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Just 25 Days….Open thread for December 26, 2020

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The ‘other guy ‘ WILL be gone in 25 days ….

We’re in a countdown….

For this guy to take over running the Un tied States of America

Then?

Just 25 days and we can put to bed pardons….

Just 25 days and we can begin a comprehensive plan o0f assistance to deal with the pandemic….

 

Just 25 days and we can have a President for Most if not All Americans…

Just 25 days and we can start to work towards an economy that helps ALL of us…

Just 25 days America can rejoin the effort for a clearer climate…

Just 25 days and we won’t as many crooks stealing from INSIDE the government….

Just 25 days and our government will begin to look like the hues of America….

Just 25 days and America can rejoin the world….

As ‘We the People’ ….

Just 25 days…..

Tomorrow it will be less….

Amen….

image….The Washington Post

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  2. Donald Trump has NO friends…
    And turns on anyone….
    This few days it’s been McConnell, McCarthy and Mnuchin…

    ….

    Add to list
    President Trump on Saturday continued to demand changes to the $900 billion stimulus deal that Democrats and Republicans approved on Dec. 21, raising the odds that the government could shut down on Tuesday and the economy could suffer a devastating shock in the final days of his presidency.
    “I simply want to get our great people $2000, rather than the measly $600 that is now in the bill,” Trump wrote in a tweet.
    His demand for $2,000 stimulus checks is a direct rejection of the $600 checks that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had personally proposed and negotiated with Democrats and Republicans. Now, Trump’s rejection of the deal has confounded many leaders on Capitol Hill because they had thought Mnuchin negotiated the package on behalf of the president. The treasury chief’s standing with many lawmakers is now in tatters just days before a full-blown crisis is set to occur.

    More….

  3. We are told that Republicans in Congress will work with Biden .He himself says he knows how to “get along” with Republicans .Lets all hope so.However ,what’s been happening of late doesn’t give cause for optimism.

    Columnist Frank Bruno presents a needed dose of reality:”…70% of registered Republican voters ,according to a Quinnipiac poll this month believe that Bidens victory was illegitimate.Trump has taken his refusal to concede to historic,previously unthinkable lengths.And an overwhelming majority of Republican members of Congress have played along, actively or passively,many of them knowing better,all of them traitors to democracy and profiles in cowardice.To this crew Biden is supposed to extend an olive branch?”

    As we are often told here?Just keeping it “real.”

        • Well, we know one thing that gives a Republican “courage.”

          It’s not a medal as the cowardly lion got in the Wizard of Oz.Its announcing your retirement.

          See Pat Toomey,the retiring Republican Senator from Pa.,was just another MAGA red hat wearing bootlicker, but after choosing retirement has grown increasingly critical of Trump.

          Today on FoxNews Toomey blasted Trump suggesting that Trump was thinking only of his own legacy rather than the good of the country in his demand to revise the Covid relief measure.

          “He’ll be remembered for chaos and misery and erratic behavior if he allows this to expire.”

          Who thinks he would have uttered those words if he wasn’t retiring?

          • Frank Luntz [the legendary Republican pollster] on one of the Sunday talk shows (apparently ABC This Week) was unsparing in his criticism of Donald Trump. He said that Sens. Perdue & Loeffler had already dropped from 4% ahead of their Democratic challengers, to dead-even or behind — partly because Trump’s and the Trump Chorus’s drumbeat against the legitimacy of elections had greatly depressed turnout (presumably more among GOP prospective voters than among Democratic ones) while Democrats were highly motivated.

            Luntz also blasted Trump’s mishandling of the Pandemic with genuine anger in his voice and expression.

            • Hear THAT folks?

              Luntz pointing to Trump’s ego and altered reality could screw ‘his’ patry out of their Senate majority also….

              Some ‘Republican’ Trump is , eh?

          • Retirement as a cure for Trumpism?

            It’s a Mircle!

            Can they make a secret drug to give to GOPer lawmakers?

    • I wonder what would have happened had Trump kept his promise to raise taxes on the wealthy that he made in the 2016 campaign?

      For all the BS on here about how Trump isn’t “really a conservative” lowering taxes on the wealthy seems to be the one tenet holding the GOP and conservative movement together.

      And of course Trump did the exact opposite of his promise and lowered taxes on the wealthy like never before. Because he is a conservative Republican–for whatever that moniker is worth these days.

      • I’ve wondered the same thing.

        Trimp could start engaging in some historical revisionism soon claiming that he listened too much to Republican politicians instead of his own instincts and that’s what caused his problems and ultimately his defeat.

        • The guy doesn’t REALLY belong to ANY party except ‘HIMSELF’…..

          Right now?

          It’s him AGAINST McConnell and Mc Carthy…

          Some Republican he is❗️

          • He’s the epitome of a Republican.

            And has the support of the vast majority of Re.

            More Republican apologia garbage from you.

            Someone take out the trash!

        • Yeah Trump could claim he wanted to go full populist and raise taxes on the wealthy but the GOP held him back.

          Whether or not he’ll do that remains to be seen

      • Yup 😉
        Trump IS SO CONSERVATIVE he’s holding up the works to grant a $2,000 check for everyone opposite his ‘conservatives’ wanting to pear the check down to $600?

        • Haven’t you learned anything from the last four years?

          “Conservative “ is a meaningless term.

          “Conservatives “ totally supported Trump and everything he did and said during his presidency.They are backing him to the hilt and his outrageous attempts to subvert the election.

          Your vain attempts to excuse Republicans,defend “conservatism ,and pretending that soon everything will be be back like it was ten years ago is dumb and ridiculous.

          Amazingly, you still don’t understand what has happened to the Republican Party and what it’s become.

          Of course based on your past history of failing to understand the simple basics of politics and government?

          Who should be surprised?

          • Republicans like every thing else Jack come in different sizes and shapes….

            You are correct on the party lawmakers making a
            Bad judgement in going along with Trump up to now and getting screwed for it…

            But?

            There is a VAST difference between them and MAGA people…

            U pair them up….

            I do NOT all the time…

            U use the 95% figure that is NOT true anymore…

            In fact i believe i understand a LOT more than u…

            Again?

            I have strayed from the belief that Donald J. Trump has NO party at heart….Just his own self interests…

            Todays action by Trump confirm the one way part for the Trump/GOP lawmakers relationship

            • More obfuscation.

              I and others stated at one time that around 95% of Republicans supported Trump.Polls consistently showed that around 90% did However that’s not relevant anyway.

              To claim that the vast majority of Republicans don’t support Trump after the recent election shows someone who purposefully is engaging in apologizing for the Republican Party and it’s disgraceful support of Trump.

              Your silly assertion that “there is a vast difference between them and MAGA people?“Laughable.I don’t know who “them” is.I do know that the vast majority of people ,who call themselves Republican ,voted for and supported Trump.I do know that 70% of Republicans, according to a recent poll ,say that Biden isn’t even the legitimate President.I do know that almost all Republican Senators and Congresspeople have supported Trump in his efforts to steal the election.I do know that “conservatives” abandoned positionafter position whenever Trump ordered them to.And this isn’t just me as you seem to imply.It is well documented in all the major organs of news throughout the country.

              And what do you offer?such incomprehensible blather as “I have strayed from the belief that DJT has no party at heart.”

              Good God man just say it!”People can be more than one thing!” Isn’t that one of your gems?

              Dumb

              • Again Jack?…..

                Trumo actions right now are NOT making a LOT of his parties lawmakers happy….

                AGAIN?

                IT just COULD just COULD cost ‘his’ party their majority in the US Senate….

                Make Republicans Great , eh Jack?

                    • Lets face it Jack…

                      GOP leadership NEVER LIKED Trump …

                      It was a ‘ hostile takeover’ of their party in the first place…

                      We’ll see if they grow balls or their ‘leader ‘ screws the whole country while they stand by….

                    • President Trump on Saturday accused Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other Republicans of failing to fight on his behalf regarding the outcome of the 2020 presidential election – which Trump continues to argue was “Rigged & Stolen.”….

                      …

                      The president’s latest claims came just 25 days ahead the scheduled Jan. 20 inauguration of Democrat Joe Biden, following the Nov. 3 election and a Dec. 14 vote by the Electoral College that all but confirmed Biden’s victory. Only a Jan. 6 session on Capitol Hill – at which lawmakers are expected to accept the election results – stands between Trump and the conclusion of his time in the White House….

                      More @ Fox…

          • Apparently the soon to be dead doper Rush Limbaugh agrees that conservatism is dead.

            Trump Republicanism is about sticking it to us liberals. That’s it.

  4. Morning People…..

    Trump is about to get another defeat coming his way this week with the Defense bill…

    The big guy is going out with political lumps…

    Next week the Biden win will slap jom in the face once again…

    His party lawmakers seem to be getting even….

    • REALITY…..

      Karen Tumulty
      @ktumulty
      At some point in the next few weeks, unmarked moving vans are going to start pulling up to the White House, painters are going to come in and
      @realDonaldTrump
      is going to have to tell them where to put his stuff. Here’s what it looked like four years ago:

  5. The New York Post reports President Trump and Melania Trump are are talking to real estate brokers “about buying a house in Palm Beach, or nearby, as the living space at Mar-a-Lago isn’t big enough, and there could be some potential conflicts.”

    “The Trumps have also been looking at Palm Beach-area private schools for their son, 14-year-old Barron.”

    Politicalwire

      • Biden to talk about the pandemic this afternoon…

        Travel is going up…..

        Cases are also….

        Vaccine shots are way below what Fauci thought they should be….

        Governors are not gonna order mass shutdowns right now….

        Numbers have actually levelled off but are skewed by the holidays and will probably rise after New Years…

        • Criticism is increasing over the vaccine rollout .HHS Secretary Azar claimed that 20 million doses would be given before Jan.1 ,however, currents stats show only 2 million have been done.

          Apparently HHS is essentially leaving the actual vaccinating process up to the states with uneven results.

          Biden needs to jump on this ASAP.

          • The WHOLE Federal response to the virus has been terrible….

            Trump NEVER wanted anything to do with it…

            Things where left up to the governors…

            I’m sure Biden’s admin will step up to the plate….

            Rhe media IS reporting more and more on vaccine’s being sent to the privileged before healthcare and frontline people…

            Unkown if theFeds have an infrastructure to hand the task of coordination needed…

  7. election 2020
    Republicans sue Mike Pence in ‘desperate’ last-ditch effort to overturn election

    The Week
    December 28, 2020

    Several Republicans, including Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), have resorted to suing Vice President Mike Pence as part of a “desperate” last-ditch effort to overturn the results of November’s presidential election, The Hill reports. The goal of the lawsuit is to get a federal judge to rule that Pence has the exclusive authority to choose electors when he oversees the Electoral College vote certification on Jan. 6.

    ⚖️NEW: VP Pence has been sued by Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.), Kelli Ward and other GOP mbrs in a far-fetched bid to overturn Biden’s win

    Plaintiffs ask Judge Jeremy Kernodle, a Trump-appt’d fed judge in Texas, to find that Pence is authorized to pick pro-Trump electors on Jan. 6 pic.twitter.com/BumNwLm5ss

    — John Kruzel (@johnkruzel) December 28, 2020

    Despite President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in battleground states like Arizona and Georgia, Republican electors held their own votes earlier this month in a move to disrupt the official process as Trump and his allies continue to make unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud. The lawsuit urges Pence to recognize the Republican electoral votes rather than the actual Democratic votes.

    The chances of this lawsuit being successful appear to be negligible. University of California, Irvine, law professor Rick Hasen said flatly “this won’t work,” while Georgia State University law professor Anthony Michael Kreis called it “insane.” And even if the the plaintiffs do win, Pence — who has not recognized Biden’s win, but has generally been quiet about election conspiracy theories — would still have to actually go through with picking pro-Trump electors, a task likely easier said than done. Read the full complaint here. Tim O’Donnell

    https://theweek.com/speedreads/957534/republicans-sue-mike-pence-desperate-lastditch-effort-overturn-election

  8. Congressman-Elect Luke Detlow (R-LA) has died of Covid 19–less than one week before taking office.

    • Pence Refused Plan to Overturn Election

      “Lawyers representing Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) and Arizona’s 11 GOP electors disclosed in a court filing Tuesday that Vice President Mike Pence rejected their request to join their attempt to subvert the results of the presidential election,” The Hill reports.

    • Rep.-elect Luke Letlow (R-La.) has died from coronavirus, multiple sources confirmed Tuesday evening. He was 41.

      Letlow, who announced on Dec. 18 that he tested positive for Covid-19, had been in the intensive care unit at Ochsner LSU Health in Shreveport….

      More @ Politico….

    • Luke Letlow, won his runoff just a few weeks ago. He was only 41 years old and while he was not sworn into office, becomes the first Member of Congress to succumb to the virus.

      Very sad story, as it is for all the people around the world who have lost their lives this year to Covid.

    • Trump people holding up the transition meetings i assume have new jobs outside the government waiting for them…

      There are gonna be stories from mid-level people that are sire to leak out about stuff that did and did not go on for the last four years….

    • On Jan. 20, Biden to issue memo freezing Trump administration’s midnight regulations

      At noon ET on Jan. 20, after President-elect Joe Biden is inaugurated, he will issue a memo to stop or postpone midnight regulations and actions taken by the Trump administration that have not gone into effect by Inauguration Day, Biden transition spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Wednesday.

      Midnight regulations are created by executive branch agencies during the lame duck period of an outgoing president’s administration. Psaki shared some examples, including a rule the Department of Labor is expected to publish that “would make it easier for companies to call their workers independent contractors to avoid minimum wage and overtime protections.”

      Issuing a regulatory freeze is standard practice for incoming administrations….

  11. Republican Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire has canceled his outdoor inauguration due to the actions of Virus Spreading armed “protestors “ who have been increasingly aggressive outside his home over his mask mandate.

  13. Tom Daschle’s moment in the state which once elected George McGovern and James Abourezk?

    [from The Hill]

    President Trump on Friday repeated his call for South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) to primary Senate Majority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.), despite her refusal last week.

    Trump took to Twitter to promote Noem and criticize Thune as a “RINO,” or Republican in name only, after the senator dismissed Trump’s efforts to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s election win.

    Noem said last week that she is not interested in challenging Thune in the Republican primary.

    “I’m honored to be Governor of South Dakota and will ask the people to give me an opportunity to continue serving them as Governor in 2022,” she tweeted….

    https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/532326-trump-again-calls-for-noem-to-primary-thune-despite-her-refusal

  14. “The homes of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi were vandalized over the weekend after Congress adjourned Friday without securing $2,000 stimulus checks,” USA Today reports….

    Politicalwire...

    (Both have Capitol Police personal security detail protection that will probably be doubled up going into Jan 20….the actions were spray paint graffiti)

  16. james, as you are a NY Giants fan, did you want them to get into the Playoffs (and host a game) as a 6-10 Division Championship team? (If so, that is sort of the Electoral College of NFL clinching.)

    But in any event, the Philadelphia Eagles, who had nothing to play for, are basically losing on purpose tonight, in a winnable game, which will cost the Giants the opportunity.

  18. Breaking

    Proud Boys leader arrested in the burning of Black Lives Matter banner, D.C. police say…

    WashPost….

  20. It has come to light that years ago, Kamala Harris and Montel Williams briefly dated. That’s interesting from a trivia standpoint.

    I think people would also want to know if Mike Pence had ever dated Ricki Lake.

  21. The last Union Widow has passed away.

    There was some sort of tv movie about The Last Confederate Widow if I remember something from my childhood.

    The woman who passed away at 101, was 17 years old when she married her 93 year old husband.

    This story might give some hope to Donald Trump.

    • Yes, CG, a writer took a news item and turned it into the novel “Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All”.

      (I think the novel was based on the idea, rather on the specific facts or biography of this widow.)

      Treating this as an arithmetical word-problem:
      the Union widow dying at 101 implies she was born in 1919 (coincidentally at the tail end of the Spanish ’flu epidemic and contemporaneous with the Treaty of Versailles and the foundation of the American Communist Party, or rather two American Communist parties). So at 17 she would have married a 93-year-old veteran around 1936 (Alf Landon’ campaign & the Berlin Olympics). So the veteran would have been born around 1843 and served in the Union Army somewhere between the ages of 18 and 22.

  25. More Biden picks ….

    Biden taps Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo as Commerce Secretary, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh for Labor

    WashPost

    • Well, zero Republicans in the entire Cabinet and as far as I can tell in the entire Administration, even though Biden owes his election to a group of Republicans.

      Raimondo is fairly good as far as Democrats are concerned and from what I hear, the new Governor of Rhode Island will basically be a DINO.

    • So much for the Chao working for Biden ,eh?

      So far?

      Biden ain’t hiring GOPer’s like he said he ‘might’

      • It’s definitely a broken promise by Biden and symbolically disturbing that he cannot find one anti-Trump Republican (even one who might now call themself a Democrat) who he thinks is worthy of being in his Administration.

        He would not have been President without their votes. All the more reason why responsible Republicans need to focus first on reforming and reclaiming their own party. They will never truly be welcomed by Democrats as part of a larger coalition.

  27. Garland will be the first Jewish (non-acting) Attorney General since…. Michael Mukasey.

    So, if I couldn’t get any Republicans in the Cabinet, at least my “people” get State, Treasury, and Justice. That will drive some crazy. (and General Austin seems cool enough)

  28. Pelosi has said that if the 25th Amendment is not invoked immediately, Trump will be impeached by the House.

    So, at the minimum, Trump will be the first President to be impeached twice, and it didn’t even take a second term!

        • Right now Pelosi and Schumer are meeting with Minority Leader McConnell and Kevin McCarthy to discuss impeachment (since Pence won’t pull the 25th Amendment cord). McCarthy will oppose impeachment because he’s a piece of shit. McConnell will allow a vote if it comes to that.

      • At least 1 (probably several more) which is a change from last year. Dems have the votes in the House though already.

          • Pelosi went before the cameras a short time ago and said they would do it.

            So, maybe the Senate doesnt act. This whole situation seems fluid.

            All I know is that when a dam breaks, it breaks fast.

  29. RI Gov. Gina Raimondo is now in quarantine due to a positive contact, and postponed her weekly press briefing from this afternoon to tomorrow afternoon.

    Her relations with Lt Gov. Dan McKie are distant; he is not a member of her coronavirus task force (at least more than nominally). Instead he was, at the one point he was visible, rallying various lines of business and industry to reopen.

    I don’t know if he’d qualify as a DINO — i.e. someone who would in another state be independent or Republican — but he’s definitely in the conservative half of the RI Democratic party. RI Lt Governors no longer preside over the State Senate, and Rhode Island has one of the country’s weakest governorships (vis-á-vis the General Assembly).

    On the other hand,
    (1) This would be a step back for those like me in the progressive half, since the very DINO-like strong Speaker of the House (Nicholas Mattiello, defeated in his own district by the Republican wife of the outgoing Mayor of Cranston, Allan Fung) has just been succeeded by someone (Joe Shekarchi) much more open to his caucus’s progressive faction.
    (2) The Lieutenant Governor’s absence from the Senate makes no difference, anyway, since the member-elected President of the State Senate (Dominic Ruggerio, an official in the mobbed-up, Providence-based Laborers International Union) is also very conservative.
    (3) Everything is relative: While she is a Democrat (who made her name making public pension funds more solvent by limiting or cutting pensions in the face of the public workers’ unions), Gina Raimondo endorsed Michael Bloomberg (D>R>i>D) for President in the Democratic primaries.
    (4) Gina Raimondo would probably be very well qualified (in terms of technical grasp) for Commerce Secretary. Before her election as General Treasurer in 2010, she had helped to start a venture-capital fund. According to Wikipedia:
    Raimondo graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree magna cum laude in Economics from Harvard College in 1993, where she served on the staff of The Harvard Crimson. She attended New College, Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, where she received a Master of Arts (MA) degree and Doctor of Philosophy in 2002 in Sociology. Her doctoral thesis was on single motherhood and supervised by Stephen Nickell and Anne H. Gauthier while she was a postgraduate student of New College, Oxford. Raimondo received her Juris Doctor degree from Yale Law School in 1998.

    • Thanks for the local info.

      Next week, I may not be able to stop myself from posting updates on the saga that will take place in Springfield, IL that is likely to depose Michael J. Madigan, the longest serving Speaker in American history.

      The situation now is that he has three female Democrat opponents and does not have enough votes to remain as Speaker, but nobody else has enough either. In fact, the Republican Leader has more votes than anyone else.

      The bottom line is that Madigan, long the most powerful person in Illinois, will eventually be removed as Speaker against his wishes and he may take to leaving less graciously than Trump.

  30. A Capitol police officer has died from the injuries suffered by the Trump Republican traitor trash mob.

      • Pelosi called over to the Pentagon about Trump possibly launching a nuclear strike on his own…

        The military explained how things are done I believe ….

        The President of the US DOES have the ability to order a nuclear strike….

        Any order for that would come from the President, but would have to be executed BY the Sec of Defense…

        Such a order would be signalled thru the National Command Authority members….

        They are the President, Vice President, Sec of Defense, Joint Chiefs…..

        • I am less concerned about Trump attacking a country in his final days and more concerned about a country or an entity attacking America in Trump’s final days or hours.

          Who would be able to act as Commander in Chief?

            • Biden is signalling that he’s looking for ANOTHER Economic spending package and he’s gonna push for something BIG….

              That is gonna flight by Senate Republicans I’d think…

            • So, he can basically invite Russia to hop on over and the military won’t be able to do anything about it.

              that’s a bigger risk than the chance he decides he wants to nuke Tonga.

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