GET OUT: US politics November 2020

How many people voted for that North Carolina far right candidate that Jaime Harrison promoted, ostensibly to trick his opponents into owning the libs to his benefit?

Totally not overcompensating or anything:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/21/donald-trump-jr-coronavirus-isolation

I guess it was always there to some extent but I’ll never not be amazed at how sweaty and desperate and performative conservatism has gotten post-Obama.

soc media is likely the major culprit there though, and it was probably always going to end up *this* at some point, regardless of Obama or Trump

Sincere thanks to all non-GA contributors to our Senate races, especially those helping Stacy get out the vote vs. those helping the campaigns and parties pay for more goddamn TV ads:

https://www.ajc.com/politics/politics-blog/stacey-abrams-group-finances-grassroots-efforts-to-win-senate-runoffs/QMFV4NKV6VHHFMQVBTSKQSS2NA/

Stacy Stacey

xpost

I read that headline as "Donald Trump Jr says he will pass time in Covid isolation by cleaning his gums" rather than guns.

well, yeah

Rubbing them, to be precise.

DJTJ - cleaning guns
Eric - cleaning gums

'cleaning' his 'gun'

porquenolosdos.gif

xp

Not sure I buy that he’s asymptomatic. Are we supposed to believe a Trump got tested purely out of caution?

If wishing a lifetime of chronic post-COVID health issues on DTJR is wrong, I don't wanna be right.

Such confidence

https://www.thedailybeast.com/team-trump-leaders-including-campaign-manager-bill-stepien-have-no-faith-in-rudy

Stepien is not alone in seeking distance. Jay Sekulow, who has represented Trump in a variety of legal matters, including impeachment, has notably not been participating in the current legal drama, which has involved a number of often-humiliating losses and error-riddled filings in various state courts. John Dowd, who represented the president during the Mueller investigation and remains an informal legal adviser to Trump, is often willing to publicly defend the president on the given issue of the day. However, when asked on Friday about ongoing efforts to overturn the outcome in Michigan and the Giuliani-led operation, Dowd simply replied, “I have no comment,” before hanging up.

Top officials on Team Trump, knowledgeable sources say, view the current legal endeavor to steal the 2020 election as a “fucking pile of garbage,” as one official succinctly described it—one that has no chance of working, even as the president continues to throw his support behind it.

lol do you know how embarrassing you have to be when jay sekulow is trying to cover his own ass

so have they dropped the hunter biden laptop nonsense completely? I haven't heard a single word about it since the days before the election. Is no one following up and leaning on the store owner and coercing him into explaining wtf was going on? Was he a dumb stooge or in on it all along?

Yeah I'm amused by that. There's been a couple of noises from legislative GOP types muttering about an investigation next year but Benghazi this really isn't, and the leverage to make it some big story immediately evaporated after the vote.

lol do you know how embarrassing you have to be when jay sekulow is trying to cover his own ass

https://img.thedailybeast.com/image/upload/c_crop,d_placeholder_euli9k,h_405,w_720,x_0,y_0/dpr_2.0/c_limit,w_740/fl_lossy,q_auto/v1497907231/170619-jay-sekulow-band-tease_720_piv7pb

It's funny, now that I think of it, there are any number of prominent conservatives that play or played in rock bands. Sekulow, Huckabee, Joe Scarborough. Lee Atwater. Any Dem musical hobbyists?

Clinton was a saxophonist

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hall_(New_York_politician)

Peter Daou is a major Dem strategist, in the news frequently during Hillary's campaign, and was also a major producer of deep house tracks in the 80's and 90's, for Nu Groove and other labels. Probably most famous for the work he did with his then-wife Vanessa on the "Zipless" album.

Beto O'Rourke was in a band with the Mars Volta guy, no?

Seth Putnam of Anal Cunt ran for city council once.

The conservative guys though, they actually gig, don't they?

Sonny Bono was in a rock band once.

I never made the Daou connection!

Mr. Scarface ran for Houston City Council

Wonder if Deval Patrick learned sax from dad Pat

Non-musical but related, I actually open my next monthly jazz column for Stereogum (out on Monday) talking about how fucking weird it is that Amiri Baraka's son is the fucking mayor of Newark, NJ. (I live one town over from Newark, and their shit is fucked up at the moment. But Baraka's doing what he can. And BTW, his mom — for whom my wife designed an album cover in 2017 — is even more hard-line than her late husband; she's to this day a member of the Communist Party USA.)

Re: the Hunter Biden laptop story, I have friends on Facebook who believe in it 100% and are furious that "the media" aren't covering it. I think they see the Republicans dropping it as even more confirmation that it must be true.

The problem with the laptop story was that it was design primarily to shift votes in the election and now it's too late, so it no longer serves any purpose. It was an utter fabrication, so there isn't enough to hang real investigations on.

Two threads of very stupid laughs

President Trump's lawyers have filed a new brief explaining why it should get a restraining order to block Pennsylvania from certifying the election results, and it starts off a lot like the others in that it misspells the name of the governor. pic.twitter.com/FUzNRZS0cO

— Brad Heath (@bradheath) November 21, 2020

Meanwhile, some Pennsylvania Republicans led by Rep. @MikeKellyPA are asking a state court to declare that the state's entire vote-by-mail system, violates the state constitution and that millions of votes cast this year must now be invalidated. pic.twitter.com/hxTAW0rP6X

— Brad Heath (@bradheath) November 21, 2020

Hunter's laptop will reappear if the House flips in 2022.

https://t.co/gZ3rYFrQLU pic.twitter.com/7pBERlR80a

— Ed Markey (@EdMarkey) November 21, 2020

This is like claiming that 3 pt shots are illegal, but not until after you lose to the Golden State Warriors

No judge in the United States is going to disqualify ballots cast in good faith by voters following the law of the state. But without looking this guy up I’m guessing he’s from a deep red district and sees it as an easy way to score points with his own voters. (Even though he would be throwing out some of their ballots too, obviously.)

Yup, Western Pa. Appalachylvania.

It's also like taking a ball peen hammer to your exposed brain over and over and over.

I read that as taking a ball peen hammer to your exposed peen, and... well, yeah.

why did texas elect the guy who sings Someday, Someway?

No judge in the United States is going to disqualify ballots cast in good faith by voters following the law of the state.

I really hope you're right over the next, I dunno, 10-20 years.

Me too!

So Rudy’s courtroom appearance on Tuesday produced the expected response:

A federal judge has dismissed President Trump's lawsuit seeking to overturn the results of the election he lost in PA.

The decision is pretty brutal. He sums up Trump's case as "strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations." https://t.co/7012s78NDk pic.twitter.com/5z6AOB8VPp

— Brad Heath (@bradheath) November 21, 2020

case would “require invalidating the ballots of every person who voted in PA...this Court has no authority to take away the right to vote of even a single person, let alone millions of citizens...”

As we face a pandemic that has infected nearly 12 million in our country, health care coverage is more vitally important than ever. The Open Enrollment window is happening now through Dec. 15th only for coverage in 2021.

Sign up to #GetCovered at https://t.co/qmyQ1Hbicp

— Nancy Pelosi (@TeamPelosi) November 21, 2020

NEW: The @TeamTrump lawsuit against the PA Sec’y of State — argued by Rudy Giuliani last week — has been DISMISSED WITH PREJUDICE, meaning the campaign can’t refile. pic.twitter.com/3JMQDy4OOZ

— Andrew Feinberg (@AndrewFeinberg) November 21, 2020

They can appeal to the Third Circuit, but given how thoroughly they trashed a Trump campaign lawsuit a few days back, small chance of relief (and the judges who did so are of a notably conservative bent). Not unrelated, an attorney working in the 3rd Circuit noted this re the judge that delivered today's ruling:

Conservative twitter is erupting w these Obama-judge takes, but it's all delusional. Judge Brann was a Federalist Society member who served on the Pa. GOP State Comm, on his county Republican committee for 18 years. He reportedly was picked by Toomey.https://t.co/d9GS0GeuxT https://t.co/8wpfC07gUs

— Matthew Stiegler (@MatthewStiegler) November 22, 2020

"undue delay, bad faith, dilatory motive, prejudice, and futility,” for Dec title