2020 Election Results Part 8: Lawsuits, Qualified Biden Nominees, and a Pouty Toddler

[AmazonGrace]

Because  of course he will.

[Cartmann99]

 

[thoughtful]

8 hours ago, Workingmom said:

I am curious. Will the GOP react? He says they are equaly quilty and have no backbone.  

I liked this comment under the video:

Quote

This is Joseph Welch's "have you no decency sir" speech, updated for 2020.

It's ridiculous that speaking out against illegal, violent, disgusting acts and words has become an act of courage, but maybe others will finally follow his lead.

[GreyhoundFan]

This is utterly horrifying. Flynn is pushing to institute martial law and have the military run a new election.

 

[Cartmann99]

 

Edited December 2, 2020 by Cartmann99
changed tweets

[AmazonGrace]

 

[Howl]

3 hours ago, thoughtful said:

It's ridiculous that speaking out against illegal, violent, disgusting acts and words has become an act of courage, but maybe others will finally follow his lead.

It is a powerful and compelling speech and I absolutely commend him for it. I'm actually watching a replay right now. 

However, he's still apparently supporting and voting for both Republican senators that he called out for not speaking out -- that would be equally noxious GA Senators Purdue and Leffler...he says this in his statement.   He also didn't speak out about this kind of crap going on until it affected him personally. 

[Topaz]

https://www.instagram.com/p/CIThzFrho2N/?igshid=1bobi4xxjyzsy

I’ve never tried to link to Instagram before so I hope this works. 
 

In case it didn’t: there’s a lawsuit in Wisconsin alleging that there was voter fraud in a congressional race where the Republican lost. The lead counsel for the plaintiffs is Sidney Powell. The defeated Republican who is one of the “plaintiffs” has stated on Twitter that his name has been used without permission and he’s not involved in the lawsuit.

[thoughtful]

3 hours ago, Howl said:

However, he's still apparently supporting and voting for both Republican senators that he called out for not speaking out -- that would be equally noxious GA Senators Purdue and Leffler...he says this in his statement.

Well, shit. Why, why, why?

[GreyhoundFan]

Apparently the tangerine toddler had a massive meltdown in place of a much-needed nap today. "Trump escalates baseless attacks on election with 46-minute video rant"

Quote

Escalating his attack on democracy from within the White House, President Trump on Wednesday distributed an astonishing 46-minute video rant filled with baseless allegations of voter fraud and outright falsehoods in which he declared the nation’s election system “under coordinated assault and siege” and argued that it was “statistically impossible” for him to have lost to President-elect Joe Biden.

Standing behind the presidential lectern in the Diplomatic Reception Room and flanked by the flags of his office and of the country whose Constitution he swore an oath to uphold, Trump tried to leverage the power of the presidency to subvert the vote and overturn the election results.

The rambling and bellicose monologue — which Trump said “may be the most important speech I’ve ever made” and was delivered direct-to-camera with no audience — underscored his desperation to reverse the outcome of his election loss after a month of failed legal challenges and as some key states already have certified Biden’s victory.

The president’s latest salvo came a day after his attorney general, William P. Barr, said the Justice Department had found no evidence of voting fraud that could have changed the outcome of the election.

Trump delivered in person many of the claims he previously has advanced on social media or that his lawyers have brought on his behalf in courts, which have been debunked or summarily dismissed because there is no evidence to support them.

Trump claimed in Wednesday’s video, again without evidence, that “corrupt forces” had stuffed ballot boxes with fraudulent votes. He claimed the fraud was “massive” and “on a scale never seen before.” He called on the Supreme Court to “do what’s right for our country,” which he suggested entailed terminating hundreds of thousands of votes so that “I very easily win in all states.”

Although Trump last week authorized his administration to cooperate with Biden’s transition, he still has refused to concede. With Wednesday’s remarks, the president intensified his protest of the results and threatened to disrupt the nation’s long history of a peaceful transfer of power.

“This election was rigged. Everybody knows it,” Trump said. He added, “Our country needs somebody to say, ‘You’re right.’ . . . If we don’t root out the fraud, the tremendous and horrible fraud that’s taken place in our 2020 election, we don’t have a country anymore.”

Trump also claimed that Dominion Voting Systems, which manufactures voting machines used in many states, was “very suspect” and that many voters who pressed the button for “Trump” had their votes counted for Biden. There is no evidence that votes were in any way compromised, and Dominion has said there is no merit to Trump’s claims.

Biden decisively won the election with 306 electoral college votes to Trump’s 232. In the national popular vote, Biden leads with 80.9 million to Trump’s 74 million, a difference of 4.4 percentage points and nearly 7 million votes.

A majority of states already have certified their results ahead of the Dec. 14 meeting of the electoral college to finalize the national result. Those states include Georgia, which delivered Biden one of his narrowest victories and where officials conducted a hand recount that still had Biden winning by about 13,000 votes.

Trump’s video Wednesday represented his most comprehensive remarks yet about the election and came after he has spent the month since the election largely hidden from public view, save for a handful of official appearances and a call-in appearance on Fox News Channel.

Any hope that the president might be slowly coming to grips with his loss and accepting the fact that Biden will be sworn in as president on Jan. 20 was dashed by his combative and emphatic tone, which amounted to a call to arms to his supporters. The fight is paying dividends so far, with Trump’s political operation using a blizzard of misleading appeals to supporters to raise more than $170 million since Election Day on Nov. 3.

As he invariably has throughout his presidency, Trump spun an alternate reality. Although his words actually worked to undermine democracy, he cast himself as the protector of democracy, saying his single greatest achievement as president would be to restore “voter integrity for our nation.”

Trump released a two-minute edited version of the video on Twitter, which the social media company labeled as “disputed,” and included a link to the full 46-minute video on Facebook, where the company applied a label explaining that voting by mail has long been trustworthy and that voter fraud is “extremely rare.”

As Trump released his video, his personal attorney, Rudolph W. Giuliani, was in Michigan making a similar case to state legislators and citizens there. The former New York mayor alleged at a video news conference in Lansing that there were extensive voting irregularities in the state, largely in Detroit, a majority-Black city that voted heavily for Biden. Giuliani claimed a similar pattern of fraud emerged in several other large urban centers with municipal governments controlled by Democrats.

“It was a plan to steal this election,” Giuliani said.

There is no evidence to support this claim. Giuliani cited affidavits that had been used in lawsuits that have so far been rejected in the state.

Giuliani gave a pugilistic exhortation to Trump supporters at the late afternoon press conference.

“We have to fight. The president does not intend to give up,” he said, urging Michigan Republicans to put “pressure on state legislators” to uphold their constitutional obligation to decide state results in a disputed presidential election.

“You have to get them to remember that their oath to the constitution sometimes requires being criticized,” Giuliani added. “It sometimes even requires being threatened. But you don’t back off of an oath because a vote is too hard.”

On Wednesday evening, Giuliani and Trump campaign attorney Jenna Ellis made similar arguments before a Michigan House panel. In her opening statement, Ellis referred to Trump’s video message and said the state legislature has a constitutional mandate “not to allow a corrupt” election. She said the nation’s founders provided “a tool — state legislators — to combat corruption” in elections.

That interpretation of a constitutional mandate is disputed by many election experts, who nonetheless worry that it could lead some state legislators to attempt to overturn certified election results.

Norm Eisen, a former Obama appointee who serves as counsel to the bipartisan Voter Protection Program, called that interpretation “constitutional disinformation that has no basis in law.”

This activity comes as Trump prepares to visit Georgia on Saturday to hold a campaign rally for Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, both Republicans facing runoff elections on Jan. 5.

Trump’s baseless allegations of voter fraud in Georgia have roiled the race, with Republicans divided over whether to trust the election system or, as former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell argued, stay home in protest.

Powell led a rally in a northern Atlanta suburb Wednesday in which she exhorted hundreds of the president’s supporters not to participate in the Senate runoffs, in part because she said the state’s voting machines are not trustworthy.

“I would encourage all Georgians to make it known that you will not vote at all unless your vote is secure,” Powell said. “There should not be a runoff. Certainly not on Dominion machines.”

Powell claimed falsely that Dominion machines were rigged to weight Biden’s votes more heavily than Trump’s, that a hand recount was a sham, and that state and local election officials have been destroying ballots and other evidence of fraud. She has presented no proof of her claims.

L. Lin Wood, another Trump ally who helped lead Wednesday’s event, made similarly baseless claims.

“We’re not going to vote on your damn machines made in China,” Wood said. “We’re going to vote on machines made in the USA!”

Wood took aim at just about every state Republican leader in Georgia, including Perdue, Loeffler, Gov. Brian Kemp, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and the state party chair, David Shafer, even though some of them have stood by Trump and echoed his false claims of fraud.

“If they don’t fight for Donald Trump, including Loeffler and Perdue, send them all home!” Wood exclaimed to the crowd. “You are criminals!”

 

[GreyhoundFan]

First is the two minute version of his whinefest.

And from later in the rant, he pulls a Kayleigh and drags out visual aids:

 

[Cartmann99]

 

 

Spoiler

 

 

[Cartmann99]

 

[Audrey2]

My mom always said a skunk always smells his own phew first. I think a Republican always screams voter fraud first as they are great at manipulating votes.

[Ozlsn]

12 hours ago, JenniferJuniper said:

As Sam Donaldson said on CNN last night, there is no way the next gen of Republican politicians are ultimately going to sit back and let Trump remain king of the hill.  Lil Marco Rubio and Lyin' Ted Cruz and their ilk will surely not continue to support him once he's out of office, and they'll eventually have the support of right wing media.  Fox is turning already. Trump's carcus is already starting to stink a little, and while this sideshow is lining his pockets, at the end of the day he'll still be a doddering old one termer who won't be a player in four years.  Humpty Trumpty will still have his rallies, but if only fringe media and Youtube cover them, he'll slowly fade away.   Thankfully he's old and loaded with fried chicken grease. 

Personally unless some very interesting events happen in the next 48 days I think Trump Snr is pretty much gone - too old, and becoming too much of a liability. Whether the mantle is passed to his children will be interesting - I suspect too much baggage and too many hungry, more charismatic, and more competent challengers.

7 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

This is utterly horrifying. Flynn is pushing to institute martial law and have the military run a new election.

 

Well that certainly has the potential to be an interesting event. At this rate Flynn may end up shot for treason.

[Cartmann99]

 

[front hugs > duggs]

I still wish media would do better with their headlines. The above should say, "Roger Stone spreads conspiracy that North Korean boats..." or "Roger Stone lies and says...".

[Becky]

7 hours ago, Cartmann99 said:

 

The claims are getting more and more ludicrous, and yet the base eats it up.  How the hell does anyone become so gullible as to  buy the bullshit these PROVEN AND CONVICTED LIARS are peddling???

[Howl]

There's a hilarious twitter thread by Mainers who point out that at any port in Maine,  "the curtains start to twitch even before a boat from away passes the seawall."  Apparently, the phrase "from away" refers to anyone not local.  

This tweet includes a youtube  mashup of the drunk lady testifying and an SNL skit. 

 

[HerNameIsBuffy]

10 hours ago, Cartmann99 said:

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

Even before I read "SNL" character I was struck by how much she reminds me of a young Victoria Jackson.

I haven't seen the video, just based on the pic.  Does anyone else see it?

[AmazonGrace]

 

[Destiny]

13 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

 

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1334498165718986752.html for any who prefer to read that way. 

[Cartmann99]

1 hour ago, HerNameIsBuffy said:

Even before I read "SNL" character I was struck by how much she reminds me of a young Victoria Jackson.

I haven't seen the video, just based on the pic.  Does anyone else see it?

Yup. I commented about it in the Rudy Giuliani thread.

[JenniferJuniper]

1 hour ago, HerNameIsBuffy said:

Even before I read "SNL" character I was struck by how much she reminds me of a young Victoria Jackson.

I haven't seen the video, just based on the pic.  Does anyone else see it?

For a few seconds I thought it was Victoria!  But then I was like, no, way too young.  Must be her daughter. 

I'm semi-ashamed to admit I watched some of her testimony.  But it was hilarious. 

[Cartmann99]