November 21, 2020

Trump Claims Michigan Lawmakers' Statement On WH Meeting Indicates Massive Voter Fraud Will Be Shown

Trump Claims Michigan Lawmakers’ Statement On White House Meeting Indicates ‘Massive Voter Fraud Will Be Shown!’

By Tommy ChristopherNov 21st, 2020, 9:19 am

President Donald Trump posted a statement from Michigan lawmakers about their White House meeting with Trump, then claimed that the true outcome of the meeting was that “Massive voter fraud will be shown!”

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Following the meeting, the pair put out a statement that appeared to indicate that no such intervention is in the offing, but in a pair of Saturday morning tweets, Trump claimed otherwise.

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https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1330137267680186371

Moments later, he posted another example of the statement, along with the shorter message “Massive voter fraud will be shown!”

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1330137741078695939

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https://www.mediaite.com/news/trump-claims-michigan-lawmakers-statement-on-white-house-meeting-indicates-massive-voter-fraud-will-be-shown/

November 21, 2020

One of Gov. Newsom's children quarantines after potential COVID-19 exposure

BY SARAH POLUS - 11/21/20 09:22 AM EST

One of California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) children is currently undergoing a COVID-19 quarantine, Politico reports.

The child, not named for privacy reasons, was at school with a student who tested positive for coronavirus. So far, Newsom and all four of his children have tested negative for COVID-19.

“The family has taken the potential exposure seriously and is following all state protocols," Newsom’s Communications Director Nathan Click told Politico. “After being alerted by the school that a classmate tested positive for COVID-19, the potentially exposed Newsom child began a 14-day quarantine from the date of exposure in accordance with state public health guidance for schools. The Newsom child was tested twice [5 days and 7 days past their last contact with the COVID-19 positive student]. In addition, each of the Newsom children were also tested on Day 5.”

The news comes after the governor faced backlash for attending a dinner party for one of his long-time aides, breaking coronavirus guidelines.

more
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/527004-one-of-gov-newsoms-children-quarantines-after-potential-covid-19

November 21, 2020

How Georgia proves Trump has no chance of winning - by Harry Enten

Harry Enten
Analysis by Harry Enten, CNN

Updated 9:09 AM ET, Sat November 21, 2020

(CNN) - President-elect Joe Biden is going to be the next president of the United States. That hasn't stopped President Donald Trump and his campaign from claiming without any proof that there was wide scale fraud in the 2020 election.

The truth, as confirmed by an audit of Georgia's votes, is that Biden won this election. It's highly unlikely that any recounts will change that. And we're long past the point that candidates in Trump's position have conceded in previous races.

Last week, Georgia embarked on an audit (which was really more of a hybrid of an audit and hand recount) involving election workers checking every ballot by hand to make sure the vote counting equipment was accurate. This process is more involved than a mere machine recount.

Yet, even with a more involved process, Georgia's count in the presidential race before the audit was largely confirmed. Biden was up by 14,156 votes before the audit, according to the Secretary of State's office. Both the audit count and final certified count on Friday showed Biden ahead by more than 12,000 votes, per the Secretary of State's office. That's a shift from before the audit of less than 2,000 votes or less than 0.04 points in Biden's margin, which stands at about 0.25 points in both the audit and final certified counts.

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https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/21/politics/biden-trump-georgia-analysis/index.html

November 21, 2020

Biden's lead over Trump surpasses 6M votes as more ballots are tallied

Source: The Hill


BY CELINE CASTRONUOVO - 11/21/20 08:43 AM EST

President-elect Joe Biden reached a lead of more than 6 million votes over President Trump on Friday as ballots continue to be counted in some states.

The Associated Press and other major news outlets called the race for Biden two weeks ago, although Trump has repeatedly refused to concede, claiming without evidence that he won and that there were widespread cases of voter fraud in key states such as Pennsylvania and Michigan, both of which voted for Biden.

As of Saturday morning, Biden held a total of 79,816,557 votes nationwide, compared to 73,781,603 votes for Trump, according to the AP.

Biden is projected to lead the electoral vote count with 306 votes, with the sitting president holding 232.

Read more: https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/526998-bidens-lead-over-trump-surpasses-6m-votes-as-more-ballots-are-tallied

November 21, 2020

Shutdown deadline nears as White House, Congress tangle over VA funding

By Seung Min Kim and Jeff Stein
November 21, 2020 at 6:00 a.m. EST

The Trump administration is injecting new demands into congressional negotiations over a government spending bill that threaten to sink the must-pass package, people familiar with the discussions said.

The disagreement concerns how to classify $12.5 billion in cost increases in veterans’ health care, expenses that are part of sweeping veterans’ care changes signed into law by President Trump in 2018 with much fanfare.

The impasse could complicate the ongoing negotiations over legislation to fund the government, which if not resolved would lead the federal government to shutdown on Dec. 11 in the middle of the pandemic — a dangerous scenario lawmakers are working to avoid.

Months ago, lawmakers agreed to designate the increased cost of veterans’ health care as emergency spending. Emergency spending isn’t subject to certain spending restrictions. But on Friday, administration officials insisted to congressional officials that the $12.5 billion in veterans’ care cost increases be considered non-emergency spending, said people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide details about the private negotiations.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2020/11/21/congress-government-funding-shutdown/

November 21, 2020

Anger builds in Black community over Trump's claims of voter fraud in big cities

By Ashley Nguyen, Kayla Ruble and Tim Craig
November 20, 2020 at 9:43 p.m. EST

When Wisconsin Republicans opened an office earlier this year in the historical Bronzeville neighborhood, it was meant to be a physical symbol of President Trump's commitment to urban voters. Signs on the window declared "Black Voices Matter," and the address was on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive.

But on Friday, as state officials began recounting ballots in Milwaukee County at the request of Trump’s failed reelection campaign, the office had become, for many residents, a symbol of Republican hypocrisy.

“The president kept talking about Black voices mattering when he attempted to make inroads with the African American community,” said Cavalier Johnson, president of the Milwaukee Common Council. “Then he loses the election, and turns right around and targets the same communities that these Black folks came from.”

Johnson, who is Black, reflected deepening outrage over the president’s push for a recount, which some characterized as an attempt to disenfranchise Black voters in a desperate and chaotic bid to stay in power. Though Trump courted Black voters — and improved his showing over 2016 — he and his allies are now trying to deny President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in key battleground states by targeting ballots cast in heavily Black cities such as Philadelphia, Detroit, Atlanta and Milwaukee, arguing that these Democratic strongholds are hotbeds of fraud.

more
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/2020/11/20/f0d11954-2b71-11eb-9b14-ad872157ebc9_story.html

November 21, 2020

How TV paved America's road to Trump

“A brand mascot that jumped off the cereal box”: TV critic James Poniewozik explains the multimedia character Trump created.

By Sean Illing @seanilling [email protected] Updated Nov 21, 2020, 7:37am EST

Donald Trump is the show we can’t turn off, the car crash we can’t look away from, the news cycle we can’t escape.

There are just too many reasons why we got here to distill into a single explanation. But certainly one reason for Trump’s ascendance is television. It’s not quite right to say that TV made Trump president, but it is fair to say that TV created the conditions that made Trump’s presidency possible.

This, at least, is the thesis of James Poniewozik’s new book Audience of One: Donald Trump, Television, and the Fracturing of America. Poniewozik is a TV critic for the New York Times, and his book is an attempt to explain how Trump turned himself into the protagonist of his own TV show and then pulled all of us into it. It’s also about what TV has done to our political culture and why Trump is the logical fulfillment of all the media trends of the last two decades or so.

According to Poniewozik, Trump is fundamentally a creature of TV. His whole public persona was shaped by TV and he cleverly used the medium, with shows like The Apprentice, to propel his political career. He also knew exactly what TV media craves — spectacle, drama, and outrage — and capitalized on it throughout his presidential campaign.

“Donald Trump is not a person,” Poniewozik writes, “he’s a character that wrote itself, a brand mascot that jumped off the cereal box and entered the world.” And, of course, he’s now entered the White House.

more
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/11/7/20920933/donald-trump-television-james-poniewozik

November 21, 2020

GOP Senators Get Stark Reminder Of Their Previous 'Let The Voters Decide' Demands

https://twitter.com/allinwithchris/status/1329966926567759872

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/chris-hayes-senate-republicans-donald-trump-election-silence_n_5fb8eae4c5b6cf1e0f08672c

November 21, 2020

Biden faces a race against the clock for U.S. to rejoin Iran nuclear deal

Iran is anxious to get help for its crippled economy, but Biden must decide whether to lift sanctions imposed by Trump since the 2015 deal was signed.

Nov. 21, 2020, 6:00 AM EST
By Dan De Luce, Ken Dilanian, Saphora Smith and Ali Arouzi

WASHINGTON — President-elect Joe Biden has promised to rejoin the Iran nuclear agreement if Iran abides by the deal, but both sides will have to race against the clock and navigate a political minefield to reach that goal.

With Iran due to hold elections in June, any diplomatic effort will have to move swiftly during Biden's first few months in office, say former U.S. officials, European diplomats and regional experts.

Iran's current president, Hassan Rouhani, threw his weight behind the 2015 agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and there's no guarantee the next Iranian president will be as open to cutting a deal.

Biden and Rouhani also have to contend with fierce opponents to the agreement in Washington and Tehran, as well as in the region, and they will need to show that any concessions are met with reciprocal actions by the other side, former U.S. officials said.

more
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/biden-faces-race-against-clock-u-s-rejoin-iran-nuclear-n1248356

November 21, 2020

Georgia governor calls for audit after state certifies election results

BY CAROLINE LINTON

NOVEMBER 21, 2020 / 8:08 AM / CBS NEWS

Georgia's Republican Governor Brian Kemp certified the state's election results Friday, saying that now that the results are certified, the Trump campaign can pursue other legal options to call for a recount. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, also a Republican, told reporters Friday morning that President-elect Biden had definitively won the state, after the state's hand recount was completed Thursday.

But Kemp didn't endorse the results, instead calling for another full hand recount. Kemp, who served as Georgia secretary of state before Raffensperger, has not publicly defended the state's election process from accusations from the president and his campaign. He alleged Friday that the audit revealed significant errors made in several counties, including Floyd, Douglas and Walton.

Kemp said the audit only looked at ballots, not the signatures on the absentee applications or the signatures on the ballot envelopes. He called for Raffensperger to "consider addressing these concerns" and conduct a "sample of audit of signatures on absentee ballot envelopes and compare those to the signatures on applications and on file that the secretary of state's office."

The Georgia Secretary of State's office has said repeatedly that at this point in the process it is not possible to match signatures — which already took place as a part of a two-step signature verification process — because ballots are separated from envelopes to ensure the secrecy of voters' selections.

Kemp's press conference will come after a strange series of events Friday afternoon, starting with Raffensperger issuing a statement saying the results had been certified, then making a corrected statement within a half-hour that they would be certified later Friday. He certified the results around 4 p.m., an hour before Kemp was set to hold his press conference.

more
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/georgia-recount-brian-kemp-audit-certified-election-results/