US Election

[Bird on a Fire]

f.ck me sideways.

Surely that's sabotage?

[Little waster]

But really, I don’t care about this at all. Let’s not pretend it’s important.

In isolation yes but it is adding up to a worrying pattern in regards to how the Government is dealing with our most important ally and, post-Brexit, one of our most significant trading partners.

In the last few days alone we've had Johnson drag his heels over sending his congratulations (compared to the unseemly rush to welcome Trump), a former Government minister threaten the US and an aligned member of our Upper House racially insult the VP-elect; against a background of open hostility toward the Democrats, continuing shenanigans over the GFA and the ongoing sweaty embrace of the Republicans.

None of that bodes well for an incoming US administration looking to recast the US's relationship with the Europeans and a UK administration looking to recast its relationship with the World; if Biden decides to just talk straight over the UK's head to the French and Germans the UK's entire post-war diplomatic stance will be completely undermined, even before we get the begging bowl out for a good US-UK FTA.

This from the same people who whinged, long and loud, that some protestors in London were flying a giant inflatable Toddler-Trump balloon, on the basis that calling Trump a toddler risked Trump chucking a toddler-tantrum ... because the balloon is obviously the thing wrong with that picture.

[El Pollo Diablo]

f.ck me sideways.

Surely that's sabotage?

<waves hand expansively>

I mean.

You've picked a time to start believing in the government's capability

[nezumi]

Sabotage or accident, Biden and Johnson don't get on, there's no way they ever could and this will make it a lot worse. By the time we get a chance to put our government on the right track the US might already be back on the dark side. The only way we get progress in this country is if we happen to have a left wing government at the same time the US does, and the US deperately needs all three branches of government to go blue to get any improvement in QoL for all Americans.

I don't want this country to have a closer relationship with the US, I think it's too close as it is, American culture is mostly toxic. I'd prefer a closer relationship with the EU and with Australia and New Zealand, certainly European culture is superior to US culture and they're closer to us too. I'm just fond of Aus and NZ in general. With Biden in charge, Johnson can't win, therefore, if we keep Johnson, we can't win. This sucks, I hated Trump, but without him the US trade deal is dead and the EU one is... well... I can't quite work it out but it could be also dead (not that this isn't better than the alternative) due to Northern Ireland. I estimate Johnson's position has been untenable since approximately April but Shirley? The only possible thing he can do is go cap in hand for an extension, but he can't even do that because his own party would crucify him.

If it wasn't that we're all teetering over the abyss here, I would be laughing my arse off - I do love a bit of chaos.

An aside, is there somewhere I can keep up with Trump's ridiculousness without having to follow him on twitter?

[Grumble]

Aus politics hasn’t been left wing for a while

[EACLucifer]

For those worrying about Trump's increasingly ridiculous litigation, a few points to consider..

Yes, he is trying to do something horrific, but emphasis on the word trying.

He has a history of frequently launching litigation but little history of winning much. He sues to intimidate, and make himself feel important, much like he thinks tweets with words like "hereby" in them are persuasive legal arguments.

His legal efforts are a disorganised shitshow with no message discipline, and are undermined by his own insane tweeting. They brought in David Bossie to try and coordinate, but by now it's already leaking that apparently Bossie wants them to concede. Oh, and very soon after joining them, he's now got the coronavirus.

He can't get good lawyers to work with him. Consider the incompetence required to earn a response like this one.

[Grumble]

For those worrying about Trump's increasingly ridiculous litigation, a few points to consider..

Yes, he is trying to do something horrific, but emphasis on the word trying.

He has a history of frequently launching litigation but little history of winning much. He sues to intimidate, and make himself feel important, much like he thinks tweets with words like "hereby" in them are persuasive legal arguments.

His legal efforts are a disorganised shitshow with no message discipline, and are undermined by his own insane tweeting. They brought in David Bossie to try and coordinate, but by now it's already leaking that apparently Bossie wants them to concede. Oh, and very soon after joining them, he's now got the coronavirus.

He can't get good lawyers to work with him. Consider the incompetence required to earn a response like this one.

Christ, that’s something a half decent paralegal (or US equivalent) should be sorting out.

[Gfamily]

f.ck me sideways.

Surely that's sabotage?

<waves hand expansively>

I mean.

You've picked a time to start believing in the government's capability

I wonder where they got the idea that seeking out weirdos would be a sound foundation to the running of an efficient executive.

[Bird on a Fire]

f.ck me sideways.

Surely that's sabotage?

<waves hand expansively>

I mean.

You've picked a time to start believing in the government's capability

Well sure, but they tend to be lazy and incompetent.

In this case, they seem to have airbrushed out most of the previous text (which was inexplicably very small), in a colour that was almost but not quite the same, coincidentally leaving only the most damning words untouched.

That's a lot more work than just doing a new one. It's only some text in a grey box.

[insignificant]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... atulations

I don't think I can add anything to further expand on the level of complete f.ckwittery incompetence this indicates.

WTAF?

I literally cannot even fathom how that's possible. Like, I couldn't make an image like that if I tried.

As with so many things these days, I don't even see how it could be an accident. What software would allow you to think you've deleted a previous bit of text when you've actually only made it very faint and small? And why do only some bits of text become visible with the colour-change, rather than the entire message? It seems like it would be incredibly technically difficult to produce an image like that, which puts it beyond the reach of a simple f.ckup.

It's very easy to do in an image editor like Photoshop

• type the original, more detailed, smaller text congrats-Trump message as a text layer

• rasterize it (and probably save as a finished image)

• paint over it or erase it because you want to replace it with a congrats-Biden message, but use a brush or eraser with soft edges and / or less than 100% flow which will leave barely visible traces of the congrats-Trump message if you aren't thorough

• create the congrats-Biden message and rasterize that

I don't think they ever had the choice of two finished images to tweet; they finished the congrats-Trump one, but did a rubbish job of changing it in to a congrats-Biden one

[lpm]

No. It can't be real. Because that's not how you'd do it.

Some bloke would be tasked with writing the two versions, probably via email. Perfectly sensible to prepare both options before election day. The emails of drafts would go back and forth until somebody at Number 10 approved the final version of each text.

When the election result was confirmed somebody would have been told to copy and paste those approved words onto the slide format. There's no reason why both versions would ever get Ctrl-C Ctrl-V'ed onto the template. Even Four Seaons Graphic Design simply copy and paste your words on top of whatever graphics they've prepared.

[Little waster]

That all sounds very complicated.

Luckily the only things our current government has to do is simultaneously handle an out-of-control deadly airborne pandemic with a health service gutted by a decade of needless austerity while also completely unstitching 40 years of close economic and political integration with our largest trade partner, all in the next 6 weeks.

Which comparatively is a doddle.

[Little waster]

Of course the funny thing is if you could hop into a time machine and travel back to November 2019 and then give the Scrootabulls a broad strokes description of the major events of 2020 and then asked them to predict exactly how Trump and Johnson rose to the challenge I suspect you would have all got it almost spot-on like a right bunch of weirdo misfit super-predictors.

You’d probably have guessed some of the odder twists too but then would have promptly discarded them as being far too silly.

[EACLucifer]

RE: The Republican Georgia runoff candidates demanding the Republican Georgian Secretary of State resign because they didn't like the (actually quite transparent) way he ran the election, apparently it was demanded by Trump, and they did it out of fear he tweet about them and thus undermine them in the runoff. Unfortunately, because the local news site discussing this is not GDPR compliant, I can't access it directly, and only have this second hand. Hopefully, the petulant whine against members of their own party - not just the SOS but by implication the Lt Gov, and given the Governor actually did basically steal an election two years ago, he may not want such things discussed too loudly - will itself hurt them in the runoffs.

https://t.co/1FsrcJpdmR?amp=1

For those in America, here's the link to the article I can't access.

[dyqik]

The most pertinent paragraph is

We’re told the president and his top allies pressured the two Republican senators to take this step, lest he tweet a negative word about them and risk divorcing them from his base ahead of the consequential runoff.

[headshot]

Copied and pasted using my VPN:

“Republicans in disarray.” That was the three-word response from Senate Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff late Monday to the extraordinary infighting that’s divided the Georgia GOP over President Donald Trump’s effort to taint Joe Biden’s victory.

This was supposed to be the week that Republicans united behind U.S. Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue for a pair of Jan. 5 runoffs that could decide control of the Senate.

Instead, the two senators leveled unfounded claims of a disastrous “embarrassment” of an election at fellow Republicans who oversaw last week’s vote - and called for the resignation of Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

It was a brazen effort to appease Trump, who has falsely claimed electoral fraud despite no evidence of any wrongdoing as he and his supporters try to discredit Biden.

We’re told the president and his top allies pressured the two Republican senators to take this step, lest he tweet a negative word about them and risk divorcing them from his base ahead of the consequential runoff.

And shortly after, Trump and some of his inner circle started tweeting attacks at Raffensperger, who was already unpopular with many in the Georgia GOP base long before Tuesday’s vote.

WSB radio analyst Jamie Dupree called it “an orchestrated election move the likes of which I’ve never seen before." Perdue’s camp pushed back on Tuesday:

“Neither senator nor anyone on their campaigns discussed with the president, White House or the president’s campaign before issuing their statement," said Perdue spokesman John Burke.

On Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Doug Collins jumped in. He’s leading Trump’s effort to recount Georgia’s race and he called for several steps, including a hand-count of every ballot cast in each county due to “widespread allegations of voter irregularities” but offered no evidence to back that up.

“We can – and we will – petition for this in court after statewide certification is completed if the Secretary of State fails to act, but we are hopeful he will preemptively take this action today to ensure every Georgian has confidence in our electoral process.”

The intraparty war included Gov. Brian Kemp, who echoed the two senators' criticism of Raffensperger but didn’t go as far as supporting his ouster. Georgia GOP chair David Shafer, who has recently staged “Stop the Steal” rallies as Biden’s lead in Georgia has grown, joined in.

Along with election officials, Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan was on the other side of the dividing line. He took to CNN in the morning - before the senators' statement - saying there was no evidence of any systemic wrongdoing. He has been lit up by Trump supporters for speaking the truth.

***

The AJC’s Jim Galloway has an exclusive interview with Raffensberger posting today, with plenty to sift through. Here’s an insight to the lack of communication he’s had with Perdue and Loeffler:

“In the business world that I live in, if we have an issue with people, we call them directly and we have our conversation. We don’t just send it out to the world.”

“If that’s how they want to do business, that’s how they do business. I just don’t do business that way.”

- AJC
***

Among other remedies Collins and Team Trump are calling for from Rafensberger, Collins said he wants “a check for felons and other ineligible persons who may have cast a ballot.” That detail caught our eye because Collins has been a vocal champion for criminal justice reform in Congress and, in the final days of his own campaign against Loeffler, brought in Roger Stone, a convicted felon whose sentence was commuted by Donald Trump, to join him on the stump.

***

FILE - In this March 3, 2020, file photo, Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Cal Cunningham speaks to supporters during a primary election night party in Raleigh, N.C. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome, File)
Credit: Gerry Broome
North Carolina’s Senate Democratic candidate Cal Cunningham is trailing Republican Tom Tillis in the Tar Heel state and he’s still raising cash. But he’s splitting his proceeds with Georgia Democrat Raphael Warnock. It’s one of the many joint fundraising efforts you’ll see popping up around the country now that the Georgia races have become a team effort for the national parties.

Cunningham hasn’t formally suspended his campaign and networks haven’t called the race yet. But Republicans are likely to seize on the poor optics of the move.

Stacey Abrams, speaking generally on The Colbert Report on Tuesday, offered her take on the Democrats financial strategy: “To raise all the money that we can as fast as we can from anywhere we can.”

Abrams also took the interview as a change to call President Trump “an orange menace of putrescence.”

***

Speaking of money, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has already plowed in more than $5.5 million supporting both Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock. That includes $1.8 million for a mailer program and $400,000 on phone calls.

That’s just a preview of what’s to come. The Senate Democratic arm plans to commit to another “multimillion dollar field effort” to register Georgians and turn out voters. The group said it will include field organizers, direct mail, phones and text messages as well as digital efforts.

***

Among the issues at stake in the Jan. 5th runoff is the future of healthcare in Georgia and the country, including how a Democratic or Republican Senate would handle any changes to the Affordable Care Act.

Today the U.S. Supreme Court will hear the years-long challenge to the ACA brought by a group of Republican states' attorneys general, including Georgia’s AG Chris Carr.

It will be one of the first cases Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett will hear from the bench and could result in a partial or complete end to the law, should the justices strike down all or portions of it as unconstitutional.

***

Rich McCormick addresses a crowd of Gwinnett Republicans.
The doctor is out. Dr. Rich McCormick refused last week to concede the 7th district congressional race to Democrat Carolyn Bourdeaux, who was declared the winner.

While McCormick is still not using the “c” word, he did send over a statement Monday saying he has now shifted his focus to helping Perdue and Loeffler win their Senate runoffs, which at least seems like a concession to the idea that he won’t be a member of Congress in January. His spokesman tells us that is as close to a concession we are going to get from the Republican.

His GOP counterpart in the 6th Congressional District, Karen Handel, also never conceded. The Democratic Party’s wins in these two swing districts were among the few bright spots nationally.

More from McCormick: “I remain concerned about irregularities with the vote count in Gwinnett. I believe the planned audit and anticipated recount of the Presidential results will fully investigate these concerns, though it may be unlikely to change the outcome of my race.”

There has been no evidence of widespread “irregularities” in Gwinnett County.

***

Already posted: Our running list of the Georgia Democrats who may be tapped for jobs in the Biden administration. You’ll see the obvious folks like Stacey Abrams, Keisha Lance Bottoms and Sally Yates plus some others who may be less familiar but are in the conversation.

***

With the runoff election happening a few days after the new Congress is sworn in, one of Georgia’s U.S. Senate seats will be left vacant for a bit. The AJC’s Tamar Hallerman explains:

The state’s unique runoff system is creating an unprecedented situation as Senate officials scramble to determine what exactly will happen to the office of Republican incumbent David Perdue during the first week of January.

Perdue’s Senate term officially ends at noon on Jan. 3, the first day of the new Congress. But his seat will not be filled until after Jan. 5, when Perdue faces Democrat Jon Ossoff in a runoff.

State officials and legal observers are expecting Perdue’s office to be vacant for a number of days, until the secretary of state certifies the election results and a winner is declared.

- AJC
***

Really Fake News. If you’re scrolling in your social media news feeds over the next two months, beware of the “Georgia Star,” a new website to be launched by fervent Trump supporter, John Fredericks.

Media Matters describes it as the newest in “a network of websites that launder right-wing media content and talking points through pages designed to look like local news sites.”

We fully expect outlandish claims, false accusations, and dirty tricks between now and January 5th - and they will most likely show up on social media first and foremost. So before you “like,” “subscribe,” or “forward,” a story you just can’t believe, consider the source.

[Grumble]

He has been lit up by Trump supporters for speaking the truth.

I take it “lit up” isn’t a nice thing? I initially read it as a nice thing, but it can’t be. Like “highlighted”, which I suppose is neutral rather than positive.

[EACLucifer]

He has been lit up by Trump supporters for speaking the truth.

I take it “lit up” isn’t a nice thing? I initially read it as a nice thing, but it can’t be. Like “highlighted”, which I suppose is neutral rather than positive.

"Light 'em up" = "open fire on them". In this context, it's probably equivalent to "he's come under fire from Trump supporters for speaking the truth"

[discovolante]

I've split some posts about Iraq and stuff into this thread.

[sTeamTraen]

For those in America, here's the link to the article I can't access.

I think even a crappy free VPN ought to be able to bypass that GDPR block. I fired up my non-crappy VPN and got this text. Apparently someone called McCormick is on the verge of calling someone else a c.nt.

The Jolt: The ‘orchestrated’ push to discredit Georgia’s election sparks more GOP infighting

POLITICAL INSIDER
| 6 hours ago
By Jim Galloway - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Patricia Murphy - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Greg Bluestein - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Tia Mitchell - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Felons, feuds, and fake news: Welcome to the runoff

“Republicans in disarray.” That was the three-word response from Senate Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff late Monday to the extraordinary infighting that’s divided the Georgia GOP over President Donald Trump’s effort to taint Joe Biden’s victory.

This was supposed to be the week that Republicans united behind U.S. Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue for a pair of Jan. 5 runoffs that could decide control of the Senate.

Instead, the two senators leveled unfounded claims of a disastrous “embarrassment” of an election at fellow Republicans who oversaw last week’s vote - and called for the resignation of Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

It was a brazen effort to appease Trump, who has falsely claimed electoral fraud despite no evidence of any wrongdoing as he and his supporters try to discredit Biden.

We’re told the president and his top allies pressured the two Republican senators to take this step, lest he tweet a negative word about them and risk divorcing them from his base ahead of the consequential runoff.

And shortly after, Trump and some of his inner circle started tweeting attacks at Raffensperger, who was already unpopular with many in the Georgia GOP base long before Tuesday’s vote.

WSB radio analyst Jamie Dupree called it “an orchestrated election move the likes of which I’ve never seen before." Perdue’s camp pushed back on Tuesday:

“Neither senator nor anyone on their campaigns discussed with the president, White House or the president’s campaign before issuing their statement," said Perdue spokesman John Burke.

On Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Doug Collins jumped in. He’s leading Trump’s effort to recount Georgia’s race and he called for several steps, including a hand-count of every ballot cast in each county due to “widespread allegations of voter irregularities” but offered no evidence to back that up.

“We can – and we will – petition for this in court after statewide certification is completed if the Secretary of State fails to act, but we are hopeful he will preemptively take this action today to ensure every Georgian has confidence in our electoral process.”

The intraparty war included Gov. Brian Kemp, who echoed the two senators' criticism of Raffensperger but didn’t go as far as supporting his ouster. Georgia GOP chair David Shafer, who has recently staged “Stop the Steal” rallies as Biden’s lead in Georgia has grown, joined in.

Along with election officials, Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan was on the other side of the dividing line. He took to CNN in the morning - before the senators' statement - saying there was no evidence of any systemic wrongdoing. He has been lit up by Trump supporters for speaking the truth.

Among other remedies Collins and Team Trump are calling for from Rafensberger, Collins said he wants “a check for felons and other ineligible persons who may have cast a ballot.” That detail caught our eye because Collins has been a vocal champion for criminal justice reform in Congress and, in the final days of his own campaign against Loeffler, brought in Roger Stone, a convicted felon whose sentence was commuted by Donald Trump, to join him on the stump.

North Carolina’s Senate Democratic candidate Cal Cunningham is trailing Republican Tom Tillis in the Tar Heel state and he’s still raising cash. But he’s splitting his proceeds with Georgia Democrat Raphael Warnock. It’s one of the many joint fundraising efforts you’ll see popping up around the country now that the Georgia races have become a team effort for the national parties.

Cunningham hasn’t formally suspended his campaign and networks haven’t called the race yet. But Republicans are likely to seize on the poor optics of the move.

Stacey Abrams, speaking generally on The Colbert Report on Tuesday, offered her take on the Democrats financial strategy: “To raise all the money that we can as fast as we can from anywhere we can.”

Abrams also took the interview as a change to call President Trump “an orange menace of putrescence.”

Speaking of money, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has already plowed in more than $5.5 million supporting both Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock. That includes $1.8 million for a mailer program and $400,000 on phone calls.

That’s just a preview of what’s to come. The Senate Democratic arm plans to commit to another “multimillion dollar field effort” to register Georgians and turn out voters. The group said it will include field organizers, direct mail, phones and text messages as well as digital efforts.

Among the issues at stake in the Jan. 5th runoff is the future of healthcare in Georgia and the country, including how a Democratic or Republican Senate would handle any changes to the Affordable Care Act.

Today the U.S. Supreme Court will hear the years-long challenge to the ACA brought by a group of Republican states' attorneys general, including Georgia’s AG Chris Carr.

It will be one of the first cases Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett will hear from the bench and could result in a partial or complete end to the law, should the justices strike down all or portions of it as unconstitutional.

While McCormick is still not using the “c” word, he did send over a statement Monday saying he has now shifted his focus to helping Perdue and Loeffler win their Senate runoffs, which at least seems like a concession to the idea that he won’t be a member of Congress in January. His spokesman tells us that is as close to a concession we are going to get from the Republican.

His GOP counterpart in the 6th Congressional District, Karen Handel, also never conceded. The Democratic Party’s wins in these two swing districts were among the few bright spots nationally.

More from McCormick: “I remain concerned about irregularities with the vote count in Gwinnett. I believe the planned audit and anticipated recount of the Presidential results will fully investigate these concerns, though it may be unlikely to change the outcome of my race.”

There has been no evidence of widespread “irregularities” in Gwinnett County.

With the runoff election happening a few days after the new Congress is sworn in, one of Georgia’s U.S. Senate seats will be left vacant for a bit. The AJC’s Tamar Hallerman explains:

The state’s unique runoff system is creating an unprecedented situation as Senate officials scramble to determine what exactly will happen to the office of Republican incumbent David Perdue during the first week of January.

Perdue’s Senate term officially ends at noon on Jan. 3, the first day of the new Congress. But his seat will not be filled until after Jan. 5, when Perdue faces Democrat Jon Ossoff in a runoff.

State officials and legal observers are expecting Perdue’s office to be vacant for a number of days, until the secretary of state certifies the election results and a winner is declared.

[dyqik]

So the fun part of that is that the Senate and House meet on the 6th to certify the Electoral College results.

If both Georgia Senate seats are empty at the time (not clear to me that Loeffler"s will be), then there's a 50:48 (51:48) GOP majority in the Senate rather than a 52:48 one, and shenanigans could get derailed by say Mitt Romney, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins.

[monkey]

So the fun part of that is that the Senate and House meet on the 6th to certify the Electoral College results.

If both Georgia Senate seats are empty at the time (not clear to me that Loeffler"s will be), then there's a 50:48 (51:48) GOP majority in the Senate rather than a 52:48 one, and shenanigans could get derailed by say Mitt Romney, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins.

Pence would still be VP, so you'd need 2 GOP people to call shenanigans whether Loeffler gets to sit or not.

[Chris Preston]

My understanding is that, other than delaying tactics, it matters little what the Senate does at the joint sitting because you need a vote of the Senate and a vote of the House to disqualify electoral college votes otherwise they count. I fully expect the Republicans to try and disqualify votes, but it will be unlikely for them to get the House to agree.

The optics of trying to steal the election at this stage are going to look bad and, Trump's base notwithstanding, likely to hurt future political promotion.

[dyqik]

So the fun part of that is that the Senate and House meet on the 6th to certify the Electoral College results.

If both Georgia Senate seats are empty at the time (not clear to me that Loeffler"s will be), then there's a 50:48 (51:48) GOP majority in the Senate rather than a 52:48 one, and shenanigans could get derailed by say Mitt Romney, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins.

Pence would still be VP, so you'd need 2 GOP people to call shenanigans whether Loeffler gets to sit or not.

I was making it three, with or without Loeffler, and with the VP tie breaker. But you're right, it's two.

[bjn]

My understanding is that, other than delaying tactics, it matters little what the Senate does at the joint sitting because you need a vote of the Senate and a vote of the House to disqualify electoral college votes otherwise they count. I fully expect the Republicans to try and disqualify votes, but it will be unlikely for them to get the House to agree.

The optics of trying to steal the election at this stage are going to look bad and, Trump's base notwithstanding, likely to hurt future political promotion.

The optics are going to look good for the 70% of Republicans who think the election was stolen. With any luck this will split the republicans, but more likely the crazies will be even more in charge after a purge.