Georgia runoff for US senate seats: Jan 5, 2021

Don Winslow donwinslow | 8:12 PM · Nov 16, 2020:
NEW VIDEO: #AmericaNeedsGeorgia TURN VOLUME UP!!
With @Jeff_Daniels and the amazing @THORNETTAD

REAL CHANGE begins with @ossoff & @ReverendWarnock...
2:19 ( https://twitter.com/donwinslow/status/1328506211163987970 )

MeidasTouch.com @MeidasTouch | 11:02 AM · Nov 19, 2020:
NEW VIDEO
Kelly Loeffler is #NotFromGeorgia
0:47 ( https://twitter.com/MeidasTouch/status/1329455132447289346 )

David Perdue profited from a Navy contractor’s stock while overseeing the Naval fleet.
Stephanie Saul and Andy Newman | Nov. 19, 2020

Senator David Perdue, one of two Republican senators from Georgia facing runoff elections in January, began making large and ultimately profitable purchases of shares in a Navy contractor in 2018 just before taking over as chair of a Senate subcommittee overseeing the Navy fleet.

The disclosure...comes as both Mr. Perdue and Georgia’s other senator, Kelly Loeffler, have been under fire for their stock trades.

Mr. Perdue, a millionaire and formerly a prolific trader of individual stocks, announced in May that he would divest from his large individual stock holdings after questions were raised about his well-timed purchases of Pfizer stock in February, after senators were briefed on the coronavirus threat.

At a debate last month, Mr. Perdue’s Democratic opponent, Jon Ossoff, called him a “crook” who sought to profit from the pandemic. Mr. Perdue has since twice refused to debate Mr. Ossoff.

...In the six weeks before the January 2019 announcement that Mr. Perdue was taking over as chair of the Senate Armed Services SeaPower subcommittee, he bought a total of $40,000 to $290,000 worth of BWX on dates when prices averaged about $40 per share, according to a Times analysis of Senate filings. The filings give only a value range for stock transactions, making it impossible to know how many shares are bought and sold.

In the month after his appointment, the stock jumped more than 25 percent. Mr. Perdue sold his stock on dates from February to July 2019 when prices averaged more than $50 per share. In June of that year, he announced that he had helped push through additional funding for the Navy in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2020, including money for an extra submarine.

As subcommittee chair, Mr. Perdue has been a strong proponent of increasing Navy spending. “In this era of great power competition, there is no question our Navy needs to grow larger and become more capable,” he told a committee meeting in December 2019, after he had sold his BWX shares.

While not officially prohibited, individual stock trades by members of Congress have long raised questions, according to Kedric Payne, general counsel for the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan watchdog group...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/19/us/david-perdue-stock-georgia-senate.html

Full Blown Civil War in Georgia GOP

Georgia Republicans are spending much of their time right now fighting amongst themselves when their attention should be focused on the US Senate run-off. The tiff seems to split along the lines of the Trump Fool-Aid drinkers who fear the wrath of He Who Cannot Be Named, so they cower in order to protect and promote their own political careers. . .and. . .In contrast, the Reality Based Republicans understand what the words "political party" mean and realize that their survival as one hinges on its politicians exhibiting an ability to govern -- themselves and others.

The powder keg was certification of the hand recount giving the presidential election in GA to Joe Biden by the GA Republican Sec'y of State. The spark was Don-Boy's claim that the "election was stolen from him." How to reconcile that contradiction?

Here's what the conservative AJC writer said in her report.

“The GOP has got to decide who they want to be going forward. . .Are they going to be the party of rude loudmouth culture warriors, or are they going to be the party of sound government? They can’t be both . . ."

Replying to @gtconway3d:

Operation MAGA @OperationMAGA | 12:35 AM · Nov 21, 2020:
Enough fraud!! We are calling on all true Republicans and MAGA to BOYCOTT the upcoming elections.
Don’t buy the games of the Radical Left and the RINOS and give your info to Dominion!

Scott Wryn @scottwrynn | 12:57 AM · Nov 21, 2020:
I hear the best way for Trump supporters to screw with the Deep State is by donating directly to the Ossoff & Warnock campaigns & PACs. It confuses the Soros funded algorithm. Causes real mayhem.

Johnd33P54g3 @shinajaj | 12:52 AM · Nov 21, 2020:
It's true. That machine has been quietly building human looking killer robots and the fake news has been ignoring it. I think it plans to start terminating conservatives who punch buttons on it. Q confirms this in private.

The last wave @Cult_of_the_sun | 12:53 AM · Nov 21, 2020:
Yes. Show your love for Trump by writing in his name in the GA runoff. Twice. Don't let the voting machine automatically assign your vote to the libs.

Joshua Hawley @dogridinmonkey | 12:45 AM · Nov 21, 2020:
It’s true! In the ruling of Jefferson v Penobscot in 1948, the Supreme Court ruled that if one party doesn’t reach a participation threshold, then the entire election is thrown out and the current president appoints whomever he wants. I’ve read it in pictures.

:D

>6 margd: Trumpsters are especially susceptible to ridiculous lies. We know that. So these tweets don't look like jokes as much as attempts at voter suppression. That's not better for a democracy when used against Republicans instead of, as usual, for them.

>6 margd: >7 aspirit: Twitter bios, accessed today:

Operation MAGA
@OperationMAGA
All the information you need for Operation MAGA! Defenders of Herd Mentality. God Bless Dear Leader Trump!Flag of United States #OperationMAGA (parody run by @MeidasTouch)
Rus-I mean, USA! maga2020.com
Joined June 2020

Scott Wryn
@scottwrynn
Joined May 2009

Johnd33P54g3
@shinajaj
De oppresso liber
Joined May 2012

The last wave
@Cult_of_the_sun
"I don't think there are any Russians
And there ain't no Yanks
Just corporate criminals
Playin' with tanks"
San Diego, CA
Joined August 2015

Joshua Hawley
@dogridinmonkey
Native Bay Stater, used to think I could passably play golf, international swearing enthusiast. Also, NOT that guy in Missouri.
Joined January 2017

>8 aspirit: At least the biggest account is up-front about being a parody.

Oh my. It is funny.

And sad to say, it’s scary as well. Our hope lies in the fact that most of the people who believe in this bs, actually believe it, aren’t too smart.

I think that may be somewhat redundant.

It took me a minute to realize these were parody posts. Usually the Rs are the ones weaponizing misinformation (at simplest, robocalls with wrong location and date for vote), but, boy, it looks easy to make mischief in conspiracy sites. Not to suppress vote but maybe to prompt some critical thinking?

GA Sen. Kelly Loeffler (RGA)) demand recount...COVID recount. Monoclonal antibodies are in the mail?
Wonder if Sen Rick Scott (who just tested positive and had been in GA) is link in chain of infection.

Georgia Sen. Kelly Loeffler tests positive for Covid but is undergoing further testing
Caroline Kenny | November 21, 2020

...Loeffler was maskless with Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. David Perdue during campaign events most of the day Friday.* The trio rode on a bus from the airport to two campaign events for Georgia Senate seat runoff elections in January.

"Senator Loeffler took two COVID tests on Friday morning. Her rapid test results were negative and she was cleared to attend Friday's events. She was informed later in the evening after public events on Friday that her PCR test came back positive, but she was retested Saturday morning after conferring with medical officials and those results came back inconclusive on Saturday evening," said (campaign spokesperson Stephen Lawson).

https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/21/politics/kelly-loeffler-tests-positive-covid-geor...

>12 margd: Will she bother to quarantine this time or continue pretending she can't spread the virus to people who don't have anything close to her wealth? Hmmm.

https://www.wabe.org/2-staff-members-to-sen-loeffler-test-positive-for-covid/

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/timeline-week-leading-covid-19-outbreak-mike-pen...

https://www.propublica.org/article/rapid-testing-is-less-accurate-than-the-gover...

Truth is stranger than parody?

Alex Cole @acnewsitics | 12:39 AM · Nov 22, 2020:
https://twitter.com/acnewsitics/status/1330385404294549505

Trump supporters on Parler are threatening to not vote in Georgia's runoff since it's rigged.
Gotta say I agree with them 100%. Might as well stay home, guys.

Are the jails and mental hospitals large enough to contain all these people? Maybe parole the Tea Partiers?

Trump's legal team is now asserting that DOUG COLLINS, not KELLY LOEFFLER would be participating in the January 5 runoff
if Brian Kemp hadn't rigged the voting machines.
Does LOEFFLER agree? Or will she admit that the Trump campaign's claims of voter fraud are BS.
--Judd Legum @JuddLegum1:02 PM · Nov 22, 2020
----------------------------------------------------

Jonathan Swan (axios) @jonathanvswan | 11:59 AM · Nov 22, 2020:
The publicly-stated position of President Trump's legal team is that the reason Trump lost Georgia is because Georgia's Republican Gov. Brian Kemp has been bribed by a Venezuelan front company in cahoots with the CIA to throw elections to Communists.

Quote Tweet
Alex Salvi @alexsalvinews · 17h
Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell:
“Georgia is probably going to be the first state I’m going to blow up ... the filing in the state will be Biblical”.
2:09 ( https://twitter.com/jonathanvswan/status/1330556436062085122 )
----------------------------------------------------

Trump supporters in Georgia vow to destroy the Republican Party if Trump doesn't win
1:56 ( https://twitter.com/davenewworld_2/status/1330079395483164673 )
- Fifty Shades of Whey @davenewworld_2 | 4:23 AM · Nov 21, 2020
----------------------------------------------------

Trump supporter who looks like a small child cries about Fox News being too liberal
2:07 ( https://twitter.com/davenewworld_2/status/1330082551776555011 )
- Fifty Shades of Whey @davenewworld_2 | 4:36 AM · Nov 21, 2020

#15--Jesus. Brian Kemp isn't good anymore. For real? Alright though--just to let the conservatives know--he's in the governor's house or mansion until 2022 though. And sure Kelly Loeffler only beat out Collins handily but let's kick her off her pedestal too and I agree she really is shit--not that Doug Collins isn't. But whatever--seems to me like Rev. Warnock might have a real chance.

Really what the fuck though. Carnophile and Prox should really weight in on this because I got to think Brian Kemp's head is just spinning around like the girl's in the Exorcist. I got to think Kemp looks at himself as a 100% Trumpster. He might as well put a bullet in his brain at this point. Good work by Sidney Powell though--talk about fucking deranged but let her keep on keeping on.

LOL.

Giuliani Axes Sydney Powell

No longer on the Trump team.

“Sidney Powell is practicing law on her own. She is not a member of the Trump Legal Team. She is also not a lawyer for the President,” Giuliani tweeted.

Does this mean that they're giving up on "shock and awe" in Georgia and just going with a recount that Trump made the formal request for today?

Still no shortage of squirrels, bless 'em, among Trump lawyers:

‘Exhibit Q’: Lawyer Lin Wood Submits that Michigan Is Really Minnesota in Failed Pro-Trump Election Affidavit
Adam Klasfeld | Nov 20th, 2020

..Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Steven Grimberg scathingly dismissed attorney Lin Wood’s attempt to block certification of Georgia’s vote in a lawsuit the state said aimed to roll back the clock to the Jim Crow era.

...The judge appears not to have been persuaded by such evidence as the affidavit labeled on the docket as “Exhibit Q,” which argues that the Georgia vote is untrustworthy because more people voted in Michigan than live in Minnesota. Really....

https://lawandcrime.com/2020-election/exhibit-q-lawyer-lin-wood-submits-that-mic...
___________________________________________

Lin Wood @LLinWood | 1:35 PM · Nov 21, 2020:
Let’s speak truth about @SenLoeffler & @sendavidperdue.
Why are they doing little or nothing to support efforts by GA citizens to address unlawful election & need for @BrianKempGA
to order special session of legislature?
If not fixed, I will NOT vote in GA runoff.
Will you?
---------------------------------------------------------

Lin Wood @LLinWood | 1:44 PM · Nov 21, 2020:
Politicians love votes & money (not necessarily in that order).
Want to get @SenLoeffler & @sendavidperdue out of their basements to demand that action must be taken to fix steal of the 11/3 GA election?
Threaten to withhold your votes & money.
Demand that they represent you.

#18--again Perdue got more votes in 2020 than Trump did and I wouldn't be shocked if Trump is aware of that and IMO it probably pisses him off.

Georgia isn't going to go blue when it comes to its DC reps. Changes
have happened within the state, but Georgia is still "Gone with the Wind"
territory.

>18 margd: See, he's playing a deeper game than we all suspect. He's going to come back and argue that he was given incompetent legal advice, and that's why he lost, and so he should have won, and that's the case he's actually going to pursue in the Supreme Court. 17D Chess!

You heard it here first...

>21 kiparsky: :D
>19 lriley: Perdue got more votes than Trump

Republicans sound alarm on Georgia Senate runoffs as they privately weigh Trump’s influence
Robert Costa and Tom Hamburger | November 16, 2020

Republican leaders are increasingly alarmed about the party’s ability to stave off Democratic challengers in Georgia’s two Senate runoff elections — and they privately described President Trump on a recent conference call as a political burden who despite his false claims of victory was the likely loser of the 2020 election.

---a Nov. 10 call with donors hosted by the National Republican Senatorial Committee...Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, and Karl Rove, a veteran strategist who is coordinating fundraising for the Jan. 5 runoffs.

...particular concern about Georgia’s fast-changing electorate, driven by the increasingly liberal metro Atlanta region and the push by 2018 gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams to register more Democratic voters, especially in the state’s communities of color.

...“They changed, dramatically, the face of the electorate in Georgia. Many of these new voters are from California, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, and they’re not of the conservative persuasion,” Perdue said on the call. (margd: Loeffler is also a relative newcomer to GA.)

Loeffler and Perdue laid bare their strategies for the closing weeks, with an emphasis on making incendiary attacks on the Democrats and rallying the GOP base in Georgia, which is majority White.

...can’t “take for granted” that the president’s coalition will reassemble at Election Day levels.

...All four runoff campaigns...are seeking to nationalize the contests and focus their messaging on the impact that victories could have for each side

...Rove added: “Don’t kid ourselves. We got a lot of work to do. And even at the end, though, we’re going to be outspent. The question is: Are we going to have sufficient money? Not: Are we going to have more money?”

..Warnock faces a bruising negative campaign from Loeffler, who previewed her strategy on the call. Among the lines of attack, she said, would be his past praise of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who had been Barack Obama’s pastor in Chicago; his criticism of police; and a visit in the 1990s by Cuban dictator Fidel Castro to a church where Warnock worked.

“He really escaped unscathed. . . . And we’re going to show everyone who he is,” Loeffler said. PolitiFact...Warnock was “the youth pastor at a New York City church when Castro spoke there in 1995” but “found no evidence that Warnock celebrated or welcomed Castro or that he was involved in arranging his appearance.”

...Perdue...and Loeffler are effectively running as a ticket, having “fully integrated our teams” and locked arms on fundraising... Georgia Battleground Fund, was encouraged by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and organized the call. It also enlisted Rove to serve as its finance chair...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/georgia-senate-runoffs-gop-t/2020/11/16/...

>20 Molly3028: I would be careful about making assumptions about an implacably "red south". The Dukes of Hazzard was a fun TV show, but the Georgia presidential vote tells a different story.
I'm not going to say that we're suddenly going to see the red flag flying over the red states, but clearly the population has shifted, and most of us have not updated our priors.

This is why Southern states are working overtime to disenfranchise Black and Latino voters, isn't it?

>23 kiparsky: Yes to the whole disenfranchisement thing. Alabackward effectively cut polling places in the western part of the state specifically for that reason, and it was no secret. That’s quite recent, too; perhaps 4-5 years ago.

Atlanta, except in the very upscale places, has a predominantly black population.

Again, we’re seeing the last gasps of the white majority desperate to hang on to their power. Even they can see the handwriting on the wall: it won’t be long before whites are no longer the majority in this country.

Frankly, I think they’re scared, as well they should be. Centuries of mistreatment will eventually come back to bite them in the arse.

Georgia Prepares To Give Joe Biden His THIRD VICTORY in That State in as Many Weeks

Since GA tax-payers are footing the Orange Ego's recount that begins tomorrow, Republicans can expect a lot of backlash from GA voters who already kicked him to the curb twice in the form of kicking Perdue and Loeffler under the steam roller after the state's voters reelect Biden for the third time in 2020.

Early voting's under way and lots of mail in ballots will be cast for Sleepy Joe's Democratic Senate candidates. Not bad for a candidate who didnn't even need to wake up to beat Trump like a drum.

I call GA for Biden, for Ossoff, and for Warnok again and again. And I call what's happening to Trump in this state "rubbing his face in it."

Wall Street Big Dollar Donors "Fed-up with Lame Duck: "No More Corn for You!"

Fed-up GOP donors may withhold money from Georgia senate races if party doesn’t make Trump concede.

“As a way of gaining leverage over the G.O.P., some of the executives have also discussed withholding campaign donations from the two Republican Senate candidates in Georgia unless party leaders agree to push for a presidential transition. . .

Could it be that Emily GSA Lady got their letter and that's why she "got off the pot" and wrote one of her own, conceding to the transition?

In addition to potentially withholding donations, the business leaders are sending a letter to General Services Administration chief Emily Murphy which demands that she recognize President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris as the winners of the 2020 race.

Money talks and the signees of that "business letter" are putting an end to Trump's latest grift.

“Every day that an orderly presidential transition process is delayed, our democracy grows weaker in the eyes of our own citizens and the nation’s stature on the global stage is diminished,” the executives’ letter states. “Withholding resources and vital information from an incoming administration puts the public and economic health and security of America at risk.”

Not only that, withholding the cash from Republican Senate candidates in GA, guarantees Mitch McConnell the status of has been. I imagine a secret contingent of powerful GOP Senators crept into Trump's bunker where he's hunkered down to avoid public shaming and possible shoes being tossed at him. They probably said it's concede or else time. The "or else" being you and your spawn will never be welcome in Republican social circles again, and we'll all turn squealers on you and your entire lot if you don't cave.

I hope so, anyway.

#26--I think Donald could really give a rat's ass about Loeffler or Perdue. Well neither do I. But really the business community if it turns on the Republican brand could bring a flood of non-tea partiers to their senses or at least it will speak to them about what matters most--cold hard political cash. The tea partiers we can forget though I think. They'll follow Donald to hell if they have to.

>25 Limelite: I think the early voting in Georgia is for the municipal runoffs. Early voting for the US Senate runoffs, in January, doesn't start until December 14.

Georgia has frequent elections, as in, they've been every month or two this year. That means Georgians have to carefully watch the dates and their voter registration status, as changes to the schedule and voter purges are also frequent.

Anyway, yes, I agree the situation isn't looking good for Senators Perdue and Loeffler. They're getting screwed over by Trump and other members of the GOP even as they're being called out for the greed that made them appealing to wealthy Republicans. Their supporters have loads of mess to consider, possibly while dealing with the rising COVID-19 cases among them. Everyone else only has to hunker down and wait to vote.

>28 aspirit:

I think you're right.

Applications requests at the printer, according to election official today. Applications will be accepted starting Friday, day after Thanksgiving, for US Senate run-offs. Many GA voters permanently register with the Sec'y of State for automatic mail-in ballot delivery as a "standing order" for every election.

Georgia just went over 400,000 Covid cases. It gets to the point where most people know someone or two or three or more. Things ain't getting better anywhere either--by early January I'm thinking Covid is going to be like the first thing on 90% of the public's mind. Right now there are 15 states that have over 300,000 cases. When you look at the Dakota's they're both not far away from 10% of their populations having or having had it.

>29 Limelite: Georgia voters may request absentee ballots for "a voting cycle" if over 65 years of age, disabled (according to each county's definition), or overseas. Otherwise, a ballot must be requested for each election, whether a regular election, runoff, or special election.

The state has been openly against paper ballots, including absentee ballots, which often aren't delivered, accepted (for a variety of reasons, such as signatures not being exact), or counted. Just so you know, voting in Georgia is a continuous fight for many residents.

>30 lriley: Georgia's aggressively Republican Governor Kemp seems to have noticed his wealthy buddies might have worse chances in the runoff after the coronavirus runs rampant through conservative-heavy areas in December. He's suddenly pushing pandemic safety harder than usual. Not with new orders-- he's still Kemptible-- but with obvious concern.

Anti-maskers in large Thanksgiving gatherings and weak healthcare systems might severely reduce the number of Republican voters who can get to their polling stations in January. With the proposed policies for absentee ballots making voting more challenging, not easier, his party obviously have reason to be concerned about that.

Although, I can't figure out why it took him this long to recognize voters won't show up to play with the voting machines while they're coughing up blood or dead. Did he have to give up on his plan because the country has continue watching him and his SoS?

Reverend Raphael Warnock @ReverendWarnock | 3:00 PM · Nov 24, 2020
US Senate candidate, GA-Special
I told you the smear ads were coming, but Georgians will see Sen. Kloeffler’s ads for what they are.

0:30 ( https://twitter.com/ReverendWarnock/status/1331326729739243527 )

Part of it is the kowtowing to the chamber of commerce and the business community both large and small. Conservatives thought they could save the economy by ignoring the virus. It never really occurred to them that people could and would get really sick and die in large numbers or that the sick could overwhelm a hospital system and really bring a locale or a state to its knees. They still really haven't figured that out and it took Kemp himself until June or July to wrap his head around the asymptomatic thing. Nonetheless conservatives are always floating dumbass shit around such as kids if they get sick are resilient and they'll get over it not even considering that kids aren't usually raised by wolves or mama cats--that they usually have actual parents and quite often grandparents who all too often won't get over the virus if they get sick. It really comes down to Conservative's failure to imagine beyond their wallets, bank accounts and stock market portfolios and they went with all that because that was the most important thing to them. Someone they didn't know or never met?--that didn't mean a thing to them.

Sen. Perdue Insisted He Had No Input At All On Stock Buys. New Evidence Shows He Did.
Sam Brodey | Nov. 25, 2020

A new report shows the Georgia senator reaching out directly to his investment adviser at Goldman Sachs directing him to make a massive stock sale...

https://www.thedailybeast.com/sen-david-perdue-insisted-he-had-no-input-at-all-o...

Brett Meiselas @BMeiselas | 2:54 PM · Nov 25, 2020:

...#LootingLoeffler...

1:10 ( https://twitter.com/BMeiselas/status/1331687736902729728 )
From MeidasTouch.com

MeidasTouch.com @MeidasTouch | 8:11 PM · Nov 25, 2020:
NEW VIDEO
...Loeffler and Perdue are agents of chaos who are a threat to Georgia.

#GeorgiaHasHadEnough
1:30 ( https://twitter.com/MeidasTouch/status/1331767593833697281 )

Really American @ReallyAmerican1 | 3:31 PM · Nov 25, 2020:
NEW VIDEO: David Perdue refuses to do more debates. What's he afraid of? Being asked about trying to take healthcare away during a pandemic, opposing a new stimulus for Georgians, or just wants to avoid answering about his pandemic profiteering?

#CowardPerdue
1:06 ( https://twitter.com/ReallyAmerican1/status/1331697086509641728 )

MeidasTouch.com @MeidasTouch | 3:03 PM · Nov 28, 2020
NEW VIDEO

Democrats, Republicans and Independents all agree, #NobodyLikesKelly
2:19 https://twitter.com/MeidasTouch/status/1332777041796673539

The Stupid Is Strong in Trumplicans

It's a run-off, stupid!

GOP strategist Brian Robinson (said), “You’re seeing many Republicans now speaking out and saying, ‘If we undermine faith in our election system, if we tell people that perhaps their votes didn’t count, we are going to suppress our own vote.'” (ASIDE: Ya think?)

Already, a Republican-aligned super PAC linked to Trump ally Roger Stone is urging Georgia voters to “write in” Trump to punish the party for not doing enough to stand with the outgoing president — something that wouldn’t even be possible since there is no write-in line on a runoff ballot. (ASIDE: DUH!)

The Stupid Is Strong in Trumplicans

It's a run-off, stupid!

GOP strategist Brian Robinson (said), “You’re seeing many Republicans now speaking out and saying, ‘If we undermine faith in our election system, if we tell people that perhaps their votes didn’t count, we are going to suppress our own vote.'” (ASIDE: Ya think?)

Already, a Republican-aligned super PAC linked to Trump ally Roger Stone is urging Georgia voters to “write in” Trump to punish the party for not doing enough to stand with the outgoing president — something that wouldn’t even be possible since there is no write-in line on a runoff ballot. (ASIDE: DUH!)

RNC Chair Struggles to Energize Georgia Republicans to Vote in Runoffs They See as Rigged
Daniel Politi | Nov 28, 2020

...Saturday...Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel faced some pushback from skeptical voters at an event in Marietta, Georgia who questioned whether it wasn’t pointless to get involved in the process. One voter specifically asked McDaniel why they should bother to put in more “money and work when it’s already decided.” McDaniel insisted that “it’s not decided” but said that not turning out could be a deciding factor. “So if you lose your faith and you don’t vote and people walk away—that will decide it,” McDaniel said.

...McDaniel dismissed the suggestion that all the talk about fraud in the election would discourage Republicans from going to the polls in January. “The President has said, unequivocally, that he supports Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue and he’s going to come to Georgia to campaign for them” ...(voters should) “focus on the mission at hand...We’ve got to focus on January 5th right now...We can deal with those other things later.”

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/11/rnc-chair-struggles-georgia-vote-run...

___________________________________________________

DJ Judd (CNN) @DJJudd | 10:24 AM · Nov 28, 2020:
Four different people have interrupted RNC Chair McDaniel on vote counts. “I guess it’s a Q&A now!” A voter asks McDaniel about voting machines switching votes. “We haven’t seen evidence of that,” McDaniel says.
Image--McDaniel indoor event (https://twitter.com/DJJudd/status/1332706958181343235/photo/1

Republican deniers who insist election was stolen from Don-Boy are just a bunch of wishful conspiracy cultists. They categorically refuse to acknowledge reality that doesn't conform to their yearnings for how the world should be.

The best that can be done by the Reality Based Community is to leave them in the dust and carry on. America cannot waste time attempting the rescue of a smooth brained segment of the population determined on a course of auto-extinction.

2,596 Trades in One Term: Inside Senator Perdue’s Stock Portfolio
Stephanie Saul, Kate Kelly and Michael LaForgia | Dec. 2, 2020

The Georgia Republican’s stock trades have far outpaced those of his Senate colleagues and have included a range of companies within his Senate committees’ oversight

As a member of the Senate’s cybersecurity subcommittee, David Perdue has raised alarms that hackers from overseas pose a threat to U.S. computer networks. Citing a frightening report by a California-based company called FireEye, Mr. Perdue was among the senators who asked this spring that the National Guard prepare to protect against such data breaches.

Not only was the issue important to Mr. Perdue, so was FireEye, a federal contractor that provides malware detection and threat-intelligence services. Beginning in 2016, the senator bought and sold FireEye stock 61 times, at one point owning as much as $250,000 worth of shares in the company.

Along with Senator Kelly Loeffler, a fellow Georgia Republican, Mr. Perdue faces an unusual runoff election in January. With control of the Senate at stake, and amid renewed concern about the potential for conflicts of interest in stock trading by members of Congress, Mr. Perdue’s investment activity — and especially his numerous well-timed trades — has increasingly come into the public glare...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/02/us/politics/david-perdue-stock-trades.html?sm...

"Stop the Steal Threats!"

Trump attorney Lin Wood incites crowd to target Gov. Brian Kemp at ‘Stop the Steal’ rally.

Nut job Trump surrogate incites crowd in crazy lie-filled rant that proves to be red meat to the undereducated GA Republican supporters of LOSER Trump.

“We’re going to send them a message!” Lin Wood shouted, referring to Georgia officials. “And the message is this. It’s 1776 in America again! And you’re not going to take our freedom. We’re going to fight for our liberty!

“This is America! You picked a fight with the wrong people,” he continued. “Get out of our country, George Soros! We are not going to allow ourselves to go back into the polling booth — and you hear us out, Gov. Kemp, you hear me.

“You’re not going to sell our votes to China!” Wood said. “We’re not going to vote on your damn machines made in China! We’re going to vote on machines made in the USA!”

Then, because this is GA and because no Republican political pig can rile up a crowd without playing the white supremacist card, no matter who he is, Lin proceeded to hijack King's message of peaceful demonstration in protest of unjust law by invoking his name and twisting his message to pretend that what he was doing at the Trump rally corresponded to King's campaigns of civil disobedience to obtain rights actually denied by the very people listening and shouting.

“I believe that a great man one time called upon the Black Americans to take action,” Wood said. “Martin Luther King, Jr. believed in non-violent civil disobedience. I want you to go to the governor’s mansion, I want you to circle it, I want you to blow your horns until Brian Kemp comes out and orders a special session of the Georgia Legislature. Get us our legislature! And we want him to fix the mess that he created!”

“And then he can resign. And then as far as I’m concerned, lock him up!” he shouted, prompting the crowd to chant, “Lock him up! Lock him up!”

IIRC, King NEVER advocated revenge imprisonment without trial for anyone who ever opposed him and the Civil Rights Movement he espoused. Anybody?

CORRECTION: If you don't know, Lin Wood is African American, which compounds his deplorable perversion of King's message. I'm sure the Reverend would turn over in his grave on hearing this guy (if he were alive to do so).

I also believe the Rev. King would have endorsed the Democrtic candidate for US Senate, Rev. Warnock of the same church where he presided, and would condemn the slick sycophant lawyer (if he were alive to do so).

Nutjob Powell is encouraging republicans not to vote in the upcoming run-off elections in Georgia on Jan. 5 because the system is rigged anyway.

I hope they are listening to her and heed her insane call to non-action. lol.

The Lincoln Project @ProjectLincoln | 3:46 PM · Dec 2, 2020:
You won’t see McConnell’s name on the ballot. But he’s there.

1:00 ( https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1334237416387993601 )

MeidasTouch.com @MeidasTouch | 8:17 PM · Dec 2, 2020:
NEW VIDEO

Retweet if you think it’s disgusting that Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue support and welcome QAnon terrorists into the state of Georgia!
#StopTeamQ

1:00 ( https://twitter.com/MeidasTouch/status/1334305750890336260 )

Georgia Republican Party officials don't want Trump to come "stump" for their Party's two senatorial candidates if all he's going to do is whine. Even these Repubs think Trump is useless, if not downright harmful, to Perdue and Loeffler's chances, and it would be to their advantage if he stays away.

I don't expect Gov. Kemp will be able to produce a more welcoming attitude than the Gov. of AZ was able to do when signing off on his state's 2020 election certification. He's certainly not going to be found at a rally where it's likely Trump will lead the crowd in chants of "Lock him up!" in reference to him.

If Trump comes to GA, the poorly educated will be sure to attend. I wonder how peacefully they'll react when they're not allowed to carry their military style rifles within their Cult Leader's presence. Talk about infringement of their 2nd Amendment rights! After all, the Democratic Gov. of MI didn't take their guns away from them when they stormed the Capitol in her state!

Sen. Graham (R-SC) Investigation for GA Election Fraud

Former US attorney, Michael J. Moore of Atlanta, asked the State Election Board to investigate Lindsey Graham for election interference.

Graham, a South Carolina Republican, called SoS Raaffensberger and

asked if he had the power to reject more absentee ballots as election officials conducted a recount and audit of the presidential race.

The secretary said Graham appeared to be suggesting that he find a way to reject legally-cast ballots to help President Donald Trump win re-election.

In probable violation of GA state law, Moore writes

“I am particularly concerned that the chairman of the United States Senate Judiciary Committee would make any attempt to interfere with the Georgia Secretary of State as he endeavored to lawfully perform his constitutional duties in overseeing the 2020 election and the counting, and re-counting, of the votes cast in the state of Georgia.”

>49 Limelite: President Trump has been to Georgia multiple times this season (to the disadvantage of the area's hospitals, I suspect). I'm fairly certain firearms haven't ever been allowed at the rallies he attends. That was in the news years back, and recent photos show attendees going through check stations. His supporters might just tell themselves it's a way of preventing a super-sneaky, suicidal mass shooting by hundreds of #MeToo, BLM, or antifa "terrorists".

As for Loeffler, Perdue, and Kemp? I can't imagine they're happy with his latest behavior, but they all ignored his attacks against them earlier in the year for various political issues. Why not now? They continue to demand their supporters "hold the line" against Trump's detractors. Their bullying also has a new target to relieve their frustrations on: Secretary Raffensperger, who I guess isn't wealthy enough for their clique.

It doesn't currently benefit those three to complain about any of the Trumps.

Although, the senators and governor will need to do something about the push by other Republicans to invalid runoff ballots by writing a name on them.

> 50

Lard Cheeses Crust, if poor little Lindsey is convicted of voter interference, or attempted voter interference, in violation of Georgia law and is sent to prison, that is going to rather rough on his anus, I would guess. I.e., if there ever was a natural born bottom, it's Lindsey.

... No need to thank me for the visual. Everyone have a nice day.

>52 JGL53: I have too much respect for strong bottoms to accept that image.

Besides, Graham is known for what he does with his mouth.

11 Alive News today: Poll results show tight races between candidates in U.S. Senate runoffs

I MUST CORRECT MY ERROR in POST #45

I misidentified Lin Wood in a press photo, mistaking the African American man pictured for atty Lin Wood who is white. My only excuse is that the caption confused me.

All errors here are my own.
_____________________________________
>52 JGL53:, >53 aspirit:

Please pass the bleach. My brain feels a combined Lindsey/Covid attack coming on.

The Lincoln Project @ProjectLincoln | 9:00 AM · Dec 4, 2020:

Vote for the better Georgia.
0:30 ( https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1334860014146600968 )

Dave Levinthal @davelevinthal | 8:59 AM · Dec 4, 2020:
SCOOP: @SenDavidPerdue, R-Ga., is scheduled to conduct a fundraiser with 5 lobbyists
who together represent 10 companies whose stocks Perdue has recently bought/sold.

Perdue's stock trades have become a major issue for him in his runoff against @Ossoff.

EXCLUSIVE: David Perdue will raise big Senate campaign money with lobbyists representing companies whose stocks Perdue has recently bought/sold...
David Levinthal | Dec 4, 2020
https://www.businessinsider.com/david-perdue-stocks-trades-fundraiser-georgia-se...

________________________________________________

Eric Feigl-Ding @DrEricDing | 8:49 PM · Dec 2, 2020:
HOLY SMOKES. Sen Perdue’s broker bought Pfizer stock in Feb even when Pfizer warned of *bad outlook*.
Then he bought more. Perdue basically traded OPPOSITE of Pfizer public warnings!

Then Pfizer announced #COVID19 vaccine plans soon after—coincidence?

David Perdue bought Pfizer stock — a week before company said it would develop a vaccine
Perdue bought the day Pfizer warned investors the pandemic might hurt the company. The next day, he bought more
Roger Sollenberger | December 2, 2020
https://salon.com/2020/12/02/david-perdue-bought-pfizer-stock--a-week-before-com...

Sen. David Perdue's stock trades net thousands during early part of opioid crisis
2016 stock purchases and sales came while Sen. David Perdue's Senate committee held hearings on opioid crisis
Doug Richards | December 3, 2020

..Perdue has come under fire for much of this year for his stock trades at the start of the coronavirus pandemic. These trades indicate Perdue made thousands of dollars in stock profits during the opioid crisis as well.

Nearly five years ago, the Senate Judiciary Committee convened to take its first hard look at the opioid crisis.

On January 27, 2016 -- seven days before the hearing, one of the committee's members, Sen. David Perdue, purchased more than $1,000 worth of stock in Alpharetta-based Halyard Health, a medical device company. One of Halyard’s specialties was pain management alternatives to opioids.

Four times in the week prior to the January 27 opioid hearing -- on January 20, 21, 25, and 26 – records show Perdue made four separate purchases of Halyard stock – valued at between $4,004 and $60,000...

After the hearing, Perdue kept right on purchasing Halyard stock. Records show that he purchased the company's stock six more times, through the end of February 2016.

According to Congressional records, Perdue's Halyard stock purchases were valued at up to $150,000...

https://www.11alive.com/article/news/perdue-opioids/85-11651d59-3303-4128-8d77-6...

https://www.mediaite.com/election-2020/trump-lawyer-jenna-ellis-pushes-debunked-...
Trump Lawyer Jenna Ellis Pushes Debunked ‘Smoking Gun’ Election Video Conspiracy to Fox’s Maria Bartiromo

My take: Maria ~ a gal who lives on planet Earth II
next door to her colleague Lou Dobbs ~ will buy into
any conspiracy theory that defends her cult leader's
wild assertions. And, Murdoch has a knack for finding
and hiring morons.

Dem. John Ossoff Gives Georgians an Earful of Truth

"David Perdue is a crook."

Everyone in Georgia has known that GA's Repub. Sen., David Perdue, is corrupt. Just how corrupt has never been fully made clear until John Ossoff made it perfectly clear the extent of his corruption in a detailed listing of all his transgressions of anything but public service. Self-service, for sure.

“David Perdue is like the cartoon version of a corrupt oligarch,” Ossoff charged. “Profiting from tragedy while opposing help for ordinary people. This is a guy who lives on a private island, hasn’t held a single town hall meeting in six years, openly sells meetings to lobbyists for corporate PAC checks, votes to throw people off their healthcare, opposed even the first round of $1,200 stimulus checks and he treats his Senate office like it is his E-trade account.

The people of Georgia need to know that David Perdue is a crook — and we’re making sure they know it!”

From other news tonight we learn that not only are Georgians interested in hearing the truth about Perdue's wrongdoing, the FBI has been interested for some time, too, and has been investigating Perdue's possible insider trading.

. . .a report from The New York Times about a federal investigation into Perdue’s trades during the early weeks of the coronavirus pandemic shows he did have some input on trades made on his behalf.
(Snip)
The Times’ article says Perdue told an adviser at Goldman Sachs to sell off at least $1 million in stocks for the Atlanta-based Cardlytics in January, shortly after receiving an email from the company’s chief executive. The Times spoke to four people who were granted anonymity but said they had direct knowledge of the Justice Department’s investigation into Perdue’s finances.

“Mr. Perdue then contacted his wealth manager at Goldman Sachs, Robert Hutchinson, and instructed him to sell a little more than $1 million worth of Cardlytics shares, or about 20 percent of his position, three of the people said. One person familiar with the inquiry into Mr. Perdue’s trades said that the conversation was memorialized in an internal Goldman Sachs record later obtained by the F.B.I.”

Then Perdue engaged in a cover-up of his trade activity when he lied to the people of Georgia about what he really had done by claiming he acted on his broker's advice.

But the timing of the email, the sale, and apparently the lack of any corroborating "memorialized conversation" with his broker makes Perdue's attempts to explain it all away a fairly transparent lie.

That particular bit of shady dealing is in the hands of a Grand Jury.

In early March of this year. . .Justice Department Investigating Lawmakers for Possible Insider Tradingcontinuing a related investigation into GOP Sen. Richard Burr, according to people familiar with the matter. Prosecutors on Tuesday alerted defense attorneys for Republicans Kelly Loeffler of Georgia and James Inhofe of Oklahoma as well as Democrat Dianne Feinstein of California that they are closing investigations into their trading, the people said. But later in March, the story persists. . .with a twist. Justice Department Investigating Lawmakers for Possible Insider Trading

The Justice Department is examining whether lawmakers traded ahead of the market turmoil caused by the coronavirus pandemic based on confidential briefings they received, according to a person familiar with the matter.

As part of that inquiry, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has reached out to Sen. Richard Burr (R., N.C.), said the person.

Well, we see Byrd has undergone a sort of transformation in two weeks from 'person of interest' to what looks distinctly like 'cooperating witness', and we see that the reason for the investigation has undergone quite a refinement of the allegation "based on confidential briefings. . ." Briefings that we know Perdue received and for which evidence of his stock trades indicate he acted on.

I wouldn't be surprised if David Perdue suddenly determines a need to spend more time with his family some time before January 5th, rather than seek that seat in the US Senate.

Kelly Loeffler is campaigning on understanding what it feels like living paycheck to paycheck.
This is one of her 5 homes.
Image ( https://twitter.com/NYinLA2121/status/1334946301142700032/photo/1 )

-YS @NYinLA2121 | 2:42 PM · Dec 4, 2020

#61-62---there should be limits to personal wealth. I ran into this quote by Andrew Yang who started out as a corporate lawyer and describes that job as 'a pie eating contest and if you won your reward was more pie'. It's not fucking healthy for the individual and it's really not healthy for the society either. They've turned outright greed into a virtue and that this is how capitalism is supposed to work. While these nitwits are building up millions and billions they don't know what to do with apart from trying to make more millions and billions more and more of the population sinks into poverty. This is the economic system that people want--where greed is King? The rich carp about class war. They're the ones that have pushed the class war. They carp about socialism--they're the ones with their hands out for all kinds of freebies from the federal govt. Perdue and Loeffler are just two more elitist examples of this.

Brad Beauregard Jr @BradBeauregardJ | 3:30 PM · Dec 1, 2020:
I love this new ad from Jon @ossoff
Listen to President BarackObama

0:30 ( https://twitter.com/BradBeauregardJ/status/1333871006503624711 )

>62 margd: I'm fairly certain that house isn't in Georgia. My guess is at least three of her "homes" are in New England. That one could be in New York.

Here's the house that is reportedly her Georgia residence.

https://twitter.com/JBritt312/status/1333782237444190208

Sudden thought: someone should ask Senator Loeffler if her servants and her aides work paycheck to paycheck, or if they're all so much as paid. She almost certainly keeps unpaid staff.

Gov. Kemp Shafts Desperate Trump Who Begs Him to Overturn GA Election

Trump shot down by Georgia governor during last ditch phone call to overturn election results.

“Hours before he was scheduled to hold a rally in Georgia on behalf of the state’s two GOP senators, Trump pressed Kemp to call a special session of the state legislature to get lawmakers to override the results and appoint electors that would back him, according to a person familiar with the conversation,” reported Amy Gardner and Colby Itkowitz. “He also asked the governor to demand an audit of signatures on mail ballots, something Kemp has previously noted he has no power to do.”

Perhaps I should correct my header, "ignorant desperate Trump," who, like his personal lawyer, Julie Annie, behaves as if the law can be overridden by sheer force of bullying. Ignorance of it being no handicap.

“Lawyers for Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger have determined that current law gives Georgia legislators no role in seating electors.”

Of course, Georgia's legislators are devising further corruption of voting rights. Now that this legal factoid has been drawn to their attention, no doubt they will amend the law to allow themselves to be corrupted by future LOSER Republican incumbent presidents who have been buried by "No" votes against their reelection.

Trump's Lawsuit to Overturn Georgia Election Smacked Down

Attorney Lin Wood’s efforts to help the Trump campaign block Georgia from certifying the election results are no more successful than Julie Annie's.

The opinion, written by judge Bill Pryor, upheld a lower court’s finding that the campaign has no standing to challenge the certification of the election — and slammed Trump’s legal counsel for a “basic misunderstanding” of fundamental legal principles.

“Another GOP election challenge loss — 11th Circuit rejected L. Lin Wood’s effort to stop Georgia from certifying. The 3-0 opinion, written by Judge Bill Pryor, agreed with the district judge that Wood lacked standing, and concluded it was moot.”

Let me guess: The ruling came before Trump's phone call to Brian Kemp. I bet the plane ride down to GA was unpleasant. I bet the two scheduled rural GA stops for Trump will be ugly. I bet the plane ride back to D.C. is going to be pure hell for everyone on board, except in the cockpit where th crew will probably be laughing in their sleeves.

>69 Limelite: the recount results were supposed to be certified yesterday. Did I miss in the article when they will be?

With the way Republicans have been attempting to sabotage elections certifications, I'm inclined to believe the Senate runoffs will drag into February, keeping Senators Perdue and Loeffler in office longer even if Ossoff and Warnock have clear wins.

Ex-Senate leader Harry Reid: Trump’s ‘stupid’ call to Kemp ‘bordered on criminality.’

Harry minces no words, declaring Trump is delusional.

“Trump is out of touch with reality,” said Reid. “The Republican secretary of state in Georgia has been very strong. Georgia is a state that is not going to allow this foolishness to continue. They had an election. They’ve proved it. They certified it. And I think that Trump is wasting his time. Georgia is not going to have its reputation ruined by some stupid damn thing that Trump is trying to do that is outside the realm of reality.”

(CNN) anchor Fredericka Whitfield, “Is it potentially criminal for a sitting president to attempt, a free and fair election result outcome — in trying to overturn it?”

“That’s only one of the many things that Trump has done that is bordered on criminality,” said Reid. “I don’t know whether this is criminality, but it’s unethical, and people of Georgia are simply not going to allow it to happen.”

Trump is acting like a fool. It's not just Democrats who've been slamming the soon-to-b-ex-president. Plenty of Republicans (most recently, WI election officials) are joining the derisive chorus at Trump's self-serving blundering challenges to the 2020 election. Most people with healthy egos, respond appropriately when their egos try to save them from humiliation. Not Trump. How many more Americans is Trimp going to allow to write his epitaph?

Brian Kemp Not Attending Trump's Saturday Rallies

Says "close friend of the family died," a young man who was a Loeffler campaign aide and was killed in a car wreck in Savannah yesterday.

It will be interesting to see if Loeffler also absents herself from tonight's rallies, or if ambition overrides compassion.

RELATED NEWS: Faith shaken in system, Trump’s Georgia supporters consider skipping U.S. Senate runoffs.

Georgia’s Saturday report for single-day coronavirus cases tops 5,000
Crowd Assembling for Valdosta Trump Rally -- No Social Distancing, No Masks

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/05/georgia-senate-old-new-south-442423
How Georgia’s Senate race pits the Old South against the New South

Apparently, The "Gone with the Wind" South is
reappearing during this Georgia Senate election. The
GOP always uses the race card in the Confederate
territories.

Trump press secretary appears to acknowledge Biden election victory (Guardian)

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany appeared on Sunday to admit Donald Trump lost the presidential election, a concession the president refuses to make.

In an interview on Fox News, McEnany discussed runoff elections in Georgia in January which will decide control of the Senate.

“If we lose these two Senate seats,” she said, “guess who’s casting the deciding vote in this country for our government? It will be Kamala Harris”...

Following up on the story of Florida attorney, Bill Price, who attempted to register to vote in Georgia using his brother’s address, there are more investigations begun:

https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/secretary-of-state-investigating-250-cases-conn...

The presidential recount results were certified yesterday (giving Biden yet another win). That's five weeks after Election Day.

We're now four weeks from Election Day for the Senate runoffs. And maybe nine weeks from when the Senators for Georgia will be confirmed?

:eyeroll:

Georgia elections are deemed to be over days after Republicans win but drag on for weeks or months when Democrats do.

>77 aspirit: I loved how the New York Times reported it: "Biden still won."

LOOOOSERS of the World, Unite!

Loeffler, Perdue side with Texas lawsuit that Georgia AG says is ‘wrong’.

After the state of Texas filed a brazen lawsuit asking the U.S. Supreme court to toss out Georgia’s election results, Republican Attorney General Chris Carr’s office called it “constitutionally, legally and factually wrong.” He didn’t get much backup from other senior Republicans.

Nearly half of the Georgia Senate’s GOP members issued a statement siding with the Texas lawsuit that seeks to help President Donald Trump undo his defeat here. So did U.S. Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, who said they both “fully support” the complaint filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

See related story about TX AG's lawsuits to throw out Biden's victories in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. It takes a pair of Wall Street traders to admire a fellow crook.

As calculated by local Atlanta TV station, the GA election is 99.964% accurate across one count and two recounts. Somebody just hand the Supremes a note.

>79 Limelite: a clear attack on state rights. It's sad how the GOP no longer pretends to care about anything it used to.

>80 aspirit:

Exactly. TX lurched from wanting to secede when Obama was president. Now that Trump has burned down in defeat, TX asserts sovereignty over GA, MI, PA, and WI! And Perdue and Loeffler are just fine with it. Guess that means they're not don't put Georgians first, but prefer being ruled over by Texans.

I've said it before and I'm going to wear out my fingers typing "Republicans think irony is the opposite of wrinkly."

>81 Limelite: irony is the opposite of wrinkly

I like that. Clever.

I thought it was clever, too. it's an oldie, but a goody and works well in the current US political context.

Don Winslow donwinslow | 7:30 PM · Dec 13, 2020

NEW VIDEO: #TheRealKellyLoeffler TURN VOLUME UP!
The real Kelly Loeffler has earned nothing herself.
The real Kelly Loeffler profited off the death of Americans.
The real Kelly Loeffler stands with white supremacists.
The real Kelly Loeffler thinks racism can win her election

0:48 ( https://twitter.com/donwinslow/status/1338280279249580032 )

_______________________________________________

ETA
Kelly Loeffler Poses With Former KKK Leader, Now Claims She Had No Idea
Mary Papenfuss | December 13, 2020
https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/kelly-loeffler-chester-doles-kkk-georgia-04540507...
__________________________

Georgia senator Kelly Loeffler's husband's company gave her a $9million golden goodbye when she joined Senate - weeks before she offloaded stock after a secret coronavirus briefing
Geoff Earle | 6 May 2020

Loeffler's husband, Jeffrey Sprecher, is the CEO of International Exchange, who provided the pay package
She is under fire for making stock trades worth millions after attending a secure briefing on the coronavirus
$7.8 million of the award was a stake in a subsidiary firm that Loeffler ran

Georgia Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler got a $9 million golden parachute when she left her job to join the U.S. Senate – at a company where her husband is the CEO.

Loeffler, who was appointed to her seat last year and is one of the richest people ever to serve in the Senate, has been under fire for stock trades in the weeks after she attended a closed briefing on the coronavirus.

She made the market moves even after securing the generous parting package from her employer, Intercontinental Exchange, the company that owns the New York Stock Exchange..

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8293027/Georgia-senator-Kelly-Loefflers...

#85--Loeffler is an example of everything that's wrong with American styled capitalism. The last thing people like her needs is more wealth but attaining more wealth is her major and primary ambition and she's willing to do pretty much anything to get it including monetizing a pandemic all the while blithely watching that pandemic kill people and ruin lives. Acquiring more becoming a pathological obsession is pretty much where our capitalism has taken us. It's not even good for her really---it debases and dehumanizes her.

US Rep from TX (R), Dan Crenshaw, living the dream:

Dan Crenshaw @DanCrenshawTX | 1:12 PM · Dec 13, 2020:
Georgia Reloaded is here.
The epic saga continues, this time in Georgia. Everything is on the line...

3:00 ( https://twitter.com/DanCrenshawTX/status/1338184981684908033 )

-----------------------------------------------------

Lisa Kot Stutzman @LisaKot | 9:35 AM · Dec 14, 2020;
okay let me get this straight: he leaves his own constituents on election night and takes orders from a foreign operative to destroy private property and attack citizens in another state?

#88---apparently he's a superhero too.

>88 lriley: Now I understand:

Mark Kendall @kendallcomedy | 8:00 AM · Dec 15, 2020:
Hey GA, what's YOUR Superpower?!
116 ( https://twitter.com/kendallcomedy/status/1338831176761405440 )

#89---sounds like a Texan is trying to horn in and steal something rightfully Georgian.

So Many Lawsuits, So Many Kicks in the Pants

No means no!

The time for these WATB lawsuits is passed. But they continue to be kicked out of courts in a manner that reminds one of the habits of cockroaches -- they never go away, no matter how many you stomp on. Crazy Trump lawyers and nutso Trump supporters continue to skitter across the floors of our courtrooms -- in one door, out the other before you can flip a light switch.

Atlanta attorney L. Lin Wood Jr. has appealed his lawsuit to the U.S. Supreme Court after other federal courts rejected his claims. Meanwhile, the Georgia Supreme Court Monday denied an extraordinary request by a Monroe County man who sought to challenge the results of the presidential election.

"Extraordinary request." I'll say! The never-ending fairy tale continues even though everyone already knows the ending.

(Wood's) case has already been rejected by a U.S. District Court judge in Atlanta and by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.

We all know what will happen in the SCOTUS -- the exact same thing that happened with TX's attempt to overturn the election, now certified by the EC.

While the rest of Georgia's attention has turned to the US Senate run-off election that will be decided next month, certain insects illustrate the definition of insanity.

Meanwhile, Paul Boland, the Monroe County resident, appealed his case from Fulton County Superior Court, which dismissed his lawsuit last week. Citing various unsubstantiated allegations of voting fraud, Boland sought audits of the state’s voter registration rolls and absentee ballot envelopes. Barring that, he asked the court to order a new election.

The Fulton County judge dismissed the case on numerous grounds. On Monday, Boland took his case to the Georgia Supreme Court, asking for a ruling in his favor. But the court rejected the request.

Meanwhile, Biden Campaigns for Osoff & Warnock in Atlanta

Dems rallying its coalition and voters that defeated Trump to beat the Republican US Senate candidates while Repubs are engaging in an escalating civil war and are in disarray Some folks may have been surprised to hear Biden roar like a lion, when they thought he could only be a lamb. Those would be the folks who missed his TV address last night when he excoriated Trump and the seditious Congressmen and AGs who signed on to the TX lawsuit to steal the votes in four states, including GA. At this afternoon's rally,

Biden opened by thanking Georgians for making him the first Democrat presidential nominee to win the state since 1992 - even if it required three separate tallies.

“Your votes were counted, and counted, and counted again! I’m starting to feel like I won Georgia three times,” he quipped.

“Georgia wasn’t going to be bullied. Georgia wasn’t going to be silenced. Georgia wasn’t going to stand by and let Donald Trump or the state of Texas - or anyone else - come here and toss out your votes.

He said the two Republicans, who backed the ill-fated Texas lawsuit, “fully embraced nullifying nearly 5 million Georgia votes.

”Maybe your senators were just confused. Maybe they think they represent Texas,” Biden said. “Well if they want to do the bidding of Texas, they should be running there instead of here in Georgia.”

Early voting started yesterday and is setting records in counties across the state. The election utterly depends on voter turn-out. Historically, run-offs in GA are disastrous for Democrats, but this is the first time in this century that Democratic voters are enthusiastically "attacking the polls" with cresting enthusiasm for their two candidates -- and their chances. Mail-in ballot requests are also soaring above run-off norms. Folks in the state realize and recognize what's at stake. It's going to be an historic contest.

New poll is a warning sign for the GOP in Georgia
Aaron Blake | Dec. 15, 2020

GOP strategists have worried that Trump’s baseless voter fraud crusade could depress turnout in the Senate runoffs.
A new poll suggests there could be something to that.

...The Fox News poll asked people whether “this presidential election has made you more or less likely to vote in the next presidential election.”

...the group with the highest “less likely” (to vote in next presidential election) number? Trump voters. Fully 19 percent — about 1 in 5 — say they are less likely to vote in the next presidential election, vs. just 5 percent of Biden voters. No other group broken out in the poll says it is as turned off as Trump voters; the next highest numbers come from voters under 45 years old, Whites without college degrees and rural voters, with the latter two groups overlapping significantly with Trump’s base.

...we’ll have to see whether this difference means anything practically in Georgia. But the poll does put some meat on the bone when it comes to the GOP’s concerns about depressing its own turnout.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/12/15/new-poll-provides-warning-sig...

Trump is pocketing Georgia Senate runoff donations for his PAC, while the GOP candidates themselves don't get a dollar, a new report says
Jake Lahut | Dec 15, 2020

While fundraising for the Georgia Senate runoffs, President Donald Trump is diverting 75% of most donations to his Save America political action committee, effectively allowing him to hold on to that money for future endeavors...

The other 25% goes to the Republican National Committee, according to the donation web page, meaning the campaigns of the GOP candidates trying to hold on to their seats — Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue — will not directly get a dollar from Trump's fundraising push.

Politico said Trump was approaching the runoffs in a similar way to how he's been using the fundraising apparatus for his post-election legal efforts.

"The reality is Donald Trump does not care about the future of the Republican Party, so if he can raise money off of the Georgia runoffs but keep the money for his own purposes, he will do so," a longtime GOP strategist told Politico...

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-pocketing-georgia-senate-runoff-donations-...

Not much of a fan of the Lincoln Project people at all but Steve Schmidt had some interesting comments on Trump's continual contention of the 2020 election--the number of state attorney generals and the 126 republican congressmen that signed on to the amicus brief.

He looks at it as a coup attempt and in a historical frame points out that very often the first attempt fails but the second achieves the goal and that if this crowd ever does attain power it very well might mean the end of democracy as we know it. That these people will do everything and anything to maintain power. It's quite obvious they don't really give a fuck who gets the most voters and just look at some of the right wing mindsets here--very happy to give their rubber stamp of approval to anything at all that Trump has done. I think it's a warning worth paying attention to and so I mention it here.

>95 lriley: Steve Schmidt's not boring, that's for sure:

Lincoln Project Founder Asks AOC to Work With His GOP Anti-Trump Organization
James Crowley | 12/12/20
https://www.newsweek.com/lincoln-project-co-founder-steve-schmidt-aoc-work-proje...

This may have followed AOC tweet that internecine warfare (I assume with other Dems?) should pause while they concentrate on winning Georgia? (Lincoln Project is supporting Dem candidates in GA, and sees necessary that Trump-supporting Rs be rooted out over next few election cycles--they have a list and are adding to it as necessary.)

While the waitress/tip talk intro is evidence of a HUGE gender/generation gap, Schmidt seemed quite sincere:

..."We say the following with respect and seriousness Ma'am. Our hand is open and we need to work together or we are going to lose America. The fight will last for many years" he wrote.

Schmidt also said that if the two worked together they could defeat autocracy, despite their differences. He ended the thread by listing Ocasio-Cortez's qualities that the Lincoln Project admires, including her conviction and integrity.

In a follow-up tweet, Schmidt seemed to indicate which issues he hoped to discuss with AOC. "(1) Federal Pardons for all Marijuana crimes. (2) end of payday lending- no banking for poor people. 3. Lack of Pre k education," he wrote in the list of issues the Lincoln Project finds important...

Wonder what AOC and her people made of this outreach.

During his appearance on MSNBC, Steve Schmidt revealed yesterday that he had just joined the Democratic Party.

The scuttlebutt in GA is that Trump wants the Republican senatorial candidates to lose in order to "punish" Moscow Mitch for congratulating Joe Biden on being President-Elect. This is a rumor I hope comes true.

State Democratic Party leaders, inspired by Stacey Abrams and Atlanta Mayor, Bottoms, are working phones, knocking on doors, seeking to turn out voters who stayed home in the general to give Biden a Democratic Senate and a runoff election victory that's "not even close."

Bet Atlanta and Fulton County could use that money...

Value of Loeffler’s Mansion Dropped $6M Overnight—and Nobody Can Explain Why
Sam Brodey and William Bredderman | Dec. 16, 2020

The estate went from a $10.5 million appraisal to $4.1 million, resulting in a much lower tax bill for the senator and her husband.

...Originally (2009), they were paying $200,000 annually to the city and county governments. In 2016, after their home’s value dropped, they paid $90,000....

https://www.thedailybeast.com/value-of-sen-kelly-loefflers-georgia-mansion-dropp...

NEW VIDEO: David Perdue has made 2,600 stock trades as a Senator, accounting for 1/3 of the entire U.S. Senate.
He's traded more stocks than the next 5 most active traders in the senate COMBINED, many times on inside, classified information.

1:20 ( https://twitter.com/ReallyAmerican1/status/1339422492767580162 )
Portfolio Perdue...

- ReallyAmerican.com @ReallyAmerican1 | 11:09 PM · Dec 16, 2020

NAACP NAACP | 1:51 PM · Dec 16, 2020:
We are proud to be partnering with the @ACFB (Atlanta Community Food Bank) and @ProjectLincoln
for a holiday food drive in East Atlanta at Jefferson Park Recreational Center.
Engaging with the community and educating voters is what it's all about!

#DoitAgain #BlackTheVote

#98--I wonder how this happens. Her and her husband must be worth 100's of millions if they're not billionaires and most likely this is just about the both of them trying to screw the city of Atlanta out of $100,000. All these little things a few thousand here and a couple hundred thousand there--they can't rest from their obsession to accumulate more wealth by whatever hook or crook. It strikes me as unhealthy and maniacal.

It reminds me that there's a story going around these days about Joel Osteen who grabbed $4.4 million of stimulus money that was targeted for small business back in May. He's got to be in the running for wealthiest televangelist out there but there will never ever be enough to satiate his greed. When people think about their favorite local restaurants going out of business in this Covid economy---they should think also about shitbirds like Osteen who don't need it but grab a nice chunk of it anyway.

Republicans are fine with the Donald Trump Type. In fact, they're counting on finding another one to run in '24. Maybe one not so blatantly VULGAR, but a definite white grievance, white supremacists, misogynistic, pale male and a token gun-sucker female running mate are how they think they can win.

Doubt it? Look at the "type" they elected to the House and Senate this year. It's the new Republican Template Candidate.

Now look at the two GA Repub. candidates hoping to win in the state's runoff. It's a perfect match to type!

Listen to what they say, for sure. But believe what they do.

#102--Trump has about 90% of elected house and Senate (though some of that is soft) members and a number of Republican governors have made it clear they don't like him.

So in the House--there is the Liz Cheney wing--they go along but they are neo-cons and interventionists. I don't think they're pleased where Trump has taken the party at all. They're biding their time and waiting for a better day.

In the Senate there is real antipathy towards Trump from Romney and to a lesser extent Murkowski. One might say that Senators like Collins, Porter, Sasse and a few others are soft on him and that McConnell looks at Trump simply as a vehicle to stuff federal courts with judges and could care less about him otherwise. Someone like Rand Paul gravitates towards Trump like a sleaze to whisper in his ear all of his libertarian wet dreams. If not Trump Paul will do the same with the next party leader to come along. That's what he does.

As far as Republican Governors Trump isn't really all that popular. The three from New England--Phil Scott--Vermont, Chris Sununu--New Hampshire and Charlie Baker--Massachusetts treat him with varying degrees of disdain and really can't afford not to to have any chance of being reelected in their states. Larry Hogan Maryland has been on the outs with Trump for a long time as well. The incoming Utah Governor Spencer Cox almost immediately and without second thought congratulated Biden for winning the Presidency. You'd also have to think he's lost Mike DeWine-Ohio, Brian Kemp-Georgia and Doug Ducey-Arizona.

His stormtroopers really are the tea party types--the Freedom Caucus and they are the ones who defend him most vociferously along with the more sycophantic types like Lindsey Graham who will do anything not to get on the wrong side of power and be marginalized.

Trump Has Spent NOTHING on GA Senate Runoff

It's a grift. Who would have thought? Other groups have spent millions, but Trump’s Save America PAC has not, even though that was Trump's declared purpose for it. Once again, Trump gets to affirm his sublime fondness for his supporters' undereducatd status. For him, the gullible exist to be gulled. They certainly seem to line up for it.

“It would suggest that the PAC is blatantly lying to its supporters to raise money that President Trump could use for his own personal benefit,” said Robert Maguire, a campaign finance expert with the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “We’ve seen lots of scam PACs over the years, but never one tied so closely to a president.”\
(SNIP)
“Same old song,” said Joe Walsh, a former congressman who unsuccessfully ran against Trump for the 2020 GOP presidential nomination. “It’s what he is. It’s what he does. It’s all a con. It’s all a lie. It’s all a grift. And sadly, millions continue to fall for it.”

Evidently, L'État, c'est Trump!

Kelly Loeffler Keeps Posing For Photos With White Supremacists And Other Extremists
Christopher Mathias | December 17, 2020
https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/kelly-loeffler-white-supremacist-american-patriot...

>105 margd: She's not from Georgia, yet she knows how she get support among conservatives in the state.

Meanwhile, her opposition, Reverend Warnock, continues to pose with with his obviously well-loved beagle, staying safely away from unmasked humans who aren't in his household. (Take a look at his ads if you haven't already. They're adorable, subtly funny, and pandemic appropriate.)

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/raphael-warnocks-dog-ads-cut-against-white-...

76K New Georgia Voters Registered Before US Senate Runoffs

They’re overwhelmingly young, with 56% of them under 35 years old. Some are new Georgia residents; others just turned 18. None has a voting record in the state.

2,670 of the new voters have cast ballots in the runoffs through Tuesday, most of them during in-person early voting this week, according to state election data. . .434 voters, had returned absentee ballots.
(SNIP)
Most voters are automatically registered to vote in Georgia when they obtain their driver’s licenses.

Less than half of the new voters, 46%, identified themselves as white when they registered. Overall, 53% of Georgia voters are white.

More Hispanic and Asian voters registered than their overall share of the electorate. About 28% of new voters are Black, lower than their 30% portion of the state’s voters.

Who’s Voted So Far in Georgia’s Runoff Elections?

So far, more than 1.1 million people have voted. Through four days of early voting, the number of votes is approaching the presidential election pace.

Demographics 12/18/2020

About 477,000 mail ballots returned (43%)
760,000+ mail ballots yet to be returned

About 56% of early voters are white and 32% are Black

Females make up 55% of early voters compared to 45% for males

Every county besides Pickens has more than 100 votes. Metro Atlanta leads by far; Fulton over 125,000

Since early voting began on Monday, the state has been receiving an average of about 199,000 votes per day with 220,000 on the first day.

Voters 65 and older make up 44% of all early votes.

Loeffler and Perdue HECKLED by Trumpty-Dumbpties

Ivanka wasn't exactly a crowd pleaser, I guess, while campaigning with the two Repub candidates in Milton, GA.

(They) were both heckled by members of the audience, who called on them to more forcefully back Mr. Trump's attempts to subvert the election. Some held signs calling for a special session of Congress to overturn the Electoral College vote, while others pushed the senators to vote against certifying the election results.

The Lincoln Project @ProjectLincoln | 10:01 AM · Dec 21, 2020;
The dream still lives.
We still #believe that hope is far more powerful than hate.

1:00 ( https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1341035997153398784 )

Stacey Abrams & GA Democrats Counter-Attack Trump's TX Proxie Conspirators

Stacey Abrams voting rights organization, Fair Fight, plans to fight a Texas organization in court over its challenge to the eligibility of more than 364,000 voters to participate in Georgia’s U.S. Senate runoffs. The Republican "stolen election" front group, True the Vote, is trying to disqualify voters from the runoffs by questioning their residency, just because they have a change of address from having moved since they registered.

Many of the registrants being challenged are probably people who lost their jobs due to Trump's failure to address the pandemic who have had to move in with parents and relatives. Others, no doubt, lost their housing from having lost their jobs and pandemic benefits due to Moscow Mitch prioritizing unqualified judge appointments over fiscal stimulus to save homes, jobs, and the potential of hunger. Not a few may be those Republican voter fraudsters from out of state who moved to GA to illegally register as residents in order to sabotage legitimately registered Democratic voters -- like we read in the news a month ago.

Abrams will make the case that another state has no business interfering in GA's elections. Exactly what the Supremes told the TX AG who brought his frivolous lawsuit before them, only to have it dismissed.

“We will not allow out-of-state agitators to violate the law and disenfranchise lawful Georgia voters in an eleventh-hour, desperate attempt to create chaos, burden county boards, and tie up the election,” Fair Fight said in a statement. “Our message to True the Vote: Get out of Georgia and leave our voters alone.”

True the Vote thinks by hiding behind the skirts of some GA Republican Party members, the judges won't notice.

How much do you want to bet that they will purge the USPS list of changed addresses of all Republicans in the state who voted in the general but have moved since registering so that they can vote, untroubled, in the runoff?

Jon Favreau @jonfavs | 9:00 PM · Dec 22, 2020:
We either get $2k stimulus checks or Trump helps make it crystal clear that
Senate Republicans are to blame
just days before 2 of them are up for re-election in a race that decides control of the Senate.

Merry Christmas, Mitch!

Quote Tweet
Nancy Pelosi @SpeakerPelosi · 15h:
Republicans repeatedly refused to say what amount the President wanted for direct checks.
At last, the President has agreed to $2,000 — Democrats are ready to bring this to the Floor this week by unanimous consent. Let’s do it! twitter.com/realDonaldTrum…

--------------------------------------------

Chuck Schumer @SenSchumer | 11:18 PM · Dec 22, 2020:
I’m in. Whaddya say, Mitch? Let’s not get bogged down with ideological offsets and unrelated items and just DO THIS!
The American people deserve it. @senatemajldr

Quote Tweet
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez AOC · 14h
Let’s do it. @RashidaTlaib and I already co-wrote the COVID amendment for $2,000 checks, so it’s ready to go.
Glad to see the President is willing to support our legislation.
We can pass $2k checks this week if the Senate GOP agrees to stand down. twitter.com/CNBCnow/status…

Image--draft text amendment ( https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1341572295769415682/photo/1 )

Loeffler didn't disclose top donors own multibillion-dollar company cited for illegal hiring scheme
The omissions for a company whose business Loeffler oversees "strain credulity to the breaking point," expert says
Roger Sollenberger | December 25, 2020

...Georgia's unelected Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler received several recent max-out donations from ten members of the Asplundh family, which owns the eponymous Pennsylvania-based utility and infrastructure clearing company, as well as from the company's president, according to two recent filings with the Federal Election Commission. However, the Loeffler campaign filings did not fulfill the federal agency's requirement to report who employed those donors. Their company, Asplundh Tree Expert Co., a Pennsylvania-based tree trimming company, notably settled a $95 million criminal settlement after a Department of Homeland Security investigation found the company circumvented laws to undercut competitors by hiring undocumented workers.

Asplundh has also faced backlash in Loeffler's home state of Georgia for discriminatory employment practices against Black employees and applicants. In 2019, the Department of Labor forced the company to pay back wages to employees of color who were victim of the "illegal practices" at its Macon facility. According to a government press release, the action came after an investigation found that, beginning in 2015, Asplundh had discriminated against 124 Black applicants in the hiring and selection process for a number of positions at its Macon facility. As part of the arrangement, the company agreed to make job offers for specific positions, for "eligible class members."
Advertisement:

Loeffler happens to sit on the Senate committee that oversees labor and the Senate's forestry subcommittee, which oversees aspects of Asplundh's business. The federal government is also an Asplundh customer, with contracts for infrastructure work through the Department of Energy...

https://www.salon.com/2020/12/24/loeffler-didnt-disclose-top-donors-own-multibil...

Does GA Senate Runoff Hinge on Historical US Civil War ?

Loeffler and Perdue are caught between a rock and a hard place. They have hitched themselves to Trump's wagon and depend on his endorsement and continuing support to get and keep Trumpty-Dumbpty Georgia's conservative voters who are engaged in a modern ideological civil war with the state's Republican governor and secretary of state who Trump has made enemies of over their disagreement about the 2020 presidential election.

The candidates' problem is that the

Georgia (Congressional) Republicans overwhelmingly voted in favor of a national defense bill that includes 3% pay raises for troops and funding for programs at military installations across Georgia.

However, the measure also contains a provision to rename bases named after Confederate leaders, including two in Georgia.

And Trump just vetoed it. Now, GA is a state that has its own active chapters of Sons and Daughters of the Confederacy. It has a huge evangelical population who belong to mega churches, some of which pastors are strident pro-Trumpists. The "Lost Cause" remains their cause to this day. In the face of these emotionally triggered voters, what are Kelly and David to do?

Vote to uphold the veto and ALL eligible GA Republicans lose hope for even a paltry $600 stimulus check and the "Lost Cause" vote is lost. Surely, political suicide. Vote to override the veto and lose the support of Trump who will ASSUREDLY seek payback and tune up his boycott the "fraudulent election" and the "Lost Causers," making their election chances slim to none. Surely, political suicide.

Loeffler and Perdue have to choose between a sword that will deliver the death of a thousand cuts, or the sword that will eviscerate their political ambitions forever. As a GA Democrat who already voted by mail, I can say popcorn has seldom tasted so good.

U.S. judge orders two Georgia counties to halt voter purge ahead of Senate runoff
Reuters Staff | December 29, 2020

(Reuters) - A federal judge on Monday ordered two Georgia counties to reverse a decision removing thousands of voters from the rolls ahead of Jan. 5 runoff elections that will determine which political party controls the U.S. Senate.

The counties seemed to have improperly relied on unverified change-of-address data to invalidate registrations, the judge, Leslie Abrams Gardner, said in her order filed late on Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia.

...The bulk of the registrations that the counties sought to rescind, more than 4,000 of them, were in Muscogee County, which U.S. President-elect Joe Biden won handily in November, Politico reported politi.co/2L3MGf6.

An additional 150 were from Ben Hill County, which President Donald Trump won by a wide margin, the report added...

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-georgia-senate-idUSKBN2930JI

Acyn Torabi @Acyn | 9:37 PM · Dec 29, 2020:
David Perdue is asked what part of his service as a senator he would like to highlight to voters.
His response is not ideal
1:15 ( https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1344110389861072896 )

#116--helping vets is pretty common for every single congressperson or Senator. It just automatically goes with the job. Really he's not pointing out anything at all---he's just playing himself up as a good guy.

Sam Stein (Daily Beast / MSNBC) samstein | 10:28 AM · Dec 30, 2020:
NEW — Ted Cruz is pocketing the money he is raising on FB ads for the Georgia run offs. He’s not alone, either.

Ted Cruz Is Pocketing The Money He’s Raising For Georgia GOPers. He’s Not Alone.
The runoff is a gold mine for politicians. And now that they can run Facebook ads in Georgia, they’re rushing for it.
https://thedailybeast.com/ted-cruz-is-pocketing-the-money-hes-raising-for-georgi...

>117 lriley:

It's an interesting comment on the militarism of US society that "helping vets" seems to be so high on the agenda, as opposed to helping people, whether people in general or people in need.

#119--it's an ongoing thing that pretty much dates back to WWII and the GI bill. Vets getting help in education, housing, medical care and certain federal job opportunities have been part of it. On the flip side of all of that is the United States govt. for long periods of time denied stuff like PTSD or Agent Orange were things. Asbestos and the ailments from the first war with Iraq or burn pits are other ones they did their level best to dismiss. So lots of vets suffered from these issues for years with no help from anyone.

On a more personal level--I worked with tons of Vietnam vets at the Post Office--numerous of them actually had PTSD--there were those though who would scam the VA with bullshit claims and use their congresspeople and/or Senators for their support and that was almost always successful. Many of them were not combat vets and there wasn't anything really wrong with them--they just saw an opportunity and took advantage. By the same token that's pretty much what the military/industrial complex is all about--selling military brass on bullshit needs and often bribing congresspeople and Senators with shitloads of campaign cash.

>116 margd: , >119 John5918: , >120 lriley:

As the widow and the sister of veterans, I have found that
A. Most of the political yammering about helping vets is just that: yammering. Follow the money and you’ll find the motive: those campaign contributions.

B. Have there been vets who have scammed the system, such as it is? Sure. But those cases, and I’m not denying the reality of those...people who would scam any system if they could, are far, far outnumbered by the service members who have been poorly served by the vast and unwieldy VA.

C. Some difficulties arise from misunderstandings.
People who sign up for and serve 2 or 4 or 6 years are covered under the Veterans Administration, and the coverage applies to the veteran only. Their health coverage before age 65 is, as >120 lriley: hints at, supposed to be directly related to their time and place of service. After the vet reaches 65, the VA uses a sliding income scale to determine the level of care and the payment for that care for all Heath needs. Medicare remains the Primary Insurance.

Those service members who have made the military their career are under a different system, called Tricare. Before age 65, their healthcare, and that of their dependents, is partially subsidized by the government. Premiums and copays apply, although the coverage is still quite generous by US standards. After the vet and/or their spouse reaches age 65, the premiums cease, and there are minimal copays. Again, Medicare remains the Primary Insurer, and Tricare will not pay for services denied by Medicare. Tricare is considered a job benefit for career service members, just like health insurance in the private sector.

I’ll just add that I think the Tricare system is both fair and generous. But one has to take into consideration the sacrifices the veteran and family have made. Not just in terms of serving in danger, which is enough of a sacrifice for anyone, I would think. But also the disruptions to normal family life, the low pay compared to the private sector, and the sometimes irrational decisions and demands the various services make on the individual. The vet’s pension is based strictly on his/her length of service and time in grade.

BREAKING: Perdue Exposed by Close Contact to Covid-19

Five days before election day and if he follows CDC recs (unlikely since he is a mask resistor) he should be in quarantine for 10 days, well past the 5th of January. Today's screening test for him and his wife negative.

Uh oh... Perdue to quarantine after contact with someone who tested positive for Covid-19. Five days till the runo… https://t.co/xau1z0tY8Y
— Andrew Desiderio (Andrew Desiderio)1609445564.0

With current polling showing both Democratic candidates leading their opponents, one has to wonder if this is an admission of defeat and a decision to quietly withdraw from campaigning, and accept the inevitable. Wouldn't that be a stunning exception to Republican wing nuttery?

Stay tuned. The drama continues.

>121 Matke:
".people who would scam any system if they could, are far, far outnumbered by the service members who have been poorly served by the vast and unwieldy VA"
Can you back that claim with some evidence?
"People who sign up for and serve 2 or 4 or 6 years are covered under the Veterans Administration"
If you're worried about misunderstanding this isn't helping. Congress determines who's eligible for VA benefits. Here's a link: https://www.va.gov/healthbenefits/resources/publications/hbco/hbco_basic_eligibi...

Free healthcare is available to former service members for service-connected Heath issues.
I thought I made that clear but perhaps I did not. I’m aware that Congress determines overall eligibility requirements.

https://www.federaldisability.com/legal-services/va-disability/

https://www.va.gov/oig/pubs/VAOIG-18-00469-150.pdf

https://www.stripes.com/something-has-to-change-facing-high-denial-rates-for-va-...

The Lincoln Project @ProjectLincoln | 3:24 PM · Jan 1, 2021:
"Why would you go back and vote in another rigged election?"
#DontVote for #RINOs like @Perduesenate & KLoeffler
#GASEN #StopTheSteal
1:30 ( https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1345103627803877377 )

Early Voting Ends with Record 3M Georgia Voters for US Senate Runoffs

No votes will be counted until polls close at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, but state election data analyzed by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution indicate more ballots have been cast so far by groups and in areas that tend to favor Democrats.

Turnout lagged in rural, conservative congressional districts through Thursday, especially in northwest Georgia where President Donald Trump plans to rally voters on Monday.

Black voters, who generally support Democrats, made up a higher portion of voters so far than in the presidential election.

Republicans are counting on their turnout Tuesday to turn the result in their favor.

Both Republican candidates for the Senate made sure to absent themselves from D.C. to avoid having to vote to overturn Trump's veto of the defense spending bill. Consequently neither was included in Trump's denunciation of "pathetic" aimed at the Republicans who did show up to override. Perdue due to a timely Covid-19 exposure. Loeffler's campaign had no response to questions why she didn't show up. Mechanical difficulties, perhaps?

Loeffler’s aides did not respond to questions about why she missed the vote or her stance on the issue. Although she is in the final days of campaigning in Georgia, she owns a private jet and has adjusted her schedule in the past to accommodate trips to Washington.

Does Trump Know GA Senate Race a 'Lost Cause' Like His Fave American War?

Family Feud between Trump and GA Gov. Kemp turning into out and out civil war. Look at these tweets from the Fading Fool in the WH who skipped out on his own New Year's Eve Party. Of course he did. Hardly anyone came.

Seeing his influence and notoriety drain away must be a real heart-breaker for the Narcissist-in-Chief. I'm wondering if the guy who ran away from his own humiliating holiday party in FL, will ditch at the last minute on his commitment to campaign in the reddest part of the state -- NW GA, where he's scheduled to make an appearance in a last minute desperate appeal. For what purpose, exactly?

Before even discussing the massive corruption which took place in the 2020 Election, which gives us far more votes… https://t.co/2seIXXRoIl
— Donald J. Trump (Donald J. Trump)1609543620.0

....is therefore both illegal and invalid, and that would include the two current Senatorial Elections. In Wisconsi… https://t.co/26IjrqlUOp
— Donald J. Trump (Donald J. Trump)1609543620.0

Does it make sense at all to campaign for an election one has already condemned as "invalid"? Does Trump ever make sense at all?

Revenge against McConnell's insufficient support? Just can't focus on anyone but himself?

Trump Calls Georgia Senate Races ‘Illegal and Invalid’
President Trump continued his assault on election integrity, baselessly claiming the presidential results and the Senate runoffs in Georgia were both invalid — which could complicate G.O.P. efforts to motivate voters.
Richard Fausset | Jan. 1, 2021

President Trump took to Twitter Friday evening to make the unfounded assertion that Georgia’s two Senate races are “illegal and invalid,” an argument that could complicate his efforts to convince his supporters to turn out for Republican candidates in the two runoff races that will determine which party controls the Senate.

The president is set to hold a rally in Dalton, Ga., on Monday, the day before Election Day...

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/01/us/politics/trump-georgia-senate.html

WOW!

‘I just want to find 11,780 votes’: In extraordinary hour-long call, Trump pressures Georgia secretary of state to recalculate the vote in his favor
Amy Gardner | Jan. 3, 2021

President Trump urged fellow Republican Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, to “find” enough votes to overturn his defeat in an extraordinary one-hour phone call Saturday that election experts said raised legal questions.

The Washington Post obtained a recording of the conversation in which Trump alternately berated Raffensperger, tried to flatter him, begged him to act and threatened him with vague criminal consequences if the secretary of state refused to pursue his false claims, at one point warning that Raffensperger was taking “a big risk.”

Throughout the call, Raffensperger and his office’s general counsel rejected Trump’s assertions, explaining that the president is relying on debunked conspiracy theories and that President-elect Joe Biden’s 11,779-vote victory in Georgia was fair and accurate.

...(Trump) “The people of Georgia are angry, the people in the country are angry...And there’s nothing wrong with saying, you know, um, that you’ve recalculated.”

Raffensperger...: “Well, Mr. President, the challenge that you have is, the data you have is wrong.”

...Trump...: “So look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state....There’s no way I lost Georgia...There’s no way. We won by hundreds of thousands of votes.”

Several of his allies were on the line as he spoke, including White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and conservative lawyer Cleta Mitchell, a prominent GOP lawyer whose involvement with Trump’s efforts had not been previously known.

...On Sunday, Trump tweeted that he had spoken to Raffensperger, saying the secretary of state was “unwilling, or unable, to answer questions such as the “ballots under table” scam, ballot destruction, out of state “voters”, dead voters, and more. He has no clue!”

Raffensperger responded with his own tweet: “Respectfully, President Trump: What you’re saying is not true.”

...During their conversation, Trump issued a vague threat to both Raffensperger and Ryan Germany, the secretary of state’s legal counsel, suggesting that if they don’t find that thousands of ballots in Fulton County have been illegally destroyed to block investigators — an allegation for which there is no evidence — they would be subject to criminal liability.

“That’s a criminal offense,” he said. “And you can’t let that happen. That’s a big risk to you and to Ryan, your lawyer.”

Trump also told Raffensperger that failure to act by Tuesday would jeopardize the political fortunes of David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, Georgia’s two Republican senators whose fate in that day’s runoff elections will determine control of the U.S. Senate.

Trump said he plans to talk about the fraud on Monday, when he is scheduled to lead an election eve rally in Dalton, Ga...

“You have a big election coming up and because of what you’ve done to the president — you know, the people of Georgia know that this was a scam,” Trump said. “Because of what you’ve done to the president, a lot of people aren’t going out to vote, and a lot of Republicans are going to vote negative, because they hate what you did to the president. Okay? They hate it. And they’re going to vote. And you would be respected, really respected, if this can be straightened out before the election.”

Trump’s conversation with Raffensperger put him in legally questionable territory, legal experts said. By exhorting the secretary of state to “find” votes and to deploy investigators who “want to find answers,” Trump appears to be encouraging him to doctor the election outcome in Georgia.

But experts said Trump’s clearer transgression is a moral one...

“So tell me, Brad, what are we going to do? We won the election, and it’s not fair to take it away from us like this,” Trump said. “And it’s going to be very costly in many ways. And I think you have to say that you’re going to reexamine it, and you can reexamine it, but reexamine it with people that want to find answers, not people who don’t want to find answers.”

Trump did most of the talking on the call. He was angry and impatient, calling Raffensperger a “child” and “either dishonest or incompetent” for not believing there was widespread ballot fraud in Atlanta — and twice calling himself a “schmuck” for endorsing Kemp, whom Trump holds in particular contempt for not embracing his claims of fraud.

“I can’t imagine he’s ever getting elected again, I’ll tell you that much right now,” he said.

He also took aim at Kemp’s 2018 opponent, Democrat Stacey Abrams, trying to shame Raffensperger with the idea that his refusal to embrace fraud has helped her and Democrats generally. “Stacey Abrams is laughing about you,” he said. “She’s going around saying, ‘These guys are dumber than a rock.’ What she’s done to this party is unbelievable, I tell you.”

The secretary of state repeatedly sought to push back, saying at one point, “Mr. President, the problem you have with social media, that — people can say anything.”

“Oh this isn’t social media,” Trump retorted. “This is Trump media. It’s not social media. It’s really not. It’s not social media. I don’t care about social media. I couldn’t care less.”

At another point, Trump claimed that votes were scanned three times: “Brad, why did they put the votes in three times? You know, they put ’em in three times.”

Raffensperger responded: “Mr. President, they did not. We did an audit of that and we proved conclusively that they were not scanned three times.”

Trump sounded at turns confused and meandering. At one point, he referred to Kemp as “George.” He tossed out several different figures for Biden’s margin of victory in Georgia and referred to the Senate runoff, which is Tuesday, as happening “tomorrow” and “Monday.”

His desperation was perhaps most pronounced during an exchange with Germany, Raffensperger’s general counsel, in which he openly begged for validation.

Trump: “Do you think it’s possible that they shredded ballots in Fulton County? ’Cause that’s what the rumor is. And also that Dominion took out machines. That Dominion is really moving fast to get rid of their, uh, machinery. Do you know anything about that? Because that’s illegal.”

Germany responded: “No, Dominion has not moved any machinery out of Fulton County.”

Trump: “But have they moved the inner parts of the machines and replaced them with other parts?”

Germany: “No.”

Trump: “Are you sure? Ryan?”

Germany: “I’m sure. I’m sure, Mr. President.”

It was clear from the call that Trump has surrounded himself with aides who have fed his false perceptions that the election was stolen. When he claimed that more than 5,000 ballots were cast in Georgia in the name of dead people, Raffensperger responded forcefully: “The actual number was two. Two. Two people that were dead that voted.”

But later, Meadows said, “I can promise you there are more than that.”

Another Trump lawyer on the call, Kurt Hilbert, accused Raffensperger’s office of refusing to turn over data to assess evidence of fraud, and also claimed awareness of at least 24,000 illegally cast ballots that would flip the result to Trump.

“It stands to reason that if the information is not forthcoming, there’s something to hide,” Hilbert said. “That’s the problem that we have.”

...In the end, Trump asked Germany to sit down with one of his attorneys to go over the allegations. Germany agreed.

Yet Trump also recognized that he was failing to persuade Raffensperger or Germany of anything, saying toward the end, “I know this phone call is going nowhere.”

But he continued to make his case in repetitive fashion, until finally, after more than an hour, Raffensperger put an end to the conversation: “Thank you, President Trump, for your time.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-raffensperger-call-georgia-vote/20...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

4:20 audiotape ( https://twitter.com/TrumpsTaxes/status/1345798898607075329 ) !!!!!!

ETA
1:02:04 full audio of Trump-Raffensperger ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/audio-trumps-full-jan-2-call-with-...

ETA:
Transcript ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-raffensperger-call-transcript-geor... )

>131 Earthling1: Are you challenging the existence of the recording? Is that Donald Trump’s voice we hear or not?

>131 Earthling1: Such a clear example of projection in your post.

So much Delusion. Trump's phone call; Looney Looie's lawsuit against Pence (as if he had anything to do with anything); Hawley's kabuki stunt; Navarro's lies about the Constitution having a "10 day window" when it names the date and hour when Trump is a dead lame duck.

And bringing up the rear -- as always -- the Usual Suspect who entertains himself by telling lies and pretending to not need a visit to the Wizard to get a missing organ.

ON TAPE, TRUMP PUSHES GEORGIA TO 'FIND' VOTES

Eric Topol @EricTopol | 12:44 AM · Jan 4, 2021:
A banner headline to remember.
Quite a legacy.

Image--NYT banner headline ( https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1345969282191015936/photo/1 )

------------------------------------------------

Trump, in Taped Call, Pressured Georgia Official to ‘Find’ Votes to Overturn Election
The president vaguely warned of a “criminal offense” as he pressured Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in the call, according to an audio recording.
Michael D. Shear and Stephanie Saul | Jan. 3, 2021

...Legal experts said Mr. Trump might have violated Georgia state laws against solicitation of voter fraud and extortion by seeking to exert pressure on Mr. Raffensperger.

One state law* makes it a felony to “solicit, request, command, importune or otherwise attempt to cause another person to engage in election fraud.” By urging election officials to “find” votes that were not legally cast for him, Mr. Trump could be prosecuted under that law, said Ryan C. Locke, a criminal defense lawyer and former public defender in Atlanta.

...He said Mr. Trump could also be in violation of laws prohibiting extortion. But he and other legal experts said it was unlikely that prosecutors would pursue a case against Mr. Trump in the waning days of his administration...

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/03/us/politics/trump-raffensperger-call-georgia....
________________________________________

* 2016 Georgia Code
Title 21 - Elections
Chapter 2 - Elections and Primaries Generally
Article 15 - Miscellaneous Offenses
§ 21-2-604. Criminal solicitation to commit election fraud; penalties
Universal Citation: GA Code § 21-2-604 (2016)

(a) (1) A person commits the offense of criminal solicitation to commit election fraud in the first degree when, with intent that another person engage in conduct constituting a felony under this article, he or she solicits, requests, commands, importunes, or otherwise attempts to cause the other person to engage in such conduct.

(2) A person commits the offense of criminal solicitation to commit election fraud in the second degree when, with intent that another person engage in conduct constituting a misdemeanor under this article, he or she solicits, requests, commands, importunes, or otherwise attempts to cause the other person to engage in such conduct.

(b) (1) A person convicted of the offense of criminal solicitation to commit election fraud in the first degree shall be punished by imprisonment for not less than one nor more than three years.

(2) A person convicted of the offense of criminal solicitation to commit election fraud in the second degree shall be punished as for a misdemeanor.

(c) It is no defense to a prosecution for criminal solicitation to commit election fraud that the person solicited could not be guilty of the crime solicited.

(d) The provisions of subsections (a) through (c) of this Code section are cumulative and shall not supersede any other penal law of this state.

https://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/2016/title-21/chapter-2/article-15/section-...

___________________________________________________

ETA:
Trump committed a crime under Georgia law -- criminal solicitation of election fraud. As the Supreme Court held in Trump v. Vance (2020), a sitting president is subject to criminal process. So when he enters Georgia, he can be arrested and charged.
- Robert Reich (Berkeley prof, frmr Sec of Labor) @RBReich | 7:25 PM · Jan 3, 2021

-------------------------------------------------------------------
ETA:
BREAKING: #Georgia State Election Board member (only Dem on 5-member board) has asked @GaSecofState Raffensperger to open an investigation into possible civil or CRIMINAL violations in Trump’s phone call, including “solicitation to commit election #fraud,” a FELONY.
Image--e-mail requesting investigation ( https://twitter.com/DrDenaGrayson/status/1345929621024493570/photo/1 )

- Dena Grayson, MD, PhD @DrDenaGrayson | 10:06 PM · Jan 3, 2021

___________________________________________________

EARWORM!
Theme song for Trump rally tonight in Dalton, GA?

The devil went down to Georgia (3:35)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6RUg-NkjY4

Parler Users Defend Trump Threatening Georgia Official to 'Find 11,780 Votes'
Christina Zhao | 1/3/21

As Democrats denounced President Donald Trump for threatening Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to "find votes," supporters on Parler—a "free speech" social media platform—defended Trump on Sunday, and condemned Raffensperger for refusing to help overturn the election results.

..."Nothing less than a public execution will satisfy then subdue the anger Americans have for these politicians that allow our votes to be stolen," one Parler user wrote.

Meanwhile, another Parler poster called for "treasonist jackass" Raffensperger to be hung for refusing to help Trump. "That was you sic last chance to do the right thing Brad you fool!!!" the user wrote...

https://www.newsweek.com/parler-users-defend-trump-threatening-georgia-official-...

Chris Murphy (US Senator) @ChrisMurphyCT | 9:44 PM · Jan 3, 2021:

At the end of the call, the President of the United States repeatedly asks for access to voter data
that he knows is barred to him by law. He wants access to the data through a quiet, back door agreement.

That's a big deal in and of itself.

The Lincoln Project @ProjectLincoln | 11:14 PM · Jan 3, 2021:
#TrumpLost ... he knows it. These are the words of a #Traitor.

1:09 ( https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1345946585532915713 )

The WH made 18 attempts to call GA sec of state Raffensperger
before Trump’s attempted shakedown over the phone Saturday,
a GA state official confirms to CNN.

- Jim Acosta Acosta | 8:42 AM · Jan 4, 2021
____________________________________________________

Context about the Trump call: Raffensperger received the call from the White House on Saturday at 2:41 PM, after the White House switchboard had made 18 previous attempts to have Trump speak with him in the two months since the general election, a source tells @JulesJester

The hour-long conversation was the first time the two spoke directly.

Officials in Raffensperger’s office recorded the call, and he made clear to his advisers he did not want it released unless Trump attacked Georgia officials or misrepresented the conversation, per the source.

The GA secretary of state’s office requested that their general counsel be on the phone call, but the call was not scheduled for the purpose of settling any pending litigation, as falsely alleged by the Georgia Republican State Party Chairman, a source tells @JulesJester

- Geoff Bennett (NBC) @GeoffRBennett | 7:50 AM · Jan 4, 2021·Twitter for iPhone
_____________________________________________________

POLITICO Playbook: The backstory of Trump’s Georgia call
MARC CAPUTO | 01/04/2021

...It started on Saturday when Trump and his team reached out to talk to Raffensperger, who, according to an adviser, felt he would be unethically pressured by the president. Raffensperger had been here before: In November he accused Trump ally and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham of improperly exhorting him to meddle in the election to help Trump win Georgia. Graham later denied it.

So why not record the call with the president, Raffensperger’s advisers thought, if nothing else for fact-checking purposes. “This is a man who has a history of reinventing history as it occurs,” one of them told Playbook. “So if he’s going to try to dispute anything on the call, it’s nice to have something like this, hard evidence, to dispute whatever he’s claiming about the secretary. Lindsey Graham asked us to throw out legally cast ballots. So yeah, after that call, we decided maybe we should do this.”

...Raffensperger’s team kept quiet about the call and the recording and waited. The president made the next move, claiming on Sunday morning via Twitter that Raffensperger was “unwilling, or unable, to answer” questions about his baseless claims of widespread voter fraud. “Respectfully, President Trump: What you're saying is not true,” Raffensperger replied at 10:27 a.m. “The truth will come out.” It wasn’t an empty promise....

https://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook/2021/01/04/the-backstory-of-trumps...

Neat, we got an inside view of "deal-making, the Donald Way". Apparently, it boils down to:
1) Deliver a rambling, incoherent filibuster, then demand that people do what you want.
2) Repeat until they throw you out of their office.

The epic failure that is his career now makes a lot more sense.

>137 Earthling1:

How do you define "recalculate"? Remember, you know you can't recalculate something that's been calculated the same way three times, different ways, and arrived at the same result, within in a 99.9% non-variation. That's called demonstrable accuracy.

Using that word means only one thing in the face of those facts. Find votes that don't exist and add them to my column.

Tell me, why can't you admit in the face of video evidence, mathematical evidence, and certification what Deadbeat Don admitted in the phone call. "I lost in GA. Make up a way for me to win." Why other would he be telling Raffensberger to fabricate votes that don't exist if he doesn't know they don't exist? "All I wanna do is find 1 more vote than I have because we wanna flip the state."

BIGGEST LOSER! -- Donald Trump
_______________________________
EDIT
I should have said been "calculated three times, different ways."

>144 Limelite: Has that user started posting their own ideas, or are they still just pasting snippets swiped from con-job sites?
When I blocked them, they were clearly not defining much of anything for themselves, so your question might be an unfair one.

Consider it rhetorical. Immediately, the issue of fairness goes away.

Friend of mine came up with a nice summary of the Georgia phone call, in haiku form:

Eleven Thousand
Seven Hundred and Eighty
Brad I'll suck your dick

Possible Edit?

"Brad I'll pardon you"

>147 kiparsky: Another possible edit?

"Brad, I'll pardon you AND give you the Presidential Medal of Freedom."

>149 KAzevedo: Reminds me of the old gas man named Peter.

>150 kiparsky: Had to look up the reference. A fitting end, but I fear the meter is broken beyond repair.

>150 kiparsky: Thanks for that!

>150 kiparsky:, >152 KAzevedo:, >153 bnielsen:

Also had to look up the reference. Now I'm fascinated and a bit confused.

Peter Beardsley - The Gas Man Cometh?

Peter Thorburn - The Gas Man?

A limerick?

A decrepit old gas man named Peter,
While hunting around for the meter,
Touched a leak with his light.
He arose out of sight,
And, as anyone can see by reading this, he also destroyed the meter.

Or just good old fashioned Flanders and Swann singing The Gas Man Cometh?

Oh by the way, are we hijacking this thread?

Back on topic: 'Fight like hell': grievance and denialism rule at Trump Georgia rally (Guardian)

Unrepentant president urges voters to support Republicans in the Senate runoffs on Tuesday and veers off script with bogus claims of a stolen election...

>154 John5918: Take this thread to Cuba!

(and yes, the limerick is the reference I had in mind...)

>154 John5918:

Once again the thread is now heading back towards Georgia...

Georgia election: Donald Trump's phone call fact-checked (BBC)

US President Donald Trump spent more than an hour on the phone to election officials in Georgia, as he continues to try to overturn the result in the state. He made a number of accusations of fraud for which he did not provide evidence. We've fact-checked some of his claims...

I won't bother copying and pasting the rest of the article. Those who are interested in broadening their horizons and media sources can check it for themselves.

There really are two justice tracks. Trump, recorded attempting to steal 11, 780 votes in Georgia, will likely go unpunished, while a woman in Texas got FIVE YEARS for casting a single provisional vote while under supervised release for a federal conviction. (The provisional vote was not counted.)

https://www.texastribune.org/2020/12/01/crystal-mason-voting-conviction-texas/