Sunday School 11/29/20: Extra Credit

In yesterday's Sunday School, we heard from a couple of retired admirals and a current Republican Senator. In your Extra Credit today, we'll wander through some of the other classroom conversations, starting with some of the panel discussion on Meet the Press.

On that count, Hugh Hewitt (Salem Radio Network) said that "every day" he talked to folks who believe "there's massive fraud in Georgia." He tells them that's not true, and that they have to vote in the primary. He also said that people are undervaluing the intelligence of the president's voters.

They're very sophisticated. They know President Trump is as of today planning on running for election in 2024 against President-elect Biden. And he's doing things consistent with that. And I think he is going to spend the next four years underscoring the big successes of his tenure, including Operation Warp Speed...  He's going to emphasize his military rebuild, the Supreme Court, he's going to emphasize conservative realism versus Chinese Communist Party and The Abraham Accords. So, he's just setting up a campaign that's already begun. And I wouldn't be surprised, Chuck, if on or before the inauguration of President Biden, he announces Trump 2024 is formed and it's off to the races.

And finally, here's Michael Eric Dyson (Vanderbilt University), talking about the potential long-term damage from Trump's dog whistles about "the cities." 

Look at, he's attacking Detroit: 79% Black. He's attacking Atlanta: 52% Black. He's attacking Philadelphia: 42% Black. He's attacking Milwaukee: 39% Black. So we get what he's doing here. He's trying to have his cake and eat it too, so to speak. He wants to -- he has an uptick in voting among African-American people by 5% among Black men, 4% among Black women. And yet, at the same time, he wants to be able to whistle to white supremacists and white nationalists that he is still their guy and that he will continue to send out the notion that somehow this is a fraud, the fraud is related to race, race is, itself, illegitimate, and as a result of that, you, as a white person, have every reason in the world, regardless of your stratification, whether you're making, you know, $100 million a year or whether you're barely making $10,000, to “vote for me because I'm your guy.” This is destructive to the process of American democracy and one of the most powerful repudiations of enlightenment. Here's a guy who's anti-science, he's anti-race, he's anti-everything that makes this country, it seems, the very great thing he wants to make it.

Quite the interesting approach Trump is taking, wouldn't you agree?

Down the hall in the Fox News Sunday classroom (with Bret Baier sitting in for Chris Wallace), Jason Riley (Wall Street Journal/Fox News) talked about 'pandemic fatigue' and a fear of more shutdowns.

I think talk of a shutdown is just crazy talk at this point. I mean we lost more than 20 million jobs during the first shutdown. We saw depression era unemployment rates. The idea that we would want to return to that. You know, third quarter economic growth was record-breaking, more than 30%. The fourth quarter is off to a very good start. You see optimism among investors in the stock market. Why we are even talking about a shutdown? I think is just ridiculous. And we -- you're right about the fatigue as well among people -- COVID fatigue, as they call it, and we saw more holiday travel than I think a lot of people were expecting and that reflects the COVID fatigue.

But it also, I think, reflects the fact that people see these elected officials not following their own public health edicts. And people say to themselves, well, you know, I look at Governor Newsom out in California, I look at Andrew Cuomo in New York, I look at the -- the mayor of Denver and they don't seem to be following what they're telling us to do. I – you know, I think all those elected officials take this seriously. They're just weighing the risks and taking precautions and saying, you know, if I get it, I'll be OK. We know better now how to treat it. We've got a vaccine around the corner. Trust the American people to make those same decisions. And, of course, the Supreme Court has now told us that just because there's a pandemic doesn't mean our civil liberties can be -- can be suspended. So I think people are taking that in mind too.

Juan Williams (Fox News) addressed the SCOTUS decision Riley mentioned.

And so what you saw was a 5-4 decision with the newest justice, Amy Coney Barrett, casting the deciding vote. So I'm thinking she maybe even wrote the opinions suggesting that in New York specifically that you cannot put a limit on what goes on in terms of religious gatherings, the synagogues and the churches. And I think that people there -- you know, the reason it was such a close decision, 5-4, is because, you know, you have to take into consideration, we're in the middle of a public health crisis. So, you know, the -- it becomes a matter of weighing one side versus the other. I mean we clearly have a right to gather in terms of religious practices. But at the same time, you have to take into consideration the spreading of something that could cost -- cost us dearly in terms of human life, which is, of course, you know, in all religions, sacrosanct.

Susan Page (USA Today) talked about the Senate and the importance of the Georgia runoffs to the Republicans.

Oh, no kidding. A Senate with 50 Republicans is very different from a Senate with 51 Republicans. It makes all the difference for Republicans' ability to shape who President-elect Biden can appoint two key jobs, what kind of relief package for coronavirus might finally get through the Congress, whether major proposals that we've seen pass the House and get stalled in the Senate might have a chance of going through. It is a different world in Washington depending on who wins these two seats in Georgia. You'd assume that Republicans would be favored because Republicans hold every statewide office in Georgia and yet that's not the case. These are very competitive elections in part because of some legal problems that -- some ethics investigations that the two Republican incumbents are facing on stock trade. This is a big deal. So you can tell how concerned Republicans are, although you don't really see that reflected as a top priority at the moment, I think, of President Trump.

Williams had the last word, on Biden's announced Cabinet picks. 

Well, you know, remember, I think many people see him as having campaigned, Bret, to bring government back to boring and normal. And I think so far that's what we've seen in terms of his reaction to President Trump's intransigence, difficulty in approving of the transition process.

But I think I've been keeping an eye more on the cabinet appointments. And, again, the appointments have been middle-of-the-road. They are appointments that I think, for the most part, even a Republican majority, a Senate could approve those nominees. I'm keeping an eye on the attorney general who's yet to be -- that person has yet to be named. But if you're looking at people like Xavier Becerra, now attorney general of California, Sally Yates, the former deputy, if you're looking at people like Amy Klobuchar even, the former senator, I think you're looking at a more aggressive approach. On the other hand, if you look at people like Doug Jones or Merrick Garland, I think more pragmatic.

It's going to be interesting to see if Biden goes pushes the envelope a little with any of his remaining picks, or if he focuses on people who have the best chance of being confirmed. 

See you around campus, masks on, of course. 

Trump in Transition (v47)

If you had said to me, at any point since I started this blog in 2009, that one day I'd be talking about the president and massive dumps, I would likely have thought it was a challenge to create a steaming pile of crap, a bargeful of garbage, as it were, out of the news of the day. You know, like the MOBRO 4000, or something. 

Remember that? Back in 1987, folks out on Long Island wanted to ship a bargeful of garbage to North Carolina for disposal, thinking it a cheaper option. North Carolina didn't want it; neither did Louisiana, Texas, or Florida. Or Belize. Mexico and Cuba even threatened to shoot at the poor barge if it tried to dock. 

Finally, two months and some 6,000 miles later, the garbage came home and ended up, post-incineration, in an Islip landfill. The whole thing prompted this comment from R. Lawrence Swanson, director of the Waste Reduction and Management Institute at Stony Brook University.

I think the garbage barge is an excellent reminder of what can happen when we put the environment sort of off to the side and say, "we don't have to worry about it."

But here I am, 33 years later, remembering the MOBRO 4000, and writing about massive dumps. And I didn't even have to make these up - because yesterday the president called in to the Sunday Morning Futures show on Fox to talk with Maria Bartiromo, once a respected reporter. I'll let you decide whether this interview helps or hurts Bartiromo's reputation. Here's the first question, and the president's response. 

Mr. President, you have said many times that this election was rigged, that there was much fraud, and the facts are on your side. Let's start there. Please go through the facts. Characterize what took place.

Well, first of all, I have to start by saying the whole world is watching, and nobody can believe what they're seeing. And you have leaders of countries that call me, say, that's the most messed-up election we have ever seen. You start with these machines that have been suspect, not allowed to be used in Texas, the Dominion machines, where tremendous reports have been put out.

We have affidavits on -- from many people talking about what went on with machines. They had glitches. You know what a glitch is. That's -- a glitch is supposed to be when a machine breaks down. Well, no, we had glitches where they moved thousands of votes from my account to Biden's account. And these are glitches. So, they're not glitches. They're theft. They're fraud, absolute fraud. And there were many of them, but, obviously, most of them tremendous amounts, got by without us catching. We got lucky to catch them. I think we caught four or five glitches of about 5,000 votes each, and different states. And, again, they're not glitches.

That was fraud. And they got caught. But, for the most part, they got away with it. And what happened, if you watched the election, I was called by the biggest people, saying, congratulations, political people. Congratulations, sir. You just won the election. It was 10:00. And you looked at the numbers. And I'm sure you felt that way. This election was over. And then they did dumps. They call them dumps, big, massive dumps, in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and all over. If you take a look at -- you just take a look at just about every state that we're talking about, every swing state that we're talking about.

And they did these massive dumps of votes. And, all of a sudden, I went from winning by a lot to losing by a little. And, in some cases, it took a period of time to do it. North Carolina, they couldn't do it. I won North Carolina. They couldn't -- somehow, they had a better system. But they couldn't do anything. I believe they tried. We have affidavits. But they couldn't do anything with the -- really a great place, North Carolina. We appreciate the incredible work they put in. And we won. But they did tens of thousands of -- tens of thousands of Biden votes. And, all of a sudden, I went from -- and I could tell you, the people that were calling me congratulating me are people that you know very well, friends of your show.

They said, it's over. I said, well, I hear bad things about the machines. I hear bad things about corruption. One of your great pollsters, who actually got it right -- you know the gentleman I'm talking about -- he said, well, Trump is going to win Pennsylvania, but you have to allow at least 5 percent for cheating, because they cheat. Right. And that's in Philadelphia and various areas around Philadelphia. They cheat, and they cheat like crazy. So, we have him winning Pennsylvania, but you have to allow five points for cheating. This is a terrible thing that's happened. The mail-in ballots were -- are a disaster. They sent millions and millions and millions of mail-in ballots.

I'm sure you know people that got two, three, or four, because I do, where they said, you know, we got four ballots. They got one at a country home. Dead people were seeing ballots. But, even worse, dead people were applying to get a ballot. They were making application to get ballots, many. And, you know, we're not talking about 10 people. We're talking - there are a lot of dead people that so-called voted in this election. But dead people were, in some cases, in many, many cases, thousands of cases, voted, but also dead people made application to vote. They were dead 10 years, 15 years, and they actually made application. This is total fraud.

 And how the FBI and Department of Justice -- I don't know. Maybe they are involved. But how people are allowed to get away from this stuff -- with this stuff is unbelievable. This election was rigged. This election was a total fraud. And it continues to be, as they hide. And the problem we have, we go to judges, and people don't want to get involved.

The media doesn't even want to cover it. I mean, you're doing something. You're actually very brave, because you're doing something. The media doesn't want to talk about it. They know how fraudulent this is. It's no different than Hunter. It's no different than Hunter. They don't want to talk about Hunter, so they totally closed it off, big tech and the media, other than The New York Post, as you remember, which took a lot of heat. Yes.  It was terminated. It was terminated from – Yes. -- I guess, Twitter, maybe Facebook. But it's a situation, the likes of which -- we don't have freedom of the press in this country. We have suppression by the press. They suppress. You can't have a scandal if nobody reports about it. This is the greatest fraud in the history of our country, from an electoral standpoint.

And I guess you could build it up bigger than an electoral stand -- what's bigger from an electoral standpoint? What is bigger than this? This is the essence of our country. This is the whole ball game. And they cheated. Joe Biden did not get 80 million votes. Now, we were -- we were planning -- we -- I got 63 million votes four years ago and won quite handily in the Electoral College, won quite handily. We did very well. I got 63. We were hoping to get 68 or so. And we felt that was a path to an easy victory. I got 74 million votes – Yes. -- the largest in the history of a sitting president, so much more, many millions more than anyone thought -- you know, than we were even trying to get. And everybody said, this is over. I'm telling you, at 10:00, everybody thought it was over. Right. And then the phony -- then the phony mail-ins started coming in, Maria. But, just so you understand, I got 74 million votes. It was over. And then mail-in started happening. Yes. Glitches started happening. This election was rigged. This election is a total fraud.

Here's another exchange, late in the interview, in which Bartiromo actually tried to question the president, instead of just encouraging him. I'm guessing she was running out of time. 

Mr. President, confirm that your cases will reach the Supreme Court in the next two weeks. Confirm that for us. And, also, what do you want to say to people like -- businesspeople like, for example, Jamie Dimon, the CEO of J.P. Morgan, who said, it's time to move on and unify and accept the results, or Stephen Schwarzman, who is a supporter of you, who said, soon, we will have to move on? And what about the ramifications of the Supreme Court agreeing with you? Are you worried that we could see riots and -- when you have people who don't agree with you, they think it's just fine to throw bricks through your window and force small businesses to board up. Are you worried about unrest and rioting should the Supreme Court agree with you?

So, the people that we have and the people that are so committed to this like I have never seen, I think almost they have more spirit now than they do even before the election. All of the people, these are not rioting types. But they are stronger. They are smarter. They are more successful. Antifa is bad news. Nobody wants to do anything with Antifa except me. If I wasn't here, Antifa would be running this country right now. They'd be running the country. They always like to blame the radical right. It's not the radical right. It's the radical left. And it's largely Antifa and groups like this. And nobody even wants to talk about them.

Nobody wants to talk about what they're doing in Portland and what they're doing in Chicago and what they're doing in New York. And they club people over the heads when nobody is looking, and then nobody talks about it. It's a disgrace. It's absolutely a disgrace. And if I'm not here -- I'm sort of your wall.

You know, we're completing the wall, like I said I would. Everyone said, you would never be able to do it. I got -- that's another one I got built. And it's had a huge impact. We have the best numbers we have ever had on the Southern border. People come in, but they come in legally. But the wall is almost complete. And, to be honest, we look, and we see all of the different problems, MS-13. We take care of it. We bring thousands of MS-13 back to where they came from. We don't want them here. We bring them back. But Antifa is a real problem in this country. And nobody wants to take them on. It's disgraceful. It's disgraceful.

Which cases specifically will reach the Supreme Court, and when? Well, the problem is, it's hard to get into the Supreme Court. I have got the best Supreme Court advocates, lawyers, that want to argue the case, if it gets there. But they said it's very hard to get a case up there. Can you imagine? Donald Trump, president of the United States, files a case, and I probably can't get a case, even with -- and we have tremendous proof.

We have hundreds and hundreds of affidavits, sworn affidavits. And it's very hard to get a case to the Supreme Court. That's what everybody is fighting for. I thought that Mike Kelly, congressman, I thought they had a great case, and it got thrown out the other day. Now, they will appeal it, I hope, to the Supreme Court. They have a great case, because the legislature didn't make the decision on this stuff. And they have a great case. But you have to appeal it. The big thing is, can you get it? We could have a great case. We do have a great case. We have the greatest case ever. We have many different forms of fraud. It's not just one form.

It's ballot fraud. It's -- it's many -- we have it all documented. And we have tremendous evidence. So, we will say, we want to show you the evidence. And then the judge will say, they didn't show us the evidence. That's what we want to do. We want to have hearings to show the evidence. The time people started seeing evidence was in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, when people started showing it. You probably saw that. Great people came forward with affidavits, signed affidavits. We have hundreds of people like that, hundreds and hundreds. They make it like we don't have evidence. So -- We have evidence all over the place. But -- And, by the way, you asked about the machines, Dominion. Is there a path to victory? Yes, I hope so, for the good of the country. It will take a brave judge or a brave legislature. You know, we're -- Rudy Giuliani, he takes a lot of heat. Let me tell you, that guy is -- he has guts, because we have had lawyers that were afraid to go forward because they were threatened, viciously threatened.

They -- we have lawyers, Maria, good lawyers, that had to leave the case in the middle because they were threatened, absolutely threatened, both psychologically and otherwise. And they left the case, numerous, numerous firms, good firms doing a good job. And, all of a sudden, we end up having to scramble to get a case ready. What's going on has never -- nobody has ever seen anything like this. It will take a brave judge or justice, or both, Supreme Court justice.

Well, it sounds like, if you can't -- if -- it sounds like, if you can't be heard by the Supreme Court, you lose. Do you believe you will win this? We should be heard by the Supreme Court. Something has to be able to get up there. Otherwise, what is the Supreme Court? If election fraud at the highest level anyone has ever seen, with tremendous evidence, in a presidential election, if a man gets 80 million votes, and he's not even close to that number, Maria -- look, again, I don't want to bore you with this. He did not beat President Obama in areas where they said he beat President Obama. In fact, the black community had very little enthusiasm for Joe Biden. You know that. You have been reporting on that, very little enthusiasm for Joe Biden. The Hispanic community has very little enthusiasm for Joe Biden. He didn't get those numbers. And, by the way, I got the most -- I was the most successful with the Hispanic and the black communities. I was unbelievably successful. You saw that, record, record numbers. Yes. Oh, we have talked about that a lot. So, how did Joe Biden get all these votes? How did he get up to 80 million? How did he get up to 80 million votes? Yes.

In between those two exchanges, there were more dumps, massive dumps, from the president. At one point he claimed that he came up with vaccines, and that the media was going to give Joe Biden the credit. 

Honestly, that's in there, along with additional, lengthy attacks on the voting, on the media, on tech firms, and much more MOBRO 4000 type garbage, massively dumped. In my opinion, R. Lawrence Swanson's statement about the garbage barge up top, with only minor changes, can apply to our current situation.

I think the massive dumps interview is an excellent reminder of what can happen when we put the wrong person in the Oval Office, and leave him sort of out there and say, "we don't have to worry about him."

I sure hope we've learned our lesson, and that we never park a MOBRO 4000 on Pennsylvania Avenue again.

Sunday School 11/29/20

Welcome back, students. I hope you enjoyed your Thanksgiving break - I know I enjoyed mine. And honestly? It was nice to leave you alone for a few days, don't you agree? 

I mean, we all know what's been going on: the president has been whining, golfing, lying, and threatening people. Joe Biden announced some cabinet picks. Crazy lawyers have been holding whacky press conferences. Talking heads have been talking. In a nutshell, the usual suspects are acting in the usual manner - this script writes itself. 

But now we're back, so let's pick it up again, starting with Chuck Todd and his interview with Adm. Mike Mullen (Ret.), who served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs under both Dubya and Barack Obama, in the Meet the Press classroom. 

Mullen thinks the assassination of Iranian scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh makes it "much more challenging" for Joe Biden vis a vis the Iran nuclear deal; he also noted "there's an Israeli component" here, not in the context of allegations that Israel was behind the killing. Rather, he thinks the Israelis will do whatever they can to make sure Iran never gets a nuclear weapon. He hopes Biden can deal with the treaty and that he can "calm the waters" between the two countries.

Mullen's concerned about who's in the Pentagon,  and the people who were fired or left. 

...There are some real Trump loyalists there now, in charge, and it's pretty difficult to think that over the course of 50 or 60 days you can do something constructive, but you can do something that's really destructive. 

He said that he'd "be concerned" that issues will be raised like the one that was widely reported about a debate on taking some kind of action against Iran (Trump nixed that, we were told). He also said "we need to be very careful with" troop draw-downs.

The reality is, on the ground in places like Somalia and Afghanistan, there are still terrorists who would do us ill, and I want to play, actually, the game on their turf, and not play it here. 

And, he said, he learned on the Bush II to Obama transition that a president shouldn't be boxing in the incoming president, you want "to give (him) as many options and as much space as possible." And that, he said is "obviously the opposite case right now."

So, it appears that the current administration is trying to lock in as many options as -- as many issues as possible to make it much more difficult for President-elect Biden to govern. And actually, historically, that has just never been the case

His concern with that, and the late start that the Biden team has? 

I think, our allies, our friends, and our enemies look at us at a time of real fragility in that regard, and our enemies always try to look and take advantage of a transition period.

Next, let's move on to CNN's State of the Union classroom, where Dana Bash talked with Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO), the chair of the Senate Rules Committee (it oversees elections.) Blunt refused to come right out and say that he accepts that Joe Biden is the President-elect. I've added some emphasis. Here's his first dodge.

Well, we are certainly moving forward as if that what is going to happen on January the 20th...But the president wants to see this process play out. The president-elect technically has to be elected president by the electors. That happens in the middle of December. And then, January the 6th, I'm one of the four members of the Congress that participates in the joint session that decides that those electoral votes are fully accepted. And, of course, that is when this process is over, when those votes are accepted and counted.

And, he said, transition money's been released, and folks are "working with the Biden administration, likely administration, on both the transition and the inauguration, as if we are moving forward."

Bash picked up on his "likely administration' comment and said, "So, is it safe to say that you do consider Joe Biden the president-elect?" Again,

Well, the president-elect will be the president-elect when the electors vote for him. There is no official job president-elect... And I think I'm on a list of -- that you're keeping at your network of Republican senators who haven't yet acknowledged that there's a president-elect, as if that's a significant thing.

Bash said it's not just the title of 'President-elect,' it's that Trump lost, he's losing the lawsuits, states are certifying the votes, "and, maybe even more importantly, the president is undermining the democratic process by talking about fraud that nobody can find..."  Blunt's response?

Well... We're at about -- we're at about the end of that process. And when that - when the states have certified, when this process is over, that's when you come to a conclusion. That's why these things are set up in that way.

And, he said, our democratic processes are strong enough to handle this crap (not in so many words, of course), and that he hopes Georgia Republicans go out and vote in the runoff, and "the president says he is going to Georgia next Saturday, so he must be thinking that voters need to vote as well."

He also he wishes that people would have been able to see that signatures were being checked in Pennsylvania, noting that

When you send ballots out to people that you don't know if they are still there or not, and they come back and you don't check the signatures, that is a huge problem."

Here's Bash putting a 'put that in your pipe and smoke it' kind of exclamation point on that part of their conversation.

OK. And, Senator, just to put a button on that, there is no evidence that people didn't see signatures. In fact, the state Supreme Court and now federal court have both thrown out the notion that that didn't happen. 

Finally, Martha Raddatz talked with another defense expert, Adm. William McRaven (Ret.), in ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos classroom. McRaven has not been shy in speaking out against Trump's leadership, in announcing his vote for Joe Biden, or that he's briefed the President-elect. McRaven's like Fauci - he's served under six presidents.

Talking about the murder of Fakhrizadeh, he suggests retaliation is almost inevitable, since they know or suspect that Israel was involved.

I don't see any way around it. They -- they're going to have to save face. And so now the issue becomes, what does that retaliation look like? Does that then begin to escalate the problems in the region? And that's going (not)to be good for anybody. The Iranians don't want to war with us. We don't want to go to war with Iran. So everybody needs to do the best they can to kind of lower the temperature and -- and try not to get this into an escalation mode.

McRaven shares Mullen's concerns about Trump having "taken out all the leadership in the Department of Defense," and replaced them with inexperienced people. And he's also concerned about the troop draw-downs, and more.

But what it appears is that this new administration in the Department of Defense is really rushing to get a lot of Trump's agenda resolved before a President Biden comes in.

He says "the rest of the world, of course, is just looking for a Biden administration to come in," and that they've been concerned for a long time about Trump.

And, frankly, if we are going to move forward, if this new national security team is going to move forward, they are going to need strong alliances. They are going to need a strong NATO. They are going to need strong partnerships with the ASEAN nations, for the African Union. 

He listed all the agreements and organizations we've abandoned, including the WHO, the TPP, the Paris Climate Accord, and the Open Skies treaty. And that's a problem.

... if we don’t abide by our own treaties, if we don’t recognize and support our own treaties, then who in the international community is going to want to partner with us in the future? So, President Trump has been playing a short game, I would offer. I hope President Biden will come in, strengthen these alliances, strengthen these coalitions, get back in to some of these organizations, as imperfect as they might be, and begin to play the long game.

On Biden's cabinet picks, which Raddatz suggested was a kind of 'back to the future' slate of nominees, McRaven disagrees. 

...this new group of national security professionals coming in are incredibly experienced, incredibly talented and they know each other. And that’s an important factor when it comes to working together. But they are going to approach these issues differently than certainly the Trump administration did, and I would offer to some degree differently than the Obama administration did.

As Raddatz said, "it will be a very interesting time." She's right about that.

See you around campus, assuming you're not in yellow zone or a red zone or under some other non-color-coded restriction. Be smart. Wear your mask. And if one of your elected officials says one thing about how to behave, but does another, please - yell at them, of course, but do as they say, not as they do.  

Be better. 

Sunday School 11/22/20: Extra Credit

Last week, I said that many GOP officials were "weaselly scaredy cats" for not standing up to the president's assault on our election systems and processes. 

In yesterday's Sunday School, I quoted Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, who said that we're "beginning to look like a banana republic" and that

I just don't think that there are a lot of profiles in courage, frankly... I mean - we all know how vindictive the president can be, how powerful his Twitter account is, and how he can really pressure Republicans and go after them. Very few of us are willing to stand up.

In yesterday's This Week classroom, former NJ Gov. Chris Christie took his stand, more firmly than he had immediately after the election. Here's his exchange with George Stephanopoulos, who opened the door for Christie.

And Chris, let me begin with you. I remember well, in the hours after president Trump's speech on -- early Wednesday morning, the day after the election, you said it's incumbent on him to come forward with the evidence. There have now been 34 court cases the president has lost. We saw Pennsylvania last night. We saw Pat Toomey, the senator from Pennsylvania, say it's time for the president to enable this transition; it's time for the president to concede. The president's response was to attack Pat Toomey on Twitter. Is it finally time for this to end?

Christie was clear in his response -- and it's what every Republican should be saying. 

Yes, and -- and here's the reason why. The president has had an opportunity to access the courts. And I said to you, you know, George, starting at 2:30 a.m. on Wednesday morning, if you've got the evidence of fraud, present it. And what's happened here is, quite frankly, the content that the president's legal team has been a national embarrassment, Sidney Powell accusing Governor Brian Kemp of a crime on television, yet being unwilling to go on TV and defend and lay out the evidence that she supposedly has.

This is outrageous conduct by any lawyer. And notice, George, they won't do it inside the courtroom. They allege fraud outside the courtroom, but when they go inside the courtroom, they don't plead fraud and they don't argue fraud. This is what I was concerned about at 2:30 in the morning on Wednesday night. Listen, I've been a supporter of the president's. I voted for him twice. But elections have consequences, and we cannot continue to act as if something happened here that didn't happen.

You have an obligation to present the evidence. The evidence has not been presented. And you must conclude, as Tucker Carlson even concluded the other night, that if you're unwilling to come forward and present the evidence, it must mean the evidence doesn't exist. That's what I was concerned about starting on election night, and I remain concerned today.

I think it's wrong. I think what you've heard lots of Republicans starting to say this; I said it on election night; and I hope more say it going forward. Because the country is what has to matter the most. As much as I'm a strong Republican and I love my party, it's the country that has to come first.

Heck, author John Bolton took a stand. I am no fan of his, but even he managed to find a dollop of conviction, now that his book's out and he's no longer under Trump's thumb. Bolton spoke with Jake Tapper in the CNN SOTU classroom. 

In response to Tapper's question on whether this is "essentially a nonviolent attempted coup," here's what Bolton had to say.

I think that gives Trump too much credit. I think he's just playing for time, in hopes that something will emerge that allows him either to have a good reason why he's lost or, in his mind, maybe still to win. But I think that simply emphasizes the need for senior Republican leaders to join those who have begun to come out and say Trump's behavior is inexcusable.

Look, the Republican Party is not going to be saved by hiding in a spider hole. We need all of our leaders to come out and say the election is over. We're not talking about an abstract right to use -- for Trump to use his legal remedies. We have passed that. We're three weeks after the election. He doesn't have any evidence. He doesn't have any legal theories. 

Look, for those who are worried about Trump's reaction, there's strength in numbers. The more who come out and say, he doesn't represent us, he is not following a Republican game plan here, the safer they will be.

He also said of Republicans,

Well, I don't think we are a bunch of cowards, but I do think it's a character test, which is why people have to speak up. The longer Trump rambles through our electoral system causing damage without Republican opposition, the more the Democrats are going to say that it is a Republican Party characteristic, and that you can't trust them with the instruments of government. I think, if we have -- people don't have to say what Trump's doing is outrageous. Just say it's wrong. I will be satisfied with that.

I think it's very important for everybody to understand that, at noon on the 20th of January, Donald Trump is no longer president. The dynamic changes enormously. I'm not saying he's going to disappear. That's, unfortunately, not going to happen...

But it's not the same as his -- him being able, as he did on Friday, to haul people into the Oval and put pressure on them. That's all going to be gone. You can -- you can say what you think without worrying about a Trump Twitter rant that will just be a bunch of damp squibs by that point. And that's what people need to understand. Far better to start that process now than to wait for him to cause more damage.

Yes -- it would be far better to not allow him to cause more damage - it's easy to agree with him on that, as much as I find agreeing with him disagreeable.  

For your Extra Credit, I ask you to take a stand, too. Write, call or email your elected officials, regardless of party, and tell them what you think about this. Send a letter to your local paper, TV station, radio station - wherever you can find a platform to make your voice heard. Social media is just as good as any of the traditional media outlets. 

Don't let the president do any more damage.  

See you around campus. Wear your mask, and please, honor whatever regulations are in place where you are. 

Sunday School 11/22/20

Remember the polls that no one's talking about anymore, the ones that showed Joe Biden way ahead before Election Day, just like they showed Hillary way ahead in 2016?  They were right, insofar as they predicted a Biden win, but there was a lot that was wrong, too.

Today, on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos, we heard from Nate Silver, the founder of FiveThirtyEight, on what might have impacted the polls this time around.  Silver said that "the margins were pretty far off in a lot of places," even if they correctly called the presidential race in all but two states - Florida and North Carolina. The biggest problems were in the Midwest, he said. And he pointed to the coronavirus pandemic as a contributor, saying that "if people are changing their living pattern...that might affect how they respond to polls..." And, he noted a partisan impact, too.

Democrats have been more likely than Republican voters to embrace social distancing... In fact, research has shown poll response rats form Democratic voters shot up once the pandemic hit in March, increasing from 12% to 16-17%. That's enough to potentially skew the numbers. 

And remember that only 37% of jobs can be performed at home. A lot of those are white collar, knowledge sector jobs held by college-educated professionals, a group that mostly votes for Democrats these days.

And while he says COVID was a factor, it probably wasn't the only one. But he says, "knock on wood," there won't be a pandemic to mess things up in 2024. I'm curious as to the other issues he thinks were in play - the pandemic was the only one he mentioned.

Moving down the hall to the State of the Union classroom in the CNN wing,  Jake Tapper talked with my favorite Republican, Maryland's Gov. Larry Hogan, who had been on the show two weeks ago, when he said he thought the president would do the right thing and concede, Tapper wondered if he still had confidence that Trump would do the right thing. Hogan said he's confident that "the president-elect is going to be sworn in" but he's not confident that the president will do the right thing.

Look, I thought the pressuring of the legislators to try to somehow change the outcome with electors was completely outrageous. And, quite frankly, I mean, we used to go supervise elections around the world, and we were - we were the most respected country with respect to elections. And now we're beginning to look like a banana republic.

It's time for them to stop the nonsense. It just gets more bizarre every single day. And frankly, I'm embarrassed that more people in the party aren't speaking up. 

On why he thinks so few of his fellow Rs are stepping up, "willing to demonstrate even basic integrity and honestly here," as Tapper put it, Hogan said what I've been thinking for the past four years: 

I just don't think that there are a lot of profiles in courage, frankly... I mean - we all know how vindictive the president can be, how powerful his Twitter account is, and how he can really pressure Republicans and go after them. Very few of us are willing to stand up.

But that's changing, he said. Governors, senators, House members - it's "slowly growing every day." And there are others, the ones who are giving the president advice - except he's ignoring them.

Hogan said the Executive Committee of the National Governors Association met (virtually) with Biden and Kamala Harris, talking about the pandemic, and he appreciated that the two reached out to the NGA set up the meeting. He said they were "mostly in listening mode" and asking the govs what was going on.

He said he was concerned there was a "smooth handoff," because "we have the current administration and the new administration not even speaking to one another while lives are at stake."

And it's the - it's kind of one of the worst things about this current situation we find ourselves in, with no communication and no transition.

He also said that 90% of Marylanders said they're not travelling for Thanksgiving, "a dramatic change." People are listening, and following the guidelines. Imagine that!

And finally, a quick drop-in on the Face the Nation classroom, where Margaret Brennan talked with former national security advisor H.R. McMaster. She asked him "how corrosive" Trump's actions are to our national security. Very corrosive, he said, and what concerns him is that "the president's kind of playing into the hands of our adversaries." He said that Russia doesn't care who wins "as long as a large number of Americans doubt the legitimacy of the result."  We need to "demand better from our political leaders," he added, so that we don't get even further divided. 

McMaster also said that, while Trump's firing of Chris Krebs, the DHS guy who said the 2020 election was the most secure ever, Krebs "overstated it" when he said the Giuliani/Powell/Ellis legal team's press conference was "the most dangerous hour and 45 minutes in American TV history, and possibly the craziest."

"We should be confident," McMaster said, while acknowledging that it was a "travesty" that Krebs got fired, and that Krebs was a big part of the efforts to improve election security.

But hey, Margaret, it's Thanksgiving week. We should be thankful for the framers of our Constitution because they designed our form of government based on what they saw as worst-case scenarios, worst-case scenarios based on the bloody wars in England in the 17th century...  

He added that the president doesn't have a say in the transition. Although, it's clear that not saying something about the transition - you know, releasing the funds and allowing departments to talk to the newcomers - can be just as impactful, of not more so, than actually saying something.

Wear your mask. Keep your Thanksgiving celebration small. Obey your local pandemic guidance. You know - do the right thing... Be a Marylander. 

See you around campus. 

In Case You Missed It (v63)

It's a chilly morning here; grab your cuppa and warm yourself up with this review of last week's pastiche. 

If your Sunday School lesson had a theme song, it'd have to be Georgia on My Mind, as we had discussions with both of the Democrats in the January 5th Senate runoff. Rev. Raphael Warnock sat with Jake Tapper in the CNN SOTU classroom, and Jon Ossoff chatted with Martha Raddatz in the This Week with George classroom. Here's a bit of their conversation.

In response to her question about his opponent, Sen. David Perdue, getting 90K more votes, he said he wasn't worried. He's focused on "organizing and running the largest voter registration and turnout effort in American history," and taking aim at the folks who'll become eligible voters between now and the runoff on January 5th. He also said

The GOP at the national level has no leader, has no message and has no vision other than stopping Joe Biden. But we are in a crisis; we need leadership; we need to make sure that Joe Biden can govern and this administration is successful.

The background music for your Extra Credit? Maybe 'My Corona,' a take on The Knack's classic 'My Sharona,' as the post focused on all things pandemic. Dr. Michael Osterholm, the University of Minnesota infectious disease guy and member of the Biden COVID-19 Advisory Board talked with Chuck Todd on MTP, and Dr. Anthony Fauci joined Tapper down the hall. Here's a shot of that (see what I did there?)

Having effective vaccines on the horizon - Pfizer is likely asking the FDA for an Emergency Use Authorization, and the Moderna vaccine may be even more effective than Pfizer's - is great, but Fauci pointed out,

...we have to get people to take the vaccine. So, if we get the overwhelming majority of people taking the vaccine, and you have, on the one hand, an effective vaccine, on the other hand, a high degree of uptake of the vaccine, we could start getting things back to relative normal as we get into the second and third quarter of the year, where people can start thinking about doing things that were too dangerous just months ago.

But, he cautioned, just wishing those things were so isn't enough. We have to make it happen, and he emphasized, again, we have to do the "fundamental public health things" to get us where we want to be.  

I had a couple of half-baked posts in draft that never made it out of the gate on Tuesday, so next up was my wonder-full rant for Wondering on Wednesday. I'm tired of it all, I am. In particular, I'm tired of the Rs not acting like decent Americans, like constitution-protecting Americans, like respecting the vote Americans, and all the other Americans I wish they'd try and emulate. Musically? How about Earschplittenloudenboomer, the Steppenwolf classic that hums along nicely and then, after a slight pause, explodes. 

I couldn't care less about your self-preservation either, truth be told. I care a helluva lot more about our country and how we move on from a loser to the next guy, and I care about silly traditions like making it possible for the incoming team to be successful, and for the country to be successful. I don't have to like the person who's leaving, although sometimes I have. I don't have to like the person who's coming in, although sometimes I have. I don't have to like our traditional processes for shifting from one president to the next - but we have to have a process and we DO have a process, and we should be FOLLOWING the process, and YOU should be a part of ensuring that we DO JUST THAT.  He's YOUR guy - you've made that clear over and over and over.

Boom. BOOM. BOOM.

By the time Friday came around, there was so much material, a 'bad week' list maker could still be sitting here two days later trying to curate it all. I tried, in your TGIF, to do the week justice. Here's a slice.

Also, on the 'not knowing what to think' front, I wonder why we're not hearing from the folks who are always complaining about bail reform...I mean, Kyle Rittenhouse, who gave someone money to purchase what was described as an assault-style weapon, then got a ride from his home in Illinois to neighboring Wisconsin, where he used the gun to kill two and injure another man, has been released after posting a $2M cash bond.  Why is he out on bail? Why aren't people outraged by that? 

Honestly, some of the folks who made the bad week list - Rudy, and Steve Bannon - have Been Down So Long it Looks Like Up to them. 

On Saturday, a friend reached out with a funny idea, and asked me to 'Sue-perb' it for him. And that's who we ended up with these Thoughts on Winning, in which we explore a way for the president to save his orange face, Mike Pence to be president for 50 days or so, and

And, finally: At noon on January 20, 2021, Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. will become the oldest President ever. And then, shortly after  that, Pamela Camela Carmella Kamala Harris will become the firstiest Vice President ever. The first woman, the first black, the first Indian American, the first Chucks-wearing, the first rain-dancing, and, probably, the coolest Vice President since Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. jogged around the White House with Barack Obama.

Simon and Garfunkel's 'Concert in Central Park' version of America, with its references to Pennsylvania and Michigan, and an actually massive crowd, seems an appropriate way to close out this musical review of the week that was.

I'll be back later with your Sunday School.  

Thoughts on Winning

I got a message from a friend today, offering up a way that our national post-election nightmare can end and America can win, Biden (the winner) can win, Mike Pence can win, and the president (the non-winner) can win. And how we can all be tired of all the winning because there'll just be so much of it, we don't be able to stand it anymore.

I have to say, initially I thought his idea was kind of whacky, but then, it started to grow on me. Like moss, on a stone that's not rolling, or something.  No, really, that's not fair - it's kind of an interesting idea. 

First and foremost, we know that the president hates to lose - at anything - and that his first thought - always, right before threatening or actually taking legal action - is to deny that he lost. 

We also know that he doesn't like anything President Obama did, and wants to beat President Obama no matter what. And we've seen, over the past several months, that President Obama doesn't seem to be interested in retiring from public life. And neither does AOC, it seems - and we know that the president doesn't like her and would love to beat her at something, almost as much as he wants to do stuff that Obama is not capable of doing. 

We also know the president is a student of history. I mean, he's told us over and over that he's the best ever at so many things - fighting terrorism, producing jobs, building, attracting crowds, not being racist, developing resorts, owning clubs,  making fragrances, writing 140-character sentences, and more. And he's definitely up there on the list of best presidents ever, maybe even the best president ever, certainly the best president since Abraham Lincoln, he's determined that with certainty. 

Given his best-ness, and his better-than-Obama-ness, and the wanting us to get tired of all the winning - you remember that, right, back in 2016 at a speech in Iowa?

We're going to win so much that you're going to get sick and tired, you're going to say, "Please, please Mr. president, we're sick and tired of winning Please let us have at least one loss. It's no longer exciting to win" and I'm going to say, "No way, we're going to keep winning and I don't care if you like it or not." We have to win.

Well, here's how everyone wins, as we have to, as we are destined to.

First: the president retires, before the end of his term. He doesn't quit - that's what a loser would do. He retires, at the top of his game, as a winner: the guy who defeated ISIS and the caliphate, Antifa and monument-busting protesters, the coronavirus and Communist China; the man who put his slippery leather shoes in the DMZ between the Koreas; the man with ambiguously legitimate Israeli housing units named after him; the man who gave us covfefe and Happy Meal celebrations; the man who gave Rush Limbaugh the Medal of Freedom. 

Second: upon the president's retirement, Mike Pence becomes the President-lame duck, #46, who will guide us through the rest of the counting of the illegal Democratic votes and the ignoring of all the perfectly legitimate Republican votes on the same ballot as the illegal Democratic ones. He's got just the right temperament, and an uncanny ability to talk at length and never answer any questions. And, he's a horrible Tweeter, which will be good for us he tries to heal the nation, right up until January 5, 2021 when people run around all over the state of Georgia trying not to be members of a minority, and then again until 11:59AM on January 21, 2021, at which point no one will ever hear of him again.

Third: Before riding off into the sunset, Pence #46 can offer pardons to everyone: #45, Mrs. #45 (those Christmas decorations. That Rose Garden, (ahem) renovation. That green jacket. #BeBest...), the children of #45, the girlfriends and spouses of the children (after all, the best is yet to come), the swamp monsters, and more. He could even pardon Hunter Biden's laptops, which would go a long way towards the healing and winning we need. And, instead of releasing the Kraken (hey - he could pardon Rudy Giuliani, too!), he could release the transition funds, which would allow for the peaceful transition of power that's supposed to be happening. 

And, finally: At noon on January 20, 2021, Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. will become the oldest President ever. And then, shortly after that, Pamela Camela Carmella Kamala Harris will become the firstiest Vice President ever. The first woman, the first black, the first Indian American, the first Chucks-wearing, the first rain-dancing, and, probably, the coolest Vice President since Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. jogged around the White House with Barack Obama.

It's a perfect plan, right? It plays to everyone's strengths, and it lets us get back on track with having someone run the country, not ruin it on their way out. 

Teddy Ballgame hit a home run, and retired. Eli's brother, Peyton 'Omaha!' Manning, won a Super Bowl and retired. Donald Trump, just 'won' the election, so he, too, should retire at the top of his game.

Let us begin to get tired of the winning. We're ready.

TGIF 11/20/20

Wouldn't it be fun to blog like the woman in charge of the GAO tweets?  GSA Administrator Emily Murphy's now-deleted tweet from Wednesday (you can see it here) - the first one she had sent since the election - inspired me to compose the following very important and very confusing sentence.  

Had;j aow4ith pa984ty;;o gnz;dkfn.

Maybe someone good at creating codes could make it mean something - you know, like those tattoos on Jane Doe's body on Blindspot all had some deeper meaning awaiting discovery? 

In addition to that weird tweet, Administrator Murphy has gotten attention from members of the House, some of whom sent this request. They're looking for an "immediate briefing" on Murphy's "ongoing refusal" to give the Biden-Harris team the access - and funds - they're afforded under the President Transition Act. And, they're interested in some recent actions by the president, too. 

We also have questions about last-minute actions taken by the White House related to GSA leading up to the election. On September 2, 2020, president Trump issued an executive order modifying the-longstanding order of succession within GAS to place the General Counsel as fourth-in-line to perform the duties of Administrator after you, your Deputy, and your Chief of Staff. 

And then, less than a week before the election, Trump installed a new GSA General Counsel - imagine that! So, it would seem, there is no limit to the lengths to which he will go to interfere in, well, pretty much anything and everything. 

Speaking of interfering, it seems former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon is again more interesting in his post-White House life than when he was there. This time, the FTC is interested in hearing from him regarding the Cambridge Analytica data breach from a while back. 

The Federal Trade Commission has asked a federal court to force former Trump campaign CEO Steve Bannon to testify under oath as part of the agency's investigation into Facebook's Cambridge Analytica data breach.

Seems they want to interview Bannon as part of a probe into whether he should be found personally liable for his involvement in the breach, for which Facebook was fined $5B and two of the firm's executives settled with the FTC

And, speaking of "only the best people," there's the president's 40th 4th press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, who's made so many recent campaign appearances and 'personal' appearances on Fox News, I'm sort of shocked that she even remembered where the White House press briefing room is. But she did, and she was in full campaign mode today, seemingly trying to convince people that there wasn't an orderly transition of power in 2016. Which is a bald-faced lie, except that it can't be a lie, because she said she'd never lie. So now, I don't know what to think (OK, seriously - of course I know what to think, and you do too, right?)

Also, on the not knowing what to think front, I wonder why we're not :hearing from the folks who are always complaining about bail reform...I mean, Kyle Rittenhouse, who gave someone money to purchase what was described as an assault-style weapon, then got a ride from his home in Illinois to neighboring Wisconsin, where he used the gun to kill two and injure another man, has been released after posting a $2M cash bond.  Why is he out on bail? Why aren't people outraged by that? 

I'd put Bannon, McEnany, and Murphy on the bad week list, but Rittenhouse, with the help of the millions of dollars raised for his legal defense, definitely had a good week.

Also of note this week:

• Rudy Giuliani, who found the right place to hold his press conference, and then wilted under pressure (bad week);
• the president, who claimed (again) that he won the election, boasting of his 74 million votes; too bad he lost (bad week):
• Dolly Parton, who donated a million bucks to coronavirus efforts, and ended up helping to fund the Moderna/BioNtech vaccine (good week);
• BioNtech, the German company I've heard pronounced four or five different ways in the past several days. They've got a bit of an uphill battle on that front, I think (mixed week);
• SpaceX, and NASA, and especially the four astronauts who very smoothly went from earth to the International Space Station (great week); and
• Staff Sgt. Phillip Gray, who wrote 270 notes for his daughter - one for each day he'd be deployed - which his wife put in his daughter's lunchbox. (GREAT week!)

I hope it's easy for you to tell what kind of week you had.

TGIF, everyone.

Wondering on Wednesday 11/18/20

Ready... Set... Wonder!

What's got me wondering tonight?  I'm glad you asked.

At what point, I wonder, will it just be said that the current crop of Republicans is the biggest, weaseliest bunch of scaredy cats that have ever been elected? 

I mean, I could see there being a handful of them who are weaselly and sneaky, and a handful of them who are scared to death that the mean orange man will turn on them and find people to primary them or worse, tweet about them day and night for the next four years, or even worse, sic their uneducated, deplorable constituents on them (the self-identifying uneducated deplorables, of course) and have them storm their maskless town hall meetings and yell at them that they're weaselly scaredy cats, but to have THIS many of them, all being weaselly scaredy cats at the same time, in unison?  What the actual hell did we do to deserve that, I wonder?

Seriously. I mean, I wonder if any one of them would begin to be able to explain to me why they are allowing what's happening to happen? Or, should I say, why they're allowing what is NOT happening to NOT happen? They're not willing to explain it, to me or anybody else -I'd be willing to bet they aren't even willing to be honest with themselves when they look in the mirror in the morning, but I'm pretty sure I'm not wrong on that. 

But pretend for a second that any one of them would offer up anything other than a "he has a legal right to be a baby," what's the explanation for sitting back and being silent as the orange man refuses to allow his administration to participate with the incoming administration? What possible explanation is there for that?  Is it one of these, I wonder?

• We don't want to upset him by telling him he's a loser?
• We don't want him to think that we're happy he's a loser?
• We need him to help us not be losers when they vote again in Georgia in January?
• We don't know what he will do if we tell him the truth?
• We don't actually give a rat's patootie about the country, we're only interested in staying in office?
• He has the nuclear codes?
• He might try and fire us? (Can he do that? He can't do that, can he?)
• No one wants to go first, but boy, once someone does, we'll all fall in line?
• Is it over? 
• We might be able to convince him, but he's got those two boys, and they're worse than he is?
• Did I say he's unstable and scares the crap out of me?
• I'm plotting my place for 2024 and I don't want to screw it up by angering him?
• It's not treason or anything, what he's doing, and he's already been impeached, so what can we do?
• It's not like we're not going to have a peaceful transfer of power on January 20th, so what's the harm in letting him play his little game of keep-away?

What's the harm, you wonder, you scared little weasel? LOOK AROUND! While you're so hell-bent on allowing the orange man to express his ever-loving loser soul, look at what's happening in the world!

There's still a global pandemic; there's still Brexit, the first crack in the EU; there's still Russia and China and North Korea and the Middle East (no matter how many villages or condos they name after the orange man); there's still all of the same problems that there were on Election Day, and the day after and the day after that. And the incoming administration is NOT getting briefings on any of that from anyone still in the current administration. 

LOOK AROUND! We've got vaccines coming, and somehow they have to make it to all the distant and disparate corners of the globe. by the way, but for us here, the incoming administration is not allowed to engage with the current Task Force or the Operation Warp Speed vaccine team. How can anyone think that's helpful? But, boy, don't you forget (because the orange man won't let you), those vaccines were developed on his watch, so it's all good, right? Never mind that the deaths of over a quarter of a million Americans from COVID-19, those deaths happened on his watch, too. And I can't help wondering, how many more will happen that don't need to, because he can't get out of the way and let the people who need to be talking to each other talk to each other?

Look around... All across the country, states are in the worst shape, pandemic-wise, since the beginning of this whole mess! How're things going in your hometown, Republicans? Everyone working? No hardships? Your hospitals still have plenty of rooms?  Your towns and cities all doing great with all of their COVID-related expenses?  Lucky you, if that's the case, but I'm having a hard time here, wondering whether I should believe a word of what you're telling me. 

LOOK AROUND! Just LOOK at the mess the orange man is making, the frivolous lawsuits, the lies, the lack of evidence, the constant assault on our principles, our processes, our people, including members of YOUR OWN PARTY attacking members of YOUR OWN PARTY! What the heck is wrong with you??

And, I have to wonder why you think doing nothing, including doing nothing about the orange man doing nothing about a transition, is more important than doing something about the state of things for the people in your state, your district, your hometown, and people all over the country who are NOT doing as well as you are, and who are NOT interested in your self-preservation - they're interested in their own survival, the survival of their towns, businesses, families, educational system, and more.

I couldn't care less about your self-preservation either, truth be told. I care a helluva lot more about our country and how we move on from a loser to the next guy, and I care about silly traditions like making it possible for the incoming team to be successful, and for the country to be successful. I don't have to like the person who's leaving, although sometimes I have. I don't have to like the person who's coming in, although sometimes I have. I don't have to like our traditional processes for shifting from one president to the next - but we have to have a process and we DO have a process, and we should be FOLLOWING the process, and YOU should be a part of ensuring that we DO JUST THAT.  He's YOUR guy - you've made that clear over and over and over.

Your job? I don't have to wonder about that at all. YOUR job is to make sure that YOUR guy gets with the program, for the good of the country. If you can't do that, then you don't deserve to be in office. You don't deserve the time of day from me or anyone else. You can get your weaselly scaredy cat fanny the heck out of Washington and go back to where you came from.

And hey -- wear a damn mask!  That you're STILL not doing that, at this stage of the game, is reason enough you should pack your bags and go home.

Sheesh.