Biden Wins, Trump's a Sore Loser - Wash, Rinse, Repeat
Monday, November 24, was the best news day for me in four years.
For once, the man in the White House wasn’t able to hijack the news cycle to suit himself. And, yes, I know, how much we’ve all had to lower the bar when it comes to deciding what’s good news.
As we head into the Thanksgiving holiday it’s time for some tidings of good cheer.
https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1331261330859438080?s=20
The week started with signals from the corporate world that they’d had enough of Donnie Two Scoop’s displays of childishness. From their point of view, the tax cuts were wonderful, and the deregulation was delightful, but so much negativity is bad for business. It’s that old “uncertainty” thing. And just make sure the message got through, they threw in a little warning.
From the New York Times:
Concerned that President Trump’s refusal to accept the election results is hurting the country, more than 160 top American executives asked the administration on Monday to immediately acknowledge Joseph R. Biden Jr. as the president-elect and begin the transition to a new administration…
...The move was one of many signs that Mr. Trump is losing support. On Monday, General Motors said that it would abandon Mr. Trump’s battle to nullify California’s fuel economy rules meant to curb global warming, and more than 100 prominent national security experts who are Republicans or served in Republican administrations implored G.O.P. members of Congress to demand that Mr. Trump concede and allow the transition to begin.
As a way of gaining leverage over the G.O.P., some of the corporate executives who signed on to the joint letter Monday have also discussed withholding campaign donations from the two Republican Senate candidates in Georgia unless party leaders agree to push for a presidential transition, according to four people who participated in a conference call Friday in which the notion was discussed. The two runoff elections in Georgia, which will take place in early January, will determine the balance of power in the United States Senate.
The GOP side of the national security establishment, long the object of Trump’s disdain, weighed in with yet another mostly meaningless publicity stunt.
From USA Today:
More than 100 Republican former national security officials, including former defense and homeland security secretaries, warned that President Donald Trump's refusal to allow a transition to President-elect Joe Biden imperils the nation.
In a statement released Monday, more than 100 senior former national security officials who served in Republican administrations demanded that members of Congress call on Trump to allow officials from Biden's team to receive immediate briefings to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic and threats to national security.
Seven Republican Senators have now stepped up and called on the administration to acknowledge reality.
Journalist Carl Bernstein got a few moments in the spotlight with a story listing 21 Senators who he said had “repeatedly expressed extreme contempt for [Donald] Trump and his fitness” for office.
On the electoral front, lawsuits filed by the Trump campaign’s crack(ed) legal team continued to be swatted away in the courts, either because they were lacking evidence or have no standing. Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia and other states began moving forward with certifying the election results. There weren’t enough Trumpanistas burrowed in state bureaucracies to turn the tide.
From Politico:
Michigan’s certification could be the fatal blow to Trump’s legally dubious efforts to block Biden from attaining the 270 electoral votes he needs to win. Only a few closely contested states remain to be certified, from Pennsylvania to Wisconsin to Arizona, and in each case, there appears to be little energy among Republicans to overturn the will of their voters. The president’s legal cases and the political pressure he’s putting on fellow Republicans to fight the election results are falling flat.
The Biden/Harris campaign rolled out several cabinet picks, naming Anthony Blinken (State), Janet Yellen (Treasury), Jake Sullivan (National Security Advisor), Avril Haines (Director of National Intelligence), Alejandro Mayorkas (Secretary of Homeland Security), John Kerry (Special envoy for climate), and Linda Thomas-Greenfield (US ambassador to the United Nations).
https://twitter.com/joelockhart/status/1331221807354044416?s=20
While most of those named probably wouldn’t make it onto a progressive wish list, there were no blathering idiots, all seemed knowledgeable in their fields, and the Biden/Harris cabinet will go a long way towards soothing the fears of the American public and countries traditionally aligned with the US.
I really like Yellen at Treasury and Kerry’s upcoming role signals a commitment to the environment.
A decision by the Government Services Administration to release transition funding (which Trump tried to claim credit after the fact) allowed the incoming administration to take a first step towards transparency as buildbackbetter.gov went live. It provides a window into the transition from being a campaign into building an administration.
As for the domain, which you might not think much about, the shift to a .gov domain marks a significant step forwards in the camp’s cybersecurity efforts. Government domains, hosted on the .gov domain, are toughened to prevent against domain hijacking or spoofing. In simple terms, they’re far more resilient than your regular web hosting services.
Finally, the Trump campaign’s effort to challenge the election results and punish Republicans who won’t go along with their program is yielding results, just not in the way they might have intended.
https://twitter.com/Bill_Maxwell_/status/1331264486594940928?s=20
The Daily Beast reports Roger Stone’s Committee for American Sovereignty is asking MAGA voters in Georgia to write Trump’s name in place of voting for Sens. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) and David Perdue (R-GA) in January’s senate run-off elections.
The goal of doing this, the group argues, is to somehow force Republicans to not recognize the results of the 2020 election and keep Trump in power.
“If we can do this, we have a real chance at getting these RINO senators to act on the illegitimate and corrupt election presided over by a Democrat party that is invested in the Communist takeover of Our Great Nation,” the group explains on its website. “We will not stop fighting for you, the American Patriot, against the evils of Socialism and inferior Religions.”
The January runoff elections in Georgia will determine which party controls the Senate.
https://twitter.com/Amy_Siskind/status/1331258268740706305?s=20
Holiday publishing plans: I’ll pause Thursday thru Sunday for the Thanksgiving Holiday. However, if something big comes up –like Trump resigning– I’ll gladly jump back in. Big news tends to follow my breaks in publishing; I remember my first “vacation” from the San Diego Free Press turned out to be the week of the start of Mayor Bob Filner’s descent into infamy.
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Email me at WritetoDougPorter@Gmail.com