Tracker

Better but far from good.

Trump Is Racing to Bring Back Firing-Squad Executions Before He Leaves Office, Says Report Reuters/Hannah McKay There have been many predictions—from instigating nuclear war to pardoning Joe Exotic—about what President Donald Trump might do during his final months in office, but it’s fair to say few people guessed this. According to a report from ProPublica, Trump is trying to rush through a proposed regulation that could see federal executions being carried out by firing squads again. The proposed rule cleared White House review on Nov. 6, according to the report, so it could be finalized any day. Trump Is Racing to Bring Back Firing-Squad Executions Before He Leaves Office, Says Report (thedailybeast.com)

Trump to travel ‘unannounced’ to fake ‘hearing’ on election fraud — after aides failed to talk him out of it: reports Sarah Toce and The New Civil Rights Movement November 25, 2020 President Donald J. Trump is planning to fly to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Wednesday in an attempt to save his reputation, whatever is left of it, post-election 2020. He is expected to meet with a "handful" of Pennsylvania Republicans to discuss the election results, which delivered him a loss roughly three weeks ago. Katherine Faulders reported that the "hearing" would take place at the Wyndham Hotel and that Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, would be in attendance for what they are dubbing a Republican "Majority Policy Committee." "It's readily apparent to everyone besides Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, and Jenna Ellis that this election is over and that Joe Biden won resoundingly," said Bob Bauer, the lead attorney for the Biden campaign, in a statement on Tuesday. Hopefully their meeting won't turn out the same way this one did at the Four Seasons Total Landscaping earlier this month.

US can kill its own citizens without review when state secrets are involved, DOJ lawyer argues A U.S. Department of Justice lawyer argued Monday that the United States can kill its own citizens without judicial review when litigation would reveal state secrets. The argument drew alarm among judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Courthouse News Service reports. Judge Patricia Millett characterized the DOJ’s argument as giving the government the ability to “unilaterally decide to kill U.S. citizens,” according to coverage of the argument by Courthouse News Service. “Do you appreciate how extraordinary that proposition is?” US can kill its own citizens without review when state secrets are involved, DOJ lawyer argues (abajournal.com)

Not to mention that Trump has a long history of hiring them and refusing to pay them, particularly if Trump loses the case. Then he hires different lawyers to defend him aaannd.......then refuses to pay them as well. You'd think lawyers would learn.

I am waiting for a few more weeks when Giulliani submits his $20,000 per diem to Trump for payment and Trump refuses. Then Giulliani will have to sue Trump.

Bobcat! Bobcat! Bobcat!

Would you want to testify under oath in front of a hostile inquiry to defend Trump's actions?

Between the probable COVID explosion in two weeks (or sooner) and the severing of financial support of those who have lost their jobs due to the pandemic, it will be the worst possible Christmas for millions in the US. Will be very grim. The rich and powerful will be unaffected, the poor may well riot and the police and military will be called in to deal with things. Sure sounds like the prelude to the French Revolution.

If the GOP follows the pattern of right-wing political parties, the crazies will continue to move in until the relatively sane members can not longer stand them and the party will spilt down the middle and one or the other will devolve into a rump party. This will move the right into the wilderness and after a time, there be a sort of shotgun wedding between them, as has happened in Alberta and the PC/Reform merger.

I'm still hoping for Bobcat Thwait.

You're probably thinking about the size of the other end of his alimentary canal,

Murphy refused to respond to the Congress's demand that she appear to explain her refusal to begin the transition in a timely fashion. They ought to subpoena her regardless and grille her undet threat of incarceration to make a point. He was probably hit with a tranquilizer dart and put in a closet while someone else literate composed the missive.

There was an English king who was so inept that history records him as "Ethelred the Unready" and I think there will some pithy tags for Trump.

A CNN poll last week indicated that less than half (43%) of Americans were planning to stay home for Thanksgiving tomorrow. The rest were intending to have a usual gathering, which means that in about 2 weeks afterwards, the doodoo will hit the fan and their hospital ERs will look like the last act of Hamlet. That will be of some comfort for us in the Great White North, but not much. I hope we will be in a downturn of casefindings, hospitalizations and deaths by then.

We need 7 consecutive days of decline before we can feel relieved.

Interesting. Didn't know that public opinion was required to follow the law or not.

In all fairness, it doesn't take much effort to make the Trumpites look stoopid. They usually self-destruct with little or no provocation.

It's probably the beginning of the end for the Trump empire. Trump's creditors (who are legion) will likely start to scramble to secure as much of their loan collaterals before everyone else does. Watch what Deutche Bank does, I would bet that right now they are quietly moving to secure their loans behind the scenes, but its all gonna break loose at some point and become public.

Trump’s Lawyer Sidney Powell Is Hardcore QAnon. Her performance at Thursday's press conference was virtually a recitation of QAnon’s greatest hits. Rudy Giuliani grabbed most of the headlines after his dangerously unhinged press conference on Thursday where he made baseless claims about rigged election results that were off the wall — even by his standards. But his performance was nothing compared to Trump’s other lawyer, Sidney Powell, whose statement was a litany of unfounded allegations that appeared to have been lifted wholesale from the QAnon fever swamp. This is how Powell began her statement at the press conference: “What we are really dealing with here, and uncovering more by the day, is the massive influence of communist money through Venezuela, Cuba, and likely China in the interference with our elections here in the United States.” What followed was virtually a recitation of QAnon’s greatest hits, and Powell ended her tirade almost in tears, essentially telling those listening to “stick to the plan,” a phrase that has become a QAnon rallying cry since Trump lost the election. “We are not going to back down,” she said. “We are going to clean this mess up now. President Trump won by a landslide. We are going to prove it, and we are going to reclaim the United States of America for the people who vote for freedom.” The comments were essentially a dog whistle to the QAnon community, which has been waging a disinformation war on social media since the election earlier this month, helping to boost conspiracy theories that have made their way to the Oval Office. Giuliani and Powell’s comments have been widely criticized. Chris Krebs, the recently fired head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), called Thursday’s press conference “the most dangerous 1hr 45 minutes of television in American history. And possibly the craziest.” Yet, for anyone who’s tracked Powell’s public pronouncements in recent years, the outlandish claims and winks toward QAnon conspiracy theories came as no surprise. Exactly a year before Thursday’s press conference, Powell appeared on a QAnon YouTube show and praised the host's support for her other client, former national security advisor Michael Flynn, as “huge and extremely helpful.” The appearance on the YouTube show was not the first time Powell had publicly backed QAnon, the baseless conspiracy theory that claims Donald Trump is secretly battling the deep state while trying to uncover a cannibalistic Satanic child sex-trafficking network operated by Democrats and the Hollywood elite. She has retweeted major QAnon accounts, including that of Tracey Diaz, identified by NBC as one of the three people who helped take QAnon from the obscure 4chan message board to a more mainstream audience. She has also tweeted “#TheStormIsComing” and “#TheStorm,” phrases regularly used by QAnon supporters. Prior to becoming one of Trump’s main conspiracy pushers, Powell was most famous as a lawyer for Flynn, who himself is a significant figure within the QAnon mythos. Flynn, who QAnon recently helped to get to 1 million Twitter followers, has signed copies of his book with the #WWG1WGA hashtag, has the QAnon-linked #DigitalSoldiers and #TakeTheOath hashtags in his Twitter bio, and most blatantly, he posted a video of himself and his family on Independence Day pledging allegiance to the movement by reciting the QAnon oath. But it’s not like Powell is trying to hide any of this. Just look at her Twitter account. Her profile picture shows her with Flynn while a “storm” rages in the background over the White House, a less-than-subtle hint at “the storm is coming.” Her background image says “We the people,” another QAnon phrase. Powell has also recently added the hashtag #Kraken to her bio after she kick-started a new conspiracy theory during an interview on Fox Business, where she claimed the Trump administration was going to release huge reams of “evidence” about voter fraud. The hashtag #ReleasetheKraken has since been embraced wholeheartedly by the QAnon community. Powell did not immediately return requests for comment about her links to QAnon. While the QAnon community embraced Powell’s comments on Thursday, others who had previously supported Powell’s allegations seem to have decided that she had crossed a red line. Highlighting just how deranged Powell’s conspiracy theories have become, even Tucker Carlson, Fox News’ go-to conspiracy guy, rejected them on his show on Thursday night. Unsurprisingly, the QAnon community didn’t take Carlson’s rejection of Powell very well. (It's gotta be hard for Trump's supporters to decide exactly how much crazy is enough and how much is too much)

Well, she is at liberty right now. Rather have Lionel Hutz though.

Michigan state lawmaker who met with Trump pushes ‘constitutional crisis’ to overturn election on Fox News Michigan House Speaker Lee Chatfield (R) on Sunday explained how a constitutional crisis could mean a win for President Donald Trump despite losing the popular vote in his state. In an interview with Fox News host Pete Hegseth, Chatfield defended his recent meeting with Trump. Prior to the meeting, critics warned that it gave the current president an opportunity to push Michigan lawmakers not to certify President-elect Joe Biden's victory. "When the president of the United States calls, you take that meeting," Chatfield insisted.

Not as bad as before but still far from good.

Trump Campaign Files For New Recount In Georgia President Donald Trump’s campaign requested a recount of votes in the Georgia presidential race on Saturday, a day after state officials certified results showing Democrat Joe Biden won the state, as his legal team presses forward with attacks alleging widespread fraud without proof. Trump Campaign Files For New Recount In Georgia | HuffPost

Judge Brutally Dismisses Rudy Giuliani's Suit To 'Disenfranchise' Pa. Voters A federal judge dismissed President Donald Trump’s campaign’s lawsuit to overturn the election in Pennsylvania on Saturday, calling out Rudy Giuliani’s attempt to “disenfranchise almost 7 million voters” based on zero actual evidence of voter fraud. U.S. District Court Judge Matthew W. Brann, who heard Giuliani’s argument on the case earlier this week, said the court “has been presented with strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations” that weren’t tied to the actual complaint nor supported by evidence. “In the United States of America, this cannot justify the disenfranchisement of a single voter, let alone all the voters of its sixth-most-populous state." Judge Brutally Dismisses Rudy Giuliani's Suit To 'Disenfranchise' Pa. Voters | HuffPost Canada (huffingtonpost.ca)