POTUS/General Election Thread 2020 + Aftermath

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Although hypocrites, I think the only people who are acting rational in voting Republican are the pro-life single issue voters (and the white supremists, good company for the pro-lifers) since it's such a charged moral and ethical problem.

I am not, myself, a single-issue voter. My point was not to suggest that it was irrational to be pro-life and vote in that vein (it is, with that stance as a given, a rational choice). My problem is with the irony in being pro-life for the unborn and disturbingly avid in favor of the death penalty for criminals. I find this attitude especially saddening when encountered among members of a faith group founded on the idea of forgiveness and redemption -- a redemption accomplished, at least according to the accounts handed down to us, via a mis-use of capital punishment during which the person being killed called for the forgiveness of those killing him. Pro-life is not supposed to have an "until birth" label attached to it.

[Montmorency]

Too many famous quips on this subject. Two of the best-known:

"Pro-lifers" believe that life begins at conception and ends at birth

Boy, these conservatives are really something, aren't they? They're all in favor of the unborn. They will do anything for the unborn. But once you're born, you're on your own. Pro-life conservatives are obsessed with the fetus from conception to nine months. After that, they don't want to know about you. They don't want to hear from you. No nothing. No neonatal care, no day care, no head start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothing. If you're preborn, you're fine; if you're preschool, you're f****d.

[ReluctantSamurai]

On the lighter side:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...p-trump-casino

One of Donald Trump’s former Atlantic City casinos will be blown up next month, and for the right amount of money, you could be the one to press the button that brings it down. The demolition of the former Trump Plaza casino will become a fundraiser to benefit the Boys & Girls Club of Atlantic City that the mayor hopes will raise in excess of $1m.

[Montmorency]

One of Donald Trump’s former Atlantic City casinos will be blown up next month

A fitting icon for our fallen world? We were kings once.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Can someone explain to me how there aren't additional charges of 'aiding & abetting in this?

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/16/u...k-aguirre.html

A former Houston police captain, who the authorities said was investigating a voter fraud conspiracy theory for a conservative activist group, was arrested and charged with pointing his gun at an air-conditioner repairman he had pursued to try to uncover fraudulent ballots, prosecutors said Tuesday.

According to a police affidavit, Mr. Aguirre struck the repairman’s box truck with his sport utility vehicle on the morning of Oct. 19. When the man got out of his truck, Mr. Aguirre pointed a handgun at him, ordered him to get on the ground and pressed a knee into his back, it said.

Other people who arrived searched the repairman’s truck for ballots and, finding none, drove it away, the repairman said, according to the affidavit. The truck was found abandoned nearby.

Yep, two months late, but whatever....Now the 'aiding & abetting' part:

Mr. Aguirre had been hired by a conservative activist group, the Liberty Center for God & Country, to investigate claims of voter fraud, according to a statement from the office of Kim Ogg, the Harris County district attorney.

“He crossed the line from dirty politics to commission of a violent crime and we are lucky no one was killed,” Ms. Ogg said. “His alleged investigation was backward from the start — first alleging a crime had occurred and then trying to prove it happened.”

Perhaps there will be additional forthcoming charges that haven't been made public yet, but why is Liberty Center for God & Country not being charged?

The Liberty Center group that hired Mr. Aguirre had promoted the false narrative that mail-in ballots would be used to steal the election from President Trump. According to the district attorney’s office, the group paid $266,400 to Mr. Aguirre, and $211,400 of that was deposited into his account the day after his collision with the repairman’s truck.

This sounds like it could've come straight from Rudy Giuliani or The Kraaken:

Mr. Aguirre told Detective Varela that he and the Liberty Center had been investigating a ballot harvesting conspiracy, according to the affidavit, and that he and his friends had been surveilling the repairman’s home for four days.
The affidavit said that Mr. Aguirre claimed the repairman “has approximately seven hundred and fifty thousand fraudulent mail ballots and is using Hispanic children to sign the ballots because the children’s fingerprints would not appear in any databases.”

750,000 ballots signed by Hispanic children...

And the latest in GOP bullshit:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...=postr_story_1

A federal judge in Georgia rejected a lawsuit by the state’s two Republican senators seeking to change the mail-in ballot signature verification rules for their Jan. 5 runoff election, calling their worries about voter fraud “far too speculative.”

U.S. District Judge Eleanor L. Ross in Atlanta on Thursday granted the state’s motion to dismiss the suit brought by the Georgia Republican Party and the campaigns of Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, whose races will determine control of the U.S. Senate.


The GOP was seeking a court order that would force state election officials to have three people verify each signature and allow significantly more access to the canvassing process for partisan observers. But the state argued no such demands were made for in-person voting, even though verification of a state ID was open to just as much interpretation and error. The true motive, the state argued, was to vastly increase the rejection of mail-in ballots.

Jeezus, it never ends.

[Montmorency]

34% of eligible voters voted Biden in 2020. 31% voted Trump. 34% didn't vote for anyone. Roughly.

[ReluctantSamurai]

It would not surprise me if this is attempted:

https://www.vox.com/2020/12/20/22191...election-fraud

President Donald Trump asked key advisers about appointing a controversial lawyer formerly associated with his campaign as a special counsel charged with overseeing an investigation of alleged — and nonexistent — voter fraud, according to a report from the New York Times.

According to Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Trump held a meeting at the White House on Friday to weigh whether to name Powell as a special counsel to investigate his repeatedly debunked claims of mass voter fraud in last month’s presidential election.

It is not clear that Trump could actually appoint Powell — or anyone else — to investigate fraud as a special counsel in his remaining days in office.

[...] special counsels are usually appointed by the US attorney general, and that counsel would be supervised by the attorney general themselves. Trump could ask Barr to appoint Powell, but it is not clear that he would do so, and Barr is due to step down on Wednesday.

Should his Justice Department refuse to cooperate, Trump could name a special counsel without DOJ support. But that person would essentially be toothless, with no access to federal law enforcement resources, subpoena power, or the ability to set up a grand jury.

The other possibility is that Trump, in his final weeks in office, could fire Rosen and replace him with someone more likely to enact his wishes, although who that person could be is not immediately obvious.

All the talk about seizing voting machines, or enacting the Insurrection Act is simply a smokescreen for the obvious reason for such skullduggery:

And having a special counsel on election fraud would be a powerful legacy. The Biden administration would likely face pressure not to interfere in a special counsel investigation, even one led by a partisan actor like Powell, thus ensuring that debate over the legitimacy of the last election would continue at the federal level even once Trump is no longer in office.

If Trump can pull this off, we are guaranteed a media circus for who knows how long that continues to keep the MAGA base stirred up for months about "voter fraud" (and of course keeps the Save America money scam going), and will continue to give oxygen to the possibility of more violence from far-right groups.

[Hooahguy]

Well, at least Barr said he wont do that. But since hes leaving in a few days anyways, who knows what his temporary successor might do.

[ReluctantSamurai]

This could probably go in any of several threads, but I'll put it here.

My views on Donald Trump is certainly no secret. The man disgusts me, and I've been a Trump-basher here for a long time. However, in this case, I'm going to say I actually agree with him, regardless of his true intentions [looks around for a thunderbolt to come and strike me dead]:

https://www.businessinsider.com/lose...checks-2020-12

President Donald Trump on Tuesday night launched a surprise push to hike the stimulus checks in the COVID-19 relief package to $2,000 per person from $600.

Trump released a video criticizing the $900 billion coronavirus relief package that congressional lawmakers passed on Monday and demanding they increase the checks.

Democrats certainly showed how little they care for the American people (looking at you, Nancy Pelosi), when they rejected an earlier Trump aid package worth $1.8 trillion, saying it was unacceptable (and in fairness, there were some questionable items included in that bill), and instead, settled for a fraction of that in the latest proposal (of which almost half is unused money from the CARES ACT).

When one considers that the average back rent due by Americans amounts to about $5,400, that nearly 8 million Americans have fallen into poverty over the last 5 months, and there are nearly 50 million people with inadequate food supplies, a $600/person one-time check, an 11 week extension for unemployment, and a $300 unemployment benefits extension, is nowhere near enough.

There is certainly not an ounce of concern for people by Trump in demanding more money, but at this point, people desperately need the help, so who cares? GET THE MONEY OUT THERE!

And then there's this twit:

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/...on-his-way-out

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) this week claimed that President Trump is “trying to burn this country down on his way out” of office by not supporting the new coronavirus stimulus and government funding bill passed by Congress on Monday.

In an appearance on Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC show Tuesday night, Klobuchar responded to the president’s remarks shared on Twitter earlier in the day, in which he called the $2.3 trillion package that includes stimulus checks of $600 to Americans “a disgrace,” adding that the payments should be increased to $2,000.

The Minnesota senator and former 2020 Democratic presidential candidate told Maddow that Trump’s failure to support the bill “is an attack on every American.”
“People who are struggling to get by right now, out of work, whose unemployment, the unemployment is going to basically end the day after Christmas if this doesn’t pass, people who are out of work, people who need the help,” she added.

So let me get this straight Amy, you'd rather send out a paltry $600 instead of a more robust $2000 (still inadequate, but more than triple what's in the current bill), and call the inclusion of $2000 instead of $600 "an attack on every American"?? Oh, BTW, you are worth around $2,000,000, so I doubt you understand what "struggling to get by" actually means

We will see how effective the Democrats will be in exploiting the GOP on this issue. I expect more spinelessness, and I feel sorry for those who could benefit from this. But perhaps they will surprise me and actually grow some cohonees.....

[Hooahguy]

Lol if you actually think that Trump is serious about $2,000 checks then you have either not been paying attention or are just an unserious person. The House GOP has already stated its complete rejection of it and the Senate GOP is deeply divided on the issue. As I recall it was Pat Toomey (R-PA) who blocked the Sanders/Hawley amendment that would have made the checks $1,200. And it was McConnell who put the brakes on a stimulus bill back in October.

As for Amy's comment, that clip you posted was laughably out of context. If you watch the whole thing (only 2:34), its extremely clear she was referring to Trump tanking the current relief bill, not the idea of larger checks. I invite you to go back and look at her past and current statements, she's been supporting larger checks for a while. The fact is that Jordan Uhl did not make that tweet in good faith. But then again he's never really been the brightest. Anyways you do realize that by Trump vetoing the aid bill, which was tied in with the government funding omnibus bill, we are headed for another government shutdown if something isnt resolved in the next six days right? With it goes a whole bunch of government programs that helps people. He isn't serious about this. If he was, he wouldn't have spent the past month focused on his dumb election fraud shtick. Nor would he have skipped town today for Christmas holiday as negotiations start up again. He just wants to muck things up. Thats what he's always done. Its a grave mistake to think that just because Trump said it that the GOP will automatically fall in line. This isnt something that will be resolved overnight, its going to be a protracted battle again which will result in delayed relief and even more people suffering. Its not just the $600 checks, its also the extra unemployment money, small business loans, funding for public health infrastructure for testing and the vaccine, etc. People are too focused on the $600 checks that they forget the rest of it.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Lol if you actually think that Trump is serious about $2,000 checks then you have either not been paying attention or are just an unserious person.

Please don't insult me. OF COURSE it's a PR stunt, but it's a possible way to get some REAL relief to those who need it instead of the crumbs being offered. Congresswoman Tlaib already has an amendment ready to go:

https://twitter.com/RashidaTlaib/sta...68309955874818

[...]you do realize that by Trump vetoing the aid bill, which was tied in with the government funding omnibus bill, we are headed for another government shutdown if something isnt resolved in the next six days right? With it goes a whole bunch of government programs that helps people

Pelosi is claiming it could get done in a week or less.....

As for Amy's comment, that clip you posted was laughably out of context.

Not so. Her pathetic bleating for the American people is what's laughable. Talking about unemployment running out---do you really think this bill is going to help with that? Consider the numbers I quoted....back rent to the tune of $5400 on average, 8 million more Americans fallen below the poverty line (in America that's $12760 for single people, $26200 for a family of four).

She fails to mention that the $284 billion in the bill for small businesses will take weeks/months to process, and more of those businesses are going to fail regardless. And the duration of this stimulus is very short---much of it expires in March which is just kicking the can down the road. And aid to states and local governments is completely lacking in the bill. If Congress hadn't been sitting on its' collective duffs all summer and fall, the situation wouldn't be this dire. But holy hell, three cheers for the sudden cause for bi-partisanship.......and the fact that an over 5000 page bill was dumped on staff desks to be voted on two hours later.

Her best line came at the very end...."Which party has people's back, and which party is in the White House?" Now THAT'S laughable...

You missed my point altogether, made in the first link. My bad for not being more clear. This whole bunch of BS puts Dr. No in a tough spot:

1. He can cave and accept a larger stimulus figure after fighting for months to keep it down.

2. He can block the larger checks and take the political heat for it.

Pelosi is already hedging:

https://www.dailyposter.com/p/force-...-on-direct-aid

She says she wants to bring it up by unanimous consent — a process that gives any single member of the House the ability to raise an objection and block it. That could let her pretend she tried to force a vote, but was thwarted by a Republican dissenter. But she is House Speaker — there are ways for her to truly force a vote.

As the American Prospect’s David Dayen notes, Pelosi could, for instance, do it under a separate process of suspending the rules which would mean that to stop it, “140 Republicans have to buck Trump and deny a cash lump-sum payout to the American people.”

Further noted in the article:

The whole situation could be a big winner for Democrats and show they actually care about human beings. It gives them a high-profile moment to appear as if they care about improving the grotesque spending package that’s currently on the table.

Americans are in bread lines, and yet the current omnibus legislation skimps on direct aid to millions of people — while offering billions of dollars worth of tax breaks for race horse owners, landlords, NASCAR and corporate executives’ three-martini lunches.
The current bill spends only $166 billion on survival checks, while devoting $200 billion to new tax breaks for the rich. It exempts business expenses under the paycheck protection program from taxes, while taxing workers’ jobless benefits and ending a paid coronavirus sick leave mandate.

It offers just $25 billion in rental assistance, at a moment when an estimated 14 million American households are in danger of eviction and will owe roughly $70 billion in unpaid rental and utility debt by January, according to Moody's Analytics Mark Zandi. The bill includes a separate retroactive tax break for landlords projected to cost $3 billion — which probably doesn’t help people pay their rent.

So unless a third round of stimulus is in the works, this round will serve as a small band-aid until spring. And unless the Democrats win both Georgia seats, getting anything from the GOP for another stimulus package will be worse than pulling eye teeth.

[Montmorency]

Meh.

Republicans repeatedly refused to say what amount the President wanted for direct checks. At last, the President has agreed to $2,000 — Democrats are ready to bring this to the Floor this week by unanimous consent. Let’s do it!

To the extent this information is reaching the public - remember that the House passed the relatively-generous HEROES Act in like June - I'm not sure there is a difference in impact on whatever audience there is between a tweet and a unanimous consent process (and attendant inevitable loud Republican dissent) and, well, doing something else specific.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...trump-demanded

Gotta get ahead of the Backroom truce.

[Hooahguy]

The fact that you read anything written by Walker Bragman really speaks volumes... anyone who wrote an article titled "a liberal case for Donald Trump" is a deeply unserious person who does not argue in good faith. Ever.

Yes, the GOP shot down the UC vote today, but if you did a bit more research you would see that the House is going to do a full vote on Monday on the issue. But it will go nowhere because of Mitch.

There was never a chance $2k checks would pass in a Republican Senate. Trump's entire goal this whole time is to cause chaos. And this is that chaos. It is distressing to me that you are falling for the "both sides" thing, Dems passed multiple aid bills months ago (hardly sitting on their behinds like you claim), yet they seem to be the main focus of your ire. I would say its curious, but then again you do read Bragman and Co. so it makes sense.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Yes, the GOP shot down the UC vote today, but if you did a bit more research you would see that the House is going to do a full vote on Monday on the issue.

Yes, I did "more research" and realize the procedure. Pelosi already knew the UC vote would fail, hence the call for full vote on Monday.

But it will go nowhere because of Mitch.

That's the point. Do everything you can, and when the GOP blocks an attempted amendment in favor of more money, the onus falls on the Republicans.

It is distressing to me that you are falling for the "both sides" thing

And how is that? I've been saying for a long time, that even if the Democrats snag the two Georgia seats, it's still going to be difficult to get meaningful legislation passed. There will be little incentive for cross aisle co-operation, and I don't expect anything to come from attempts at making that happen.

...yet they seem to be the main focus of your ire. I would say its curious, but then again you do read Bragman and Co. so it makes sense

The difference between a centrist political view, and a leftist view. That you consider anything he publishes as not arguing in good faith speaks volumes.....

[ReluctantSamurai]

This will make things interesting:

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/1...-defeat-451485

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) and President Donald Trump's defeated electors from Arizona may force Vice President Mike Pence to publicly pick a side in Trump’s bid to overturn his 2020 election loss.

Gohmert and a handful of the would-be electors sued Pence in federal court on Monday in a long-shot bid to throw out the rules that govern Congress' counting of electoral votes next week. It’s an effort they hope will permit Pence — who is tasked with leading the Jan. 6 session of the House and Senate — to simply ignore President-elect Joe Biden's electors and count Trump's losing slates instead.

Though the lawsuit itself is unlikely to gain legal traction, it does put Pence in the position of having to either contest the suit — putting him on the opposite side of Trump and his GOP defenders — or support it and lay bare the intention to subvert the will over the voters in the 2020 election.

It's likely Pence skips town after the Biden win is confirmed:

At least earlier this month, Pence was planning to oversee Biden’s victory and then try to escape Trump’s ire by heading abroad for what might be his final diplomatic trip in office. If Pence ultimately opts out of participating in the session, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the Senate president pro tem, would likely preside.

[Hooahguy]

Yes, I did "more research" and realize the procedure. Pelosi already knew the UC vote would fail, hence the call for full vote on Monday.

The vast majority of MoC were already gone for the Christmas holiday hence the UC. Even if she did drag every MoC back for a last minute full vote, McConnell wouldnt have acted on it anyways. The result would have been the same either way. I was going to write up a whole paragraph and all that but to be completely honest, I dont have this fight in me so I'll just leave Rep. Omar's tweet on the subject and be done with it:

Dems attempted to negotiate a deal with Mnuchin, but McConnell shut it down.

Dems successfully negotiated a deal with McConnell, but Trump refused to sign the bill.

At this point, no one knows who we are suppose to negotiate with.

Stop the “two sides” narrative to this mess.

Anyways, Trump ended up caving and signed the Covid bill/omnibus bill on Sunday. I found this is a really interesting thread, written by someone who was a lawyer who worked with him on a deal in the 90s:

He will sign. In 1998, I was the tax lawyer representing Conseco in a joint venture with the Trump Organization to buy the General Motors Building. Conseco put up 99.9% of the capital, Trump put up 0.1% of the capital, and Lehman Brothers loaned the rest. The joint venture agreement was very straightforward. Income and deductions were based on capital contributions. Everything was agreed quickly by the lawyers. However, on the day before signing, we were told that Mr. Trump would be arriving at 10pm at our offices to negotiate the deal (which had already been negotiated).

He arrives with an entourage. A podium had been set up for him at the front of a long table in a conference room. He asks for some minor corporate changes. But then he demands that he get all of the depreciation deductions. Having negotiated, he put on his coat and left. All of the lawyers look at each other. The general counsel of Conseco said, “We put up 99.9% of the money; we get 99.9% of the depreciation deductions.” Trump’s lawyers say, “Don’t worry, he’ll sign.” I go home to sleep.

The next morning my corporate partner and Trump’s corporate lawyer take the joint venture agreement to Trump Tower for Trump’s signature. I’m in my office. The phone rings.
It’s my corporate partner. “Mr. Trump wants to speak to you.”
“Yes, Mr. Trump,” I say.
“Were you there last night?” he asks.
“Yes, Mr. Trump, I was.”
“Did you hear me last night?” he asks.
“Yes, Mr. Trump, I did.” I reply.
“So, does this agreement give me the depreciation deductions?” he asks.
“No, Mr. Trump, it does not.”
He’s angry now. “You were there last night, you heard me, and this agreement does not give me the depreciation deductions? Why not?!”

I know that the agreement could have been structured for Trump to get depreciation deductions (if he was willing to provide a “bottom guarantee”). But it wasn’t, so I answer truthfully: “Mr. Trump, the law does not permit you to get depreciation deductions.” He’s furious now. “The law does not permit me to get depreciation deductions?!”
“That’s right, Mr. Trump.”

He slams down the phone and signs the agreement.

Basically he's done this before.

One notable thing to watch is the NDAA, which he made good on his veto threat for. The House voted overwhelmingly to override the veto, but things are stalling in the Senate. Bernie rightfully threatened to filibuster the veto override vote as a way of forcing McConnell to bring up the $2,000 checks for a vote (which he wasnt going to do until the filibuster threat it seems). McConnell responded by trying to tie the higher stimulus checks to a full repeal of Section 230, which they are mad about because Republicans like big corporations until they get de-platformed due to hate speech. But repealing 230 is a huge risk as it may lead to a serious crackdown of all speech on the internet. So thats a potential poison pill. Definitely will be following the developments here.

[Montmorency]

I'm surprised the Christmas truce has ended so early this year.


Credit where credit is due, this Democratic candidate for the Senate is saying just what I wanted him to say.

“David Perdue does not care about us, and $600 is a joke,” Mr. Ossoff told several hundred people at an outdoor get-out-the-vote rally with Mr. Warnock in DeKalb County, one of the suburban Atlanta counties that has become increasingly diverse over the past decade.

“You send me and Reverend Warnock to the Senate and we will put money in your pocket,” Mr. Ossoff said. He faces Mr. Perdue in the runoff, while Mr. Warnock is challenging Ms. Loeffler.

Of course, telling it to a few hundred copartisans won't move votes, but it's the thought that counts, somewhat.

Basically he's done this before.

Technically speaking, making threats or promises that he immediately fails to live up to is a defining characteristic of Trump the man and Trump the president.


Check out this encomium to Trump from one of the "intellectual" far-right publications. (The writer's far too old to be our Panzerjaeger though.)

Media commentators, themselves products of the post-1960s counterculture, pronounced Trump a buffoon and a vulgarian; millions of Americans, however, looked at him and saw a potential savior—a real warrior who shared their love of America and who, it seemed, might just win the culture war.

Like Reagan, Trump actually seemed to care about ordinary Americans. The Bushes and Clintons had gotten rich as “public servants”; Trump, a billionaire, stood only to lose money by throwing his hat in the ring.

A longtime New York fixture, he was famous for hiring smart people regardless of their sex, race, or sexual orientation. He supported same-sex marriage long before Obama or Hillary Clinton did. During the campaign, unlike GOP candidates before him, he never came close to gay-bashing. Yet the Left portrayed him as a bigot, and veteran GOP bigshots accused him, hilariously, of having sullied a party that had once oozed dignity and class.

Yes, the idea of a country being saved by a single “great man” can be dangerous. In the last century, it led to the dictatorships of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and several others. But facts are facts: Trump, today, is America’s essential man. Though surrounded by enemies in the White House, on Capitol Hill, and all over Washington, he’s enjoyed an unprecedented level of public support.

Finally, the ultimate culture war atrocity: a manifestly stolen election.

The theft was breathtaking in the insane lust for power, and the contempt for opponents, that made it possible. It was stunning in its brazenness. Which made sense: for decades, as it had advanced apace—in what has been called “the long march through the institutions”—the counterculture had grown used to easy conquests. It apparently hadn’t expected much in the way of resistance this time, either.

The whole scenario is quite clear. They’re just like schoolyard bullies. Because Trump supporters are honest, good-mannered, and peaceable, they take us for wimps.

Isn't this just genuine insanity? Like, actionable insanity; if we still had asylums it would be fair game to commit the writer for this piece. It's beyond even those select Sanders-supporting commentators who acted as though his election would bring full communism to the horizon.

Never—and this assertion seems unarguable—have so many Americans loved their president so much, or trusted him so implicitly, or been so certain of his genuine concern for their welfare.

This much, sadly, is true.

Suspiciously n the same vein, also from over the weekend.

Clumsy accusations that President Trump is some sort of autocrat ring awfully hollow when he more scrupulously follows the Constitution than any POTUS since Ronald Reagan.
[...]
Other clumsy accusations that President Trump is an uncaring monster ring very hollow in light of his wildly successful America-centric policies, in addition to his numerous public acts of kindness and more of his private acts of kindness that come to light via the testimony of other citizens.
[...]
Donald J. Trump is the essential Man of This Time …
… Americans know it, and the President’s public rallies are the empirical evidence of it. May We and He defeat another nascent Evil Empire in its soiled crib.

[Hooahguy]

I'm surprised the Christmas truce has ended so early this year.

Well the mod team kinda figured that since there isn't a whole lot of activity on the Org in general, no sense in shutting down the most active part of the forum for the whole week so we agreed on a partial truce for the weekend around Christmas. Good tidings and cheer and all that.

Credit where credit is due, this Democratic candidate for the Senate is saying just what I wanted him to say.
Of course, telling it to a few hundred copartisans won't move votes, but it's the thought that counts, somewhat.

Im not a huge fan of Ossoff and tbh Im still not entirely sure how he got to be the Senate nominee after losing a special election in a district the Dems flipped a year later, but I guess here we are.

[Montmorency]

Well the mod team kinda figured that since there isn't a whole lot of activity on the Org in general, no sense in shutting down the most active part of the forum for the whole week so we agreed on a partial truce for the weekend around Christmas. Good tidings and cheer and all that.


Im not a huge fan of Ossoff and tbh Im still not entirely sure how he got to be the Senate nominee after losing a special election in a district the Dems flipped a year later, but I guess here we are.

I could have sworn you were in favor of Ossoff himself in 2017 (not that he had much competition among the party bench), but maybe I'm misremembering. His face, like his politics, might resemble a cross between Beto O'Rourke and Pete Buttigieg, but here I'm gathering you dislike the rhetorical strategy of promising voters money??

Anyway, he got a majority of votes in a crowded primary and that makes him good. /snark More seriously, I get the feeling Warnock is affirmatively more popular among the base than Ossoff. Why is that?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

First he stands tough and claims he'll veto.

Then he waits for the first benefits to lapse.

THEN he signs the thing anyway.

And also calls for $2k having heard that number (probably on Limbaugh) somewhere.

And thus hands the would-be GA dem senators a talking point with which to hammer the GOP'ers for nothing.`


Petulant, disconnected, AND incompetent -- I am starting to think he WILL surpass Jemmy Buchannan on the list.

[Hooahguy]

I could have sworn you were in favor of Ossoff himself in 2017 (not that he had much competition among the party bench), but maybe I'm misremembering. His face, like his politics, might resemble a cross between Beto O'Rourke and Pete Buttigieg, but here I'm gathering you dislike the rhetorical strategy of promising voters money??

Anyway, he got a majority of votes in a crowded primary and that makes him good. /snark More seriously, I get the feeling Warnock is affirmatively more popular among the base than Ossoff. Why is that?

I dont remember that, I honestly dont even remember if I was even paying attention in the short primary for the GA-06 seat back in 2017 as I didn't live in the district. I was pro-Ossoff in comparison to his GOP opponent of course, but I was never really on his bandwagon. I was also going through a major breakup during that time so my memory might be hazy.

My biggest issue with him is the lack of experience to stand upon. Like what is he known for most? Losing the most expensive House race in US history. And he was a Congressional staffer for a few years. Rev. Warnock is the senior pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church which carries huge weight and prestige in the Black community in Georgia, and within Georgia in general. Yes I know the GOP have put up less qualified people but the Dems should strive to be better when it comes to the Senate. If Ossoff wins I think he does it on Rev. Warnock's coattails. Otherwise he will be known just as the guy who lost the most expensive House and Senate races in US history.

As for the rhetorical strategy, no issues with what he's doing.

[Montmorency]

Petulant, disconnected, AND incompetent -- I am starting to think he WILL surpass Jemmy Buchannan on the list.

Starting to?

On the other hand, Trump still has approximately 463 hours in which to finally become President.

[Crandar]

Bezmenov was right, even conservatives are now gradually being indoctrinated to socialism and its various, nefarious offshoots.

[ReluctantSamurai]

One week to go before the Electoral College votes are certified by Congress, on 6 Jan. Three days before that, however, we get a preview of how much of a shit-show will occur on the sixth:

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/1...n-trump-452081

The least-understood aspect of Congress’ electoral vote certification occurs days before the main event. On Jan. 3, the first day of the new congressional session, the House and Senate will adopt a set of rules that govern the Jan. 6 meeting.

The so-called “concurrent resolution” usually originates in the Senate, where the rules committee — chaired by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo) — would issue the first version. In recent decades, even after fiercely contested elections like in 2000 and 2016, the rules have been adopted unanimously and without debate.

Those rules have been unaltered for decades, and they simply reaffirm that Congress will abide by the processes in the Constitution and in the Electoral Count Act. Those processes include a requirement that the vice president, in this case Mike Pence, will preside over the Jan. 6 session and that electoral votes are to be read aloud one state at a time, alphabetically.

So much for the rules, which has been discussed here for some time. What McConnell and Pelosi have planned to expedite the confirmation process should become apparent at this point:

Rather than take the extreme route of bypassing the Electoral Count Act altogether, constitutional scholars say lawmakers could use the opportunity to clarify and add onto existing processes in order to stave off uncertainty stoked by Trump’s hardline allies. That could include restricting Pence’s power to make sweeping procedural rulings or setting criteria that prevent him from introducing alternate slates of presidential electors in states won by Biden, a gambit some Trump allies have urged him to attempt.

The alternate slates of Trump electors carry no legal force. But the language of the Electoral Count Act indicates that Congress must consider any documents “purporting to be certificates of the electoral votes.” Multiple constitutional experts said in interviews that Congress could help define the boundaries of what are considered legitimate electoral votes — such as those endorsed by a governor, state legislature or other state authority — and prevent the Trump votes from being read into the joint session.

3 Jan will also provide a window into just how much support Trump will have 3 days later when Congress meets to certify the results:

Trump allies could also seek to make a stand on Jan. 3 by attempting to amend the rules in their favor or opposing any new constraints adopted in either chamber. Although those votes would likely fail, they would provide an early window into the level of support for any challenges that they intend to bring on Jan. 6 — and just how many Republicans are prepared to vote to affirm Biden’s victory as well.

The fly in the ointment:

The Twelfth Amendment requires that the vice president oversee the joint session of Congress and open each state’s certificate of electoral votes. The Electoral Count Act spells out his role further, requiring him to hand over the opened certificates to four “tellers” — two appointed by the House and two by the Senate — who then read them aloud to the chamber. Pence then asks for any objections.

But neither provision indicates what criteria Pence may use to decide whether he may introduce alternative slates of Trump electors. In fact, the rules require him to introduce any papers “purporting” to be elector slates — and it’s up to him to determine whether Trump’s electors in states won by Biden should be considered by Congress.

If Pence agrees with Gohmert’s theory, he can attempt to assert it when he presides over the Jan. 6 session. If he doesn’t, Trump and his allies are positioning it to be the ultimate betrayal of the president. And if Pence bows out altogether, the duty of presiding would fall to Senate President Pro Tem Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). [see earlier post about Gohmert's lawsuit against Pence]

It's either going to be a spectacle, or much ado about nothing....

[Hooahguy]

Ossoff today: "Kelly Loeffler has been campaigning with a Klansman"

I guess I am a fan of Ossoff today. I like this gloves-off version of him.

[Montmorency]

Starting to?

On the other hand, Trump still has approximately 463 hours in which to finally become President.

I know I said approximately, but at the time of posting I somehow overlooked that there were two full days remaining in 2020. Happy New Year.



Holy shit, I saw an incredible thought experiment proposed regarding the unconscionable infinitude of the President's constitutional pardon power. The idea is, a President could issue an ultimatum to Congress that he will effectively legalize murdering them, Purge-style, in federal spaces, unless they initiate/complete a Constitutional amendment process to delimit the pardon power. Another illustration is the point that pres-elect Biden could, reasonably, bruit free pardons for anyone willing to eliminate Donald Trump or any of Biden's political enemies. Of course, broadly speaking the making such pronouncements or the attempt to follow up on them would ipso facto be activity subject to criminal (to say nothing of civil) penalties. But Donald Trump's administration has clearly established that the justice system doesn't give a crap about corrupt or otherwise criminal abuse of the pardon power, so...




Also, Rasmussen Polling appears to have formally declared fascist affiliation.

Come January 6th:

(Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything. - Stalin)

"Come January 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence will be presented with the sealed certificates containing the ballots of the presidential electors.

1/4

At that moment, the Presidency will be in his hands.

And there is nothing stopping Pence, under the (plenary and unappealable) authority vested in him as President of the Senate, from declining to open and count the certificates from the six disputed states.

If they are (as more than 70% of Republicans believe) certificates from non-electors appointed via voter fraud, why should he open & count them?"

If the votes of all 7 contested states are registered as zero, President Trump will have 232 votes, Joe Biden will have 222.

3/4

If they are (as more than 70% of Republicans believe) certificates from non-electors appointed via voter fraud, why should he open & count them?"

If the votes of all 7 contested states are registered as zero, President Trump will have 232 votes, Joe Biden will have 222.

4/4

Very cool sentiments for a polling firm to stake out.


From the pardons thread:

When Collins, from the Buffalo area, became the first member of Congress to endorse Trump in 2016, he declared: "Donald Trump is the individual as president that can lead this country and reclaim our great state and provide a bright future for our children."

Can't they help paraphrasing the 14 Words?

Fourteen Words, 14, or 14/88, is a reference to the 14-word slogan "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children",[1] followed by the less commonly used "Because the beauty of the White Aryan woman must not perish from the earth." The 8s represent the eighth letter of the alphabet (H), and "HH" stands for "Heil Hitler." [2] The slogans were originally coined by American white supremacist David Lane,[3] a founding member of terrorist organization The Order,[4] and serve as a rallying cry for militant white nationalists across the globe.[5]

[a completely inoffensive name]

May God guide our history for the better in 2021.

https://twitter.com/Pontifex/status/1342802590447398915

We too can change evil into good each day. Loving actions change history: even the ones that are small, hidden, everyday. For God guides history through the humble courage of those who pray, love and forgive.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Continuation of the Pence Saga:

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/1...lawsuit-453207

Vice President Mike Pence has asked a federal judge to throw out a lawsuit brought against him by Republicans seeking to empower him to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

But Pence, in a 14-page filing brought by Justice Department attorneys, said the suit shouldn’t be aimed at him, since he is who Gohmert is trying to empower. “A suit to establish that the Vice President has discretion over the count, filed against the Vice President, is a walking legal contradiction,” Pence’s brief said.

From the case filing:

Plaintiffs have presented this Court with an emergency motion raising a host of weighty legal issues about the manner in which the electoral votes for President are to be counted. But these plaintiffs’ suit is not a proper vehicle for addressing those issues because plaintiffs have sued the wrong defendant. The Vice President—the only defendant in this case—is ironically the very person whose power they seek to promote. The Senate and the House, not the Vice President, have legal interests that are sufficiently adverse to plaintiffs to ground a case or controversy under Article III. Defendant respectfully request denial of plaintiffs’ emergency motion because the relief that plaintiffs request does not properly lie against the Vice President.

These plaintiffs’ claims against the Vice President in his capacity as President of the Senate also fail to address the Constitution’s Speech and Debate Clause, which prevents the other Branches of Government from questioning Congress in connection with “legislative acts,” which have “consistently been defined as an act generally done in Congress in relation to the business before it.” United States v. Brewster, 408 U.S. 501, 512 (1972). See also supra n.1. Moreover, nothing in Ex Parte Young, 209 U.S. 123 (1908), or its progeny supports these particular plaintiffs’ novel suit to enjoin the Vice President in the exercise of his constitutional authority as President of the Senate. See Armstrong v. Exceptional Child Center, Inc., 575 U.S. 320, 327 (2015) (looking to history to understand the scope of equitable suits to enjoin executive action). To the extent the Court is inclined to address these and other issues, the House of Representatives has informed the Defendant that it intends to present this Court with a number of arguments in response to plaintiffs’ motion. In light of Congress’s comparative legal interests in the Electoral Count Act, Defendant respectfully defers to the Senate and the House of Representatives, as those bodies see fit, to present those arguments.

An amusing sidenote:

Ironically, Representative Gohmert’s position, if adopted by the Court, would actually deprive him of his opportunity as a Member of the House under the Electoral Count Act to raise objections to the counting of electoral votes, and then to debate and vote on them.

Pence probably has his bags packed for his "diplomatic trip" as the coming Trump twitter-storm against him on Jan 6 is going to be nuclear fallout....

Republicans suing Republicans......

[spmetla]

I'm glad that they overrode his veto today, should demonstrate to Trump that he really is a lame duck now. The Jan 6th confirmation of Biden should be the final nail in the coffin of his illegal hopes and dreams.

The following fortnight of whatever he does though will likely be some of the worst things a president can do, what new norms will he trample in that period will probably be worrisome. Wonder what beyond pardons for family and friends he'll do...

[Montmorency]

Interestingly, Murkowski and Manchin were responsible for putting clean energy funding priorities in the latest stimulus bill (more properly, the omnibus spending bill), which suggests Manchin won't be a particular obstacle to a Biden-esque climate plan should we ever regain a sniffable majority in the Senate (Manchin will never, for anything, support removing the filibuster if there are only 50 Dem votes in the Senate).

May God guide our history for the better in 2021.

https://twitter.com/Pontifex/status/1342802590447398915

You're Catholic?

Continuation of the Pence Saga:

Defendant respectfully request denial of plaintiffs’ emergency motion because the relief that plaintiffs request does not properly lie against the Vice President.

The Pence filing is amusingly-trenchant, but in the end his staff might as well have saved their time; every last one of these Trump suits is organized around the principle of drawing headlines and building the narrative, not legal reasoning. They might as well be scrawled in crayon.