This is the week that Donald John Trump lost the election and Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. became the new President-Elect.
But that has only been true for the reality-based world.
In Trumpandia it’s a different, deluded story of blind and bad faith. in Trumpster world the election was somehow, in some way, “stolen” because they counted the votes and Biden received more of them in four key swing states taking a lead after four days of reviewing mail-in ballots which were provided 4:1 by Democrats.
Trump’s 500k vote lead in Pennsylvania on Tuesday turned into a 20k vote deficit by Friday. He lost ground in Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin and Nevada. Trump fans think this was a “plot” — that over 2 million votes in all these states were merely a “fraud” being perpetrated on the American people.
They tried to sabotage the post office so that mail-in ballots would be delayed, now they’re trying to deny that mail-in votes are real votes.
CNN talked to a group of “Stop the Steal” protestors and found that even when their concerns and various viral videos are addressed and explained to them — they still refuse to believe the truth.
In the clip, filmed at a “Stop the Steal” protest in Pennsylvania, CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan pressed supporters of the president on why they believe the election is being stolen that led one woman to tell him, “Go, I don’t even want to talk to you!” when he disagreed with her.
With most citing viral videos they have seen online to support their beliefs, O’Sullivan time after time showed them facts debunking their statements that were either dismissed as not-believable or led to rambling that opinions can differ despite facts.
In one notable exchange with a woman identified as Melissa, she claimed, “I’ve seen too much [sic] pieces of different evidence so far that shows that at this point, I would be okay with a re-vote.”
Discussing a video that went viral which showed sample ballots being destroyed, Melissa refused to believe election officials who confirmed the clip was being misrepresented on social media, telling O’Sullivan they are lying, “But wouldn’t they, though? That’s the thing — question everything, right?
Like Qanon, this “movement” is fed by rumor and bogus viral videos like the one with the samples ballots being burned. Even when you show people that these were SAMPLE BALLOTS, not actual ballots, they refuse to consider that they’ve been duped. Instead they doubt the official explanation, they doubt the people whose job it is to tell the difference.
“But wouldn’t they, though?”
No, actually. No they wouldn’t.
They live in a world of doubt, paranoia and delusion. Yes, it's true that vote counters in Detroit taped up pizza boxes on the windows — but that was because rowdy crowd outside had started filming them, which wasn’t allowed.
Detroit, Michigan ballot counter Chiara Clayton told Cosmopolitan about her experience being attacked by President Donald Trump’s supporters while trying to tally the vote on Wednesday. Everything was calm and peaceful until a Facebook post went up telling Trump fans, “Everyone come down to TCF, we’re going to demand to be let in.”
Up until that point, the group of Republican ballot watchers were following the rules, which demanded that they stay six feet from the tables where the counters were and remained respectful.
“It was around 3 p.m. that things started to get really hectic,” Clayton recalled. “Word had gotten out that President Trump wanted us to stop counting the votes. We had equal amounts of Republican and Democratic and Independent vote challengers in the room, but Republicans demanded that we allow more of their own inside. That’s when Trump’s local supporters converged on us.”
“They started pounding on the windows, chanting, ‘Let us in’ and ‘Stop the count,'” Clayton said. “I got alarmed at that point because they could have broken the glass.”
The Detroit police tried to keep things calm and quiet in the ballot counting area. They closed the doors and tried to cover the windows so people couldn’t see. Outside, that’s when Trump’s team started freaking out and spreading fake conspiracies that something fraudulent was happening inside.
“I felt like, I can’t believe this is happening. I’ve never in my life seen anything like that. It was jarring, and being accosted while trying to work was really distracting,” she explained. “We were still counting, and nothing official had even been put out yet. Why were people already so agitated?”
Why? Because Trump.
He’s been propagandizing them for years, particularly at his rallies, with bogus voter fraud claims. And now Bill Barr has ordered his US Attorneys to seek out and prosecute “voter fraud.”
WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorney General William Barr has authorized federal prosecutors across the U.S. to pursue “substantial allegations” of voting irregularities, if they exist, before the 2020 presidential election is certified, despite little evidence of fraud.
Barr’s action comes days after Democrat Joe Biden defeated President Donald Trump and raises the prospect that Trump will use the Justice Department to try to challenge the outcome. It gives prosecutors the ability to go around longstanding Justice Department policy that normally would prohibit such overt actions before the election is certified.
[...]
In a memo to U.S. attorneys, obtained by The Associated Press, Barr wrote that investigations “may be conducted if there are clear and apparently-credible allegations of irregularities that, if true, could potentially impact the outcome of a federal election in an individual State.”
He said any allegations that “clearly not impact the outcome of a federal election” should be delayed until after those elections are certified and prosecutors should likely open so-called preliminary inquiries, which would allow investigators and prosecutors to see if there is evidence that would allow them to take further investigative measures.
In response the head of the Election Crimes Group at the DOJ has resigned in disgust.
A Justice Department career official who oversees the DOJ’s election crimes unit resigned on Monday night, several hours after Attorney General Bill Barr issued a new Trump-friendly policy authorizing investigations into allegations of mass voter fraud before the election results are certified.
Richard Pilger, the director of the election crimes branch at the department’s Public Integrity Section (PIN), sent an email to his colleagues announcing that he was stepping down in response to the new rule.
“Having familiarized myself with the new policy and its ramifications, […] I must regretfully resign from my role as Director of the Election Crimes Branch,” Pilger wrote.
The reality is that most prominent Republicans know these claims are bogus. Trump attorney’s tried to present a bunch of hearsay written on the back of post-it note as evidence.
The Washington Post has taken a look at some of the Trump campaign’s multiple failed efforts to get votes tossed out in several swing states, and one particularly egregious failure came in the state of Michigan, where the campaign’s evidence amounted to a piece of hearsay that had been scribbled onto a post-it note.
Specifically, Judge Cynthia Diane Stephens of the Michigan First District Court of Appeals last week rejected the Trump campaign’s efforts to halt the counting of absentee ballots in the state based on hearsay from a GOP election observer.
“In that case, a Republican election observer said she’d been given a sticky note by an unnamed poll worker, alleging that late-arriving ballots were being counted improperly,” the Post reports. “But she couldn’t provide the poll worker’s name or any other proof.”
This is a perfect metaphor for the quality of their argument. Their entire case in Arizona only affects 180 votes, when Trump trails Biden there by over 20,000.
But then again, some of the people on the right are able to recognize that these claim are full of it. People like Neil Cavuto on Fox News who took a Kayleigh McEnany press event off the air as she start spouting conspiratorial bullshit.
Fox News abruptly cut away from the Trump campaign’s press conference led by White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, which was another effort to wage more of its bogus election fraud claims, on Monday afternoon.
Claiming to speak in a “personal capacity” for the Trump campaign, the White House official began her remarks by attacking Democrats by baselessly claiming that the party opposed an “honest election” amid the President’s refusal to concede his loss to President-elect Joe Biden.
As soon as McEnany said that the Trump campaign wants “maximum transparency” by demanding that “every legal vote to be counted,” Fox News cut out once it became clear that the White House press secretary was launching into a baseless rant on “illegal voting.”
Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto clearly wasn’t buying into McEnany boosting Trumpworld’s baseless election fraud claims.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, I just think we have to be very clear: she’s charging the other side is welcoming fraud and welcoming illegal voting,” Cavuto said. “Unless she has more details to back that up, I can’t in good countenance continue showing this.”
Other Republicans know this is crap, but they’re going along with it to sooth Trump’s hurt feelings.
On Monday, writing for The Washington Post, columnist Greg Sargent outlined how Republicans are pushing conspiracy theories about voter fraud that they know will collapse in court — just so that President Donald Trump has the time and space to process his loss.
“Republicans know the legal battle won’t succeed. Biden’s margins are far too large to be overcome by litigation (he’s up more than 45,000 votes in Pennsylvania, more than 20,000 in Wisconsin, nearly 150,000 in Michigan, and more than 10,000 even in Georgia),” wrote Sargent. “And on many fronts, these legal efforts are already falling apart. Indeed, the Associated Press reports that senior officials and allies privately admit that claims of large-scale voter fraud — the basis for efforts to overturn the results — aren’t actually meant to be proved.”
“That’s extraordinary: Trump allies are claiming in many high-profile forums that the lawfully cast votes of millions of Americans are illegitimate, largely to create space for him to process his rage and grief over losing,” wrote Sargent. “All this sets up another possibility. With Trump unlikely to formally concede, you can see a kind of Lost Cause of Trumpism mythology taking hold, in which many supporters continue believing the election was stolen from him and that squeamish Republicans betrayed him by not fighting hard enough against it.”
The truth is that most Republicans won't admit that Trump has lost because they’re afraid of his supporters.
On CNN Monday, POLITICO chief political correspondent Tim Alberta laid out why so many Republicans have refused to acknowledge Joe Biden as president-elect: they are terrified of anger and reprisal from President Donald Trump’s supporters.
“We’ve only got a handful, a small handful of prominent Republican officials and leaders who have actually come out and acknowledged the election result, and have even used the phrase ‘President-elect Joe Biden,’ and that speaks volumes in and of itself,” said Alberta. “What’s interesting is that the Republican Party, for the past decade, has been the party of hard truths, and has been sort of propped up on this mantle of saying that they are the ones willing to have the hard conversations with the American people about the debt and the deficit and the spending and all these things, and yet this is a pretty good example of how fundamentally afraid Republican elected officials are of their own supporters back home.”
They’re cowering, afraid of the rage of the unwashed rabble which has already begun to reign down on Tucker Carlson.
Fox News’ Tucker Carlson is at the center of a potential Fox News boycott following his recent attempt to appeal to Trump supporters who are echoing President Donald Trump’s claims about the election being “stolen” from them.
On Monday evening, Carlson offered a quick overview of the series of events that have transpired over the last several days. While he did acknowledge Trump’s baseless claim of potential voter fraud and supported the president’s frivolous probe into the election results, he also admitted that there is a strong possibility of the outcome conservatives are dreading: having to accept the fact that Trump has lost the election and that President-elect Joe Biden will take over the White House in January.
Carlson’s remarks were quickly condemned by viewers via social media. In fact, many took to Twitter with direct replies to Carlson after he shared the clip of his remarks on the social network. Now, viewers are attempting to boycott Fox News while insisting the network “sold conservatives out.”
Meanwhile, like petulant babies, the Trump administration has ordered it’s staff not to cooperate with the Biden transition team.
“The Trump White House on Monday instructed senior government leaders to block cooperation with President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team, escalating a standoff that threatens to impede the transfer of power and prompting the Biden team to consider legal action,” The Washington Post reported Monday. “Officials at agencies across the government who had prepared briefing books and carved out office space for the incoming Biden team to use as soon as this week were told instead that the transition would not be recognized until the Democrat’s election was confirmed by the General Services Administration, the low-profile agency that officially starts the transition.”
In response the Biden team is considering taking legal action.
Whew.
This is an existential conflict between reality and delusion, between fact and fantasy. Eventually the delusions and the fantasy has to fail, they have to collapse. But then again what if it doesn’t? What if Trump never does cooperate with the transition. What if, even after all of Trump’s legal efforts collapse and fail, his crowd continues to look at dumb viral videos and claim that “something is afoot!”, “Stop the Steal” and lets do a “Re-vote” even as Biden is taking the oath of office on January 20th?
I frankly think that’s the likely scenario. They’ll never accept it, they never believe it. They’re going to be dragging their heels and stomping the ground for the next four years like a bunch of three-year-olds. Because that’s about the level of maturity that they have. They’re toddlers. Babies. Cry Babies. And there going to stay that way.
Here are the remaining events for the week:
November 3rd —
November 4th--
November 5th —
- Plaintiffs in USPS suit want facilities scoured for ballots as PA deadline looms.
- Fate of the Senate now rests with results in two Georgia Senate runoff elections.
- Trumpers lash out as establishment GOP keeps them at arms length.
- Bannon suggests that Trump should “behead" Fauci and Wray in his second term. We might still find out who was on his “purge" list even if he loses.
- DOJ claims that armed feds can inspect state vote counting locations: “This is disturbing.”
- Morning Joe shreds the “overwhelming sense of victimhood” that drives Trump support.
- Trump goes nuts on twitter in all caps, declaring war on American Democracy. He claims “I EASILY WIN ELECTION, UNLESS YOU COUNT ILLEGAL VOTES.” He calls for the SCOTUS to throw out 648,301 mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania in an early morning tweet storm. Some of his tweets are blocked for misinformation. Then he makes a pathetic rambling paranoid statement about "fraud and corruption” from the WH Lectern. He allegedly thinks Bill Barr is “insufficiently subservient” because the DOJ isn’t helping him win. He’s in an “uncontrollable rage”, Mary Trump says “somebody has to step in and stop” her uncle.
- Armed Qanon supporter drove from Virginia to Philly to try and stop the vote counting.
- Eric Trump is mad the GOP doesn't buy his dad's voter fraud conspiracy claims: “Our voters will never forget.”
- Don Jr. calls for “Total War” in the midst of a meltdown.
- Fox News Host Mark Levin demands the GOP legislatures ignore the voters to put Trump back in the WH.
- Facebook removes Pro-Trump “Stop the steal” group.
- Lou Dobbs goes on an angry rant because Bill Barr hasn't stopped the counting of ballots.
- Biden moves ahead in Georgia, Arizona and Nevada.
- Laura Ingraham questions the election results as international observers debunk claims of fraud.
- Trump campaign faces legal problems for using Village People songs at their rallies. They also lie to their supporters claiming to have “won” Pennsylvania.
- MSNBC’s Katy Tur is baffled by the Trump camps legal antics: “What the heck is Rudy Giuliani doing being involved in this?”
- Defense Sec Esper is reportedly ready to leave the Trump admin.
- Kushner's management company is moving to evict hundreds when Covid protections expire.
- Eric Trump and Rudy face off with British reporter: "You’re a sore loser.”
- Florida poll worker recounts physical and verbal abuse for Trump “cult members” on election day.
- Jake Tapper: Trump campaign reaction is “like a flailing fish breathing it’s last breaths.”
- Detroit ballot counter recounts scary moment when Trump supporters attacked: “They could have broken the glass.”
- Michigan Judge mocks Trump campaign evidence before dismissing their election suit.
- George Conway: It's fitting the Trump is going out “screaming lies about fraud.”
- Reporters laugh DNI Ric Grenell off the podium when he refuses to give his name during a Nevada lawsuit briefing. MSNBC reporter Jacob Soboroff hammers Grenell, “Where's the evidence of fraud?”
- Fox News “propagandists” keep echoing the ludicrous claim that the election is “being stolen” from Trump.
- Trump loving pastor who blamed Covid-19 on fornication, dies of Covid-19.
- Chris Wallace hints that Fox News could soon call the election for Biden.
- Judges are tossing out Trump’s attempts to sue his way to victory one by one.
- Conservative Tara Setmayer leaves the GOP because they haven't repudiated Trump's behavior since election day: “I’m done, I'm out.”
- Pro-Trump Alabama Police captain says that Biden supporters “deserve a bullet in their skull.”
- Sean Hannity calls out his own network after Fox News calls Arizona for Biden.
- Trump campaign is under investigation by the Office of the Special Counsel for improperly using the WH.
- Corona Virus infections tip over 100,000 per day; “This is a tsunami, pay attention.”
November 6th —
November 7th—
November 8th—
November 9th—
- Trump plans more campaign rallies where he can complain that his previous campaign rallies didn’t work, or that they really did and also whip up bogus vote fraud claims like dead people voting. He fires Defense Sec Mark Esper with a tweet; “Terminated Effective Immediately” because he opposed using Troops against US citizens. He recycles debunked voting claims that have already been thrown out in court, in a “Hail Mary” bid to win in Pennsylvania. [He’s also behind in Georgia, Arizona, and Michigan] Trump is devouring fast food [stress eating] and staffers are lighting scented candles to dampen the stench. Trump was “extremely unhappy” with Fox News after it refused to give his campaign a discount ad rate. He tells his staff he’s running for rematch against Biden in 2024. [That’s admitting you lost this time.] His latest conspiracy theory is that polling is “election interference" and “tampering with an election.”
- Trump appointee at the GSA won't give the Biden campaign materials and cash for them to begin the transition process and pay their staff.
- Biden names his Covid-19 task force. He also implores people to wear masks: “It's not a political statement.”
- Morning Joe laughs that Trump is using Udy and Kusay….uh, Don Jr and Eric for “advice”; “No, they don’t count.”
- Dr. Ben Carson tests positive for Covid-19 after attending WH election party.
- The “Q” behind Qanon is oddly silent as followers suffer through election results.
- Ossof wants Perdue to “come out of hiding” to hold 3 debates before the Georgia Senate run-off.
- Trump lackeys defiantly spurn concession while Donald considers a run against Biden in 2024.
- McConnell backs Trump’s refusal to concede despite decisive election result. But in the meanwhile, he rushes to confirm more judges.
- Trump campaign adviser David Bossie, who is leading his bogus voter fraud effort, contracts Covid-19.
- Georgia's Republican Secretary of State slams back at it’s two Senators, Perdue and Loffler, who call for him to step down since they are both now in runoffs.
- Fox News Host Neil Cavuto cuts in and pulls them off the air during a McEnany/McDaniels press conference when they start spouting unfounded voting conspiracy theories.
- Trump loyalist and former Devin Nunes staffer Michael Ellis is named for the top legal spot at the NSA.
- Bill Barr orders his US Attorneys to investigate “credible” allegations of voter fraud which may have “affected the outcome" while the election is still being certified.
- WaPo reports that Ronna McDaniel knows that Trump is toast and his defiance can't last for too long. They also write the Republicans know these claims are “groundless" they just want to make Trump “feel better.”
- Pfiser reports that their Covid-19 vaccine prevents 90% of infections.
- Georgia's Republican Lt Governor undercuts Trump’s bogus “voter fraud” claims in his state.
- Mike Pence is pummeled for giving credit for Pfiser’s vaccine to Trump: “The era of lying is over.”
- Don Jr. pushes a paranoid conspiracy theory about the timing of Pfiser’s vaccine announcement.
- Michigan family grows sick from Covid after coworkers went to Trump's rally.
- Pro-Trump “Stop the steal” protestors are baffled and dismissive when they are shown they’ve been suckered by Trump.
- Republicans won't admit that Trump has lost because they’re afraid of his supporters.
- During his press conference at Four Seasons Landscaping the first person Giuliani he called up as a witness was a convicted sex offender.
- GOP Rep. Francis Rooney says that Republicans are “Playing into Russia's hands" by doubting the election results.
- Lindsay Graham tells Trump to consider conceding gracefully and running again in 2024.
- Jennifer Rubin calls for “No More Lies” in media. Oddly enough, so does Tucker Carlson. [But I don't think he means the same thing she does.]
- Ivanka eyeing reality TV show as her dad's administration comes to an end.
- Michele Bachman goes berserk: “I ask God to take your iron rod and smash the delusion that Joe Biden is our President.”
- Trump campaign presents “Hearsay written on a sticky note” as evidence in their voting fraud case.
- Cindy McCain asks Republicans to tell Trump to “concede for the good of the country.”
- Four states are still counting ballots.
- Breitbart editor mocked for saying Biden wouldn’t have won the popular vote without California.
- Trump voters refuse to accept election loss: “We need a re-vote.” Their downcast, but holding out until the election vote is “certified.”
- Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien laments that the election fraud effort has turned into “amateur hour.” [Oh, ya think? Really?]
- Michigan court tells Trump team they screwed up another complaint : “Your submission is defective”
- Trump adviser Jason Miller: The word “concede" is not even in our vocabulary. [Yes, it is , you just said it.]
- Jake Tapper reports that Trump's personnel chief threatens to fire anyone he catches sending out a resume. [What, is he reading their email? Also wouldn’t that help them?]
- IRS refiles Roger Stone's $1 million tax lien.
- US surpasses 10 Million cases of CoronaVirus.
- Ted Cruz and Mark Levin blow up at Chris Wallace for his “Japanese soldier" comparison.
- SCOTUS will hear oral arguments on the Obamacare case tomorrow.
- Pennsylvania official gives emotional account of death threats he’s received for counting votes.
- Trump supporter rips a mask off a woman’s face at a “Stop the Steal" rally in Florida.
- Georgia GOP Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger responds to Loeffler and Perdue’s call for him to step down: “Not going to happen.”
- Fascism expert says that Trump is suffering from a “psychological annihilation” as a result of his loss.
- Steve Schmidt blasts Kayleigh McEnany as a “serial liar with no credibility.”
- Washington prosecutors file charges against a man who helped supply Kenosha shooter Kyle Rittenhouse with his weapon.
- WaPo reports that the WH has issued orders blocking senior officials from cooperating with Biden’s transition team.
- Lawyers can't reunite 666 separated children — 121 more than previously reported.
- Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott doesn't recognize Biden’s win and calls for recounts and for vote-counting to continue.
November 10th--