Tracker

‘IT’S NOT OVER’: Turns on Trump’s SCOTUS Picks After Texas Ruling The ultra-conservative Fox News competitor went into meltdown mode, questioning whether Justices Barrett, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch “actually understand the gravity of the situation.” Amy Coney Barrett was supposed to save Donald Trump from electoral defeat. Instead, she just joined with the president’s two other Supreme Court picks to hand down what could be the final blow to his attempt to upend democracy. “First off, it’s not over,” a distressed Greg Kelly said at the top of his Newsmax broadcast Friday night. “The Supreme Court did turn down the Texas case,” he lamented. But before getting to the details, he made sure to give his viewers more false hope, saying, “We have the situation in Pennsylvania that has not been settled. We have Georgia that has not been settled, we have Michigan that has not been settled, independent of this lawsuit from Texas.” What seemed most shocking to the Trump-defending network was that Justices Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch sided with the liberals on the Supreme Court to reject what Kelly at one point started to call “our” lawsuit, before correcting himself. At another point, the anchor said, “This would seem to be a 7-to-2 decision against us.” Newsmax Turns on Trump’s SCOTUS Picks After Texas Ruling (thedailybeast.com)

Right-wingers on Parler call for civil war after SCOTUS dumps Trump's election fraud case After the Supreme Court refused to hear Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's case seeking to toss hundreds of thousands of votes in four swing states, right-wingers on Parler, the far-right version of Twitter, are literally calling for Trump to use the military and conservative states to secede from the union, essentially setting the conditions for a bloody civil war. Here's a sampling of different messages on Parler: "Time for succession... If even the GOP majority Supreme Court won't hear the citizens' claims of corruption in the election process; then we need to create our own separate country from all of those that cheat us of our given rights!!" "I'm ******* raging!!!! Patriots do NOT allow those dirty thieving DemocRats to take this election from our one and only hero President Donald J. Trump!!! If he sold out Supreme Court won't stand up for DJT then we MUST boycott the runoff election to show those ***** ass so-called Republicans how much." "Trump will not let this stand. There is no way Biden will be inaugurated. The enemies of our nation cannot be allowed to take over its government. This is the reason we have a military." "Are we just going to sit back in our lazy boy recliners and whine about this or are we going to stand up and take action? It's time." "Trump needs to declare war. We are under attack" "#Texit Texas must exit" "INSURRECTION ACT time!!!!!" "TIME TO CALL IN THE KRACKIN (MARSHAL-LAW)" This election was nothing but fraud. Basement Biden got more votes then Obama?! Yeah, right. Dems want to play?! Let's play. New game, new rules. Except this time, the reds win." In related news, Vice found that even the most extreme right-wingers are starting to abandon Parler After the Supreme Court refused to hear Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's case seeking to toss hundreds of thousands of votes in four swing states, right-wingers on Parler, the far-right version of Twitter, are literally calling for Trump to use the military and conservative states to secede from the union, essentially setting the conditions for a bloody civil war. Here's a sampling of different messages on Parler: "Time for succession... If even the GOP majority Supreme Court won't hear the citizens' claims of corruption in the election process; then we need to create our own separate country from all of those that cheat us of our given rights!!" "I'm ******* raging!!!! Patriots do NOT allow those dirty thieving DemocRats to take this election from our one and only hero President Donald J. Trump!!! If he sold out Supreme Court won't stand up for DJT then we MUST boycott the runoff election to show those ***** ass so-called Republicans how much." "Trump will not let this stand. There is no way Biden will be inaugurated. The enemies of our nation cannot be allowed to take over its government. This is the reason we have a military." "Are we just going to sit back in our lazy boy recliners and whine about this or are we going to stand up and take action? It's time." "Trump needs to declare war. We are under attack" "#Texit Texas must exit" "INSURRECTION ACT time!!!!!" "TIME TO CALL IN THE KRACKIN (MARSHAL-LAW)" This election was nothing but fraud. Basement Biden got more votes then Obama?! Yeah, right. Dems want to play?! Let's play. New game, new rules. Except this time, the reds win." https://twitter.com/gtconway3d/status/1337557156246269952 https://twitter.com/MomJovi/status/1337582517180792833 In related news, Vice found that even the most extreme right-wingers are starting to abandon Parler

Trump calls for the immediate firing of AG Bill Barr over Hunter Biden investigation U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr may be the next top-ranking White House official on President Donald Trump's cut list. On Saturday morning, Barr was one of the first people Trump attacked via Twitter. Trump began with a retweet of the Wall Street Journal's report suggesting Barr was aware of the Hunter Biden investigation back in April but remained mum about it. ADVEThe Wall Street Journal reported: Attorney General William Barr has known about a disparate set of investigations involving Hunter Biden's business and financial dealings since at least this spring, a person familiar with the matter said and worked to avoid their public disclosure during the heated election campaign.

I am sure that as gratifying as it was to hear that Hitler was dead, it was of little comfort to the people who were his victims. The same applies to Trump. The only thing that would ameliorate the suffering of Trump's victims will be if he and his people are put behind bars for along time and his empire that he built on fraud and credit collapses.

This case was so bizarre that two imaginary states were allowed to put their names onto the list of aggrieved plaintiffs. Weird or what?

What is concerning is that Trump and his toadies are becoming more and more desperate and more and more certain that the legal processes will not allow Trump to overturn the election. That leaves them with only incitement to intimidation by mob rule. God knows, it worked once before.

Red alert for reporters: Trumpers are destroying evidence on their way out the door A minor scandal at CDC is the tip of a huge iceberg — only journalists can stop team Trump from wholesale erasure. The news that Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Robert Redfield forced career staff to delete an incriminating email from a Trump political appointee is a red-alert moment for Washington-based reporters, who should fan out everywhere Trump loyalists may be destroying the evidence of their misdeeds as they head out the door. "Reporters should start looking at that right now and start saying to the White House, to the executive branch agencies: 'What are you going to do to preserve documents?'" said Lisa Rosenberg, executive director of the wonderful pro-transparency group, Open the Government. https://www.salon.com/2020/12/11/red-alert-for-reporters-trumpers-are-destroying-evidence-on-their-way-out-the-door/

We ought to be prepared for a increasingly pathetic and desperate series of tweets and gestures from being who can barely be described as a human.

F****!!!

GOP lawmaker who said there was 'political agenda' behind COVID coverage prays for a 'miracle' from the hospital Rep. David Byrd (R-TN) made a post on Facebook this Thursday saying that he may be soon placed on a ventilator due to coronavirus, and asked people to pray for him. "I really need a miracle today!!" Byrd wrote Thursday. "My doctor said if my oxygen level doesn't improve then he has no choice but to put me on a ventilator. So please pray that God will breathe His healing spirit into my lungs!!" Byrd was flown by helicopter from Wayne County Hospital to St. Thomas in Nashville, where he still remains. According to the Tennessean, he was among the nearly 70 House Republicans who attended a caucus meeting held in the House chamber on November 24. A week and a half later, he was hospitalized with the virus. Reports say he was seen on the House floor without a mask. Just days before, he hosted a dinner for dozens of his fellow caucus members at a restaurant. https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/david-byrd/ Really hoping for an new infection count in the low 200's today.

Oy! The late fees!!

Madonna’s Instagram Post Flagged for Spreading a Coronavirus Conspiracy Theory Instagram flagged a post from Madonna on Tuesday after a post on the singer’s feed shared a coronavirus conspiracy theory. The platform obscured a video on the pop star’s account, labeling it as false information and providing a link to facts debunking the claims made in the video. The caption of the since-deleted post reportedly read, “The Truth will set us all Free! But some people don’t want to hear the truth. Especially the people in power who stand to make money from this long drawn out search for a vaccine. Which has been proven and has been available for months. They would rather let fear control them and let the rich get richer and the poor and sick get sicker. This woman is my hero. Thank you Stella Immanuel.” Stella Immanuel is the doctor featured in the deleted video, a physician based in Houston, who claims to have treated 350 patients with hydroxychloroquine and that wearing masks is unnecessary. Immanuel is also one of the doctors featured in the viral “America’s Frontline Doctors” video posted by Breitbart that was viewed by millions of people before being removed from platforms like Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook for “sharing false information.” Madonna’s Instagram Post Flagged for Spreading a Coronavirus Conspiracy Theory | Vanity Fair Thats called being stoopid.

In my book, it is possible to be sincerely mistaken, but when we know better but choose to do harm, that crosses a line.

Trump Watch: He’s Taking This Breakup Really Hard: Breakups can be difficult, especially when one side didn’t see it coming. President Trump is really struggling with America telling him that they’ve moved on. He’s still trying to make America love him again and it’s just not working. At some point, the president has to realize that it doesn’t matter how many court cases he brings, or how many times he claims voter fraud, America has moved on. It’s probably best that the president do the same. But who are we kidding? That would imply that the president for the next month and a half has a sense of self-awareness and no one has ever said that this president is good at reading the room. So now, after all 50 states have certified the election results making Joe Biden the next president of the United States, 17 states are following Texas’ lead and want the Supreme Court to overturn Biden’s win because they don’t like it. In what can only be considered the largest case of “Let me speak to your manager” in the history of America, on Wednesday, some 17 states all won by Trump have decided to join “Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s bid to file a lawsuit that could effectively reverse President-elect Joe Biden’s projected Electoral College victory,” CNBC reports. The 17 states are the sundown state, racist state, the state of racism, we are a racist state, Blacks aren’t welcomed here state, Mississippi, racism state, Alabama, hatred of coloreds state, Florida, the state of not caring for Black people, the police will beat you for no reason state, we love guns state, smuggling moonshine state, **** your masks state, pickup trucks state, and West Virginia. Trump has been begging for his racist coalition to form racist Voltron and go destroy some **** and racist state attorney generals finally listened. Meanwhile, Paxton, the Texas Attorney General who started all of this ****, is “under indictment for state felony securities fraud charges” CNBC reports. The whole thing is bullshit. Legit and utter bullshit. None of this is going anywhere but who doesn’t love friends who support their exhaustive theories around breakups? Basically, these 17 states plus Texas are all of Trump’s “**** love” girlfriends. He’s even having lunch, a private lunch, with several Republican state attorney generals Thursday. According to the White House, Trump is reportedly hosting the private lunch to “discuss issues important to their citizens and the country,” CBS correspondent, Weijia Jiang, tweeted on Wednesday. This is a basic ***** brunch in which everyone gathered will get drunk off mimosas made with really cheap champagne and tell the president how wrong America is for leaving him. But, don’t worry, America. Even the Supreme Court can’t make us get back together with him. But...But...But..I Won Florida and Ohio! President Trump has been pushing this claim on Twitter (which has basically auto-formatted all of the president’s tweets to include a “this ****** is lying” disclaimer) that he won Florida and Ohio, yet somehow lost the presidency which has never happened in the history of America. His lawyer even claimed it in a Supreme Court filing on the president’s behalf. “President Trump prevailed on nearly every historical indicia of success in presidential elections. For example, he won both Florida and Ohio; no candidate in history—Republican or Democrat—has ever lost the election after winning both States,” John Eastman, Trump’s attorney wrote in this filing. The Washington Post has confirmed using a secret research interframe called “Google,” which I believe is a French word for “Encyclopedia,” and found that Richard Nixon won both Ohio and Florida and lost to John F. Kennedy. “Nixon earned 219 electoral votes, including 10 from Florida and 25 from Ohio. Kennedy won 303 electoral votes and the presidency,” the Post reports. “Trump was a 14-year-old, somehow drawing hundreds of thousands of dollars a year from his father’s real estate business in New York.” The Root | The Blacker the Content the Sweeter the Truth

41 days of pure hell: Donald Trump can't handle the emotions triggered by his defeat Donald Trump has 41 days to go before his presidency is over. Instead of assisting with the peaceful transfer of power to President-elect Joe Biden, he has chosen to spend his final days exhibiting his psychiatric disorder. His rhetoric and his behavior are manifestations of his pathology. He shows every day that he has no self-control, no insight and no capacity to function effectively at his job. Trump lost the election fair and square. But he cannot handle the defeat because his narcissistic injury has triggered outrage, hostility, accusations and victimhood. Despite his loud proclamations of a rigged election, there is absolutely no evidence of it. Trump has been rejected by a majority of the American people, and now he is an angry, miserable and destructive loser. Trump is not capable of experiencing true depression. His psyche is not equipped for such a normal response. Rather, he responds to loss or disappointment by becoming enraged and accusatory. He feels and acts as if he were a victim. Trump's response is primitive and pathological. It is pathognomonic of personality pathology. It is entirely outside the realm of normalcy. It is dangerous. Trump's "alternative universe" is being threatened by the reality of his election loss. He is desperate to maintain the persona of being smart, superior, strong and almighty. This is his "false self," a fantasy created to cover up the truth: that he is not very smart, that he is lazy, that he is disinterested, that he is not as rich as he claims, that he does not care about people, that he is corrupt and that he is cruel. That is Trump's "true self." He has spent his entire life spinning a fake web of grandiosity and superiority with enablers along the way to keep the ruse alive. As president, he has convinced millions that his false persona is more true than observable reality. That, my friends, is a skilled con man, an accomplished grifter, an unabashed criminal. From all reports, Trump has stopped working. His days are filled with angry outbursts, watching television, promulgating conspiracy theories and playing golf. He is incapacitated by his psychiatric symptoms. He is abdicating his responsibility as president. The idea that he is our ultimate public servant could not be further from the truth. Trump is totally self-absorbed with his narcissistic injury and his grievances. Governing others is beyond his psychic capacity. In fact, it is his vindictiveness and his irrationality that have risen to the forefront. https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/trump-mental-health/

Rudy Giuliani’s New Theory on Debunked Georgia Video: They Were Handing Out Dope Not content to have his “smoking gun” video thoroughly debunked, COVID-positive Rudy Giuliani took his conspiracy theory up another notch. COVID-positive Rudy Giuliani called into another cringe-worthy “hearing” on election fraud claims on Thursday and managed to take his already-ludicrous conspiracy theory up another notch. Speaking before Georgia State House Republicans, he claimed that a video of election officials counting ballots in Atlanta’s State Farm Arena not only showed them “stealing votes” but also passing out drugs. Giuliani initially claimed last week that the “smoking gun” clip showed officials usher observers and reporters out of the room at 11 p.m. then pull out suitcases of stolen votes. On Thursday, he added: “Look at that woman, look at her taking those ballots out, look at them scurrying around with the ballots, nobody in the room, hiding around, they look like they’re passing out dope not just ballots. It’s quite clear they’re stealing votes.” ("Handing out dope" is how Giuliani got to be Trump's chief lawyer. That, and having no self-respect or moral compass)

Being handled internally. No longer an issue. Nothing to see here. Move along now.

Nope. Trump will.

I am certain that both are marked for dismissal and their reputations have been tarnished beyond redemption. Criminal charges are iffy in the US, but with all these damning reports leaking out (and doubtless more and bigger ones to follow) Biden is going to have a hard time not prosecuting a lot of Trump's toadies.

Fox news does not embarrass easily, or often.

Damn. We are stalled, and if anyone is expecting that the restrictions will be lifted, they will be disappointed.

Legal experts mock Trump for getting a 'disgraced white supremacist' to file a 'crazy’ Supreme Court case Legal experts are having a field day with the latest Supreme Court lawsuit, filed by 17 red states, trying to overturn the election by literally disenfranchising millions upon millions of U.S. citizens. The case is without merit, legal experts say, but what may be even more embarrassing and ridiculous is President Donald Trump is trying to join the case. To do so, he must petition the Supreme Court, which he just did. It appears the only attorney Trump could convince to file his motion is a "disgraced white supremacist" who "who thinks Kamala Harris and Marco Rubio are not U.S. citizens." That attorney is John Eastman, a law professor at Chapman University School of Law. If the name sounds familiar, it should. Eastman is also the chairman of the National Organization For Marriage (NOM), the far right wing anti-LGBTQ faith-based organization that spent millions of dollars of dark money in a failed attempt to ban same-sex couples from marrying. https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/trump-supreme-court/

CDC director Redfield instructed his staff to delete email from Trump-appointed official: watchdog Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), asked members of his staff to discard an email from a Trump-appointed political figure seeking to manage the public health agency's COVID-19 reports, according to a senior official. During a private interview on Monday, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) editor Charlotte Kent spoke with investigators as she shared details about the email she received from Paul Alexander, the former scientific adviser to Health and Human Services (HHS) representative Michael Caputo. According to Kent, that the Aug. 8 email was an attempt by Alexander to dilute the publication's report and manipulate it to align with President Donald Trump's downplaying of the pandemic. She also confirmed she was told to delete that particular email. "I was instructed to delete the email," Kent told investigators. "I went to look for it after I had been told to delete it, and it was already gone." https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/robert-redfield/