Georgia officials have President Trump’s bogus election fraud claims on their mind — and they’re fed up with the sitting president’s falsehoods amid his ongoing refusal to concede and fruitless legal battles contesting the legitimacy of the election process. Continue reading “GA Officials: We Voted For Trump But We Need To Call Out His Election Fraud Falsehoods”
Of Course Trump Made Georgia Rally All About Himself
VALDOSTA, Georgia (AP) — President Donald Trump pressed his own grievances over losing the presidential election at a rally Saturday in Georgia, spreading baseless allegations of misconduct in last month’s vote, even as he pushed supporters to cast ballots for a pair of Republican Senate candidates in the state’s Jan. 5 runoff election that will decide the balance of power in Washington once President-elect Joe Biden takes office next month.
Trump rallied thousands of largely maskless supporters in Valdosta, not long after he was rebuffed by Georgia’s Republican governor in his astounding call for a special legislative session to give him the state’s electoral votes despite Biden winning the majority of the vote.
Continue reading “Of Course Trump Made Georgia Rally All About Himself”
Trump Shamelessly Attempts To Pressure Georgia Gov To Overturn Election Results
ATLANTA (AP) — President Donald Trump fruitlessly pressed Georgia’s governor on Saturday to call a special legislative session aimed at subverting the presidential election results in that state as Trump’s fixation with his defeat overshadowed his party’s campaign to save its majority in the Senate.
Trump and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp spoke by phone hours before Trump was to appear at a rally in Valdosta, Georgia, where Republicans hoped the president would dedicate his energy to imploring their supporters to vote in two runoff elections Jan. 5.
But it remained an open question whether his first postelection political rally would be a mission to help his party or himself.
Continue reading “Trump Shamelessly Attempts To Pressure Georgia Gov To Overturn Election Results”
This is a Crime
A slew of news organizations have now confirmed that this morning President Trump called Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) and asked him to convince the state legislature to overturn the results of the election. Kemp refused. (Trump makes weird heroes.) We need to understand that these are literally crimes. I don’t mean moral lapses or things that are wrong. They’re crimes. If I call up someone at the Board of Elections in New York and try to convince them to change the vote numbers or throw away ballots, that’s a crime. I would certainly be charged with a crime. Their saying no doesn’t absolve me of the crime. It’s no defense. The higher up you are on the totem pole the graver a crime it becomes because your chances of success are far greater. Again, these are crimes.
US Sets Yet Another Record For COVID-19 Cases In Single Day
WASHINGTON — Coronavirus infections continue to spread at record levels in the United States, reaching a new daily high of nearly 228,000 cases on Friday.
The 227,885 cases eclipses the previous high of more than 217,000 on Thursday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
The seven-day rolling average of COVID-19 attributable deaths in the U.S. has passed 2,000 for the first time since the spring. It reached 2,011 on Friday. Two weeks ago, the seven-day average was 1,448. There were 2,607 deaths reported in the U.S. on Friday.
Continue reading “US Sets Yet Another Record For COVID-19 Cases In Single Day”
Yes, TPM Does Rock
I wanted to add my voice to David’s note of praise and appreciation for the TPM team over this arduous year. In case you didn’t see it David reprinted one of his emails to staff as we started the process of locking down our operations in New York and DC back in March. We were actually early in the process, beginning a plan for redeploying entirely to remote work before most organizations were even considering it. In the event things moved so rapidly when the crisis hit, especially in New York City, that the difference between being “early” and not only ended up being a few days.
Adding to the oddity, all surreal in retrospect, was that we held a long-planned TPM event in New York City on March 5th, the day before our official decision to close down on March 6th and only a few days before our last day in the office on March 11th.
Judge Knocks Trump’s ‘Bizarre’ Wisconsin Lawsuit Request
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A judge hearing President Donald Trump’s federal lawsuit seeking to overturn Democrat Joe Biden’s win in Wisconsin said Friday that the president’s request to “remand” the case to the GOP-controlled Legislature to pick new electors was “bizarre.”
The federal case is one of two Trump has in Wisconsin making similar arguments. He filed another one in state court, which the Wisconsin Supreme Court on Thursday refused to hear before it first goes through lower courts.
Continue reading “Judge Knocks Trump’s ‘Bizarre’ Wisconsin Lawsuit Request”
So Much Winning: Biden Officially Secures Enough Electors To Become President
California certified its presidential election Friday and appointed 55 electors pledged to vote for Democrat Joe Biden, officially handing him the Electoral College majority needed to win the White House.
Secretary of State Alex Padilla’s formal approval of Biden’s win in the state brought his tally of pledged electors so far to 279, according to a tally by The Associated Press. That’s just over the 270 threshold for victory.
Continue reading “So Much Winning: Biden Officially Secures Enough Electors To Become President”
ICYMI: Your TPM Weekend News Roundup
Barr On The Ropes?
- Attorney General Bill Barr told the truth this week. And for that he may lose his job.
- On Tuesday, the attorney general told the AP that the Justice Department had not uncovered the sort of mass voter fraud that would overturn the results of the presidential election.
- Soon after Barr’s interview was published, Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani said the nation’s top law enforcement officer simply hadn’t looked hard enough.
- White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany dodged on Wednesday afternoon when asked whether President Trump still had confidence in Barr after the attorney general’s comments.
- On Wednesday night, news broke that Trump was considering firing Barr over the comments. Aides have reportedly urged Trump not to fire his attorney general.
- On Thursday morning, CNN reported that Barr had a particularly rough meeting with Trump at the White House after his AP interview.
- And later on Thursday, Trump himself said that Barr hadn’t looked very hard for the sort of widespread fraud Trump’s campaign has baselessly claimed. Asked whether he still had confidence in Barr, Trump told reporters to check back with him in a few weeks.
Georgia On Our Minds
- Control of the Senate, and thus Joe Biden’s ability to govern, is on the line in the two Georgia Senate runoff elections, set for Jan. 5.
- But President Trump’s bogus election fraud conspiracies may be backfiring on the two Republican senators fighting for reelection.
- But Georgia GOP Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler defended Trump’s antics in a pair of similar statements.
- Georgia Republicans were forced to confront the conundrum of their own creation on Thursday night: convincing Georgians to vote in the runoffs after crying fraud about the Nov. 3 elections.
- TPM’s Kate Riga took a look at Georgia’s runoff system’s roots in the Jim Crow south.
- Trump is scheduled to rally on behalf of Perdue and Loeffler on Saturday. But local officials, including Georgia’s lieutenant governor, don’t seem especially eager for the President’s visit.
- The runoff races are expected to attract massive spending, with much of that money funneled into ads. Here’s a rundown of the political attack ads besieging Georgians ahead of the election.
Trump’s Census Scheme Isn’t Going Well
- The conservative Supreme Court did not seem convinced to go along with President Trump’s push to exclude undocumented immigrants from the decennial census count, TPM’s Tierney Sneed reported on Monday.
- During the Supreme Court hearing, U.S. Solicitor General Jeff Wall made clear the Census Bureau would not be able to meet a year-end deadline to deliver apportionment numbers.
- The scope of the routine data issues in the census data collection, first reported by TPM last month, has grown, according to whistleblower documents obtained by the House.
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Team TPM Rocks!
Something or other caught my eye this morning and reminded me that impeachment was this year. It took me a minute to regain my bearings. Such has been the torrent of news, history and calamity in 2020.
It got me to reflecting a bit, scanning back over my calendar, pinpointing those critical days in February-March when the Before Time came to an end.