Trump’s Parting Gift

and pompeo ties an ugly bow on another D’ump “gift” at state CNN: Washington (CNN)A stack of messages from foreign leaders to President-elect Joe Biden are sitting at the State Department but the Trump administration is preventing him from accessing them, according to State Department officials familiar with the messages. Traditionally, the State Department supports all communications for the President-elect, which is why many countries began sending messages to State over the weekend. But with Biden prohibited from accessing State Department resources by the Trump administration, because President Donald Trump refuses to accept Biden’s victory, dozens of incoming messages have not been received. Biden’s team is in touch with foreign governments without State Department involvement, and he has held numerous calls with leaders, including Germany’s Angela Merkel and Canada’s Justin Trudeau. But they are operating without the logistical and translation support that the State Department operations center provides.They would prefer to be using the State Department resources,” said a source familiar with the situation, who noted that the Biden team is having to deal with the unexpected challenge of facilitating these calls. […] Operating without State Department support right now, the Biden team — made up of many experienced former government officials — has sent out readouts of all of the calls, which help with record keeping. They are making an effort to formalize the process and will use State Department resources when they are available, said a source familiar with the unfolding situation. This is a stark contrast with the transition between the Obama and Trump administrations. At the time, President-elect Trump opted not to use State Department resources. Instead, he made his calls out of Trump Tower and resisted using the government support and coordination system, which meant that translators and staff sat waiting without any work while Trump made calls on his own, a State Department official told CNN at the time. At any other point since Biden left the White House, he would have been able to call into the State Department operations center to place a call to a foreign leader, State Department officials told CNN. Former presidents… Read more »

NYT best of late night:

“We may soon find out the answer to the question, ‘Can a coup be pulled off by people who spell it c-o-o?’” — JIMMY KIMMEL

the guardian:

Can Trump actually stage a coup and stay in office for a second term?
[…]
Donald Trump refuses to accept that Joe Biden won the presidential election. Is there a constitutional path for him to stage a coup and stay in office for another term?
Not really. The electoral college meets on 14 December to cast its vote for president and nearly every state uses the statewide popular vote to allocate its electors. Biden is projected to win far more than the 270 electoral votes he needs to become president. His victory doesn’t hinge on one state and he has likely insurmountable leads in Michigan, Nevada, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Arizona.
There is a long-shot legal theory, floated by Republicans before the election, that Republican-friendly legislatures in places such as Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania could ignore the popular vote in their states and appoint their own electors. Federal law allows legislatures to do this if states have “failed to make a choice” by the day the electoral college meets. But there is no evidence of systemic fraud of wrongdoing in any state and Biden’s commanding margins in these places make it clear that the states have in fact made a choice.
“If the country continues to follow the rule of law, I see no plausible constitutional path forward for Trump to remain as president barring new evidence of some massive failure of the election system in multiple states,” Richard Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine, who specializes in elections, wrote in an email. “It would be a naked, antidemocratic power grab to try to use state legislatures to get around the voters’ choice and I don’t expect it to happen.”
For lawmakers in a single state to choose to override the clear will of its voters this way would be extraordinary and probably cause a huge outcry. For Trump to win the electoral college, several states would have to take this extraordinary step, a move that would cause extreme backlash and a real crisis of democracy throughout the country.
[continues]

jamie, questioning the credibility of the vote also puts into question the validity of their own elections. 

that’s why you see this from moscow mitch reported by the hill:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is walking a fine line with his handling of President Trump’s refusal to concede the election.

The GOP leader is defending Trump’s right to challenge the vote counts in several key battleground states, arguing the courts are meant to handle disputed election results and that “wealthy media corporations” should not project the winner.

But McConnell is also keeping his distance from the president’s claims of voter fraud that his campaign has yet to back up with any hard evidence.

“What I’m going to do here in the Senate is concentrate on the business that we have left to do,” he told reporters Tuesday, adding he would “let the presidential election go through the various stages that it goes through under the Constitution.”

Asked if there were any signs of fraud in his own reelection race in Kentucky or any Senate races, McConnell responded: “I don’t know – at the risk of bragging, it wasn’t very close.”

another avenue to bilk his cult and allow multi-PACs to rake in more $$$ for his personal use

newsweek:

Donald Trump Plans 2024 Run, Could Announce by End of Year: Report
[…]
A president who loses an election does not normally have a say over who the RNC would pick as its next leader, Reuters reported, but Trump’s backing does suggest a future political move on his part.
A source told the news agency that Trump had informed his allies he might announce plans to run for president again in 2024 by the end of the year. The Constitution imposes a two-term presidential limit, but does not say they have to be consecutive.
[…] …Trump’s backing for McDaniel came on the day that she appeared to acknowledge that Biden had won the election.

also at wapo sullivan’s op ed today really worth the read: President Trump lost. The nation knows it. The world knows it. And, although he won’t admit it, he certainly knows it, too. But because he is claiming otherwise — with his Republican enablers joining the chorus — this past week has presented the reality-based press with a strange and extremely important challenge. How do you cover something that, at worst, lays the groundwork for a coup attempt and, at best, represents a brazen lie that could be deeply damaging to American democracy? “You don’t want to fearmonger. You don’t want to underplay something this dangerous, either,” Noah Shachtman, editor of the Daily Beast, told me. The trickiest part: “Figuring out whether these bogus accusations are actually dangerous to the republic, or just the last, lame gasps of a doomed administration.” I’d argue that it’s both. Not because they pose more than a sliver of a chance of overturning the reality that Joe Biden will take office in January. Rather, it’s because the constant drumbeat that the election was somehow illegitimate does harm all by itself. In general, the press has covered this madness reasonably well. Even Fox News, Trump’s longtime cheerleader, quickly started using the term “president-elect” to refer to Biden. (Whether the network may have been shamed into this, early on, by a CNNstory to the contrary is a possibility, though Fox vehemently denies it.) And the mainstream press has given Trump’s mewling a lot of attention without giving it much credence. Still, some of the worst tendencies of the media are on display, even if in muted form. The two I’ve seen most frequently are the endless infatuation with dramatic conflict and the tendency to give equal treatment to both sides of any equation. […] A group of political scientists and media scholars that calls itself Election Coverage and Democracy Network has come up with recommendations for journalists navigating this moment. This point of theirs deserves particular emphasis: “Use a democracy-worthy frame, not a partisan one. This means denying a platform to partisan pundits who advance false claims.” The media… Read more »

(CNN)A growing number of GOP senators told CNN on Thursday that Joe Biden should have access to classified briefings, the latest indication that Republicans acknowledge the President-elect is likely on his way to the White House despite President Donald Trump’s refusal to accept the results. “I would think — especially on classified briefings — answer is yes,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who as president pro tempore is the most senior Republican in the chamber. Sen. Lindsey Graham, a close Trump ally who has urged the President over the weekend not to concede and amplified baseless claims of voter fraud, told CNN on Thursday that he thinks Biden should get intelligence briefings starting now. “Yeah, I think he should,” Graham said when asked about Biden having access to the intelligence briefing. Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said he has not expressed his thoughts with the White House but said, “I hope so,” when asked if he expects Biden to get the briefings soon. Senate Majority Whip John Thune of South Dakota also told CNN that Biden should have access to classified briefings. “Well, I think that it probably makes sense to prepare for all contingencies,” Thune said when asked if Biden should get briefings. “And as these election challenges play out in court, I don’t have a problem with, and I think it’s important from a national security standpoint, continuity. And you’ve seen other members suggesting that. I think that makes sense.” Another influential Republican, Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, said, “yeah, I don’t think that would hurt,” for Biden to start getting the briefings. Those comments follow GOP Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma who made similar remarks Wednesdayon a local radio station, and several other Republicans have signaled it’s time to begin the transition process. […] Several other GOP senators have also called for Biden to have access to security briefings. Asked earlier this week if Biden should be allowed to start receiving the Presidential Daily Briefing, Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, the acting chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told reporters: “I don’t think it prejudices the President’s legal claims in… Read more »

could it be some of these d’umpsters who’ve announced COVID positivity aren’t really but are in effect calling in sick with a faux doc’s excuse?  sure gives them a way out of continuing the embarrassment and more important frees them from the terrible toddler tsar.

the hill:

A federal judge on Thursday signaled columnist E. Jean Carroll’s defamation lawsuit against President Trump can move forward, scheduling a telephone conference in the case for Dec. 11.

Carroll sued Trump for defamation after he accused her of lying when she alleged he sexually assaulted her in her 2019 book “What Do We Need Men For?”

[…]

Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, who is not related to the judge, indicated that the defamation case was moving forward in a statement to ABC News. 

[continues]

NEW THREAD