Just news

[cliffs]

They are going to lie right up until the last day.....


Mike Pence has broken his post-election silence to trumpet the Trump administration’s backing of a new coronavirus vaccine - only for the company to immediately point out that their vaccine had nothing to do with the government.



Pfizer announced on Monday morning that their Covid-19 vaccine was 90 per cent effective, in early trials.



"HUGE NEWS: Thanks to the public-private partnership forged by President @realdonaldtrump, @pfizer announced its Coronavirus Vaccine trial is EFFECTIVE, preventing infection in 90% of its volunteers," tweeted Mr Pence.

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Meanwhile, a hotline set up by the Trump team to allow members of the public to report instances of suspected “voter fraud” with a view to further investigation in support of the president’s legal objections to the result have been overrun with prank calls, with the Lincoln Project and TikTok users among those encouraging followers to flood the line with spoof messages.

[Dump Trump 2020]

"Donald Trump wanted a fight with athletes. They may well have doomed him.

It’s impossible to know if the athlete activism Trump provoked spelled his electoral defeat. But it’s difficult to ignore the thin margins in states that were central to the movement."

www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/nov/09/donald-trump-us-sports-election

[cliffs]

This is scary


Trump’s refusal to recognise his election loss or cooperate in an orderly transition has other significant implications for foreign policy and national security. Biden’s team is not receiving intelligence or defence briefings, as would be normal during a transition, because a Trump-appointed official running the General Services Administration has refused to sign the necessary paperwork.



“Taking over the vast US federal government on a dime on January 20 is an exceptionally tall order under any circumstances,” Lissner, a non-resident scholar at Georgetown University’s Center for Security Studies, said. “The fact is that so much of the intelligence-sharing that typically happens during the transition period is at the discretion of the president. So usually during this period, the president-elect learns of ongoing or planned covert or military operations that might be in the offing, but there’s no law that dictates that President Trump needs to share that information.”



New national security officials entering their offices for the first time in January could arrive entirely unaware of what actions the US is pursuing around the world, equivalent to changing drivers of a huge truck travelling full speed down a busy highway. The Trump administration may well fail in forcing its successor to follow its direction on critical issues, but it shows every sign of bequeathing a legacy of chaos.

[Make America hate again 2020]

If I can move to other, (but, in a way, related,) news, what was the ideology behind the worst terror attack in Toronto's history?

"Alongside the question of his mental state, a key element of Minassian’s trial is likely to be his association with the so-called “incel” ideology of men united by sexual frustration and a hatred of women.

Following his arrest in April, Minassian told police officers that he was a virgin who had never had a girlfriend, admitted to using the van as a weapon and said he wanted to inspire more attacks.

Asked how he felt about the deaths, he replied: “I feel like I accomplished my mission.” Eight of the 10 killed were women. "

People like the pseudo intellectual Jordan Peterson (a star of the alt-right matcho bullshit ideology) are just another example of people praying on angry people who don't really know what's causing their anger.

[Make America hate again 2020]

There WERE attempts to influence the election through the postal service:

(13th aug)
Donald Trump admitted on Thursday he opposed additional funding for the United States Postal Service (USPS) in order to make it more difficult to deliver mail-in ballots.

Trump’s comments lend evidence for critics who say the president is deliberately trying to hamstring the USPS in advance of the November elections to help his re-election bid.

Trump said on Thursday that congressional negotiations over stimulus aid were held up in part because of Democratic proposals to provide $3.6bn to states to run elections and $25bn in aid to the postal service. The president, who has falsely claimed that widespread mail-in voting will lead to fraud, suggested that without the funding it would be harder to vote by mail.

“They need that money in order to have the post office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots,” Trump said in an interview with Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo. “If they don’t get those two items, that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting because they’re not equipped to have it.”

And:

"A former top official at the United States Postal Service (USPS) has warned that recent changes at the agency, now led by a Trump ally, could “disenfranchise” voters as they are implemented just months ahead of an election in which a record number of Americans are expected to vote by mail.

Amid reports of significant mail delays, Ronald Stroman, who stepped down earlier this year as the second in command at USPS, said he was concerned about the speed and timing of changes that appeared to be implemented after Louis DeJoy, the new postmaster general, took office in June. USPS faces a financial crisis and every postmaster general is interested in cost savings and efficiency, Stroman said, but the question was how to balance those changes with the public’s needs.

“The concern is not only that you’re doing this in a pandemic, but a couple of months before an election with enormous consequences,” said Stroman, now a senior fellow at the Democracy Fund. “If you can’t right the ship, if you can’t correct these fast enough, the consequence is not just, OK, people don’t get their mail, it’s that you disenfranchise people.

“Making these changes this close to an election is a high-risk proposition,” he added.

Some delays this year have been because USPS workers have been unable to work during the Covid-19 pandemic. But fears increased after DeJoy, a major Trump donor with no prior USPS experience, took over the agency. Shortly after he started at the postal service, the Washington Post and other news organizations obtained internal documents saying the agency was prohibiting overtime and that postal workers should leave mail behind at processing plants if it would cause them to leave late."

They knew they mail in votes would be disproportionately against them, they tried to stop LEGITIMATE votes through this method, and they concocted the "fraud" story to cover their tracks and turn it round on the democrats. In so doing, creating irreversible doubt and conspiracy on the democratic process.

This was all planned MONTHS ago.

[cliffs]

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said at a press conference Tuesday there would be a smooth transition to "a second Trump administration" and made no reference to handing over power to President-elect Joe Biden.

Pompeo also said it was "ridiculous" to suggest President Donald Trump's refusal to concede defeat in last week's election could undermine U.S. efforts to promote free elections and peaceful transfers of power overseas.



It sure is going to be a great day when the current circus in WH allows the adults back in.

[cliffs]

Michael Cohen is pretty sure President Trump will head south for the winter and never come back.

Cohen, Trump's former personal attorney and fixer, told MSNBC's Ari Melber on Tuesday evening that Trump likes to go to his Florida club Mar-a-Lago during Christmas, and thinks that after spending the holidays there, he won't return to Washington. "I don't believe he's going to go to the inauguration because he himself fundamentally cannot sit in a chair knowing that the cameras are on him and that the world is looking at him as a loser," Cohen said. "He cannot do that." Trump, he added, does "not have the inner strength in him to be gracious."

Trump has been stalling the transition and installing loyalists in top government positions, but Cohen told Melber he's not worried about Trump refusing to vacate the office. Trump "talks a lot of nonsense," he said, and "99.9 percent of everything that comes out of his mouth is a lie. He's not going to stay in the White House past Jan. 20. They will remove him. He knows that."

Cohen also discussed Trump's campaign sending out emails to supporters, asking for money to fill his "election defense fund." The small print shows that 60 percent of the donations will go to paying off campaign debt, which didn't surprise Cohen. "He's going to use this like he used the Trump Foundation," he said. "As a slush fund."

[cliffs]

For the first time in history, an incumbent president is refusing to concede after clearly and indisputably losing a presidential election. That's making observers, citizens, and experts nervous that Trump may be preparing to stage a coup of some sort, or perhaps call again on his supporters to commit violence to sustain his rule.

Though it sounds alarmist, such happenings are certainly not unprecedented in the global arena; the United States frequently interferes with the Democratic process in other countries, and often undermines it in order to provoke a coup or make a citizenry lose faith in a governing party, as US interests did in Bolivia last year. What is more unprecedented is for such a thing to happen in the United States. We've certainly had bitter and controversial presidential elections, including, infamously, in 2000. Moreover, the Founding Fathers prophesied this happening: as my colleague Matthew Rozsa noted, in early American history George Washington warned against Americans electing a president who'd refuse to step down.

But in a historical first, Trump is the first president to flat out refuse to concede, leading some to believe he's setting the gears in motion for a coup d'etat. Since the election was called on Saturday, Trump has tweeted baseless claims that there's a pathway to invalidating counted ballots. In addition to his refusal to concede, he's pushed to fight the election results with evidence-free lawsuits.

As Barton Gellman wrote in The Atlantic before the election, the possibility that Trump might not concede was a prophecy that turned out true. "We have no precedent or procedure to end this election if Biden seems to carry the Electoral College but Trump refuses to concede," Gellman said, noting that there are "endless happenstances in any election for lawyers to exploit."

[Make America hate again 2020]

There's no way a coup will happen.

As for trump "subtly" calling for violence, and some violence occuring, wouldn't be surprised at all...

"Well, if the blacks can do it!"

Slight problem there, they're right, you're wrong...

[karma4u]

WASHINGTON - On Thursday, six American service members were killed in a helicopter crash during a peacekeeping mission in Egypt. Tropical Storm Eta made landfall in North Florida, contributing to severe flooding. The number of Americans infected with the novel coronavirus continued at a record-setting pace, sending the stock market tumbling.



At the White House, President Donald Trump spent the day as he has most others this week - sequestered from public view, tweeting grievances, falsehoods and misinformation about the election results and about Fox News's coverage of him.

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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

If ever he has proven that he is so f'ing childish,,,this BS it.

[cliffs]

Too funny but not for the humor thread.



CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Thursday ripped White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany for “taking us completely through the looking glass and to a galaxy far, far away” with her response to a simple question on Fox News.

McEnany was asked on “Fox & Friends” earlier in the day if President Donald Trump ― who has refused to acknowledge defeat in the 2020 election ― had considered allowing President-elect Joe Biden access to daily classified briefings.

McEnany said she hadn’t talked with Trump about the issue and suggested it would be more of a question for the White House.

Cooper was stunned by McEnany’s response.

“That would be a question for the White House, says the White House spokesperson?” exclaimed Cooper. “That is next-level stuff.”

[karma4u]

Asked in an interview what he would say to Trump about the election, Ben Hovland said "these conspiracy theories that are flying around have consequences."



Hovland runs the Election Assistance Commission which, in part, tests and certifies voting machines. He was nominated by President Donald Trump last year and unanimously confirmed by the Senate. He works closely with other federal agencies that oversee elections, like the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.



"At a minimum, it's insulting to the professionals that run our elections and hopefully that's the worst that comes of it," Hovland told MIT Technology Review. "Our people, they're doing their jobs but they don't feel safe doing it. That is a tragedy. That is awful. These are public servants. This isn't a job you do for glory or to get rich."

[cliffs]

He is trying out a disguise so he can flee the country after Jan 19th?