Tag: 2020 Elections

Blame The Progressives

This time around Dems cannot blame the Green Party for their loss…..but they will look until they find someone to blame to their lack of a real plan for this nation.

The Dems lost some seats in the House and failed to turn the Senate blue so as per usual the Moderates started blaming everybody for the losses and the “Progressives” take the brunt of their attacks.

They say that issues like Medicare For All and the Green New Deal were labelled by Repubs as “socialism” and the moderates lost their edge…..

AOC made some excellent points about the allegations by the Gutless Centrists….

  • Progressives aren’t to blame for the party’s congressional losses, a narrative centrists have argued. The election showed that “progressive policies do not hurt candidates, Ocasio-Cortez said, adding the example that “every single candidate that co-sponsored Medicare for All in a swing district kept their seat.”
  • The party’s operation deserves blame. “There’s a reason Barack Obama built an entire national campaign apparatus outside of the Democratic National Committee,” she said, adding that “the party—in and of itself—does not have the core competencies, and no amount of money is going to fix that.” When Obama’s organization faded away, she said, “we lost House majorities.”
  • Republican success in the messaging battle can be traced to Democrats’ weak online presence. In fact, “Our party isn’t even online, not in a real way that exhibits competence,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “I don’t think anybody who is not on the internet in a real way in the Year of our Lord 2020 and loses an election can blame anyone else.”
  • Joe Biden’s transition decisions will show how open his administration will be to progressives. If it’s not, “we’re going to lose,” she said. “It’s really hard for us to turn out nonvoters when they feel like nothing changes for them.”
  • The significance of Biden’s election is that “we aren’t in a free fall to hell anymore.” But that doesn’t mean the nation is out of the woods yet. “Whether we’re going to pick ourselves up or not is the lingering question,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “We paused this precipitous descent.”

I agree with her thoughts…..Progressives are not to blame….Centrist Dems are terrible candidates and cowards.

First the Moderates/Centrists are so lame they could not defend themselves and now they want to blame others for the pussy ass campaigns….typical Centrist cowardice.

But let’s look at the issues that they are blaming for their losses…..M4A and Green New Deal……

Here are the facts:

►112 co-sponsors of Medicare for All were on the ballot in November. All 112 of them won their races.

►98 co-sponsors of the Green New Deal were on the ballot in November. Only one of them have lost an election.

Bernie has written an op-ed in USA Today shooting down all the accusations by the gutless spineless Centrists…..

You’re reading the Opposing View, one of two perspectives in Today’s Debate.

I am very proud of the hard work that the progressive community put into electing Joe Biden as our next president.

And let’s be clear: This election was not just a normal election between two candidates. It was much more important than that. It was an election about retaining our democracy, preserving the rule of law, believing in science and ending pathological lying in the White House. And with a record-breaking turnout, the American people voted to reject President Donald Trump’s racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, religious bigotry and authoritarianism. That is very good news.

Even so, truth be told, the election results in the House and Senate were disappointing. Despite Joe Biden winning the popular vote by more than 5 million votes, the Democrats lost seats in the House and, so far, have only picked up one seat in the Senate.

Now, with the blame game erupting, corporate Democrats are attacking so-called far-left policies like Medicare for All and the Green New Deal for election defeats in the House and the Senate. They are dead wrong.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/todaysdebate/2020/11/11/bernie-sanders-dont-blame-so-called-far-left-policies-editorials-debates/6258716002/

I agree with Bernie….the DNC needs to pull it’s head out of corporate America’s ass and start representing the people that vote for them and not the free lunches they get with the wealthy.

Then there is the Media…..they have been pushing Biden even before he announced and gave Centrist candidates far more exposure than any of the true progressives…..and they continued their assault on progressives by helping the cowards centrists blame others fir their failures…..

In a write-up about the call, the Washington Post‘s Rachael Bade and Erica Werner (11/5/20) quoted and paraphrased 14 sources blaming those who “endorse far-left positions” for Democrats’ losses, counterbalanced by only four sources defending the left. All of the progressive sources were named; half of the establishment sources were either quoted anonymously or presented as unspecified “moderates”—or, twice, simply as “Democrats,” committing the exasperatingly common journalistic sleight-of-hand that erases progressive Democrats as legitimate members of their party.

In addition to quoting a handful of participants on the call, Bade and Werner interviewed numerous “moderates” for the article (“Several moderate Democrats said in interviews…”), but only managed to interview two progressives: Alexandra Rojas, head of the leftist PAC Justice Democrats, along with Rep. Jared Huffman, a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus—who took the side of the centrists.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/11/11/when-centrists-lose-corporate-media-blame-left

The MSM is still NOT a source for accuracy and facts….

Before some lame Centrist tries to equate me with a Bernie supporter……you are WRONG.  I like some of his ideas but he is too damn old…..if I were going to vote for an Old Fart I would have chosen Biden…..BTW I dd not vote for him (before they ask)…..

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Look Beyond 2020

Okay this is a look at 2021, January when the new president takes (that is if Biden wins the hearts and minds of the voters)

Trump supporters applaud him for his use of Executive Orders to by-pass the Congress…..on the border…..immigration….and taxes and trade and so on.

My question is will these same people applaud the new president when he uses the same tactic to pass abortion rights or immigration or medicare for all or some green new deal or so on and on…..

Will they, the Repubs, be thrilled with the use of the EO?

Of course not!

They will revert to the Constitution, the same Constitution that they, Repubs, have ignored for 4 years, and demand that the process include the Congress.

This is a given….and it is a given pathetic tactic.

The view passed down from on high in the U.S. is that elections are the effective and legitimate means of collective decision-making in the realm of the political. Conversely, on matters of war and peace, economic distribution, environmental wellbeing, healthcare, education, housing, and social welfare— the areas where collective outcomes matter, these are either considered ‘economic’ in nature, or elected representatives defer to markets, grant decision-making power to corporate pleaders, or act with unanimity across alleged ideological differences. In other words, the liberal conception of politics has remarkably little to do with collective decision-making.

This isn’t the tired complaint that there are no differences between political candidates. One can grant all the difference in the world. However, if elections aren’t where political decisions are made, their meaning and function are different than is popularly understood. That for the second election in a row two of the least favored politicians in American history represent the range of choices speaks to the vacuity of the ‘process.’ In the throes of electoral passion, the insistence has been that personality and tenor are substance, hence the promise ‘to restore dignity to the presidency’ is put forward as a ready substitute for adequate healthcare, meaningful employment at a living wage, environmental repair, and real political participation.

The Day After Election Day

Now the Dems even before a winner is announced are in a circular firing squad of blame for losing those seats in Congress……The Centrists are blaming Progressives for their losses….just like 2016 they were crappy candidates on issues all the Centrists had was “anybody but Trump” with no plan after that….plus they are blaming the “Progressives” for the sad showing in the vote….but they just can find a way to fend for themselves so they find someone to blame and the media is assisting in that blame.

As Joe Biden inches closer to a White House win, Democrats are starting to celebrate. But the mood wasn’t one of elation during a Thursday conference call among House Dems, who sources tell the Washington Post engaged in a three-hour-plus “bitter exchange” in which centrists accused more progressive members of being too vocal on far-left ideology. That move, the centrists claimed, may have caused their party to lose at least a half-dozen House seats—leaving them with what looks to be the smallest House majority in nearly two decades—and fail in their quest to win the Senate. According to the sources, the more moderate House members dug into their liberal counterparts, saying that by pushing certain leftist platforms, including defunding the police and the Green New Deal, it gave the GOP an opening to label all Democrats socialists and radical leftists.

“We need to not ever use the word ‘socialist’ or ‘socialism’ ever again,” Rep. Abigail Spanberger was quoted as saying. “We lost good members because of that.” Progressive members like Rep. Pramila Jayapal and Rep. Rashida Tlaib accused the centrists of ignoring key concepts that get their base energized. “To be real, it sounds like you are saying stop pushing for what Black folks want,” Tlaib is said to have countered. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi painted Tuesday’s results as a “measured success,” a source tells the Wall Street Journal, noting that “we did not win every battle, but we did win the war.” Meanwhile, two moderate House Democrats tell the Hill they and other centrists are talking about backing a plan to oust Pelosi as speaker. “It’s time for Democrats to elevate a new generation of leadership in both the House and the Senate,” says one.

And the Dems promise to bring the country together…..and how will they do that when they cannot bring the Party together?

Do you truly believe that your life will improve after election day in 2020?

If so then I have been correct all along….the American people know nothing about their society and walk around in a fog their entire lives….or they are just plain stupid.

Finally…..with all the troubles that this absentee voting and mail-ins I look for the GOP to up their game against voter expansion…..that will be a priority not getting this country on the right track once again.

And after the writing of this draft…..my predication came about…..

These state Republican officials are getting backup from top national Republicans, including Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham, who said he wants to his committee to investigate mail voting. “If we don’t do something about voting by mail, we’re going to lose the ability to elect a Republican in this country,” he said on Fox News Monday night.

It’s very easy to imagine state-level Republicans introducing legislation in early 2021 to cut back on mail voting or early voting, which helped lead to record turnout in 2020. Republican attorneys general have intervened in litigation to back the Trump campaign’s efforts to block mail ballots that legally arrived after Election Day from being counted in Pennsylvania, claiming that the authority of the state legislature, which refused to give voters more time to send their ballots back, should supersede the judgements of state courts that did allot this extra time—an argument that could give GOP-controlled state legislatures even more sway over voting laws in 2021

Republicans Are Laying the Groundwork to Make It Harder to Vote

Good to know that I still have it!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

The Failure Of Social Balances

AS the election of 2020 neared and we would expect all those traditional countervailing forces that help keep the American presidents on a balanced path have failed the nation in the time of Trumpian corruption….

Forces like…..the Congress, the courts even the Democratic Party are all failing the American people.

Ralph Nader has written an article….while I do not agree with everything Nader has said or written in the past….I do see what he is saying with his latest article.

Let’s give dangerous, dictatorial, corporatist, lawless, unstable, Donald Trump his due. He has shown us just how weak our various countervailing institutions and constitutional standards are in checking the excesses of the most impeachable President in American history.

After three and a half years of corruption, cronyism, chaos, illegal wars, and destruction of law enforcement protecting people from corporate ravages, Trump a bigoted, racist, serial fabricator, and boastful savage serial predator has not only gotten away with everything but has doubled down on everything. He has intimidated almost everyone with any power or influence into submission or silence.

This unprecedented feat rests on many abdicators:

Expected Countervailing Forces to Trumpism are Failing

Has hate made this wide divide possible?

Tribalism is gonna to be the death of this republic….

To anyone following American politics, it’s not exactly news that Democrats and Republicans don’t like each other. Take what happened in the presidential debate last week. President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden did little to conceal their disdain of one another. And although the debate marked a low point in our national discourse, it was a crystallization of a long-developing trend: loathing the opposing party.

This is hardly a new trend; in fact, it’s increasingly common among American voters. However, this level of hatred — which political scientists call “negative partisanship” — has reached levels that are not just bad for democracy, but are potentially destructive. And extreme partisan animosity is a prelude to democratic collapse.

It wasn’t always this bad, though. Forty years ago, when asked to rate how “favorable and warm” their opinion of each party was, the average Democrat and Republican said they felt OK-ish about the opposite party. But for four decades now, partisans have increasingly turned against each other in an escalating cycle of dislike and distrust — views of the other party are currently at an all-time low.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-hatred-negative-partisanship-came-to-dominate-american-politics/amp/

Because of this political hatred and the failing stop gaps in our governmental style…..now is the perfect time to try and change the silly and destructive slide that began with Reagan and came to a festering head with Trump.

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

VOTE!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–10Nov20

Remember all those allegations of voter fraud….and those are still being flung around liberally……the question is why?

There has been NO wholesale voter fraud and yet Donald the Orange and his allies keep throwing that pile of pasta at the wall….what purpose does that serge now?

The Trump campaign’s strategy to file a barrage of lawsuits challenging Joe Biden’s win is more about providing President Trump with an off-ramp for a loss he can’t quite grasp and less about changing the election’s outcome, according to senior officials, campaign aides and allies who spoke to the AP. Trump has promised legal action in the coming days as he refused to concede his loss to Biden, making an aggressive pitch for donors to help finance any court fight. Trump and his campaign have leveled accusations of large-scale voter fraud in Pennsylvania and other states that broke for Biden, so far without proof. But proof isn’t really the point, said the people. Trump aides and allies also acknowledged privately the legal fights would—at best—forestall the inevitable.

And some had deep reservations about the president’s attempts to undermine faith in the vote. But they said Trump and a core group of allies were aiming to keep his loyal base of supporters on his side even in defeat. There has never been a presidential election in memory where such widespread, conspiratorial fraud was alleged. Moments after the race was called, Rudy Giuliani stood in front of campaign banner taped over the garage door in Philadelphia, wedged near a cremation center and an adult book store called “Fantasy Island,” with a handful of poll watchers and declared they’d been kept too far away to check for any inaccuracies. But voter fraud is extremely rare, and when it does happen, people are generally prosecuted and it does not change the outcome of the election.

It is to keep the low IQ voter in-line and in the Trump column even in defeat….but not to worry…..FOX News will have a spot for Trump and the sycophants….hate will prevail….

Remember the days when Rudy was America;s mayor after the attacks of 9/11?  What happened to him?  Was he just blowing smoke of America’s ass?  Maybe dementia has set in and his true nature has come to the surface.

Anyway he has proven to me that he has always been a sick, corrupt politician and lawyer….something I did not doubt in any way.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–09Nov20

It is over……that is all but the legal wrangling but the Trump lawyers…..but everyone knows that Trump has lost and even some of his family want him to do the right thing and concede…it appears that FLOTUS and Jared are pushing the prez to give up the antics and accept the outcome….ofm course that stunted larva Eric and Don Jr are wanting to keep the gravy train rolling…..

Melania Trump may be urging her husband to concede the 2020 US presidential election—but his three eldest children are reportedly split on the matter. CNN and Politico report that while Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump’s husband, is also suggesting President Trump concede, Ivanka’s siblings Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump remain staunchly on their dad’s side. The brothers, sources say, are calling for Republicans to publicly reject the results of the election and challenge them in court, while FLOTUS and Kushner are among those “nudging” Trump to concede, perhaps without actually agreeing that he lost the election. “Virtually everyone in his inner circle, his closest advisers, including his family members, are fully aware that this is over,” ABC News’ chief White House correspondent said Sunday morning, noting there have been discussions that “include the first lady, about how to convince him to make something of a graceful exit.”

Politico points out that Melania Trump, said by biographers to be one of the people whose advice Trump most trusts, did tweet Sunday that “Every legal – not illegal – vote should be counted,” but sources say privately she is suggesting her husband figure out some sort of exit strategy. Trump campaign spokesperson Jason Miller pushed back against the stories on Twitter, claiming, “Given undetermined electoral outcomes in multiple states and serious voting irregularities and lack of transparency in others, Jared has advised @realDonaldTrump to pursue all available legal remedies to ensure accuracy.” Both CNN and Politico also run down how other Republicans are handling the issue, from those who publicly agree Trump should not concede (Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, and others) to those who are backing away from his claims of election fraud. And then, of course, there’s one person whose voice has been notably absent: “Where the hell is Mike Pence?” one senior campaign official reportedly texted Sunday.

Good question…where is Pence?  Is he hiding behind his wife’s skirt?

The legal antics will be fun to watch how they play out.

Even those Repubs that wear knee pads for Trump are playing this game…..like Lindsey……that spineless sot…..

There’s a whole lot more than the next four years riding on President Trump’s concession or lack thereof, according to Lindsey Graham. Speaking on Fox News on Sunday, the senator said, per the Hill: “If Republicans don’t challenge and change the US election system, there will never be another Republican president elected again. President Trump should not concede. We’re down to less—10,000 votes in Georgia. He’s going to win North Carolina. We have gone from 93,000 votes to less than 20,000 votes in Arizona, where more—more votes to be counted.” He went on to make specific allegations about what he termed “a lot of shenanigans,” including a vote-flipping Michigan computer system, backdated ballots, and ballots supposedly coming in from dead people in Pennsylvania.

Watch This Blog!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Biden Wins!

While the legal antics are still being played the results of the Electoral College has Joe Biden at 294…..Trump at 214

This gives Biden the presidency and may God have mercy on our souls.

And this is where I start analyzing his choices for his administration…..

As the title says…Biden wins…..and the peasants dance…..but what does that mean for this country?

Absolutely NOTHING!

Senate stays in the GOP column so Biden will not get to do anything monumental…..

Mitch McConnell, if he keeps the Senate majority, plans to prevent Joe Biden from stacking his Cabinet with liberals and force him to go with more centrist options, like Lael Brainard for Treasury or Tony Blinken for State,

A source close to McConnell tells me a Republican Senate would work with Biden on centrist nominees but no “radical progressives” or ones who are controversial with conservatives.

  • The Biden agenda would be severely restricted by GOP control, the source added: “It’s going to be armed camps.”

The big picture: This political reality could result in Biden having a more centrist Cabinet.

  • It also gives Biden a ready excuse to reject liberal candidates, like Sens. Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders.

What’s next: Biden may end up leaning more on Democratic senators in blue states, or ex-senators.

In the midst of a killer pandemic and mass unemployment, the Democrats could have offered the nation a universal health care plan, a moratorium on evictions and a guaranteed basic income. Instead, they believed that the key to victory over Trump was to meld neoliberal economics with a neoconservative foreign policy. I don’t know where they got this idea. Probably, the same place Obama got his health insurance plan, the Heritage Foundation.

I predicted after Biden became the candidate that if he won the election nothing “progressive” would ever see the light of day….and nothing has been done to change my mind.  All Biden’s “progressive” ideas are just a slogan to fool, the ignorant into believing something will change…..like with Obama in 2008…..nothing will change except the person who sits on the golden toilet in the White House.

At least the candidate I supported in the primaries offered up policies…the best Biden could ever do is offer vaguely worded proposals and the slogans….GOD the slogans!

I hope I am mistaken…..but I seriously doubt it.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Joe Biden, President-Elect

Uncle Joe is our man!

I am thrilled that Trump will be out but less thrilled about a Biden/Harris administration…..why?

The Biden campaign preferred to court the exiled neocons who started the Iraq war, than Hispanics and progressives.

I will start with foreign policy since that is my thing…..I cannot believe that we are engaged in forever wars and yet not once was it a priority in this election…..the American Conservative took a look at the the foreign policy election that ignored foreign policy…..

The 2020 presidential campaigns have ignored foreign policy more this year than in any election since the turn of the century, but the 2020 election will have significant foreign policy consequences no matter the outcome. The neglect of foreign policy by the campaigns and the media has been a great disservice to the country, since the president wields such extensive power in this area. The choices that a president makes can have devastating effects on tens of millions of people in other countries, and they can sometimes impose huge costs on the United States.

By all rights, foreign policy should account for the majority of what presidential candidates talk about, because it is such a large part of what presidents do once in office, but the public’s lack of interest has created incentives for the candidates and journalists to pay it as little attention as possible. It is no wonder that we have no accountability in foreign policy when foreign policy plays such a small part in the process of selecting a president.

The Foreign Policy Election That Ignored Foreign Policy

This tells me that with a Biden presidency nothing will change….the wars will continue and the M-IC will have yet another president in its pocket.

Let’s look at the possibility of his foreign policy team….

Here’s a who’s who of Biden’s foreign policy advisers: 

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/us-election-joe-biden-foreign-policy-team

NOTHING will change on the endless war front…….

Joe Biden might be elected president next week. What would that mean for U.S. foreign policy? President Donald Trump’s failings are many and obvious. Unfortunately, Biden’s assumptions and plans, though different, are equally flawed.

Almost certainly there would be more pervasive intervention, ceaseless meddling, self-serving demands, economic sanctions, deadly drones, intermittent bombing, continuing occupation, and endless war. More lives and wealth wasted. More foreign societies ruined. More world problems created and seeds of future crises planted. Rather like the last two decades.

Biden has been in politics nearly a half century. Never has he evidenced a single thought that deviated much from the conventional wisdom on foreign (or domestic) policy. When he dissented from majority sentiments, it always was within hailing distance of the rest of what Ben Rhodes inelegantly termed “the Blob,” or foreign policy establishment.

President Joe Biden Plans a World of Endless Intervention and Probably War

More along these lines…..

“Let’s bring decency and integrity back to the White House.” I can’t count the number of times I have heard and read this phrase uttered by U.S. expats here in Paris, France. As one of many American expats living here, of course I share in the desire for an end to a Donald Trump presidency. But at what cost? And will a Biden presidency – which promises a return to “normalcy” – really merit the sigh of relief that so many think it will? Below I summarize some of the most troubling information I have uncovered about some of the most likely foreign policy picks for key positions in a Biden cabinet.

Biden: A War Cabinet?

Since I am a foreign policy geek and looking at Joe Biden I could see him doing anything but keeping the status quo and that is one reason I could not support him for president.

I wish I could be as optimistic as others about a Biden/Harris White House…they are Centrists that owe their political lives to big money….matters not the race, gender or anything else…a sell-out is a sell-out.

We were told that this election was all about “saving democracy” and in order to save democracy, the Democrats (DNC) had to rig their primaries for Biden.

This will not end well.

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

The Day After

First the celebrations and the taunting have begun and will continue…

As soon as the news buzzed on their phones, Americans gathered spontaneously on street corners and front lawns—honking their horns, banging pots and pans, starting impromptu dance parties—as an agonizingly vitriolic election and exhausting four-day wait for results came to an end Saturday morning. And for all that joy, there was equal parts sorrow, anger, and mistrust on the other side, the AP reports. Among the reactions:

Just after the AP and other news organizations declared that Joe Biden beat President Trump, fireworks erupted in Atlanta. In Maine, a band playing at a farmers’ market broke into the Battle Hymn of the Republic. In Louisville, Kentucky, Biden supporters gathered on their lawns to toast with champagne. A crowd gathered in Black Lives Matter Plaza near the White House to celebrate Biden’s win, NBC Washington reports. “Bye bye, Donald Trump,” a woman said over and over in a megaphone. People chanted “Black lives matter” and sang “Na Na Na Na Hey Hey-ey Goodbye.” In Manhattan, they danced in the streets, banged cowbells, and honked their car horns. In Brooklyn, they chanted “the nightmare is over.” Lola Faleit, a 26-year-old human resources manager in New York City, said that “It’s surreal, I feel like I’m free from the clutches of evil. I feel less worried for my immigrant friends. In 2016, we woke up crying. Today we are celebrating.” Trump’s supporters have for days been protesting outside of ballot-counting operations, alleging without evidence that the slow-moving results were proof of cheating. “This isn’t over! This isn’t over! Fake news!” some of Trump’s supporters shouted as they gathered at the Georgia State Capitol after news organizations’ decision to call the election.

Some 75 Trump-supporting protesters had gathered Saturday morning outside the election tabulation center in downtown Phoenix, where the counting remains underway. Shortly after the news broke, Jake Angeli yelled, “This election has not been called! … They got their hands caught in the cookie jar and we’re going to the Supreme Court!” Trump activists were assembling in state capitols and calling for peaceful protests, the Washington Post reports. The rallies were in support of “Stop the Steal,” a group that got booted from Facebook for inciting violence and promoting misinformation.

We have our president-elect and now the real circus will begin….this should keep the media and pundits in lunch money for a couple of weeks….

Now that the AP has declared Joe Biden the next US president, what happens? And can President Trump, who is refusing to concede, take this to the Supreme Court? The Wall Street Journal offers a guide: First, states will let campaigns seek recounts or will conduct them on their own (looks like they’ll happen in Wisconsin and Georgia). Then states will choose their electors by Dec. 8 based on which presidential candidate won the popular vote. Finally, electors gather and vote in their state capitals on Dec. 14. A new US Congress will count the votes on Jan. 5, and the new president takes the oath of office on Jan. 20. But there are caveats and questions:

  • Electors: For over a century, states have based their electors on the popular presidential vote—but what if they don’t? The Washington Post notes that states could change their rules, but doing so after Election Day would violate federal law. That battle could go to the courts and end up in the Supreme Court, where a 6-3 conservative majority would make its ruling.
  • Electors, Pt. 2: Trump allies (like Sen. Lindsey Graham) say state lawmakers could cancel election results if they see possible fraud, and choose pro-Trump electors instead. But in Pennsylvania, the state’s Senate and House majority leaders wrote an op-ed saying the legislature has no role “in choosing the state’s presidential electors or in deciding the outcome of the presidential election.”
  • Lawsuits: Republicans and Trump’s campaign have filed a few lawsuits, but the AP reports that “most are small-scale” and “do not appear to affect many votes.” Judges in Michigan and Georgia have already dismissed two of the suits. One case at the Supreme Court could exclude ballots that arrived in Pennsylvania after Election Day, but it seems there weren’t very many.
  • ‘High hurdle’: Trump “would have to show that [state] rules are being violated in a very specific way that cause his campaign harm, and that’s a really high hurdle,” a professor at the London School of Economics tells the Huffington Post. “There’s very, very little historical evidence of fraudulent activity in US elections.”
  • John Roberts: The AP adds that Chief Justice John Roberts, who tries to keep the high court away from messy politics, “is not likely to want the election to come down to himself and his colleagues.”
  • The ‘faithless’: The Journal notes that individual electors could simply switch sides—it’s happened before. But 33 states have “faithless elector” laws that would invalidate at least some of those votes.
  • If Trump won’t go on Jan. 20: “Donald Trump as the outgoing president has a contingent of Secret Service,” Columbia University professor Robert Shapiro tells LiveScience. “Biden goes to the White House and the Secret Service escorts Trump out. That’s what happens.”
  • Codenames: The BBC looks at words we’ll “hear a lot of,” like president-elect, cabinet, and confirmation hearing. More interesting: Biden’s codename with the Secret Service is “Celtic,” and Kamala Harris apparently picked “Pioneer.”

I will return to posting my usual stuff……politics will get more boring as the days roll by…..

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Has The Fat Lady Sung?

Finally……someone has called this election for Joe Biden……

Joe Biden has reached the magic number of 270 electoral votes necessary to win the presidency, reports the AP. Details are still emerging, but the AP and CNN report that Biden won Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes, putting him at 273. The Trump campaign, however, still has legal challenges pending and recounts are likely, meaning it could be days or weeks before the nation has an undisputed winner. Biden addressed the nation late Friday night.

In a statement on Friday, President Trump vowed to continue his legal fight, saying it was “about the integrity of our entire election process,” reports Politico. The outlet notes that Trump has failed to produce any evidence to back up his allegations of fraud during the counting of mail ballots. “We will pursue this process through every aspect of the law,” said Trump. “I will never give up fighting for you and our nation.”

Of course that poser on the White House will milk this for all it is worth and feed the bullshit his supporters will believe…..

President Trump is not about to concede. In a statement issued after news outlets declared Joe Biden the winner on Saturday, the president remained defiant:

  • “We all know why Joe Biden is rushing to falsely pose as the winner, and why his media allies are trying so hard to help him: they don’t want the truth to be exposed,” he said, per Reuters. “The simple fact is this election is far from over.”

The president, who has repeatedly made unsubstantiated claims of fraud about the counting of mail ballots, said his legal team would start “prosecuting our case in court to ensure election laws are fully upheld,” per CNBC. Earlier, before the race was called, the president tweeted, ” WON THIS ELECTION, BY A LOT!” He also traveled to his golf club in Sterling, Virginia, on Saturday morning for a round of golf.

Biden says it is time  for the healing……which is bullshit…..48% of the voters went for Trump and he will not go silently and Biden will have to contend with that.

Please stop believing that the country will find its better angels….it will be just as fucked up as it has been for decades…..

Let’s all hope we can end this nightmare as soon as possible….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Those Close Elections

As we continue to wait on the official announcement of who actually won this thing I thought I would pass the time with some history….(is that heavy sighs I hear?)

But first a little election news….

Our lousy president spends all his time telling us that the Dems are stealing votes and screaming that since he is ahead in some regions the count should stop and yes there are those “Americans” that believe and support his attacks on our system…..and then there are those crazies that try to enforce Trumpism with guns….

Two armed men were arrested Thursday near the Philadelphia convention center, police said, where an ongoing vote count could decide the presidential election. The men traveled to the city in a Hummer and did not have permits to carry the weapons in Pennsylvania, police said. They were arrested after police received a tip about their plans, the AP reports. A gun was found inside the vehicle, police said.

A silver Hummer with Virginia license plates was parked Friday at the location where police say they found the men. It was adorned with an American flag and a window sticker for the right-wing conspiracy theory QAnon. Police said the men will be charged with firearms offenses. Their names have not been made public. They have yet to be arraigned. Information on lawyers who could comment on their behalf was not immediately available.

The same 5 states have been “Too Close To Call” for going on 3 days (81 hours since the polls closures)…..so there is little actual news….just media filler until another update can be found.

The only excitement yesterday was the presser of the president that was pure bullsh*t……

ABC, CBS, and NBC all cut away from President Trump on Thursday as he spoke from the White House to make an unfounded accusation that the presidential election was being stolen from him. Trump had tried to commandeer the nation’s airwaves at a time when the evening newscasts are shown on the East Coast, after a day when the slow drip of vote counting revealed his leads in Pennsylvania and Georgia dwindling. MSNBC’s Brian Williams also interrupted the president. Fox News Channel and CNN aired the president’s full address, after which CNN’s Anderson Cooper said Trump was “like an obese turtle on his back, flailing in the hot sun realizing his time was over.” Network personalities had sharply criticized Trump after his angry, middle-of-the-night speech following Election Day but aired that talk in full. Trump was more subdued Thursday, yet offered a litany of complaints about “suppression” polls, mail-in voting and fraud that he never specified.

Let’s move on……First this thought—-

Only 5 presidents have won the election without the popular vote: John Quincy Adams, 1824 Rutherford B. Hayes, 1876 Benjamin Harrison, 1888 George W. Bush, 2000 Donald Trump, 2016

The voting tally….Biden…..74,811,378     Trump……70,554,537

But as close as this election was….it was just one of many……

Will the presidential election of 2020 be a close one?

We don’t yet know.

But the United States has certainly had its share of close elections, dating from the earliest days of the republic to recent history.

The 2016 campaign between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton was the 13th closest in the country’s history with Trump losing the popular vote by 3 million but winning the electoral college 304-227.

Here are 10 other races that came down to the slimmest of margins.

Nixon vs Humphrey

The 10 closest presidential elections in U.S. history

Now are you not pleased to have a diversion from the “hurry up and wait” mentality of the media?

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”