USA Politics (redux)

[drogulus]

     Pardons are coming. Chrimbus is almost here.

     

[JBS]

Is that your interpretation?

I was thinking that removing the head of the agency and the resulting disorder was possibly seen by the hackers as the last piece they needed for the attack to go ahead and make the response that much less effective.

I haven't read much about him but I haven't heard anyone question his competence, and the overall election security should be some indication.

The Guardian article says the attack started in March with the introduction of the malware into the Orion software.

[SimonNZ]

The Guardian article says the attack started in March with the introduction of the malware into the Orion software.

Yes, I read that.

It doesn't change what I wrote and is why I said "last piece they needed".

[JBS]

Yes, I read that.

It doesn't change what I wrote and is why I said "last piece they needed".

I took it to mean they've been doing this for several months and it's only now been discovered (or at least publicly talked about).

[SimonNZ]

MAGA leaders call for the troops to keep Trump in office
A growing call to invoke the Insurrection Act shows how hard-edged MAGA ideology has become in the wake of Trump's election loss.

"An 1807 law invoked only in the most violent circumstances is now a rallying cry for the MAGA-ites most committed to the fantasy that Donald Trump will never leave office.

The law, the Insurrection Act, allows the president to deploy troops to suppress domestic uprisings — not to overturn elections.

But that hasn't stopped the act from becoming a buzzword and cure-all for prominent MAGA figures like Sidney Powell and Lin Wood, two prominent pro-Trump attorneys leading efforts to overturn the 2020 election, and even one North Carolina state lawmaker. Others like Michael Flynn, Trump's first national security adviser who was recently pardoned for lying to the FBI, have made adjacent calls for Trump to impose martial law. The ideas have circulated in pro-Trump outlets and were being discussed over the weekend among the thousands of MAGA protesters who descended on state capitols and the Supreme Court to falsely claim Trump had won the election.

At its core, the Insurrection Act gives the president authority to send military and National Guard troops to quell local rebellions and violence, offering an exemption to prohibitions against using military personnel to enforce domestic laws. Historically, it has been used in moments of extreme national strife — the Civil War, the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, violent labor disputes, desegregation battles, rioting following Martin Luther King Jr.'s death.

Only once, however, has it been used in the wake of an election — and that was to stop a literal militia from seizing the Louisiana government on behalf of John McEnery, a former Confederate officer who had lost the 1872 governor's race.

Nonetheless, in the minds of some authoritarian-leaning and conspiracy-minded Trump supporters, the Insurrection Act has become a needed step to prevent President-elect Joe Biden from assuming the presidency. Their evidence-deficient reasoning: Democrats illegally rigged the election and are attempting a coup, and Trump must send in the troops to undo this conspiracy."[...]

[milk]

     Pardons are coming. Chrimbus is almost here.

     

Oh! Happy Chrimbus! I wish you were my son!

[T. D.]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trumps-future-tons-cash-plenty-195110674.html

Donald J. Trump will exit the White House as a private citizen next month perched atop a pile of campaign cash unheard-of for an outgoing president, and with few legal limits on how he can spend it.

Deflated by a loss he has yet to acknowledge, Trump has cushioned the blow by coaxing huge sums of money from his loyal supporters — often under dubious pretenses — raising roughly $250 million since Election Day along with the national party.

More than $60 million of that sum has gone to a new political action committee, according to people familiar with the matter, which Trump will control after he leaves office. Those funds, which far exceed what previous outgoing presidents had at their disposal, provide him with tremendous flexibility for his post-presidential ambitions: He could use the money to quell rebel factions within the party, reward loyalists, fund his travels and rallies, hire staff, pay legal bills and even lay the groundwork for a far-from-certain 2024 run.

The postelection blitz of fundraising has cemented Trump's position as an unrivaled force and the preeminent fundraiser of the Republican Party, even in defeat. His largest single day for online donations actually came after Election Day — raising almost $750,000 per hour Nov. 6. So did his second-biggest day. And his third.

"Right now, he is the Republican Party," said John McLaughlin, a Republican pollster who worked on Trump's reelection campaign. "The party knows that virtually every dollar they've raised in the last four years, it's because of Donald Trump."

...

[Karl Henning]

The Dangerous Radicalism of the Christian Right

[SimonNZ]

David Frum in The Atlantic:

13 Things Trump Got Right
Nobody does nothing as president, not even someone who watches television for five or six hours a day.

deceptively titled given the "despite his best efforts to fuck everything up this good thing happened" tone of the text

[T. D.]

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/20/trump-files-long-shot-supreme-court-challenge-over-biden-win-in-pa.html

[T. D.]

David Frum in The Atlantic:

13 Things Trump Got Right
Nobody does nothing as president, not even someone who watches television for five or six hours a day.

deceptively titled given the "despite his best efforts to fuck everything up this good thing happened" tone of the text

I think the author is completely full of s**t on his "nearly doubling the standard tax deduction" claim. There used to be an "Exemption" and "Standard Deduction" which each were around $6,000.
The Standard Deduction was roughly doubled, but the Exemption was eliminated! The net increase was only a few hundred dollars.
This gaffe makes a terrible impression and reduces the author's credibility to almost zero IMO.
[Disclosure: I have prepared my own tax returns "by hand" for my entire adult life and have a good idea whereof I speak.]

[Karl Henning]

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/20/trump-files-long-shot-supreme-court-challenge-over-biden-win-in-pa.html

Loser's gonna lose.

[drogulus]

     The future could be bright. So Republicans are trying to make sure it isn't.

Anything that helps the economy also helps the president politically, whether it's his doing or not; likewise, if the economy suffers, he will bear the lion's share of the blame. Republicans remember well how they were able to force President Barack Obama to accept austerity measures; they also created a series of fiscal crises (including a government shutdown and even a threat to default on the United States' debts) that kept the post-Great Recession recovery from accelerating. There is simply no doubt that they're going to try the same thing again.

     It's not like Repubs can hide what they're doing.

     The curious part is that Repubs offer solutions to economic problems that are the same as the weapons used to damage the Dems. How do they get away with that?

     

[71 dB]

Pat Robertson: "Trump Lives In An Alternate Reality."

Previously he had said God picked Trump to be the president. I suppose sometimes God just picks poorly. 

Anyway, when someone like Pat Robertson says you are not all there you really have issues! 

[Jo498]

Pat Robertson: "Trump Lives In An Alternate Reality."

Previously he had said God picked Trump to be the president. I suppose sometimes God just picks poorly. 

He sometimes gives in to the will of the people when they want a particularly cool guy at the top. Be careful what you wish for - it could be granted! Look up the story of King Saul or listen to Handel's dramatization...

[Daverz]

He sometimes gives in to the will of the people when they want a particularly cool guy at the top. Be careful what you wish for - it could be granted! Look up the story of King Saul or listen to Handel's dramatization...

I think it's more likely Pat was getting worried that Trump's antics might threaten Pat's various business ventures.

[drogulus]

     Now are the pardons.

     Trump Pardons Two Russia Inquiry Figures and Blackwater Guards

Mr. Trump's pardon list also included four former U.S. service members who were convicted of killing Iraqi civilians while working as contractors in 2007.

One of them, Nicholas Slatten, had been sentenced to life in prison after the Justice Department had gone to great lengths to prosecute him. Mr. Slatten, had been a contractor for the controversial company Blackwater and was sentenced for his role in the killing of 17 Iraqi civilians in Nisour Square in Baghdad — a massacre that left one of the most lasting stains on the United States of the war.

     

[drogulus]

     Trump is not even a little bit trying to sabotage/steal/overturn the election because it's fake news that he's doing it.

     A number of Repub reps have declared that votes in their own states were invalid, so Biden was wrongly awarded electoral votes and it follows that these reps were not elected either. Because a substantial amount of ticket splitting gave Repubs wins in congressional races in battleground states, many Biden votes these reps want to throw out provided the margin of victory for their own races.

     There's a wonderful anecdote about Stalin that goes like this. Stalin meets with a functionary and says to him "I hear you have a Jewish grandfather." The frightened official replies "No, comrade Stailin, it's not true!". Stalin pauses then says "Well, all right, but all the same you'd better think about it.".

     I know, the Stalin story is a malicious invention, or perhaps a typical Soviet era joke. Still, we ought to think about it.

     As a humorist our Trumptator is no match for any of the greats.

[Pohjolas Daughter]

Pardon, but some of the news that I heard today regarding the providing monetary assistance to businesses and individuals included a lot to things doing neither?  It was also providing funding to our government to keep it working which I understand...but it was so much more than that.  I'm trying to understand where a lot of the money is going and also why during these horrible times.  And, I do agree with Pres. Trump that more money should be going to individuals.  Currently, I'm left feeling like people are tacking things onto the bill (like this never happens). 

[drogulus]

Pardon, but some of the news that I heard today regarding the providing monetary assistance to businesses and individuals included a lot to things doing neither?  It was also providing funding to our government to keep it working which I understand...but it was so much more than that.  I'm trying to understand where a lot of the money is going and also why during these horrible times.  And, I do agree with Pres. Trump that more money should be going to individuals.  Currently, I'm left feeling like people are tacking things onto the bill (like this never happens). 

     You're right, this has never before happened in the history of omnibus bills. Either you're on the omnibus......