Attention to the Unseen

Saundra Torry writes: A handful of once-obscure state officials have shown the country that they have something that too many national Republican leaders lack: A backbone. As they go about what’s usually the routine business of certifying election results, these officials have been thrust into the position of guarding our democracy from President Donald Trump’s schemes to ignore the votes of nearly 80 million Americans who voted for Joe Biden and snatch the election from the former vice president. While…

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The Guardian reports: After reports first emerged on Sunday night that Antony Blinken would be US secretary of state in the Biden administration, one particular interview from his past began circulating on social media. It was a September 2016 conversation with Grover, a character from Sesame Street, on the subject of refugees, directed at American children who might have new classmates from faraway countries. “We all have something to learn and gain from one another even when it doesn’t seem…

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CNBC reports: President Donald Trump is sweating over his campaign lawyers’ dismal and often outlandish efforts to reverse President-elect Joe Biden’s projected electoral victory. Trump is worried that his campaign’s legal team, which is being led by his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, is composed of “fools that are making him look bad,” NBC News reported Monday. That group, which has unironically called itself an “elite strike force team,” to date has failed to win any legal victories that would invalidate…

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The Washington Post reports: A group of leading GOP national security experts — including former homeland security secretary Tom Ridge — urged congressional Republicans on Monday to demand President Trump concede the election and immediately begin the transition to the incoming Biden administration. “President Trump’s refusal to permit the presidential transition poses significant risks to our national security, at a time when the U.S. confronts a global pandemic and faces serious threats from global adversaries, terrorist groups, and other forces,”…

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The New York Times reports: Concerned that President Trump’s refusal to accept the election results is hurting the country, more than 160 top American executives asked the administration on Monday to immediately acknowledge Joseph R. Biden Jr. as the president-elect and begin the transition to a new administration. Even one of Mr. Trump’s stalwart supporters, Stephen A. Schwarzman, the chief executive of Blackstone, the private equity firm, said in a statement that “the outcome is very certain today and the…

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The New York Times reports: As President Trump brazenly seeks to delay the certification of the election in hopes of overturning his defeat, he is also mounting a less high-profile but similarly audacious bid to keep control of the Republican National Committee even after he leaves office. Ronna McDaniel, Mr. Trump’s handpicked chairwoman, has secured the president’s support for her re-election to another term in January, when the party is expected to gather for its winter meeting. But her intention…

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Politico reports: President Donald Trump has spent the three weeks since he lost the election savaging a pair of GOP governors for not backing his claims he was robbed. Republicans are worried it’s just the start of what’s in store from the soon-to-be-former president. Trump’s attacks on Govs. Brian Kemp of Georgia and Mike DeWine Ohio — both of whom are up for reelection in 2022 — has led to broader concerns within the party that he will use his…

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Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, writes: Georgia’s elections have received a lot of unfair and unwarranted criticism over the past two years, much of it spurred by disinformation. The successful November election and the smooth hand recount have proved our critics wrong. Since I took office, we have made great strides in improving election security, reliability and efficiency in Georgia. After years of disastrous elections in Fulton County, we effectively eliminated voting lines. This Election Day, voters waited on…

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