Who'll Stop the Pain?

It Has to Stop! The Trump death rattle continues.  Yesterday, a lesser known Republican official totally lost his cool, a well-known one confirmed what all but the delusional have known for weeks, and details about more pardons hit the wires. First, the lesser known official, he is Gabriel Sterling, Georgia’s voting systems manager.  He took to the podium to express his outrage over the threats against him, his staff and his colleagues for doing their jobs. Directing his words to Trump he said that while he understood that losing wasn’t the outcome he wanted and that he had the right to investigate and go to the courts, he didn’t have the right to put “people’s lives in jeopardy by inspiring the commission of potential acts of violence.”  Pointing out that one of his young election technicians was being trailed by Trump fans calling for him to be hung for treason and that some of Trump’s other diehard followers were sending “sexualized” threats to Georgia Secretary of State Raffensberger’s family, he went on to say “Someone is going to get hurt, someone is going to get shot, someone is going to get killed, and it’s not right. It’s not right…it has to stop.”  Sterling also called out Georgia’s two Senators Loeffler and Perdue, pointing out that their failure to speak out made them complicit. The two responded by saying that though they don’t condone violence, they won’t apologize for the “obvious” issues with the way the election was handled, their way of saying so what if someone gets hurt. The Trump campaign responded to Sterling’s exasperation by saying that they were just trying to make sure that all the votes got counted and that illegal votes were not, and then condemned violence.  Trump’s solution is that Georgia’s Governor Kemp, who he now regrets ever endorsing, should call off the upcoming run-off election unless he can eliminate all of those problematic blue leaning absentee ballots. Trump doesn’t appear to be all that concerned about the threats and is still suing to overturn results in a number of states. 

Barr is Back:  As to the well-known figure, during an interview with the AP Attorney General Barr went with the truth,  admitting that despite his best efforts the Justice Department had uncovered no “widespread fraud” that would change the outcome of the 2020 election. Trump’s crack legal hit squad responded by saying that Barr wouldn’t know fraud if it hit him in the face and  nine Republican Texas Congressman decried his “shocking lack of action.”  As to that lack of action accusation, it’s not true, Barr actually did do something nefarious, in late October he secretly designated Connecticut US Attorney John Durham, of the as yet unreleased but long awaited Durham report, as a special counsel to make sure that his ongoing investigation into the origins of the Russia investigation continued in the event of a Biden victory. Last night a number of experts including Fox contributor Andrew McCarthy pointed out that the Durham appointment is probably not legal since the law governing special counsels requires that they come from outside of the Justice Department but if Barr’s goal was to complicate what Biden’s Justice Department does with Durham’s investigation, legal or not, the move achieves his objective.  

Pardons for Sale? On the pardon front, the NY Times reports that Trump has been talking to his advisors about issuing preemptive pardons to Rudy Giuliani, kids Don Jr, Ivanka and Eric and son-in-law Jared.  Presumably Rudy’s pardon would help him avoid being prosecuted for things related to Ukraine and whatever else he’s been up to.  Don Jr was mixed up in the Russia cover-up and at the very least we know that Jared lied a few times on his security application.  It’s not clear what Ivanka and Eric have been up to beyond their NY financial problems; Trump can’t do much about those but if he’s giving out preemptive pardons it’s only fair that they each get one too. Just another case of Tiffany and Barron being left out in the cold. Also on the pardon front, it appears that someone is trying to buy one.  Last night it was revealed that the Justice Department is investigating a “bribery for pardon” scheme details of which they uncovered during another investigation as a result of some Judge approved  screening of selected client-lawyer communications. Apparently, the investigation has been ongoing since August, the court documents released last night were heavily redacted so its hard to know who is involved but it appears that the person seeking to buy the pardon in exchange for a substantial campaign contribution is incarcerated or at least was in August. Jeffrey Epstein enabler Ghislaine Maxwell’s name comes to mind but so far that’s just a wild guess.       

Other News:  Trump who is really mad at Twitter and Facebook for marking his election lies as lies is threatening to veto the bipartisan annual defense bill unless Congress opens the door for Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites to be held legally liable for the way they police their platforms. He’s calling for the repeal of a federal law known as Section 230 that protects social media companies from content posted by their users.  While both sides of the aisle have complaints about Section 230 and would like to see it modified, tossing it out in its entirety is a non-starter but Trump is mad so his tantrum could go on for a bit eating into the Senate’s judge confirmation and vacation time, something that could actually cause Leader McConnell to come out of his shell snapping. On the virus front, the UK approved the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine this morning. Much to Trump’s chagrin the FDA isn’t there yet but the CDC is getting ready.  They released guidelines putting 21 million health care workers and 3 million long term care facility residents at the head of the shot line.  No surprise about that prioritization but it was a pleasant one to see that the statement came from Dr. Nancy Messonier, the CDC official who has been banned from speaking publicly ever since she presciently warned us that the virus would change our lives for the worse last March. Her reappearance means that the truth tellers are reemerging.  Former Trump campaign manager/data guru Brad Parscale is also back from where ever he’s been hiding.  He want us to know that he still adores Trump and thinks that he would have won the election if only he had listened to his advice to be more compassionate about COVID’s victims. Biden’s popular vote lead over Trump is closing in on 7 million but, who knows, Parscale might be right about that.