News of the week may include Senate coming to terms with a stimulus bill keeping the government from shutting down, but details are uncertain because Republicans change their minds hour to hour. More after a final vote. Instead of working to help people and stop a government shutdown by passing a budget, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) uses Senate time to pass more right-wing, inexperienced judges.
Will Dictator Donald Trump (DDT) blow up democracy? He still wants to leave himself in the White House by ordering the military to throw out swing state election results for a new vote favoring himself. Career Pentagon officials are also horrified by acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller’s refusal to allow cooperation between President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team and his department. DDT’s only event last Friday was a meeting with Miller. The Pentagon said it is “taking a knee for two weeks” because of the “holidays.”
One month before he leaves the White House, DDT, obsessing about his legacy, tweeted the SPACE FORCE, as he cites it in a tweet, will be one of his “great achievements.” VP Mike Pence proudly announced “guardians” will be used for its members, along with Marines, sailors, and soldiers, after a year-long search for a name. James Gunn, director of the Marvel franchise Guardians of the Galaxy, tweeted, “Can we sue this dork?” The logo looks like Star Trek’s insignia for the StarFleet.
DDT’s obsession overrides any great concern about the hacking in government agencies and private businesses. Saturday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Russia is behind the hack, “a very significant effort.” For the first time, DDT mentioned the hack, only to declare China may have been responsible and claimed “everything is well under control.” He accused the media of exaggerating the damage and proposed the real issue is his belief elections results have been compromised. His claim again brings up the question of what Russian president Vladimir Putin is holding over DDT. Privately, he calls the hack a “hoax” and told others to give alternative theories—such as China—for the responsible party instead of Russia. John Bolton, DDT’s third national security adviser, did away with the strong cybersecurity team in the White House. The newly passed National Defense Authorization Act recreates the team with a “cyber czar” with direct access to the president, but DDT has promised to veto the bill.
Biden, currently shut out by the Pentagon, faces a difficult task because the U.S. hacks other countries and a military response violates international law. Within 16 days of Biden’s inauguration, he must also address the renewal of New Start, the nuclear arms control treaty with Russia.
Rupert Murdoch, owner of media entities such as Fox network leading the war against health, received his vaccine for COVID-19 the day before Tucker Carlson promoted anti-vaccine theories. While Carlson and other Fox notables killed people by supporting the lies the virus is a hoax, Murdoch and his wife isolated themselves in the UK.
The three most recent U.S. presidents are offering to get the vaccine live on TV, and VP Mike Pence got his “jab” on Friday, in time for a second shot before his departure from the U.S. after he accepts the vote on January 6, forcing him into new housing. DDT won’t commit. Maybe he doesn’t want anyone to see his arm.
Fox programs, such as the one hosted by Lou Dobbs is backing down on their conspiracy theories about election fraud. At least three programs played clips from Smartmatic debunking fraud accusations by DDT’s personal lawyer and his other supporters against its technology company after Smartmatic sent a 20-page legal demand to Fox, Newsmax, and One American News. One of the conspiracy theories is that former Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, who died seven years ago, designed the software to rig elections used to fix the 2020 U.S. election. In addition to lies on his program by Giuliani about Smartmatic owning Dominion voting software and other lies by attorney Sidney Powell, Dobbs accused Smartmatic of being controlled by “left-wing radicals.” The debunking video was also played over the weekend on conspiracy theorist programs hosted by Jeanine Pirro (Justice with Judge Jeanine) and Maria Bartiromo (Sunday Morning Futures). The clip didn’t go over well with Bartiromo’s watchers.
Antrim County in Michigan has been the center of conspiracy theories about a stolen election because the voting machines originally gave Biden more votes than DDT in the traditionally GOP county. Correcting updating the software brought DDT in ahead by 4,000 votes over Biden out of 16,000 ballots. The lies have a life of their own, but Antrim has paper ballots, providing evidence about the accurate vote in the county. A hand tally of all 15,962 votes gave DDT more votes—12 to be exact. Losing one vote in Antrim County, Biden won Michigan by 154,000 votes.
Republicans have cited proof of election fraud because people wouldn’t vote for Biden. They might find more fraud in GOP Mitch McConnell’s Kentucky reelection to the Senate, 57.8 percent over Democratic Amy McGrath’s 38.2 percent:
- McConnell won large vote leads in Democratic strongholds, ones he never before carried.
- Wide discrepancies between DDT and down-ballot candidates were not explained.
- Along with other states, Kentucky’s vote tabulation by Election Systems & Software (ES&S) reported down-ballot race result significantly different from pre-election polls.
- Forty percent of Kentucky’s counties have more registered voters than voting-age citizens; in November 2017, right-wing Judicial Watch sued Kentucky for its “Dirty Voter Rolls” and failure to maintain voter registration lists.
- (Details here.)
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) also won by a comfortable 10 percent lead after a squeaker election; his votes were tabulated on ES&S machines. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), who never had a polling lead in the four months before the election, won by almost nine points. Yup, ES&S machines counted the votes for Collins. Maybe the polls about their losing weren’t wrong.
McConnell and Russian president Vladimir Putin may have admitted DDT lost the election, but House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is staying silent. Asked if Biden won, he ducked into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) office. McCarthy was one of the seditious 126 House members trying to overthrow the election results in the Supreme Court. Newsmax’s Greg Kelly thinks DDT will be inaugurated because Biden coughed during his speech on Monday. Bad news for Kelly: VP-elect Kamala Harris is second in line for the president, according to the 20th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. DDT isn’t in line.
DC visitors can’t go to the Washington Memorial for a few days after Interior Secretary David Bernhardt took people on a private tour after hours last week and tested positive for COVID-19. He also caused a staffing shortage at the monument: National Park Service staff near Bernhardt are under quarantine. His virus also caused the cancellation of a large Interior Department party—perhaps lucky for those who planned to attend—and concerns about Deputy Secretary Katharine MacGregor’s plans to visit Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks. Staff was supposed to drive her between the two parks and give her tours for four days. She still plans the trip. Despite the possibility of contagion, agencies are still hosting large parties, and both Bernhardt and MacGregor do not consistently wear masks.
The Supreme Court will allow people in Kansas to vote without presenting a birth certificate or passport. The former state’s secretary of state, anti-immigrant Kris Kobach, succeeded in putting this requirement into law, but a trial court and the 10th Circuit Court both declared the mandate unconstitutional. The high court declined to address those rulings. Kobach briefly led DDT’s “election integrity” commission when DDT lied that three million immigrants voting against him caused him to lose the 2016 popular vote. About 30,000 people in Kansas couldn’t vote because of the punitive law.
DDT has come to the last month of pardoning capability, and Bill Barr has left the DOJ. New acting AG Jeff Rosen has continually demonstrated his unswerving loyalty to DDT. He quashed the investigation into DDT’s extortion scheme against Ukraine, tried to force an indictment against former acting FBI director Andrew McCabe, and reviewed career prosecutors’ work in an attempt to save Roger Stone. Rosen also saved former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke from prosecution for his scandals and led the case against John Bolton in DDT’s attempt to keep his book from being published. In other actions, Rosen kept Paul Manafort out of Rikers Island when he was arrested and encouraged prosecutors to aggressively prosecute activists, even with the charge of “sedition,” to satisfy DDT. The month of pardons is beginning. Let DDT pardon himself? To Rosen, it’s a piece of cake.
In the White House, DDT always had his priorities. He has succeeded in getting the Energy Department to finalize a rule increasing shower pressure to rinse his “beautiful head of hair,” in his own words. Part of his “energy dominance” policy, it’s one of his biggest talking points at rallies. Another achievement for the people starving in the country is “Freedom” cherry pie. DDT’s administration is persuading the persuadable FDA to remove regulations from frozen cherry pie—like requiring cherries. In deregulating vegetable oil and an acid in French dressing, the FDA said the agency doesn’t need “to promote honesty and fair dealing in the interest of consumers.” DDT can leave the White House, secure in the knowledge he can always have a good hairdo. And Freedom “Cherry Pie.” DDT’s priorities in his last month during massive hacking and a deadly pandemic.