Scorched Earth

It's been a while since I've outlined the goings-on during the transition period. Holidays and my post about prosecution took up some time.

As predicted, the Mango Mussolini has decided on a scorched earth plan. It has been a chaotic, dangerous transition. When last we met, 45's efforts to overturn the will of the people found a brick wall at the U.S. Supreme Court. All told, he has lost upwards of 60 lawsuits. 

After all that, the Electoral College voted and Biden was officially deemed the winner on December 14, 2020. 

And then yesterday, another perfect phone call. 

Ed Wexler

Remember I said we'd have to wait maybe 24 hours after he left the Whitewash House for him to crime again? How about T-minus 17 days? Yesterday, the Washington Post released the tape of an hour-long phone call between SCROTUS and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Agolf Drümpf wanted the secretary of state to "find" 11,780 more votes in order to overturn the election results in Georgia. 

"So what are we going to do here, folks?" he said. "I only need 11,000 votes. Fellas, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break."

He performed his mobster tactics: flattery, cajoling, and outright threats. Raffensperger didn't budge. And now we have another impeachable offense, a blatant abuse of power and one that may be criminal. Read the WaPo article with audio excerpts, listen to the full tape, like I did, or read the full transcript. It's a portrait of a sad, sad, desperate despot-wannabe. It's rambling; it's bizarre; it's infuriating; it's illegal.

It's a federal and a state offense, so chalk this one up to an impeachable, prosecutable offense. We need to go after this crime. Hard. 

Read others' opinions on the phone call: Carl Bernstein believes it is worse than Watergate's smoking gun. Bloomberg's Timothy O'Brien calls the phone call "Coup Fever."

The taped call (after Agent Orange's 18 attempts at garnering a phone conversation with Raffensperger) begs the question: given that SCROTUS would have needed a few battleground states to win the general election, how many other state officials have been subjected to his tirades? Has he threatened other officials? What other offenses has he committed?

Before the phone call of course, he had been waging his scorched earth campaign.

He issued pardons to a slew of nefarious characters. So much for pardons being used for mercy. Of course he pardoned his partners-in-crime Paul Manafort and Roger Stone, as well as his daughter's horribly criminal father-in-law, Charles Kushner. He handed out pardons to other blatant bad guys. Corrupt congressmen Duncan Hunter, Chris Collins and Steve Stockman were issued pardons for no reason other than they fit SCROTUS's corrupt ideals.

He broke international law by pardoning odious murderers Nicholas Slatten, Paul Slough, Evan Liberty, and Dustin Heard. They were the Blackwater contractors who committed atrocities in Iraq in 2007. This last set of pardons could be a violation of international law. Twitler must be held accountable for this violation, and those murderers should be sent back to prison.

He has thrown the Georgia Senate election into chaos. His "supportive" rally last month for GOP candidates Perdue and Loeffler, turned out to be anything but. As a result, Repug Georgians have vowed to boycott the election based on his cries that the election there was "rigged." And now with the current dust-up regarding the call with Raffensperger, tomorrow's election could be chaotic, contentious, and possibly violent. 

He held up the stimulus package and turned the GOP against each other, furthering the muddle in Georgia. After his own people negotiated the stimulus bill, he balked at signing it. He issued a preference for an increase in payments from $600 to $2000 to every American. This threw his party into a cage-match with Democrats, who supported the idea of a larger payout. Of course, payments ended up staying at $600. After a week of stalling, the president* finally signed the bill, but the delay was such that stimulus payments weren't issued as speedily as hoped, and there was fear that unemployment benefits and safety nets from the previous bill expired. Later reporting indicates that thankfully, there was no gap in payments.

He is awarding Medals of Freedom to gross Repug members of Congress Jim Jordan (OH) and Devin Nunes (CA). I can't think of any two people any less deserving of that honor. 

The GOP continues to splinter. At least a dozen GOP Senators and several dozen Repug Representatives are planning to protest Congress's formal tally of the Electoral College votes, which occurs on Wednesday, January 6. Mitch is losing his iron grip on his caucus. Normally a mundane formality (does anyone else remember the day this happened for past elections?), the members of the "sedition caucus" are throwing themselves on the sword for their Supreme Leader, and damaging their party – and our country – in the process.

Seriously, it may the best thing for the GOP to just get on with their self-destruct mode and rebuild some sort of a semblance of a reasonable conservative party. There's nothing inherently wrong with conservatism. There is something dreadfully wrong with fundamentalist, far-right fascist ideology, which is what the GOP is today. 

Sabir Nazar

Brian Duffy
(and thanks to Big Sister Resister Pagrs for adding to my Moby Dick collection!)

As always, there are positives.

Donny may be looking to skip the country on January 19. A Scottish newspaper, the Sunday Post, has reported that officials there have been told to expect a large plane to land on the day before the Biden's inauguration, and there have been U.S. reconnaissance flights going on above. It'll be good to have his cooties out of the country on our momentous day, but I hope he comes back only when he has to face charges.

There are some heroes! Among those who are defending our Constitution:

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has not backed down against BLOTUS's onslaughts and in fact has faced threats of violence. He remains in the job, overseeing Georgia's Senate run-off election at great personal and political peril. Though he had been an unabashed TЯUMP supporter, and has done some questionable voter purging in Georgia, he has also steadfastly worked to maintain a free and fair election in his state. He's landing on the side of hero in my book.

Gabriel Sterling, Georgia’s voting system official, who last month pushed back on SCROTUS's dangerous rhetoric and baseless claims, again spoke out after his boss's phone call with 45. Sterling is a Republican. And he cares about his state's election. 

Texas GOP Representative Chip Roy, who has stated that U.S. Representatives elected from states that are being contested should not be seated. Hell, yeah. We've been saying that all along. If they are contesting elections that 45 lost, then they are contesting their own elections. Sit down and shut up! 

Dominion Voting Systems is suing TЯUMP lawyer Sidney Powell. I hope they also sue the man himself. The Dominion worker that the campaign, and QAnon, besmirched, and who suffered death threats, is suing the campaign, his lawyers, and conservative media outlets. Go, man, go!

Mitt Romney has been a loud voice of reason on the Right many times, and he spoke out again yesterday, saying the ploy to contest the election results "dangerously threatens our Democratic Republic."

The 10 living Secretaries of Defense, including Ashton Carter, Dick Cheney, William Cohen, Mark Esper, Robert Gates, Chuck Hagel, James Mattis, Leon Panetta, William Perry and Donald Rumsfeld all strongly rebuked the current attempts at a coup and warned against involving the military in a joint letter. It's more than a little scary that they had to use the language they did: "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." Still, I'm grateful for them banding together and speaking out. 

Stacy Abrams! She has worked tirelessly to organize in Georgia and get out the Black vote. She and her organization Fair Fight are to credit for turning Georgia blue. Let's help they get that blue stained through and through tomorrow. She's the one who deserves a Medal of Freedom!

...and hopefully: the hero voters of Georgia. Fingers crossed that they will prevail tomorrow and give the Dems control of the United States Senate. Go, Georgia, go!

The finish line is close. Say calm and let's get there.

"The pursuit, even of the best things, ought to be calm and tranquil." – Marcus Tullius Cicero