Last Call For Biden, His Time, Con't

NPR reports former Obama Supreme Court pick Merrick Garland will be Biden's choice for Attorney General.

Federal appeals court Judge Merrick Garland is under consideration to serve as attorney general in the administration of President-elect Joe Biden, NPR has learned from two people closely following the process.

Garland, 68, is the widely respected former chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He launched his career at the Justice Department decades ago.

Garland oversaw the prosecution of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and gained significant management experience inside the sprawling department in the 1990s.

More recently, Garland was nominated to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court by President Barack Obama, to fill the seat vacated by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.

Despite his qualifications and a history of support from conservatives, Senate Republicans denied Garland even a hearing for the post, and he quietly returned to his job on what's considered the second most important court in the nation. On the bench, Garland focused on professionalism, collegiality and transparency, making audio of arguments widely available.

Some Justice Department veterans had been looking to history for a way to move ahead from the chaotic Trump era when the president has routinely attacked federal prosecutors and FBI agents. The current attorney general, Bill Barr, this year likened some of his employees to young students at a Montessori school.

Former Justice Department officials pointed out that after Watergate, President Gerald Ford enlisted former University of Chicago President Edward Levi to be attorney general and restore public confidence in the institution. The Justice Department bestows an award for honor and integrity in his name.

 

I can guarantee you that this won't happen if Mitch McConnell is still Senate Majority Leader in January, for the simple reason that Mitch McConnell will never allow Joe Biden to appoint a single federal judge to the bench, let alone nominate a replacement for DC Circuit Court. McConnell will leave every single vacancy open, just like he did in Obama's final two years.  

So who else is Biden considering for the job of AG?

Firmer Acting AG Sally Yates, unceremoniously fired by Trump, would almost certainly never have the votes in a McConnell-led Congress, complete with screeching about Mueller. Former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick would be labeled a socialist Black Lives Matter supporter. Doug Jones might actually have the best shot, but would be ruthlessly attacked by far-left folks for being too moderate.

Biden will have no good choices for anything if Mitch is still in charge of the Senate come January.

Dems better win both Georgia runoffs.

The Coup-Clutch Clan Comes

Donald Trump's illegal coup continues, and tens of millions of Republicans support him retaining power by any means necessary as America is now on the brink of disaster.

Brett Fryar is like many mainstream Republicans. A 50-year-old chiropractor in this west Texas town, he owns a small business. He has two undergraduate degrees and a master’s degree, in organic chemistry. He attends Southcrest Baptist Church in nearby Lubbock, where he has previously taught Sunday school and bible studies.

Fryar didn’t much like Donald Trump at first, during the U.S. president’s 2016 campaign. He voted for Texas Senator Ted Cruz in the Republican primaries.

Now, Fryar says he would go to war for Trump. He has joined the newly formed South Plains Patriots, a group of a few hundred members that includes a “reactionary” force of about three dozen - including Fryar and his son, Caleb - who conduct firearms training.

Nothing will convince Fryar and many others here in Sundown - including the town’s mayor, another Patriots member - that Democrat Joe Biden won the Nov. 3 presidential election fairly. They believe Trump’s stream of election-fraud allegations and say they’re preparing for the possibility of a “civil war” with the American political left.

“If President Trump comes out and says: ‘Guys, I have irrefutable proof of fraud, the courts won’t listen, and I’m now calling on Americans to take up arms,’ we would go,” said Fryar, wearing a button-down shirt, pressed slacks and a paisley tie during a recent interview at his office.

The unshakable trust in Trump in this town of about 1,400 residents reflects a national phenomenon among many Republicans, despite the absence of evidence in a barrage of post-election lawsuits by the president and his allies. About half of Republicans polled by Reuters/Ipsos said Trump “rightfully won” the election but had it stolen from him in systemic fraud favoring Biden, according to a survey conducted between Nov. 13 and 17. Just 29% of Republicans said Biden rightfully won. Other polls since the election have reported that an even higher proportion - up to 80% - of Republicans trust Trump’s baseless fraud narrative.

Trump’s legal onslaught has so far flopped, with judges quickly dismissing many cases and his lawyers dropping or withdrawing from others. None of the cases contain allegations - much less evidence - that are likely to invalidate enough votes to overturn the election, election experts say.

And yet the election-theft claims are proving politically potent. All but a handful of Republican lawmakers have backed Trump’s fraud claims or stayed silent, effectively freezing the transition of power as the president refuses to concede. Trump has succeeded in sowing further public distrust in the media, which typically calls elections, and undermined citizens’ faith in the state and local election officials who underpin American democracy.

In Reuters interviews with 50 Trump voters, all said they believed the election was rigged or in some way illegitimate. Of those, 20 said they would consider accepting Biden as their president, but only in light of proof that the election was conducted fairly. Most repeated debunked conspiracy theories espoused by Trump, Republican officials and conservative media claiming that millions of votes were dishonestly switched to Biden in key states by biased poll workers and hacked voting machines.

Many voters interviewed by Reuters said they formed their opinions by watching emergent right-wing media outlets such as Newsmax and One American News Network that have amplified Trump’s fraud claims. Some have boycotted Fox News out of anger that the network called Biden the election winner and that some of its news anchors - in contrast to its opinion show stars - have been skeptical of Trump’s fraud allegations.

“I just sent Fox News an email,” Fryar said, telling the network: “You’re the only news I’ve watched for the last six years, but I will not watch you anymore.”

 

I don't know what else to say, folks. We're talking about average Trump cultists gladly saying they will take up arms and kill for their leader. It's easy to say this is all Trump's poisonous narcissism trying to steal an election through an armed coup, or that he's trying to force Biden and New York to drop charges through the threat of white supremacist domestic terrorism killing thousands, and those are, at this point, the preferable outcomes.

Because the big really bad one is that Trump tells his people to kill every Democrat they know and pile the bodies up as a temple to him.

And God help me, that's a possible outcome now.

The Death Of The News Claims Another

Your local paper shut down five years ago, your local TV station was bought out by a national chain, your local radio station is all Limbaugh and Hannity all the time, and all of your neighbors are now getting local news from propaganda websites that are now doing everything they can to destroy Democrats in elections, and largely succeeding at it.

Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs, a Democratic rising star with a national reach, is trailing in a reelection bid to an upstart Republican contender — a potential upset driven in part by a local social media page that has become a kingslayer if not a kingmaker in this San Joaquin Valley city.

Tubbs, the city’s first Black mayor and a favorite in progressive circles for championing ideas such as universal basic income, trailed Republican Kevin Lincoln 52% to 48%, though county officials said many mail-in ballots remained to be counted, leaving the possibility of a reversal.

Though Tubbs won his first mayoral election in 2016 with 70% of the vote and an endorsement from President Obama, this time he has been dogged by a social media page whose founder acknowledges he harbors a grudge against Tubbs — and which has hounded the incumbent, and other local political figures, with years of accusations of corruption and misdeeds.

As the city’s local newspaper, the Record, has struggled with staff cuts in recent years, the social media page, the 209 Times, named for the local area code, has amassed nearly 100,000 followers on Facebook and 118,000 on Instagram. Motecuzoma Patrick Sanchez, one of the founders of the 209 Times, said it has millions of interactions with viewers on its website and social media pages every month, making it one of the area’s most popular sources of information.

San Joaquin County has about 760,000 residents, with roughly 310,000 in Stockton. About 50,000 voted in the mayor’s race.

Local political pundits said the 209 Times has clout with voters and damaged Tubbs’ reputation by attacking him with relentless, and unfounded, allegations of corruption.

“He was wounded by the 209 Times,” said Michael Fitzgerald, a former metro columnist for the Stockton Record who has followed local politics for three decades.

It “just created this false narrative about Tubbs, and they just kept pounding that narrative,” he said.

The 209 Times has run articles, often with no proof, alleging that Tubbs has misappropriated millions of dollars earmarked for city programs, lied about his involvement with an unpopular idea to use the county fairgrounds as part of a state-funded site for homeless people, and put personal interests ahead of his elected role.

Daniel Lopez, Tubbs’ spokesman, said the allegations were “outright lies.”

“209 Times is a perfect example of what you are seeing in the country. It’s ‘pick your own news,’” Lopez said. He took particular issue with recent allegations that Stockton had received and misused $60 million in state funds meant for reducing homelessness.

“To address our challenges we need an informed public,” he said. “How can we have a dialogue around homelessness, for example, when the 209 Times persuades residents that we’ve been given $60 million for this issue, when in reality we only have $6.5 million? I’m sure a good number of Stocktonians reading this article will learn for the first time that the $60-million number is fake, yet some will still believe regardless.”

 

And not only did Stockton voters believe the 209 Times, they voted Tubbs out of office.  He conceded Wednesday to Republican Kevin Lincoln, who ended up winning by double-digits.

By 2024, expect this to be the norm in local, county, and state elections. They've proven that you can take a website, put it on Facebook, and be a "news source" to thousands of voters.

 

 

StupidiNews!

• The Manhattan DA's office is looking at Trump Organization tax write-offs, specifically involving Trump's daughter Ivanka, as a consultant for the firm.
• China has inoculated as many as one million people with its COVID-19 vaccine as trials continue and production ramps up for medical responders and staff.
• The Vatican is asking social media company Instagram officials how Pope Francis's official account ended up giving a like to a model.
• Utah GOP Sen. Mitt Romney is calling Donald Trump's refusal to transition power to President-elect Joe Biden "undemocratic" and is calling on Trump to concede.
• CDC guidance on Thanksgiving this year is not to travel, and not to host people outside your household as COVID-19 cases and hospitalization continue to set record US numbers.

Last Call For You Cannot Forgive The Unforgivable

Emily L. Hauser argues over at Dame Magazine that there is in fact a time and place for the grace of forgiveness to heal the rifts in America, and that this is not the time for any of that right now, because the GOP are fascist assholes and we need to slam the hammer of accountability repeatedly down upon them like iron rain.

We’re on the leading edge of what’s sure to be the worst stage of a pandemic that’s already stolen nearly a quarter of a million American lives—as if the entire city of Buffalo, New York had been wiped from the map. COVID-19 would’ve cut a grievous swath through this nation no matter who’d been in power when it first appeared, but the fact that a virus we learned of on Valentine’s Day is raging unchecked and uncontrolled on Thanksgiving can be laid directly at the feet of a national leadership as feckless as it is cruel. So you will excuse me, Civility Police, but I am not yet ready to “reach out” to the people who hoped to see Trump re-elected even as we were burying an entire city’s worth of our own.

As it happens, though, refusing to let Trump and his fellow travelers off the hook for untold American deaths is not just a reasonable response to national grief and the fact that you’ll be eating a single-serving frozen turkey entrée next Thursday, it’s also a sound approach to politics.

It’s a simple and profound truth that the personal is the political. Hate-filled rhetoric and policies of dehumanization don’t exist in a vacuum; they lead directly to the suffering of millions. When Republicans chose, for instance, to busy themselves with the appointment of right-wing extremist Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court rather than provide any relief to a people reeling not just from a mass casualty event but also job loss, home loss, and hunger, it was a political choice. That Americans are hungry doesn’t make it any less so.

The list of cruelties produced by this president and his party goes on: Children who may never again see their parents; families trapped in poverty by predatory payday loans; the ill and the elderly waiting days or even weeks for medications. These horror stories are the direct result of political decisions made over the last four years by a Republican Party that also found time to shore up white supremacy, dismantle workplace safety regulations, and, oh yes, lick the boots of an admitted sexual abuser. Biden supporters can be forgiven for thinking that the politicians and voters who sought to extend these very personal injuries might at least acknowledge the damage they’ve done before we offer forgiveness, carte blanche.

Indeed, any number of faith traditions and 12-step programs will tell you that forgiveness cannot come in the absence of genuine repentance; that repentance, in turn, requires changed behavior; and that bad behavior has consequences, no matter how much you might wish it otherwise. I would argue that perhaps the biggest reason Democrats shouldn’t start extending unearned olive branches is because America has a history of skimping on the whole “consequences” thing, and honestly, it’s a big part of why 2020 has been such an unremitting dumpster fire.

When he took office in 2009, Barack Obama chose to “look forward” instead of prosecuting those involved in George W. Bush’s torture program; Trump appointed one of that program’s central figures to run the CIA and consulted with another on his administration’s use of executive orders to circumvent federal law. In 1974, Gerald Ford granted a “full, free, and absolute” pardon to Richard Nixon for any crimes he may have committed while in the White House, a precedent that has not gone unnoticed by a president whose crimes long ago outstripped Watergate. In 1865, the Confederates lost a war they’d launched in order to dissolve the union and keep enslaving people; in 2020, Trump and the GOP are trying their very best to save Confederate statues from the trash heap. Civility Police, I’d like to lodge a complaint!

Maybe if we began letting those responsible for evil sit with what they’ve done, possibly in a prison cell—or, at the very least, far from the halls of government where they have so manifestly failed in their jobs—we wouldn’t find ourselves with wanna-be mob bosses flying around on Air Force One spreading death. Maybe if Republican voters begin to understand that what they do on Election Day actually ruins the lives of actual people, they might be a little less whiny when Democrats don’t send sympathy cards.

Biden will be president of all Americans, not just the ones who voted for him. And he’ll have to try to work with the people who so bitterly opposed his election. But I want to remind the president-elect and everyone else in the Democratic Party of another simple truth: Politics is for power.

Social justice is not won with gentle commiseration. Seneca Falls, Selma, and Stonewall were uprisings intended to wrest power from the hands of oppressors. I did not vote for a party that moves right for Republicans; I voted for a party that will fight to undo Republican damage.

Republicans know politics is for power. It’s why they blocked Obama’s nominations to the Supreme Court and pushed through their own; it’s why they continue to try to gut the Affordable Care Act and overturn Roe v. Wade despite the popularity of both. And it’s why, mark my words, absent a solid win by Georgia Democrats in that state’s Senate run-off elections in January, Biden’s inevitable efforts to reach across the aisle will fail. If Democrats want to enact the kind of change that so many Americans so desperately need, we must stop molly-coddlying the people wholly dedicated to preventing us from doing so.

And finally, while every individual must make their own choices about the people in their lives, I want to say very clearly that you are not required to offer a hand to people who have denied your humanity. Your life is precious, your spirit and your mind are precious. Those who deny it are not deserving of your comfort.

 

You cannot forgive those who are not repentant. You cannot forgive those who will simply do everything again to wrong you if given the chance. 

 

You have to stop them from doing it again.

 

 

 

Kentucky Goes Viral, Con't

Kentucky Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear has announced a new round of major COVID-19 restrictions as the state faces record cases, deaths, and hospitalization numbers.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear announced multiple new restrictions Wednesday as the state continues to see a surge in coronavirus cases, including:  

All public and private K-12 schools will close to in-person instruction starting Monday through the end of the semester. The only exception is for elementary schools in counties outside the red zone, which may reopen on Dec. 7 if the school follows all guidelines.

Beginning on Friday and lasting until Dec. 13:

• All restaurants and bars will close to indoor dining services. Outdoor dining is still allowed, with some limitations.
• Gyms are limited to 33% capacity, and no group classes or indoor games are allowed. Masks are required.
• Indoor gatherings should be limited to two families, not exceeding a total of eight people.
• Attendance at wedding and funerals is limited to 25 people.

Beshear announced a $40 million fund to provide assistance to qualifying restaurants and bars impacted by the dining room closures.

La Tasha Buckner, the governor's chief of staff, said businesses will be eligible for $10,000 in assistance. Those with more than one location will be eligible for a maximum of $20,000.

Businesses owned by a publicly traded company or with drive-thrus driving 50% of their sales will not be eligible, Buckner said.

"We really want to make sure that we target the mom-and-pop individual business owners out there who may be suffering from the largest impact," she said.

The new restrictions arrive as Kentucky's coronavirus case counts surge dramatically and as deaths from COVID-19 have hit record levels this month.

Beshear has insisted that measures taken so far haven't curbed rising infection rates, levels that eventually could overwhelm hospitals and care centers across the state.

On Wednesday, Beshear said "there will not be a shutdown" in what he described as Kentucky's counterattack against the pandemic's third wave.

"We're also not restricting retail any further, but that is based on a commitment to re-up the mask mandate and the enforcement of it because we need every Kentuckian to do their part," Beshear said.

At least 106 of the state's 120 counties are now in the "red" zone, and preliminary modeling predicts at the current rate of exponential growth, far more Kentuckians could die between now and March than the nearly 1,700 who have died since spring.

 

These are necessary restrictions, and frankly they should have gone into effect two weeks ago after the election, but it's a start. I'm hoping these restrictions will continue into January, but after that the 75% Republican General Assembly goes into session, and they have absolutely promised that they will end Beshear's ability to make any COVID-19 emergency restrictions that aren't approved by the legislature beforehand.

How that works when the General Assembly is only in session 30 legislative days out of the year, well, that will be up to Kentucky's Supreme Court to decide, because I guarantee you that's where things are headed come January 5.

Sittenfeld This One Out

Breaking news this morning. Ohio's corrupt politicians continue to fall in the wake of the FirstEnergy bribery and corruption scandal as the FBI is now in everybody's books, and the latest arrest is yet another Cincinnati city council member, rising star Democrat P.G. Sittenfeld.

FBI agents arrested Cincinnati City Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld Thursday morning on federal charges accusing him of accepting bribes in exchange for favorable votes on development deals, a source with knowledge of the arrest told The Enquirer.

Sittenfeld, a Democrat and the presumptive front-runner in next year’s mayoral election, was arrested around 9:30 a.m.

Elected to council in 2011, Sittenfeld has amassed a campaign war chest of $710,000 on his way to becoming one of the city’s most powerful politicians. He is the brother of novelist Curtis Sittenfeld, author of "Prep" and "Rodham."

The federal charges mean one-third of Cincinnati’s City Council – three sitting members of the city’s top legislative body – have been arrested this year on corruption charges related to city development projects.

Tamaya Dennard, a Democrat, resigned from council after her arrest in February on fraud and bribery charges. She has pleaded guilty to a charge of honest services wire fraud and is scheduled to be sentenced next week.

Jeff Pastor, a Republican, was arrested Nov. 10 on bribery, extortion and money laundering charges related to two development deals, according to a federal affidavit. That case is pending. His attorney, Ben Dusing, said Pastor will fight the charges.

It’s unclear what deal or deals are at the heart of Sittenfeld’s arrest. U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio David DeVillers is expected to share more at an 11 a.m. press conference.

Feds taking a flamethrower to Ohio politics, and that's badly needed, but I'm actually sad to see Sittenfeld's career end like this. He would have been a great replacement for Mayor Cranley.

Oh well.

StupidiNews!

• Ugandan opposition presidential candidate Bobi Wine has been arrested a second time in a matter of weeks, this time for "violating COVID-19 campaign guidelines".
• DEA officials are reportedly "furious" after US Attorney General Bill Barr dropped all charges against former Mexican Defense Minister and drug cartel leader Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda.
• Senators from both sides of the aisle will vote against Donald Trump's $23 billion sale of fighter jets, drones and weapons to the UAE, citing a "major balance of power shift" in the Middle East.
• Australian PM Scott Morrison says the country will "always set our own laws and our own rules" after China accused Morrison of "poisoning bilateral relations" over an increasing trade war.
• Apple has settled with 33 states and DC for $113 million over allegations that performance on older iPhones was deliberately throttled as battery life degraded in order to spur sales.
  

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!

• The Senate vote to advance the very controversial nomination of Judy Shelton to the Federal Reserve Board failed 47-50 as several Republicans voted against her.
• Several Pentagon officials may break with the Trump regime and meet with Biden-Harris transition team members as soon as next week.
• Senate GOP majority leader Mitch McConnell says he is open to a much smaller $500 billion COVID-19 relief package that targets small businesses, but no stimulus checks for Americans.
• UK and EU Brexit negotiators say they are getting close to a completed deal that could be reached as early as next week.
• Joint Spanish and French commercial spaceflight company Arianespace lost two satellites on Monday after a stage 2 launch failure caused the payloads not to deploy properly.

Last Call For The Pursuit Of Justice

The usual suspects are blowing fuses over this NBC News article that finds Joe Biden doesn't want to dedicate the Justice Department to prosecuting Trump.

 

President-elect Joe Biden has privately told advisers that he doesn't want his presidency to be consumed by investigations of his predecessor, according to five people familiar with the discussions, despite pressure from some Democrats who want inquiries into President Donald Trump, his policies and members of his administration.

Biden has raised concerns that investigations would further divide a country he is trying to unite and risk making every day of his presidency about Trump, said the sources, who spoke on background to offer details of private conversations.

They said he has specifically told advisers that he is wary of federal tax investigations of Trump or of challenging any orders Trump may issue granting immunity to members of his staff before he leaves office. One adviser said Biden has made it clear that he "just wants to move on."

Another Biden adviser said, "He's going to be more oriented toward fixing the problems and moving forward than prosecuting them."

Any decisions by Biden's Justice Department regarding Trump, his staff, his associates, his business or his policies wouldn't affect investigations by state officials, including Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., who has fought to obtain Trump's tax returns.

As Biden tries to balance his own inclinations with pressures from within his party, his advisers stressed that he is seeking to reset the dynamic between the White House and the Justice Department from what it has been under Trump.

Biden wants his Justice Department to function independently from the White House, aides said, and Biden isn't going to tell federal law enforcement officials whom or what to investigate or not to investigate.

"His overarching view is that we need to move the country forward," an adviser said. "But the most important thing on this is that he will not interfere with his Justice Department and not politicize his Justice Department."

 

OK, so what does this mean? If you're getting SEE BIDEN REFUSES TO SEND TRUMP TO PRISON HE'S COMPLICT out of this, you're not getting the point.

 

The point is Biden wants an independent Justice Department again, who operates under federal law.

 

The point is Trump will almost certainly pardon everyone he can, including himself. 

 

The point is the NY state investigations from Cyrus Vance and Letitia James will proceed.

 

Trump was never going to be prosecuted by the Justice Department, guys.  Trump was always going to issue pardons, and as Marcy Wheeler reminds us:

New York state already has a tax investigation into Trump, so a federal one would be duplicative. And the pardon power is absolute; there’s little likelihood DOJ could investigate the pardons that Trump grants, because doing so would be constitutionally suspect.

 

But there are still a number of federal investigations at the DoJ that are ongoing.  If Barr kills them or Trump pardons everyone involved as a subject of those investigations, that's not Biden's fault.

 

The money was always on Trump facing state charges, and I'm sure red states will be licking their chops to return the favor. Biden's right about it being divisive.

It doesn't mean that it shouldn't be done, but Biden does have to go on record as saying that the DoJ does have to be returned to independence here, and most importantly that he want no appearance of Biden ordering new investigations or charges against Trump.

This has got to happen, guys.  Good for Biden getting it out of the way now.

Biden, His Time, Con't

President-elect Joe Biden continues to put together his White House staff, and the latest addition is New Orleans Congressman Cedric Richmond as senior public engagement advisor, the same role Valerie Jarrett played for all eight years of the Obama administration.

 

Cedric Richmond will join Joe Biden’s administration in a senior role overseeing public engagement, leaving his seat in the House of Representatives just after being elected to his sixth term, according to people familiar with the situation.

Richmond, who was one of the national co-chairs of Biden’s campaign, will be one of the highest-ranking Black officials in the White House. Richmond, whose district includes New Orleans, has a news conference scheduled for Tuesday where he is expected to announce he is leaving Congress.

The Biden transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Richmond represents a safe Democratic district, so it’s unlikely the House will lose another Democratic seat after several incumbents were defeated by Republicans in this month’s election. 

 

Indeed, Richmond won his LA-2 race by nearly 40 points.  Democrats will be fine here.

So what does Richmond bring to the table? Quite a bit, and then some.

 

Richmond is a former Congressional Black Caucus chairman and was Biden's campaign co-chair starting all the way back in April 2019 and helped him get the unprecedented primary victory he needed over Bernie Sanders and more.

Richmond, 46, has been with Biden every step of the way as a member of the campaign’s inner circle. No one from Louisiana has been closer to him over the past 18 months.

On Saturday, the Biden campaign named him as one of five co-chairs of its presidential transition team.

“He’s going to be a powerful person, come January, if Biden wins. It’s that simple,” said James Carville, who knows something about how being a close adviser to the winning candidate can elevate your status, thanks to his work for Bill Clinton in 1992.

“In Washington, basically, unless you’re a committee chairman, the perception of influence is your access to the president,” Carville said. “That’s the way power flows. It’s the most valuable coin there is. It just confers enormous prestige. He’ll have that. He’ll be a big deal.”

The typical politician would be eager to trumpet his or her access to someone who could be the next president. Not Richmond.

“I’m not trying to overstate my importance and blow my horn,” he said during a recent interview. He didn’t make himself available for a follow-up interview.

Richmond did say his title as campaign co-chairman is not an honorary one.

“It’s day to day for me,” he said. “It’s everything you would expect a person on a campaign level to do — senior level. Anything from previewing ads to debate prep to general nightly strategy calls and other stuff. Talking to members of Congress, recruiting supporters. It’s overwhelming. It’s a lot.”

 

In other words, Richmond has already been doing this job for nearly two years, just on the campaign trail.  Now he'll continue in the White House. And yeah, I have no issue with Richmond keeping Biden honest about the folk that won him the primary and the presidency: Black voters.

And Richmond has a long career ahead of him too, he's only 47.  He's going to go far.

Keep an eye on him. Joe Biden will certainly be doing so.

Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

After four years of a man in the Oval Office openly supporting white supremacists and calling on them to "stand by" and to "be ready", it's no wonder that the US has now reached the highest number of hate crimes since 2008 according to the FBI.

Hate crimes in the U.S. rose to the highest level in more than a decade as federal officials also recorded the highest number of hate-motivated killings since the FBI began collecting that data in the early 1990s, according to an FBI report released Monday.

There were 51 hate crime murders in 2019, which includes 22 people who were killed in a shooting that targeted Mexicans at a Walmart in the border city of El Paso, Texas, the report said. The suspect in that August 2019 shooting, which left two dozen other people injured, was charged with both state and federal crimes in what authorities said was an attempt to scare Hispanics into leaving the United States.

There were 7,314 hate crimes last year, up from 7,120 the year before — and approaching the 7,783 of 2008. The FBI’s annual report defines hate crimes as those motivated by bias based on a person’s race, religion or sexual orientation, among other categories.

Some of the 2019 increases may be the result of better reporting by police departments, but law enforcement officials and advocacy groups don’t doubt that hate crimes are on the rise. The Justice Department has for years been specifically prioritizing hate crime prosecutions.

The data also shows there was a nearly 7% increase in religion-based hate crimes, with 953 reports of crimes targeting Jews and Jewish institutions last year, up from 835 the year before. The FBI said the number of hate crimes against African Americans dropped slightly to 1,930, from 1,943.

Anti-Hispanic hate crimes, however, rose to 527 in 2019, from 485 in 2018. And the total number of hate crimes based on a person’s sexual orientation stayed relatively stable, with one fewer crime reported last year, compared with the year before, though there were 20 more hate crimes against gay men reported.

As the data was made public on Monday, advocacy groups, including the Anti-Defamation League, called on Congress and law enforcement agencies across the U.S. to improve data collection and reporting of hate crimes. Critics have long warned that the data may be incomplete, in part because it is based on voluntary reporting by police agencies across the country.

Last year, only 2,172 law enforcement agencies out of about 15,000 participating agencies across the country reported hate crime data to the FBI, the bureau said. And while the number of agencies reporting hate crimes increased, the number of agencies participating in the program actually dropped from the year before. A large number of police agencies appeared not to submit any hate crime data, which has been a consistent struggle for Justice Department officials.

“The total severity of the impact and damage caused by hate crimes cannot be fully measured without complete participation in the FBI’s data collection process,” the Anti-Defamation League’s president, Jonathan Greenblatt, said in a statement.

 

Improving FBI hate crime data collection, as well as having a Justice Department with an actual Civil Rights division again, is something Biden will have control over immediately when he gets into office.

It''ll be nice having a government that cares about stopping hate crimes more than protecting those who commit them again.