Washington Post: “President-elect Joe Biden tried Thursday to minimize as an irresponsible distraction the ever-escalating attempts by President Trump and his allies to undermine or overturn the presidential election results. The decision reflected confidence among Biden’s advisers that Trump’s maneuverings — from pushing Michigan Republicans to block certification of the results to unfounded claims that U.S. voting machine software had been tampered with by allies of the late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez — were little more than public spectacle aimed at satisfying Trump’s sense of grievance with no chance of overturning the vote. ‘It’s hard to fathom how this man thinks. It’s hard to fathom,’ Biden told reporters in Wilmington, Del. ‘I am confident he knows he hasn’t won and he’s not going to be able to win, and we’re going to be sworn in on Jan. 20.'”

“Biden said he did not plan any new legal moves in response to Trump’s latest efforts, but also did not rule out taking action against the General Services Administration at a future date to force a belated recognition of his presidential transition. The GSA, following Trump’s dictate, has refused to allow the traditional exchange of information with the incoming administration, even blocking intelligence and pandemic briefings. ‘Hang on. I’m on my way,’ Biden said, after being asked what he would tell people concerned by Trump’s efforts . ‘That’s what I say to them. Not a joke.'”

We love you Mr. Soros! You kicked ass this election!

— National Zero (@NationalZeroUSA) November 20, 2020

Reuters: “Trump’s legal onslaught has so far flopped, with judges quickly dismissing many cases and his lawyers dropping or withdrawing from others. None of the cases contain allegations – much less evidence – that are likely to invalidate enough votes to overturn the election, election experts say. And yet the election-theft claims are proving politically potent. All but a handful of Republican lawmakers have backed Trump’s fraud claims or stayed silent, effectively freezing the transition of power as the president refuses to concede. Trump has succeeded in sowing further public distrust in the media, which typically calls elections, and undermined citizens’ faith in the state and local election officials who underpin American democracy.”

“In Reuters interviews with 50 Trump voters, all said they believed the election was rigged or in some way illegitimate. Of those, 20 said they would consider accepting Biden as their president, but only in light of proof that the election was conducted fairly. Most repeated debunked conspiracy theories espoused by Trump, Republican officials and conservative media claiming that millions of votes were dishonestly switched to Biden in key states by biased poll workers and hacked voting machines. Many voters interviewed by Reuters said they formed their opinions by watching emergent right-wing media outlets such as Newsmax and One American News Network that have amplified Trump’s fraud claims. Some have boycotted Fox News out of anger that the network called Biden the election winner and that some of its news anchors – in contrast to its opinion show stars – have been skeptical of Trump’s fraud allegations.”

Will use these charts in court case. The Election was a HOAX. Thank you Justin! https://t.co/9Ue7ysDIVb

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 20, 2020

“In recent weeks, FBI agents in New York contacted witnesses and asked new questions about Giuliani’s efforts in Ukraine and possible connections to Russian intelligence, according to a person briefed on the matter. The FBI investigators, who have spoken to at least one witness previously months ago, came back to ask new questions recently about possible origins of emails and documents related to Hunter Biden that appear similar to those that the New York Post reported that Giuliani and others helped provide. CNN has previously reported that the ongoing probe is examining whether Giuliani is wittingly or unwittingly part of a Russian influence operation, according to people briefed on the matter. But questions about that probe have been out of the spotlight as Giuliani stepped into focus as the campaign’s chief post-election lawyer. One source close to Trump countered that Giuliani is an overzealous defender of the president” – CNN.

Reuters: “Vice President Mike Pence will jump into the fray of two red-hot U.S. Senate campaigns in Georgia on Friday, aiming to get Republican voters to turn out in force for a Jan. 5 runoff election battle that will decide Senate control. With President Donald Trump contesting President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, Pence is scheduled to make campaign stops in Canton and Gainesville, Republican areas where Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler will need strong turnout to defeat Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock. ‘Good Republicans never vote alone, guys!’ Perdue, a businessman, told a rally near Macon, Georgia, on Thursday. Loeffler also urged supporters to put out yard signs, attach bumper stickers to their cars and volunteer to knock on doors and staff phone banks. With Trump no longer on the ballot, Republicans and Democrats both face challenges getting large numbers of voters to the polls in January.”

President-elect Joe Biden turns 78 today.

Daily Beast: “At least Nero fiddled in Rome the whole time it burned. South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem chose to absent herself for a two-day trip to Washington, D.C., this week while the per capita stats placed her state No. 1 in the nation for new COVID-19 deaths and No. 2 for new infections. Between Nov. 16 and 17, she met with a series of Trump Cabinet members who will soon be out of a job and unable to do anything for South Dakota, even if they were so inclined. One thing they could do was provide Noem an opportunity for Noem to post pictures of her meeting with them when she could have been back home addressing a crisis.”

“The main event of her visit was an invitation from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to address the new Republican members of Congress in a hall at the Capitol. She was, of course, maskless, as were the others in attendance, though they were seated at an approximation of social distancing. ‘To the next generation of Republicans in Congress, remember where you came from,’ tweeted this one-time congresswoman, now a governor who had left hospitals crowded with the sick and dying to travel 5,750 miles from her state’s capital to tweet about not forgetting the folks back home. She also tweeted a photo of her and her husband, Bryon Noem, chilling with McCarthy in his office. ‘Thanks @GOPLeader for inviting me to speak to the new members and for hanging out with me and Bryon!’ she tweeted.”

The current wave of the coronavirus has yet to crest, with the number of new cases and hospitalizations once again hitting new peaks according to some of the data aggregators.

Worldometers reports 192,000 new coronavirus cases in the US, a new high.  The site also logged more than 2,000 fatalities on Thursday, a level not registered on the site since May 7th.

COVID Tracking Project reports slightly fewer new daily cases and fatalities, below the site’s previous peaks, but it also registered a new high in the number of people hospitalized with COVID, exceeding 80,000 patients.  The pattern continues of a 50% increase in hospitalizations over two weeks, a cycle that has been evident for the past three weeks.

This fishing expedition is very clearly part of a continued political vendetta ⤵️https://t.co/Gw0IKOWdeQ

— Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) November 20, 2020

Washington Post: “President Trump is using the power of his office to try to reverse the results of the election, orchestrating a far-reaching pressure campaign to persuade Republican officials in Michigan, Georgia and elsewhere to overturn the will of voters in what critics decried Thursday as an unprecedented subversion of democracy. After courts rejected the Trump campaign’s baseless allegations of widespread voter fraud, the president is now trying to remain in power with a wholesale assault on the integrity of the vote by spreading misinformation and trying to persuade loyal Republicans to manipulate the electoral system on his behalf.”

“In an extraordinary news conference Thursday at the Republican National Committee headquarters, Trump’s attorneys claimed without evidence there was a centralized conspiracy with roots in Venezuela to rig the U.S. presidential election. They alleged voter fraud in Atlanta, Detroit, Milwaukee, Philadelphia and other cities whose municipal governments are controlled by Democrats and where President-elect Joe Biden won by large margins. ‘We cannot allow these crooks — ’cause that’s what they are – to steal an election from the American people,’ said one of the attorneys, Rudolph W. Giuliani. ‘They elected Donald Trump; they didn’t elect Joe Biden. Joe Biden is in the lead because of the fraudulent ballots, the illegal ballots that were produced and that were allowed to be used after the election was over. Give us an opportunity to prove it in court and we will.’ Neither Giuliani nor other Trump attorneys have furnished evidence to support that or any other claim of widespread fraud.”

The prick doesn’t get points for trying to say it in the most gentle, indirect way possible however.

Outgoing president Donald Trump’s plan to undermine the US Census count so he could allocate House seats more to traditional Republican states may have been sabotaged by Trump’s attempt to undermine the US Census, Roll Call reports.

Trump ordered the processing of data from the decadal 2020 Census to be completed by December 31, 2020, so he could allot House seats and federal funding without having all residents included in the numbers.  Trump wanted to exclude undocumented immigrants from the Census count used to sway the allocation.

Instead of having five months to process the data, Trump demanded it be done in half the time.  And Trump did not send out Census door-knockers out into the field until September, four months later than they’re usually deployed.

New York Times: “Two separate New York State fraud investigations into President Trump and his businesses, one criminal and one civil, have expanded to include tax write-offs on millions of dollars in consulting fees, some of which appear to have gone to Ivanka Trump, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The inquiries — a criminal investigation by the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., and a civil one by the state attorney general, Letitia James — are being conducted independently. But both offices issued subpoenas to the Trump Organization in recent weeks for records related to the fees, the people said.”

“The subpoenas were the latest steps in the two investigations of the Trump Organization, and underscore the legal challenges awaiting the president when he leaves office in January. There is no indication that his daughter is a focus of either inquiry, which the Trump Organization has derided as politically motivated. The development follows a recent New York Times examination of more than two decades of Mr. Trump’s tax records, which found that he had paid little or no federal income taxes in most years, largely because of his chronic business losses. Among the revelations was that Mr. Trump reduced his taxable income by deducting about $26 million in fees to unidentified consultants as a business expense on numerous projects between 2010 and 2018. Some of those fees appear to have been paid to Ms. Trump, The Times found. On a 2017 disclosure she filed when joining the White House as a presidential adviser, she reported receiving payments from a consulting company she co-owned, totaling $747,622, that exactly matched consulting fees claimed as tax deductions by the Trump Organization for hotel projects in Hawaii and Vancouver, British Columbia.”

“President Donald Trump told an ally that he knows he lost, but that he is delaying the transition process and is aggressively trying to sow doubt about the election results in order to get back at Democrats for questioning the legitimacy of his own election in 2016, especially with the Russia investigation, a source familiar with the President’s thinking told CNN on Thursday. The President’s refusal to concede, as CNN has previously reported, stems in part from his perceived grievance that Hillary Clinton and former President Barack Obama undermined his own presidency by saying Russia interfered in the 2016 election and could have impacted the outcome, people around him have said. Trump continues to hold a grudge against those who he claims undercut his election by pointing to Russian interference efforts, and he has suggested it is fair game to not recognize Joe Biden as the President-elect, even though Clinton conceded on election night in 2016 and the Trump transition was able to begin immediately” CNN reports.

“Trump is also continuing to process the emotional scars of losing to a candidate he repeatedly said during the campaign was an unworthy opponent whose win would amount to humiliation. He again made no public appearances on Thursday, skipping the first coronavirus task force briefing at the White House in more than six months. He is planning to participate in a virtual Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation summit Friday, a senior administration official told CNN.”

AP: “A top Georgia election official said Thursday that a hand tally of ballots cast in the presidential race has been completed, and that the results affirm Democrat Joe Biden’s narrow lead over Republican President Donald Trump. The hand tally of about 5 million votes stemmed from an audit required by a new state law and wasn’t in response to any suspected problems with the state’s results or an official recount request. The state has until Friday to certify results that have been certified and submitted by the counties.”

“The counties were supposed to finish the hand count by 11:59 p.m. Wednesday. Gabriel Sterling, who oversaw the implementation of the state’s new voting system, said Thursday evening that the audit was complete and the results would soon be posted on the secretary of state’s website. Once the state certifies the election results, the losing campaign has two business days to request a recount if the margin remains within 0.5%. That recount would be done using scanners that read and tally the votes and would be paid for by the counties, Sterling said.”

I need to issue a correction.

Here at NatZero, we try to be accurate.  Sure, the occasional typo slides through.  But when it comes down to actual, genuine facts, Spartan and I try our best to get things right.  And admittedly, I got something wrong.

In an earlier story, I mentioned–no, I mocked–the hair dye that trickled down the side of Rudy Giuliani’s face as he baselessly claimed that China, Cuba and Venezuela, funded by George Soros and Hugo Chavez (who died seven years ago), undertook massive voter fraud by altering votes that were being counted in Germany.  Or Spain.  Or… somewhere other than the United States.

But I was wrong to mock Rudy’s hair dye.  Because it wasn’t hair dye.

Axios: “President-elect Joe Biden will meet with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D) in Wilmington, Delaware, on Friday, Axios has confirmed. Biden has spoken to the Democratic leadership since his projected election victory. But Friday’s scheduled meeting, which was first reported by Bloomberg, will be the first in-person gathering between the three since the election.”

“The meeting comes as Biden’s team continues to navigate the transition without having access to intelligence briefings and agency information. GSA Administrator Emily Murphy, a Trump political appointee, has not made the declaration — a so-called ‘ascertainment’ — that would allow officials from Biden’s agency review teams access to the information they need in order to get to work.”