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Ok…there’s always a 1st override…and one bill T could not override Congress on. He’s calling Sen Thune a RINO (Republican in Name Only) for going against him for his next primary race…but that’s just who T is - name caller, bully and destroyer of norms.
NBC reporting
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Trump’s ‘Calvary’ Retweet Emphasizes Fear After Election Loss
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Rep Louie Gohmert (R-Tx) brought a case which wanted Pence to call the election. A TX judge dropped the case tonight.
Texas Judge Dismisses Suit Aimed at Overturning Election
A federal judge has dismissed a last-gasp lawsuit led by a House Republican that seeks to give Vice President Mike Pence the power to overturn the results of the presidential election won by Joe Biden when Congress formally counts the Electoral College votes next week.
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Confoundingly bizarre to know that these R Senators and R congress members are alluding to fraudulent accusations about the election because they want to give credence to the conspiratorial Trump base.
Brinkmanship with no truth to it…
At what cost do these fomenters of disruption have to squeeze out of our democractic ways to win back power?
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Trump tried to bully the Georgia Secretary of State with inane conspiracy theories, and oh lordy, there is a tape.
‘I just want to find 11,780 votes’: In extraordinary hour-long call, Trump pressures Georgia secretary of state to recalculate the vote in his favor
President Trump urged fellow Republican Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, to “find” enough votes to overturn his defeat in an extraordinary one-hour phone call Saturday that election experts said raised legal questions.
The Washington Post obtained a recording of the conversation in which Trump alternately berated Raffensperger, tried to flatter him, begged him to act and threatened him with vague criminal consequences if the secretary of state refused to pursue his false claims, at one point warning that Raffensperger was taking “a big risk.”
Throughout the call, Raffensperger and his office’s general counsel rejected Trump’s assertions, explaining that the president is relying on debunked conspiracy theories and that President-elect Joe Biden’s 11,779-vote victory in Georgia was fair and accurate.
Trump dismissed their arguments.
“The people of Georgia are angry, the people in the country are angry,” he said. “And there’s nothing wrong with saying, you know, um, that you’ve recalculated.”
Raffensperger responded: “Well, Mr. President, the challenge that you have is, the data you have is wrong.”
At another point, Trump said: “So look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state.”
The rambling and at times incoherent conversation offered a remarkable glimpse of how consumed and desperate the president remains about his loss, unwilling or unable to let the matter go and still believing he can reverse the results in enough battleground states to remain in office.
“There’s no way I lost Georgia,” Trump said, a phrase he repeated again and again on the call. “There’s no way. We won by hundreds of thousands of votes.”
Several of his allies were on the line as he spoke, including White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and conservative lawyer Cleta Mitchell, a prominent GOP lawyer whose involvement with Trump’s efforts had not been previously known.
In a statement, Mitchell said Raffensperger’s office “has made many statements over the past two months that are simply not correct and everyone involved with the efforts on behalf of the President’s election challenge has said the same thing: show us your records on which you rely to make these statements that our numbers are wrong.”
The White House, the Trump campaign and Meadows did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Raffensperger’s office declined to comment.
On Sunday, Trump tweeted that he had spoken to Raffensperger, saying the secretary of state was “unwilling, or unable, to answer questions such as the “ballots under table” scam, ballot destruction, out of state “voters”, dead voters, and more. He has no clue!”
Raffensperger responded with his own tweet: “Respectfully, President Trump: What you’re saying is not true.”
The pressure Trump put on Raffensperger is the latest example of his attempt to subvert the outcome of the Nov. 3 election through personal outreach to state Republican officials. He previously invited Michigan Republican state leaders to the White House, pressured Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp ® in a call to try to replace that state’s electors and asked the speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives to help reverse his loss in that state.
His call to Raffensperger came as scores of Republicans have pledged to challenge the Electoral College’s vote for Biden when Congress convenes for a joint session on Wednesday. Republicans do not have the votes to successfully thwart Biden’s victory, but Trump has urged supporters to travel to Washington to protest the outcome, and state and federal officials are already bracing for clashes outside the Capitol.
During their conversation, Trump issued a vague threat to both Raffensperger and Ryan Germany, the secretary of state’s legal counsel, suggesting that if they don’t find that thousands of ballots in Fulton County have been illegally destroyed to block investigators — an allegation for which there is no evidence — they would be subject to criminal liability.
“That’s a criminal offense,” he said. “And you can’t let that happen. That’s a big risk to you and to Ryan, your lawyer.”
Trump also told Raffensperger that failure to act by Tuesday would jeopardize the political fortunes of David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, Georgia’s two Republican senators whose fate in that day’s runoff elections will determine control of the U.S. Senate.
Trump said he plans to talk about the fraud on Monday, when he is scheduled to lead an election eve rally in Dalton, Ga. — a message that could further muddle the efforts of Republicans to get their voters out.
“You have a big election coming up and because of what you’ve done to the president — you know, the people of Georgia know that this was a scam,” Trump said. “Because of what you’ve done to the president, a lot of people aren’t going out to vote, and a lot of Republicans are going to vote negative, because they hate what you did to the president. Okay? They hate it. And they’re going to vote. And you would be respected, really respected, if this can be straightened out before the election.”
Trump’s conversation with Raffensperger put him in legally questionable territory, legal experts said. By exhorting the secretary of state to “find” votes and to deploy investigators who “want to find answers,” Trump appears to be encouraging him to doctor the election outcome in Georgia.
But experts said Trump’s clearer transgression is a moral one. Edward B. Foley, a law professor at the Ohio State University, said that the legal questions are murky and would be subject to prosecutorial discretion. But he also emphasized that the call was “inappropriate and contemptible” and should prompt moral outrage.
“He was already tripping the emergency meter,” Foley said. “So we were at 12 on a scale of 1 to 10, and now we’re at 15.”
Throughout the call, Trump detailed an exhaustive list of disinformation and conspiracy theories to support his position. He claimed without evidence that he had won Georgia by at least a half-million votes. He floated a barrage of assertions that have been investigated and disproved: that thousands of dead people voted; that an Atlanta election worker scanned 18,000 forged ballots three times each and “100 percent” were for Biden; that thousands more voters living out of state came back to Georgia illegally just to vote in the election.
“So tell me, Brad, what are we going to do? We won the election, and it’s not fair to take it away from us like this,” Trump said. “And it’s going to be very costly in many ways. And I think you have to say that you’re going to reexamine it, and you can reexamine it, but reexamine it with people that want to find answers, not people who don’t want to find answers.”
Trump did most of the talking on the call. He was angry and impatient, calling Raffensperger a “child” and “either dishonest or incompetent” for not believing there was widespread ballot fraud in Atlanta — and twice calling himself a “schmuck” for endorsing Kemp, whom Trump holds in particular contempt for not embracing his claims of fraud.
“I can’t imagine he’s ever getting elected again, I’ll tell you that much right now,” he said.
He also took aim at Kemp’s 2018 opponent, Democrat Stacey Abrams, trying to shame Raffensperger with the idea that his refusal to embrace fraud has helped her and Democrats generally. “Stacey Abrams is laughing about you,” he said. “She’s going around saying, ‘These guys are dumber than a rock.’ What she’s done to this party is unbelievable, I tell you.”
The secretary of state repeatedly sought to push back, saying at one point, “Mr. President, the problem you have with social media, that — people can say anything.”
“Oh this isn’t social media,” Trump retorted. “This is Trump media. It’s not social media. It’s really not. It’s not social media. I don’t care about social media. I couldn’t care less.”
At another point, Trump claimed that votes were scanned three times: “Brad, why did they put the votes in three times? You know, they put ’em in three times.”
Raffensperger responded: “Mr. President, they did not. We did an audit of that and we proved conclusively that they were not scanned three times.”
Trump sounded at turns confused and meandering. At one point, he referred to Kemp as “George.” He tossed out several different figures for Biden’s margin of victory in Georgia and referred to the Senate runoff, which is Tuesday, as happening “tomorrow” and “Monday.”
His desperation was perhaps most pronounced during an exchange with Germany, Raffensperger’s general counsel, in which he openly begged for validation.
Trump: “Do you think it’s possible that they shredded ballots in Fulton County? ’Cause that’s what the rumor is. And also that Dominion took out machines. That Dominion is really moving fast to get rid of their, uh, machinery. Do you know anything about that? Because that’s illegal.”
Germany responded: “No, Dominion has not moved any machinery out of Fulton County.”
Trump: “But have they moved the inner parts of the machines and replaced them with other parts?”
Germany: “No.”
Trump: “Are you sure? Ryan?”
Germany: “I’m sure. I’m sure, Mr. President.”
It was clear from the call that Trump has surrounded himself with aides who have fed his false perceptions that the election was stolen. When he claimed that more than 5,000 ballots were cast in Georgia in the name of dead people, Raffensperger responded forcefully: “The actual number was two. Two. Two people that were dead that voted.”
But later, Meadows said, “I can promise you there are more than that.”
Another Trump lawyer on the call, Kurt Hilbert, accused Raffensperger’s office of refusing to turn over data to assess evidence of fraud, and also claimed awareness of at least 24,000 illegally cast ballots that would flip the result to Trump.
“It stands to reason that if the information is not forthcoming, there’s something to hide,” Hilbert said. “That’s the problem that we have.”
Reached by phone Sunday, Hilbert declined to comment.
In the end, Trump asked Germany to sit down with one of his attorneys to go over the allegations. Germany agreed.
Yet Trump also recognized that he was failing to persuade Raffensperger or Germany of anything, saying toward the end, “I know this phone call is going nowhere.”
But he continued to make his case in repetitive fashion, until finally, after more than an hour, Raffensperger put an end to the conversation: “Thank you, President Trump, for your time.”
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Full call from T and Mark Meadows to Republicans
Full hour of this Trump scramble…
recaps here…
start of thread
Here’s the lawyer
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Damning article in the Atlanta Journal - calling Trump what he is…a cheat.
Even the Drudge Report pours it on (Drudge has shifted to waaay more liberal in last 6 months)
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Sen. Whitehouse has a good point.
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GOP to block Democrat from state Senate in mail ballot fight
Sen. Jim Brewster, of Allegheny County, defeated challenger Nicole Ziccarelli by 69 votes in the Nov. 3 election, according to state-certified returns.
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) —
A day before Pennsylvania state lawmakers will be sworn in for a new two-year session, state Senate Democrats said Monday that the Republican majority is trying to “steal an election” by objecting to letting a Democratic member take his seat for a fourth term.
The dispute revolves around the election of Democratic Sen. Jim Brewster of Allegheny County and could leave the decision on who to install in the Senate district to a majority of senators.
The contest between Brewster and Republican challenger Nicole Ziccarelli hinged on court decisions that said mail-in ballots that lack a handwritten date on the ballot envelope is not a reason to disqualify someone’s vote.
Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa, D-Allegheny, called the Republicans’ refusal to swear in Brewster during Tuesday’s ceremony “unlawful" and suggested that his caucus will go to court.
Republicans were trying to “steal an election” in what Costa framed as a continuation of “the Trump playbook. It’s about abusing the process that’s in place.”
Costa also pointed out that U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi swore in Rep.-elect Mariannette Miller-Meeks, R-Iowa, even as her Democratic opponent’s challenge to the election results remains under review by the House.
The Senate’s top Republican, President Pro Tempore-elect Jake Corman, R-Centre, called it a “fairly unique, if not unprecedented situation."
Ziccarelli has filed a complaint with the Senate and a lawsuit in federal court in an “extremely close” election affected by court rulings, Corman said.
“I think this unique set of circumstances dictates that the Senate review it and take very seriously the contest,” Corman said.
He did not say how long the Senate will need to review Ziccarelli’s filing before voting, or how long the Senate is willing to leave the seat vacant.
Brewster beat Ziccarelli by 69 votes in the Nov. 3 election, according to state-certified returns last month.
On Friday, she filed a roughly 550-page complaint with the Senate under a little-used constitutional provision that says each legislative chamber “shall judge of the election and qualifications of its members.”
Brewster’s lawyer, Cliff Levine, said the move “completely violates” any established procedure in state law to contest an election.
Corman, however, said that, in the Senate, “the Senate determines what is proper and what is not proper and that is determined by 26 members of the Senate.”
In late November, Ziccarelli sued in federal court in Pittsburgh to overturn the election result. Briefs are due later this week.
In the lawsuit, Ziccarelli is asking the judge to effectively throw out 311 mail-in ballots counted in Allegheny County that lacked a handwritten date on the outer ballot envelope. Ziccarelli’s complaint in the Senate makes the same argument, saying that counting those “unlawful” ballots provided the margin to give Brewster a victory. Without them, Ziccarelli would win by 24 votes, it said.
The state Supreme Court, in a 4-3 decision, ruled in November that it would not apply a handwritten date requirement in the just-passed election, and said the lack of a handwritten date is not a compelling enough reason to throw out the ballot of an eligible voter. In doing so, it dismissed Ziccarelli’s arguments.
State law says the voter shall “fill out, date and sign” a declaration on the outside envelope, although it does not say that leaving off a date automatically disqualifies the ballot.
The state Senate district also includes part of Westmoreland County, which decided against counting 343 mail-in ballots that lacked a handwritten date on the outer envelope.
Ziccarelli’s lawsuit says the different treatment of voters in different counties violates their constitutional rights.
Lawyers for Brewster, the Democratic Party and the state say the federal court lacks jurisdiction to overturn a state-court decision. They also say Ziccarelli lacks standing to sue and that throwing out the ballots of those 311 Allegheny County voters would violate their constitutional rights.
Even so, the conflicting decisions of the counties to count certain mail-in ballots does not violate the constitutional rights of voters, they say.
In Brewster’s response in the Senate, his lawyers wrote that the decision by a Senate majority to disagree with a court order interpreting election law “would create a dangerous precedent that would challenge the bedrock of American principles.”
The outcome will not change the balance of power in the 50-seat state Senate, where Republicans have 28 returning members. There is one independent and 21 Democrats, counting Brewster.
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Trumpism promotes these assaulting accusations.
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How to set up the 25th Amendment
Because Trump is “out of his mind.”
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This is a moment of shame and grief.
If we are not very careful, it will also be a terrible moment of opportunity for President Donald Trump. The violence Trump incited could be his pretext for further abuses of presidential power.
As so often with Trump, he has indicated the plan in advance: Use the Insurrection Act to somehow interfere with the transition of power. He could try it this very day.
In institutional self-defense, Trump must be impeached again and this time removed. That needs to happen immediately, before he can declare martial law, so that Vice President Mike Pence can oversee the constitutional transition of power, the first time since the Civil War that such a transition can no longer be described as “peaceful.”
What’s needed, this time, is for a saving remnant of Republican senators to emulate the integrity that was embodied last time around only by Senator Mitt Romney. The leaders of Trump’s own party have to do the job of protecting the country from Trump’s violent lawlessness. Last time, the other senators refused. Now they need to feel real pressure.
All through this day, Republican pundits have expressed shock and puzzlement that it could come to this. “We don’t know who these people are,” the radio host Mark Levin tweeted. That’s the same Mark Levin who wrote an article urging Congress to challenge the results of the 2020 election, an article approvingly tweeted by Trump on December 30. In fact, we know “who these people are.” They are the monsters incubated, birthed, nurtured, fed, trained, and now loosed by Trump and by his enablers in politics and the media.
“This is not who we are,” Donald Trump Jr. tweeted this afternoon, although earlier today he had been doing plenty of incitement of his own. As the whole world now sees, this is exactly who the Trumps are and who his most loyal supporters are. But it does not have to be the enduring legacy of all Republicans and all conservatives.
Everybody connected in any way to Trumpism must instantly put as many miles of distance as possible between themselves and this president and the mob that he raised and unleashed. There is still hope that the word Republican can be wrenched back from the thugs and insurrectionists. And the new majority in the House and Senate should act fast to offer Republicans the chance to return to faith in the Constitution they have attacked.
David A. Graham: This is a coup
Schedule an impeachment vote for this very night. Stay ’til dawn. Do whatever is necessary. Avert any potential for martial law. Deny Trump command of the military; withdraw the nuclear codes. Don’t wait until the next crossed red line, until the next smashed barrier, until the next putsch attempt. Install Mike Pence right away as the 46th president and work with him to manage the transition on January 20 to Joe Biden as the 47th. Bar Trump from ever again holding office—and get ready to prosecute him for his crimes on January 21.
Act now. And everyone who acts now—even those who were most in the wrong until now—can share the credit and recognition as a protector of the Constitution. There is no time for delay.
Remove this treasonous president. Invite his own party to join the effort to remove him now, or to share now and forever Trump’s guilt.
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Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf criticizes Trump. Trump immediately withdraws his full nomination.
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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer taking actions to moving quickly to get Trump out - Impeachment or 25th Amendment.
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But the real blame lies with not an individual group or person, but with an idea; specifically, the notion that dismissing erroneous beliefs as toothless murmurings in shadowy internet echo chambers does not make them so. For years, as QAnon festered in these corners, there was a belief among some members of the media that openly discussing it would provide adherents with a platform and lend credence to their beliefs; better, they thought, to let it quietly wither on the vine, as most bad ideas on the internet do. But just because an idea is bad doesn’t mean it will go silently into the night, or that it won’t inspire people to kidnap their children, or storm the Hoover Dam, or stand on the dais in a government building as congress cowers in their offices. When it comes to whether we have the luxury of ignoring bad ideas like QAnon, that horse is well out of the barn, and in this case, we let it run wild enough for so long that it stampeded straight onto the senate floor. Trump may only have 14 days left in office, but he has issued a chilling warning that he will use his waning power to the best of his ability. It was only a matter of time before Angeli, and people like him, heeded the call.
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