Monday “It’s official” Day Reads
Posted: December 14, 2020 Filed under: 2020 Elections | Tags: electoral college, Treasury Hack by Russians, Trump is a LOSER 30 Comments
Good Day Sky Dancers!
Every one of the 538 Electoral College Members will cast their votes today. Joe Biden will officially be our President Elect and Kamala Harris will officially become the Vice President Elect. You can watch the votes come in at the NYT at this link.
Electors started to meet at 11 a.m. Eastern in Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Illinois and South Carolina.
You may also watch the some Elector’s vote on CSpan today. This should seal the deal. Let’s hope some Republicans stop protecting the Toddler-in-Chief’s delusions and start to work to get things done to help our Covid 19 -inflicted country. We could also use some help kicking Russian Ass from a cybersecurity standpoint.
From the Vox Link:
The next big date is Monday, December 14, when the Electoral College votes. In each state and the District of Columbia, the 538 electors who make up the Electoral College will cast the votes that will technically make Biden the next president. There’s little drama here. The states Biden won have appointed elector slates of Democrats, who are certain to vote for Biden. But it’s the next step in making things official.
Then, on Wednesday, January 6, Congress counts the electoral votes. This is also mainly ceremonial. We’ll know the count in advance because the votes will be public on December 14. The one minor hitch is that a Trump ally in the House plans to challenge that count. But for that challenge to succeed, both the House and the Senate would have to agree to overrule the electoral votes. The Democrat-controlled House obviously wouldn’t go along with this, so the challenge won’t change the outcome.
Two weeks after that, on January 20, Biden will be inaugurated as the next president.
Additional information on those plans to challenge the count are further down the page.
On January 6, 2021, a joint session of the newly elected Congress will convene to count the votes cast by the Electoral College the previous month. This congressional count is the final formal step in making the presidential election results official before the inauguration itself.
Usually, this is a formality. But sometimes, there’s a last-minute kerfuffle because there is a process by which members of Congress can challenge the vote count. We likely will get such a challenge — Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) has said he will file one, though he needs to find at least one senator to join him for the challenge to advance.
This would not be unprecedented. In 2005, Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-OH) and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) made such a challenge to George W. Bush’s win in Ohio. (In 2017, some House Democrats tried to challenge Trump’s win in certain states, but the attempt was fruitless because no senators would join them.)
If a representative and senator support a challenge, what happens next is that the joint session of Congress splits up, and the House and Senate will each hold a vote on the challenge. Here’s the key part, though: Unless a majority in boththe House and Senate vote to sustain the challenge, it will fail.
So because Democrats control the House, any attempt to overturn the election for Trump will surely be voted down by them. It may well fail in the Senate as well; several Republican senators have recognized Biden’s victory.
That means this challenge will basically just be a stunt and it won’t actually overturn the outcome. What it would do is guarantee a recorded vote in both the House and Senate about whether they should allow Biden’s win, which could put some swing state or swing district Republican members of Congress in an uncomfortable position. (This could be a particular issue for some Senate Republicans in 2022 — do they risk a primary challenge by recognizing Biden’s win or do they back Trump’s challenge and endanger their general election chances?)
So, how long are we going to deal with Trump supporters who deny this reality? Sabrina Tavernise writes this for the NYT today. “What’s Next for Trump Voters Who Believe the Election Was Stolen?Some are certain the election was fraudulent. Others aren’t so sure. What becomes of their skepticism has important implications for American democracy.”
But interviews with dozens of people who voted for Mr. Trump reveal a more fluid picture. Some were die-hard supporters who were hungry for any information to support Mr. Trump’s claims — against all evidence — that he won the election. For these voters, no data could convince them otherwise.
Others were more uncertain. Nearly all of the people interviewed said they believed at least some fraud had been perpetrated, but whether that added up to Mr. Trump’s being the true winner was much harder to know.
The reasons for doubting the outcome were many. Misinformation played a role. So did signaling by Republican leaders, first among them Mr. Trump.
Partisanship was powerful, too: Some were so distrustful of Democrats that they were open to arguments about fraud in large part because Democrats were not. Still others said election fraud was simply not that unusual a phenomenon. And in a sign of how much Americans of both parties are living in political bubbles, many expressed surprise that Mr. Biden could have won, given that they knew no one who voted for him.
It looks rather bad when you lose Faux & Fuckers.
“You have an alternate slate of electors in a state like say Wisconsin or in a state like Georgia and we’ll make sure that those results are sent up side by side to Congress,” Miller declared. “So that we have the opportunity, every day between now and January 20, to say that slate of electors and the contested states is the slate that should be certified to uphold a fair and free election and an honest result.”
Those “alternate” results, however, will not be certified by any states’ secretaries of state, therefore rendering them worthless.
Noting that polls show Trump supporters overwhelmingly believe Trump’s baseless claim that the election was “stolen,” co-host Ainsley Earhardt asked Miller what the next “arrow in your quiver” is now that the Supreme Court rejected the Texas lawsuit to throw out swing state votes.
“Well, we have open election challenges in all the contested states,” the Trump adviser insisted while echoing Trump’s unfounded allegations about widespread voter fraud.
Kilmeade, who confronted Trump over the weekend about his legal team’s failure to provide any proof of election fraud in court, then pressed Miller on the resounding defeats that Trump and his allies have suffered in court.
“Stephen, so if there were underage people voting and criminals voting, if there was illegal ballots cast, your legal team [has], in almost every state, 50 times lost, so do you have the worst legal team who just don’t seem to be presenting a good case? Or [are] you just too late in this case should have been brought before the election?” Kilmeade wondered aloud.
Miller, meanwhile, blamed the repeated rejection of Trump’s legal challenges on the “corrupt corporate media” placing “overwhelming” pressure on the courts and elected officials.
Some other interesting headlines from this weekend continue to amaze. John le Carré died of pneumonia at the age of 89. His obit from the Guardian explains his importance in the spy novel genre.
He was in his late 20s when he began to write fiction – in longhand, in small red pocket notebooks, on his daily train journey between his home in Buckinghamshire and his day job with MI5, the counter-intelligence service, in London. After the publication of two neatly crafted novels, Call for the Dead (1961) and A Murder of Quality (1962), which received measured reviews and modest sales, he hit the big time with The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963).
Its publisher, Victor Gollancz, secured a puff from Graham Greene (“the best spy story I have ever read”), and the widely-rumoured belief that the author was an insider in the secret world of intelligence helped his third novel become one of the great bestsellers of the postwar period.
Le Carré’s subject was the human and political ambiguities of the cold war. His book was gritty, stripped of glamour. Reviewers talked of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold as a grown-up answer to Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels. It was more than that. His taut, complex plot, strong storytelling gifts, and distinctive characterisation made his book a memorable literary achievement.
This happened the same day it was announced that Russian Hackers had broken into the US Treasury and Commerce Departments. This is basically what happens when you put a Putin lover in the White House that then basically opens the backdoor by removing all the folks at the NSA that know what they are doing.
Joseph Marks has this analysis at WAPO today. “The Cybersecurity 202: A Russian mega-hack is further damaging Trump’s cybersecurity legacy”.
National security officials are still scrambling this morning to determine the scope of that campaign, which officials say was going on for months and impacted government, consulting, technology, telecom, and oil and gas companies in North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
It likely represents the largest known Russian data theft in half a decade and is a sign Trump administration efforts to constrain Russian hacking have been spotty at best.
The hackers were able to access victims’ email accounts and probably made off with reams of sensitive information about internal government deliberations. At the very least, the investigation and cleanup operation will continue well after President-elect Joe Biden takes office in January.
“This is a big deal, and given what we now know about where breaches happened, I’m expecting the scope to grow as more logs are reviewed,” John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, told my colleagues Ellen Nakashima and Craig Timberg. “When an aggressive group like this gets an open sesame to many desirable systems, they are going to use it widely.”
The breach prompted an emergency meeting Saturday of the National Security Council, Reuters reported. The Department of Homeland Security issued a directive early this morning for government agencies to protect against the breach in probably the fastest-ever turnaround for such an order.
So, that’s enough from me today. And the countdown before they have to fumigate the White House is 37 days. If Joe and Jill are lucky, he’ll go to Mara Logo for the holidays and they can just dump his stuff on the sidewalk and fumigate starting January 1.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Friday Reads: Sedition Edition
Posted: December 11, 2020 Filed under: 2020 Elections 26 CommentsA revolt or an incitement to revolt against established authority,
usually in the form of Treason or Defamation against government.
This is the description of acts that fall under the area of sedition under the US Constitution and law.
Sedition is the crime of revolting or inciting revolt against government. However, because of the broad protection of free speech under the First Amendment, prosecutions for sedition are rare.
Nevertheless, sedition remains a crime in the United States under 18 U.S.C.A. § 2384 (2000), a federal statute that punishes seditious conspiracy, and 18 U.S.C.A. § 2385 (2000), which outlaws advocating the overthrow of the federal government by force.
Generally, a person may be punished for sedition only when he or she makes statements that create a Clear and Present Danger to rights that the government may lawfully protect (schenck v. united states, 249 U.S. 47, 39 S. Ct. 247, 63 L. Ed. 470 [1919]).
The crime of seditious conspiracy is committed when two or more persons in any state or U.S. territory conspire to levy war against the U.S. government. A person commits the crime of advocating the violent overthrow of the federal government when she willfully advocates or teaches the overthrow of the government by force, publishes material that advocates the overthrow of the government by force, or organizes persons to overthrow the government by force. A person found guilty of seditious conspiracy or advocating the overthrow of the government may be fined and sentenced to up to 20 years in prison. States also maintain laws that punish similar advocacy and conspiracy against the state government.
And with that, lets’ start our reads with The New Yorker‘s Susan B Glasser. “It’s Not Just Trump’s War on Democracy Anymore. Republicans have gone far beyond merely humoring their losing leader.” They have gone way way to far. It now is taking the tone of sedition. I’m continuing some of the news BB shared with us yesterday. You may read her post yesterday for some more background as we see more news and analysis breaking today.
We know see exactly how many representatives in the US Congress want to overturn the election and who they are. This is beginning to look a lot more like an attempt to overthrow our legitimate government. The first appeal to the Supreme Court to throw out the votes of certain states was rebuffed soundly on Tuesday. The “safe harbor” date will come on December 14. And then this happened on Wednesday.
Select Political cartoons are from The Buffalo News’s Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist Adam Zyglis.
Undaunted, in the space of a few hours on Wednesday, Trump had his campaign join an even more far-fetched lawsuit, by Texas, asking the Court to throw out millions of votes in battleground states that decided the election’s outcome—Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—all of which have already certified their results. A few hours after this news, Hunter Biden, the son of the man who did win the election, announced that Trump’s appointee as U.S. Attorney for Delaware had opened a federal criminal investigation of his tax dealings. Here, too, you could say it was all just a predictable mess. Trump has been obsessed with Hunter Biden for years; he pushed Ukraine to launch a politically harmful investigation of Biden so hard that he got impeached over it. So why wouldn’t the President join the Texas case, even though it is, as the election lawyer Rick Hasen put it, more press release than legal argument? Trump certainly has never minded losing in court.
What came as a gut punch, though, and still, even after all this time, a real surprise to me, was the announcement that seventeen other states—or at least their attorneys general—had filed a brief supporting the spurious Texas lawsuit, representing, from South Carolina to Utah, an array of pro-Trump red states. Eighteen states, in other words, are making the preposterous—and democratically devastating—argument that the Supreme Court should throw out other states’ votes because they do not like the results. So much for federalism and states’ rights and all those other previously cherished Republican principles. Up on Capitol Hill, meanwhile, a hundred and six House Republicans filed an amicus brief of their own supporting the Texas lawsuit. Some of these same Trump supporters in Congress are also now considering objecting to the Electoral College results when they are presented to the House, on January 6th, in what is meant to be a purely pro-forma procedural move. Mitt Romney dismissed the idea as “madness,” but he remains a lonely public voice against Trump, as his fellow-Republicans either fall in line or remain inexcusably silent. This has gone far beyond just humoring Trump for a few days.
In its response to the Texas case, filed Thursday afternoon, Pennsylvania called the lawsuit’s claims “moot, meritless, and dangerous,” and said that its Trump-inspired assault on results in states where Biden won amounts to a “seditious abuse of the judicial process.” The Supreme Court, Pennsylvania argued, should not only reject the Texas case but in so doing “send a clear and unmistakable signal that such abuse must never be replicated.”
Even the conservative magazine The National Review has an Editorial headline today that reads “Texas Unleashes an Absurd Kraken.”
The odds of the Texas election lawsuit prevailing in the Supreme Court might not be less than one in a quadrillion, but they are extremely remote — and should be.
Texas is asking the Supreme Court to invalidate the presidential election in four battleground states won by Joe Biden because, it argues, election procedures in those states violated the Constitution, and the resulting irregularities impermissibly diluted the votes of Texans.
To call this far-fetched is an understatement — it is the Kraken of constitutional law.
Texas has no standing to challenge the election procedures in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Georgia, and the Supreme Court doesn’t have the authority to order new elections in those states or bar electors from those states from voting in the Electoral College. The case was brought by Texas because the Supreme Court is required to hear all lawsuits brought by a state against other states, but it retains the power to dismiss those suits out of hand if the case is not one that a state legally can bring. If there were any prior case that lent credibility to these outlandish claims, Texas would have cited it.
The Orlando Sentinel proffered this:
We apologize to our readers for endorsing Michael Waltz in the 2020 general election for Congress.
We had no idea, had no way of knowing at the time, that Waltz was not committed to democracy.
During our endorsement interview with the incumbent congressman, we didn’t think to ask, “Would you support an effort to throw out the votes of tens of millions of Americans in four states in order to overturn a presidential election and hand it to the person who lost, Donald Trump?”
Our bad.
No kidding.
Here’s the Amicus Brief where you can see who in your state is trying to start a second civil war. You can also read more on this crap about the 106 Republican Congress Critters here at CBS. I’d just like to apologize from the sane people living in Louisiana for the crazy district that voted whackado Mike Johnson who appears to have been a leader in the act of sedition.
Congressman Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, circulated an email, obtained by CBS News, from his personal account to GOP members Wednesday that asked them to join a friend-of-the-court brief to be filed in support of the effort spearheaded by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Johnson was a vocal defender of Mr. Trump during impeachment proceedings.
“The simple objective of our brief is to affirm for the court (and our constituents back home) our serious concerns with the integrity of our election system,” Johnson wrote. “We are not seeking to independently litigate the particular allegations of fraud in our brief (this is not our place as amici). We will merely state our belief that the broad scope of the various allegations and irregularities in the subject states merits careful, timely review by the Supreme Court.”
On the other hand, Ohio’s AG filed its support for Pennsylvania. This is from Cleveland.com.
Attorney General Dave Yost on Thursday filed a legal brief with the U.S. Supreme Court opposing a Texas lawsuit’s goal to effectively delay the Electoral College from voting Joe Biden the next U.S. president.
Yost, a Columbus Republican, stated in the brief that the Supreme Court lacks authority to order state legislatures in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin to appoint presidential electors. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s lawsuit argues such a move is needed because coronavirus-related changes to election rules in those states opened the door to voter fraud (claims of which have so far been unsubstantiated).
“The relief that Texas seeks would undermine a foundational premise of our federalist system: the idea that the States are sovereigns, free to govern themselves,” Yost stated in the brief, adding later: “The courts have no more business ordering the People’s representatives how to choose electors than they do ordering the People themselves how to choose their dinners.
From David Cohen at the Rolling Stone: “Trump’s ‘Big’ Texas Supreme Court Lawsuit Is Just as Fake as All the Others. Don’t be fooled because the case was filed in the Supreme Court. It’s going nowhere — and Trump is still on his way out of the White House”
Trump’s latest ridiculous attempt to thwart the will of the American electorate comes in the form of a Texas lawsuit filed Tuesday morning. In the lawsuit, Texas is suing the states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Georgia, alleging election officials in each of those states failed to follow their state laws during the election by making it easier for people to vote absentee, early, and/or by mail, and thus — according to Texas — making it easier for voter fraud. The remedy the suit seeks is to throw out the results of all four states. Of course, all four states voted for Biden.
This lawsuit is peculiar because Texas filed it directly in the Supreme Court. Almost all Supreme Court cases start in the lower courts and take their time to work their way up to the Supreme Court. However, the Constitution allows for a small sliver of cases to be filed directly in the Supreme Court. One such category is suits “in which a state shall be a party.” And federal statute says cases between two or more states must be filed in the Supreme Court. Texas is suing four other states; thus, Texas had to file in the Supreme Court.
But just because this is the type of case that must be filed directly in the Supreme Court doesn’t mean that the court will actually hear the case. The court has discretion to hear these types of cases directly or to send them to the lower courts for development before it gets to the supremes.
Commentators all over the political spectrum agree that there is no way the Supreme Court will touch this case. Take your pick among the almost endless reasons why: There is no legal basis for one state to complain about the election procedures of another state. There is no constitutional requirement that states have similar voting rules or procedures. The justices, even the extreme conservatives appointed by Trump, will not want to interfere with an election that wasn’t that close. And, possibly most important, the justices will have no interest in overturning the votes of millions of people and thereby anointing themselves the final decision-makers in presidential elections. There is just no world in which this lawsuit succeeds, as it is completely frivolous.
Nonetheless, Trump has labeled this case “the big one” and filed a motion yesterday to intervene. In plain English, that means he wants to join Texas as a party in the case because he has a stake in its outcome. Other politicians are clamoring to get on board. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, eager to show his boundless loyalty to the man he has called “utterly amoral,” a “serial philanderer,” a “narcissist at a level I don’t think this country’s ever seen,” and a “pathological liar,” has offered to argue the case in the Supreme Court. And 18 states filed a brief yesterday supporting this lawsuit.
Seriously, this really shows we have a large number of Americans who never had a civics course and are still walking around upright. Over here in reality land where facts, rule of law, and reality matter, Time gives Joe Biden and Kamala Harris the shared title of Person of the year. This is probably one of the reasons why Trumperz is tweeting like a magpie today.
Biden and Harris share a faith that empathetic governance can restore the solidarity we’ve lost. Biden told TIME he has lately been reading about Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first 100 days, when FDR worked to pull the nation out of the Great Depression, a feat that helped restore confidence in democracy. “We’re the only country in the world that has come out of every crisis stronger than we went into the crisis,” he insists. “I predict we will come out of this crisis stronger than when we went in.” Their challenge is, above all, not about any one policy, proposal or piece of legislation. It is convincing America that a future exists, for all of us, together. It is nothing less than reconciling America with itself.
We’re still counting down the days until January 20. Our nation is still being held hostage to the malign intent of Trump and his cronies for 39 days.
Come on we can do this! We can pull through all of this together. We have a country to rebuild! We also have to do as much as we can to get those Georgia Senatorial seats which both have been declared too close to call if you believe FiveThirtyEight.
Hang in there! Be safe!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Just Another Monday Reads: End of the Line for the Deplorables
Posted: December 7, 2020 Filed under: just because | Tags: deplorables, End of the line, Korean Dad 27 Comments
Folk Tales Tiger, jeremy Yong
Good Day Sky Dancers!
I’ve been considering searching for old episodes of Mr. Rogers that the girls and I used to watch back in the appropriate age range day just because I always remembered feeling so good just knowing some one like him was around. I used to even sneak watches at him when I was a teenager during the Nixon Years. He was fairly new to PBS but wow, it was so nice to see a kind and gentle man. Anyway, we now have TikTok and Nick Cho who is @yourKoreanDad. I’m going to start out with this before we have to take another trip on the Trump Crazy Train because every one needs a good daily dose of a kind and gentle man,
Also, please enjoy these selections of Korean art!
And, have a lot of love and fun with your Korean dad! We all need something after over four years of Trumpist Terrorism!
Feel a little better now?
Good, cause today we’ve got a few deplorables to highlight. The first one is Quarterback Tom Brady who demonstrates peak performance deplorable behavior with this “Tom Brady purchased a multi-million-dollar boat after company received $960K PPP loan.”
Heading into this season, Tom Brady signed a two-year, $50 million contract with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. It was a deal that was signed about a week after the coronavirus pandemic forced sports to essentially shut down in the country.
And those ensuing months would prove to be a challenging time for the U.S. as nearly 300,000 people have died along with millions of COVID-19 cases and jobs lost. To help counteract the economic impact, congress passed the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) to assist businesses during the crisis.
Well, Brady’s own company, TB12, was among the businesses to receive a PPP loan — a loan of $960,000 — but you probably won’t be surprised to see that the Bucs quarterback hasn’t exactly struggled financially.
According to a report from TMZ, Brady recently purchased a multi-million-dollar, custom boat that was delivered to him in St. Petersburg, Fla., on Thursday. The 40-foot boat was named “Viva a Vida” after Gisele’s environmental initiative.
Ship-jangsaeng
the Twelve “Ten Symbols of Longevity”
I’m not sure why he felt the need for the government to subsidize his business while he’s getting paid like that but you know, that’s just what deplorables do these days.
Then, there are these deplorables who showed up Michigan’s Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s house late Saturday while she and her son were finishing up their Holiday Decorations. What was the purpose of this neighborhood visit? Well, in typical deplorable style it included death threats and the usual horrible taunts plus guns. Lots of gun toting and lots of rage by the usual set of deplorable white men.
Portrait of Kang Io by Yi Jaegwan (1783–1837).
This is from Michigan Live and yesterday: “Armed protesters rally outside Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s home.” I wouldn’t exactly call this a protest, however.
About 20-30 protesters, some open-carrying guns, gathered outside Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s home Saturday night to challenge President-elect Joe Biden’s win in Michigan, police said.
Officers responded to a public disturbance around 9:50 p.m., Dec. 5 outside of Benson’s Detroit residence, said the Michigan State Police. Some of the protesters carried weapons, police said, and the crowd dispersed once officers arrived. No protesters were arrested, police said. Detroit police were called to the scene, as well.
Protesters posted two livestream videos of the rally, which showed people chanting for election audits and to “Stop the steal.” At least one individual shouted “you’re murderers” in the videos, according to a joint statement by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel and Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy.
The rally was a threat against not only Benson and her family, but also Michigan voters, Benson said in a statement.
“The demands made outside my home were unambiguous, loud and threatening,” she said in the release. “They targeted me in my role as Michigan’s Chief Election Officer. But the threats of those gathered weren’t actually aimed at me – or any other elected officials in this state. They were aimed at the voters.”
She noted in the release that she and her 4-year-old son were decorating the house for Christmas when the protesters arrived.
So, if this is true, I’ve got to find a new new for the Deplorable-in Chief. Alyana Treena of Axios reports this: “President Trump is considering a made-for-TV grand finale: a White House departure on Marine One and final Air Force One flight to Florida for a political rally opposite Joe Biden’s inauguration, sources familiar with the discussions tell Axios.”
The big picture: The Trump talk could create a split-screen moment: the outgoing president addressing a roaring crowd in an airport hangar while the incoming leader is sworn in before a socially distanced audience outside the Capitol, as NBC News first reported.
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Immediately announcing he is running for re-election in 2024 would set up four years of Trump playing Biden’s critic-in-chief.
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The visual also would embody the vast difference in the two leaders’ approaches to the pandemic.
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And flying off from the South Lawn before landing in Florida would let Trump escape protests, the normal pleasantries of welcoming the incoming president to the White House — and sitting there while Biden takes the oath of office.
Well, look who is hospitalized with the Corona Virus?
*
Of course, he’s getting great care!
Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trump’s personal attorney and the face of his longshot legal challenges to overturn the presidential election results, has been hospitalized after testing positive for Covid-19.
The 76-year-old former New York mayor was admitted to Georgetown University Hospital on Sunday, a source familiar with the matter confirmed to CNN. Giuliani appeared to confirm his positive diagnosis, hours after it was announced on Twitter by Trump, by tweeting that he’s “getting great care and feeling good.”
There have been no additional details provided about his condition, and it is unclear when Giuliani received a positive test for Covid-19. He and his spokeswoman have not responded to CNN’s requests for comment.
This story comes from Stephanie Ruhle whose entire family has tested positive.
One of the people who did take my call seriously, the woman who cuts my hair, canceled her Thanksgiving, took her kids out of school, stopped going to work and made no money for nearly two weeks. Her test, which she spent three hours waiting to get, came back eight days later. It was negative. But how many people can put their lives, livelihoods and jobs on hold just to do the right thing?
Hourly wage workers are going to work sick because they can’t afford not to work. Many of their employers are ignoring the symptoms, because they are trying to keep business alive.
Testing remains a challenge — and there are no consequences for people who don’t self-isolate while they wait several days just to get results, especially if they have no or minimal symptoms.
And then there are people who may know they are spreading the coronavirus and simply don’t care. Any of these scenarios is possible, because there is no comprehensive national containment plan.
So, I’m still scheduled to teach in a classroom with about 35 people with no windows on Saturday because that’s what some of the most vocal students wanted to do. My grad assistant Rose will be there too. This is happening as Mayor Cantrell has announced that she will tighten restrictions again if this week’s numbers don’t improve.
I think it’s pretty obvious to most of us by now that Trump and his Trumpists don’t give a damn about any one but themselves.
Oh, and there’s rumors that Bill Barr is bailing early. Good Riddance to the lot of them! I would like to live in a world where never have to hear a word about any of them again unless it has to do with a pending jail term.
Take care this week! Be safe! We care and love you here our beloved community! We just got to hang in here for a few more months and then ride the change!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Friday Reads: Fishing for Presidential Pardons
Posted: December 4, 2020 Filed under: just because | Tags: Trump Family Crime Syndicate 26 Comments
Good Day Sky Dancers!
We have 46 more days of the Trumpist Regime. Get ready for the Bronco Chases.
I’ve been on pardon watch especially since we’ve learned there’s been a bribery for pardons investigation. Watching Trump’s first batch of corrupt crony pardon recipients while they suggesting we become a dictatorship with specific suggestions has been pretty appalling too! It’s going to be fun watching Club Pardoneer grow its membership! I’m personally watching my Pardoneer Bingo card for anything with the last name of Trump.
This first read is from The Nation and is written by Sasha Abramksy. Here’s the headline and lede: “Why the Trumpists’ Calls for Dictatorship Should Worry Us. It may sound laughable, but it’s no joke—the GOP leadership and the right-wing media machine are colluding with Trump’s assault on democratic institutions. The names in this article who are not current Pardoneers are likely an open space on the bingo card somewhere.
Trump campaign attorney Joe DiGenova said that Chris Krebs, the election security official whom Trump fired by tweet last month after he defended the integrity of the election, should be “drawn and quartered” and “taken out at dawn and shot.” Stalin couldn’t have said it better himself when talking about his perceived enemies in the Soviet bureaucracy.
Former Trump campaign attorney Sidney Powell—who was dismissed last month after pushing conspiracy theories (including that the long-deceased Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez intervened to help Joe Biden) that were recognized as deranged even by the conspiracy-mongerers surrounding Trump—retweeted a call to invoke the Insurrection Act, suspend the meeting of the Electoral College, and set up military tribunals to deal with Trump’s enemies.
The following day, former national security adviser Michael Flynn, coming off a recent presidential pardon from Trump, urged his erstwhile boss to declare martial law, suspend the Constitution, and order new presidential elections under the supervision of the military.
Far-right media personalities have joined the fascist clamor. Lou Dobbs of Fox Business recently called for Trump to take unspecified “drastic action” against his enemies. The One America News Network has also suggested that Trump should invoke the Insurrection Act as a way to remain in office.And Trump himself—America’s isolated, mad, lonely king—seems increasingly besotted by a version of his story in which he rides in as the knight in shining armor to save America from a “rigged” electoral disaster. On Wednesday, Trump posted on Facebook a bizarre 46-minute video in which he regurgitated a myriad of conspiracy theories. He said it may be the “most important” speech he has ever given. Critics were less impressed. The Washington Post’s Philip Rucker interpreted the rambling speech as a call to arms and wrote that it called into question the peaceful transfer of power.
Politico reports that 20 cronies (aides and associates) are on Trump’s buddy list to become a Merry Pardoneer! But wait! I thought no one did anything wrong!Roughly 20 top aides and associates are on tap for a potential pardon, though the list is evolving, according to one of the people. The list includes Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, who run the family’s namesake business, and Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, a husband-and-wife duo who are both senior aides at the White House. All four were involved in Trump’s reelection campaign.
Trump has even mused on Twitter that he has “the absolute right to PARDON” myself — a legally contested (but untested) claim.
Still, Trump is hesitant to pardon any of them, particularly Giuliani, because it may appear that members of his inner circle are criminals, said one of the three people, who spoke to Trump this week. The Giuliani pardon has been discussed more seriously, the person added.
A Republican who speaks to Trump and supports his potential 2024 bid predicted the pardons would not hurt the president. “It’s a big deal to Beltway types but not regular Americans,” the person said.
The pardons would be designed to prevent Trump’s allies from being ensnared in any more federal investigations.
Trump Jr. had been investigated for contacts that he had during the 2016 with Russians offering damaging information on his father’s 2016 rival, Hillary Clinton. Later, congressional investigators told the Justice Department that Trump Jr. may have lied to them during their examination of Russia’s 2016 election interference.
Kushner similarly received scrutiny for providing inaccurate information to federal authorities about his contacts with foreigners when he applied for his security clearance.
Neither was charged.
But the clemency would not extend to any state charges, congressional investigations or lawsuits — of which there are plenty.
The New York attorney general and the Manhattan district attorney, for example, have been investigating the Trump Organization for possible financial fraud. D.C. authorities also sued the Trump Organization and Trump’s inaugural committee, alleging the committee misused funds and funneled money back to Trump’s company. Ivanka Trump gave a deposition in that suit earlier this week.
Roger Stone was not to be outdone by others’ batshittery demonstrating the chutzpah required to be one of the original Pardoneers! “Roger Stone, Who Had His Ass Saved by Barr, Turns on ‘Deep State’ Attorney General” is the headline at The Daily Beast this week.
Remember in February when Attorney General Bill Barr trashed his department’s reputation to override the recommended prison term for Roger Stone and push for a much shorter sentence? Because, apparently, Stone has forgotten—and has gone on the attack against the AG. Trumpworld has reacted with fury to Barr’s statement Tuesday that there’s no evidence of voter fraud that could change the outcome of the 2020 election, and Donald Trump’s loss to Joe Biden. Stone, one of Trump’s longest standing allies, is particularly angry, even though Barr did him a huge favor earlier this year. In a video posted to Parler, Stone said he’s not surprised that Barr has “suddenly determined” there is no voter fraud, adding: “Bill Barr’s job is to block for the ‘deep state.’” Stone, who had his prison sentence commuted by Trump in July, also complained of a “two-tiered justice system.”
And his theory of election fraud is way out there in la la land. From Newsweek: “Roger Stone Says North Korean Boats Delivered Ballots Through Maine Harbor As Trump Boosts Fraud Claims.”
Former Trump adviser Roger Stone claimed without evidence on Wednesday that North Korea had interfered in the U.S. presidential election. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump continued to assert that fraudulent activity was prevalent during the November election.
Stone, who has previously spoken of his respect for some members of the QAnon conspiracy theory movement, was sentenced to 40 months in prison for lying to investigators in connection with the Mueller probe into Russian election meddling during Trump’s 2016 campaign. Trump commuted Stone’s sentence in July.
Stone never fails to disappoint those riding the Trump Crazy Train.
A presidential preemptive pardon sounds unusual, but it has been done before, most famously when President Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon, who resigned because of the Watergate scandal in 1973 but had not been charged with any crimes.
“A preemptive pardon is a presidential pardon granted before any formal legal process has begun,” American University professor Jeffrey Crouch tells NPR.
In an email, Crouch, author of The Presidential Pardon Power, says that “someone must have committed a federal offense, but as soon as that happens, the president can grant them clemency. He does not need to wait until the alleged offender is charged, stands trial, and so on.”
Crouch continues: “These pardons are not common, but they do happen occasionally.”
Accordingly, Trump could “pardon his children, his aides, his supporters, and so on for federal offenses and be on firm legal ground,” Crouch says. “The really unclear scenario would be if he attempted to pardon himself.”
Trump has asserted he has the power to pardon himself but has said he didn’t need to use it because he hasn’t done anything wrong. Not only might his denial about any lawbreaking be complicated by events following his departure from office, the merits of a self-pardon are controversial and have never been tested in court.
And although the potential legal problems facing Trump are thought to be well understood, at least in principle, it’s not clear what if any criminal offenses with which Trump’s children might be charged.
That’s also the kind’ve pardon Giuliani was allegedly asking about. Then, there’s this little investigation thingie going on about Campaign Donations for Pardons which was clarified by the NYT.
The Justice Department investigated as recently as this summer the roles of a top fund-raiser for President Trump and a lawyer for his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, in a suspected scheme to offer a bribe in exchange for clemency for a tax crimes convict, according to two people familiar with the inquiry.
A federal judge in Washington unsealed heavily redacted court documents on Tuesday that disclosed the existence of the investigation into possible unregistered lobbying and bribery. The people said it concerned efforts by the lawyer for Mr. Kushner, Abbe Lowell, and the fund-raiser, Elliott Broidy, who pleaded guilty in October to a charge related to a different scheme to lobby the Trump administration.
A billionaire real estate developer from the San Francisco area, Sanford Diller, enlisted their help in securing clemency for a Berkeley psychologist, Hugh L. Baras, who had received a 30-month prison sentence on a conviction of tax evasion and improperly claiming Social Security benefits, according to the filing and the people familiar with the case. Under the suspected scheme, Mr. Diller would make “a substantial political contribution” to an unspecified recipient in exchange for the pardon. He died in February 2018, and there is no evidence that the effort continued after his death.
As part of the effort, someone approached the White House Counsel’s Office to “ensure” that the “clemency petition reached the targeted officials,” according to the court documents. They did not say who made the contact or how the White House responded.
There’s a lot of discussion about what exactly we should do when the Trump Family Crime Syndicate and all its high crimes and misdemeanors. Here’s some things to read about prosecuting–or not–Trump and his cronies after they’re gone pecans.
This was always going to be a dilemma for Trump’s successor. After an openly self-dealing president like Trump, the nation needs to see that no American is above the law, and that there will be consequences for anyone—even a former president—who enriches himself at the nation’s expense or abuses his power.
But any prosecution of Trump, no matter how fair, will draw criticism from Trump’s supporters in an already-divided nation. Even non-partisan observers have reason to be concerned by the spectacle of the administration of a new president prosecuting the president who just left office. It’s essential for any stable democracy that elected leaders don’t use their new powers to punish their opponents after they’ve lost. No president has ever done it.
It’s possible that New York state may have the first go at him. This is from Business Insider. “Trump is worried that he may be prosecuted in New York after he leaves office”
The president faces a slew of legal issues on the federal and state levels once he’s out of office on January 20. New York Attorney General Letitia James is conducting a civil investigation into the Trump Organization’s business practices. And a federal court filing from Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance suggested he was conducting an investigation into Trump and the Trump Organization on suspicion of bank and insurance fraud, The New York Times reported.
Trump was also named “Individual-1” in a filing by the Southern District of New York when his former attorney Michael Cohen was charged with making hush-money payments. And a lawsuit from two attorneys general alleged he violated the Constitution’s emoluments clause. His inaugural committee also faces a lawsuit alleging it schemed to funnel nonprofit money into the Trump family business.
The DOJ is beginning to look a little more like the professionals are back in charge as we approach January.. This is from the LA Times: “Trump aide banned from Justice Dept. after pressuring staffers for case information”.
The Trump aide serving as the president’s eyes and ears at the Justice Department has been banned from the building after trying to pressure staff members to give up sensitive information about election fraud and other matters that she could relay to the White House, three people familiar with the matter say.
Heidi Stirrup, an ally of top Trump advisor Stephen Miller, was quietly installed at the Justice Department as a White House liaison a few months ago. She was told within the last two weeks to vacate the building after top Justice officials learned of her efforts to collect inside information about ongoing cases and the department’s work on election fraud, the people told the Associated Press.
Stirrup is accused of approaching staffers in the department and demanding that they give her information about investigations, including election fraud matters, the people said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the matter.
The effort came as Trump continues to level baseless claims that he won the election and alleges without evidence that massive voting fraud was responsible for his defeat to President-elect Joe Biden.
I think this can be termed digging your own grave. Biden has basically said he’d let the Justice Department be the Justice Department and stay out of it. The DOJ appointment–including the AG–position are forthcoming. Biden and Harris discusses the operation of the Justice Department as well as dealing with the flurry of corrupt pardons with CNN‘s Jake Tapper.
Biden’s list of contenders for the job — from Sally Yates, former deputy attorney general, to Doug Jones, soon to be former senator from Alabama who was defeated in November — largely centers on former prosecutors whose history at the department could lend credibility with the public and career officials.
Others said to be in contention include Deval Patrick, former Massachusetts governor and former Justice Department civil rights chief; Jeh Johnson, the Homeland Security secretary under Obama; California Attorney General Xavier Becerra; and Lisa Monaco, a former Homeland Security adviser in the Obama White House and who previously worked at the FBI and as top national security prosecutor at Justice.
Biden, along with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, are interviewing contenders and weighing the decision. They are not expected to announce a decision until next week at the earliest, people familiar with the matter told CNN, but with a goal of doing so well before the holidays. The timing is also contingent on the nomination of a Secretary of Defense.
The job, for whomever Biden picks, will be a heavy lift. The pick will be stepping into a Justice Department damaged by the Trump administration and with low morale among career officials, many of whom have been publicly called out by President Donald Trump, Barr and other Republicans.
This is definitely going to be a long ride. I’m wondering if it will involve at least one White Bronco at some point. And, no we’re not there yet …
Have a good weekend! Take care!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Monday Reads: Biden/Harris Administration gives voice to Women in Leadership Positions
Posted: November 30, 2020 Filed under: 2020 Elections, Afternoon Reads | Tags: Biden Appointments, Janet Yellin 6 Comments
Symone Sanders will be the chief spokesperson and advisor for VP Harris
Good Day Sky Dancers!
Women Economists may finally be coming into our own with our own. I spent decades being the only American woman in the classroom and the boardroom and was frequently the CEO’s brain much to the chagrin of several Marketing Departments.
It’s just amazing to see Janet Yellen shatter a glass ceiling yet again. You may recall that I live blogged a speech of hers in Denver for the FMA meetings here awhile back before she was promoted as the first women to serve as Fed Chair. She’s one of the most competent, cool headed leaders I’ve ever met. She was key to the last economic recovery and I’m certain she’ll handle this one with aplomb.
Biden also announced some amazing women to run the White House Communications and to key National Security Positions. I’m going to highlight a few in the news today.
This is from the AP link above.
President-elect Joe Biden on Monday announced his senior economic team, including his plans to nominate the first woman to head the Treasury Department as well as several liberal economists and policy specialists who established their credentials during the previous two Democratic administrations.
In a statement, Biden said he would nominate Janet Yellen, the former Federal Reserve chair, to lead the Treasury Department, and former Clinton and Obama adviser Neera Tanden to serve as director of the Office of Management and Budget. He also named Wally Adeyemo, a former Obama administration official and the first CEO of the former president’s nonprofit foundation, as his nominee for deputy treasury secretary. He also unveiled his White House economic team, consisting of economists Cecilia Rouse, Jared Bernstein and Heather Boushey.
Biden, who has placed a premium on diversity in his selection of Cabinet nominees and key advisers, is looking to notch a few firsts with his economic team selections. Yellen would be the first woman to lead the Treasury Department and Adeyemo the first Black deputy secretary. Tanden would be the first woman of color to lead OMB and Rouse the first woman of color to chair the Council of Economic Advisers.
I about fell over today when I saw this tweet:
Neera Tanden speaking at the University of Michigan in 2018
The Trumpists are after Ms Tanden like flies diving a glass of fine wine. They’re joined by the gnats of the “progressive” left also which has been the alignment of things since Hillary ran for office. So, Republicans think she a liberal activist and way too socialist while the socialist wannabes on left think she’s a capitalist potted plant. Republicans intend to fight the nomination but it sounds like it’s because she hurt their little fee fees while she was running the Center for American Progress. Sheesh, these Republican old Men are such wimps!
A spokesperson for Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said Sunday that President-elect Joe Biden’s reported pick to head the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has “no chance” of being confirmed by the Senate should Republicans remain in control next year.
In a tweet, Cornyn spokesman Drew Brandewie said that Center for American Progress head Neera Tanden’s past history of “disparaging comments about the Republican Senators’ whose votes she’ll need” made her confirmation highly unlikely. Tanden would need 51 votes in the Senate to become head of the OMB; Democrats currently control 48 seats in the Senate, though they are hoping to pick up two more in Georgia as the state’s Senate elections head to runoffs in January.
Yellen may fare better in confirmation hearings.
Dr. Cecilia Elena Rouse soon to be Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors
Biden and Harris will receive their first official briefing to day according to the Hill.
The briefing is a collection of high-level intelligence information and other materials pertinent to issues of national security prepared for the president by senior officials and advisers.
A president-elect typically begins receiving the briefings in the weeks before they are inaugurated to ensure a smooth transition process and protect the nation’s interests at home and abroad. The White House reportedly signed off on the briefings for Biden last week.
Since he was projected as the winner of the presidential election earlier this month, Biden has spent the last several weeks meeting with members of his transition team and rolling out Cabinet picks.
Last week, Biden announced the following key Cabinet nominations: Antony Blinken to be secretary of State, Avril Haines to be director of national intelligence and Alejandro Mayorkas as head of Homeland Security.
Trump still refuses to conceded and even today, they’re still rolling out Election conspiracy stuff. Here’s Amanda Marcotte’s take via Slate.
https://twitter.com/AmandaMarcotte/status/1333473849963409408
On Sunday morning, Donald Trump let loose with what may be his most unhinged performance yet — which is really saying something — of his extended effort to pretend the election was stolen from him by President-elect Joe Biden. In a 45-minute interview on Fox News with host Maria Bartiromo, which was more like an uninterrupted dramatic monologue, Trump unloaded an absolute truckload of lies. He lied about ballots and voting machines, claiming that millions of fake votes were recorded. He suggested the FBI was “involved” in the imaginary conspiracy against him. He even said he “came up” with the coronavirus vaccines, a claim that is utterly ludicrous but will be swallowed without complaint by all the people who still mock Al Gore for claiming to have “invented” the internet — which Gore never actually said.
What’s especially weird about this whole situation is that Trump is doubling down on these false claims in the face of an epic failure to get his attempted coup off the ground. The recount that Trump demanded in Wisconsin — although his campaign only paid for a recount in two overwhelmingly Democratic counties — not only affirmed Biden’s win in that state, but increased the president-elect’s total by 87 votes. Meanwhile, Trump’s losing streak in the courts only got worse over the weekend, with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court dismissing one Trump lawsuit with prejudice (meaning he can’t sue again regarding this matter) and another suit failing in the Third Circuit federal appeals court.
“Voters, not lawyers, choose the president,” federal judge Stephanos Bibas — a Trump appointee! — wrote in deciding the latter case.
And yet, Trump continues to invite more humiliation. He continued to rant on Twitter, promising, “We have some big things happening in our various litigations on the Election Hoax.” (Whoever he means by “we,” they do not.)
Worse yet, Trump has an army of liars at his disposal: The right-wing punditry, spread out across radio, TV and the internet, is largely bolstering these utterly false claims that the election was “rigged” and that Trump will somehow prevail in his efforts to steal the White House.
There are multiple reasons for this. Trump’s black hole of an ego makes it impossible for him to admit he lost the election, first of all. Most right-wing pundits are increasingly consumed by an authoritarian ideology that’s opposed to democracy, and they view these lies as a good way to undermine public trust. Republican politicians are eager to delegitimize Biden’s presidency, and also to lay the groundwork for more voter suppression tactics. By falsely accusing Democrats of cheating, in other words, Republicans create cover for their real-life cheating.
But as is usually the case with right-wing politics in the 21st century, a lot of this is about money. Trump’s voting base is a sea of suckers. He and the various grifters who make up most of the right-wing media are eager to drain those suckers dry. Stoking anger over the lost election and feeding people’s fantasies about stealing it is, by all appearances, a cash bonanza.
Rudy is currently going bonkers in Arizona and yes, the dead body of Hugo Chavez is once again in play. He’s been resurrected more times than Jesus, I swear.
So, we’ve got like 50 days of the shit to endure.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
dakinikat
ecocatwoman
jjlo
mablue2
Mama Lopez
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
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