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Category: Politics

Trump-appointed judge rejects Lin Wood’s ‘creative’ election lawsuit in Georgia

Trump-appointed judge rejects Lin Wood’s ‘creative’ election lawsuit in Georgia

Law & Crime reports: A federal judge appointed by President Donald Trump rejected what he called a “creative” lawsuit on Thursday. It was a suit that Georgia’s assistant attorney general warned would cause the Peach State’s largest disenfranchisement since the Jim Crow era. “To halt the certification at literally the 11th hour would breed confusion and disenfranchisement that I find have no basis in fact and law,” U.S. District Judge Steven Grimberg declared at the end of a roughly two-and-a-half…

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Trump tax write-offs are ensnared in two New York fraud investigations

Trump tax write-offs are ensnared in two New York fraud investigations

The New York Times reports: Two separate New York State fraud investigations into President Trump and his businesses, one criminal and one civil, have expanded to include tax write-offs on millions of dollars in consulting fees, some of which appear to have gone to Ivanka Trump, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The inquiries — a criminal investigation by the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., and a civil one by the state attorney general, Letitia James…

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Pence sees ‘great progress’ as pandemic worsens nationwide

Pence sees ‘great progress’ as pandemic worsens nationwide

Politico reports: Vice President Mike Pence on Thursday touted “great progress” against the coronavirus pandemic during the first White House task force briefing in months as the country experiences record-high cases, hospitalizations and deaths. “America has never been more prepared to combat this virus than we are today,” Pence told reporters. He declined to take questions despite the worsening crisis and tensions following the presidential election, even as President Donald Trump’s refusal to concede could hamper the fight against coronavirus….

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Biden fires an early warning shot at Wall Street

Biden fires an early warning shot at Wall Street

CNN reports: Elizabeth Warren’s fingerprints are all over the Biden transition, much to Wall Street’s dismay. President-elect Joe Biden’s agency review teams include several people who share Warren’s reputation for being tough on the financial industry. It’s more evidence of the influence of Warren, a fierce opponent of big banks and the excesses of Wall Street — as well as an early signal that Wall Street will be under much greater scrutiny, especially compared to four years of President Donald…

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Trump’s racist appeals powered a White evangelical tsunami

Trump’s racist appeals powered a White evangelical tsunami

Dana Milbank writes: As partisans and analysts puzzle over the higher-than-expected turnout for President Trump (nearly 6 million fewer votes than for President-elect Joe Biden, but still high), they are poring over groups and subgroups: White, non-college-educated men. Suburban women. Young Black men. But much of the Trump 2020 phenomenon can be explained by a far simpler way of looking at the electorate: There are White evangelical Christians — and there is everybody else. White evangelicals are only 15 percent…

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Firing Christopher Krebs crosses a line — even for Trump

Firing Christopher Krebs crosses a line — even for Trump

Garrett M Graff writes: Within minutes of Donald Trump tweeting that he had fired Christopher Krebs as the director of the Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity agency Tuesday night, Twitter slapped on a warning label that the accompanying claim about electoral fraud “is disputed.” The disinformation warning was, in some ways, a fitting denouement to a two-week-long battle between Krebs, the head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and his boss in the Oval Office. Ultimately, Krebs’ mission to…

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‘Confusion and chaos’: Republicans denounce Trump’s latest purge

‘Confusion and chaos’: Republicans denounce Trump’s latest purge

Politico reports: Sen. Shelley Moore Capito was scheduled to speak with the government’s top cybersecurity official on Wednesday. But the night before, Christopher Krebs was cast out of a job. “I was going to tell him thank you for a good job” helping to secure the 2020 election, Capito (R-W.Va.) said after checking her schedule to see if the call was still on. “I’m still going to tell him that — just not today.” President Donald Trump on Tuesday evening…

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The disturbing GOP attempt to block certification of Biden’s Michigan win

The disturbing GOP attempt to block certification of Biden’s Michigan win

Vox reports: Republican officials in Wayne County, Michigan, made a stunning move to block the certification of their presidential election results Tuesday — but backed down a few hours later amid intense criticism. Wayne County is the largest county in the state, it includes the city of Detroit (where the vast majority of the population is Black), and it votes heavily for Democrats. As with all Michigan counties, its election results go to a bipartisan board of canvassers for certification…

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Trump campaign officials started pressuring Georgia’s secretary of state long before the election

Trump campaign officials started pressuring Georgia’s secretary of state long before the election

ProPublica reports: Long before Republican senators began publicly denouncing how Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger handled the voting there, he withstood pressure from the campaign of Donald Trump to endorse the president for reelection. Raffensperger, a Republican, declined an offer in January to serve as an honorary co-chair of the Trump campaign in Georgia, according to emails reviewed by ProPublica. He later rejected GOP requests to support Trump publicly, he and his staff said in interviews. Raffensperger said he…

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Gobal warming by the numbers because this week the reality is too much

Gobal warming by the numbers because this week the reality is too much

Bill McKibben writes: Sometimes the human trauma of the climate crisis is too painful to recite, and this is one of those times: the busiest hurricane season ever recorded is continuing on into the late fall, with consequences so horrifying one can hardly stand to look. Right now, Hurricane Iota is mashing Central America; it will likely be a few days before we know the precise results. So let’s talk about what has already happened in Honduras, when Hurricane Eta…

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Trump fires director of DHS agency who had rejected President’s election conspiracy theories

Trump fires director of DHS agency who had rejected President’s election conspiracy theories

CNN reports: President Donald Trump on Tuesday fired the Department of Homeland Security official who had rejected Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud. Trump announced on Twitter he was firing Chris Krebs, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and directly tied it to Krebs’ statement that said there “is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.” “The recent statement by Chris Krebs on the security of…

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Trump ‘suppressed’ his own voting base by opposing absentee ballots, says Georgia’s secretary of state

Trump ‘suppressed’ his own voting base by opposing absentee ballots, says Georgia’s secretary of state

WSB-TV reports: Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has started firing back after more than a week of criticism from President Donald Trump. Raffensperger says it was the president’s own attacks on absentee ballots that cost him the election in Georgia. “He would have won by 10,000 votes. He actually suppressed, depressed his own voting base,” Raffensperger said. The Secretary of State said some 24,500 Georgia Republicans who voted absentee in the June primary, didn’t vote in the general election. Raffensperger…

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In the Trump era, Real Clear Politics changed its tone, and funding sources

In the Trump era, Real Clear Politics changed its tone, and funding sources

The New York Times reports: For three days after every major news organization declared Joseph R. Biden Jr. the victor of the presidential election, one widely read political site maintained that Pennsylvania was still too close to call. The delay was welcome news to allies of President Trump like Rudolph W. Giuliani and friendly outlets like The Gateway Pundit, which misrepresented the site’s decision in their efforts to spread false claims that Mr. Biden’s lead was unraveling. That site, Real…

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The Republican Party is dead. It’s the Trump cult now

The Republican Party is dead. It’s the Trump cult now

Jonathan V. Last writes: Donald Trump is the past, present, and future of the Republican Party. And that is because the GOP is no longer a traditional political party designed to win elections so that it can enact a policy agenda. It is a personality cult built around grievance. To understand its true nature, you must first understand how weak Trump was as an electoral force. It is devilishly hard to unseat an elected president. Trump is only the third…

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Georgia secretary of state says fellow Republicans are pressuring him to find ways to exclude legal ballots

Georgia secretary of state says fellow Republicans are pressuring him to find ways to exclude legal ballots

The Washington Post reports: Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Monday that he has come under increasing pressure in recent days from fellow Republicans, including Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.), to question the validity of legally cast absentee ballots in an effort to reverse President Trump’s narrow loss in the state. In a wide-ranging interview about the election, Raffensperger expressed exasperation over a string of baseless allegations coming from Trump and his allies about the integrity of the Georgia…

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Trump coronavirus adviser tells Michigan to ‘rise up’ against new shutdown orders

Trump coronavirus adviser tells Michigan to ‘rise up’ against new shutdown orders

The Washington Post reports: On Sunday, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) announced a three-week “pause to save lives,” closing colleges, high schools, workplaces and in-person dining as new coronavirus cases have spiked. After she appealed to the Trump administration to intervene in the pandemic, White House coronavirus adviser Scott Atlas responded with a call to action. But instead of supporting Whitmer’s efforts to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus in Michigan, he urged residents to reject the state’s public…

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