Gratitude on Thanksgiving 2020

Today is Thanksgiving, created in 1863 by President Abraham Lincoln and now a traditional time for giving thanks. Gratitude—at least a small part of it—I feel today:

• I have a home and food with enough money to keep the status quo.
• I have wonderful friends and a loving partner who share my life.
• I am healthy and hope that my caution continues to keep me safe.
• I have a new president-elect and vice president-elect (I hope!) who will bring back democracy and sanity to our country.
• I am looking forward to the possibility of a successful vaccine. 

I hope you have the same advantages and are willing to keep them through sharing responsibilities and preserving the rights of all, not just a few.

Indifference from the current U.S. leadership has caused tremendous suffering for people. Over 70 million claims for unemployment have been filed in 2020; another 12 million may be forced to file before the end of the year. Of the 50 million people who face food-insecurity, 17 million are children. With long waiting lines, food banks run out of food in a few hours. Twenty-one percent of small businesses are closed, up from 16 percent in June. On January 1, the current administration plans to cut food-stamp benefits to over 8,000 poor senior citizens who live in supportive living facilities because Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue decided they don’t qualify. (Perdue is the brother of Georgia’s senatorial candidate, David Perdue.) The 20-year-old program allows facilities to pool food-stamp benefits and purchase food on the behalf of elderly and disabled residents who cannot get to the grocery stores. Denying these 8,000 people food stamps would save the U.S. less than $25 million a year—about eight trips to Mar-a-Lago for Dictator Donald Trump (DDT).

But DDT leaves the White House in 55 days, and his selfish ignorant Cabinet members will most likely also be gone.

Emily Murphy has tentatively moved forward President-elect Joe Biden’s transition with reluctant permission for a slow start. White House chief of staff and others have given contact positions to a few DDT loyalists, permitting them to talk with Biden’s transition team although all others are blocked from speaking to the “other side.” Next Monday, Biden may begin receiving White House briefings although they may be extremely “brief” because White House aides are accustomed to providing one or two pages with illustrations because DDT dislikes reading. DDT refuses to concede, and some employees are afraid to work with the transition team.

Last Tuesday, however, saw at least 20 meetings between Biden aides and DDT officials in every federal agency for active discussions. Secure facilities for the transition team has been set up in Washington D.C. and Wilmington (DE). The government is finally giving Biden government-mandated $6.3 million for the transition which Murphy denied him for over two weeks. During the delay, donors gave Biden almost $7 million.

Also made available to the team are new email addresses and a website domain linked to the federal government. Members have updates on budgets, upcoming protects, and potential regulations, and the FBI will start background checks on Biden’s nominees. Biden’s team also communicated with Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert earmarked for Biden’s coronavirus task force.

Biden’s new appointees briefly spoke after Biden introduced them in a television presentation, driving some Republicans into rage-filled disapproval. Considering the level of GOP incompetence, their anger bodes well for Biden’s selections. Instead of the mandatory obeisance DDT demanded from his Cabinet in all meetings, Biden’s team talked about what they would do for the people of the United States.

Maintaining his positive demeanor, Biden spoke with NBC’s Lester Holt:

“I think we’re going to not be so far behind the curve as we thought we might be in the past. There’s a lot of immediate discussion, and I must say the outreach has been sincere. [It] has not been begrudging so far, and I don’t expect it to be.”

Discussing his foreign policy and national security team, Biden said:

“America is back. Ready to lead the world, not retreat from it, once again to sit at the head of the table. Ready to confront our adversaries and not reject our allies.”

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Biden’s appointment for ambassador to the United Nations, had earlier given the same message:

“My fellow career diplomats and public servants around the world, I want to say to you: America is back, multilateralism is back, diplomacy is back.”

Biden has said that he is willing to meet with DDT, but DDT’s attitude makes that unlikely.

Big business has decided Biden will be president even if DDT is still in denial. GM pulled its name off DDT’s lawsuit to take California’s right to set stricter statewide fuel standards and suggested Toyota and Fiat Chrysler do the same. Mary Barra, GM’s CEO, agrees with Biden “that we can own the 21st century car market again by moving to electric vehicles.” By now almost all world leaders have agreed Biden is the president-elect. The only major holdout is Russian President Vladimir Putin who has said, like DDT, he is waiting for the votes from the electoral college. 

What Biden can immediately do:

• Listen to career officials—even before he gets his own installed—instead of firing them the way that DDT consistently does. For example, Nancy Messonnier warned Congress about COVID-19 nine months ago, and DDT immediately got rid of her.
• Reinstate trust in CDC.
• Resume regular media briefings with information instead of the self-glorification coming from DDT.
• Pay attention to daily White House briefings.
• Restore stability at the Pentagon and overhaul the DHS.

British approval of DDT’s leadership had fallen to 15 percent, two percent lower than that of Russia’s leadership. The UK’s Labour Party leadership called on Prime Minister Boris Johnson to condemn DDT’s refusal to concede the election in another example of support for Biden. After rejoicing about Biden’s election, world leaders and international corporations are back to pre-DDT normal. Bank trade groups met with Biden aides about regulation differences; foreign diplomats have shifted their agendas to previous times; and corporate executives say they want the transition to move forward after Biden was “fairly elected as our next president,” according to CVS Health CEO Larry Merlo. Only DDT’s supporters loved his instability and chaos. Business leaders are even trying to persuade DDT to concede.

When Biden’s win was announced on November 7, NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel said on MSNBC:

“As the results came through tonight, I started to watch the reaction coming in around the world, and people were reacting like the United States had overthrown a dictator, that democracy has been saved, that America’s reputation had been saved…. [In the wake of Trump’s electoral defeat,] the impression of American democracy, through this experience is actually going to be reinforced. I think the impression of the United States as a believer in democracy will be stronger coming, well, starting right now.”

Geopolitics are shifting for both democracies and autocracies such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and China. Biden stated he will host a “Summit for Democracy” soon after he takes office in a 180-degree turn from favoring demagogues. Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu will likely be concerned about where he will fit into the new administration after controlling DDT as will Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. The new president has support from over 80 million voters, the largest number for any president.

[Note: Originally I put DDT instead of Biden as the leader of the free world–so sorry!]  Even without being inaugurated, Biden has become the leader of the free world, something the president of the United States never achieved in almost four years. DDT alienated democratic allies, destroyed U.S. intelligence morale, fired respected people, and assisted foreign enemies, even providing them with classified information. Biden’s initial appointments, although not universally approved by the far left, bring experience and leadership. Janet Yellen as Treasury Secretary, in particular, has already participated in saving the U.S. people from another recession caused by another U.S. president.

As DDT’s lawsuits continue, ad infinitum, I still worry, but I feel much lighter this Thanksgiving Day than I have for the last four, when DDT’s election brought a darkness to our world.

GOP Definition of Election Fraud: DDT Lost

President-elect Joe Biden:

From Max Moran: 277 policies Biden can enact on his first day.

With the shortening of transition time, Republicans are losing valuable time to smear Cabinet recommendations and the Democrats’ upcoming presidential actions. Instead, the conservative media is filled with conservative stories ad infinitum about the non-existent election fraud and stories of sobbing supporters claiming they will die for Dictator Donald Trump (DDT) or organizing militias to kill anyone who opposes DDT. The GOP is also becoming more split than before the election as some conservatives start to grudgingly reject QAnon conspiracy theories and accept DDT as a loser. GOP lawmakers, conservative lawyers, and right wing media figures admit DDT’s legal team should either back up their claims with evidence or quit.

Tucker Carlson criticized DDT’s lawyer Sidney Powell when she got “angry” because he asked her for proof of election fraud. He reported she told him to stop contacting her for evidence. A QAnon member, Powell shared the lie at yesterday’s press conference about how communist countries installed an algorithm to flip voting machines from DDT to Biden. Like other conspiracy theories, the claim hasn’t been presented in court.

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) tweeted:

“Having failed to make even a plausible case of widespread fraud or conspiracy before any court of law, the President has now resorted to overt pressure on state and local officials to subvert the will of the people and overturn the election. It is difficult to imagine a worse, more undemocratic action by a sitting American President.”

Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) ridiculed DDT’s legal team for allegations of “grand fraud” without going to court with them. He referenced the legal penalties “for lying to judges.” Even loyal conservative Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) said, “This is a time for evidence in court.”

After twice endorsing DDT, the editorial board at the Las Vegas Review-Journal, owned by DDT’s billionaire donor Sheldon Adelson, wrote DDT is doing a “disservice to his more rabid supporters by insisting that he would have won the Nov. 3 election absent voter fraud.” GOP strategist Karl Rove, influential in the George W. Bush administration, wrote at the Wall Street Journal that “this election won’t be overturned.” The editorial board at the Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post editorial board told DDT to “stop the stolen election rhetoric” and to “get Rudy Giuliani off TV.” At the conservative National Review, Andrew McCarthy, cataloging DDT’s legal setbacks, asserted the effort is doomed.

Attorney Jonathan Turley, DDT defender through the impeachment trial, commented DDT’s lawyers not filing their “sweeping claims” in court is “breathtaking.

House Democrats wrote Emily Murphy to appear before the Oversight and Appropriations committees on Monday to explain why she has not begun the transition period. The administration followed this law for every other president-elect in modern times except for George W. Bush during the dispute about fewer than 2,000 votes in Florida. Although the Supreme Court stopped the vote and determined Bush the person to be inaugurated, a final vote showed Al Gore won the state and the election by over 600 votes. Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) tweeted Murphy with the letter demanding her presence in the House:  

“We have been incredibly patient, @GSAEmily, but we can wait no longer. Your refusal to follow the law is active and existential threat to our democratic norms and institutions. You owe us, and the American people, an explanation. We are demanding you provide one. By Monday.”

In his heartless sabotage of Biden’s economy, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin wants to not only refuse people $455 billion from the CARES Act but to also destabilize financial markets by terminating five of nine lending programs. The Federal Reserve objected to recklessly withdrawing emergency programs allowing them flexibility just as COVID-19 is skyrocketing. In his private life, Mnuchin was known for “widow foreclosures,” one of them for $0.27 on a 90-year-old woman.   

DDT:

DDT briefly appeared from hiding today today to claim “I won.”

After top GOP Michigan leaders visited with DDT in the White House, they reported:

They had “not yet been made aware of any information that would change the outcome.” [They think they may still find some “information”?]

“We will follow the law and follow the normal process regarding Michigan’s electors, just as we have said throughout this election.” [What do they see as “the law” and “normal”? And as they have “said,” in a state where two Republicans are denying certification for Biden because of their impression of election fraud—i.e., Biden won.”]

“Allegations of fraudulent behavior should be taken serious, thoroughly investigated, and if proven, prosecuted to the full extent of the law.” [What do the Republicans see as “proven”?]

Republicans are good at twisting claims. For example, Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) said last week he would “step in” if DDT didn’t begin the transition to Biden; this week, he said he didn’t mean he’d really do anything. He just had the ability.

DDT is working through GOP legislators in the swing states, now considering those from Pennsylvania. Too late for Georgia: they certified the vote for the Electoral College today.

DDT Lawsuits:

DDT’s legal team used data from Minnesota as (false) evidence of election fraud in Michigan. Lawyers are also using affidavits as evidence, for example one from a Texas resident working in cybersecurity claiming susceptible tallying machines in Michigan. The same claim reported votes switched from DDT to Biden in “Antium County, Michigan.” No county of this name exists in the U.S., let alone Michigan. Any mistaken voting tallies in “Antrium County” were already corrected. All 83 Michigan counties have certified their results, and the state canvassing board meets Monday, November 23, to determine its certification.

A judge dismissed an Arizona case, the last pending one in the state, based on two voters stating their votes were not correctly counted. The five-member Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, four of five Republicans, voted unanimously to certify the election results.  

Nevada expects to certify its statewide results on Tuesday, November 24, the day before a Carson City judge is scheduled to hear DDT’s request to overturn or annul all Nevada’s votes.  

DDT’s new attempts at litigation in Pennsylvania include a demand that certification of votes be blocked and 1.5 million mail-in ballots in seven counties, the ones he lost, be examined. No one has reported widespread fraud or irregularities in those counties so he wants certification blocked until someone finds evidence. Monday, November 23, is the state deadline to certify votes for the Electoral College. Berks County, which DDT won by eight points, said it won’t do it until the next day. DDT’s goal is to have GOP legislators pick the representatives to vote for DDT in the electoral college meeting on December 14. (Deadlines for state certification of votes.) 

DDT’s COVID-19:

Among those recently posting positive: DDT’s son, Donald Trump Jr; Rudy Giuliani’s son, Andrew Giuliani; and at least three more White House aides. Yesterday Andrew, special assistant to DDT, attended his father’s superspreader two-hour press conference in a tightly-packed room at the RNC. His father didn’t look well. Last night on Fox network’s Sean Hannity show, Giuliani said someone should “cut the head off” Democrat leaders and made a throat-slitting motion. He had added a German company to the list of conspiracy figures to elect Biden.

Yesterday, Sen. Ron Johnson’s (R-WI) DHS committee hearing didn’t get much traction against Rudy Giuliani’s meltdown about election fraud, but the event, stacked with hydroxychloroquine advocates, lasted two hours. Johnson is still pushing for approval of DDT’s favorite drug to be given as a cure for COVID-19 although it has been discredited for that purpose. Ashish Jha, the one authority who was invited by a Democrat, called the hearing “a testament to how politicized science has become.” He tweeted:  

“I shared evidence of studies that have failed to find benefit of HCQ. Three other witnesses shared personal experiences. And suggested my testimony was reckless because it would deny people access to lifesaving HCQ. I found myself defending evidence, doctors, and scientists.”

Commenting on the hearing, another doctor said that people may be debating in the future if aspirin is a Republican or a Democratic drug. Fortunately for rational Wisconsinites, Johnson has promised not to run for reelection in two years.

From DDT:

“THE COVID DRUGS NOW AVAILABLE TO MAKE PROPLE BETTER ARE AMAZING, BUT SELDOM TALKED ABOUT BY THE MEDIA! Mortality rate is 85% down!”

Forty-two years ago this week, over 900 people died in Guyana after their cult leader, Jim Jones, encouraged them to kill themselves by drinking a poison-laced liquid similar to Kool-Aid. Yulanda Williams, a survivor who became a police officer, compared DDT’s rhetoric to that of Jones. She said:

“When we say Jonestown is the most tragic incident of a massacre of people, I say don’t forget about the commander in chief who is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.” 

She is not alone in her beliefs.

“The American people know how to protect their health. We’ve dealt with COVID for many months,” press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said on Fox News.  On November 20, 2020, the total number of new cases rose above 200,000, the total was over 12 million, and the number of deaths came to almost 2,000 for the day.

Biden Works, DDT Retaliates

President-elect Joe Biden:

Dictator Donald Trump (DDT) told an ally he lost but delays the transition process and sows doubt about the election to retaliate for Democrats’ questioning his own election’s legitimacy, especially with the Russian investigation. He said it’s only fair he not allow the transition and won’t back down. To DDT, his 70+ million votes give him ultimate power and authority. Biden leads by almost six million votes and has 306 electoral votes compared to DDT’s 232. DDT’s niece, Mary Trump, stated:

“He’s never in his life been in a situation that he can’t get out of either through using somebody else’s money, using connections, using power. And not only is he in a unique position, he’s in a position of being a loser, which in my family, certainly, as far as my grandfather was concerned, was the worst possible thing you could be.”

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), the sole Republican to vote against DDT in the impeachment trial, expressed more concern about DDT’s actions during the next 62 days than his not allowing a transition. About taking the troops out of Afghanistan, Romney said:

“We have some 40 coalition members that also have troops there. For us to pull our troops out obviously puts our remaining troops in some danger, as well as their troops. And they wonder, ‘how do we deal in a coalition with the United States leading it if there is a decision taken on a precipitous basis with which we may or may not have been familiar that puts our troops in jeopardy?’”

Newly elected lawmakers are nervous about DDT’s idea that the entire election was corrupt and fraudulent. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), returning for a second term, didn’t like today’s statement from DDT’s lawyer Sidney Powell:

“In terms of the level of corruption we are looking at here, we have no idea how many Republican or Democratic candidates … paid to have the system rigged to work for them.”

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin wants to sabotage Biden’s economy. He told Fed Chair Jerome Powell to put Congress in control of reallocating $455 billion originated by law for businesses, nonprofits, and local governments. Almost half the 22.7 million people losing jobs in the U.S. in 2020 because of DDT’s poorly managed pandemic are still out of work, and the economic recovery is fading. The Fed told Mnuchin the CARES programs should be extended. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Chief Policy Officer agreed, saying that action on Mnuchin’s request “unnecessarily ties the hands of the incoming administration.”

Biden might be able to solve the foreign policy issues early in his administration, according to suggested by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies:

• End the U.S. role in the Saudi-led war on Yemen and restore U.S. humanitarian aid to Yemen in accord with the War Powers Resolution passed by Congress but vetoed by DDT.
• Suspend all U.S. arms sales and transfers to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), according to another DDT-vetoed congressional bill. U.S. laws require the suspension of arms transfers for use in violating U.S. and international law.
• Rejoin the Iran Nuclear Agreement (JCPOA) and lift sanctions on Iran to stop an impending war, and give up regime change in Iran to deescalate Middle East conflicts.
• End U.S. threats and sanctions against officials of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and accept the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
• Back the diplomacy of South Korea President Moon Jae-in for a “permanent peace regime,” and formally end the Korean War of the 1950s.
• Renew New START with Russia to freeze the U.S.’s trillion-dollar new nuclear plan.
• Lift illegal unilateral U.S. sanctions against other countries.
• Move to normalize relations with Cuba.
• Restore pre-2015 rules of engagement to stop killing civilians.Freeze U.S. military spending to reduce it. At the end of the Cold War, then-Pentagon officials told the Senate that U.S. military spending could be cut in half over the next ten years. The exploitation of 9/11 made an excuse to create the one-sided arms race in which the U.S. spent 45 percent of global military costs from 2003 to 2011, far more than peak Cold War military expenditures.

Earlier this week, Biden had a conference on COVID-19, attended by healthcare workers who filled him in on the issues, including the lack of PPE. Not to be outdone, DDT had his first coronavirus task force press conference since July, the first time in a week he appeared in an official public event. It did not end well when DDT and VP Mike Pence refused to take questions after the event.

Dr. Deborah Birx showed a map (left) indicating how the virus covered the U.S. A chart (below) showing the increase in cases refutes Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) promise the U.S. will be virus-free after November 3. Dr. Scott Atlas was not present to tell people to invite people for Thanksgiving so that they would die.

DDT: 

The story of Wayne County (MI) GOP canvassing board officials hasn’t stopped. Tuesday, two Republicans refused to certify legal votes for the electoral college before reversing their vote three hours later. Yesterday they tried to rescind their rescinding—after a personal call from DDT who admired the “courage” of the two Republicans because they “refused to certify the election results!” Monica Palmer, GOP chairperson of the board, said DDT’s call to her and board member William Hartmann had nothing to do with her rechange of heart and blamed the state for not living up to its promise of an independent audit.

Today, DDT invited both Republicans to visit him at the White House tomorrow along with Michigan state Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey and House Speaker Lee Chatfield. Shirkey already declared Biden the president-elect, stating an effort to award Michigan’s electoral votes to Trump was “not going to happen.” DDT’s campaign also withdrew its last federal lawsuit in Michigan, falsely claiming that local election officials had declined to certify the votes in Wayne County. CNN attempted a fact check on Giuliani’s statements, including a large number of overvotes. Not only was this statement false, but 2016 also had more overvotes when DDT won the state.

According to the office of the Michigan secretary of state, the state has “no legal mechanism for them to rescind their vote.”  A judge has already ruled against action to block the certification of these votes.

Disgusting images from Hartmann’s public Facebook page about President Obama and other disgusting ones from the man trying to remove 863,000 votes from the Michigan voters. 

DDT Recounts:

After a hand count of all votes, Georgia declared the state for Biden with 12,284 more votes than DDT. Of the 5,800+ uncovered ballots, DDT gained almost 1,400 votes.

DDT Lawsuits:  

Today, state judges in Arizona and Pennsylvania and a federal judge in Georgia rejected election-related lawsuits from Republicans and DDT’s campaign.

Yesterday, DDT’s lawyers demanded all 6.8+ million votes in Pennsylvania be thrown out and the state legislature declare the 20 electoral college votes for DDT. Biden won the state by over 85,000 votes.

With DDT’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani in charge, the case isn’t going well. Major media kindly called him “rusty” as he forgot his conspiracy theories can’t replace evidence in a courtroom, and he couldn’t remember which judge was hearing the case. About the opposing attorney, Giuliani said, “I forgot his name.” Tweeting during the case wasn’t a good idea either. In one awkward exchange, he couldn’t remember the definition for “opacity,” believing “it probably means you can see, right?” The judge had to explain that opacity means the opposite: “It means you can’t.” Giuliani responded, “Big words, your honor.”

The judge canceled an evidentiary hearing scheduled for Thursday and gave each side three more days to file arguments. Pennsylvania still has seven active cases, none of which challenge enough ballots to change the state’s and the Electoral College vote. Counties in Pennsylvania must certify their votes by Tuesday, November 24. On Fox network last night, Giuliani explained bogus lawsuits are a “vehicle” to get to the Supreme Court who will give the election to DDT.  

(Credit Image: © Tom Williams/Congressional Quarterly via ZUMA Press)

Because Giuliani couldn’t answer the judge’s question about how he was justifying disenfranchising over 6.8 million voters in the state, his press conference today spouted more “fantasy island” comments about “widespread, nationwide voter fraud.” The plot recited by Giuliani and Michael Flynn’s Fox network lawyer Sidney Powell delivered a vast world conspiracy to elect Biden: Biden’s campaign, George Soros, Antifa, the media, the Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez (who died over seven years ago), Germany, China, Cuba, leading social media and technology companies, two voting technology firms, Democratic officials, and cities with mostly Black voters. “Globalist dictators, corporations, you name it! Everybody is against us,” Powell said. NBC host compared Giuliani’s press conference to “a Saturday Night Live skit.” More sordid details here. 

The media pointed out the brown hair dye running down Giuliani’s face in the sweat, and he looks must worse on video–seemingly ill. Fox aired Giuliani’s complete press conference before claiming it wasn’t true—“light on facts” and “simply not true,” according to Kristin Fisher.

Seth Hettena has a well-researched history of how Giuliani, once one of the most respected heroes of the United States, shrank to today’s appearance, a crazy toady of DDT.

Until November 4, 2020, DDT convinced his followers the coronavirus would magically disappear on that day. By November 19, over two weeks later, COVID-19 has worsened every day, hitting over 12 million in the U.S. today with 192,186 new cases and over 2,000 deaths.

Biden Works, DDT Kills

President-elect Joe Biden:

Officials, currently in the administration of Dictator Donald Trump (DDT) as well as former ones and all aware of the importance of national security, are quietly reaching out to Biden’s transition team although Emily Murphy, GSA direction, refuses to start the process. One official described the outreach effort as putting duty to country over party considerations. Although conversations cannot replace formal briefings, they can explain the issues Biden needs to address after January 20.

HHS Secretary Alex Azar has ordered anyone in his agencies not to communicate with Biden’s team and told them to alert the deputy surgeon general of any requested communication. Azar said, “We’re about … saving lives here,” as he keeps Biden from knowledge that can save people’s lives. Policy staffers at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the immigration agency that handles paperwork like naturalization forms, got the same orders. Part of the goal may be to hide the agency’s abuses and radicalization, disclosed by former USCIS chief counsel Ur Jaddou, now a member of Biden’s transition team.

Illegally led by racist Ken Cuccinelli who refuses to leave despite a judicial decision, USCIS now has a revised citizenship test creating a greater barrier for applicants. The oral test has over two dozen more questions, 128 in all, with a higher number of mandated correct answers. Answers to questions have also been changed. For example, the correct answer to “who does a U.S. Senator represent” was formerly “all the people of the state.” Now the answer is “citizens of their state.” The exam goes into effect on December 1.

Republicans continue to stall the transition, saying it will happen “on time”—which was actually almost two weeks ago.

Pentagon officials confirmed they hadn’t formally begun the transition process but they have started providing unclassified briefing material, which is permitted. Some officials were also willing to meet off site with some of the Biden transition team if Murphy refuses to permit the process into December. Officials agreed with Biden that the his team could not learn about protecting the safety of U.S. troops if they wait until after mid-December. 

While DDT sulks in the White House, Biden spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Reuven Rivlin, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, among other world leaders. Netanyahu said they had a “warm conversation” and agreed to meet soon. Modi also hailed the election of part-Indian Kamala Harris as vice president.

Congressional members on both sides of the aisle are upset about DDT’s firing Chris Krebs, the top cybersecurity official who protected both elections and the power grid. In addition, his agency is in charge of protecting hospitals and vaccine researchers from hacking. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said:

“It just adds to the confusion and chaos, and I’m sure I’m not the only one that would like some return to a little bit more of a—I don’t even know what’s normal anymore. We’ll call it the next normal.”

Other GOP senators who praised Krebs and expressed concern include Mike Rounds (SD), Susan Collins (ME), Richard Burr (NC), Shelley Moore Capito (WV), Ben Sasse (R-OH), and Rob Portman (OH). 

From the White House: The removal of troops from Afghanistan is part of DDT’s plan to sabotage the Biden administration. DDT plans to create so many problems with foreign policy that Biden can’t handle it. Toward this end, DDT’s team is preparing the legally-required transition memos with policy challenges but no actions. National security be damned. A sample:

• Directing new acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller to focus on cyber and irregular warfare, China in particular.
• Considering new terrorist designations in Yemen complicating efforts to broker peace.
• Rushing massive arms sales altering the balance of power in the Middle East with an arms race.
• Floating the idea of a military strike on Iran’s primary nuclear site.
• Building a wall of sanctions and creating new penalties.
• Further expanding illegal Israeli settlement to damage a two-state solution.

DDT is counting on Biden being on DDT’s low level of competence and understanding of diplomacy.

DDT:

DDT plans another superspreader event. Arlington National Cemetery canceled the event “Wreaths across America” because of safety issues for visitors and cemetery staff after consulting with public health officials and the event leaders. DDT overrode Army officials and ordered it reinstated. “It will now go on,” DDT tweeted. Sixty-three days left before DDT is no longer in control.

Reports from Saturday’s “Million MAGA March” in Washington show unregistered firearms, including a loaded submachine gun, from an Atlanta couple affiliated with a militia; an altercation in which a MAGA man hit a counterprotester in the back  and stomped him; and a stabbing in a group of MAGA men with no arrests. Police are also investigating why an officer was with QAnon member Rep.-elect Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA).

DDT’s campaign and Fox’s Tucker Carlson are accusing another live woman of being dead when she voted for Biden in Georgia.

DDT Recount:

DDT is paying Wisconsin $3 million for a recount in two heavily-populated Democratic-leaning counties in another attempt to obtain a majority of the votes or at least block their certification. The selection was supposedly for “the worst irregularities” although state elections chief and local officials had no reports of wrongdoing. The count must be finished by December 1, the deadline for certifying the state’s vote count for electoral votes, but officials estimate it will be finished in less than a week. Four years ago, DDT ridiculed Green Party candidate Jill Stein’s paying $3.5 million for a recount, and his son Eric said the money could have saved at least “5,000 Children’s Lives.” The 2016 recount of the entire state gave DDT another 133 votes. Biden leads DDT 49.6 percent to 48.9 percent—1,630,673 to 1,610,065 votes. In 2016, DDT won the state by 23,000 votes.

The completed Georgia recount found a few minor discrepancies leaving Biden winning by about 0.3 percent. Newest totals will be announced tomorrow. Losing DDT and other Republicans describe the recount as fraudulent. If DDT demands a machine count, it can take up to nine more days. DDT taking Georgia still gives Biden 290 electoral votes, 20 more than he needs to be president.

DDT’s allies called for a protest connected to Georgia’s recount, but social media suggested that the protesters, led by conspiracy-laden Alex Jones, correct “Georiga” State Capitol and suggested they work on their spelling.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is facing an ethics complaint for asking Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to throw away valid ballots. The complaint asks Graham, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, “be recused from any investigation or other Senate matter relating to alleged irregularities in the 2020 election” while any probe of his comments is ongoing. Graham’s spokesman said those who filed the complaint are “longtime vocal critics” of both Graham and DDT. Walter Schaub, one of the complainants, was the director of the United States Office of Government Ethics. He resigned because of DDT’s constant unethical behavior. Raffensperger and his wife have received multiple death threats.

DDT Lawsuits:

In a classic approach toward overturning Biden’s win, DDT is suing Nevada’s Democratic presidential electors, one of the six the former chair of the Clark County (Las Vegas) Democratic Party and a homeless veteran who is now homeless. She lost her job when the U.S. Census ended and lives with a friend. Attorneys claim 15,000 voted in Nevada while voting in another state, 1,000 voters didn’t meet residency requirements, and 500 voters are dead. Thus far, the campaign has no evidence, but they claim “40,000 or more” fraudulent votes in Nevada. A Clark County spokesperson stated:

“They are repeating allegations the courts have already rejected, misstating and misrepresenting evidence provided in those proceedings, and parroting erroneous allegations made by partisans without first-hand knowledge of the facts.”

When Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, promoter of old people dying from the coronavirus, offered $1 million for evidence of voter fraud, he proved the state couldn’t find any. He did get a taker: Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D) pointed to suspected fraud from a DDT supporter. Patrick didn’t follow it up.

DDT and his “herd immunity” spreader Scott Atlas are determined to kill more people by not protecting them from COVID-19. In addition, Atlas is encouraging people to engage in large Thanksgiving celebrations next week. One of his reassurances is that this might be the last Thanksgiving for some of them anyway. More unnecessary deaths will occur because DDT refuses Biden any information about the upcoming vaccines and their distribution. Everything DDT refuses to do now is a death knell for people—and he doesn’t care. He only wants to stay in Oval Office and play golf.

 (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

For the seventh consecutive day—and the eleventh day since his election—he has no public events on his schedule. “It feels like bunker mentality,” a White House official said even before DDT canceled his Thanksgiving trip to Mar-a-Lago.  Outside his north windows, he can watch the building of the reviewing stand on his front lawn for Biden’s inaugural parade. [trump north windows] 

On the other hand, FLOTUS Melania Trump is arrange holiday decorations and planning the parties. Perhaps another season of red trees. [red trees]  And get ready for the government shutdown: the budget deadline is December 11, and Congress has gone home for a while.

Meanwhile, with 173,768 COVID-19 in the U.S. today, the total number will hit 12 million by tomorrow night. The 1,964 deaths in one day are the highest since last spring, bringing the total to 256,262 deaths in the United States.

Twitter flagged seven DDT tweets as lies in 45 minutes, making him more and more frantic. The real meltdown on January 20 may come unnoticed when Twitter drops his account because he no longer has immunity as a political leader to use it.

Biden Works, DDT Obstructs

Sixty-four days before Dictator Donald Trump (DDT) leaves the Oval Office: he fired the man in charge of protecting the nation’s electric grid, two Republicans briefly held up the certification of 863,000 votes in Michigan, DDT’s personal lawyer may have destroyed all validity of DDT’s lawsuits regarding fake election fraud, Emily Murphy still won’t permit the next U.S. president’s transition, and a witness heard a senator violate the law in asking Georgia to throw away valid ballots. And more.

President-elect Biden:

Biden continues to build his team with these nine members. Without a transition, he’s moving in two directions: showing how DDT’s refusal to permit transition hurts people in the U.S. and how roadblocks are stopping him for addresses the nation’s crises. Picks thus far. 

Even if Biden doesn’t investigate DDT, he could get DDT’s tax returns. Biden may prefer not to do this, but a refusal could cause Democrats to lose face after a long battle and court cases for over a year. In August, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (R-CA) said DDT’s records would be released if Biden won, and she doesn’t back down. DDT is the only inaugurated man who hasn’t made his tax returns public since Richard Nixon. DDT will likely file a new suit to prevent their disclosure.

Biden can count on Republicans to not follow through. Last week, Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) promised to personally “step in” and intervene by Friday if Biden weren’t permitted classified information. This week, he said, “I’m not in a hurry, necessarily, to get Joe Biden these briefings.” He said he meant he could take care of it if he wanted to. After the election, Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) said DDT’s lawyers had to give evidence to support claims of election fraud; two days later Blunt said DDT “may not have been defeated at all.”

Republicans agree they don’t like DDT’s decision to drop service members in Afghanistan down to 2,500 before he left the Oval Office. Followed by other GOP senators, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), DDT’s top loyalist, lambasted the idea as hurting national security. Undermining democracy is fine, but moving troops back to the U.S. is too much for them. The Pentagon wasn’t happy about the idea of bringing troops home with no justification so DDT just fired his appointees and got new ones who would follow any of his poorly thought-out orders. 

Reasons for opposing DDT’s plans, some of them from the military:

• DDT is not meeting the conditions of withdrawal in the U.S.-Taliban agreement. 
• Taliban fighters can take control of Afghanistan and make it a base for terrorists.
• Rapid withdrawal hurts our allies.
• Afghanistan, like Saigon before, will fall quickly, compromising operations against terrorists.

DDT:

DDT’s Fire:

After Christopher Krebs, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), protected the elections in the U.S. and ran a website debunking false rumors, DDT terminated him with a tweet. Krebs said “59 election security experts all agree, ‘in every case of which we are aware, these claims [of manipulated election systems] either have been unsubstantiated or are technically incoherent.’” CISA works with state and local officials running U.S. elections, private companies supplying voting equipment addressing cybersecurity and other threats, the monitoring of balloting and tabulation, and industry and utilities to protect the nation’s industrial base and power grid from threats. Firing Krebs leaves the nation’s power grid wide open to the possibility of hacking.

DDT’s Recounts:

Graham said he only talked to Raffensperger about election procedures, but Gabriel Sterling, voting system manager, reported Graham asking if Raffensperger could throw out all the ballots if a percentage of signatures don’t match. Asked why he called Raffensperger, Graham said he also talked about election procedures with Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey and someone in Nevada. Neither Nevada nor Arizona secretaries of state heard from Graham. His interference in a state election could be a felony.

Today, two GOP-appointed board members refused to certify the votes of Michigan’s Wayne County, home to Detroit and the state most populous county, before reversing their position after a huge public backlash. The two had no reason to block the certification except to eliminate enough ballots to hand the state to DDT. Biden won the county by over 37 percent.

Georgia’s hand recount, scheduled to be completed by tomorrow night, won’t replace the official tally with Biden leading by about 14,000 votes, according to Georgia’s election officials who obtained legal advice. Any serious county discrepancies, such as the discovery of 2,600 uncounted ballots in Floyd County, will result in redoing machine counts for a new total becoming part of the official count. The new Floyd County count puts DDT’s state loss at 13,378. Sterling said the hand count is to verify which candidate won, not to establish a perfect vote count. Thus far, the manual count closely matches the original counts. Candidates have the right to a recount if they lose by less than 0.5 percent; another recount would rescan ballots through computers.

DDT has until tomorrow to decide whether to pay almost $8 million for a recount in Wisconsin, almost four times the cost for Green Party candidate Jill Stein in 2016. Additional charges come from the coronavirus, a shorter time frame, and increased security needs. Biden is ahead in the state by over 20,000 votes. An audit of Milwaukee County gave Biden a 17-vote increase. December 1 is Wisconsin’s deadline for certifying the vote. DDT may not have money for the recount because donations are primarily going to his PAC or the RNC.

DDT’s Lawsuits:

DDT’s campaign asked a Carson City court to declare DDT the winner of Nevada’s six presidential electors or annul the election, removing the state’s electoral votes. All lawsuits in Nevada to block or delay vote counting in Democratic-leaning Clark County have been rejected for little or no evidence of wrongdoing and fraud. Former Senate candidate Sharron Angle sued to replace the November 3 election with a completely new one. GOP state Senate candidate April Becker also sued Clark County and its registrar of voters for a new election in her race.

DDT’s legal team met today’s 5:00 pm deadline in Michigan to file proper paperwork to keep its case from being dismissed. This lawsuit is to stop the state’s certification of results until review of the election process. DDT’s team had not added three additional defendants—Detroit and Michigan’s NAACP and DNC.

Over a week ago after the media called the election for Biden/Harris, Pennsylvania attorney Marc Scaringi said on his radio show, “The litigation will not work.” His law firm’s website described Biden as the president-elect because he “successfully claimed the role of the 46^th president of the United States.” That post has been deleted. After five DDT lawyers withdrew, Scaringi joined the DDT legal team to block Pennsylvania from certifying its election results. The judge has refused Scaringi’s request to delay today’s hearing; the judge won’t decide until Friday.

Lead attorney in the In Pennsylvania case, DDT’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani perplexed the judge with wild unsubstantiated allegations about “widespread nationwide voter fraud” before admitting he isn’t alleging fraud. The attorney for the state questioned whether Giuliani understands basic legal procedures. Giuliani also had to admit the complaint had been narrowed by dropping claims about poll watchers lacking access after he had declared the opposite the night before. Although not appearing in federal court since 1992, he maintained he hadn’t tried a case in “four or five years.”

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court reversed a lower court’s ruling, DDT’s only win, that a legal violation in Philadelphia not giving observers access to observe the vote count didn’t exist. State law “requires only that an authorized representative ‘be permitted to remain in the room in which the absentee ballots and mail-in ballots are pre-canvassed,’” according to the opinion signed by five justices.

Put in charge of DDT’s “election fraud” litigation, Giuliani is causing chaotic infighting among the campaign’s legal team and campaign officials. He and newly-assigned lawyer Jenna Ellis are attempting a campaign “coup” by wresting power. They claim DDT gave them full control over the legal strategy. Ellis, who refers to herself as “President-elect Jenna Ellis” on Twitter, told campaign staffers they report to her and ordered any remaining campaign staff they follow orders only from people named “Rudy or Jenna.” All other directives are to be ignored. Last Saturday, senior adviser Jason Miller and Ellis ended up in a “screaming match” in front of other staffers and threatened to call DDT to settle the question of who is in charge. Miller also called Ellis “crazy.”

Ellis has frequently given DDT questionable information about election fraud such as the false claim about Dominion Voting Systems deleting DDT votes. She also appeared on television without asking for approval from campaign officials. Yesterday, several lawyers representing DDT in a Pennsylvania lawsuit quit. That case can determine the litigation’s fate. DDT joined Giuliani and Miller in falsely claiming the campaign had not dropped an important part of the federal lawsuit in removing observers not being permitted to watch a count of 680,000 ballots in Pennsylvania. The revised case now affects only dozens of votes. Legal expert Richard Pildes refuted the GOP claims.

Tomorrow will be the fifth day with nothing official on DDT’s schedule. The only work he’s done for months has been to keep a job, and he only wants to stay out of prison and make money—and play golf.                   

COVID-19 in U.S. on November 17, 2020: 157,261 new cases; 1,615 deaths.

DDT’s Bluster, Nakedness

President-elect Joe Biden

As Dictator Donald Trump (DDT) attempts to conceal all COVID-19 information from Biden, the president-elect’s advisers will meet with vaccine makers. About Biden’s transition team, Dr. Anthony Fauci said, “Of course it would be better if we could start working with them.” He compared a successful transition to runners passing the baton in a relay race:

“You don’t want to stop and then give it to somebody. You want to just essentially keep going.”

DDT ignores the coronavirus which is adding about one million infections each week in the U.S., and deaths averaging 820 a day have a 33-percent increase in only two weeks. The most critical issue for Biden may be the HHS distribution plans, especially with a second company possibly having a vaccine. COVID-19 in the U.S. on November 16: 162,149 new cases; 739 deaths.    

In another COVID-19 problem, dying people swallowing DDT’s lies deny they are even infected, doctors and other healthcare workers are leaving their jobs; and thousands of medical practices are disappearing. The U.S. also lacks healthcare workers because DDT blocks them from entering the country. Because of DDT’s regulations, many foreign-born doctors, 25 percent of the profession, are in the U.S. on visas preventing them from changing employers or moving to another state with virus hot spots. This report details how DDT’s destruction of data has greatly contributed to the coronavirus disaster in the U.S.

DDT’s national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, declared a “professional transition” to Biden’s administration despite DDT maintaining “I Won!” O’Brien covered himself by saying that DDT could have a second term if courts find widespread fraud, but at this time, Biden and Harris won the election. He added they should be given time to put people and policies into place, and aides are trying to put together documents without violating DDT’s mandates.

Georgia’s hand recount is moving forward with almost no surprises—zero differences in major counties with only the discovery of about 2,600 ballots in Floyd County. DDT picked up about 800 votes with those ballots, leaving Biden almost 14,000 ahead in the state. Wisconsin, the same difference in votes between DDT and his opponent as in 2016, may also have a recount. In 2020, DDT is behind instead of ahead, but the 2016 recount made no difference.

Emily Murphy, leader of the General Services Administration (GSA), still refuses to ascertain Biden/Harris won the election and keeps him from classified information in a transition. Yet Murphy is looking for a new job: she contacted an associate inquiring about employment opportunities in 2021.

DDT:

Meet the Press Chuck Todd reported not one GOP senator was willing to be on the Sunday news show yesterday. The U.S. state of affairs reflects a party so cowardly or embarrassed its members cannot answer questions.

In Oregon, DDT-supporter Tootie Smith, newly-elected GOP chair of the Clackamas Board of County Commissioners, responded to the state’s return of restrictions on opening restaurants and large gatherings:

“My family will celebrate Thanksgiving dinner with as many family and friends as I can find. Gov Brown is WRONG to order otherwise.”

State orders including the limit of social gatherings to six or fewer people from a maximum of two separate households are no longer recommendations. Violations include fines of up to $1,250 and jail time if violators don’t comply. The mandates came in response to Oregon’s more than doubling infections and increasing hospitalizations by 56 percent in only two weeks. Intensive care units are 89 percent full in Region 1, which includes Clackamas County, and hospital beds are at 93 percent capacity. Smith also said masks will be optional at her large gathering.

Last week, DDT gathered with advisers to plan the destruction of the U.S. in less than ten weeks. Topics included immigration, trade, health care, China, and school choice. Since then staffers have developed 15 achievements through executive orders. Two examples are restricting H-1B visas allowing the hiring of foreign workers in specialty occupations and giving educational COVID-19 relief money to private or parochial schools. By Thursday, DDT wanted to attack Iran’s primary nuclear site. The day before, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported Iran’s stockpiles of uranium reached 12 times the 300-kilogram limit in the six-country 2015 agreement with Iran that DDT rejected before laying economic sanctions on Iran.  

Rushing drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife refuge, DDT is issuing a “call for nominations” allowing companies to identify places for their bidding in the upcoming lease sale for logging, mining, and grazing. In 2017, the GOP congressional tax law authorized drilling in the refuge, and DDT also plans to auction off over 383,000 acres of federal land in the Lower 48 during the next 65 days. Environmental groups are challenging the fossil fuel leasing program for the refuge in four lawsuits which could void the leases, and processing bids takes several weeks. If the Bureau of Land Management doesn’t complete the screening of highest bids for ethical and legal issues, the agency may not be able to finalize leases by Biden’s inauguration. Last Friday, a federal judge ruled the agency failed to disclose climate impacts of leasing over 300,000 acres in Wyoming for oil and gas fracking.

DDT Lawsuits:

Today, four election fraud lawsuits in Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania were dropped, and legal expert Rick Hasen called DDT’s chance of a second term “appears 100 percent dead.” Nine other cases were dropped last Friday, and DDT lost several cases in Pennsylvania the same day. One of them in appellate court closed down a case mirroring today’s four dumped cases and means DDT’s lawyers have lost at least 24 out of 25 cases.

Once again, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who has no business calling Georgia’s GOP Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger about the state election, asked whether Raffensperger could trash all mail-in ballots in counties with higher rates of nonmatching signatures. In Georgia, only countries administer elections. Lindsey denied he had asked the question, but a lawsuit has been filed in federal court about the question Lindsey asked. DDT has also started tweeting about the issue and blasted Raffensperger for his election management. Raffensperger and his wife are now receiving death threats.

Sunday, lawyers weakened a Pennsylvania lawsuit by removing accusations of limits on observers to watch votes being counted. Remaining is the allegation Democratic-leaning counties disadvantaged Republicans by allowing voters to fix errors on mail-in ballots, like most other lawsuits affecting only a few ballots.

All states must certify the slates of electors by December 8, meaning the states must determine whether they vote for Biden/Harris or DDT/Pence. Deadlines in swing states: Georgia – November 20; Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Nevada – November 23; Wisconsin – December 1. Lawyers hope to bring Biden’s lead of 70,000 in Pennsylvania down to under 0.5 percent for a recount, about 34,000, to delay certification until after December 8.

DDT’s legal teams are shopping for sympathetic judges. For example, a lawsuit focusing on Detroit was filed in Western Michigan, with all five judges appointed by GOP presidents, instead of Detroit’s location in Eastern Michigan. A believer in voter fraud went to one specific judge by marking the federal lawsuit “related” to another suit filed last June which wasn’t really related. Arizona cases for the Phoenix area were stalled until the cases were consolidated under a preferred judge.

On Fox, DDT’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, now in charge of all litigation, admitted he has no evidence of election fraud—that it’s all based on his hunch. More details of Giuliani’s “fantasy island”—like the bookstore next to his Philadelphia press conference.  

A major winning point for DDT in 2016 was Hillary Clinton’s “missing” emails. DDT’s adviser Ivanka Trump has used personal email for official business, another adviser Jared Kushner (son-in-law) used the encrypted messaging service WhatsApp, and DDT regularly deletes his own tweets used for official business. The law requires all presidential records to be preserved, but DDT can pardon himself or anyone else for all federal crimes—including the destruction of records.

People wondering the reason behind the rapid COVID-19 increase might benefit from looking at this  photograph, representative of the year 2020.

Or not. Seventy-nine percent of Republicans think DDT really won the election. A year ago, Leonard Pitts compared DDT to the monarch in Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” Pitts has a brilliant sequel. As the story goes, swindlers persuade an emperor he’s clothed in beautiful garments “visible only to those who are not “unusually stupid.” After a child points out the monarch’s nakedness, the crowd is willing to admit what their eyes see. Pitts writes:

“It’s Trump who stands naked before us, revealed for anyone who inexplicably still harbored doubt, as the liar and loser he always was. He rages against math, excoriates voting, raves about imaginary schemes to steal a victory he never won. His psychopathy is nude, his disconnect from reality is disrobed, his toxic narcissism stands bare-cheeked before us all…

“Even after the child cried out, he still couldn’t admit his nakedness. ‘So he walked more proudly than ever, as his noblemen held high the train that wasn’t there at all.’”

As far as DDT’s litigation does, “He hasn’t got anything on.” Time will show how long the noblemen will claim to see DDT’s magical clothes.

DDT is keeping his busy schedule—lunch with VP Mike Pence today and nothing tomorrow. Sixty-five days to go.

A Catch-up from the 2020 General Election: Good News

For twelve days, Dictator Donald Trump (DDT) has declared himself the winner of this year’s presidential election and created havoc through frivolous lawsuits, thus far losing 20 of 21. A few cases are still pending. Today he stuck his toe into the ocean of failure with his tweet, “[Joe Biden] won because the Election was RIGGED.” It’s a start although fewer than two hours later he backtracked:

“He only won in the eyes of the FAKE NEWS MEDIA. I concede NOTHING!”

Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) said he “expect[s] Joe Biden to be the next president of the United States” and it was “good” DDT seemingly acknowledged Biden’s win. On a Sunday news program, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) added his support for Biden’s win and agreed with Hutchinson that the transition process should begin “for the country’s sake.” On an AM radio show, DDT’s economist adviser Stephen Moore said DDT is “a little grouchy” because of the election results and thinks he will get reelected. He added the GOP senate majority will act as a check on Biden.

GOP leading lawmakers in four swing states where DDT lost—Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—said they won’t override the popular vote. DDT has been pushing legislatures in these states, comprising 47 of Biden’s current 306 electoral votes, to select their own representatives to vote for him on December 14 and give him 273 votes. These states are four of the five states where DDT has frequently filed lawsuits falsely claiming election fraud; the fifth is Georgia which is doing a complete hand count.

All the states where GOP leaders said they won’t oppose the will of the people have laws delegating electors for the candidate matching the states’ popular votes. The legislature can only dive in if the election “fails,” difficult for them to do after DDT’s own DHS declared the 2020 general election “the most secure in American history.” Any court declaring DDT the winner would send the fight to Congress, a Democratic-controlled House and a GOP-controlled Senate. If Congress cannot agree on a slate for the election—DDT/Pence or Biden/Harris—the presidency would pass down the chain of succession  to the House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), if she is reelected after the 117^th Congress is seated on January 4.  

Another wait for both sides comes in Georgia where both senators are up for election on January 5, the day before the congressional Electoral College vote. At this time, the U.S. Senate has 50 Republicans; electing two Democratic senators would cause a tie between the two parties with Democratic VP Kamala Harris breaking any tie.

Some progressive moves from the election:

Several of the most effective Democratic House members were reelected—the “Squad” who DDT hates (Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib), Medicare for All champion Pramila Jayapal, and Katie Porter, known for her brilliant questioning and reelected in a conservative district.

Of 29 candidates and 11 ballot initiatives endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), 20 candidates and eight initiatives emerged victorious.

The Michigan Supreme Court flipped to a 4-3 Democratic majority.  

Measures:  Of the 124 statewide ballot measures, at least 76 have passed, many of them moving society forward.  

Mississippi approved cannabis for medical use, and four states legalized its recreational use: Arizona, Montana, New Jersey, and South Dakota. (Despite cannabis being classified as a Category I drug along with heroin and cocaine, its acceptance has doubled in the last two decades to 68 percent. Even Republicans are up to 48 percent approval.) 

Two jurisdictions—Oregon and Washington, DC—decriminalized psilocybin, “magic mushrooms.”

Oregon decriminalized small quantities of heroin, cocaine, and meth.

Florida became the ninth state on a path to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour.

Portland (ME) also voted for a minimum-wage hike, rent control, and a local Green New Deal while opposing facial surveillance.

Nebraska voters overwhelmingly approved a cap on payday loan rates. Mississippi voters overwhelmingly decided to eliminate their version of the electoral college. For 130 years, eight state officials were required to win a majority of votes in a majority of the 122 state House districts as well as the majority of all state votes. If no candidate met this complicated mandate, the state House chose the winner, and representatives were not required to follow their districts’ popular vote. Now, the winner will be determined by a simple majority of all Mississippi voters with a run-off if no candidate receives a simple majority in the first round. Mississippi, with a 73 percent approval, adopted a new flag replacing the Confederate symbol with a magnolia.

Portland (OR) passed Measure 26-217, creating a police oversight committee to investigate deadly force and allegation of officer misconduct. The committee can discipline officers.

Seattle established a civilian-led oversight office to examine officer misconduct. Other oversight committees were passed in California’s San Francisco, Oakland, Sonoma County, and San Diego as well as Philadelphia.

Boulder (CO) passed No Eviction without Representation to tax landlords for legal representation for people facing eviction.

Colorado also rejected abortion restrictions and for family and medical leave.

Arizona passed a statewide tax increase to provide almost $1 billion to the underfunded school system, and communities in Indiana and Wisconsin also increased education funding.

Portland (OR) voted in a tax for funding universal pre-K. 

California approved a ballot measure that will allow formerly incarcerated people on parole to vote.

Virginia adopted a redistricting commission; a majority of states will now have a commission although some are merely advisory come into being only if the legislature fails to pass maps.

Both Nebraska and Utah removed language from their state constitutions allowing slavery as a punishment from their constitutions.

California reinforced and redefined its Consumer Privacy Act delineating rights to residents in how companies collect and use their personal information. It closes loopholes, but companies can charge more for opting out of data-sharing. Only state officials can sue for infringements. Michigan passed a constitutional amendment requiring a warrant for authorities to access electronic data and communications.

The environment won in several areas with ballot measures worth almost $3.7 billion supporting parks, climate resilience, and land conservation. The 49 conservation-focused measures in 19 states included these that passed:

• A “climate sales tax,” (Denver, CO) generating $800 million over 20 years for projects targeted at low-income and minority communities;
• A $735 million school bond (Oakland, CA) funding green schoolyards;
• The lifting of a cap on how much money the Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund can receive from royalties from oil, gas, and mining to create and protect public lands;
• Statewide measures in Montana taxing recreational cannabis for land conservation.

A movement across the nation hopes to elect the U.S. president with the popular vote instead of the Electoral College method, a pro-slavery system created by the U.S. Constitution. Changing any parts of the Constitution requires an amendment by a two-thirds vote from Congress followed by acceptance by two-thirds of the states. In lieu of that process, states have begun passing an alternative proposal: they commit their presidential election votes to the candidate who wins the most votes nationally rather than the candidate who wins the state. Both GOP George W. Bush and DDT lost the popular vote in their first terms.

In the 2020 election, Colorado is the 16^th state to finalize its support for the proposal, giving 196 electoral votes to National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC). Another five states with 98 electoral votes have pending legislation.

While DDT’s white supremacists fight to “Make America White/Straight/Evangelical Christian Again,” this year’s elections hit records:

• First convicted felon elected to Washington state legislature: Tarra Simmons for drug and theft crimes in 2014.
• First elected Latina mayor of Central Falls (RI); Maria Rivera.
• Record number of Native American women elected to Congress from New Mexico: Newly elected Democrats Deb Haaland and Sharice Davids with continuing Republican Yvette Herrell.
• First all-female Los Angeles board of supervisors.
• First practicing Muslim elected to Delaware state legislature: Madinah Wilson.
• First Muslim elected to Wisconsin state legislature: Samba Baldeh.
• First Muslim elected to Florida state legislature: Christopher Benjamin.
• First Muslim elected to Colorado state legislature: Iman Jodeh.
• First openly LGBT+ Tennessee state lawmakers: Torrey Harris and Eddie Mannis.
• First elected openly nonbinary state lawmaker and first Muslim state lawmaker in Oklahoma: Mauree Turner.
• Youngest Black elected state legislator in New York: Khaleel M. Anderson, 24.
• First Native American woman elected to Rhode Island state legislature: Brianna Henries.
• First Black woman elected to Congress from Missouri: Cori Bush.
• First Black and Afro-Latino openly-gay members of the U.S. Congress: Ritchie Torres and Mondaire Jones.
• First “second gentleman” in the U.S.: Doug Emhoff, Kamala Harris’ husband.

With no White House guidance to stop the pandemic, the last 24 hours of COVID-19 cases in the U.S. has a weekend count of 139,084. Deaths are 648.

Biden Works, DDT Lies

President-elect Joe Biden:

On November 13, 2020, the election of 2020 was called for Joe Biden as president and Kamala Harris as vice president. They have a total of 306 electoral votes with 232 for Dictator Donald Trump (DDT), exactly the opposite numbers for the 2016 election which DDT called a “landslide victory.” (That year, a few “faithless voters” dropped DDT’s official number from 306 to 304.) The map below shows totals for all states. Nebraska and Maine are incorrect because they separate the electoral votes by districts: Nebraska is 3-1 in favor of DDT, and Maine is 3-1 in favor of Biden. The lined blue states indicate court cases.

DDT has not conceded, but he slipped in his 15-minute speech about the vaccine on this afternoon to say “who knows which administration it will be. I guess time will tell.” In the same speech, his first public speaking in a week, he threatened to withhold the vaccine from New York because of comments by Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

NYT has this piece about possible Cabinet members, including a large number of women. All potential nominees share two characteristic: none is related to Biden, and all are authorities in their fields. Most are recognizable from their past work and dedication to the United States; i.e., former North Dakota senator Heidi Heitkamp, who lost her election after voting against Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation for the Supreme Court, for Agriculture Department and nuclear physicist Ernest Moniz, President Obama’s Energy Secretary, for the same position managing the country’s nuclear arsenal. 

Sixteen federal prosecutors assigned to investigate election fraud throughout the nation denounced AG Bill Barr’s memo to investigate voter fraud, despite the lack of evidence, which could interfere with the election. In a letter, these assistant U.S. attorneys from the DOJ Civil Rights division come from 15 of 44 jurisdictions in both red and blue states. Part of their responsibility is monitoring the November 3 election. They asked Barr to rescind his order to examine allegations of voter irregularities before results are certified:

“It was developed and announced without consulting non-partisan career professionals in the field and at the Department. Finally, the timing of the Memorandum’s release thrusts career prosecutors into partisan politics.”

A coalition of over 1,000 legal experts and scholars—judges, AGs, and law professors—from both GOP and Democratic gubernatorial administrations also denounced DDT’s refusal to accept the election results and called on his attorneys to meet their “ethical obligations” by ending their support for his false claims and assertions. The open letter also singled out GOP officials who support DDT’s attempts to throw out thousands of ballots and condemned Barr for his “shameful legacy” by authorizing investigations of election fraud immediately after the election.  

While Barr tries to rig the election for DDT, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley stands up to DDT’s politicization of the military despite DDT’s replacement of key Pentagon figures with ideologue loyalists.Standing next to DDT’s new acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller, Milley spoke at the opening of the US Army’s museum:

“We are unique among militaries. We do not take an oath to a king or a queen, a tyrant or a dictator. We do not take an oath to an individual. No, we do not take an oath to a country, a tribe or religion. We take an oath to the Constitution. And every soldier that is represented in this museum, every sailor, airman, Marine, Coast Guardsman, each of us will protect and defend that document, regardless of personal price.”

DDT:

DDT’s Lawsuits:

DDT put his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, famous for his press conference in front of the Four Seasons Total Landscaping, in charge of his election litigation and all public communications related to it. The transfer came after DDT lost his “Sharpiegate” case in Maricopa County (AZ). One of DDT’s three losing cases today, the case falsely claimed felt-tip markers invalidated ballots in counting machines. The judge stated that the number of disputed ballots was too few to affect the election’s outcome. 

In Michigan, DDT lost a case to stop certification of votes in Detroit pending an audit. GOP plaintiffs claimed poll workers coached voters on who they could vote for and poll challengers weren’t permitted to monitor vote-counting. About 100 GOP challengers were allowed into the vote-counting site but couldn’t return after leaving because virus protections required a quota of people in the room. The judge ruled some allegations were too general and others were “rife with speculation and guesswork.” Michigan’s GOP legislative leaders said they will not question the electoral votes going for Biden.

In Pennsylvania, one case is still pending, but in the other, a judge refused DDT’s request to dismiss over 8,000 ballots. Lawyers have no evidence of fraud; they say they “intend to produce it” later. 

Three voters in Wisconsin sued to exclude votes in three Biden-supporting counties to change the state’s electoral votes to DDT. The evidence-free charge of widespread fraud in absentee voting accuses voters of bypassing the requirement for photo ID by describing themselves “indefinitely confined” because of the pandemic.

Fox network had to correct formerly reputable legal scholar Jonathan Turley, professor at the George Washington University Law School, after he told Fox & Friends that thousands of DDT’s votes in Michigan were switched to Biden because of software in “half the districts.” Turley also falsely claimed the software affected counts in other states. Co-host Steve Doocy noted his research shows any glitch didn’t impact the vote count. He added the errors in two counties were from human error. Even DDT’s own administration believes the software caused no problems.

Already nervous about representing DDT, Porter Wright Morris & Arthur, a large prestigious law firm based in Columbus (OH), dumped him as a client in a Pennsylvania case to block mail-in ballots.  

DDT’s Superspreader:

After DDT’s wild rides around the country in frantic campaigning at taxpayer cost, over 130 Secret Service agents protecting DDT and the White House are isolating or quarantining after testing positive for COVID-19 or coming in close contact with infected co-workers. About ten percent of the agency’s core security team is sidelined because of the virus. Last summer, dozens of the agents also fell ill or were forced to quarantine after DDT’s Tulsa (OK) rally and his following trip to Arizona. DDT also insisted in putting his staff at risk on a joyride outside the hospital while he was ill with coronavirus. White House staff mostly fail to wear masks, and Secret Service agents have been seen without them while on duty.

At least eight staffers at the RNC are also infected, some of them in field offices where they were exposed to large staff gatherings.

COVID on the cruises has started. Seven passengers tested positive on the SeaDream 1 docked in Barbados. Passengers testing negative can leave the ship and go home. The cruise, the first in the Caribbean since the shutdown in March, was intended to show cruising safety. With fewer than 250 guests outside U.S. waters, the ship could operate without following CDC guidance.

Nevada’s Democratic governor Steve Sisolak is the fifth governor to test positive for COVID-19. He’s the third person in his office with the virus. The wife of Georgia’s beleaguered Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger also has coronavirus.

DDT’s senior administration officials have said DDT’s refusal to concede can prolong the pandemic with greater loss of lives because DDT blocks government officials from communicating with Biden. Without Biden’s access to the huge database for making decisions from Operation Warp Speed, the public-private coordination to speed up availability of a vaccine, its distribution could be significantly delayed. Biden is still talking with doctors and other experts to opt for a federal government plan instead of DDT’s decentralized approach.

Thanks to DDT, more people are developing long-term health problems and dying from COVID-19. The U.S. tally of 183,364 cases on November 13, 2020, puts the total over 11 million and today’s deaths of 1,395 brings the total to just short of 250,000.

The cowardly “humoring” Republicans prove DDT is nothing but a toddler having tantrums. He makes his supporters look foolish because they believe the loser’s arguments have merit. Michael Gerson pointed out that U.S. Republicans are no better than China and Russia in sabotaging the democratic system by claiming it is corrupt. The longer GOP lawmakers wait to admit Biden will be the president, the more they destroy constitutional law and endanger national security.

DDT has set a pattern with losing candidates failing to concede despite being behind up to 80,000 votes. Sen. Martha McSally (R-AZ) waited over a week to concede after she lost by almost 80,000 votes. Tweeting has also become the GOP fashion in firing people. In Oregon, appointed Secretary of State Bev Clarno fired the state’s election director, Steve Trout, by tweet this past week only two months before she leaves office because he criticized the antiquated voter registration software. Described as “dangerous” and “ignorant,” Clarno’s action comes while Oregon continues to count the last few votes and reconcile signatures as well as the “canvass, manual audit, electoral college, and recounts,” according to Trout. Clarno did not run for election, and Democrat Shemia Fagan will take over on January 4, only two months after Clarno’s tweet.

The far-right Proud Boys, who DDT told to “stand by” in his September presidential debate, plan to be a part of the protest “Million MAGA March” today with other white supremacists. The groups are known for their violence; tomorrow is a good day to stay home.

Biden Works, DDT Sulks

President-elect Joe Biden:

Dictator Donald Trump (DDT) tries to block any resources from Biden’s transition, going so far as to tell his employees to have no contact with the team. Transition members can’t even enter agency buildings. Without a secure government telephone line or language interpretation services customarily provided by the State Department, Biden solved part of the problem by communicating with recently departed government officials and other experts, relying on a team led by a former senior State Department official. They’re trying to get information about ongoing projects, budgets, trouble spots, technology, and personnel, but they still need to obtain data about personnel vacancies, pending litigation, contracts, and procurement. DDT’s frequent terminations of personnel and people quitting in frustration provide a rich lode of material. The flawed process is better than nothing.

Biden is still receiving congratulatory calls from foreign leaders, one from Pope Francis. Of the 46 presidents, Biden is only the second Catholic president; John F. Kennedy was the first. Biden has talked with eight other world leaders: Australian PM Scott Morrison; Japanese PM Yoshihide Suga; South Korean President Moon Jae; Canadian PM Justin Trudeau; British PM Boris Johnson; French President Emmanuel Macron; German Chancellor Angela Merkel; and Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is keeping foreign government congratulation messages from Biden. Biden is following the law by providing readouts, something DDT failed to do. Only four U.S. GOP senators have congratulated Biden for being president-elect: Lisa Murkowski (AK), Mitt Romney (UT), Susan Collins (ME) and Ben Sasse (NE). Two major foreign leaders, Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, don’t recognize Biden’s win.

Pompeo leaves tomorrow for an 11-day, seven-country trip in Europe and the Middle East. All their leaders publicly congratulated Biden although Pompeo announced that DDT had won. The schedule includes France, Turkey, Georgia, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia

GOP Sens. James Lankford (OK), Chuck Grassley (IA), Lindsey Graham (SC), and John Thune (SD) have said Biden should have access to classified briefings but don’t recognize him as president-elect.

Biden’s coronavirus transition team has 52 members laying the groundwork for a permanent task force in February to coordinate a comprehensive virus response throughout federal agencies. Transition members include representatives to review almost all agencies along with academics and state-level health experts for subject-matter authorities assisting specific policy efforts. Three leaders will concentrate on domestic, national security/foreign, and tech strategy delivery policies.

DDT:

The White House actually had a coronavirus task force meeting, but it concentrated on DDT’s accusation that Pfizer waited until after Election Day to announce the possibility of a vaccine. Following DDT’s orders, HHS Secretary Alex Azar grilled members about DDT’s false claim and blamed the FDA for the delay, despite FDA Director Stephen Hahn’s assertions to the contrary. DDT’s “screaming” at Hahn after Pfizer’s announcement may mean another termination. Pfizer didn’t have the data until the Sunday after the election.

DDT Fires:

Bryan Ware, assistant director for cybersecurity at CISA, was terminated after his DHS Committee, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), announced the 2020 election “the most secure in American history.” CISA director Christopher Krebs expects to be fired after the report’s release.

DHS assistant secretary for international affairs Valerie Boyd also left after being pressured.

DDT Hires:

DDT hired the same lawyers to challenge Georgia’s election results as those defending the state’s voting system, a potential conflict of interest.   

DDT’s Superspreader:

DDT’s adviser and former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski tested positive for COVID-19 after attending campaign events before and after the election, including the Election Night speech at the White House. Three unnamed White House aides who attended the event also tested positive for the virus.

Republican National Committee chief of staff Richard Walters, who co-hosted Rudy Giuliani’s Four Seasons Total Landscaping press conference, tested positive for coronavirus.

One of about two dozen House members contracting COVID-19, Alaska’s GOP Don Young, at 87 the oldest member of the House, tested positive for coronavirus. In early March, he ridiculed the virus as the “beer virus” and told Alaskans to “go forth with everyday activities.” He continued hosting in-person fundraisers and didn’t require masks.

DDT’s Lawsuits:

One election fraud lawsuit featured Richard Hopkins, who signed an affidavit he had heard an Erie (PA) postmaster ordering workers to backdate mail-in ballots for the Election Day deadline. The statement was also used as a talking point for Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and an excuse for AG Bill Barr to allow federal prosecutors to interfere in the election. Hopkins has not only withdrawn his sworn affidavit but also said Project Veritas, the conservative group legendary for manipulating media for falsehoods, wrote the affidavit. Hopkins can’t remember its contents.

Republicans are covering their inaction to declare Biden the president-elect by claiming there’s no downside in refusing to concede the election despite the evidence DDT has lost. A senior GOP official allegedly said:  [visual – Trump humoring]

“What is the downside for humoring him for this little bit of time? No one seriously thinks the results will change…He’s tweeting about filing some lawsuits, those lawsuits will fail, then he’ll tweet some more about how the election was stolen, and then he’ll leave.”

The frivolous, possibly illegal, litigation by DDT and the GOP can be identified by these characteristics:

• The evidence Is so weak that judges dismiss claims as having no merit.
• None of the cases will change the outcome of the election.
• The arguments are “legal Hail Marys”—not even as good as long shots.
• Cases attack votes only in places where DDT lost.

The purpose for the frivolous lawsuits:

• Delaying the announcement of the results to make the transition harder for the next president.
• Disrupting the Electoral College process to move the presidential election in control of state GOP legislatures instead of the state’s popular vote.
• Hoping the declaration of “election fraud” will keep DDT from being called a “loser.”
• Raising money for future GOP candidates—mostly DDT.

Republicans enabling DDT in his petulant “Custer’s Last Stand” are damaging the Republic. Former GOP Arizona AG Grant Woods summarized part of the problem with DDT’s continuing lawsuits and GOP lawmakers’ silence:

“They’ve caused a substantial portion of Americans to lose faith in our institutions, and one of those is our electoral system.”

Bipartisan audits in Arizona countries comprising 86 percent of the ballots found no discrepancies or other issues affecting the election outcome. The GOP did not request audits in the Republican countries. Biden is ahead in Arizona by 11,434 votes with fewer than 11,600 ballots to count. Tonight, NBC has finally called Arizona for Biden, a week after Fox network alienated DDT by doing the same.

A British newspaper described the ways DDT is undermining democracy:

• Litigation with a “slew of baseless lawsuits in swing states.”
• Undermining the media, even railing against Fox network.
• Federal investigation using the supposedly independent Department of Justice through AG Bill Barr.
• Calling on enablers such as Ken Starr and Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick to continue his crusade.

(Visual from a coup watcher.) 

Dana Milbank writes:

“So this will be President Trump’s parting gift to the nation: He is deliberately sabotaging the national security of the United States.”

Milbank addresses how the 9/11 Commission determined a truly-delayed transition in 2000 “hampered the new administration in identifying, recruiting, clearing, and obtaining Senate confirmation of key appointees.” It recommended “we should minimize as much as possible the disruption of national security policymaking during the change of administrations” so that “transitions can work more effectively and allow new officials to assume their new responsibilities as quickly as possible.”

In his attempt to salve his ego, DDT undermines the Commission’s recommendation with a multitude of falsehoods. He has already failed to comply with the Commission’s recommendation “the outgoing administration should provide the president-elect, as soon as possible after election day, with a classified, compartmented list that catalogues specific, operational threats to national security; major military or covert operations; and pending decisions on the possible use of force.”

Emily Murphy is the face of the delay; DDT is the cause—the cause of deliberately killing hundreds of thousands of people from COVID-19 and the cause of deliberating infecting millions of people with COVID-19 that can result in  lifelong damaging health effects. All for attention and his drive to not look like a loser.

A new Reuters poll shows 79 percent of U.S. adults think Biden won the election although three percent think DDT won and another 13 percent believe the outcome is still uncertain. Of the Republicans, 59 percent believe Biden is the winner. Seventy percent of people, including 59 percent of Republicans, trust their local election officials to “do their job honestly.” Another 72 percent think the election’s loser should concede defeat.

COVID-19:

As the number of COVID-19 infections and deaths skyrocket throughout the nation, so do hospitalizations—now 67,096, doubled in five weeks. North Dakota still doesn’t have a mask requirement, but hospitals are at full capacity. Gov. Doug Burgum now allows infected health care workers to care for people with coronavirus. Missouri is on the cusp of deciding which severely ill people will be permitted to use hospital facilities. New cases in the U.S. today were 161,541 with an estimated total tomorrow over 11 million. The number of deaths in the U.S. from the virus will likely surpass 250,000 by Saturday with 1,190 today.

DDT has 69 more days in the Oval Office.

Biden Works, DDT Hides

President-elect Joe Biden:

Biden biggest news today is his appointment of Ron Klain for chief of staff. Klain was Biden’s chief of staff when he was vice president and President Obama’s Ebola czar.

During his term, Dictator Donald Trump (DDT) tried to scrub the term “climate change” from every government website, proposal, grant request and other documents. Biden’s strategy, expressed in his Climate 21 Project, approaches the climate “crisis” throughout all federal departments to significantly cut greenhouse gas emissions even without congressional action. The plan goes far beyond reversing DDT’s policies of boosted fossil fuel drilling and lack of pollution controls; Biden’s recommendations: a White House National Climate Council “co-equal” to the Domestic Policy Council and National Economic Council; a “carbon bank” under the USDA’s Commodity Credit Corporation paying farmers and forest owners to store carbon in their soils and lands; goal through the Transportation Department to electrify cars and trucks; and a climate policy at the Treasury Department promoting carbon reductions through tax, budget, and regulatory policies.

The Federal Reserve’s biannual financial stability report:

“Climate change adds a layer of economic uncertainty and risk that we have only begun to incorporate into our analysis of financial stability.”

The Fed asked to join the Network for Greening the Financial System, a global coalition of central banks and bank supervisors to manage climate risks. Purchasing can also influence climate change; i.e., California’s Buy Clean law requires consideration of pollution by manufacturers of glass, steel and other materials in purchasing decisions. Biden said he will immediately take these ten actions, beginning on his first day.

Four senators—three who said DDT’s learned his lesson without convicting him for impeachment—admitted DDT should recognize Biden as president-elect. With looming danger to national security, Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) promised to “step in” if Biden isn’t permitted high-level security briefings by Friday. Lankford said he’s “already started engaging in this area” as a member of the Oversight Committee. President Clinton granted George W. Bush intelligence briefing access weeks before the Supreme Court appointed him president.

Dallas pastor Robert Jeffress, an early and vociferous DDT supporter, isn’t happy about Biden’s win, but he called Biden the president-elect.

Ukraine closed the probe into Biden by the ousted prosecutor general, Viktor Shokin. Its law allows anyone to go to court to request an investigation if the country doesn’t open one, even with no evidence. DDT had pushed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to announce a probe in exchange for the congressionally-appropriated funds. The report’s statement found no wrongdoing:

“After interrogation, we found out that in 2016 Shokin resigned from his post voluntarily. During the investigation we did not find any confirmation anyone pressured him to resign.”

A favorite activity between election and inauguration is guessing the names of the president-elect’s appointees. Possible names of Republicans who Biden might pick for his administration.

In a Judiciary Committee hearing, Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Marco Rubio (R-FL) equated Biden to Michael Flynn. After the 2016 election before DDT was inaugurated, Flynn secretly told Russia DDT would be lifting sanctions against them when he moved into the Oval Office. Biden responded to foreign leaders who wanted to congratulate him after the election was called in his favor. He didn’t talk to all the world leaders who want to communicate with him because Secretary of State Mike Pompeo refuses to give Biden his messages to Biden from foreign leaders. 

Biden talked with foreign leaders about COVID-19 while DDT huddled inside the White House pushing his frivolous lawsuits filled with lying witnesses. Today, the number of hospitalizations rose from yesterday’s high of over 59,000 to above 65,000. A week ago, the U.S. first went over 100,000 cases a day; today the number rose to 142,906 and will top over a total of 11 million by the end of the week. With 1,479 deaths today, the total will be over 250,000 by that time. DDT’s administration is doing nothing to mitigate the tragedy.

DDT:

On his sixth day of silence in public, DDT put his hand on a wreath at the Tomb for an Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery. DDT, VP Mike Pence, their spouses, and Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert Wilkie failed to wear masks at the ceremony despite signs requiring them.

DDT’s Hires:

David Legates, who says excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is good for plants and global warming is harmless, is now head of U.S. Global Change Research Program overseeing the National Climate Assessment, which produces the federal report about how climate change is affecting the United States. He also disagrees that burning fossil fuels generates greenhouse gases causing rising global temperatures, melting ice sheets, rising sea levels, and other damages. Federal and state governments and industry use the report, cited in court cases, to make decisions about infrastructure, allocate resources, and plan for disasters. In September, DDT made Legates National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s new deputy assistant secretary of commerce for observation and prediction. 

Pentagon new Department of Defense acting undersecretaries:

Anthony Tata moved up to Policy. With a history of Islamophobic comments and called President Obama a “terrorist leader,” he retired as Army brigadier general after an investigation into his extramarital affairs. DDT withdrew his name for nomination for a position after that information became public.

Ezra Cohen-Watnick, Intelligence, earlier lost his jobs in NSA and DOJ. While at the NSA, Cohen-Watnick leaked classified information to Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), who then made the information public. 

DDT’s newly-appointed loyalist, acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller, hired retired Army Col. Douglas Macgregor for a senior advisor. Macgregor has frequently called for rapid troop removal from Afghanistan and taking the U.S. Embassy from Kabul. Esper had not hired him because of his bigotry toward Muslims and undocumented immigrants. Macgregor also wants martial law at the U.S. southern border.

The replacement of five people at the Pentagon along with the addition of Macgregor indicates big policy changes in the next 70 days before DDT moves out of the Oval Office, ones possibly adding to endangering national security.

DDT COVID-19 Spreading:

Two more people attending DDT’s Election Night party have tested positive for the coronavirus, White House political director Brian Jack and former White House aide Healy Baumgardner. They joined chief of staff Mark Meadows, HUD Secretary Ben Carson, and campaign legal leader David Bossie in five infections. At least 28 other DDT administration and campaign officials, half of them attending his Rose Garden nomination ceremony for Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, tested positive for the virus in late September and early October.

DDT’s Lawsuits:  

The Keystone “lawyers” claiming election fraud have become a joke in the judiciary system. Some of the more embarrassing moments for them:

Stopping the ballot count because no GOP observers were permitted in the room to watch: a lawyer finally admitted to there being a “nonzero number” of those observers. The judge responded, “Then what’s your problem?” The lawyer finally had to admit “people representing the plaintiffs [are] in the room.”

Rampant voter fraud: a lawyer admitted he wasn’t alleging fraud about the 592 ballots he tried to disqualify because of fraud. Judge: “Any fraud?” Lawyer: “To my knowledge at present, no.”

Predating late mail-in ballots to before Election Day: a lawyer maintained a poll watcher said an unidentified person gave her a sticky about breaking the law. The lawyer argued the claims weren’t hearsay because the person had actually seen a sticky note. Judge: “’I heard somebody else say something.’ Tell me what that’s not hearsay.” The judge wrote the argument is “inadmissible hearsay within hearsay.” An appeals court slammed the lawyer for not including required documentation, stating “your submission is defective.”

53 predated late ballots: two witnesses said they didn’t know if the ballots were received after the deadline but two others for the board of elections testified they were received on time. The judge denied the request and dismissed the petition.

Poll workers “incorrectly rejected” 180 votes: a lawyer wanted his supporting evidence sealed. Opposing attorney argued the public “has a right to know how flimsy Plaintiffs’ evidence actually is.” The judge ordered the evidence redacted and released.  

As of this morning, DDT’s campaign has lost election fraud lawsuits 12-0.

In all 50 states, election officials found no evidence of widespread voter fraud among the almost 150 million ballots, just small problems—a few cases of illegal or double voting, technical glitches, and minor math errors. Thus far there have been two documented instances of votes from people who have died. Texas still wants to find fraud, however: Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has a $1 million fund for reward report.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports DDT is behind GOP Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue embarrassing themselves by demanding the GOP Secretary of State resign. Both Georgia senators face runoffs on January 5 and blame Brad Raffensperger for their not getting over 50 percent of the votes for wins. DDT had told them to attack Raffensperger because he’s losing Georgia. GOP Rep. Doug Collins, who lost the open election to Loeffler, has forced a hand count of all five million ballots cast in the state.  Gov. Brian Kemp, Secretary of State during his winning election who supervised failing election equipment, joined the fray in the senators’ criticism of Raffensperger.

DDT is calling for rallies to declare the election fraudulent. These are the four people at a “Stop the Steal” rally outside Fox’s DC headquarters. One sign protests journalist Neil Cavuto.