Sunday School 7/19/26: Extra Credit

For your Extra Credit this week, I spent time in the Face the Nation (CBS) classroom, focusing on the election security issues we've been discussing since the FOTUS addressed the nation in a televised and widely streamed chat last week. Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) joined Margaret Brennan for a bit; I recapped some of his chat with ABC's Jon Karl in yesterday's Sunday School post. 

Brennan opened this part of the discussion noting that it's "been public for years" that our intelligence folks determined China tried to influence our election by changing what we think, not by hacking or anything like that. She asked Warner, a long-time member of the Senate Intelligence Committee (IC), if it had ever been given any evidence backing up this statement from Trump: 

This evidence shows that the election system we have dangerously exposes – and really exposes like levels never thought possible, to hacking, exploitation and foreign interference. 

"Absolutely not," Warner said, adding that the speech was full of "absurdities and falsehoods," and said that "the only election that Trump is concerned about is 2020. That was the election that his administration was in charge of," and that he "forgets or just omits" Russia. He confirmed the IC hasn't received any report from the administration's analysis of the 2024 election.

 After itemizing moves by the administration, including cutting funding for the Cybersecurity Agency (CISA), abandoning the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), which allows states to share voter information to help identify duplicate registrations, deceased voters, and so on, and tanking the Election Assistance Committee (EAC), Warner said this:

Why is he doing all these things? I believe it's because Donald Trump intends to interfere in this year's elections. He knows, if there is a free and fair election, his policies will be rejected at record levels.

Brennan asked (twice) what Warner meant by interference. 

Whether that takes - I think that what we just saw was, this was the opening shot, the opening shot of trying to undermine Americans' confidence that their vote will be actually counted and mean something... I fear as well that if he tries to pull something that could potentially - he's not ruled out bringing ICE to the polls. He's not even ruled out the idea of trying to bar certain voting machines.

Brennan then turned to CBS News contributors David Becker, the executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, and Chris Krebs, the former director of CISA during the 2020 election cycle. Notably, Krebs was fired by Trump for saying that the 2020 election was secure, and that's where Brennan started this segment, asking if anything he heard from Trump changed his assessment.

Not - not at all. In fact, I would say that it further bolsters my confidence in the security of the 2020 election, between what has been released, disclosed last week, and all the information and the results of court challenges and other things in the intervening six years.

Brennan, noting that Trump was particularly aggressive towards Krebs, asked him to describe "the Chinese role in the 2020 election." He said there was an "honest debate and discussion" about China's intent across the intelligence community.

But ultimately, when it came out in the intelligence community assessment that was released in the spring of 2021, it was that China had a preference, and that they were not in favor of President Trump, but their efforts were principally limited to influencing the American public, seeking to pay journalists, media. But it was an influence effort...

A method, he said, China has been using since the early- or mid-2000s. It's not new, he said; "they did turn up the heat, and they are still doing it today. He said, "we have a significant and serious counterintelligence and counterespionage problem with China." And, responding to Trump saying folks did not disclose anything to him, "or to anyone else" or to Congress, Krebs offered this:

In January of 2020, there was a National Intelligence Community memorandum about the 2020 election that talked about the vulnerabilities we saw on systems and the work we needed to do there, but it also talked about the intent of adversaries. And there were countless memos after that...a lot of these products were in senior executive and policymakers' binders, their intelligence binders every single day. We used those to get out there and talk to the American people. I wrote an op-ed in September of 2020 for the general public that discussed various threat actors, including China. So, I have a hard time believing that it didn't get up into the Oval.

Brennan, before leaving this topic, said. "As China was described as attempting to influence, it was Iran and Russia, primary actors directly undermining the election in some of those 2020 statements. It sounds like you're saying he didn't read the memo" (emphasis added). Krebs agreed.

Sunday School 7/19/26

 I spent a little time wandering the halls at Sunday School yesterday, and thought I'd recap some of what was going on in ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos classroom. Jon Karl was in the host's chair this week, and spoke first with Energy Secretary Chris Wright.

Karl mentioned our attacks in Iran, after the deaths of two service members, and wondered if there was more retaliation planned. 

Yes, look, the president’s mission is essential for peace in the Middle East and peace in the world. And that is to prevent Iran from achieving nuclear weapons and to degrade their ability to terrorize their neighbors and the world and global commerce. So, yes, this mission will go on until the mission is done.

Karl repeated that he's asking specifically about retaliation for the deaths of two Americans, and Wright, again, answered a different question.

It’s tragic to lose American lives, but this is a mission that will save countless lives going forward. His focus is on degrading the Iranian ability to terrorize the world, to hold world commerce hostage, as they are doing right now, and to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons. That is unchanged.

The conversation switched to oil. Wright says we are now "assuring that -- that oil and gas and other products can flow through the Strait of Hormuz, with or without Iranian cooperation" while we continue to "degrade" their military and, at the same time, look for a diplomatic solution.

President Trump wants to end it with a peaceful agreement with Iran, but it takes two parties to do that. If they’re -- if they’re -- if they’re ready to do that, that’s the way it will end. If not, we will continue to assure flow of traffic through the Strait without Iran’s cooperation.

Wright strongly disagreed with Karl's contention that traffic through the Strait was effectively stopped, and tossed out some numbers, saying around 7,000,000 barrels are moving through the waterway and slightly less than that through "bypass pipelines," which he said was 2/3 of what moved through before the war and "dramatically up from where we were" the last time he was on the show back in March. And he said that "almost all the public data" he's seen is wrong, adding that

... we count the volume of oil that goes through. The ship numbers are down more dramatically. But, of course, we’re flowing larger tankers now to keep the world markets as well supplied as we can.

Switching gears, Karl noted the president's stated focus on election security as a "top domestic priority," but questioned why his budget cuts $700M from CISA, the cybersecurity agency. Wright said he "wouldn’t look at the inputs, the money spent. I’d look at the outputs, the quality of United States cybersecurity. That’s never been higher than where it is right now under President Trump."

And then, I guess because it's mandatory to do so, Karl asked whether Joe Biden won the 2020 election. Wright said, "He was president for four years. Clearly so," and then, when pressed, said, "Look, I'm not an election evaluator, but it sure seems to me like he did."

Senator Mark Warner (D-VA), the ranking member on the Senate Intelligence Committee, was the second interview. Karl opened by asking how the president should respond to the killing of our two service members. 

Well, first of all, I join with all Americans in condolences to these soldiers. Remember, as we think about this five-month war, this is a war of choice. As a member of the Gang of Eight, there was no imminent threat from Iran against America. So, Donald Trump chose to go to war. It took him two weeks to lay out what he thought his goals were going to be.

And then, he ticked through those goals. I'll condense his response:

• Regime change: We got a worse crowd than before. 
• Getting the enriched uranium:  It's still there... 
• Getting rid of Iran’s missile and drone capability. Obviously, we’ve not been successful there.
• The Strait of Hormuz: he sees " no path in the short term how the Strait is going to be settled."

He expressed his frustration on the drone point in particular, including that they're inexpensive in comparison to our using $2.5M missiles to shoot the drones down, and that the president has refused the offer from Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy to give us the technology to build our own drones.

In the end, here's where Warner landed: 

This war of choice has been a disaster. It has been a disaster militarily. It has been a disaster in terms of how we’re viewed around the world. It has been a disaster to our friends and allies who have questioned whether we will keep our promises. I’m anxious if it takes a classic Donald Trump move, declare victory tomorrow and be done. But the continuation of this war at this pace will be a continuing disaster.

Karl wondered what happens if we do leave; the Iranians are firing at ships in the Strait, and at our bases throughout the region, and asked how we end it. Warner mentioned "diplomacy negotiated by diplomats who actually know what they're doing," an obvious shot at Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, a couple of real estate developers who I think don't even officially work for the government. He pointed to the JCPOA, the Obama deal that Trump ditched, as an example of what worked.

But we're not going to  - I don't believe anyone thinks we're going to bomb Iran into submission. And I sure as heck do not believe that - short of troops on the ground- that there's any meaningful way forward to get out that enriched uranium.

Last question on this topic: does Warner agree with cutting off all funding for the war? He says the Department of Defense will ask for more money, and that we're depleting some of our stockpiles, but he also notes

there is $89B...that DOD is sitting on that has not been allocated to specific programs. There are shortages in the region. DOD, use that money first to replenish our supplies. And if the president wants to continue this war, come to Congress, make his case to the American people and to Congress rather than continuing what I think now is, frankly, an illegal action, because he never went through that process.

Turning to the election and the president's pitch the other night, Karl wondered if "there was anything new" in what the president released. Warner said that, over the last decade as chair or vice-chair of the Intelligence Committee, "there's probably no issue I've been more obsessed about..." In that time, his main concern has been Russia, "far and away" the most prominent foreign country in the game, "usually on behalf of Trump." And,

Iran has been very active as well, usually against Trump. North Korea has been active. China’s got the capabilities, but they’ve been more -- less about which candidate and more like, 'can we just make Americans lose confidence?'

And what about the Chinese getting those 220 million voter records?

Well, listen, I'm much more concerned about the fact that the Chinese hacked into the OPM data a number of years back and got personal information about anybody working in the federal government. I'm more concerned about the fact that they tapped into many insurance companies and have got personal information about all of us.

They have incredible data capabilities. And again, the secretary, respectfully, our cybersecurity activity is CISA. It has worked with the private sector. He's cut it like mad. We have another part of election security, and remarkably, Jon, a lot of this election security apparatus was set up, done under President Trump's first term. They did a good job.

The "another part" of election security he's referring to is the Elections Assistance Commission, from which Trump fired all the Democrats and forced out the Republican commissioners. 

... it works with local registrars, state registrars, making sure we vet voting machines... You know, this guy is not looking for a secure election because if we have a free and fair election, he and his allies are going to get beat historically this fall.

Karl then asked about "this so-called SAVE America Act" and how Dems are opposed to it, and he asked Warner if "requiring photo ID to register to vote" is something they should get behind, based on polling that around 80% of all Americans and 71% of Dems say they favor it. That led to a discussion about what Virginia, where they both live, requires. Ultimately, you show ID to register, you don't need to show ID to vote, and they allow 'affidavit' attestations, which can be challenged. Warner says that constitutes voter ID of one form or another. 

Karl asked again if we should have a national standard requiring ID to be shown. Warner pointed out the irony of what happens now.

If you can show any photo that (w)as government-stamped, it would be fine. Certain states will say, we're going to let you show your NRA gun license, but you can't show your student ID. If you're going to have a set of IDs, let's have it across the board as long as it comes from some official point. But this is not about voter ID. The SAVE Act is about voter disenfranchisement... 

Lisa Murkowski, a host of Republicans, don't want the SAVE Act because they know it's anti-voter... the folks who have mail-in voting, Utah is as Republican a state as anyone. They've done mail-in voting for decades. Donald Trump wants to decrease voter participation and undermine confidence in our system.

I know one thing that would improve people's confidence: if the folks who come into the classrooms actually answered the questions they were asked, and if the people asking the questions focused on what's important. 

Jon Karl did a reasonable job from the host's seat, except for the attempted 'gotcha' he asked Chris Wright about the 2020 election. But neither Wright nor Warner addressed the question of how America should respond to the deaths of Americans in the past few days. In response, an "if it were me, I'd..." would provide information and possibly lead to an interesting follow-up or two.

What would you like to have heard from Wright and/or Warner?  Drop a comment! And if you're interested, you can find my thoughts on Trump's remarks here.

Breaking Fake News Update (v6)

Fake News Broke (Again) on August 11, 2025! 

This fake news broke as FOTUS's efforts to gain more control over the House of His Personal Representatives struggled in Texas as pesky Democrats left the Lone-Star-reviewed state and headed north to blue states to avoid having to participate in the mid-cycle redistricting shenanigans. This one pretty much wrote itself.

The Dems eventually returned to Austin, where they had to get permission (and a police escort) to leave the legislative chamber, for God's sake, and voted against the power grab. Needless to say, the MAGA Republicans had their way, the maps were approved, and Gov. Gregg Abbott signed the bill. 

We will continue to share fake news as it breaks.

Wondering on Wednesday 4/17/24

 

Ready... Set... Wonder!

So far, seven jurors have been seated in former president Donald Trump's election interference trial. 

Trump loves that the media keeps referring to it as a 'hush money' trial instead of an election interference trial, because we all know he's against election interference. And if people thought that's what he was on trial for, they might not want to buy his Bible or something. 

I wonder, though - and not for the first time - why the media constantly plays right into his hands by dumbing everything down and going for clicks. There must be some unwritten rule they follow - and it's all of them, all the time. It does a massive disservice to us, and to their profession. 

Trump loves to attack everyone who opposes him, on everything, and his MAGA Campers fall in line with him on that. Everyone's fair game on the interwebs, especially Stormy Daniels, who was paid to keep quiet about her relationship with Trump. 

I don't think they expected her to fight back, but she does. One of his supporters posted, "Stormy Daniels is a parasite that would sell anything for a dollar," to which she replied, "Not true. I wouldn't sell Bibles."  I'm not really wondering much about this; rather, I'm enjoying picturing a 400-pound guy, wearing golden Trump sneakers and full MAGA regalia, sitting on his bed sulking because a stripper got the best of him.

*****     *****     ***** 

Speaking of trials, the House GOP finally figured out how to get to the Senate chambers, and the eleven managers strolled across the hall with the Articles of Impeachment against DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, kicking off the impeachment process in the Senate. 

So far, they've voted on having a floor debate on why a trial is needed (defeated); a motion to debate the articles in closed session (defeated); amendments to move to closed session (defeated), and to adjourn (defeated); a motion to block a motion to kill the first article (defeated); a vote to kill the first Article (passed); another motion to go to closed session (defeated); and a motion to adjourn (defeated). 

One of the motions to adjourn, made by Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA), requested adjournment until "May 1, 2004," which brought a bit of levity to the floor. Kennedy corrected the year to 2024 while allowing that the earlier date was "probably preferable."

After that motion was defeated, another one was put up that would have the Senate adjourn until November 6th - the day after election day. I wonder if anyone will be able to top the stupidity of that.

I think it's safe to say the GOP's effort to 'get Biden' by impeaching one of his Cabinet secretaries is not going to succeed, not that I wondered for a moment that it would. 

*****     *****     *****

Remember when Republicans were all up in arms about states potentially keeping Trump off the ballot? Here's a reminder, featuring New Hampshire Republican Party chairman Chris Ager:

Whatever happened to letting the people decide? Let’s let the people decide, and let’s have a free, fair, open donnybrook of an election, and whoever wins, let’s rally behind them and move the country forward. 

Well, the Ohio GOP seems pretty comfortable with ballot-blocking now. Candidates need to be certified by August 7th. Because the Democratic National Convention isn't until August 19th, the Democrats offered to provisionally certify the Biden/Harris ticket, noting that it had already secured the votes to win the nomination. They used the same argument as the GOP did.

If President Biden and Vice President Harris are not listed on the ballot as the Democratic Party candidates, their supporters in Ohio will be stripped of the opportunity to associate with their preferred candidate.

There's no option for provisional certification, according to the state's Attorney General; the best hope is for legislative action by May 9th, allowing an exemption to the deadline. There's precedent for this - it just happened in 2020, when both parties had late conventions, and the legislature did the right thing. But this is 2024, and the times are very different.

I think it's a Democratic problem, Senate President Matt Huffman, R-Lima, told reporters last week. There should have to be a Democratic solution. That hasn't been proposed to me.

Is it any wonder so many people think our elected officials are hypocritical jerks? 

*****     *****     *****

Speaking of hypocrites, let's look at Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, who seems to have issues with protestors, or at least, with protestors who block traffic while calling for a cease-fire in Gaza. If they were on a bridge in his state, he suggested that civilians should take matters into their own hands and toss them over the side.

He doesn't seem to have the same feelings about the January 6th protestors, though. Cotton was part of a group of GOP Congressmen that filed a brief asking the Supreme Court to throw out the obstruction charge brought against many of those protestors, suggesting that it was too harsh. The charge can result in a 20-year sentence, rather than a kinder, gentler one that would result in a sentence of a year or so, "that is frequently used against most protesters who disrupt Congress."

I can't help wondering how many of those "most protestors" did the same thing as the J6 gang did? How many others have assaulted police officers on their way to 'disrupt Congress,' other than the J6 gang? And I wonder how many other protestors wore body armor and brought bear spray, zip ties, and other assorted goodies in their protest kits? 

*****     *****     *****

Come with me to Arizona, where Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed the so-called "Ten Commandments" bill, which would have allowed teachers and administrators to display and read the Ten Commandments in school buildings. Hobbs said she had concerns about the constitutionality of, and the need for, the bill.

Enter Sen. Anthony Kern (R-MAGA Hypocrite), who said

I'm appalled the state's top elected official is abandoning God and the very foundation our country was built upon by not allowing teachers to expose their students to the morals and ethics outlined in the Ten Commandments... When children are exposed to good, noble, honest, and righteous ideas, they are more prone to being better human beings with sound character, able to navigate life's problems with grace, and have a greater chance of treating each other with respect and dignity throughout life.

Kern was present at the January 6th riot, and "his own social media posts strongly suggest" he "actively encouraged the mob, both before and after the attack..."  He was a fake Trump elector, and he tried to get the state's official slate of electors overturned.

I have to wonder whether he wasn't exposed to "good, noble, honest, and righteous ideas," or if he just failed to learn from them.

What's on your wondering mind tonight? 

Sunday School 8/8/21

Let's begin this week's Sunday School with Dana Bash in the CNN State of the Union classroom, where she talked with Senators Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Dick Durbin (D-IL). Here are some highlights, starting with Cassidy, who's also a doctor. 

He was clear that there are ways to get out of the COVID mess his state, and others are in: get vaccinated or wear a mask.

If you have a large percentage of your population which is not vaccinated, and your infection rate is going up, you have got one or two choices. If you're inside, either you're vaccinated or you have to wear a mask. Otherwise, you're at too great a risk to further spread infection, to further pack those emergency rooms, to further prevent people who have terrible accidents from getting cared for because the hospital is full of COVID. And there is a choice. On the other hand, if we don't want mask mandates, get vaccinated, the infection rate goes down, and you don't have a mandate.

And, he says, it's a "conservative principle" to have local officials making decisions on thinks like mask mandates for schools - so he's not a fan of what Gov. Ron DeSantis is doing in Florida.

On the infrastructure bill, on which he's been a key negotiator for the Rs, he said 50% of it will be scored as 'paid for' by the Congressional Budget Office, and the other half will have a lot of paid for items, given they're taking already appropriated COVID package monies that haven't been used and applying them to the infrastructure bill. And, he said, the Rs have some 'splaining to do if they're complaining about the pay-for or deficit aspects now, when they didn't before.

I will point out that president Trump proposed a $1.5 trillion package, which most Republicans were all for, and only 5 percent of it was paid for. We have $550 billion of new spending, of which we can reasonably say is paid for, but certainly one-half by CBO score. And now folks are saying, oh, can't vote for that... OK, well, that's OK. But, on the other hand, we're creating jobs. We're creating bridges. We're protecting people from flooding. Hopefully, they change their mind.

 And he suggested that with the Problem Solvers Caucus on board, they should have a path for getting the traditional infrastructure bill done in the House without having it held hostage for the gigunda human infrastructure bill that the progressives want. Speaker Pelosi, he said,

doesn't need a radical left wing. She can pass the infrastructure package with just that committed group of American congressmen and women who want to see our country get better, to have the $110 billion for the roads and bridges and highways, etc., and the new jobs. They can pass the infrastructure package without having the radical left. And that, I think, opens a pathway. 

Let's hope that's what happens when the House gets back to work.

Next up was Durbin, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee. He talked mostly about the DOJ and the attempt by Former Guy to have the DOJ interfere in the 2020 election. Durbin noted that

...what was going on in the Department of Justice was frightening, from a constitutional point of view, to think that Bill Barr left, resigned after he had announced he didn't see irregularities in the election, and then his replacement was under extraordinary pressure from the president the United States, even to the point where they were talking about replacing him. 

He didn't provide any juicy details, but he did say that president Trump asked Jeffrey Rosen, the acting Attorney General after Bill Barr resigned, "to do certain things related to states' election returns, which he refused to do," regarding the 2020 election. Rosen was being asked "by the White House, the leadership in the White House, to meet with certain people who had these wild, bizarre theories of why that election wasn't valid, and he refused to do it." History will be kind to Rosen, Durbin said - and that was not what he would have thought when Rosen was appointed. 

We'll close with his reflection on what they've learned so far in the investigation; emphasis on the last sentence is mine, for the people in the back of the room. 

I guess the thought that we have come to accept that this president and his bizarre conduct, we came to accept over four years as normal. It's outrageous. When you look back on the Richard Nixon episode and the Saturday Night Massacre, people out of principle were turning around and threatening to resign. The same thing happened here, incidentally, within the Department of Justice. There was a point where virtually everyone in the authority in the Department of Justice was going to walk if the president had his way. I mean, these are moments in history which you would never want to see repeated. And, with Donald Trump, they were.

Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) was in the Fox News Sunday classroom with Brett Bair sitting in for Chris Wallace. He's not a fan of the infrastructure bill, because it's not paid for, and "we've got to start doing things responsibly." He likes road, bridges, airports, and seaports - stuff he did when he was Florida's governor, but "less than half this bill... had anything to do with roads, bridges, airports, and seaports."

Even though his state has a 'C' on its infrastructure scorecard, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers, he's not interested in adding to the debt by borrowing money to pay for it. Even though, of course, that wasn't the case when that other guy was president, Bair pointed out. 

In fact, if you look at the numbers, the debt went up at the end of fiscal 2020, $26.9 trillion. The Trump administration and Republicans added $6.7trillion to the debt. That was since President Obama's last budget, a 33 percent increase. Understanding COVID had a big role in that, but there's not a great track record for Republicans recently to tout themselves as deficit debt hawks and now to be doing it here.

That's different now, Scott said. The Rs

had a caucus meeting where we said, we're not going to raise the debt ceiling without -- all Republican senators said, we will not raise the debt ceiling without structural change. That's what we all agreed to do.

On COVID, in a nutshell, everyone should be able to make up their own minds, to make good decisions, if the government would just tell them what they need to know. 

Here's what I believe we ought to do at every level of government. Let's be honest. If you feel comfortable, get the vaccine. If you don't, figure out how you're going to keep yourself safe. I mean that's what I believe we ought to be doing. And I'm going to -- I'm going to do everything I can to tell people, you know, that, you know, I've -- I've been comfortable with the vaccine. I had COVID. I don't want anybody to get COVID.

He also said

This is -- you know, this is not a country where we need people telling us what to do. I love my mom. I hate her telling me what to do. Give me good information. I'll make a good decision.

We'll make "good decisions," he said? Yeah, maybe, maybe not: around 400,000 people at Lollapalooza, with widespread reporting of vaccine and negative COVID test documentation being ignored by security, and requests from public health officials urging attendees to get tested... 400 at Barack Obama's birthday part... 700,000 expected at Sturgis... 

Finally, in response to Baier's last question on whether Former Guy is the leader of the GOP, Scott thinks not.

I was able to win because I went and I told people what I thought they -- I -- they wanted somebody to do. That's who's going to win. The -- in the next election, the '22 election, the '24 election is, who's got the right message and right background for that time. And that's who's going to be -- that's -- but the voters are the leader of the party. 

That's an interesting concept, isn't it?

See you around campus. Make good decisions. Get vaccinated if you're able, and wear a mask when it makes sense to do so.

Trump in Transition (v49): Maybe the 18th Time'll Be a Charm?

By now you're likely heard the news from the Washington Post about the president's insane phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. 

The WaPo released the full transcript and audio of the call, perhaps due to suggestions it had been selectively edited, but I hope more because it needed to be released. The American people deserve to hear his words, and those of the others on the call, not the words he wants us to hear. 

It's beyond shocking (to normal folks, anyway) that he made the call at all, this late in the game - but even more shocking was what he said on the call, knowing as he must have that it was being recorded. I mean, the thought that anyone would have a phone conversation with him and not record it (where it's legal, of course) is beyond me.

Also shocking? That this was the 18th time the president reached out to Raffensperger. Just imagine that - picture the mental state, picture the desperation, and picture the president of the United States being that desperate, that deranged...  I was going to say 'situationally' deranged, but I don't see any benefit pretending that it isn't widespread derangement, do you?

Also shocking? The possibility that we wouldn't even had known about it, had the president not tweeted his dismay that his efforts to redirect the outcome had failed, and had he not disparaged the folks in Georgia in the process. "The truth will come out," Raffensperger tweeted in response. And the truth did come out, didn't it? 

And the truth notwithstanding, the president will likely want us to agree it was a perfect call, a beautiful call. And that there's nothing wrong with the call, it's just perfect and beautiful and he did nothing wrong. The only people who did things wrong, he'd have us believe, are all of the Republicans involved in the election process in Georgia. He'll be telling us that any minute, I'm sure. Maybe after a quick trip to his golf course or something.

The call happened last Saturday afternoon. From Trumpworld were Mark Meadows and a couple of attorneys I'd never heard of - no Rudy, no Kraken, no Lin Wood, and certainly none of the famous ones who defended Trump in his impeachment. The deputy secretary of state and his office's general counsel joined Raffensperger.

There's so much material in the transcript, it's hard to pick out highlights. But here's some of it, including the president's contention that he couldn't have lost.

...I think it’s pretty clear that we won. We won very substantially in Georgia. You even see it by rally size, frankly. We’d be getting 25-30,000 people a rally and the competition would get less than 100 people. And it never made sense.

Because, as we know, voters don't vote, rally-goers vote. That's in the Constitution somewhere, right? Where's Jonathan Turley when you need him?

After listening to the president describe his truth, which included hundreds of thousands of alleged irregularities, amounting to many more than the 11,780 votes needed to win, Raffensperger had the chance to respond.

Well, I listened to what the president has just said. President Trump, we’ve had several lawsuits, and we’ve had to respond in court to the lawsuits and the contentions. We don’t agree that you have won. And we don’t — I didn’t agree about the 200,000 number that you’d mentioned...

He went on to describe all of the time they've spent rebutting Trump's numbers in lawsuits, and with the state Senate, the state House, the US Congressmen from Georgia. And he mentioned the recounts, which gave Georgia to President-elect Joe Biden again. And again. 

"Well, Brad." That's what the president said next. "Well, Brad." And then, after talking about other states, and saying "we have all the votes we need," he went back to his favorite theme: he won. He won, and he proved there's way more votes than needed, but he only had to show one more than 11,779 because that's how many he lost by in the bad count from "Well, Brad."

Not only that, but

...what's the difference between winning the election by two votes and winning it by half a million votes. I think I probably did win it by half a million. You know, one of the things that happened, Brad, is we have other people coming in now from Alabama and from South Carolina and from other states, and they’re saying it’s impossible for you to have lost Georgia. We won. You know in Alabama, we set a record, got the highest vote ever. In Georgia, we set a record with a massive amount of votes. And they say it’s not possible to have lost Georgia.

And I could tell you by our rallies. I could tell you by the rally I’m having on Monday night, the place, they already have lines of people standing out front waiting. It’s just not possible to have lost Georgia. It’s not possible. When I heard it was close, I said there’s no way.

He went on, and on, again. But here's where Well, Brad steps up his game.

Well, Mr. President, the challenge that you have is the data you have is wrong. We talked to the congressmen, and they were surprised. 

And he gave the example of some guy from Trumpworld and his 5,000 dead people - and Well, Brad said they've proven there were two votes cast by dead people. Which - although Brad didn't say this - is one less than the number of dead people votes cast for the president in Pennsylvania.  

There was a lot of talk about the video supposedly showing a woman putting what Trump said was 18,000 ballots through the machines - 100% of them for Biden - three times, Trump said. Or maybe it was 56,000 ballots, or 20 hundred bazillion ballots, who knows. 

Here's part of the response from Well, Brad.

... I think it’s extremely unfortunate that Rudy Giuliani or his people, they sliced and diced that video and took it out of context. 

After more babble from Trump, Well, Brad continued.

We did an audit of that, and we proved conclusively that they were not scanned three times.

The president attacked the law enforcement folks, and the Georgia Bureau of Investigations and the FBI, who have been investigating the allegations, the "law enforcement president" did. 

Well, there's no way they could - then they're incompetent. They're either dishonest or incompetent, okay?

There's only two answers, dishonesty or incompetence There's just no way. Look. There's no way. And on the other thing, I said too, there is no way. I mean, there's no way that these things could have been, you know, you have all these different people.

Later, after more allegations from Trump -most of them coming from Qanon and other conspiracy outlets - Well, Brad had to chime in again.

Mr. President, the problem you have with social media, they - people can say anything. 

The president's response is hilarious.

Oh, this isn't social media. 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. Social media is Big Tech. Big Tech is on your side, you know. I don't even know why you have a side because you should want to have an accurate election. And you're a Republican.

He "couldn't care less about social media?" Isn't that why he vetoed the NDAA, the military spending bill, for not including the removal of protections for social media companies that are flagging all of his tweets about election fraud? What the actual hell?  

I don't know about you, but I'd bet my ballot that Trump media is way more bigly less trustworthy even than social media.

More back and forth, more "you must be wrong because you won't show us anything" from the Trump side. After all, they had experts look at stuff and determine that the official certified counts are all wrong - even though the Trump team admittedly doesn't have the records they need to prove that their own numbers are right. Got it? 

And when Well, Brad's team explained that the Trump team isn't entitled to all of the records they want, for privacy reasons among other things, here's Trump. 

Well, under law, you're not allowed to give faulty election results, okay? You're not allowed to do that. And that's what you've done. This is a faulty election result. And honestly, this should go very fast. You should meet tomorrow because 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 — and 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 thing could be straightened out before the election. 

And once you work on those numbers? 

Because I know, Brad, that if you think we’re right, I think you’re going to say, and I’m not looking to blame anybody, I’m just saying, you know, and, you know, under new counts, and under new views, of the election results, we won the election. You know? It’s very simple. We won the election. 

So, the Rs are going to vote, and they're not going to vote, and they're going to vote negative, and they're going to vote. Word.  

And for some reason, after a lot of back and forth between others on the call, Trump decides this is the time to  play And Now for Something Completely Different.

And Stacey Abrams is laughing about you. She’s going around saying these guys are dumber than a rock. What she’s done to this party is unbelievable, I tell you. And I only ran against her once. And that was with a guy named Brian Kemp, and I beat her. And if I didn’t run, Brian wouldn’t have had even a shot, either in the general or in the primary. He was dead, dead as a doornail. He never thought he had a shot at either one of them. What a schmuck I was. But that’s the way it is. That’s the way it is.

I hope Brian was alive when he voted, I really do. It would be horrible otherwise. And speaking of voting, Trump also said he wanted everyone to meet, quickly

because I think we should come to a resolution of this before the election. Otherwise, you’re going to have people just not voting. They don’t want to vote.

Except, as we know, they do want to vote. Negatively, maybe, but 'they' don't like Well, Brad. Except for the ones that do. Dear lord, my head hurts.

They hate the state, they hate the governor, and they hate the secretary of state. I will tell you that right now. The only people that like you are people that will never vote for you. You know that, Brad, right? They like you, you know, they like you. They can’t believe what they found. They want more people like you. So, look, can you get together tomorrow? And, Brad, we just want the truth. It’s simple. And everyone’s going to look very good if the truth comes out. It’s okay. It takes a little while, but let the truth come out. And the real truth is, I won by 400,000 votes. At least. That’s the real truth. But we don’t need 400,000 votes. We need less than 2,000 votes. And are you guys able to meet tomorrow, Ryan? 

Well, sure, Mr. president, you need "less than 2,000 votes." Except that we all know you need 11,800 votes: one more than President-elect Biden's margin of victory. How stupid is he with this math stuff, anyway?

And how stupid are we? 

Wondering on Wednesday 10/28/20

Ready... Set... Wonder!

You know, I was kind of bummed today when I saw that Miles Taylor, the former Chief of Staff to Kirstjen Nielsen at the Department of Homeland Security, announced himself the name and face behind 'Anonymous,' the author of the famed 2018 NY Times op-ed that began 

President Trump  is facing a test to his presidency unlike any faced by a modern American leader.

It’s not just that the special counsel looms large. Or that the country is bitterly divided over Mr. Trump’s leadership. Or even that his party might well lose the House to an opposition hellbent on his downfall.

The dilemma — which he does not fully grasp — is that many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.

I would know. I am one of them.

Like many others, I had wondered, not with any focus but sort of randomly, who in the administration might be the author (I had a favorite, I did.) And in 2019, when the book A Warning was published, I wondered again if perhaps it was  my pick, Kellyanne Conway. I thought she was the perfect person to have realized the error of her ways, going from getting him elected to now warning us that we shouldn't allow him back in the Oval after January 20, 2021. But no, it's Miles Taylor.

Now that I don't have to wonder about that any more, I've got time to wonder about a bunch of other stuff.

For example, what kind of person do you need to be to get a major city's District Attorney this mad? Well, you just need to be Donald Trump, that's all. Here's just a piece of what's in DA Larry Krasner's statement:

The Trump Administration’s efforts to suppress votes amid a global pandemic fueled by their disregard for human life will not be tolerated in the birthplace of American democracy. Philadelphians from a diversity of political opinions believe strongly in the rule of law, in fair and free elections, and in a democratic system of government. We will not be cowed or ruled by a lawless, power-hungry despot. Some folks learned that the hard way in the 1700s.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett took another oath today at the Supreme Court; in an unusual celebratory note, she received her first recusal request, too. The election-related case is from Pennsylvania, a key battleground state that, according to the punditry, is a must win for both candidates if they want to get to 270 electoral college votes.  We know, of course, that the new Justice would not commit t recuing herself, and I don't think I have to wonder much what her answer will be - I suspect it's going to be a no, in her best firm mommy voice, but we'll see. 

Finally, I turn my wondering eye to these two articles, which arrived together in an email:

Republicans are on the verge of a spectacular upside-down achievement

Why Trump's re-election still seems likely 

It's hard paying attention to the wildly varying headlines and opinions. These two were similar to others I've seen recently, in which it's pretty clear that the president is going to win, and it's equally clear that the president's not going to win. It's also clear that the pandemic is the most important thing in the election, and equally clear that the economy is the most important thing in the election. It's clearly clear that no one really knows what's clear, and equally clear that everyone knows what's clear.

And all of that had me wondering what the oddsmakers say about the election. According to an article in the Las Vegas Review Journal, 

The U.S. presidential election has officially become the most heavily bet event in the history of the United Kingdom-based Betfair Exchange, the company said in a release. A total of about $259 million in bets have been placed on the matchup between President Donald Trump, the Republican candidate, and former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic candidate. The handle breaks the record $258 million bet on the 2016 presidential election between Trump and Hillary Clinton. Betfair predicts that as much as $519 million could be bet on the election by Tuesday.

So, lots of money in play, but what are the odds? Biden is a -200 favorite to win the election at Betfair (Trump +200); that means that Biden is the favorite and Trump the underdog. 

A US oddsmaker (for entertainment purposes only, since it's illegal to bet on elections in the US) has Biden at -240 and Trump +220. And, the same guy has Kamala Harris at +800 to replace Biden before the 2024 election.

If it weren't illegal, I wonder how much Trump would put on that? After all, he's already suggesting Biden's only going to last three weeks if he wins... 

What are you wondering about?

Wondering on Wednesday 10/21/20

Ready... Set... Wonder!

Well, what's to my wondering mind should appear, but an announcement that the FBI is going to make a major announcement about election security tonight. I wonder why people are wondering why that's going to be something about Hunter Biden? 

What else? The president walked out of his 60 Minutes interview, and threatened to release the video himself, taking it out of the hands of the network and interviewer Leslie Stahl. He hasn't said why he walked out but he attacked her, of course, because that's what he does to women who don't agree with him. Sometimes, it's almost like he's so upset about these interviews that he's got blood coming out of his... wherever, or something.

The president is not going to be happy that his own FBI is pointing fingers at Iran and Russia, not Iran and China, right now, live. Apparently these two foreign actors have obtained voter registration info, including perhaps email addresses and are sending fake stuff to people trying to scare them into thinking their votes will not be safe. I don't have to wonder why foreign folks try this stuff, because we've already seen American actors try something similar, including a couple of big fans of the president, who allegedly orchestrated threatening robocalls to Detroit residents, advising among other things that if they voted by mail, their information would be used for mandatory vaccination tracking.

We've got another debate tomorrow night, with mute buttons. Trump people are upset because this means it won't be a cage match, and the president will have to act like, I don't know, a regular person and not scream and shout and bully his way through the questions - no wondering that he's upset about that. And again, it's a woman moderator, Kristen Welker and from NBC, and he hasn't gotten over his 'loss' to Savannah Guthrie on his ill-fated town hall... Biden people are probably less annoyed by the changes, and actually may like them, because that'll cut out Biden's own less-than-presidential comments and interjections when Trump was talking. We'll see if it makes a difference, but I'm not holding out hope that it will.

I wonder if I'm the only one sitting back and watching elected officials who support the ethically-challenged, debt-challenged, Russia-challenged, China-challenged, taxpayer-soaking, lying, bullying, corrupt president summoning all of the available righteous indignation they can muster to try and get Twitter, the media, and Rudy Giuliani, the president's Russia-challenged, Borat-challenged personal attorney to do their work for them? 

And I wonder if I'm the only one wondering why, if this weren't 1000% election interference on the part of said personal attorney and right-wing media, they held back allegedly more damaging information, to be released between now and November 3rd?  

And I wonder if I'm the only one wondering if they think releasing this will make more people vote for the ethically-challenged, debt-challenged, Russia-challenged, China-challenged, taxpayer-soaking, lying, bullying, corrupt president, or if they think this will make fewer people vote for the other guy, giving the ethically-challenged, debt-challenged, Russia-challenged, China-challenged, taxpayer-soaking, lying, bullying, corrupt president a better shot at re-election?

Honestly? I don't wonder about those last three things, at all. For the first, I know I'm not alone. For the second, I know I'm not alone. And for the third, we know it's the latter. 

What are you wondering about?

In Case You Missed It (v55)

Time for your recap of last week's posts. Grab your cuppa and dive in!

We started the week in the Sunday School classrooms,  in which we heard Senators Cory Booker and Amy Klobuchar speak about the importance of voting as the antidote to any Trump SCOTUS pick, recognizing as they did the (at that point) limited opportunity the Ds in the Senate had of stopping the nomination. That opportunity is now zero, as only Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins have said they believe going forward before the American people have their say is wrong.   

And we heard from Wyoming Senator John Barrasso, who doesn't know the difference between a Senate rule and a mouthful of hypothetical bluster. Barrasso in 2016 said "I want to give the American people a voice in this."  This time around, he doesn't want to do that because, he says without evidence,

If the shoe were on the other foot and the Democrats had the White House and the Senate, they would right now be trying to confirm another member of the Supreme Court. What we're proposing is completely consistent, completely consistent with the precedent. What happened in 2016, and let's go back, we were following the Joe Biden rule.

The "Biden Rule" is something the Democratic nominee said back in 1992, when addressing a hypothetical vacancy on the court. It is not a rule, and it did not have any practical application when he said it.  

It got worse, though, as we heard Texas Senator Ted Cruz explain that he doesn't know the difference between Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, which I think is downright scary. 

Back to the question at hand, he doesn't know if they have the votes, but it's important because Joe Biden "has been explicit. He has said, if he doesn't win, he's going to challenge this election." George pointed out it's actually "president Trump who has been the one talking about rigged elections" and that Biden "has not explicitly said" he'd challenge it, and of course the candidates have legal teams. Cruz said that Hillary Clinton said Biden shouldn't concede, and apparently we're supposed to believe that she and he are one and the same, or something. 

To earn your Sunday School Extra Credit last week, you needed to pay attention to the interview with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The part that got all of the attention was her refusal to say the House wouldn't consider impeaching the #IMPOTUS again - the whole thing about "arrows in her quiver"- but that was not her main point, even though it seemed like it was George Stephanopoulos' main point. 

George asked how Dems can slow or block the nomination. Pelosi focused on voting, noting that 10 states have already started early voting

We just want everyone across the country who cares about health care for all Americans, who cares about crushing the coronavirus, who cares about a woman's right to choose, who cares about LGBTQ rights -- the list goes on and on -- to vote. The election is very important.

Pelosi also pointed out that Congress does have the ability to make good law from bad SCOTUS decisions, and referenced RBG's dissent in the Lilly Ledbetter case which became the first law that Barack Obama signed as president, and that's another reason why people need to vote, "why we have to have a big turnout" in the election. 

She reiterated that point when he pushed her on whether anything was being ruled out. 

This president has threatened to not even accept the results of the election with statements that he and his henchmen have made. So right now, our main goal and I think Ruth Bader Ginsburg would want that to be, would be to protect the integrity of the election as we protect the American people from the coronavirus... 

So again, when people say, "what can I do?" You can vote. You can get out that vote, and you can do so as soon as possible... 

The soundbite about arrows made the news -- the comments about voting did not, of course.

Last week's Wondering on Wednesday included an update on the taxpayer-funded witch hunt into the well-publicized foibles of Hunter Biden, whose money-making efforts had nothing to do with any actions or policies of the United States. 

They did, of course, have to do with Trump trying to get the Ukrainians to investigate Joe Biden, and to the president getting impeached. And dammit, Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson didn't like that, or the audacity of Joe Biden running against the Dear Leader. 

And, since we were on the topic fitness for office, I outlined several examples of the president's many conflicts of interest and the ways he and his family have been profiting from him being in office. 

But the Biden report wasn't the only election interference issue discussed in the post. There were examples from both the elephants and the donkeys. 

What else is going on today?  Well, both the Republicans and the Democrats are actively engaged in sticking their noses in the election.  Let's take the Rs first: according to an article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, 

The Republican National Committee is getting involved in an appeal over absentee ballot deadlines in Georgia, making it the 20th state where the Republican Party is fighting election lawsuits. 

And the Dems? I don't think we need to wonder why they're fighting to keep Syracuse's own Howie Hawkins, the Green Party's presidential candidate, off the ballot in swing states, including Pennsylvania and Wisconsin... After all, we know that any vote for a candidate other than Joe Biden is a vote for Trump, right? Particularly a vote for a more progressive candidate than Biden.  

I can't wait for this election to be over, in SO many ways. Pretty sure I'm not alone in that.  

In a #tbt post from three years ago, I was looking at what to do with the Trump in Transition theme I started before the president was inaugurated. Seems back then I thought I might be able to retire the theme, now that Trump had been president for several months and should have started to grow into the role. 

Instead, he was going off on the NFL owners for allowing displays of patriotism during the national anthem. And me? 

Do I feel threatened, as our still-transitioning president appears to, by people who are willing to take a stand on a very public stage? 

Hardly. Truth be told, I'm encouraged by their actions, and by their patriotism...

It's significantly more patriotic to do that, than to have an American flag waving between your cab and the trailer you're hauling, like the guy I saw on the NYS Thruway last week. The flag was in despicable condition - filthy dirty, gray with soot and road dirt, stained, the colors barely discernible. The ends were shredded; perhaps as much as a third of it had gone into the wind, and it was torn in several spots where the stripes were sewn together. It looked like something you'd find in a dumpster, to be honest. But the truck driver sure is patriotic - he's displaying the FLAG!

I've not yet retired the theme... 

Ending the week, the TGIF entry meandered along a theme of vote-buying, and I'm sure you are shocked - SHOCKED! - at the prospects that anyone would even consider doing anything like that in this day and age, right?  

The post  had a few examples for you to consider: the potential nomination of Judge Barbara Lagoa, a Cuban-American Floridian, which followed the $13B bribe to Puerto Rican voters, many of whom fled to Florida after Hurricane Maria, to Michael Bloomberg's fundraising to help pay off the fines and fees for former Sunshine State felons, to the tweet from the press secretary, announcing a $200 bribe being sent to senior citizens across the land. 

Now, I don't want you to think that I'm just attacking the president for this type of behavior - I've long not been a fan of political handouts during the weeks before an election,  as I noted in this post from 2014 referencing similar behavior by Albany pols.

That these payments are being made to encourage voters to re-elect those in office is virtually irrefutable. One, the checks just happen to be sent out right before the Nov. 4 elections, when they could have been sent most anytime during the year, and two, delivering checks through the Post Office and not by direct deposit is costing taxpayers over $1.6 million in postage just so the legislators can have you manually open an envelope and remove a check hoping you imagine their photo on the face -- much more effective than campaign literature.

And, yes, if you're wondering, I'll say the exactly the same thing if another stimulus payment gets deposited in our account before November 3rd.  And I hope you'll say the same thing, too. 

So, there you have it - the full and veritable pastiche from last week. I'll be back later with Sunday School, if I can stand what will be a contentious bunch of classroom visits.