📝 Must Read Op-Ed and Profiles

dragonfly9 · November 12, 2020, 1:55am

Karl Rove is a Republican operative, and someone who’s been behind a lot of R power moves and got GW Bush elected. He feels the results are in, and that no fraud, or voter interference happened at all or at least to change the outcome of this election. …FWIW to the R’s.

Rove analyzes the numbers in various battleground states, and hisses at the lack of larger wins by Biden which the polls seemed to predict, stating that Biden really only lead by a 3.3 point margin instead of what various polls projected 8 point margin in front of Trump. Rove also mentions the dates various states will be certifying their results before the Electoral Votes will be finalized Dec. 14. (fingers crossed)

And leave it to a Republican to want to slam Rep Maxine Waters for her remarks about black men. Boy do they dislike her.

Well, am glad this WSJ Op-Ed piece is in print, and states that we need to move on. It should get some notice from Trumpworld.

Once his days in court are over, the president should do his part to unite the country by leading a peaceful transition and letting grievances go.

It has been an eventful, unsettling year: A deadly virus struck without warning and claimed almost a quarter-million American lives; a lockdown demolished personal routines and left us gasping for normality; a sudden, deep recession snatched newfound prosperity from many families; and now a rocketlike recovery lifts up some but leaves many on the launchpad. So why not finish out 2020 with a misforecast election as the finale?

Pundits predicted a blue tsunami of historic proportions that would carry Democrats into the White House, flip the U.S. Senate, increase Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s caucus by as many as 20 seats, and transform a basketful of red-state legislatures into blue ones just in time for redistricting in 2021. Well, the White House changed hands. But none of the rest happened.

The final RealClearPolitics average of polls predicted Joe Biden would win the popular vote by 7.2 percentage points. Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com put Mr. Biden’s likely margin at 8 points. The Cook Political Report had it at “more like 9 or 10 points.” As of Wednesday, with some ballots yet to be counted in California and New York, President Trump trailed Mr. Biden by 3.3 points.

Voter turnout was up. Once everything is counted, the turnout rate will likely reach 66.5%, the highest since 1908’s barnburner between William Howard Taft and William Jennings Bryan. But the nature of this enthusiasm differed by party. The Fox News Voter Analysis found 51% of Biden supporters voted more against Mr. Trump than for the Democratic candidate, while 79% of Mr. Trump’s backers voted more for him than against Mr. Biden.

Mr. Trump also won 26% of nonwhite voters, according to NBC’s exit poll, driving commentators on the left crazy. One described these voters as “distracted.” A New York Times columnist found it “personally devastating” that many blacks and gays voted for the president. Rep. Maxine Waters (D., Calif.) warned that black male Trump voters “have a price to pay for years to come.” This is what passes for liberal tolerance.

Still, enough voters wanted change. Mr. Biden maneuvered successfully to make the election a referendum on the president’s personality and his handling of Covid. For months Mr. Trump was content to fight on that turf, trying only fitfully to contrast his agenda with his challenger’s.

Presidents win re-election only in part by heralding their achievements and outlining second-term agendas; much more depends on contrasting their opponent’s values and views with their own. That Mr. Biden’s margin of victory was much slimmer than projected can be credited partly to Mr. Trump’s emphasis in the closing days on their substantive differences—discussing fracking in Pennsylvania and toleration of socialism in Miami. But it wasn’t enough.

Mr. Trump is now pursuing legal challenges in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona and Nevada, and there will be an automatic recount in Georgia, given Mr. Biden’s 0.29-point lead there. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is correct that Mr. Trump is “100% within his rights” to go to court over concerns about fraud and transparency. But the president’s efforts are unlikely to move a single state from Mr. Biden’s column, and certainly they’re not enough to change the final outcome.

There are only three statewide contests in the past half-century in which recounts changed the outcome: the 1974 New Hampshire Senate race, the 2004 Washington governor’s contest, and the 2008 Minnesota Senate election. The candidates in these races were separated, respectively, by 355, 261 and 215 votes after Election Day.

These margins aren’t much like today’s. Mr. Biden led Wednesday in Wisconsin by 20,540 votes, Pennsylvania by 49,064, Michigan by 146,123, Arizona by 12,614, Nevada by 36,870 and Georgia by 14,108.

To win, Mr. Trump must prove systemic fraud, with illegal votes in the tens of thousands. There is no evidence of that so far. Unless some emerges quickly, the president’s chances in court will decline precipitously when states start certifying results, as Georgia will on Nov. 20, followed by Pennsylvania and Michigan on Nov. 23, Arizona on Nov. 30, and Wisconsin and Nevada on Dec. 1. By seating one candidate’s electors, these certifications will raise the legal bar to overturn state results and make it even more difficult for Mr. Trump to prevail before the Electoral College meets Dec. 14.

TV networks showed jubilant crowds in major cities celebrating Mr. Biden’s victory; they didn’t show the nearly equal number of people who mourned Mr. Trump’s defeat. U.S. politics remains polarized and venomous. Closing out this election will be a hard but necessary step toward restoring some unity and political equilibrium. Once his days in court are over, the president should do his part to unite the country by leading a peaceful transition and letting grievances go.

Mr. Rove helped organize the political-action committee American Crossroads and is author of “The Triumph of William McKinley” (Simon & Schuster, 2015).

dragonfly9 · November 16, 2020, 8:44pm

No words for T’s dismal positioning as he’s lost the election and lying about how he won. The complicity within the Republican party is horrendous.

No president in American history has ever before spent the end of his time in office trying to discredit our democracy, degrade the federal government and set Americans against each other. And what of the Republican Party? They, too, are finishing the Trump presidency the way they started it, with a show of complicity and cowardice.

There are some Republicans, the most repugnant, who are enthusiastically whipping up anger and spreading lies about voter fraud, trying to convince their base that Biden will be an illegitimate usurper. At the other end, there are a few who have grudgingly acknowledged reality, admitting that yes, Biden won the election and will become president in January. But there are so few of the latter group that when one says, “I expect Joe Biden to be the next president of the United States,” it makes the news.

The rest of them are hiding, too craven to even answer that simple question. “We invited every single Republican senator to appear on Meet the Press this morning,” said NBC’s Chuck Todd on Sunday. “They all declined.” The reason was clear: They can’t defend Trump and don’t have the guts to tell the truth about what he’s doing.

So please, let’s not hear anyone praise those few Republicans willing to say that Biden is going to be president and the transition should proceed with some measure of professionalism. That’s nothing to be proud of. What we deserve is to hear Republicans say to Trump, “Stop this right now. You are hurting the country.”

But there are none who will do so. So to them we should say: The leader of your party is pouring poison into our national bloodstream, and if you can’t find the courage to say it’s wrong, don’t ever try to tell us again how patriotic you are.

Over the past four years, I’ve thought often about how just a few days after the 2016 election, President Barack Obama welcomed Trump into the Oval Office. Trump had turned himself from a reality show buffoon into a political figure by becoming the country’s foremost advocate of the racist “birther” lie, accusing Obama of not being a real American, then ran a campaign of fear and hatred to win the presidency.

Yet Obama was polite and gracious. Like every American president who came before him, he knew that what mattered at that moment was not the disgust he surely felt for his successor nor his fear of what the future might bring. What mattered was showing Americans that democracy is about all of us, a shared enterprise we have to work to sustain.

Later, Obama would leave Trump a letter welcoming him to the Oval Office, just as George W. Bush did for him and other presidents had done in the past. Here’s part of what it said:

We are just temporary occupants of this office. That makes us guardians of those democratic institutions and traditions — like rule of law, separation of powers, equal protection and civil liberties — that our forebears fought and bled for. Regardless of the push and pull of daily politics, it’s up to us to leave those instruments of our democracy at least as strong as we found them.

No president amasses a perfect record of protecting those democratic institutions and traditions. But at the moment their presidencies ended, every one — even those who left in disgrace — remembered that there are principles and commitments more important than their own petty grievances and wounded egos.

Until now.

dragonfly9 · November 19, 2020, 7:55am

The Washington Post: Abolish the electoral college

From the Editorial Board

system · December 4, 2020, 7:55am

This topic was automatically closed 15 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.

MissJava · December 13, 2020, 1:22am

macro · December 13, 2020, 1:22am

Posting this here as the thread on must read oped’s is now closed, but I think this is a very good summary of the highly questionable behaviour of T and his enablers in the GOP with respect to the election.

Historians could mark 2020 as the moment when Republicans applied the same zeal they have used to attack democracy in advance of elections, through voter suppression and gerrymandering, to attacking democracy on the back end, by trying to deny and overturn the results.

Whatever damage US democracy has sustained in 2020, much of it traces back to the source, to a president who did not see anything wrong in 2019 with coercing a foreign leader to try to take out a political opponent, who made the fealty of state governors a condition of pandemic aid, and who now has twisted the arms of elected officials across the United States in an effort to subvert the will of American voters.

The role that Trump has played in attacking the integrity of the American system is the most outrageous and unprecedented of all the unholy perversions of democracy that 2020 has seen. Whether that role will be replicated or reprised in future White Houses, and in future elections, could make all the difference.

Windthin · December 23, 2020, 4:26pm

Why the Russian hack is so significant, and why it’s close to a worst-case scenario

Experts say it’s potentially the largest spying operation against the U.S. in history — and it ran without being noticed for nine months.

It’s not often that the Treasury Department and Iowa State University are dealing with the same security problem.

Such is the breadth of what’s known as the SolarWinds hack, named for a Texas-based company that was used as a staging ground for an espionage campaign so widespread that experts say we’re only beginning to understand who was affected and what was stolen. Treasury is trying to figure out how many senior officials’ email accounts were monitored. Iowa State has decommissioned servers to check whether hackers got in.

Around the world, at least hundreds, but more likely thousands or tens of thousands of organizations — including companies, schools, think tanks and, notably, every major government agency — have been working frantically to see whether they’ve been affected by the suspected Russian hacking campaign and, if so, how much access the hackers had.

It’s not rare for companies or government agencies to suffer security breaches. The campaign has drawn some comparisons to China’s 2014 hack of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, which stored the private information of nearly all government employees, including undercover agents. But experts say the SolarWinds hack is unique in its scope, potentially the largest spying operation against the U.S. in history — and it ran without being noticed for nine months.

“The issue is we don’t know how big this is, and at the same time it could be the biggest ever,” said Sergio Caltagirone, the vice president of threat intelligence at the cybersecurity company Dragos, which is helping industrial and manufacturing companies deal with the hacking campaign and its fallout.

Only a handful of organizations, including the cybersecurity company FireEye and three federal agencies — the departments of Commerce, Energy and Treasury — have admitted having been seriously affected. But the cybersecurity industry is aware of “a little over 200” compromises, Caltagirone said, with the number all but guaranteed to grow.

“Most organizations still lack the basic visibility to even assess whether they were compromised or not,” Caltagirone said. “We know we are undercounting the victims here. We know that for a fact.”

The campaign is so broad because the hackers pulled off a textbook “supply-chain attack.” Instead of breaking into individual organizations, many of which have robust cybersecurity measures, the hackers — widely believed to be Russia’s SVR intelligence agency, although most Trump officials have publicly pointed the finger only at Russia — breached SolarWinds, based in Austin, Texas, a company that has an enormous customer base.

Unlike some of Russia’s nosier agencies, like the FSB, which is accused of poisoning Russian dissidents, or the GRU, which hacks and leaks material to disparage Russia’s opponents, the SVR is known for its methodical, long-term intelligence-gathering operations.

SolarWinds provides software that helps large organizations manage their computer networks, and it is thus given automatic permission to be in those networks without raising alarms. In March, the hackers implanted malicious code into the company’s regular software updates, the company and a government investigation found, creating a potential back door into any of the company’s tens of thousands of customers.

While the question of who was affected is still open, SolarWinds said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it had informed 33,000 customer organizations that they had been infected and that it could narrow the suspected number of actual victims only to under 18,000.

While SolarWinds has released an update of its software, the hackers’ nine-month head start means they are likely to have built additional entry points into the networks they deemed important, said Neil Jenkins, the chief analytic officer at the Cyber Threat Alliance, a cybersecurity industry group, and a former senior cybersecurity official at the Department of Homeland Security.

“As soon as you get into a network, you’re going to set up other potential back doors and ways to get in, in case the original way you got in closed,” Jenkins said. “So just because you closed the SolarWinds intrusion doesn’t mean you’ve solved the problem.”

The range of victims extends beyond SolarWinds’ extensive customer base. The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, which is leading the government’s technical response to the hacking campaign, has warned that the same hackers may have infected victims by other means.

The hackers’ lead time and extraordinary access mean victim organizations will have to choose between two unpleasant options: spending significant resources hunting through their computers in the hope that they can eradicate the hackers’ footholds or rebuilding their networks from scratch, said Suzanne Spaulding, the former head of what is now CISA and currently the director of the Defending Democratic Institutions project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank.

“I think we’ll be at least months trying to figure out the full scope and scale of this,” Spaulding said. "And at least months trying to recover, trying to get the adversary out or abandon ship and rebuild securely.

“This is not an adversary that goes away when detected,” she said. “They fight to maintain their persistent presence, and we’ll be doing battle, I suspect, for a while.”

dragonfly9 · December 29, 2020, 3:22pm

Recommended reading from a black journalist who covers the points of view media takes on whites and blacks, and various cultural differences and where the dividing lines are.

Windthin · January 1, 2021, 3:44am

Even If It’s ‘Bonkers,’ Poll Finds Many Believe QAnon And Other Conspiracy Theories

A significant number of Americans believe misinformation about the origins of the coronavirus and the recent presidential election, as well as conspiracy theories like QAnon, according to a new NPR/Ipsos poll.

Forty percent of respondents said they believe the coronavirus was made in a lab in China even though there is no evidence for this. Scientists say the virus was transmitted to humans from another species.

And one-third of Americans believe that voter fraud helped Joe Biden win the 2020 election, despite the fact that courts, election officials and the Justice Department have found no evidence of widespread fraud that could have changed the outcome.

The poll results add to mounting evidence that misinformation is gaining a foothold in American society and that conspiracy theories are going mainstream, especially during the coronavirus pandemic. This has raised concerns about how to get people to believe in a “baseline reality,” said Chris Jackson, a pollster with Ipsos.

“Increasingly, people are willing to say and believe stuff that fits in with their view of how the world should be, even if it doesn’t have any basis in reality or fact,” Jackson said.

“What this poll really illustrates to me is how willing people are to believe things that are ludicrous because it fits in with a worldview that they want to believe.”

"That’s terrifying"

The NPR/Ipsos poll of 1,115 U.S. adults was conducted Dec. 21 to 22. The credibility interval for the overall sample is 3.3 percentage points.

One of the most striking poll findings has to do with QAnon, the baseless conspiracy theory that gained widespread attention this year as two of its backers were elected to Congress.

The poll asked respondents whether they believe that “a group of Satan-worshipping elites who run a child sex ring are trying to control our politics and media” — the false allegation at the heart of QAnon. While only 17% said it was true, another 37% said they didn’t know.

“It’s total bonkers,” said Jackson, “and yet … essentially half of Americans believe it’s true or think that maybe it’s true. They don’t really know. And I think that’s terrifying that half of Americans believe that could be the case.”

According to the poll, 39% of Americans believe another key tenet of the QAnon theory: that there is a deep state working to undermine President Trump.

The president is himself a major source of misinformation, as he continues to make baseless claims about election fraud on Twitter and elsewhere. Conservative media also have devoted hours of coverage to exaggerated or debunked claims.

The NPR/Ipsos poll suggests those claims are having an impact. Two-thirds of Republicans surveyed said they believe that voter fraud helped Biden win the election, and fewer than half of Republicans said they accept the outcome of the election.

“There’s just too much information out there,” said Brooke Williams, a Republican voter and self-described QAnon follower from Oro Valley, Ariz., during a follow-up interview with NPR. “I can’t see how anybody is not thoroughly convinced that Biden was illegally elected.”

In contrast, only 11% of Democrats think voter fraud helped Biden win the election, and 93% accept the outcome.

Whom Americans trust

Overall, most respondents said they do want to see a peaceful transition to a Biden administration in January, though many are worried about political violence over the next four years.

The vast majority of Americans said they’re also worried about the spread of false information, with 4 out of 5 poll respondents saying they’re concerned about misinformation related to the coronavirus and vaccines in particular.

But Republicans were more likely than Democrats to believe misinformation about the virus, including that it was created in a lab in China and that COVID-19 is no more of a “serious threat” than the seasonal flu.

“I think it was deliberately released by China,” said Jon Costello, a Republican from Huntsville, Ala., who responded to the poll. “I think this big thing of shutting down businesses, shutting down education systems … is all part of a plan to break the spirit and the will of Americans.”

Poll respondents of both parties expressed skepticism about the vaccines that are now being distributed in the U.S., though Republicans were less likely than Democrats to say that they would “take the COVID-19 vaccine as soon as it is made available to me.”

“I shouldn’t have to take a vaccine for something that was man-made,” said Shaena Castro, a Democrat who lives in New York City. “I guess you can call me a conspiracy theorist or whatever, but yeah, I am convinced that it’s man-made.”

When asked whom they trust, respondents mostly pointed to the people they encounter in their daily lives. Personal physicians scored highly, as did faith or spiritual leaders.

Politicians and media figures did not fare as well. Tucker Carlson of Fox News, Rachel Maddow of MSNBC and Wolf Blitzer of CNN were at the bottom of the list.

More Americans trust Biden than Trump, but both lagged behind Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who scored the highest of any specific person the poll asked about.

New misinformation vs. old conspiracy

Pollsters say that multiple factors make people more or less susceptible to misinformation — including educational attainment, media consumption and political affiliation — and that people are more likely to believe conspiracy theories that fit into their worldview.

For example, almost half of respondents said that the majority of racial justice protests over the summer were violent, when in fact the vast majority were peaceful. Poll respondents from all demographics answered this question incorrectly — but they were even more likely to do so if they were Republicans and if they got their news from Fox News or conservative online outlets like Breitbart or the Daily Caller.

Recent misinformation held more sway than some older conspiracy theories.

About 60% of Americans correctly answered that former President Barack Obama was born in the United States and that several mass shootings in recent years were not staged hoaxes. And about 70% correctly answered that humans do play a significant role in climate change — roughly the same percentage who believe astronauts landed on the moon in the 1960s and '70s.

It’s also clear from the poll results that Americans are worried about misinformation, even if there’s no clear prescription for what to do about it.

Nearly 70% of respondents said they are concerned that information they receive on social media is inaccurate; a similar percentage is concerned about foreign interference in U.S. social media.

“I’m concerned to see so many people living in a false reality, seeing relatives honestly believe that this was some kind of rigged election,” said William Street, who lives in northeast Mississippi.

“It terrifies me that people can be that misled and believe conspiracy theories like that,” Street tells NPR. “I’m concerned that with even just a little prodding from this man in office, they could be led to do very desperate things.”

GracieC · January 2, 2021, 12:39am

Wow. Just wow. I wonder if reinstating the Fairness Doctrine & have it include cable & social media would help counter this fantasyland belief.

macro · January 2, 2021, 1:14am

Very interesting thought. Just how does a country legislate to protect itself from misleading and false propaganda? Not being familiar with the Fairness Doctrine I had a brief look and it seems that it would have served a similar purpose to what you envisage, but was cast aside in 2011 as it seemingly had served its usefulness. Sometimes we throw the baby out with the bath water.

The Chairman touts this regulatory clean-up effort as “clearing the path for greater competition, investment and job creation”. But it’s impossible to imagine that anybody’s path to greater competition, investment and/or job creation was hindered in any way by the ghost of the Fairness Doctrine flickering faintly in some obscure and unread passages of the rules. If we have allowed the Doctrine to hinder anything in the past 20 years, that says a lot more about us than about the Doctrine.

my bold

Windthin · January 2, 2021, 2:46am

The Fairness Doctrine and the Voting Rights Act are two of those things Republicans killed, insisting they were no longer needed, before going on to prove precisely why they’re needed.

GracieC · January 2, 2021, 4:57am

Macro, when it was minimal broadcasters & they needed permission from the FCC, it was a bit easier to do. I blame Reagan for getting rid of it. When we, as a country, cannot agree on facts, it makes life difficult. There has to be some commonality to be a country. As the poll points out, the USA has about a third of the population believing the equivalent of the National Enquire.

Windthin · January 2, 2021, 10:45pm

‘Badasses in Their Own Right’: Meet the Freshwomen of Congress

We’ll soon see the most women ever in the House of Representatives, including the largest number of female Republicans. And the new members have a lot to say.

W hen the 117th Congress is sworn in on Sunday, it will have more women—and more women of color—than any Congress in history. There will be the most-ever Native American women serving, as well as the first group of Korean-born congresswomen and even the first Iranian American member of any gender. And those records are, in no small part, because of the success of Republican women.

Donald Trump might have been voted out of the Oval Office in November, but the GOP made significant gains on Capitol Hill, narrowing Democrats’ House majority to the slimmest margin in decades. Most of the candidates who flipped seats from blue to red were women. Twenty-nine Republican women will serve in the new House of Representatives, still well behind the 89 Democratic women but four more than the GOP’s previous record of 25 women in 2005. (The only newly elected woman in the Senate is former Rep. Cynthia Lummis, a Republican from Wyoming.)

Although their party largely rejects any notion of “identity politics,” almost all of the newly elected GOP congresswomen told POLITICO they’re proud to be among the largest and most diverse class of female freshmen the Republican Party has ever seen. Some, like Mary Miller of Illinois, said they see their role as (literally) changing the face of the Republican Party. Others cited the so-called Squad of Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib as an inspiration—not because they see that group, all of whom were elected in 2018, as ideological compatriots, but rather because they want to prove that women can advocate just as passionately for the other side. More than one mentioned “socialism” as a motivating factor for their run for Congress, including Maria Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.), whose parents fled the Cuban Revolution. “I lived the American dream,” she said. “I need to make sure that my children live the same dream.”

Congresswomen-elect of both parties suggested that the circumstances of the moment—a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic, a likely divided Congress and a record number of women on Capitol Hill—might lend itself to more bipartisanship. Deborah Ross, a North Carolina Democrat, said that narrow margins in the House and Senate create “the opportunity for people to come together” because members see “an opportunity to be the difference-maker.” Yvette Herrell, a New Mexico Republican, agreed. “The expectation of that line in the sand—we need to move past it,” she said. “The only people that hurts are the American people.” Nikema Williams, a Georgia Democrat, echoed Herrell: “Americans are hurting. And it’s not Democratic Americans or Republican Americans; they’re all hurting.”

But not everyone is interested in moderation or compromise. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), a Black Lives Matter organizer from St. Louis, spoke of working with a small but growing band of “unapologetic activists” who will work together to “apply pressure” on even their own party “to push our agenda.” On the other side of the spectrum, Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) made clear that, compared to the effort spent pursuing middle-ground measures, “I’m going to fight even harder to make sure this progressive socialist movement ends this term, never to be discussed again.” And Miller reiterated as much, saying optimistically, that in lieu of advancing legislation, the Republican Party ought to “come up with a plan for when in two years we do take the House.”

Whether or not these new members are able to make an institution long plagued by polarization and gridlock govern functionally again remains to be seen. But what we do know is that these women have arrived in Washington, and they’re ready to get to work.

The article goes into each of them in detail; the way it’s broken up, it’s hard to post them all here, so I recommend checking it out.

dragonfly9 · January 3, 2021, 11:01pm

These former defense secretaries ask for a peaceful transfer of power in this Opinion piece.

Ashton Carter, Dick Cheney, William Cohen, Mark Esper, Robert Gates, Chuck Hagel, James Mattis, Leon Panetta, William Perry and Donald Rumsfeld are the 10 living former U.S. secretaries of defense.

As former secretaries of defense, we hold a common view of the solemn obligations of the U.S. armed forces and the Defense Department. Each of us swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. We did not swear it to an individual or a party.

American elections and the peaceful transfers of power that result are hallmarks of our democracy. With one singular and tragic exception that cost the lives of more Americans than all of our other wars combined, the United States has had an unbroken record of such transitions since 1789, including in times of partisan strife, war, epidemics and economic depression. This year should be no exception.

Our elections have occurred. Recounts and audits have been conducted. Appropriate challenges have been addressed by the courts. Governors have certified the results. And the electoral college has voted. The time for questioning the results has passed; the time for the formal counting of the electoral college votes, as prescribed in the Constitution and statute, has arrived.

As senior Defense Department leaders have noted, “there’s no role for the U.S. military in determining the outcome of a U.S. election.” Efforts to involve the U.S. armed forces in resolving election disputes would take us into dangerous, unlawful and unconstitutional territory. Civilian and military officials who direct or carry out such measures would be accountable, including potentially facing criminal penalties, for the grave consequences of their actions on our republic.

Transitions, which all of us have experienced, are a crucial part of the successful transfer of power. They often occur at times of international uncertainty about U.S. national security policy and posture. They can be a moment when the nation is vulnerable to actions by adversaries seeking to take advantage of the situation.

Given these factors, particularly at a time when U.S. forces are engaged in active operations around the world, it is all the more imperative that the transition at the Defense Department be carried out fully, cooperatively and transparently. Acting defense secretary Christopher C. Miller and his subordinates — political appointees, officers and civil servants — are each bound by oath, law and precedent to facilitate the entry into office of the incoming administration, and to do so wholeheartedly. They must also refrain from any political actions that undermine the results of the election or hinder the success of the new team.

We call upon them, in the strongest terms, to do as so many generations of Americans have done before them. This final action is in keeping with the highest traditions and professionalism of the U.S. armed forces, and the history of democratic transition in our great country.

dragonfly9 · January 5, 2021, 2:56am

NYTimes

Trump’s Georgia Call Is Another Reason to Impeach Him https://nyti.ms/3rTbozW

The emergence of an audio recording of President Trump pressuring the Georgia secretary of state to overturn the results of the election is a harrowing moment in the history of our democracy. And though the number of his days in office is dwindling, the only appropriate response is to impeach Mr. Trump. Again.

Whether he acknowledges it or not, President Trump is leaving the White House on Jan. 20 — but right now, there is nothing stopping him from running in 2024. That is a terrifying prospect, because the way he has conducted himself over the past two months, wielding the power of the presidency to try to steal another term in office, has threatened one of our republic’s most essential traditions: the peaceful transfer of power.

Fortunately, our founders anticipated we would face a moment like this, which is one reason Article I, Section 3 of the Constitution entrusts Congress with the power not only to remove a president but also to prevent him or her from ever holding elected office again. Mr. Trump’s conduct over the past two months has left our legislators with no choice but to use it. That impeachment inquiry would take time, far more than Mr. Trump has left in office. But it would be well worth it.

Since the election was called in favor of President-elect Joe Biden, Mr. Trump has been relentlessly fomenting doubts about its legitimacy — even as many federal and state courts, including ones whose judges were appointed by Mr. Trump himself, have ruled against his claims. He has reportedly inquired about the idea of enlisting the help of the military to keep him in power.

Most recently, on the phone with Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, he said, “I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have.” He added: “We won this state,” even though he didn’t. In a democracy, you don’t find votes. You count them. Most strikingly, Mr. Trump threatened the Georgia officials with criminal prosecution if they didn’t comply, saying leaving the vote counts intact would be a “big risk.”

This kind of threat may sound familiar, because an eerily similar abuse of power led to Mr. Trump’s impeachment just over a year ago. Senator Susan Collins of Maine explained her vote to acquit him by saying she thought he had learned “a pretty big lesson.” Clearly, Mr. Trump learned a different lesson — that he was above the law. It’s just as William Davie from North Carolina, discussing the position of the presidency at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, predicted: A president who viewed himself to be unimpeachable, he said in 1787, would “spare no efforts or means whatever to get himself re-elected.”

It’s time for Congress, once and for all, to put an end to this.

No one wants to put the country through the turmoil of another impeachment. But we also can’t afford to look the other way — for several reasons.

For one, we must establish a precedent that a president who tries to cheat his way to re-election will be held accountable. Sure, this attempt may not have succeeded, but a failed coup should itself be alarming enough. And who is to say there won’t be a closer election in the future, with a more competent authoritarian candidate — whose party also has control of the House of Representatives? We need to make sure that Congress has ensured that candidates cannot strong-arm their way into re-election.

We also need to set a precedent that a lame duck president can still be held accountable. If an incumbent, say, threatened to nuke Iran unless the Electoral College sided with him, we would want to have a mechanism by which we could remove him from office. In our Constitution, impeachment is that mechanism, but it is worthless if we never use it.

And last, we cannot risk Mr. Trump’s becoming president again — or for that matter, even running again with a chance of winning. This isn’t a point about ideology; it’s a reflection of the fact that our system may not be able to withstand this lawless man returning to the highest office in the land. Emboldened by our failure to hold him accountable for abusing his power in his first term, who knows what he would do in a nonconsecutive second term? The damage to our institutions from his first four years in office will take generations to undo. Our democracy might not be able to handle another four.

Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, was able to protect Mr. Trump the last time — no doubt because he was afraid of what a truly rigorous trial might show. But he may no longer be able to do so. For one thing, Mr. Trump will soon lack the power of the presidency to dole out favors and punish his enemies. For another, the Senate composition will be different. Already, Democrats have flipped seats in Arizona and Colorado. Republicans who voted to acquit him, like Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, have shown signs they are finally willing to stand up to him.

And Georgians will go to the polls to decide who will represent them in the Senate. Mr. Trump’s preferred senators, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, would no doubt try to block an inquiry into his misdeeds. But if these senators lose their seats, a full and robust inquiry in the Senate could be the result, with Chuck Schumer as majority leader.

In 2008, a young member of the Judiciary Committee said, “The business of high crimes and misdemeanors goes to the question of whether or not the person serving as president of the United States put their own interests, their personal interests, ahead of public service.” That congressman’s name was Mike Pence — and he was exactly right.

We need to convict President Trump and make sure he can never call the White House home again.

dragonfly9 · January 5, 2021, 3:18pm

Conservative writer George F. Will says Sen Cruz (R-TX) and Sen Hawley (R-MO) are “…are its (The Constitution’s) most dangerous domestic enemies.”

On a conference call last Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told his caucus that, in his 36 Senate years, he has twice cast votes to take the nation to war and once to remove a president, but that the vote he will cast this Wednesday to certify Joe Biden’s electoral college victory will be the most important of his career. McConnell (R-Ky.) understands the recklessness of congressional Republicans who are fueling the doubts of a large majority of Republicans about the legitimacy of the 2020 election.

The day before McConnell’s somber statement, Missouri’s freshman Republican senator, Josh Hawley, announced that on Wednesday, 14 days before Biden will be inaugurated, he will challenge the validity of Biden’s election. Hawley’s conscience regarding electoral proprieties compels him to stroke this erogenous zone of the GOP’s 2024 presidential nominating electorate.

Hawley’s stance quickly elicited panicky emulation from Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, another 2024 aspirant. Cruz led 10 other senators and senators-elect in a statement that presents their pandering to what terrifies them (their Trumpkin voters) as a judicious determination to assess the “unprecedented allegations” of voting improprieties, “allegations” exceeding “any in our lifetimes.”

So, allegations in sufficient quantity, although of uniformly risible quality, validate senatorial grandstanding that is designed to deepen today’s widespread delusions and resentments. While Hawley et al. were presenting their last-ditch devotion to President Trump as devotion to electoral integrity, Trump was heard on tape browbeating noncompliant Georgia election officials to “find” thousands of votes for him. Awkward.

Never mind. Hawley — has there ever been such a high ratio of ambition to accomplishment? — and Cruz have already nimbly begun to monetize their high-mindedness through fundraising appeals.

For many years, some people insisted that a vast conspiracy, not a lone gunman, masterminded the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy near the grassy knoll in Dallas’s Dealey Plaza. To these people, the complete absence of evidence proved the conspiracy’s sophistication. They were demented. Today’s senatorial Grassy Knollers — Hawley, with Cruz and others panting to catch up — are worse. They are cynical.

They know that every one of the almost 60 Trump challenges to the election has been rebuffed in state and federal courts, including the Supreme Court, involving more than 90 judges, nominated by presidents of both parties. But for scores of millions of mesmerized Trump Republicans, who think the absence of evidence is the most sinister evidence, this proves that the courts, too, are tentacles of the “deep state.” Hawley and Cruz, both of whom clerked for chief justices of the Supreme Court, hope to be wafted into the White House by gusts of such paranoia.

As does Vice President Pence, who says about Hawley et al.: Me, too. To fathom Pence’s canine devotion to Trump, watch a video from June 7, 2018. Seated next to Trump in a meeting, Pence saw Trump take his water bottle off the table and place it on the floor. So, Pence did likewise. Google the 22-second video. It is a sufficient Pence biography.

Republican Sen. Ben Sasse (Neb.) obliquely but scaldingly said of Hawley: “Adults don’t point a loaded gun at the heart of legitimate self-government.” America’s three-party system — Democrats, Hawley-Cruz Republicans, and McConnell-Sasse Republicans — will continue to take shape on Wednesday. Watch how many of these Republican senators who might be seeking reelection in 2022 have the spine to side with the adults against Hawley-Cruz et al. and the Grassy Knollers among their constituents: John Boozman, Richard Burr, Mike Crapo,Charles E. Grassley, John Hoeven, Mike Lee, Jerry Moran, Lisa Murkowski, Rand Paul, Rob Portman, Marco Rubio, Tim Scott, Richard C. Shelby, John Thune, Todd C. Young. By aligning with Cruz, four — Ron Johnson, John Neely Kennedy, James Lankford and Kelly Loeffler — have reserved their seats at the children’s table.

Hawley, Cruz and company have perhaps rescued Biden from becoming the first president in 32 years to begin his presidency without his party controlling both houses of Congress. On Tuesday, Georgians will decide control of the Senate. While they have been watching Republican attempts to delegitimize Biden’s election ( two recounts have confirmed that Georgians favor Biden), Republicans were telling them: a) elections in the world’s oldest constitutional democracy, and especially in Georgia, are rigged, but b) the nation’s fate depends on their turning out for Tuesday’s (presumptively) sham run-off Senate elections, lest c) Democrats take control of the Senate and behave badly.

Be that as it may, on Wednesday, the members of the Hawley-Cruz cohort will violate the oath of office in which they swore to defend the Constitution from enemies “foreign and domestic.” They are its most dangerous domestic enemies.

CNa1 · January 6, 2021, 7:44am

If you had ever told me, that one day, I would agree with George Will …

dragonfly9 · January 8, 2021, 1:38am

Donald Trump’s Final Days

The best outcome would be for him to resign to spare the U.S. another impeachment fight.

By The Editorial Board

The lodestar of these columns is the U.S. Constitution. The document is the durable foundation protecting liberty, and this week it showed its virtue again. Despite being displaced for a time by a mob, Congress returned the same day to ratify the Electoral College vote and Joe Biden’s election. Congratulations to the President-elect, who will be inaugurated as the Constitution stipulates at noon on Jan. 20.

***

That still leaves Wednesday’s disgrace and what to do about the 13 days left in Donald Trump’s presidential term. Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi are demanding that Mr. Trump be removed from office immediately—either by the Cabinet under the 25th Amendment or new articles of impeachment. There’s partisan animus at work here, but Mr. Trump’s actions on Wednesday do raise constitutional questions that aren’t casually dismissed.

In concise summary, on Wednesday the leader of the executive branch incited a crowd to march on the legislative branch. The express goal was to demand that Congress and Vice President Mike Pence reject electors from enough states to deny Mr. Biden an Electoral College victory. When some in the crowd turned violent and occupied the Capitol, the President caviled and declined for far too long to call them off. When he did speak, he hedged his plea with election complaint.

This was an assault on the constitutional process of transferring power after an election. It was also an assault on the legislature from an executive sworn to uphold the laws of the United States. This goes beyond merely refusing to concede defeat. In our view it crosses a constitutional line that Mr. Trump hasn’t previously crossed. It is impeachable.

Mr. Trump’s many opponents are crowing in satisfaction that their predictions have been proven right, that he was never fit to be President and should have been impeached long ago. But Mr. Trump’s character flaws were apparent for all to see when he ran for President.

Sixty-three million Americans voted to elect Mr. Trump in 2016, and that constitutional process shouldn’t be easily overruled as Democrats and the press have demanded from nearly his first day in office. You don’t impeach for anticipatory offenses or for those that don’t rise to the level of constitutional violations. This week’s actions are a far greater dereliction of duty than his ham-handed Ukrainian interventions in 2019.

The related but separate question is whether impeachment or forced removal under the 25th Amendment now is in the country’s best interests. The latter seems unwise unless Mr. Trump threatens some other reckless or unconstitutional act. After Wednesday he has promised to assist an “orderly transition” of power. A Cabinet cabal ousting him would smack of a Beltway coup and give Mr. Trump more cause to play the political victim.

Impeachment has the virtue of being transparent and politically accountable. If there were enough votes to convict in the Senate, it would also seem less partisan. The best case for impeachment is not to punish Mr. Trump. It is to send a message to future Presidents that Congress will protect itself from populists of all ideological stripes willing to stir up a mob and threaten the Capitol or its Members.

But impeachment so late in the term won’t be easy or without rancor. It would further enrage Mr. Trump’s supporters in a way that won’t help Mr. Biden govern, much less heal partisan divisions. It would pour political fuel on Wednesday’s dying embers.

All the more so because Democrats aren’t likely to behave responsibly or with restraint. They are already stumping for impeachment articles that include a litany of anti-Trump grievances over four years. Mrs. Pelosi’s ultimatum Thursday that Mr. Pence trigger the 25th Amendment or she’ll impeach also won’t attract GOP votes.

Democrats would have more impeachment credibility now if they hadn’t abused the process in 2019. A parade of impeachers that includes Russian-collusion promoters Reps. Adam Schiff and Jerrold Nadler would repel more Americans than it would persuade. The mission would look like political revenge, not constitutional enforcement—and Mr. Trump would play it as such until his last breath. Mr. Biden could gain much goodwill if he called off the impeachers in the name of stepping back from annihilationist politics.

If Mr. Trump wants to avoid a second impeachment, his best path would be to take personal responsibility and resign. This would be the cleanest solution since it would immediately turn presidential duties over to Mr. Pence. And it would give Mr. Trump agency, a la Richard Nixon, over his own fate.

This might also stem the flood of White House and Cabinet resignations that are understandable as acts of conscience but could leave the government dangerously unmanned. Robert O’Brien, the national security adviser, in particular should stay at his post.

We know an act of grace by Mr. Trump isn’t likely. In any case this week has probably finished him as a serious political figure. He has cost Republicans the House, the White House, and now the Senate. Worse, he has betrayed his loyal supporters by lying to them about the election and the ability of Congress and Mr. Pence to overturn it. He has refused to accept the basic bargain of democracy, which is to accept the result, win or lose.

It is best for everyone, himself included, if he goes away quietly.

dragonfly9 · January 8, 2021, 2:23am

Invoke the 25th Amendment: Donald Trump forfeited his moral authority to stay in office

Our View: By egging on a deadly insurrection and hailing the rioters, the president’s continuance in office poses unacceptable risks to America

The Editorial Board

USA TODAY

Ever since Donald Trump lost his bid for reelection, Americans have wondered to what depths he would sink in his efforts to overturn the results and cling to power.

On Wednesday, they got their answer: The president of the United States incited a mob of supporters and sicced them on the Capitol, just as Congress was about to count the states’ electoral votes and affirm Joe Biden’s victory. In the ensuing chaos, the hallowed chambers were desecrated, the ceremonial process was disrupted, one woman was fatally shot and three others died.

By egging on this deadly insurrection and hailing the rioters (“We love you, you’re very special.”), the president forfeited his moral authority to hold the nation’s highest office, even for 13 more days. More urgent, he reinforced profound questions, and raised new ones, about his judgment and ability to fulfill his most minimal responsibilities to the country he is supposed to lead and protect. Trump’s continuance in office poses unacceptable risks to America.

Orderly transfer of power

Foreign adversaries sense disarray and weakness. People close to Trump say his mental state is fragile. Even though he committed early Thursday to an orderly transfer of power, who knows what pardons he might grant, what orders he might issue as commander in chief and what other desperate measures he might take before Jan. 20?

Resignation would be the preferable means for Trump to depart; Richard Nixon quit when Republican elders told him the jig was up amid the Watergate scandal. But there is no reason to believe that Trump will leave voluntarily, even in response to entreaties from top aides and GOP lawmakers.

Impeachment by Congress is another long shot. In December 2019, the House impeached Trump on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, but the Senate acquitted him last February.

Shameful Republican support

This month, time is short, and Trump retains considerable support among congressional Republicans. Shamefully, even after Wednesday’s insurrection, 139 representatives and eight senators backed Trump’s efforts to overturn the will of the voters in Arizona and Pennsylvania.

That leaves the 25th Amendment, which sets out procedures for replacing an unfit president.

Invoking the 25th, a step urged Thursday by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and others, is neither easy nor ideal. It requires the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet to certify that the president is unable to discharge his duties. If that happened, Trump would immediately be stripped of his powers and Vice President Mike Pence would become the acting president. Trump would likely challenge the move, and some significant portion of the 74 million who voted for him would cry “coup!” This could pour fuel on an already volatile situation.