Rudy Giuliani (76) finds himself in hospital today after testing positive for Covid-19. Giuliani is Trump’s lawyer. I don’t believe he has ever worn a mask in public.
Already a national laughing stock for his embarrassing cameo in the ‘Borat Subsequent Movie’ film, he has not let that stop him from making evermore outlandish, baseless claims about election fraud.
It’s hard to keep track of the hordes of Trump administration officials and staffers that have contracted Covid-19, but the New York Times comes to the rescue (see below).
With very few votes still being counted, the New York Times and other news organizations now report that Biden has won Arizona and Georgia, and Trump has won North Carolina. Biden 306 electoral college votes, Trump 232.
Biden for the win: 306-232 electoral college votes. [Graphic from the New York Times].The results from the States. Not going to lie: definitely disappointing that the margins in the red states, and esp. in Florida, Ohio and Texas, were as large as they were, favoring Trump. So these voters saw what Trump did in office for four years, and said: Yes, please! We want FOUR MORE YEARS. Unbelievable.Here’s Biden’s win in the context of the popular (national) vote: on par with Obama 2012. George W. Bush got his 2000 win despite losing the popular vote. Then there’s Trump 2016: became a one-term IMPEACHED President, that LOST THE NATIONAL VOTE TWICE. Might as well call it quits and move out of the White House right now, no?
The election has been over for a few days now. President-elect Biden had his first press conference today. I just can’t wait for this criminal administration to be removed from the White House.
Trump & his Trumpublicans have not conceded the election. They need to — and NOW WOULD BE A GOOD TIME.
Professor of History at Yale, Timothy Snyder @TimothyDSnyder on Twitter, writes in a series of tweets:
1/20. Democracy is precious and exceptional.
2/20. Democracy is undone from within rather than from without.
3/20. The occasion to undo democracy is often an election.
4/20. The mechanism to undo democracy is usually a fake emergency, a claim that internal enemies have done something outrageous.
5/20. A tyrant cares about his person, not the Republic.
6/20. A tyrant fears prosecution and poverty after leaving office.
7/20. Donald Trump faces criminal investigations and owes a billion dollars to creditors.
8/20. Donald Trump has said all along that he would ignore the vote count.
9/20. What Donald Trump is attempting to do has a name: coup d’état. Poorly organized though it might seem, it is not bound to fail. It must be made to fail.
10/20. Coups are defeated quickly or not at all. While they take place we are meant to look away, as many of us are doing. When they are complete we are powerless.
11/20. American exceptionalism prevents us from seeing basic truths.
12/20. Biden voters are wrong to see a Biden administration as inevitable. Take responsibility, Democrats.
13/20. In an authoritarian situation, the election is only round one. You don’t win by winning round one.
14/20. Peaceful demonstrations after elections are necessary for transitions away from authoritarianism, as in Poland in 1989, Serbia in 1999, or Belarus right now.
15/20. It is up to civil society, organized citizens, to defend the vote and to peacefully defend democracy.
16/20. Dance after the wedding, not before. Take responsibility, Americans.
17/20. Republicans endorsing the claim of fraud endanger the Republic.
18/20. Calling an opponent’s victory fraudulent risks assassination, as in Poland in 1922.
19/20. Creating a myth of a “stab in the back” by internal enemies, as Republicans are helping Trump to do, justifies violence against other citizens, as in interwar Germany.
20/20. Persuading your voters that the other side cheated starts a downward spiral. Your voters will expect you to cheat next time. Take responsibility, Republicans.
Pennsylvania goes to Biden, as does Nevada. Done.
The White House reality show is cancelled. Come January, the criminals in there will be evicted, every one of them.
The two covers from German news magazine Der Spiegel say it best (one from 2017, and one from just now).
By the time I checked the electoral map first thing this morning, Biden had overtaken Trump in Pennsylvania (20 electoral votes). His lead widened throughout the day.
As of Friday night, there were still too many uncounted ballots and provisional ballots*, though, for the decision desks at the major networks (ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN) to call Pennsylvania for Biden. (Same for Arizona and Nevada).
*Ballots issued to voters on the spot, but for which each voter’s eligibility to vote still needed to be checked fully.
When will we know? Maybe on Saturday, maybe only by early next week. Pennsylvania OR Arizona + Nevada will get Biden to be President-elect.
There are many ‘parlor game’ questions to entertain in the wake of Trump’sun-American, pathetic and embarrassing (for himself, for the United States) TV appearance on Thursday. He claimed that he had ‘won’ Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia; accused the vote counters of fraud and ranted about legal and illegal votes. The major networks all immediately cut away from him, refusing to be part of his lies and propaganda.
– When will Trump TV (Fox News) call Pennsylvania for Biden? They called Arizona for Biden on Tuesday night!
– Will Trump even concede that he had lost (make a speech)? If he refuses to concede, we may have a constitutional crisis on our hands. Scary.
– Will the electoral college meeting on Dec. 14, have faithless electors (that vote against the election outcome in their state)? Also scary.
– Will Trump even invite Joe Biden to the White House, per the usual protocol?
Time will tell.
Here’s 11th Ave and Pine late this afternoon. Stout Pub & Restaurant is permanently closed and boarded up. I knew the street corner is in the distance, and I that would reach it if I kept walking. We do not know when Biden will become President-elect, but he will get there, as long as the vote counting continues.
It’s 1 am on the East Coast, where the Pennsylvania* mail-in votes are still being counted.
*nickname The Keystone State.
Joe Biden is about to overtake Trump on the way to claim the 20 electoral votes from Pennsylvania that he needs for the win. (The mail-in votes overwhelmingly favor Biden).
Yes, Biden can still win Arizona and Nevada (17 total electoral votes), which will also get him to 270 for the win.
There was rain the last few days, with beautiful fall colors still around. It’s good to get out of the house and go for a walk, rain or not. This is a street corner on Capitol Hill here in Seattle.
Biden wins Michigan. (Arizona is imminent .. was in fact already called for Biden by none other than Fox News, last night). Nevada is at 86% with Biden holding a slim lead.
Update 9.00 pm: No further update for the day from the NYT. Associated Press (usually very cautious) have awarded Arizona to Biden (253 goes to 264).
Oh! New single-day record for Covid-19 cases in the US: more than 100,000.
Wisconsin is now projected to go to Biden. Biden holds leads in Michigan (16 electoral votes), Arizona (11) and Nevada (6). 237+16+11+6 = 270 for the win. Pennsylvania may be lost to Biden (the hope is that the mail-in vote will catch him up).
Amazingly, the once-in-a-century pandemic that brought on an economic collapse, made very little difference. The polls of Biden +8% missed the mark by a very wide margin (more like Biden +2%), and Republicans stuck to their party.
When all of the votes are counted Joseph R Biden of Delaware will be elected the 46th President of the United States.
– Steve Schmidt from the Lincoln Project @SteveSchmidtSES on Twitter
Good enough for me. I’m going to try to get some sleep. (I see Trump has already falsely proclaimed that he had won, as he had said he would do).
A sign of confidence from the Biden world: Rufus Gifford, one of his deputy campaign managers, tweeted shortly before midnight East coast time ‘We’re going to win’. – Thomas Kaplan reporting for the NY Times
It’s still early, but I already feel like Evinrude from The Rescuers.
Evinrude, the dragonfly from The Rescuers (1977), sitting on a leaf stem and worn out, after he had narrowly escaped the jaws of the alligator in the swamp.
In The Matrix (1999 film), the main character Neo is offered the choice between a red pill and a blue pill by rebel leader Morpheus. The red pill represents an uncertain future — it would free him from the enslaving control of the machine-generated dream world and allow him to escape into the real world, but living the ‘truth of reality’ is harsher, and more difficult. On the other hand, the blue pill represents a beautiful prison — it would lead him back to ignorance, living in confined comfort, without want or fear, within the simulated reality of the Matrix.
As described by Morpheus: ‘You take the blue pill … the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill … you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.’ (Neo chooses the red pill and joins the rebellion).
– [From Wikipedia].
The voting ends tomorrow, and then the counting starts.
My fervent hope is that the early results be reassuring — and not terrifying. Georgia, Florida and North Carolina sit on the East coast, and have experience will mail-in voting. They will also provide breakdowns of in-person and mail-in voting.
If Biden wins even just one of them, it will confirm his status as solid favorite to win.
If Trump wins all three, both candidates still have a path to victory.
A very detailed map of the 2016 election results. It is remarkable how the densely populated cities are Democratic islands in a sea of Republican counties. [Graphic by the New York Times].I live in the bluest of the blue districts. (More than 9 out 10 people vote Democratic where I live). But yes, there are districts in King County that vote Republican.
Friday saw a single-day record of 99,155 new cases, and the crossing of the 9 million mark, for cases nationwide.
No matter.
Trump – from the Republican Party of Death – is still holding super-spreader rallies, in the dying days of his dead campaign.
‘Good people – on both sides’. The white supremacists that marched at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville in 2017, that Trump refused to denounce. [Photo: Edu Bayer for The New York Times]
70 million voters have cast their vote. Voting ends in 6 days.
There is no question that Biden is still in a good position.
At the national level it looks like it will be Trump 43%* | Other 3% | Biden 54%.
* Says Christopher C. Williams @Chriswilliams5C on Twitter: We ALL should step back & reflect that 40% of our fellow AMERICANS are “freely’ voting again for a wanna-be autocratic grifter. Who would care less if they all die.
This graphic shows a solid Biden win even if the state-by-state polling is off by as much as they were in 2016. So hopefully we will have a Biden victory result by Tuesday night, even if some battleground states are still counting their votes. [Source: New York Times]
Trump installed his third Supreme Court justice on the bench today, with the help of Moscow Mitch and his conniving Senate Republicans.
The American people, who have preferred the Democratic nominee for president in six of the last seven presidential elections, are now subordinate to a solid 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court.
Christine Pelosi is a Democratic strategist & daughter of Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The annotations in red are mine. I don’t believe I need to justify why Trump belongs in jail. As for Justice Barrett, she was confirmed by the Republicans without a single vote from the Democrats, WHILE an election is underway with 60 million votes in, AND with Trump the criminal ON HIS WAY GETTING VOTED OUT. (Trusting that I don’t have to eat those last few words).
U.S. professional golfer John Daly and musician Kid Rock are seen after being told to wear a face mask ahead of the final presidential debate at Belmont University. (They seem a little befuddled .. have probably never worn masks before. No doubt in my mind that they are both Trump supporters). (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)
I missed the final presidential debate (Lucky me. I was playing tennis in the cold. We lucked out with dry courts on Tuesday, and again today).
Here is the Washington Post’s takeaways of the debate: 1. Trump offers no course correction on coronavirus. 2. Biden sharpens his coronavirus closing argument. “Two-hundred twenty thousand Americans dead,” Biden began. “If you hear nothing else I say tonight, hear this: Anyone who is responsible, for not taking control — in fact, saying I take no responsibility initially — anyone that is responsible for that many deaths should not remain as president of the United States of America.” 3. Trump tries to make an issue of Hunter Biden, in fits and starts (unsubstantiated claims of corruption). 4. Biden’s dicey* energy comments ..
Trump then pressed Biden on whether he would “close down the oil industry,” to which Biden responded, “I would transition from the oil industry, yes … because the oil industry pollutes significantly.” Biden added that this should be part of the process of transitioning to renewable energy.
*Says Ezra Klein on Twitter: ‘It is amazing, in the year 2020, that anyone would treat a presidential candidate saying we need to transition away from oil as surprising or scandalous. The reckless, scandalous position — ruinous to both lives and economies — is denying the need to decarbonize’.
5. It was a better debate than the first one.
Fact checker Daniel Dale on Twitter: ‘From a lying perspective, Trump is even worse tonight than in the first debate’.
CNN Poll: Biden wins final presidential debate, 53% to 39%. (I guess 8% said it’s even or could not say who won).
The Guardian newspaper: Biden fends off flailing Trump but most voters have already decided. (And 47 million have already voted).
You know you’re old when you didn’t even know about the existence of ‘Among Us’, a massively popular online game on Twitch.
(Twitch is a platform for streaming online games to viewers that follow the players. The players can talk live, but viewers usually participate via text chat. Amazon owns it; bought it in 2014).
In the game Among Us, up to 10 players work together to complete tasks located around a map or a series of rooms. One player is secretly designated as an Imposter. When a body is found or an emergency meeting is called, the players all must vote for who they think the Imposter might be.
Anyway: on Monday, progressive politician with star power, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (elected to represent New York’s 14th congressional district in Congress at 29 yrs old), also known by her initials AOC, tweeted that she will participate in a game of Among Us.
Even before the game started, some 300,000 viewers were signed on, and later on the count reached 430,000, making it one of the most popular streams ever.
Why would AOC play in an online game? That’s where the young people are, and she told them how important it is to vote, and how to check how voting works in their State. (I suspect it is a little late to register, if you have not yet done so, though).
Here’s the lobby of the spaceship in which the game of Among Us was played. That’s congresswoman AOC bottom center. Her avatar for the game is above her (‘aoc’ character in pink with the sprout hat).Here’s a very funny scene from the game. It went as follows. AOC goes to the electrical room. Poki follows her (that’s Poki in the picture). Poki: Ma’am, are you OK? AOC: (Talking to viewers of the game, but muted and unbeknownst to the Among Us players) I can’t kill Poki – she’s so nice .. (AOC is the designated Imposter in this game). AOC: OK, I think I’m gonna have to do it. STABB! (Poki is ‘killed’). Poki: (Mortified, shocked) Shrieks .. Aargh! (Laughs, knows it was AOC that ‘killed’ her) .. It was an honor! Poki: It was an HONOR. (Bends forward on her desk, arms raised, laughs).
My ballot has been counted.
The man they call ‘President’ (of the United States) attacked Dr. Fauci today, and called Joe Biden a criminal – and all journalists criminals, as well.
Those are not good arguments to make, with 15 days to go, and given that you are the criminal and the liar!
The sun did not come out today, but the soft rain had cleared up by the afternoon so that I could go for a walk.
The high was 60 °F/ 15 °C.
The letter balloon display by this house was a little deflated — but it is still getting its message out.And here is a new sign by the Biden campaign. Get it? Bi-den = Bye Don(ald Trump). It’s not a done deal, of course. The Washington Post reports of a Democratic voter that says ‘I am feeling anxious and trapped between a sense of unbridled optimism and sheer dread’. How can we not, remembering 2016?
18 days until Nov 3.
I walked down to the ballot drop box on Broadway this afternoon to drop in my ballot.
There it goes! Yay! There was a lot more than just Joe Biden for president, to vote for on the ballot. We vote for Washington State governor (Jay Inslee), for our House of Representatives member (Pramila Jayapal is mine), and for a number of local ballot initiatives as well. The two US senators for Washington State are not on the ballot. US senators serve 6 years, and Patty Murray was re-elected in 2016, and Maria Cantwell in 2018.Here comes the Seattle streetcar. This is on Broadway, right where the ballot box is. The new apartment buildings across the street are coming together nicely. They might take a little longer to fill up with renters, with the pandemic hit that the economy has taken under the Trump Disaster Administration.A little further down is the Broadway Performance Hall, part of Seattle Central College. The building is on the National Register of Historic Places. It was built in 1911 and renovated in 1979. The performers (singers, speakers, poets, musicians, dancers) will be back, but not any time soon.
17 million people have voted in the election already, a number vastly outpacing the early vote numbers from 2016.
My mail-in ballot arrived in the mail today, and I will get it in the mail ASAP. Psst! Donald Trump, I’ll let you in on a secret. You’re not getting my vote.
P.S. Check out the appeal to voters from the New York Times editorial board, in the black frames below.
Not even 2 out of 3 eligible voters (US citizens older than 18) vote. 138 million, which is 58.1%, voted in 2016. Those 80% numbers from the 19th century are the most accurate available, but exclude large swaths of voters that were still disenfranchised. Women only got to vote in 1920. And it was really only in 1965 when the majority of African Americans in the South were able/ allowed to vote. Voter suppression efforts by the Republican Party continue to this day. Every election, voters from some states still report that they had to stand in line for 8, 9, 10 hours to vote. That is not democracy. That is voter suppression.
