Month: December 2020

The latest word from the Trump Cult is that Trump needs to declare martial law and have the military administer a new election. You may think that’s nuts. But this is America. And I don’t think we’ve ever had millions of our fellow citizens openly agitating for a coup d’etat:

Akron, OH: Today, Tom Zawistowski, President of the TEA Party affiliated We the People Convention (WTPC) and Executive Director of the Portage County TEA Party, published a full page ad in the Washington Times newspaper demanding that President Trump Invoke limited Martial law in order to allow the U.S. Military to oversee a new free and fair federal election if Legislators, Courts and the Congress do not follow the Constitution.

Zawistowski said, “We wanted to express our concerns to the President, to the legislators, courts and Congress that We the People will NOT cede our exclusive Constitutional right to elect our Representatives to judges, lawyers, courts, Governors, Secretary’s of State, Congress, corrupt election officials and local politicians, the corrupt media – or Leftist threats of violence! It is OUR EXCLUSIVE RIGHT to elect our President and that sacred right has been infringed by the massive, planned, illegal election fraud conducted by corrupt Democrat/Socialist Party operatives across our nation to steal our vote. We will NOT stand for it.”

The Ad compares the Extraordinary Executive actions implemented by President Abraham Lincoln in his efforts to save the Union during the Civil War and the literal civil war that is dividing our nation today. Without full confidence that our courts or Congress will indeed follow the 12th Amendment of the Constitution and defend our electoral process, the ad calls upon President Trump, like Lincoln, to exercise the Extraordinary Powers of his office and declare limited Martial Law to temporarily suspend the Constitution and civilian control of these federal elections in order to have the military implement a national re-vote that reflects the true will of the people. Federal candidates only. Paper ballots. No computers. Hand-counted with both parties watching every vote. Only registered voters. Photo ID to prove residence. Conducted safely with everyone wearing masks and six feet apart, just like we did in Ohio.

You can laugh this off. This is a fringe idea. But I would just remind you of this before you get all “oh please, this is just a few kooks…”

A Politico/Morning Consult poll released Tuesday found that only 27% of Republicans consider the presidential results “reliable” enough to probably or definitely trust “who they declare to be the winner.”

The Politico/Morning Consult poll also found 67% of Republicans do not believe this was a “free and fair election,” with many providing reasons that echo Trump’s rhetoric: 77% believe “mail-in voting led to widespread voter fraud,” 76% believe “ballots were tampered with” and 61% believe poll watchers were blocked from voting locations, despite there being no actual evidence to support any of those suggestions.

I doubt that the vast majority of those people think Trump should call for martial law. But ideas have a way of metastasizing on the right because of their recklessly irresponsible media machine. Consider that we’ve just spent weeks watching Republicans openly entertain the idea of having state legislators overturn the will of the voters and reward Trump with the winning electoral votes. They were unable to carry that out because there were too many states involved and the elections just wasn’t close enough. Do you think they won’t try this in the future if the election is close enough?

Do you think their voters won’t demand it?

Obviously, Trump can’t really declare martial law and have the military conduct a new election. (At least I don’t think so.) But the mere fact that this line of thought is becoming common in the right wing is more than a little bit disturbing.

Attorney Lin Wood: President Trump Should Declare Martial Law to Hold New Election @LLinWood via @gatewaypundit https://t.co/8FWiA9MjBt

— The Gateway Pundit (@gatewaypundit) December 1, 2020

Trump tells his bloodthirsty Iran hawks to go hog wild — just don’t start WWIII:

President Donald Trump may only have seven weeks left in office, but he’s given his top advisers the green light to batter the Iranian regime—anything that doesn’t hazard a full-on war before Joe Biden is inaugurated.

According to multiple U.S. officials familiar with the matter, in recent weeks Trump has taken a more passive role in personally overseeing Iran policy for the critical final months until Inauguration Day. One White House official last week described Trump as mostly “checked out” on this major foreign policy issue, having become consumed by his bumbling legal effort to steal the 2020 election amid the coronavirus pandemic, as well as by other his pet grievances of the moment.

But Trump has given some of his most hawkish administration officials, particularly his top diplomat, Mike Pompeo, carte blanche to squeeze and punish the Islamic Republic as aggressively as they wish in the coming weeks. All Trump asks is that they don’t risk “start[ing] World War III,” as the president has specifically put it in several private conversations with Pompeo and others, according to two senior administration officials.

That has left a host of options at the outgoing administration’s disposal—among them, a suffocating sanctions regime and a studied silence in the face of the assassination of Iranian nationals. Two officials who spoke to The Daily Beast said the administration is set to announce new sanctions on regime-linked companies and individuals in the coming weeks to solidify a years-long effort to paralyze Tehran’s economy.

Golly, I sure hope nobody makes a mistake and sees all this as some sort of provocation in the middle of a fraught presidential transition with a total nutcase at the helm.

That would be bad …

I’ve written a lot about Joe DiGenova and Victoria Toensing over the years. They’ve been political hacks for a very long time and it’s not surprising they’d be raking in big bucks during this massive Trump grift. Before they joined the “elite strike force” of Giuliani, Ellis and Powell, they were working closely with Rudy on all the Hunter Biden laptop stuff. I’m sure they made a nice profit at it too.

But I honestly didn’t think D Genova would go so far as to publicly issue calls for cruel and unusual punishment for a lifelong Republican former official:

Krebs doesn’t seem like he’s willing to blow that off. Nor should he. There are a whole lot of crazies out there as he is no doubt well aware as the former head of cybersecurity for DHS.

Josh Marshall writes:

A lawyer for President Donald Trump said Monday evening that a former DHS official who’s debunked myths about election fraud should be “drawn and quartered” and “shot.”

And on Tuesday morning, the former official — the recent director of DHS’ Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Chris Krebs — said he was exploring his legal options in response to the comment.

The Trump attorney, Joe diGenova, is a regular pundit on right-wing television networks. He said he’d like Krebs to be killed in an interview Monday evening on Newsmax.

The former DHS official, diGenova said, is “a class-A moron” who “should be drawn and quartered, taken out at dawn and shot.”

Krebs, who was fired via presidential tweet this month for debunking myths about election fraud, responded a few hours later during an interview on the Today Show.

“The way I look at it is, we are a nation of laws and I plan to take advantage of those laws,” he said. “I’ve got an exceptional team of lawyers that win in court, and I think they’re probably going to be busy.”

Krebs added to NBC News’ Savannah Guthrie that his legal team would be “taking a look at all our available opportunities.”

Guthrie asked if Krebs was worried about his safety, given threats he’s faced for speaking out about election security.

“I’m not going to give them the benefit of knowing how I’m reacting to this,” Krebs said. “They can know that there are things coming, though.” 

It’s only a matter of time before some nut decides to take action.

Paul Krugman has some good news on Biden’s economic picks:

I don’t know why there are special names for groups of birds, although some of them — like an “exaltation of larks” — are lovely. Anyway, one term for a group of doves is a “bevy.” And I was encouraged by reports about the people President-elect Joe Biden plans to appoint to key economic positions: They are, as a group, a bevy of deficit doves.

Some background: From 2010 until around 2014 much of the political and media establishment was gripped by the idea that rising federal debt was the most important threat facing America, and that being a “deficit hawk” was the supreme political virtue. It wasn’t just politicians: As The Times’s new columnist Ezra Klein (hi Ezra!) put it, calls for deficit reduction somehow became an issue for which “the rules for reportorial neutrality don’t apply,” in which journalists were allowed to “cheer for a particular set of highly controversial policy solutions.”

Sad to say, President Barack Obama himself seemed to buy into the Beltway consensus, trying to strike a “grand bargain” to reduce future deficits by cutting social programs. He was only saved from his own instincts by the intransigence of Republicans, who refused to consider any tax hikes as part of the bargain.

In reality, as I could have told you — as I and others did, in fact, tell you — the consensus among the Very Serious People (a term I stole from the blogger Duncan Bowen Black) about the evils of debt was wrongheaded and destructive. Government debt didn’t pose any significant economic threat, while spending cuts were materially holding back recovery from the 2007-9 recession.

Oh, and many of the most prominent deficit hawks were phonies. They didn’t really care about government debt, they only pretended to care as an excuse for trying to slash social programs. The proof came when President Donald Trump inflated the deficit with tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy — and many of those who pretended to believe that deficits were an existential threat under Obama cheered him on.

Still, some of us were worried about whether Biden would pick up where Obama left off — whether he would choose Very Serious People, still wedded to the old debt obsession, for his economic team. The good news is that he hasn’t.

Oh, you can pick over past writings by some of Biden’s choices and find places where they spoke up for deficit reduction — generally when they were, you know, working for Obama and dutifully repeating his administration’s official position. And I know that some Bernie Sanders supporters still want to relitigate the 2016 primary and are trying to portray Neera Tanden, a Clinton supporter Biden is nominating to head the Office of Management and Budget, as some kind of closet conservative.

But the reality is that as far as I can tell, all of Biden’s economic picks are people who understand that federal debt isn’t currently a major policy concern, whereas it would be a disaster if we don’t spend enough either to get through the pandemic or on crucial long-run issues, especially climate change.

Now, how much they can act on this understanding is very much up in the air; specifically, a huge amount rides on the Georgia Senate runoffs. But Biden, it seems, has learned something from Obama’s missteps.

In the early days of the Obama administration I was excoriated by progressives who were still in their ecstatic euphoria over his election because I objected to his Grand Bargain that included cuts to the safety net because deficits were a crisis that “had to be dealt with.” I had to watch my words very, very carefully at the time lest I get my slapped down hard for failing to “trust Obama.”

Recall this from E.J. Dionne before the inauguration:

Mr. Obama’s anti-ideological talk is not just a vehicle for progressive inclinations but the real deal. Mr. Obama regularly offers three telltale notions that will define his presidency — if events allow him to define it himself: “sacrifice,” “grand bargain” and “sustainability.”

To listen to Mr. Obama and his budget director Peter Orszag is to hear a tale of long-term fiscal woe. The government may have to spend and cut taxes in a big way now, but in the long run, the federal budget is unsustainable.

That’s where sacrifice kicks in. There will be signs of it in Mr. Obama’s first budget, in his efforts to contain health-care costs and, down the road, in his call for entitlement reform and limits on carbon emissions.

His camp is selling the idea that if he wants authority for new initiatives and new spending, Mr. Obama will have to prove his willingness to cut some programs and reform others.

The “grand bargain” they are talking about is a mix and match of boldness and prudence. It involves expansive government where necessary, balanced by tough management, unpopular cuts — and, yes, eventually some tax increases. Everyone, they say, will have to give up something.

Only such a balance, they argue, will win broad support for what Mr. Obama wants to do, and thus make his reforms “sustainable,” the other magic word — meaning that even Republicans, when they eventually get back to power, will choose not to reverse them.

It is riotously ambitious. But it’s worth remembering that last November, Americans elected a man who counts “audacity” as one of his favorite words.

Progressives have learned from that experience. Joe Biden doesn’t have the kind of blind faith on the left that Obama had in the beginning. And that’s a good thing. No leader should have that. But it does appear, at least so far, that Biden and his team do not have a grandiose vision like Obama’s “Grand Bargain” with Republicans, even despite his rhetorical emphasis on “unity”, nor an overarching concern about deficits.

This is reassuring. Back in 2009, it was pulling teeth to get progressives to pay attention to the fact that Democrats were sabotaging themselves with deficit obsession. While I don’t think anyone should let their guard down this time either — it’s a zombie ideology — but it’s good that we aren’t starting off with austerity on the menu at the very beginning.

BTW, with respect to Tanden I think she’s a fool for waging twitter fights. It’s just a stupid waste of time and it’s greatly harmed her reputation. I also know that she’s considered too much of a neo-liberal centrist by many on the left and that’s a fair argument that’s going to be waged within the Democratic party regardless of whether it’s Tanden at the center of it or a piece of legislation or a speech by the president. It’s part of our politics and everyone needs to accept that it’s happening.

Having said that, it’s vitally important that the various factions in the Democratic party resist the use of “alternative facts” or fake news or propaganda of any kind. We’ve had enough of that. So, with that in mind, I’m sharing this, just to make sure people know where Tanden is today on the issue of cutting Social Security, which she once backed as part of President Obama’s agenda:

For the record, here are the recommendations @neeratanden and CAP put out on Social Security in 2019. We also literally led the charge against Trump’s plan to defund Social Security in 2020. https://t.co/dKMNkbynJW pic.twitter.com/rIuUDq8qyT

— Jesse Lee (@JesseCharlesLee) December 1, 2020

Rudy is in trouble for profiting from his nefarious role as the president’s lawyer trying to get foreign actors to sabotage the presidential election. You’ll recall that he was paid big bucks, for instance, by the company called “Fraud Guarantee” run by Lev and Igor. There’s a lot of that stuff out there and it’s been reported that he’s under investigation by his old office, the SDNY.

Trump isn’t going to let them prosecute his buddy:

Rudolph W. Giuliani, President Trump’s lawyer who has led the most extensive efforts to damage his client’s political rivals and undermine the election results, discussed with the president as recently as last week the possibility of receiving a pre-emptive pardon before Mr. Trump leaves office, according to two people told of the discussion.

It was not clear who raised the topic. The men have also talked previously about a pardon for Mr. Giuliani, according to the people. Mr. Trump has not indicated what he will do, one of the people said.

Mr. Giuliani’s potential criminal exposure is unclear. He was under investigation as recently as last summer by federal prosecutors in Manhattan for his business dealings in Ukraine and his role in ousting the American ambassador there, a plot that was at the heart of the impeachment of Mr. Trump.

Mr. Giuliani did not respond to a message seeking comment. Christianne Allen, his spokeswoman, said, “Mayor Giuliani cannot comment on any discussions that he has with his client.”

Mr. Giuliani’s lawyer, Robert Costello, said, “He’s not concerned about this investigation, because he didn’t do anything wrong and that’s been our position from Day 1.”

A spokeswoman for Mr. Trump did not respond to an email seeking comment.

Such a broad pardon pre-empting any charge or conviction is highly unusual but does have precedent. George Washington pardoned plotters of the Whiskey Rebellion, shielding them from treason prosecutions. In the most famous example, Gerald R. Ford pardoned Richard M. Nixon for all of his actions as president. Jimmy Carter pardoned thousands of American men who illegally avoided the draft for the Vietnam War.

Mr. Trump has wielded his clemency powers liberally in cases that resonate with him personally or for people who have a direct line to him through friends or family, while thousands of other cases await his review.

Last week he pardoned his former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn broadly for potential legal troubles beyond the charge he had faced of lying to federal investigators. The move raised expectations that Mr. Trump will bestow clemency on other associates in his final weeks in office.

Rudy had this on twitter:

#FakeNews NYT lies again. Never had the discussion they falsely attribute to an anonymous source. Hard to keep up with all their lies.

— Rudy W. Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) December 1, 2020

I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t sound very convincing.

There’s going to be a pardon spree and I think it will result in the Republicans and many in the media to be relieved that they can “move on” because there’s nothing to be done about it.

You want owning the libs? This is owning the libs:

Good policy makes for good government. Thank you @JohnCornyn! 🇺🇸 https://t.co/Qg5fP8ZRql

— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) December 1, 2020

Did your head explode? Mine did. Get ready. It’s not going to be the last time.

And, by the way, the media is going to allow this to happen by reporting what they say without the context and I would guess that it will only take about three months before they start screaming in our faces, “get over it!!!” whenever we bring it up. And sadly, they will be helped along by Democratic allies who would also like to just forget about Trump and the GOP’s traitorous behavior over the past four years so they can go back to the internecine fighting that they truly care about.

History will record what they did so I guess that’s something. But as George W. Bush memorably said, “History, yeah. We’ll all be dead.”

I don't know who did this but it seems appropriate: pic.twitter.com/CZpaAdZNqj

— Orange Former Leader (@OrangeLeaderUSA) December 1, 2020

Even as the outgoing president’s grip on the country weakens, his grip on Cult 45 remains strong.

“We want Trump!” chants outside the Hyatt Regency in downtown Phoenix this morning #Arizona #Phoenix #Election2020 pic.twitter.com/nTI5UxeRLJ

— Brendan Gutenschwager (@BGOnTheScene) November 30, 2020

The New York Times reported Monday that with the Biden administration only weeks away EPA staff members “are emboldened to stymie Mr. Trump’s goals” of leaving more regulatory destruction in his wake. Some are conducting back-channel discussions with the Biden transition team on putting the agency back together.

But as the “mad king” obsesses over Republicans who did not go to the mat to steal the election for him, his rantings about election fraud are undermining chances for Georgia Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler to retain their U.S. Senate seats up for grabs in Jan. 5 runoffs.

David Perdue’s conundrum in 10 seconds: He’s pitching himself and fellow Ga. Sen. Kelly Loeffler as the last line of defense against Democratic control. A guy in the crowd (the one in the hat) interrupts, screaming ‘What are you doing to stand up for President Trump.’ pic.twitter.com/QuLuYFKGrV

— Cleve R. Wootson Jr. (@CleveWootson) November 23, 2020

The Trump legal team’s un-victory tour has traveled the country reinforcing among base supporters Trump’s claim that the election he lost was “a total scam.” So while Trump’s lame-duck efforts to lay waste to Washington, D.C. meet resistance there, hardcore supporters in Georgia wonder why they should show up to vote on Jan. 5 if the result is as rigged as he claims.

The Washington Post reports:

• In some Trump-supporting circles on social media, there is talk of boycotting the election. Lin Wood is a Trump ally in Atlanta who recently tweeted to his hundreds of thousands of followers: “If not fixed, I will NOT vote in GA runoff.”
• Politico reports that #CrookedPerdue and #CrookedKelly are popping up on social media, accusing the two senators of being “liberal DemoRats.” That’s despite the fact that Perdue and Kelly stuck their necks out politically to try to demonstrate how concerned they were with election fraud. Shortly after they learned they were going to runoffs, they sent out a joint statement demanding Georgia’s Republican secretary of state resign over perceived misdeeds in overseeing the election. They provided no evidence, and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) has ridiculed them for it.
• Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel was campaigning in Georgia this weekend when she encountered some GOP voters who don’t see the point in voting if the election is supposedly rigged. CNN reported that she was confronted by concerns about using “money and work [to win the runoffs] when it’s already decided.” “It’s not decided,” she pushed back.

Ronna McDaniel asked in GA what the point of donating is when it's "already decided," referring to the "fraud" leveled by Trump & GOP.

Congrats, @GOP. You just convinced your own supporters that the election is rigged and it's not worth participating.pic.twitter.com/vEARL82CAU

— Brian Tyler Cohen (@briantylercohen) November 28, 2020

“The Trump wing of the Republican Party was always at risk of detaching from the party establishment,” writes Amber Phillips. But it is not clear there is a Trump “wing” of the party. Trump is the party now. Establishment Republicans are the fringe. Chickens are coming home to an intramural cock fight.

Runoffs and primaries are typically low-turnout elections attended mostly by party faithful. To secure the two Georgia wins Republicans need to retain control of the Senate, Perdue and Loeffler will need to turn out Trump’s base: the new Trumpublican base. But as the Jan. 20 Joe Biden inauguration nears, Trump’s mood is likely to further darken as his thoughts turn to issuing pardons and his looming post-presidency legal troubles. Getting out the vote for them in Georgia will not be a priority.

https://twitter.com/NathanBrandWA/status/1332125970439004160?s=20

Even if he shows up in Georgia on Dec. 5 to campaign for Loeffler and Perdue, Trump is unlikely to help … or keep to script. He will spend his superspreader event rubbing his wounded ego. He will complain about “betrayal” by Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. He will repeat that Georgia was stolen from him via the “rigged voting machines & fake mail ballots” Wood complained of on Sunday to his hundreds of thousands of Twitter followers.

I choose not to vote in another fraudulent election with rigged voting machines & fake mail ballots.

The future of this nation will not be be determined by fraudulent elections.

This is not about an election. This is a color revolution to overthrow our government.

Face TRUTH. https://t.co/uhQAyKvesx

— Lin Wood (@LLinWood) November 30, 2020

“Color revolution.”

If Trump has no faith in Georgia’s elections, why should his followers there bother?

Jon Ossoff for U.S. Senate

Reverend Warnock for U.S. Senate