Wednesday, January 06, 2021

Trump Is #2: From "Massive Dumps" To "Explosions of Bullshit" (& Rudy's Farts)


Rudy Giuliani: Macho Man

Donald Trump: "Explosions of Bullshit"

Onward

P.S.: The Night The MAGA Lights Went Out In Georgia
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Tuesday, January 05, 2021

Batshit Insane Rally In DC: "Who Here Is Up To The Task Of Not Wearing A Mask?"
Sedition Caucus Members On TV: Claim to Have Evidence Of Hundreds Of Instances Of Fraud, But Cannot State Even One Example

UPDATED

* * *

I need three. I'm fighting in . . . eight, actually . . . but six . . .
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Stooges For MAGA
Far-Right Posters Urge Trump Supporters To Bring Guns To Wednesday's DC Protests
("It's Illegal, But This Is War And We're In A Post-Legal Phase.")
The Atlantic: "The Sedition Caucus [150+ Members] Is Worse Than A Treasonous Conspiracy."

The Latest Lie:

New York Times, January 5, 2021:

Three weeks ago, the Electoral College formally cast its votes for president, affirming Mr. Biden's victory. But under the Constitution, there is one more step before the result is final: the certification by Congress of the electoral votes, to be conducted by the president of the Senate. That's the vice president.

"The president of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted," according to the 12th Amendment. . . . "The person having the greatest number of votes shall be the president," the amendment goes on, unless there is a tie or nobody has secured a majority, in which case the House decides. . . .

If at least one member of the House and Senate raise an objection about a state's results, it must be considered, immediately halting the joint session so members can return to their respective chambers and debate the challenge for up to two hours. Then a vote — decided by a simple majority — is held to determine whether to throw out that state's results. . . .

Republicans plan to force such a vote, perhaps many. Representative Mo Brooks of Alabama has said he will move to contest the results from as many as six states, and Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri plans to back at least one of those. . . . Given that Mr. Trump and his supporters have contested the results in several states that Mr. Biden won — including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — there could be as much as 12 hours of debate on Wednesday, and a half-dozen votes.

Mr. Pence would have to announce the failure of each one. . . .

"I hope Mike Pence comes through for us, I have to tell you," Mr. Trump said at a rally in Georgia on Monday night . . . "Of course, if he doesn't come through, I won't like him as much."

(1) Trump has never liked Pence (he is incapable of even pretending to care about another human being).

(2) Pence is utterly powerless over what happens and Trump has positioned Pence where he will be excoriated by the MAGA-Dolts for failing to steal the election. As he has for his entire adult life, Trump will have someone else take the blame for his own epic failures.

Tom Nichols, The Atlantic, January 4, 2021:

This is sedition, plain and simple. No amount of playacting and rationalizing can change the fact that the majority of the Republican Party and its apologists are advocating for the overthrow of an American election and the continued rule of a sociopathic autocrat. . . .

[T]he "sedition caucus" includes at least 140 members of the House—that is, some two-thirds of the House GOP membership—and at least 10 members of the Senate. Their challenge comes after weeks of insistence that the 2020 election was rigged, plagued by fraud, and even subverted by foreign powers. The president and his minions have filed, and lost, scores of lawsuits that ranged from minor disputes over process to childlike, error-filled briefs full of bizarre assertions.

Instead of threatening to gavel these objections into irrelevance . . . Vice President Mike Pence "welcomes" these challenges. Pence's career is finished, but he could have stood for the Constitution he claims to love and which he swore to defend. However, cowardice is contagious, and no mask was thick enough to protect Pence from the pathogen of fear.

Perhaps the sedition caucus didn't mean to go this far. Its members began by arguing that we all just needed to humor President Trump, to give him time to process the loss, and to treat the president of the United States as a toddler who was going home empty-handed. He wouldn't be a dead-ender, they assured us, because that would be too humiliating. The Republican Party would never immolate itself for a proven loser.

But for Trump, there is no such thing as too much humiliation. The only shame in Trump world lies in admitting defeat. And so Trump doubled down, as anyone who had watched him for more than 10 minutes knew he would. And then he tripled, quadrupled, quintupled down. And just as they have done for the past four years, elected Republicans tried to convince themselves that if they supported this outrage, it would be the last time they would be required to surrender their dignity; that this betrayal of the Constitution would be the last treachery demanded of them. . . .

It is possible that the sedition caucus knew that all these challenges would fail. . . .This is irrelevant: Engaging in sedition for insincere reasons does not make it less hideous. Arguing that you betrayed the Constitution only as theater is no defense. . . .

It would almost be a relief to know that these Republicans really believe what they're trying to sell, that they are genuine fanatics and ideologues who have at least paid us the respect of pitting their sincere beliefs against our own.

But we are, in the main, dealing with people who are far worse than true believers. The Republican Party is infested with craven opportunists, the kind of people who will try to tell us later that they were "just asking questions," that they were "defending the process," and of course, that they were merely representing "the will of the people." . . .

People of goodwill across the United States want some sort of road map to oppose this cold-blooded attack on the Constitution, but none exists. . . .

The members of the public and the institutions of American life should shroud these seditionists in silence and opprobrium in perpetuity: no television interviews, no sinecures at universities or think tanks, no rehabilitating book tours, no jokey late-night appearances, no self-serving op-eds.

The sedition caucus is worse than a treasonous conspiracy. At least real traitors believe in something. These people instead believe only in their own fortunes . . . and so they cannot—and must not—be trusted ever again with political power.

Tim Miller, The Bulwark, January 4, 2021:
MAGA Nihilism Is on the Ballot in Georgia
We believe in nothing . . . except God–King Trump.

[Monday] evening, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue will put the final seditious exclamation point on a re-election campaign in which they promised to be whatever the MAGA hordes demanded they be. No more. No less.

Just as God demanded wives submit to their husbands with joy, Loeffler and Perdue have pledged to giddily submit to the whims of Trump and his most crazed fans. They will do so tonight on a MAGA altar, just 24 hours after a tape revealed that Donald Trump was actively plotting to steal the election in their state . . . [B]eing complicit in the president's coup was not a challenge to be overcome, it is the central purpose of their entire political project. . . .

The message they want voters to get before Tuesday's runoff election is that they will be stooges for MAGA—and their message is being heard loud and clear. . . .

[Loeffler's] campaign is not premised on giving answers to things like whether she supports funding the military or whether she would be willing to defund the military so Nazis aren't suspended from Facebook for a few days. She is running to be Parler-poster-in-chief, not legislator. . . . Her campaign is premised on the unalterable fact that Kelly Loeffler will stand with Donald Trump 100 percent of the time, every time.

Meanwhile, on Monday David Perdue was asked about the president's call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in which Trump pressures him to do whatever it takes to find enough votes to steal the election for Trump. . . . Perdue said it was "disgusting" that the phone call was leaked.

There was nothing Trump could have said on that call that would have resulted in Perdue answering any other way. Trump could have insulted his wife's looks and said his father was a murderer. He could have confessed to serial sexual assault. He could have admitted to a blackmail scheme of raping & killing children. . . . David Perdue would have found a way to simp for Trump . . .

David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler . . . believe in nothing but whatever Trump and his supporters tell them to believe.

Craig Timberg and Drew Harwell, Washington Post, January 5, 2021:

Far-right online forums are seething with references to potential violence and urging supporters of President Trump to bring guns to Wednesday's protests in Washington — in violation of local laws — as Congress meets to certify President-elect Joe Biden's victory.

Many of the posts appear to be direct responses to Trump's demands that his supporters pack the nation's capital in support of his bogus claims that November's national vote for Biden resulted from election fraud. . . .

Talk of guns and potential violence is rife on the encrypted messaging app Telegram, the conservative social media site Parler and on thedonald.win, an online forum that previously operated on Reddit before the company banned it in June after years of racism, misogyny, anti-Semitism and calls for violence. . . .

Discussion in the thread followed about how most effectively to sneak guns into Washington, laced with occasional references to using them. D.C. has some of the nation's strictest gun laws: Openly carrying guns is banned, concealed-carry licenses from other states aren't recognized, and all firearms in the District must be registered with local police.

Of carrying guns in D.C., one poster in the thread wrote, "Yes, it's illegal, but this is war and we're clearly in a post-legal phase of our society." Wrote another: "LIVE AS A FREE AMERICAN AND BRING YOUR ARMS!"

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David Roth: "Trump Is Both The Most Important Character In This Busy Trashscape And One Of Its Most Avid Consumers"

David Roth writes incisively and accurately about Donald Trump, how and why he acts as he does, what it looks like and what it means, all seasoned with understated anger and gallows humor. It's a rare talent.

David Roth, Defector, January 4, 2021
[I]n the absence of any evidence . . . beyond his own very powerful sense that [losing an election] isn't something Trump would do, he reached for one of the most powerful tools available to any master dealsmith, which was to demand that someone he understood to be a subordinate just fucking fix it for him. In the recording of that hour-long phone call that the Washington Post released over the weekend, Trump does this sometimes in tones of peevish impatience and at other times in an oily simper, but mostly he just does it over and over again . . . The cumulative effect is basically that of watching a fat old housecat try to solve a Rubik's Cube.

This is more or less how Trump has handled every challenge he has ever faced, and there is amid the last thrashing, whinging, sopping-wet days of his presidency also some evidently earnest surprise at how badly that is all working this time. None of what's happening here is remotely good . . . but also there is a certain bleak amusement in watching this rancid adult Fauntleroy repeatedly and abjectly fail to comprehend the idea of consequences.

The parts of the call that are hard to understand, by contrast, are hard to understand by design. The various theories and gambits and hybrid rationalizations that Trump has deployed since losing the election are vague by necessity, because there's nothing more concrete there to find; the point has always been to keep softer-brained and less-discerning types around through the next commercial break, and in a sufficiently blind and grift-amenable frenzy. In another delightful comic twist that is easier to appreciate in the abstract than from one uneasy moment to the next, Trump is both the most important character in this busy, busy trashscape and one of its most avid consumers. This means that some things tend to get lost in translation, as Trump now communicates almost entirely in its clammy patois of slang and lore and mini-stroke illogic. Trump has never quite seemed clear on what he's complaining about beyond how unfair it was to him, but also he understands it perfectly. The soap opera plot he has memorized runs in perfect parallel to observable reality, and he has conflated and confused them utterly.

And so . . . Trump is both making a very clear demand and effectively unable even to make the allegations he wants to make, or tell the sprawling story he quite clearly believes to be true as anything more legible than a series of frantic and doddering pivots from one isolated and unsupported outrage to the next. This doesn't stop him. Trump says various large numbers in impatient ways, and asks odd heated questions about things that only people living in Trump's own fervid counter-reality could even understand, and then gets frustrated when confronted with facts that rebut his powerful feelings, or with people who can't or won't do whatever he wants whenever he tells them to, or with his ongoing inability to turn rumors he'd heard . . . into actionable legal remedies. . . .

Also and maybe more to the point, right around the 51:40 mark in that phone call, Trump farts. It sounds like someone blowing into a French horn full of chowder. Then there's another little one after that.

Or, in the interest of journalistic ethics, Trump probably farts. A persistent theme of body horror has been one of the subtle grace notes of Trump's fumbling coup attempt, and while Rudy Giuliani has done most of the heavy lifting—and grimacing, and melting, and also some umbrage-related farting of his own—there it stands to reason that Trump himself would take the baton at some point. As with Giuliani's outraged pwomp in front of the Michigan State Legislature, Trump appears in the clip above, which was first flagged by a keen-eared Twitter user on Sunday night, to have achieved a level of upset so severe that it can only be expressed simultaneously through equal and opposite orifices. . . .

Giuliani's incident in Michigan was captured from multiple angles and confirmed by a sworn member of Michigan's legislature; it is as close to an airtight example of public rage-farting as we've yet seen. While it is unlikely that we'll ever have such confirmation here . . . it is safe to say that precedent is no longer a guide. Anything is possible. . . .

It fits, then, that his presidency would end on this note—in a gust or two of noise and fury, in unknowable and unanswerable dispute, in a long stupid phone call that does nothing more than poison some otherwise empty hour into submission.

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Monday, January 04, 2021

"This One Goes To 11,780"

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Trump Claims US Death Toll (350,000+) Is "Fake News" Before Whining That He Is Not Receiving Enough Praise

As the number of coronavirus deaths in the United States shot past 350,000 on Sunday, Donald Trump stopped lying about election fraud and started lying about the number of Americans who have died solely due to deliberate and criminal inaction.

Trump falsely claimed the death toll was "far exaggerated" before whining that he wasn't getting enough credit for all the amazing things he has done regarding the virus.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Surgeon General Jerome Adams both contradicted Trump's deranged view of reality.

Trump then turned his rage-tweeting towards Fauci, complaining that Fauci

is revered by the LameStream Media as such a great professional, having done, they say, such an incredible job, yet he works for me and the Trump Administration, and I am in no way given any credit for my work.

Jesus! Have you ever heard or seen such a fucking thin-skinned, easily-triggered, whiny, desperate, needy, cry-baby, snowflake? ... Well, fuck his feelings.

Surgeon General Jerome Adams said the coming weeks will be "pretty scary" as cases and death continue to climb and hospitals in many US cities are at full capacity, while Trump's plan for vaccinations has been a disaster, with limited supplies and delays in delivery slowing everything down. Twenty million people were supposed to be vaccinated by now, but the actual number is roughly four million.

At the current rate, it will take 10 years – until 2031 – for every American to receive the vaccine. 

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Sunday, January 03, 2021

WaPo Releases One-Hour Tape Of Trump Blackmailing Georgia Sec. Of State To "Find 11,780 Votes" And "Recalculate" The Totals

In an extraordinary one-hour conversation, Donald Trump threatened Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia Secretary of State, to "find 11,780 votes" in his favour, exactly one more that Joe Biden's margin of victory in the state.

Trump told Raffensperger he could find himself facing criminal charges if he did not "recalculate" the vote totals in Georgia to make Trump come out on top. (Recording and transcript)

Georgia's 16 electoral votes are not enough to change the results of the 2020 election. If Trump was awarded Georgia, Biden would still win easily, 290-248. Which means Trump must be engaging in this criminal behaviour with officials in other states. But how many?

Trump:
It's a disaster. Look. Here's the problem. . . . [T]hey cheated like nobody's ever cheated before. And I don't care how long it takes me, you know, we're going to have other states coming forward — pretty good.

But I won't … this is never … this is … We have some incredible talent said they've never seen anything … Now the problem is they need more time for the big numbers. But they're very substantial numbers. But I think you're going to find that they — by the way, a little information, I think you're going to find that they are shredding ballots [Trump claims 3,000 pounds of ballots were shredded] because they have to get rid of the ballots because the ballots are unsigned. The ballots are corrupt, and they're brand new and they don't have a seal and there's the whole thing with the ballots. But the ballots are corrupt.

And you are going to find that they are — which is totally illegal, it is more illegal for you than it is for them because, you know what they did and you're not reporting it. That's a criminal, that's a criminal offense. And you can't let that happen. That's a big risk to you and to Ryan, your lawyer. And that's a big risk. But they are shredding ballots, in my opinion, based on what I've heard. And they are removing machinery and they're moving it as fast as they can, both of which are criminal finds. And you can't let it happen and you are letting it happen. You know, I mean, I'm notifying you that you're letting it happen. So look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state.

And flipping the state is a great testament to our country because, you know, this is — it's a testament that they can admit to a mistake or whatever you want to call it. If it was a mistake, I don't know. A lot of people think it wasn't a mistake. It was much more criminal than that. But it's a big problem in Georgia and it's not a problem that's going away. I mean, you know, it's not a problem that's going away.
Amy Gardner, Washington Post, January 3, 2021:
President Trump urged fellow Republican Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, to "find" enough votes to overturn his defeat in an extraordinary one-hour phone call Saturday that election experts said raised legal questions.

The Washington Post obtained a recording of the conversation in which Trump alternately berated Raffensperger, tried to flatter him, begged him to act and threatened him with vague criminal consequences if the secretary of state refused to pursue his false claims, at one point warning that Raffensperger was taking "a big risk."

Throughout the call, Raffensperger and his office's general counsel rejected Trump's assertions, explaining that the president is relying on debunked conspiracy theories and that President-elect Joe Biden’s 11,779-vote victory in Georgia was fair and accurate.

Trump dismissed their arguments.

"The people of Georgia are angry, the people in the country are angry," he said. "And there's nothing wrong with saying, you know, um, that you've recalculated."

Raffensperger responded: "Well, Mr. President, the challenge that you have is, the data you have is wrong."

At another point, Trump said: "So look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state."

The rambling and at times incoherent conversation offered a remarkable glimpse of how consumed and desperate the president remains about his loss, unwilling or unable to let the matter go and still believing he can reverse the results in enough battleground states to remain in office.

"There's no way I lost Georgia," Trump said, a phrase he repeated again and again on the call. "There's no way. We won by hundreds of thousands of votes." . . .

During their conversation, Trump issued a vague threat to both Raffensperger and Ryan Germany, the secretary of state's general counsel, suggesting that if they don't find that thousands of ballots in Fulton County have been illegally destroyed to block investigators — an allegation for which there is no evidence — they would be subject to criminal liability. . . .

Throughout the call, Trump detailed an exhaustive list of disinformation and conspiracy theories to support his position. He claimed without evidence that he had won Georgia by at least a half-million votes. He floated a barrage of assertions that have been investigated and disproved: that thousands of dead people voted; that an Atlanta election worker scanned 18,000 forged ballots three times each and "100 percent" were for Biden; that thousands more voters living out of state came back to Georgia illegally just to vote in the election.

"So tell me, Brad, what are we going to do? We won the election, and it's not fair to take it away from us like this," Trump said. "And it's going to be very costly in many ways. And I think you have to say that you're going to reexamine it, and you can reexamine it, but reexamine it with people that want to find answers, not people who don't want to find answers."

Trump did most of the talking on the call. He was angry and impatient, calling Raffensperger a "child" and "either dishonest or incompetent" for not believing there was widespread ballot fraud in Atlanta . . .

He also took aim at Kemp's 2018 opponent, Democrat Stacey Abrams, trying to shame Raffensperger with the idea that his refusal to embrace fraud has helped her and Democrats generally. "Stacey Abrams is laughing about you," he said. "She's going around saying, 'These guys are dumber than a rock.'" . . .

The secretary of state repeatedly sought to push back, saying at one point, "Mr. President, the problem you have with social media, they — people can say anything."

"Oh this isn't social media," Trump retorted. "This is Trump media. It's not social media. It's really not. It's not social media. I don't care about social media. I couldn't care less." . . .

It was clear from the call that Trump has surrounded himself with aides who have fed his false perceptions that the election was stolen.

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Pence "Welcomes The Efforts" Of Republicans To Commit Sedition; Their Goal Is To Disqualify States' Electoral Votes, Though They Refuse To Say Which States And Refuse To Present Any Evidence Of Fraud (Fun Fact: Most Of These Fucknuts Will Be Voting To Nullify The Results Of Elections They Won)

Vice President Mike Pence "welcomes the efforts" of the many anti-democracy senators who have publicly expressed their willingness to commit sedition and advocate the overthrow of the incoming government of the United States.

On Wednesday, January 6. Pence will oversee the formal certification of the election results by the House and Senate. Numerous Republicans have vowed to take steps to have the electoral votes in some states disqualified because of "fraud", although no evidence of any fraud in any state has been presented in the two months since the election.

Donald Trump's "elite strike force" of conspiracy-minded, farting, virus-contracting lawyers have lost 61 of 62 cases in court (the one win was having the election commission move the early voting postmark deadline from 3 days to 6 days (BFD)), mainly because they have presented zero evidence of the thing they cannot stop alleging. In fact, when actually in court, before a judge who is not keen on perjury, Trump's lawyers have consistently stated there was no election fraud at all.

This is mainly a grift in which Trump is fleecing tens of millions of dollars from his easily-duped cult members (most of which he will be able to personally pocket). Pence is going along with that charade, although Trump will make sure he doesn't benefit from it. What is not a charade is this blatant authoritarian attempt to do away with what remains of American democracy.

Washington Post:

Though Pence's role is strictly ceremonial, lawyer Sidney Powell and other conspiracy-minded Trump allies are trying to convince the president that Pence has the power to overturn the election by rejecting some of Biden's electors, according to two senior administration officials with knowledge of the conversations

Trump has made plain his goal with the certification process: to overturn the results of an election he insists was "rigged," though he has produced no evidence to support that claim. . . .

Pence and others have explained to Trump that the vice president does not have the power to take substantive action on Wednesday, such as moving to invalidate the results . . .

Trump has been in a rancid state since his November loss to Biden. Obsessed with conspiracy theories fed to him by Powell, his personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani and other allies, he has aired grievances at will on Twitter and been easily provoked to lash out at aides.

"All of us are just trying to stay off the radar," one senior administration official said. "You have a conversation with him and, the next thing you know, you're pulled into, 'Hey, Sidney Powell told me yadda, yadda, yadda,' or, 'Rudy said blah, blah, blah.' There's no upside to being in his orbit right now."

Luke Broadwater, New York Times, January 2, 2021:

Vice President Mike Pence signaled support on Saturday for a futile Republican bid to overturn the election in Congress next week, after 11 Republican senators and senators-elect said that they would vote to reject President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s victory when the House and Senate meet to formally certify it.

The announcement by the senators — and Mr. Pence's move to endorse it — reflected a groundswell among Republicans to defy the unambiguous results of the election and indulge President Trump's attempts to remain in power with false claims of voting fraud.

Every state in the country has certified the election results after verifying their accuracy, many following postelection audits or hand counts. Judges across the country, and a Supreme Court with a conservative majority, have rejected nearly 60 attempts by Mr. Trump and his allies to challenge the results.

And neither Mr. Pence nor any of the senators who said they would vote to invalidate the election has made a specific allegation of fraud, instead offering vague suggestions that some wrongdoing might have occurred and asserting that many of their supporters believe that it has.

The senators' opposition to certifying Mr. Biden's election will not change the outcome. But it guarantees that what would normally be a perfunctory session on Capitol Hill on Wednesday to ratify the results of the presidential election will instead become a partisan brawl, in which Republicans amplify specious claims of widespread election rigging that have been debunked and dismissed for weeks even as Mr. Trump has stoked them. . . .

[This poses] a political dilemma for Republicans, forcing them to choose between accepting the results of a democratic election — even if it means angering supporters who dislike the outcome and could punish them at the polls — and joining their colleagues in displaying unflinching loyalty to Mr. Trump, who has demanded in increasingly angry fashion that they back his bid to cling to the presidency. . . .

[O]n Saturday evening, Marc Short, his chief of staff, issued a statement saying that Mr. Pence "shares the concerns of millions of Americans about voter fraud and irregularities in the last election."

The vice president, the statement continued, "welcomes the efforts of members of the House and Senate to use the authority they have under the law to raise objections and bring forward evidence before the Congress and the American people on Jan. 6th."

In a joint statement on Saturday, the Senate Republicans — including seven senators and four who are to be sworn in on Sunday — called for a 10-day audit of election returns in "disputed states," and said they would vote to reject the electors from those states until one was completed. They did not elaborate on which states.

The group is led by Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and includes Senators Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, James Lankford of Oklahoma, Steve Daines of Montana, John Kennedy of Louisiana, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Mike Braun of Indiana, and Senators-elect Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, Roger Marshall of Kansas, Bill Hagerty of Tennessee and Tommy Tuberville of Alabama.

Together with Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, who announced this week that he would object to Congress's certification of the election results, they bring to nearly one-quarter the proportion of Senate Republicans who have broken with their leaders to join the effort to invalidate Mr. Biden's victory. In the House, where a band of conservatives has been plotting the last-ditch election objection for weeks, more than half of Republicans joined a failed lawsuit seeking to overturn the will of the voters, and more are expected to support the effort to challenge the results in Congress next week.

Representative Mo Brooks, Republican of Alabama, has said he will object to certifying the results, and with Mr. Hawley's support, that challenge would hold weight, prompting senators and representatives to retreat to their chambers on opposite sides of the Capitol for a two-hour debate and then a vote on whether to disqualify a state's votes. Both the Democratic-controlled House and Republican-controlled Senate would have to agree to toss out a state's electoral votes — something that has not happened since the 19th century and is not expected to this time.

In their statement, the Republicans cited poll results showing most members of their party believe the election was "rigged," an assertion that Mr. Trump has made for months, and which has been repeated in the right-wing news media and by many Republican members of Congress. . . .

"These baseless claims have already been examined and dismissed by Trump's own attorney general, dozens of courts and election officials from both parties," said Mike Gwin, a spokesman for Mr. Biden's campaign. . . .

Mr. Trump continues to perpetuate the myth of widespread voter fraud, [and] a growing number of Republicans in Congress have been eager to challenge the results, either out of devotion to the president or out of fear of enraging the base of their party that still reveres him even in defeat.

That is the case even though the vast majority of them just won elections in the very same balloting they are now claiming was fraudulently administered. . . .

While Broadwater writes that the expected actions have no chance of succeeding, that is truly beside the point. He does state numerous times that these claims of fraud are without merit and have been repeatedly debunked, although "specious" is a pretty weak word to use. However, he goes out of his way to present the Republicans' dilemma of siding with Democracy or Trump without noting what these House and Senate members are doing is sedition, a clearly-defined crime that carries the possibility of 20 years in prison.

And it's only after writing roughly 80% of his article (1,420 of 1,804 words), and in his 30th paragraph (out of 37), does Mr. Broadwater give the long history of Trump acting as The Boy Who Cried 'It Was Rigged' whenever he lost anything and how he has been lying with every breath since November 3 about the results.

For years, Mr. Trump has railed against contests in which he lost, disliked the outcome or feared he might be defeated. He objected to the results of the Emmys, falsely claimed President Barack Obama did not win the popular vote, asserted that Mr. Cruz "stole" a primary victory from him in Iowa in 2016 and predicted that the election in which he defeated the Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton would be "rigged." In the months leading up to November's election, he also warned that he would be cheated out of a victory, and refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power.

As Mr. Biden racked up victories in November, Mr. Trump indulged in increasingly outlandish fictions, spreading disinformation about the election's results and encouraging his followers to challenge the vote at every step. In recent weeks, as his legal defeats have stacked up, the president has become more vitriolic in his condemnations of Republicans who fail to support his false claims of having been the true victor in the election, and has lavished praise on those who parrot his accusations. . . .

That no-nonsense perspective would have offered a fuller context if placed far earlier in the article.


Trump's "Economic Adviser" Goes On Fox And Supports Nancy Pelosi For President!
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Saturday, January 02, 2021

Trump Toady In Congress Suggesting Cult Members "Go To The Streets" And Be "Violent" If Election Not Overthrown

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Friday, January 01, 2021

140 Republicans Are Planning A Seditious Coup To Overthrow The Government; The House Speaker Has The Power (And The Constitutional Obligation) To Refuse To Seat Them — There Is Historical Precedent — But, Unfortunately, Pelosi Is A Coward

United States Code, 2006 Edition, Supplement 5, Title 18 - Crimes and Criminal Procedure
Part I - Crimes
Chapter 115 - Treason, Sedition, and Subversive Activities
§2381. Treason

Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

(June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 807; Pub. L. 103–322, title XXXIII, §330016(2)(J), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2148.)

§2382. Misprision of treason

Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States and having knowledge of the commission of any treason against them, conceals and does not, as soon as may be, disclose and make known the same to the President or to some judge of the United States, or to the governor or to some judge or justice of a particular State, is guilty of misprision of treason and shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than seven years, or both.

(June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 807; Pub. L. 103–322, title XXXIII, §330016(1)(H), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2147.)

§2383. Rebellion or insurrection

Whoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

(June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 808; Pub. L. 103–322, title XXXIII, §330016(1)(L), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2147.)

§2384. Seditious conspiracy

If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.

(June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 808; July 24, 1956, ch. 678, §1, 70 Stat. 623; Pub. L. 103–322, title XXXIII, §330016(1)(N), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2148.)

§2385. Advocating overthrow of Government

Whoever knowingly or willfully advocates, abets, advises, or teaches the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying the government of the United States or the government of any State, Territory, District or Possession thereof, or the government of any political subdivision therein, by force or violence, or by the assassination of any officer of any such government; or

Whoever, with intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of any such government, prints, publishes, edits, issues, circulates, sells, distributes, or publicly displays any written or printed matter advocating, advising, or teaching the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force or violence, or attempts to do so; or

Whoever organizes or helps or attempts to organize any society, group, or assembly of persons who teach, advocate, or encourage the overthrow or destruction of any such government by force or violence; or becomes or is a member of, or affiliates with, any such society, group, or assembly of persons, knowing the purposes thereof—

Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.

If two or more persons conspire to commit any offense named in this section, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.

As used in this section, the terms “organizes” and “organize”, with respect to any society, group, or assembly of persons, include the recruiting of new members, the forming of new units, and the regrouping or expansion of existing clubs, classes, and other units of such society, group, or assembly of persons.

(June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 808; July 24, 1956, ch. 678, §2, 70 Stat. 623; Pub. L. 87–486, June 19, 1962, 76 Stat. 103; Pub. L. 103–322, title XXXIII, §330016(1)(N), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2148.)
["Historical and Revision Notes" and "Amendments" omitted.]
Senators Expelled For Supporting The Confederacy:

1861
James M. Mason, Virginia
Robert M.T. Hunter, North Carolina
Thomas L. Clingman, North Carolina
Thomas Bragg, South Carolina
James Chesnut, Jr., South Carolina
Alfred O.P. Nicholson, Tennessee
William K. Sebastian, Arkansas
Charles B. Mitchel, Arkansas
John Hemphill, Texas
Louis Wigfall, Texas
John C. Breckinridge, Kentucky (former Vice President (1857 to 1861) )
1862
Trusten Polk, Missouri
Waldo P. Johnson, Missouri
Jesse D. Bright, Kentucky
Note: One reason Donald Trump vetoed the Defense Spending Bill last week was because he supports US military bases being named for Confederate generals.
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If December's Death Rate Continues Through the Winter, US Death Toll Could Be 600,000 By April 2021

And so Donald Trump continues his decades-long record of being completely wrong about everything. You would think at some point in the last 30-40 years, he would have been lucky and blurted out a correct statement at least once. . . . But, no. He is astonishingly stupid and his record will likely never be broken.

December was the deadliest month of the pandemic in the United States, by far, with nearly 80,000 deaths. On September 11, 2001, 2,977 people died in the terrorist attacks. In December, an average of 2,566 Americans died from COVID-19 every single day.

Since Election Day, there have been:
10,684,210 new cases
   115,297 deaths
On November 4:
The single-day high in new cases was 101,426. A record has been set 14 times since then. The single-day high is now 255,774. (A day now with only 101,000 new cases would be cause for a huge celebration.)

The single-day high in deaths was 2,683 (set back on April 21). A new one-day high has been set six times in December. The single-day high is 3,880 deaths.

There were 52,166 people hospitalized with COVID-19 in the US. A record 125,379 hospitalizations were reported on December 31.
Back on May 19, 2020, the University of Washington's Comparative Health Outcomes, Policy and Economics Institute predicted 273,000 deaths by the end of the year. The US passed that figure in late November.

Two separate simulations have forecasted 438,000 dead by March 1, 2021 and 539,000 dead by April 1, 2021.

The US death toll at the end of 2020 was approximately 354,000. If the deaths in each of the first three months of 2021 is equal to the number of deaths in December 2020, reality will be far worse than either of those simulations. There would be 513,000 deaths on March 1 and 592,000 deaths on April 1.

Some perspective: The US has 354,000 deaths. Only one other country has more than 150,000 deaths (Brazil), three other countries have passed 100,000 deaths. and only nine have experienced more than 44,000 deaths.

Among countries with populations over 100 million, the US ranks #1 with 1,067 deaths per one million in population. The next four countries: Mexico (971), Brazil (914), Russia (391), and India (107).
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