After a few hiccups in the process, the Georgia Secretary of State has official certified the election, showing President-elect Joe Biden won the state, the Associated Press reports.
The Secretary’s office incorrectly announced that it had certified the results at 12:30 p.m. ET Friday afternoon. The final certification was announced by Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger at 4 p.m. ET Friday.
Governor Brian Kemp has until 5 p.m. on Saturday to certify the state’s slate of electors.
Democratic New York Governor Andrew Cuomo will receive the International Emmy Award‘s Founders Award for his effective use of television to inform the public during the coronavirus pandemic.
At the height of the pandemic ravaging New York and surrounding areas, Cuomo held daily press briefings to keep the citizens of the state informed about the status of the fight against virus. Cuomo would provide updates on hospital capacities, availability of supplies, and plans for restrictions.
“The Governor’s 111 daily briefings worked so well because he effectively created television shows, with characters, plot lines, and stories of success and failure,” said International Academy President & CEO, Bruce L. Paisner. “People around the world tuned in to find out what was going on, and New York tough became a symbol of the determination to fight back.”
No word from the White House if they will offer congratulations to Gov. Cuomo.
Pharmaceutical company Pfizer has applied to the Food and Drug Administration for emergency-use authorization for its COVID-19 vaccine, a move that would pave the way for potential initial distribution by the end of December, the New York Times reports.
With its German development partner BioNTech, Pfizer has developed an mRNA vaccine that spurs the production of antibodies in the body by injecting fragments of a synthetic version of the coronavirus.
Pfizer reported that the vaccine was effective in 95% of patients in clinical trials. To date, there have been no significant side effects from the vaccine in trials.
Pfizer developed the vaccine independent of the White House’s Operation Warp Speed, although the federal government has already contracted with the drug maker to get millions of doses.
President Barack Obama gave a special gift to Navy SEAL commander Admiral William McRaven after the spectacular raid that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden.
A tape measure.
According to Business Insider (via MSN), Obama gifted McRaven with the standard toolbox and household item as an inside joke: during the raid, SEAL Team Six needed to take measurements of bin Laden’s corpse to make sure it was the terrorist. One of the measurements was the body’s height: bin Laden was an unusually tall 6’5″.
Don’t worry, kids, Santa Claus will still make his magical trek around the world on Christmas Eve. And he would become a superspreader in the process, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci.
According to USA Today, Dr. Fauci has determined that Ol’ St. Nick “has a lot of good innate immunity,” making him protected from coronavirus and unable to spread the virus.
While Fauci has said the holiday season this year should be celebrated without traditional family gatherings to prevent the spread of COVID among us mere mortals, the nation’s leading expert of infectious diseases gave the okay for the Jolly Old Elf to slide down chimneys to deliver gifts to good girls and boys.
Fauci did not comment on the dangers to Rudolph and the other reindeer.
“The good news is that President Donald Trump’s attempts to defy the results of the election and remain in office keep falling flat. In court after court, judges have ruled against the Trump campaign and tossed out its lawsuits. Today, Georgia certified Democrat Joe Biden as the winner of the state’s presidential electors, after a federal judge yesterday rejected a prominent conservative lawyer’s suit seeking to block certification.“
“The bad news is that as Trump’s chances grow dimmer and deadlines near, his attempts to steal the election and subvert democracy have become more dangerous. This is the paradox that defines this moment: As Trump’s odds of success decrease, the risks that his ever more extreme efforts pose are increasing. In the first hours and days after the polls closed, the president argued that if all the legal votes were counted, he would win. Now he has moved to trying to have votes thrown out—asking state legislators or courts to just ignore the balloting altogether, flout the will of voters, and simply make him president. Incredibly, he and his aides have not even bothered to offer some other pretense. They are now openly explaining, in media accounts (albeit anonymously) and in court filings, that the point is to disregard voters’ wishes” – The Atlantic.
Axios: “Rudy Giuliani and other key members of President Trump’s outside legal team won’t be attending today’s meeting with two Michigan lawmakers because they’ve been exposed to the coronavirus, two sources familiar with the internal discussions tell Axios. This added turmoil inside the president’s legal operation comes at a time when the president is urging Republican state lawmakers to interfere with the electoral process and reverse Joe Biden’s victory to a Trump win.”
“‘It’s just a shitshow, it’s a joke,’ said a Trump campaign adviser. Top Trump campaign officials held a conference call this morning with Eric Herschmann, a lawyer on the White House staff, in which they candidly discussed their legal conundrum. Herschmann serves in an advisory role outside the counsel’s office, and no one in the counsel’s office participated on the call, according to another person familiar with the call. Officials on the call included campaign manager Bill Stepien and advisers Jason Miller, Justin Clark, Matt Morgan, Tim Murtaugh and Boris Epshteyn, as well as Trump campaign lawyer Jenna Ellis. Asked whether the White House counsel’s office would be present in the meeting, Herschmann told the Trump campaign officials that the counsel’s office would not be represented but that somebody needed to brief the president about the legal situation. This raised the obvious question of which member of Rudy Giuliani’s legal team would join the White House meeting.”
A caller to the Rush Limbaugh radio broadcast proclaims through a torrent of tears that he would die “for our president”–by which, he means, only the presidents with whom he agrees politically.
The caller also laments the impending loss of both Trump and Limbaugh, who is allegedly dying of lung cancer after his addiction to cigars, Oxycontin and Viagra.
(As a Ravens season ticket holder myself, I apologize for this over-emotional display of irrationality and self-absorption. He’s embarrassing to The Flock.)
Merrick Garland, the federal appeals court judge who was nominated for the Supreme Court by Barack Obama only to have his nomination ignored by Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in an act presaging massive partisan hypocrisy, is reported on the short list to be Attorney General in the Biden Administration, NPR reports.
Garland served as a federal prosecutor in the Carter, GHW Bush and Clinton Administration, including overseeing the trial of right-wing terrorist Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. He was appointed U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia by Clinton in 1997.
According to NPR, the others under consideration include former U.S. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates in the Obama administration, former civil rights chief Deval Patrick and former U.S. Attorney Doug Jones.
Florida Republican Senator Rick Scott, the former hospital network CEO who ran the company while it was conducting the biggest Medicare fraud scheme in history, tested positive for the coronavirus earlier this week, the Associated Press reports.
The 67-year-old Scott is experiencing mild symptoms. Scott was tested Tuesday but reportedly just received the test results Friday morning. He’s the eighth member of Congress to test positive this week.
“I want to remind everyone to be careful and do the right things to protect yourselves and others,” Scott said in a statement, backtracking on Republican positions as is common when a Republican gets impacted by something they once mocked. “Wear a mask. Social distance. Quarantine if you come in contact with someone positive like I did. As we approach Thanksgiving, we know this holiday will be different this year. But, listen to public health officials and follow their guidance.”
Earlier this week, Democratic Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown requested Alaska’s Republican Senator Dan Sullivan to wear a mask while presiding over a session of the Senate. Sullivan refused.
WSB-TV: “The Secretary of State’s Office says it has certified the results of the 2020 General Election. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said the results were a ‘true and correct tabulation of the certified returns received by this office from each county… As secretary of state, I believe that the numbers that we have presented today are correct. The numbers reflect the verdict of the people, not a decision by the secretary of state’s office or of courts or of either campaign.’ The largest hand count of ballots in American history reaffirmed that Joe Biden won the state of Georgia. That’s according to the risk-limiting audit report finished by the secretary of state’s office Thursday. Biden led Trump by 14,156 votes before the audit and finishes with a lead of 12,284.”
“I liked Tucker until this. He was the last person I would watch on Fox.
Done. No more Fox for this household”
– The current top comment on the Breitbart article “Trump Lawyer Sidney Powell Responds to Tucker Carlson: ‘He Was Insulting, Demanding and Rude’” posted Friday morning.
Andrew Giuliani, a special assistant to outgoing president Donald Trump and the son of Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, will go into isolation for 14 days, not out of embarrassment about his father but because he tested positive for coronavirus, Politico reports.
The younger Giuliani, the spawn of the former mayor of New York City and his third second wife, tweeted that he’s currently experiencing mild symptoms.
At least fifteen Executive Branch personnel and an unknown number of others have tested positive with the coronavirus since a September Rose Garden event and an Election Night East Room gathering where people didn’t socially distance or wear masks.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “This is not how Georgia Republicans imagined the first days of a pivotal runoff campaign would go. Instead of unity and bonhomie, a full-blown civil war has erupted at a moment when Republicans can least afford it. President Donald Trump is stoking the infighting, leveling false claims about the vote. And resurgent Democrats just narrowly flipped the state for the first time in nearly three decades. Now, a state party already riven by the rivalry between U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler and U.S. Rep. Doug Collins for much of the year is plunged into deeper infighting ahead of Jan. 5 runoffs to decide control of the U.S. Senate. This conflict has bloodied the state’s top elections official, who has gone from a low-profile GOP figure whose name most Georgians could hardly pronounce a few weeks ago to a human litmus test on politics in the Trump-era.”
“To some, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is a hero for defending the integrity of a vote that featured no widespread fraud. To others who believe Trump’s claims, he’s an easy target of derision, the man who allowed the election to be rigged for Democrat Joe Biden in Georgia. The latter view has drawn top Georgia Republicans, who have fixated on Trump’s false narrative that the election was stolen. U.S. Sens. David Perdue and Loeffler – who both rally voters to ‘hold the line’ in the GOP-controlled Senate – led the charge to appease Trump, demanding Raffensperger’s resignation without citing publicly any evidence to justify their calls. Other Republicans have criticized his oversight of the vote, without going so far as to ask for his ouster.”
Protecting one man's ego is not worth damaging the legitimacy of our democracy.
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) November 20, 2020
In his ongoing preparation for his Administration, President-elect Joe Biden has named additional staff for his team, according to the Washington Post:
My statement on the presidential election. pic.twitter.com/m4gXnhY8ZP
— Lamar Alexander (@SenAlexander) November 20, 2020
“There is circumstantial evidence of more than a normal amount of voter fraud in this year’s election, but Trump’s lawyers have not yet presented most of the evidence supporting the electronic claims that they must rely on to have any hope of reversing the outcome of the election. So we can only reserve judgment for now. It is hard to understand what motive lawyers like Sidney Powell and Lin Wood might have to make explosive claims that they cannot prove, which would be career-destroying. But how strong their evidence will ultimately be, we don’t yet know. I hope their claims turn out to be well-founded and provable” writes Powerline Blog’s John Hinderaker.
“I got an email today from a Minnesota resident, a conservative and a smart guy who is the CEO of a company, and later talked with him on the phone. He has taken the trouble to read the filings that have been made so far by Trump’s lawyers. He directed my attention to an affidavit signed by Russell Ramsland, a Texas resident who is an expert on cyber security. The affidavit was filed by Lin Wood in the Georgia lawsuit, but it relates entirely to Michigan, and it is a safe bet that it has been filed in one or more cases in that state as well… Evidently a researcher, either Mr. Ramsland or someone working for him, was working with a database and confused ‘MI’ for Minnesota with ‘MI’ for Michigan. So the affidavit, which addresses ‘anomalies and red flags’ in Michigan, is based largely, and mistakenly, on data from Minnesota. This is a catastrophic error, the kind of thing that causes a legal position to crash and burn. Trump’s lawyers are fighting an uphill battle, to put it mildly, and confusing Michigan with Minnesota will at best make the hill steeper. Credibility once lost is hard to regain. Possibly Trump’s lawyers have already discovered this appalling error, and have undertaken to correct it. But the Ramsland Affidavit was filed in Georgia just yesterday.”
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