Biden is the president-elect. The formal announcement was made when Russian president Vladimir Putin congratulated him. Listening to Putin, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) told GOP senators of Biden’s election and told them to accept the news. He said objecting to a state’s electoral votes and forcing the Senate to debate would make Republican senators look bad. Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) threatened to fight the election results at the January 6 congressional session but needs the support of a senator to carry it farther. A few conservatives such as Josh Hawley (MO), Ron Johnson (WI), and Rand Paul (KY) still haven’t said they won’t object although Johnson did admit the election is legitimate. The GOP senators would have to vote down the overturning of the election, thus voting against Dictator Donald Trump (DDT), who still appears to be the leader of their party. That vote would also hurt congressional GOP incumbents in the next election.
Dictator Donald Trump (DDT) turned on McConnell for his admission that Biden won, saying it’s “too soon to give up.” DDT has repeatedly claimed he won the election because he has 75,000,000 VOTES. Biden has 81,284,000 votes (51.3 percent of the total), and DDT has only 74,221,000 votes (46.9 percent).
Until this week, most Republican congressional members have refused to call Biden the “president-elect,” pretending the term doesn’t exist. These conservatives, who say they worship the U.S. Constitution, have said that the term “president-elect” doesn’t really exist. The 20th Amendment, passed in 1933 uses the term twice. After the electoral votes, however, Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-NC) made this classic statement:
“Well, it seems to me that being elected by the Electoral College is a threshold where a title like that is probably most appropriate and it’s, I suppose you can say official, if there is such a thing as official president-elect, or anything else-elect. And there’s an inauguration that will swear somebody in and that person will be the president of the United States, but whether you call it that or not, you know, there are legal challenges that are ongoing — not very many — probably not a remedy that would change the outcome but, so, I don’t — again I don’t know how politician refers to another politician, but it does look to me like the big race is really between the inaugural committee and the Justice Department at this point, so we’ll see how the emails turn out.”
Known for his even temperament, Biden openly criticized the GOP attack on the democratic election after residents of six states tried to circumvent Monday’s legal voting by certified Electoral College voters, including promising violence and counterfeiting documents. Biden described these attacks “simply unconscionable” and an “abuse of power.” He said:
“In America, politicians don’t take power—the people grant it to them. The flame of democracy was lit in this nation a long time ago. And we now know that nothing, not even a pandemic—or an abuse of power—can extinguish that flame.”
He concluded by calling for unity and healing.
By clearly declaring that official, state and local, from both parties managed, overseen, and confirmed the election, Biden pointed out Republicans would need to have taken part in any widespread conspiracy. He added:
“I hope we never again see anyone subjected to the kind of threats and abuse we saw in this election. We owe these public servants a debt of gratitude . . . our democracy survived because of them.”
About Texas AG Ken Paxton’s lawsuit to the Supreme Court supported by attorneys general from 18 states and 126 GOP House members, Biden said:
“It’s a position so extreme, we’ve never seen it before. A position that refused to respect the will of the people, refused to respect the rule of law, and refused to honor our Constitution.”
Through the speech, Biden took his place as the legally indisputable winner of the 2020 election. As such he has the opportunity to repair the loopholes allowing DDT to create permanent chaos.
In the meantime, Biden continues to make appointments:
Secretary of Energy Department: Jennifer Granholm, former Michigan governor, who has worked with the auto industry. The agency can lead the U.S. away from dependence on fossil fuels, opposite from DDT’s first Energy secretary who received donations for pushing natural gas exports and coal as a power source. The budget operates 17 national labs for technology development in renewables, nuclear energy, and fossil fuel production.
Secretary of Transportation: Pete Buttigieg, former South Bend (IN) mayor and presidential candidate, who would be the first openly-gay Cabinet member. Although this department is not as visible as some others, it is vital for infrastructure, reduced greenhouse gas emissions, technology, and labor. Building highways was a key to Dwight Eisenhower’s legacy, and his legacy is now crumbling because it’s had no care. The department budget funds highways, transit systems, and the air traffic control system as well as overseeing the safety of civilian aircraft and regulating a trucking industry. The virus has damaged the transportation networks with greatly reduced revenue and employee layoffs.
Potential appointments:
Domestic “climate czar” coordinating policies across federal agencies: Gina McCarthy, director of the EPA.
Environmental Protection Agency: Michael Regan, top North Carolina environmental regulator, considered after civil rights groups objected to Mary Nichols, leader of the California Air Resources Board.
Without a Senate, Biden will have tremendous trouble passing legislature to help the economy, but Mother Jones has ideas on how he can help the economy without congressional support.
The Federal Reserve: The $2.2 trillion CARES Act authorized the Federal Reserve to help stabilize the finances of state and local governments hit by the pandemic by buying up their debt and gave the Treasury Department $454 billion to back the lending. Current Secretary Steve Mnuchin has tried to block Biden from using the money, but Biden and the Fed could restart the lending program.
Student Debt: Forgiving $10,000 of federally backed student loans for all borrowers and canceling all undergraduate debt for anyone who attended public colleges or historically Black colleges and universities could juice the economy.
Protection of Workers from COVID-19: Failing to protect workers hurts the economy; OSHA can issue mandatory standards, something DDT refuses to do.
Eviction Moratorium: Extending the time would allow renters to find more stable footing while the labor market recovers.
Consumer Protection: Biden could reverse the changes in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that allowed corporations to destroy anyone who borrowed money, especially during the economic crisis.
Updates keep coming. Yesterday I wrote about National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien on a junket around Europe, the Mediterranean, etc. on a holiday with his wife just five weeks before he will likely be deposed. Embarrassment may have forced him back home within two days, especially because the hacking federal agencies appears to be much worse than the public knew. And perhaps his use of taxpayer money may not have looked good for a man who wants to run for president in 2024.
More information has emerged about hacking into federal agencies, targeting a huge number of U.S. government emails. By persuading over 18,000 private and government users to download malicious code into their Orion software, made by SolarWinds, hackers monitored internal emails at several top federal agencies. Solarwinds monitors for hundreds of thousands of computer business and government networks for outages; its password is solarwinds123. Seriously.
As local, state, and federal entities have been attacked throughout the U.S. by ransomware, DDT has not considered cybersecurity an important issue and blocked the government if Russia was a possible danger. The private company Microsoft said it “delivered more than 13,000 notifications to customers attacked by nation-states over the past two years and observed a rapid increase in [their] sophistication and operational security capabilities.” The company will block and isolate the Orion app.
Chris Krebs, fired from his leadership of DHS’ cybersecurity agency because he stated the U.S. election had no widespread fraud, testifies on Wednesday before a Senate committee as Ron Johnson (R-WI) continues his fruitless search for that fraud. In a piece for CNN, Krebs reiterated his position that Russia tried to interfere in the 2016 election “to disparage Hillary Clinton to the advantage of then-presidential candidate Donald Trump.” He wrote his agency “prioritized election security” because “our democratic institutions are facing targeted, calculated threats from without, and from within.” He concluded:
“As foreign and domestic interests attack our democracy for political and financial gain, attempting to infiltrate American public opinion and confidence in our most sacred institutions, our elected representatives must now show true leadership in defending the people by defending the truth.”
The use of SolarWinds highlights the lack of mandatory minimum security rules for commercial software used on federal computer networks.
December 15 daily U.S. COVID-19 statistics: new cases, 200,035; deaths, 2,986.