“Article yesterday said Durhams investigation was being dropped. Now we are told to expect something soon. Nothing will happen and we all know it.”

– The current top comment on the PJ Media article “Jim Jordan Expects Durham Report on Spygate ‘Real Soon’” posted Monday morning.

“Senate Republicans have tapped Karl Rove to oversee their fundraising program for the Georgia runoff elections, according to a person familiar with the effort. The former George W. Bush adviser will serve as national finance chairman for the Georgia Battleground Fund, a joint fundraising account formed by the National Republican Senatorial Committee that will benefit Republican Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue. The Jan. 5 runoffs in Georgia will determine which party controls the Senate next year. The Georgia contests have become a focal point for both parties. Outside groups have begun to spend heavily and potential future presidential hopefuls, such as Florida Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, are hitting the trail for the Republican candidates. Vice President Mike Pence is slated to travel to Georgia later this week” – Politico.

Philip Bump: “One second after noon on Jan. 20, 2021, President Trump will once again be a private citizen. The odds are good that he won’t be at the Capitol at that moment, given how the inauguration festivities will be affected by the coronavirus pandemic and Trump’s truculence about the election results. But, particularly given the broad collapse of his scattershot legal efforts, it’s even less likely now than it was a week ago that anything can prevent President-elect Joe Biden from becoming chief executive. And a week ago, there was essentially no likelihood.”

“The math is simple. Trump lost the electoral college 306 to 232. To win a second term, Trump would need to somehow pry 38 electoral votes away from Biden. That means that he would have to overturn the results of at least three states, barring some sort of miracle in which it is suddenly determined that he won California. Even wresting away the three states in which Trump lost by the narrowest vote totals — Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin — wouldn’t do the trick: That would get him only 37 electoral votes. He would basically have to somehow finagle a win in Pennsylvania plus two of Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin to get a second consecutive term in office. And it’s increasingly obvious that that’s not going to happen.”

“Plaintiffs dismiss Georgia lawsuit claiming election officials included illegal results and seeking to to stop the certification of presidential election results from certain counties. Trump and allies are now 1-23 in court.” reports Dem elections attorney Marc Elias.

Full story at USA Today.

“Plaintiffs dismiss Pennsylvania lawsuit claiming election officials included illegal results and seeking to to stop the certification of presidential election results from certain counties. Trump and allies are now 1-22 in court” reports Dem elections attorney Marc Elias.

Isn’t it just awesome to see all the smugness and “fuck you libs” of the years melt away into screaming, tears, and victimization of today?

“A key subtext of Joe Biden’s presidential campaign was that by dispatching President Trump to private citizenship, we could all reclaim the time and energy we spent thinking about Trump’s appalling, destructive behavior. It’s a nice dream, but it’s going to be deceptively difficult to carry out. Trump is a gifted performer. And during his time in office, he has benefited from structural changes in the entertainment industry that made it all the more difficult for anyone or anything else to challenge his dominance of the public’s attention.”

“Trump’s administration has often been portrayed as an extension of his career in reality television, and for good reason. Invoking that genre is a great way to capture the drama, pettiness and ambition that have defined White House for four years — as well as the participants’ total inability to handle any serious real-world challenges. As someone who literally recapped the ‘Trump Show’ for months, I know how appealing that metaphor can be. Yet, it turns out that discussing the Trump administration as reality television undersells the precise nature and power of Trump’s media creation. The strength of Trump’s command of our attention comes from the way he effectively borrows not just from one genre or medium, but from many of them at once” – Washington Post.

Crooked Media: “Approach Fox News with eyes, not arms, wide open. Call Fox what it is: an extension of the Republican Party. Say it often. Repetitive messaging works—just ask Lyin’ Ted and Low-Energy Jeb. Reject the absurd insistence that the network has a ‘real news’ division. Yes, Fox’s decision desk called Arizona and the election for Biden, but those nerds are stuffed in a boiler room while people like Jeanine Pirro and Karl Rove haunt the hallways and rule the airwaves.”

“Instead, Biden’s team should develop closer ties with progressive outlets like The Nation, The Young Turks, and yes, Crooked Media. Give them scoops and access and grow their audiences and influence the way Trump’s team has nurtured fringe rags like Newsmax and OAN. More importantly, Biden should supersize his White House digital media team. When the Obama administration created a video blog called West Wing Week to give the public a behind-the-scenes look at the White House, some members of the press corps sniffed that it was propaganda. That was silly even back then, but caving to those self-interested critiques today would be politically disastrous. The filter these journalists think they provide is shredded beyond repair. More people get their news from Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube than from sites with professional editorial standards, and conservative voices dominate that landscape. Biden’s team needs to fight harder on Facebook than it does in the White House briefing room.”

PJ Media: “It appears that the bureaucracy is more afraid of the Democrats than the people, as a report emerges claiming the Justice Department is dropping the investigation into Spygate, nearly two years after it began. The Federalist’s Sean Davis reports that the investigation into a treacherous spying operation on Donald Trump’s campaign and presidency is being dropped: ‘A source familiar with Durham’s ongoing investigation of the bogus Russian collusion operation tells @FDRLST: ‘Durham isn’t doing anything. Dropping his investigations. He’s worried about blowback from Biden. What an absolute disgrace.””

“President Donald Trump’s defeat will make it a lot easier for Democrats to finally get his tax returns, and some prominent lawmakers plan to keep the heat on the incoming Biden administration and House leaders to deliver. Once Biden controls the Treasury Department, his administration could simply hand over the long-sought records to its allies in Congress, who have been fighting in court to force Trump to turn them over, so far unsuccessfully.”

“Trump’s returns risks looking like a vindictive investigation of his predecessor. Not just that. It could also prove a distraction at a time when Biden is trying to push his own legislative agenda through a narrowly divided Congress. Yet, if Democrats were to suddenly say ‘never mind,’ it would not only be an embarrassing about-face, it would also infuriate people such as Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.), the head of the House Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee. “In a perfect world, we could have mercy — but this is not a perfect world,” said Pascrell, who has helped lead the push to spring Trump’s returns. ‘Even if he is no longer the president, there needs to be some accountability… We have got to follow through on this.’ With Trump making noises about running again in 2024, moreover, Democrats may be loath to abandon the option” – Politico.

CNN: “The Moderna vaccine is 94.5% effective against coronavirus, according to early data released Monday by the company, making it the second vaccine in the United States to have a stunningly high success rate. ‘These are obviously very exciting results,’ said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease doctor. ‘It’s just as good as it gets — 94.5% is truly outstanding.’ Moderna heard its results on a call Sunday afternoon with members of the Data Safety and Monitoring Board, an independent panel analyzing Moderna’s clinical trial data.”

“Will President-elect Joe Biden’s victory force America’s Christian nationalists to rethink the unholy alliance that powered Donald Trump’s four-year tour as one of the nation’s most dangerous presidents? Don’t count on it. The 2020 election is proof that religious authoritarianism is here to stay, and the early signs now indicate that the movement seems determined to reinterpret defeat at the top of the ticket as evidence of persecution and of its own righteousness. With or without Mr. Trump, they will remain committed to the illiberal politics that the president has so ably embodied.”

“As it did in 2016, the early analysis of the 2020 election results often circled around the racial, urban-rural, and income and education divides. But the religion divide tells an equally compelling story. According to preliminary exit polls from Edison Research (the data is necessarily rough at this stage), 28 percent of voters identified as either white evangelical or white born-again Christian, and of these, 76 percent voted for Mr. Trump. If these numbers hold (some other polls put the religious share at a lower number; others put the support for Mr. Trump at a higher number), these results indicate a continuation of support for Mr. Trump from this group. The core of Mr. Trump’s voting bloc, to be clear, does not come from white evangelicals as such, but from an overlapping group of not necessarily evangelical, and not necessarily white, people who identify at least loosely with Christian nationalism: the idea that the United States is and ought to be a Christian nation governed under a reactionary understanding of Christian values” – New York Times.

I WON THE ELECTION!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 16, 2020

BBC: “Opposition candidate Maia Sandu has won Moldova’s presidential election after a run-off vote against the incumbent Igor Dodon, preliminary results show. With almost all the ballots counted, Ms Sandu has won 57.7% of the vote compared to Mr Dodon’s 42.2%. Ms Sandu, 48, is a former World Bank economist who favours closer ties with the European Union. Mr Dodon, meanwhile, is openly backed by Russia. Final results are expected to be announced within five days.”

The number of sex abuse cases filed against the Boy Scouts of America now number more than 82,000, far exceeding the volume of cases against the Catholic Church in own sex abuse scandal, the New York Times reports.

With accusers ranging in age from 8 to 93, the cases outline decades of abuse that took place at BSA meetings and events across the country.  Plaintiffs come from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, as well as incidents of abuse that happened at US military bases in Germany and Japan.

The BSA has filed for bankruptcy in hopes of being able to settle the claims and reorganize.  According to filings with the bankruptcy court, the BSA has more than $1 billion in assets.  The bankruptcy judge set Monday as the deadline for alleged victims to file claims.

Biden and Harris, Daily Press Guidance [1]:
On Monday, November 16, President-elect Joe Biden end Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will receive a briefing on the economy in Wilmington, Delaware, which will include a photo spray… In the afternoon, President-elect Joe Biden end Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will deliver remarks in Wilmington, Delaware on the economic recovery and building back better in the long term, which will be expanded pooled press.

Trump and Pence, Daily Press Guidance [2]:
12:30 PM: THE PRESIDENT has lunch with the Vice President
Private Dining Room, Closed Press

The campaign of outgoing president Donald Trump has dumped a major part of its lawsuits to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters in Pennsylvania, the Washington Post reports.

Trump’s lawyers abandoned the claim that up to 600,000 votes should be invalidated because observers were not allowed to stand over counters at the ballot tallying locations.  The Trump campaign has falsely stated publicly that their campaign observers were not allowed in the locations, but in court, Trump lawyers have admitted to having observers at all counting locations. 

The Trump administration coronavirus advisor, Dr. Scott Atlas–a neuroradiologist and former Fox News contributor from a conservative think tank who has no virology, epidemiology or public health experience–is calling for insurrection because Michigan’s governor has had to re-institute regulations during a coronavirus outbreak the White House has not adequately addressed.

https://twitter.com/SWAtlasHoover/status/1328120887128842240

While Trump has claimed victory against the coronavirus, there is no vaccine and no treatment for the disease.