the bottom of these deeply troubling irregularities,” said Laura Cox, the state GOP party chair. “The people of Michigan deserve fair, open and transparent elections, and we will continue to fight for just that.”

Note that the attack here started in Wayne County, Michigan. Detroit, specifically. Racist Republicans all but saying that Black voters and Black votes should not be certified, and to them, it always comes back to race. Always. They hate Black America enough to take everything from us whenever they can get away with it.

But the move in Wayne County being defeated just means Republicans will get a second bite at this poison apple next week at the state level, and you can absolutely bet that Republicans in Georgia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Arizona are eyeing exactly how to make this work in order to stop Biden from getting to 270. 

Keep a careful eye on state election certification boards. The Trump regime is clearly indicating it will do anything to win, including destroying America's election system, in order to maintain power. And if they do manage to steal this election through certification delays, well, we'll never actually need elections again, will we?

Just As Corrupt As Trump, Con't

As expected after last month's call from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's office for the Feds to take a long, hard look at Paxton himself over multiple possible crimes the office discovered, the FBI is now investigating the allegations of bribery and corruption against Paxton during his current tenure.

The FBI is investigating allegations that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton broke the law in using his office to benefit a wealthy donor, according to two people with knowledge of the probe.

Federal agents are looking into claims by former members of Paxton’s staff that the high-profile Republican committed bribery, abuse of office and other crimes to help Austin real estate developer Nate Paul, the people told The Associated Press. They insisted on anonymity to discuss the investigation because it is ongoing.

Confirmation of the criminal probe marks mounting legal peril for Paxton, who’s denied wrongdoing and refused calls for his resignation since his top deputies reported him to federal authorities at the end of September.

A criminal defense attorney for Paxton, Philip Hilder, declined to comment. Spokespersons in the attorney general’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

It’s unclear how far the FBI is into investigating the allegations against Paxton. An agency spokeswoman in San Antonio declined to comment.

Paxton is accused of using his position as Texas’ top law enforcement official to benefit Paul in several ways, according to seven senior lawyers in the attorney general’s office and the agency’s head of law enforcement. Central to their claims is the fact that Paxton hired an outside lawyer to investigate the developer’s allegations that the FBI improperly searched his home and offices last year.

Each of Paxton’s accusers has resigned, been put on leave or been fired since reporting him. Last week, four of them filed a state whistleblower lawsuit against the attorney general, claiming he ousted them as retribution.

Paxton has been dancing around legal trouble for his entire run as Texas AG, currently doing everything he can to hold up a securities fraud case against him since 2015, but now he has this as well.

Just a reminder that when you put Republicans in power, they will be corrupt.

Orange Meltdown, Con't

Even Mitch McConnell has thrown in the towel on the Trump regime (well, as good as that will get) promising an "orderly" transition of power to the new administration in January.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday said there will be an "orderly transfer" between administrations Jan. 20, though he did not mention President-elect Joe Biden or President Donald Trump, who is refusing to concede, by name.

McConnell, R-Ky., has not yet publicly recognized Biden's victory, but his comments Tuesday following a Senate Republican luncheon signaled he is prepared for a Biden presidency.

Asked about the General Services Administration's refusal to ascertain Biden's victory, which triggers important components of the transition, McConnell did not push for the Trump administration to begin that process but said "we're going to have an orderly transfer from this administration to the next one."

"What we all say about it is frankly irrelevant," he said, adding, "All of it will happen right on time, and we will swear in the next administration on January 20th."

Earlier, McConnell described the next steps in the electoral process, pointing to the upcoming certification of results in key swing states.

"Once those certifications occur, if they occur based upon litigation being tried in various places, those will be final," he said. "The Electoral College will meet in December. And the inauguration will be on January 20th."

McConnell added that the president and his legal team are within their rights to present "whatever evidence" they may have to contest the results.

Though he is losing by more than 10,000 votes in at least three swing states he would need to flip in order to win the election — an amount far outside the total overturned in any recount for at least 50 years — the president is hoping that long-shot legal challenges will revive his chances. So far, his campaign's legal effort has fallen short in federal court, and ongoing efforts appear unlikely to alter the results, let alone swing a state.

Only a handful of Republican lawmakers have acknowledged Biden's projected victory.

Now, Mitch is in a tough spot here. We all know he only thing he cares about is power, and he can't admit that Joe Biden is president and that Kamala Harris is Vice President because he still has to win at least one more Senate race in Georgia in order to keep from becoming Senate minority leader. 

But notice, while he's careful not to mention Biden or Harris at all, he's also not mentioning Trump. That's about as good as you're going to get, and the Senate GOP isn't going to even talk to Biden until after the January 5th Georgia elections.

 

Besides, half of Republicans now believe Trump won the election and that Biden stole it.

The Nov. 13-17 opinion poll showed that Trump’s open defiance of Biden’s victory in both the popular vote and Electoral College appears to be affecting the public’s confidence in American democracy, especially among Republicans.

Altogether, 73% of those polled agreed that Biden won the election while 5% thought Trump won. But when asked specifically whether Biden had “rightfully won,” Republicans showed they were suspicious about how Biden’s victory was obtained.

Fifty-two percent of Republicans said that Trump “rightfully won,” while only 29% said that Biden had rightfully won.

Asked why, Republicans were much more concerned than others that state vote counters had tipped the result toward Biden: 68% of Republicans said they were concerned that the election was “rigged,” while only 16% of Democrats and one-third of independents were similarly worried.

Even before winning the 2016 election, Trump kept up a drumbeat of complaints about the process, claiming without evidence that it was unfair to him.

Since Biden amassed enough electoral votes to win the White House on Nov. 7, Trump has ramped up those criticisms, telling his supporters that he is the victim of widespread illegal voting.

Trump has failed to give any proof for his claims and has not been able to back them up in court, however. Republicans announced this week that they were dropping federal election lawsuits in Michigan, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

The poll showed that more Americans appear to be more suspicious about the U.S. election process than they were four years ago.

Altogether, 55% of adults in the United States said they believed the Nov. 3 presidential election was “legitimate and accurate,” which is down 7 points from a similar poll that ran shortly after the 2016 election. The 28% who said they thought the election was “the result of illegal voting or election rigging” is up 12 points from four years ago.

The poll showed Republicans were much more likely to be suspicious of Trump’s loss this year than Democrats were when Hillary Clinton lost four years ago.

In 2016, 52% of Democrats said Hillary Clinton’s loss to Trump was “legitimate and accurate,” even as reports emerged of Russian attempts to influence the outcome. This year, only 26% of Republicans said they thought Trump’s loss was similarly legitimate.

Trump still owns all of them, and they know it. And his antics are pushing his cultists towards the point where they will refuse to recognize the legitimate election of Joe Biden.

The potential for massive, nationwide violence is the highest that it's been in years.

StupidiNews!

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