Whiplash Wayne

Democracy on the Brink:  Republicans only like democracy when their candidates win. Those Senate and House races that confounded pollsters by going red, those elections were as fair as can be; the presidential race that, with NY and California absentee ballots still being counted, so far resulting in 5.7 million more votes for Biden than for Trump, not so much. Having failed with all those efforts to turn voters off of Biden, things like the Ukraine smear campaign, the Hunter “laptop” discoveries and the dismantling of blue area postal sorters, and with those cyber security guys and the FBI actually doing too good a job of preventing foreign interference and rebutting Trump initiated conspiracy theories, the Trump team and their Republican enablers are relying on baseless litigation, interfering with vote counting and, refusing to certify votes.  On the litigation front, the Republican legal machinery, taken over by Rudy Giuliani, is still losing bigly. Yesterday a Pennsylvania state court ruled that Republican poll watchers did not have to be allowed to stand within six feet of poll workers, a reversal of an earlier decision. Around the same time that the state court was handing down that ruling, Rudy began arguing another case, this one in a Pennsylvania Federal Court.  Claiming that there had been “widespread national voter fraud,” he called for 700,000 mail in ballots from places with lots of Democrats, of course, to be thrown out and demanded that the state be blocked from certifying the results of the presidential election where Biden currently leads by  more than 81,000 votes, an attempt to allow the Republican led state legislature to pick Trump’s slate of electors. Rudy’s assertions were conspiracy laden and undocumented and his demand absurd but that’s how Rudy and Trump roll so no surprise there.  The Judge who seemed unpersuaded by Rudy’s histrionics called for him to show up with evidence later this week, an order to put up or shut up. No one rational expects Rudy to prevail but its 2020 so? 

As to intimidating state officials to interfere with vote counting, that responsibility seems to have fallen to Senator Lindsey Graham, Trump’s golf buddy extraordinaire.  Though he still insists that his conversation with Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger was innocent, it turns out that Raffensberger has witnesses as he wasn’t alone during Graham’s questionable call.  Oddly enough, Graham cites the fact that he had similar calls with officials in Arizona and Nevada, other states that went for Biden by small margins, as proof that what he was doing was legitimate.  Curiously, no one in either of those states has any memory of those calls, which doesn’t meant that they didn’t take place,  but might mean that they were so inappropriate that the participants don’t want to admit that they spoke with Rudy.  Lindsey should be in bigly trouble for his actions but probably won’t be because election interference pales in comparison to those “terrible” things that lost Al Franken his position, right? Then there is Wayne County, Michigan, the home of Detroit, the city with the highest percentage of Black residents in the US.  Last night two very white Republican members of the county’s board of canvassers refused to certify the county’s election results, an obvious effort to disenfranchise those Detroit voters who’d gone all in on Biden. Those two votes left the equally split board unable to certify the county’s votes, throwing that task to the Michigan State Board scheduled to meet next week.  Though a representative of the State Board issued a statement saying that they expected to certify the votes anyway, the reassurance wasn’t all that comforting given that Michigan is where some “nice” folks tried to kidnap and kill a governor. Trump celebrated by immediately tweeting out “Wow! Michigan just refused to certify the election results! Having courage is a beautify thing.  The USA stands proud.” His victory dance was premature, within minutes of his tweet, facing pressure from an outraged electorate and a threatening State Attorney General, the two Republican board members of the Wayne county board, caved, changing their votes, certifying the results in exchange for what appears to be a “face saving” but inconsequential promise to have some ballots audited. 

You’re Fired: Trump who hasn’t had much to say about the raging coronavirus, the virus that is so out of control that that mask shy governors in Republican led states like Iowa and North Dakota are now mandating face coverings, did accomplish a few notable things yesterday. His Pentagon went ahead with the announcement that the troop count in Afghanistan will be reduced down to 2500, an action that was applauded by some who believe we need to get out ASAP but was criticized by many more fearful that the withdrawal puts the remaining troops and the peace negotiations with the Taliban at risk.  And because, Trump really is vengeful and spiteful, he fired Chris Krebs, the top US cyber security official. Krebs, a life-long Republican who previously served in the Bush administration, was responsible for leading the effort that kept the elections free from foreign interference.  He had also set up a Rumor Alert website that debunked all of those right wing assertions intended to foster distrust about the election process and results.  Moreover, he had also co-signed the statement saying that the election had been the most secure ever. Citing that statement,  Trump fired Krebs, not in person or over the phone but by tweeting ”The recent statement by Chris Krebs on the security of the 2020 Election was highly inaccurate, in that there were massive improprieties and fraud - including dead people voting, Poll Watchers not allowed into polling locations, ‘glitches’ in the voting machines which changed votes from Trump to Biden, late voting, and many more….Therefore, effective immediately, Chris Krebs has been terminated as Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.” Twitter marked Trump’s tweet with one of its not true warnings because the assertions about the election are groundless.  Krebs had said last week that he’d expected to be fired for doing his job well. Now that he’s no longer a government employee he’s free to talk publicly about his experience and to testify in front of Congress so we may hear more from him shortly.   

Viruses and Bugs:  More than 1600 Americans died of COVID yesterday, a number that is expected to rise above 2000 in the not so distant future; in addition, more than 250,000 were diagnosed as COVID positive.  Among the newly diagnosed is Iowa Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, who at 87 is the second oldest member of the Senate.  He is now in quarantine as is Florida Republican Senator Rick Scott. In case you are wondering California’s Diane Feinstein who bizarrely enough frequently goes mask-less on the Senate floor is the oldest member.  Senate rules require that votes be cast in person. With Grassley and Scott out of pocket, the Senate was unable, at least for now, to go forward with a procedural vote to advance the nomination of Judy Shelton to the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors.  Shelton, a so-called “gold bug” who wants to return the US to the gold standard, is Trump’s latest controversial and unqualified nominee. Republican Senators Mitt Romney, Lamar Alexander and Susan Collins all opposed her nomination as did all of the Democrats including VP-elect Kamala Harris who flew in from Delaware to cast her “no” vote.              

Sixty-three days until Biden is inaugurated and @GSAEmily still hasn’t signed that all important ascertainment letter needed to trigger transition cooperation.