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“Fox & Friends” finally turns on Trump following riot: “The president’s behavior has been terrible”

President Donald Trump’s favorite morning news show delivered harsh criticism on Thursday morning after a pro-Trump mob stormed into the Capitol building in Washington D.C.

While discussing the attack on the Capitol, which left four people dead, Kilmeade said Trump needed to accept that he lost the 2020 election.

“The president’s behavior has been terrible,” he said. “It has cost him two Senate seats, for sure, it cost his party the majority in the Senate.”

Kilmeade then ripped Trump for sending his supporters to the Capitol building, where they broke in and started ransacking offices.

“To put up a Trump flag and take down the American flag is not patriotic!” he fumed. “One of the worst things I’ve ever seen!”

Kilmeade urged Trump to concede the election after even longtime loyalists such as Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Tom Cotton (R-AR) are acknowledging the reality of his defeat.

The host even went so far as to defend Twitter’s decision to suspend Trump’s Twitter account.

Watch the video below.

A new coronavirus strain is 70% more transmissible — and it’s already widespread in the US

For several months, scientists have been aware of multiple strains of the novel coronavirus circulating in the United States. Yet one specific mutation, called B117, is alarming epidemiologists because of how much more transmissible rate.

According to two separate studies published by researchers in the United Kingdom, the variant originated in the UK between late summer and early autumn 2020. In early December, it started to alarm researchers as it appeared more frequently in SARS-CoV-2 samples in southern England—a sign that it could be a new dominant strain, and perhaps more contagious than previous ones. Indeed, according to preliminary research on the strain, that is the case. Researchers estimate that the variant has an increased transmission rate of 50 to 70 percent compared to other variants in the UK.

What that means is that this strain is infecting more people.

“There are mathematical models that have been put forth that suggest that this can be transmitted more rapidly than the kind of current strain that we have,” explained Dr. George Rutherford, a professor of epidemiology at the University of California, San Francisco. Rutherford added that the concern around B117 is that it appears to have a “competitive advantage” to the strains that have already been circulating.

Specifically, the mathematical model Rutherford is referring to is the basic reproductive number, known as “R”.

“And that’s the number of secondary cases you can expect, on average, for every primary case,” Rutherford said. “So, if there are 10 primary cases and 14 secondary cases, the effective reproductive number is 1.4.”

When it comes to “viral clones,” epidemiologists want the R number to be below 1, meaning fewer than one person is transmitted the virus for each one who contracts it. If R is below 1, that is “what leads to extinction,” Rutherford said.

Researchers estimate that B117’s transmission rate is between 1.5 and 1.7. Part of the so-called success of this variant could be the mutations that have happened within the variant; they appear to affect the spike protein that attaches to human cells, essentially improving its ability to bind to receptors on the cells.

“What’s interesting about this new variant is that it has 17 mutations, and of those 17, eight of them are in the spike protein area,” said Dean Blumberg, chief of pediatric infectious diseases and associate professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of California, Davis. “That’s important, because the spike protein serves as the initial attachment factor for the virus to receptors in our cells.” Blumberg noted that “we need to be immune to that spike protein to prevent infection.” Preliminary research also suggests that patients with this variant have higher levels of viral load compared to people who don’t have the variant.

Currently, there is no evidence that this variant causes more severe illness or increased risk of death. Notably, the vaccines and monoclonal antibodies, which are the lab-made proteins that incite an immune response, have not been tailored to fight the B117 strain. According to the Centers for Disease and Control, the virus would “likely need to accumulate multiple mutations in the spike protein to evade immunity induced by vaccines or by natural infection.”

Since the United Kingdom’s research, various cases of people being infected with the variant have been found in the United States. Many of these patients had no travel history, suggesting that it is already widespread. Recently, a man in upstate New York, twenty-four people in San Diego, and more people in Colorado, Florida, and Georgia have been found to have the super-infectious B117 strain. 

With a higher transmission rate and perhaps higher viral loads, current mitigation strategies — like wearing a mask and social distancing — remain effective. But they’re not completely bulletproof.

“They absolutely still work,” Rutherford said. “What we know is that masks not only prevent infection, but if they don’t fail to prevent infection they’re associated with less severe disease, they presumably cut down on the inoculum size.”

Blumberg agreed.

“Masking and social distancing is going to work for all these variants,” Blumberg said. “The only question is, if you’re not wearing a mask and not social distancing how efficiently are these viruses going to be transmitted?”

Blumberg said there may be a higher likelihood of transmission with the new variant even when proper preventative measures are taken.

“Masking and social distancing is good, but it’s not 100 percent effective,” Blumberg said. “It’s all playing the odds — and the odds are that if you’re coming into contact with somebody with the new variant, even masking and social distancing, there’s increased risk of transmission to you.”

Some of us saw this coming — but we were assured Donald Trump was no big deal

If nothing else, Wednesday’s insurgency-cum-riot on Capitol Hill should serve to sideline a few insouciant, above-it-all pundits who quietly enjoyed Donald Trump’s upstaging of liberals, even as they assured us that ultimately we had little to fear from him.

“He Won’t Concede, but He’ll Pack His Bags” was the headline on Atlantic writer Graeme Wood’s pre-election column of Oct. 15, which informed us that although Trump “has signaled that he’s willing to plunge America into chaos in an effort to remain in the White House … we should remember that Trump had a vision of the presidency that began with extreme laziness, and that the end of his presidency could go roughly the same way. … [A]ll evidence suggests that he would run from the responsibility … of overseeing the violent fracture of America.”  

Well, maybe. Early on Thursday morning, perhaps feeling utterly cornered at last, Trump promised an orderly transition. Maybe New York Times columnist Ross Douthat was right to assure us, on Oct. 10, that “There Will Be No Trump Coup.” Douthat offered a “final pre-election case for understanding the president as a noisy weakling, not a budding autocrat. Across the last four years, the Trump administration has indeed displayed hallmarks of authoritarianism. … But it’s also important to recognize all the elements of authoritarianism he lacks. He lacks popularity and political skill, unlike most of the global strongmen who are supposed to be his peers. … Our weak, ranting, infected-by-Covid chief executive is not plotting a coup, because a term like ‘plotting’ implies capabilities that he conspicuously lacks.”

Well, maybe. But Douthat — whom I’ve characterized as a casualty of Ideological Displacement Syndrome — also worried that with “liberalism poised to retake presidential power,” it had become “a more dominant force in our society, with a zealous progressive vanguard and a monopoly in the commanding heights of culture.” The liberals’ return to power, he warned, “won’t be the salvation of American pluralism; it will be the unification of cultural and political power under a single banner.”

Again, maybe. But begging Douthat and Wood’s pardon, what I think we’ve witnessed on Capitol Hill is pretty much what I predicted in March of 2016, as Trump was rampaging through that year’s Republican presidential primaries, demolishing both that party’s and the Democratic Party’s establishments:

Armed, racist American goons and drooling fools who are circling liberal democracy’s proverbial town meetings in our nightmares … weren’t born to do what they’re doing now, nor were they all disposed to do it back on the playground. The quiet little stabs of heartbreak and self-doubt that accumulated in tiny increments in their young lives as their parents lost jobs, pensions, homes, mutual respect, and public moral standing have  blossomed into open resentment seeking the right target.

How many of us remember that when Trump was inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2017, his transition team had discovered that the president has complete command of the National Guard unit of the District of Columbia, and that it informed that unit’s commander, Errol Schwartz, that his dismissal would be effective precisely at noon on Inauguration Day, in the middle of the ceremony, so that he wouldn’t even be able to welcome back the troops he’d sent out that morning.

Two days before the inauguration, that decision was reconsidered, and Schwartz was granted enough time to finish the ceremony and wrap up his affairs. I warned about all this in a long essay entitled, “The Die Is Cast: Why Trump Can’t Help but Try Dictatorship.” But according to multiple reports, the National Guard only showed up on Capitol Hill on Wednesday afternoon on Mike Pence’s orders, in consultation with aides and congressional leaders.

Trump is indeed unequal to Vladimir Putin in orchestrating tyranny. Yet his impulses resemble what 18th-century historian Edward Gibbon described, in “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” as the formation of the Roman emperor Augustus’ Praetorian Guard after an enfeebled, terrified Senate granted him “an important privilege. :.. By a dangerous exception to the ancient maxims, he was authorized to preserve his military command, supported by a numerous body of guards, even in time of peace, and in the heart of the capital.”

So far, what I and many of us feared years ago hasn’t quite happened. But Trump’s inaugural denunciations in 2017 of “politicians who prospered as jobs left and factories closed” — coupled with his vow that the “American carnage” caused by the hiring and buying of foreign people and products and deepened by crime, gangs and drugs “stops right here, stops right now” — left him no choice but to humble or destroy all “politicians” who resist him.

Just look now at the Republicans, as well as Democrats, whom he’s thrown under the bus. Let’s hope we can look at this moment as a historic one in which, once again, most Americans told Trump and the tens of millions of their fellow citizens who have indulged his armed goons and drooling fools that, as President-elect Biden said during the upheaval: “Enough is enough.”

GOP reckons with mob insurrection as Congress returns to finalize electoral votes

Members of Congress reconvened in the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday to confirm Joe Biden’s presidential victory after a mob of President Trump’s supporters, spurred by the outgoing commander in chief’s screed on the National Mall, stormed the building in a violent uprising without precedent in American history.

Vice President Mike Pence, standing at the dais where hours earlier an invading rioter had declared Trump the winner, told the joint session of Congress, “Violence never wins. Freedom wins. And this is still the people’s house.”

Pence’s remarks kicked off a somber evening of debate after the momentous chaos, during which one woman was shot and killed while apparently trying to breach the building and several other people were hospitalized. The mob of Trump supporters had crashed the Capitol grounds at the president’s urging, with incoherent hopes of overturning what Trump and his allies, including some Republican members of Congress, have falsely and repeatedly told them is a stolen election. The attack cast a pall over the federal government and the city that hosts it, with D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser announcing that the national capital will be under a state of public emergency until Jan. 21, the day after Biden’s inauguration.

Hours later, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi vowed to reconvene that night, after the building had been cleared, saying that the “shameful assault” on democracy had been “anointed at the highest level of government.”

“It cannot, however, deter us from our responsibility to validate the election of Joe Biden,” she said.

That evening, Democratic and Republican senators and congressional representatives carried on the unusual business of debating the Electoral College votes, an exceedingly rare occurrence in what has been a routine formality for nearly 150 years.

Some moderate Republicans appeared chagrined at the attempted insurrection that happened on their watch, and was perpetrated by their voters. Pelosi’s GOP counterpart, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, speaking on the Senate floor, told colleagues that “Congress will not be the same after today.”

“The violence, destruction and chaos we saw earlier was unacceptable, undemocratic and un-American. It was the saddest day I’ve ever had serving as a member of this institution,” McCarthy said, adding the caveat that he still believed the country needed a national discussion about election integrity.

Hours earlier, more than 100 members of McCarthy’s caucus had joined more than a dozen Republican senators to object to the ratification of Biden’s victory in Arizona, a number of them justifying the decision by parroting lies about election fraud that Trump and his allies have peddled for months.

Following the day’s extraordinary violence, several GOP lawmakers abandoned their previous objections, including outgoing Georgia Sen. Kelly Loeffler, who on Tuesday lost a runoff election against Democratic challenger Rev. Raphael Warnock, one of two GOP losses in Georgia that will cost Republicans control of the Senate.

Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, a longtime Trump critic who had been the only Republican to vote for the president’s removal after his impeachment trial, made clear where the blame for Wednesday’s rioting lay in a memorable, stentorian speech on the Senate floor.

“We gather due to a selfish man’s injured pride and the outrage of supporters who he has deliberately misinformed for the past two months and stirred to action this very morning,” Romney said. “What happened here today was an insurrection incited by the president of the United States.”

He implored his colleagues to give up their quixotic crusade and level with their constituents about the truth: Biden won the election.

“No congressional audit is ever going to convince these voters,” he said, adding: “The best way we can show respect to voters who are upset is by telling them the truth. That’s the burden, that’s the duty of leadership.” The speech drew applause.

Only six Republican senators stood firm in their objections to Arizona’s electoral votes, among them Ted Cruz of Texas and Josh Hawley of Missouri — who resides in Virginia. Hawley, who launched the objection movement, had just that afternoon been trashed in an editorial by the Kansas City Star, the newspaper of record in his home state, saying that he “deserves an impressive share of the blame for the blood that’s been shed” because of the leading role he had assumed in backing Trump’s futile crusade.

Hawley began by condemning the day’s violence, invoking the words of Abraham Lincoln: “no appeal from ballots to bullets.” He then pressed ahead with his plans to object to votes — which was the entire reason the pro-Trump mob attacked the Capitol in the first place.

The success that the attackers had in accessing the heart of one of the most hardened targets in the United States, apparently without the use of firearms, has drawn scrutiny to the federal forces charged with protecting the grounds. Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, the top House official who oversees funding the Capitol Police, told reporters after the rioters were cleared that “there were some strategic mistakes from the very beginning,” and said that firings were imminent.

“I think it’s pretty clear that there’s going to be a number of people who are going to be without employment very, very soon, because this is an embarrassment,” Ryan said, “both on behalf of the mob and the president, and the insurrection and the attempted coup, but also the lack of professional planning and dealing with what we knew was going to occur.”

“You can bet your ass that we’re going to get to the bottom of it,” he said.

Outside the Capitol, Washington reckoned with the implications of the fact that the sitting president had unleashed a mob attack designed to thwart the normal work of his own government. Multiple reports indicated that following Wednesday’s chaos, congressional and Cabinet officials have discussed invoking the 25th Amendment — often derided during Trump’s term as a Democratic pipe dream — which grants Cabinet members the power to vote to relieve presidents of their duties if deemed unfit to lead. Among the officials involved, Axios reported, are top State Department and White House aides. Earlier in the day Pence reportedly deployed the National Guard to the Capitol without Trump’s authorization, a highly unusual and as-yet-unexplained breach of the chain of command.

All Democratic members on the House Judiciary Committee sent Pence a letter demanding that he invoke the 25th Amendment and take control of the White House, citing in part Trump’s videotaped address to the nation after the attack on the Capitol, which they said revealed the president was not “mentally sound” and was still unable to process his election loss. (Twitter and Facebook temporarily locked Trump’s account, demanding that he delete that post and two others.)

A number of top administration officials were also reported to be weighing their resignations in the wake of Trump’s attempted insurrection, according to NBC News, among them national security adviser Robert O’Brien and Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao who is the wife of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Retired Gen. Mike Mullen, former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Judy Woodruff of “PBS News Hour” on Wednesday night that Trump had “incited” the failed insurrection, and was “not in position to lead the next 14 days.”

“I don’t think we’re done,” Mullen added. “Today was not it.” 

The U.S. Capitol was built to inspire awe. But that’s all gone now

What just happened on Capitol Hill is unprecedented. I have worked on the Hill and got to know the buildings, tunnels and security measures very well. I can tell you that what we witnessed on Wednesday was only possible because the police and the Pentagon are allowing it, sticking with Donald Trump. There are several layers of security in and around the Capitol. Under usual circumstances, it would be possible to clear the parameter in five minutes. Law enforcement can do it easily, when they really want to. If those had been Black Lives Matter protesters storming the Capitol, half of them would be dead by now — and the other half would have been tear-gassed, beaten and arrested within minutes.

What will stay with me from Wednesday is the image of a Trump thug sitting at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s desk after breaking into her office. This has got to be the lowest moment, and biggest hit on the Capitol, witnessed in modern history. The only other time the building was ever taken over was when it was burnt by British troops in 1814. That was in a young and unstable nation during the time of war.

During my time on the Hill, I have seen many foreign dignitaries in awe as they walked the halls of the Capitol. Looking back at its architectural history, the building itself was built and planned in a way to induce immediate awe in foreign leaders who come to Washington. I have seen British lords, Arab royalty and European presidents come and go — feeling humbled and a little bit smaller as they walked around the Capitol. That was absolutely its intended effect, as thought out and designed by the Capitol architects.

I have seen the Capitol building magic for myself. I have walked the tunnels, have admired the chandelier and have taken numerous people on tours or meetings who admired from the inside — even if for 20 minutes or half an hour — the spirit of possibly the most glorious of American political institutions. Walking around the Capitol, you can touch and feel history. It’s in the air.

That is all gone now. The world was watching as the Capitol was turned into a mockery, as rioters looted priceless artifacts. Under any normal circumstances, the National Guard would have gone in immediately. But Trump’s acting secretary of defense, Chris Miller, delayed for hours before sending the National Guard on armed people storming the symbol and very definition of government power. As reported later, it finally happened only after Vice President Pence and congressional leaders came to an agreement. Trump was reportedly never involved.

I believe all this took place because other people played along: the Capitol Police, Republicans in the House and the Senate, officials in the Pentagon, and the inciter in chief himself. Don’t be surprised at the shockingly low number of arrests on Wednesday. There won’t be many more. The whole scenario unfolded according to Trump’s plan.

Law enforcement won’t do much of anything. Don’t hold your breath. The next two weeks will be among the toughest in American history. Revolutions happen when the police and the military join the other side and do nothing to prevent the takeover.

Trump’s failed coup leads to White House exodus

On Wednesday, following the attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters, Deputy White House Press Secretary Sarah Matthews announced her resignation.

“As someone who worked in the halls of Congress I was deeply disturbed by what I saw today,” said Matthews in a statement. “I’ll be stepping down from my role, effective immediately. Our nation needs a peaceful transfer of power.”

The announcement comes after Stephanie Grisham, former White House Press Secretary and chief of staff to First Lady Melania Trump, also announced her resignation. It is unclear whether any further resignations among White House staff will follow.

Trump is lashing out at Mike Pence after the vice president declined to do a coup for him

As far-right rioters storm the United States Capitol to implement a coup on behalf of President Donald Trump, who refuses to accept his defeat in the 2020 election, the president refused to denounce them in strong language — reportedly because he remains angry at Vice President Mike Pence for not breaking the law on his behalf. And after it was confirmed that at least 4 people died during the hourslong rampage, the president, reportedly still raging that his vice president would not engage in a coup, ramped up his vindictive campaign against Pence. 

The vice president’s chief of staff, Marc Short, said he was denied entry into the White House late on Wednesday. “He’s blaming me for advice to VP,” Short said of Trump to Real Clear Politics’ Phillip Wegmann. After Trump initially resisted, it was Pence who reportedly mobilized the DC National Guard. Pence also condemned pro-Trump rioters who stormed into the Electoral College certification ceremony he was presiding over. 

“You did not win,” Pence bluntly stated. 

Trump was reportedly both fuming at Pence all day and giddy at the prospect of his supporters successfully delaying the certification of Biden’s win. After both “official and unofficial” presidential advisers urged Trump to issue a statement denouncing his supporters’ riot because both he, his lawyer Rudy Giuliani and his daughter Ivanka Trump have only said things that give the mob a “permission structure,” Trump released a video that was so inflammatory it was taken down from Facebook and Twitter.

In his statement, meanwhile, Pence explained that he does not have the “unilateral authority to decide which electoral votes should be counted.”

In fact, the Constitution does not empower the vice president to nullify electoral votes. (If it did, the vice president of any incumbent party that loses a presidential election could subvert democracy on a whim.) It simply says that the vice president should read the slates of electors submitted by each state as they are counted, recite the results aloud and maintain order. Even if the Constitution did vest that power in the vice president, there is no evidence that there was widespread fraud, a fact that has been confirmed by roughly 60 courts, 90 judges, Trump’s own attorney general (before he was fired for saying so) and the entire Supreme Court. Not a single case alleging widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election has been supported by any legal institution in the United States, despite dozens of filings by Trump and his backers.

During demonstrations in Washington earlier today, both Trump and Giuliani seemed to urge their supporters to participate in a coup. The president appeared at a rally and told his supporters that “we will never concede,” that they should “show strength” and that they should “fight” to move their rally to the steps of the Capitol. He also said that the demonstrators should give “our Republicans” some of the “pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.” Later he tweeted that protesters should “stay peaceful” and posted a brief video address that, while urging them to “go home in peace,” continued to implicitly legitimize their behavior by falsely claiming “we had an election stolen from us” and characterizing those who say otherwise as “so bad and so evil.”

Giuliani expressed a similar sentiment, telling the rioters that “over the next 10 days, we get to see the machines that are crooked, the ballots that are fraudulent. And if we’re wrong, we will be made fools of. But if we’re right, a lot of them will go to jail. So let’s have trial by combat.” Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., also encouraged the rioters by pumping his fist in the air as they appeared on the east side of the Capitol just before the riot began. Hawley was the first senator to say that he would object to the Senate’s certification of the Electoral College count. Later on Wednesday he tweeted that he was grateful “to the brave law enforcement officials who have put their lives on the line. The violence must end, those who attacked police and broke the law must be prosecuted, and Congress must get back to work and finish its job.”

The organizers appeared to understand the message quite clearly, as one of the protest organizers told CNN that “we won’t stop fighting until the President does.”

Not all of the Republicans who supported Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election have backed the rioters. Pence has tweeted that “the violence and destruction taking place at the US Capitol Must Stop and it Must Stop Now. Anyone involved must respect Law Enforcement officers and immediately leave the building.” (He also reportedly unfollowed Trump on Twitter.) Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio tweeted that they should “stop the violence. Support Capitol Police.” Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas echoed those thoughts, tweeting that “those storming the Capitol need to stop NOW. The Constitution protects peaceful protest, but violence—from Left or Right— is ALWAYS wrong. And those engaged in violence are hurting the cause they say they support.”

The Capitol riots are without precedent in American history. The closest equivalent is the 1860 presidential election, after which seven Southern states seceded because they objected to the election of President Abraham Lincoln. After Lincoln’s inauguration, four more states joined the newly-formed Confederate States of America and two others partially seceded. Yet even though those states reacted violently to the election of a presidential candidate they disliked, none of them suggested that his predecessor — the pro-slavery President James Buchanan — should stay in office by force or that Lincoln’s victory was illegitimate. There has never been an occasion when a sitting president has encouraged his supporters to stop the certification of his opponent’s victory by force.

“They were captured”: Fox News host blames “African-American culture” for GOP losses in Georgia

Fox News host Rachel Campos-Duffy on Wednesday reacted to potential Republican losses in the Georgia runoff races by blaming Black people who she said had been “captured” by Democrats.

The morning after the Tuesday runoffs, Fox News host Sandra Smith spoke to Campos-Duffy about the results.

“You’re analysis is very important this morning,” Smith said. “You and your husband, Sean Duffy, are very strong voices in the Republican Party. You see what’s happening, you just watched what’s happening down in Georgia.”

“I think there are limits to what [Republican] politics can do,” Campos-Duffy replied. “I believe culture is more important, that elections are lagging indicators of what is happening in the culture. And let’s be very clear, we have been under a multi-generational, very patient, very potent indoctrination program by the left.”

“And they have captured so many aspects of American life,” she continued. “From media, social media, big tech, corporate America, all the way down — you know, our education system, not just our universities, but all the way down into, you know, our elementary schools.”

Campos-Duffy then opined on the Black community.

“The African-American vote was very important in this vote,” she said. “It really is what won the day.”

“And the African-American culture has been captured by the left,” the pundit added, “whether it’s sports, media, their leaders. I mean, to the point where you have a pastor — a pastor, a Christian pastor — who unabashedly announces that he is pro-abortion.”

Campos-Duffy claimed that the state of African-American politics “is a very serious problem.”

“Make no mistake, Sandra, last night on the ballot, socialism was on the ticket and socialism won,” she remarked. “And if socialism can win in deep-South Georgia, socialism can win anywhere!”

“This is a massive wakeup call to conservatives, to Republicans, that it is — we’re going to lose our country and our values if we don’t engage in this culture war,” Campos-Duffy insisted. “Our ideas are not passed on in the bloodstream to our children, they are taught.”

She revealed that she was “trying not to be too dramatic about this.”

“But I really do think that so much is at stake,” she concluded. “The African-American vote was so important. As I mentioned before, they were captured. As you look at this Hispanic vote, not as susceptible to socialism.”

Watch the video below from Fox News.

Introducing the Congressional un-American activities caucus

The only good thing we can see in next Wednesday’s planned stage set of Trump vs. Democracy is that the challenge finally will put the names of Republicans who believe in a coup on the record.

In any normal world, that should mean that they have signed a political death warrant. Who wants to stand election in a world where elections are declared null and void?

But in these divided United States, these Republican plotters may well emerge as some kind of patriotic if zany Donald Trump loyalists worthy of a return to office. After all, it has been reported widely that most of the 74 million who voted for Trump believe without evidence the election for president was fraud-filled, and stolen by Joe Biden’s radical leftists. Almost five dozen court challenges later, there still is no evidence.

We can expect that more than a few will not accept any resolution here, and turn to the streets, even to violence, to keep Trump in office.

First, Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri offered himself as the single required senator to step up to the formal election challenge and joining with the 140 or so Republicans in the House. We are facing a formal operetta to delay declaring Biden the next president. Set aside that Hawley likely is motivated by early recognition of his own presidential hopes for the next election. And even set aside that it is numerically impossible to see a successful vote to overturn the election results. It will still be a slap to the country’s most central traditions.

But then, on Saturday, nearly a dozen Republican senators and senators-elect led by Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas said they, too, will reject electors from some states won by Biden, citing without evidence allegations of voter fraud and calling for an emergency 10-day audit of results. It is an attempt, they said, to give voice to those who don’t believe the election was conducted fairly, despite no investigation nor court finding any evidence of wrongdoing.

What we face

What we will get is another airing of baseless accounts—some made up, some just legally incomplete—that selected results from contested states like Pennsylvania were swayed by so-called suitcases of votes suddenly appearing late at night, by reliance on mail balloting that Democrats used for recruiting in a time of the pandemic, by machinery that magically changed votes only in districts with higher Black and minority populations.

From Hawley’s statements, his challenge to automatic acceptance of receiving the Electoral College results—the ritual that is scheduled before the incoming Congressional session—is only a call to get focus on the actual Trump complaints about the election, despite procedural and substantive rejection by scores of state and federal courts all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The only three election fraud cases to be prosecuted this year have involved individual Republicans seeking to vote for Trump. Hmm.

For once, we may find ourselves in agreement with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that Republicans should just drop this nonsense and move on, this act of public Trump loyalty is more than a ceremonial call. McConnell believes that it will hurt Republican political fates to have to split his party members on whether to publicly appear to back Trump even through election fantasy or stand for realism.

As a vote-counter who holds his own idea of a Senate caucus as the controlling arm of government, McConnell clearly hates anything that seems to weaken his position.

Trump, of course, cares only about Trump, and McConnell is a temporary obstacle, and Hawley is this week’s hero, preempting incoming Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville, who previously had offered to launch the formal challenge.

Meanwhile, we keep hearing about another loony lawsuit by Texas Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert, among the pure-bred Trumpists, filed seeking a legally strange and strained argument that Vice President Mike Pence, the titular presiding officer of Wednesday’s session, act in a way to hold up acknowledging election results, or insisting that votes of alternate slates of electors be the ones accepted. And this prompted Pence’s lawyers to go to court to argue – successfully — that the lawsuit that ostensibly asks to give him more power be thrown out.

It’s political weirdness that seems so last year now.

Silliness personified

Throughout, we keep hearing the alarmed tone of academics, legal experts, election officials, journalists and pundits as they intone that a judgment on democracy itself is being served up here. They are not wrong, but they keep missing the point that this is all for show toward creating an aggrieved Donald Trump – and for guaranteed future fund-raising.

Here’s Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post columnist: “There is no irregularity or evidence of fraud that justifies this move. It is pandering to a party’s base which has lost touch with reality and fidelity to our Constitution. . . Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro called the lawsuit ‘seditious abuse.’ That’s an apt description for Hawley’s latest move.”

When looked at that way, these unfolding events need a different filter – like looking at political showmanship and advertising.

Trump himself finally seems engaged enough by the developments to come off the golf course long enough to oversee the staging of a pretend coup – or to be present for coronation should an actual coup somehow emerge from all the chaos being sown.

We can even add in the dramatic almost-certainty that the two Senate races in Georgia on Tuesday won’t be resolved in time to seat any of the four candidates on Wednesday.

My advice: Keep track of those voting to dump the votes of 82 million Americans who voted for Biden to insist that the only votes that count come from Republican districts.

You can start with these: Senators  Cruz and Hawley, Ron Johnson (Wis.), James Lankford (Okla.), Steve Daines (Mont.), John Neely Kennedy (La.),  Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.) and Mike Braun (Ind.)  with incoming Cynthia M. Lummis (Wyo.), Roger Marshall Kan.), Bill Hagerty (Tenn.), Tommy Tuberville (Ala.). Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama will be the first among House Republicans.

Actually, if they believe what they say, these Republicans should simply quit, and refuse to serve. After all, they, too, came to office via elections equally flawed—whatever the evidence.

Or better, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) should refuse to seat them, because they are choosing not to follow their oaths.

And, when they don’t, we should simply get rid of them all: They don’t believe in American democracy.

Trump tells Capitol rioters “we love you,” stokes election lies after Biden condemns “insurrection”

President-elect Joe Biden condemned the pro-Trump rioters who stormed the Capitol building during a joint session of Congress and demanded President Donald Trump speak out on national television to do the same. Minutes later, the White House released a 60-second video of Trump repeating the lies that fueled the siege, praising his supporters as “very special” and urging them to “go home.”

Trump supporters attacked Capitol police officers, breached security barricades, scaled walls, smashed doors and windows, and stormed the Capitol, forcing lawmakers to lock down and later evacuate. The unprecedented siege came as both chambers of Congress debated an objection to the Electoral College results in Arizona lodged by Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. At least one person was shot. Capitol police drew their guns in a standoff at the door to the House chamber. Other supporters invaded lawmakers’ offices and rummaged through desks. No lawmakers have been reported injured, but six people, including one law enforcement officer, were taken to the hospital. Explosive devices were found, at the Capitol and the headquarters of the Democratic and Republican National Committees, according to multiple reports. The city declared a 6 p.m. curfew and the D.C. and Virginia National Guards were activated in response to the assault on both chambers.

“At this hour, our democracy is under unprecedented assault, unlike anything we’ve seen in modern times,” Biden said from Wilmington, Delaware. “The scenes of chaos at the Capitol do not reflect a true America, do not represent who we are. What we’re seeing is a small number of extremists dedicated to lawlessness.”

The siege “borders on sedition,” he said.

“I call on President Trump to go on national television now, to fulfill his oath and defend the constitution and demand an end to this siege,” Biden said. “It’s not a protest; it’s insurrection. The world is watching.”

Trump, who published two tweets urging supporters to be “peaceful” but did not demand they end their siege of the Capitol, spoke in a recorded video published to Twitter moments later. The president urged his supporters to go home even as he continued to push his false claims about election rigging. Hours earlier, he addressed his supporters to check off a litany of false allegations about fraud and irregularities that have repeatedly been rejected by courts and Trump-appointed judges, his own administration and Republican election officials.

“I know your pain. I know you’re hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election and everyone knows it… But you have to go home now,” Trump said in the pre-recorded video that was quickly locked by Twitter “due to a risk of violence.” “We have to have peace. We have to have law and order. We have to respect our great people in law and order. We don’t want anyone hurt. It’s a very tough period of time. There’s never been a time like this where such a thing happened where they take it away from all of us… This was a fraudulent election but we can’t play into the hands of these people. We have to have peace. So go home. We love you. You’re very special.”

Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., said the video shows Trump is “detached from reality” and called for Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the “25th Amendment.”

Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Mich., said she would introduce articles of impeachment against Trump in response to his role in fueling the assault on the Capitol.

“I am drawing up Articles of Impeachment,” she tweeted. “Donald J. Trump should be impeached by the House of Representatives & removed from office by the United States Senate.  We can’t allow him to remain in office, it’s a matter of preserving our Republic and we need to fulfill our oath.”

Freshman Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., argued that the blame lay not just with Trump but other Republicans who pushed his dangerous fraud lies.

“I believe the Republican members of Congress who have incited this domestic terror attack through their attempts to overturn the election must face consequences. They have broken their sacred Oath of Office,” she said. “I will be introducing a resolution calling for their expulsion.”

U.S. Capitol in lockdown after Trump unleashes violent mob on Congress

The U.S. Capitol went into lockdown on Wednesday afternoon as a pro-Trump mob, directed to Capitol Hill in a rally speech by the outgoing president, broke through police lines, entered the Capitol building and engaged federal guards in an armed standoff within the Senate chamber. It was an unprecedented outbreak of violence and an apparent revolt against Congress and the federal government. Multiple reports suggest that one woman was shot in the chest on the Capitol grounds and is now in critical condition, although the precise circumstances are unclear. NBC reported that as many as six people have been hospitalized, including one law enforcement officer.

The violence forced both chambers of Congress to halt their debate on ratifying President-elect Joe Biden’s victory — the normally-routine event that attracted the mob in the first place — and go into emergency recess, with lawmakers sheltering in their offices. Authorities reportedly deployed tear gas in the Capitol rotunda and instructed lawmakers to don the gas masks stored below their seats, and to duck under their chairs if necessary. Vice President Mike Pence had already been evacuated from the building by the Secret Service, as had senators and legislative aides, amid reports of suspicious devices around the premises.

NBC News later reported that an improvised explosive device had been found in the Capitol, and the New York Times reported that a device had been discovered and safely detonated at Republican National Committee headquarters, two blocks from Capitol grounds. As of roughly 5 p.m. Eastern time, with darkness falling, Washington police and other law enforcement agencies were beginning to disperse the mob, although there are clearly large numbers of people inside the building

As protesters fought through federal police to storm the chamber doors, multiple journalists on the scene reported that law enforcement had drawn guns, and that shots had been fired. Some of the self-styled revolutionaries managed to take the Senate floor, with one person mounting the dais and proclaiming President Trump the winner of the election. (He is not.) One person was photographed being wheeled out on a stretcher, perhaps the woman who was reportedly shot and seriously injured.

Protesters raised a large wooden cross on the premises, and at least one person carried a Confederate battle flag into the Capitol. A group of protesters apparently reached the offices of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, which had been evacuated so rapidly that emails warning of the violence were still visible on office computers.

Reporters and protesters alike have shared video and photos documenting the events, which are without precedent in recent American history.

President-elect Biden denounced the events in a televised address, calling the attack “an insurrection” from “a small number of extremists dedicated to lawlessness,” and demanded that Congress be allowed to finish its job.

“The scenes of chaos at the Capitol do not reflect a true America. Do not represent who we are,” Biden said. “What we’re seeing are a small number of extremists dedicated to lawlessness. This is not dissent, it’s disorder. It’s chaos. It borders on sedition, and it must end now. I call on this mob to pull back and allow the work of democracy to go forward.”

“At this hour, our democracy’s under unprecedented assault, unlike anything we’ve seen in modern times. An assault on the citadel of liberty, the Capitol itself. An assault on the people’s representatives and the Capitol Hill police sworn to protect them, and the public servants who work at the heart of our republic,” he said. 

“Threatening the safety of elected officials, it’s no protest. It’s insurrection,” said the former vice president.

“President Trump: Step up,” he added.

Biden repeated the appeal to Trump on Twitter, writing: “I call on President Trump to go on national television now to fulfill his oath and defend the Constitution by demanding an end to this siege.

Thousands of Trump supporters had descended on Washington on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, hoping to bully lawmakers into disputing or overturning the results of the presidential election, which they and the president falsely claim has been stolen by an array of Democratic and Republican federal, state and judicial officials. The event, typically a passing formality, was rendered extraordinary this year by more than 100 GOP lawmakers who pledged to dispute the Electoral College votes, setting the stage for a showdown.

Many view the protest as a last stand for the outgoing president, who addressed the crowd ahead of the congressional debate, In a disjointed speech on the Ellipse, Trump urged his supporters to march to the Capitol. Republicans, Trump said, now need to “fight much harder” against “bad people,” and “demand” that congressional officials “confront this egregious assault on our democracy” — i.e., his electoral defeat.

“You have to show strength and you have to be strong,” Trump said, adding: “You will never take back our country with weakness.”

After the violence broke out, Trump tweeted for peace.

“I am asking for everyone at the U.S. Capitol to remain peaceful. No violence! Remember, WE are the Party of Law & Order – respect the Law and our great men and women in Blue,” he wrote. “Thank you!”

In a brief video address to the nation, later locked by Twitter “due to a risk of violence,” Trump reiterated his false claim to victory and told the rioters that he loved them.

“I know your pain. I know your hurt,” Trump said to his supporters who had just attempted a piecemeal insurrection against the government he nominally leads. “We had an election stolen from us . . . this was a fraudulent election,” he lied, invoking the reason they stormed Congress to begin with. The president then told the mob, “we love you, you’re very special,” before asking them to remain peaceful and “go home.”

The National Association of Manufacturers, a historically conservative industry trade group, has called on Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment and remove Trump from office.

Capitol Police have reportedly called for reinforcements, including federal personnel, and the city has implemented a 6 p.m. curfew. White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany appeared to announce on Twitter that after considerable confusion, Trump has called out the National Guard to restore order. Since the District of Columbia has special federal status, Guard troops in the nation’s capital are directly under the president’s control, rather than local authorities.

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., reportedly declared, to bipartisan applause, that both chambers would reconvene to ratify Biden’s victory after the protesters were cleared. In an interview with CNN at about 5 p.m., Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., said that Democratic senators were urging Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to reconvene the Senate as well and conclude the day’s business.

According to Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., Senate staff members secured the mahogany boxes containing the Electoral College votes, which might otherwise have been seized or burned by the invading mob.

This is a rapidly developing story and will be updated.

Rudy Giuliani called for “trial by combat” and then chaos descended on Capitol Hill

Just before a mob of MAGA supporters swamped the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Donald Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani proposed a “trial by combat” over his baseless allegations of election rigging during a bizarre speech at a rally to protest the certification of Joe Biden’s Electoral College win. 

Giuliani spoke ahead of Trump’s speech at the so-called “Save America Rally” in Washington DC, repeating the same false claims that have been rejected by dozens of courts and Trump-appointed judges, Republican election officials, and Trump’s own Justice Department. The rally came ahead of a joint session of Congress to formally certify the Electoral College results where a group of Republicans planned a futile challenge to an election President-elect Joe Biden won by a 306-232 electoral margin.

At one point during his speech, the former New York City mayor said he would stake his reputation on a bizarre conspiracy theory that Dominion Voting machines, which are used in numerous states, flipped votes from Trump to Biden even though the claim has been repeatedly discredited.

“So over the next ten days, we get to see the machines that are crooked, the ballots that are fraudulent. And if we are wrong we will be made fools of. But if we are right, a lot of them will go to jail,” Giuliani declared. “So let’s have trial by combat! I’m willing to stake my reputation, the president is willing to stake his reputation on the fact that we’re going to find criminality there.”

“What reputation?” dozens of Twitter users replied all at once.

Trump and his allies have tried and failed to show any evidence of widespread fraud or voting irregularities in dozens of lawsuits. Instead, Giuliani and the Trump campaign now face their own legal threat. Dominion Voting Systems has instructed Giuliani to preserve all records related to his claims against the company ahead of an “imminent” lawsuit in response to his “defamatory claims.” A Dominion employee who said he was forced into hiding after Giuliani spread conspiracy theories about his role in the would-be scheme separately sued the Trump attorney and the Trump campaign, along with multiple Republican allies and conservative news outlets, for intentional infliction of emotional distress and civil conspiracy.

Giuliani has also pushed a separate conspiracy theory alleging that Dominion is actually a “front” for another voting tech company called Smartmatic even though the two companies are not related in any way. The false claim prompted conservative media outlets like Fox News to air segments debunking the claim.

Tuesday’s speeches took place before Trump supporters breached the security gates at the Capitol, prompting congressional staffers to evacuate multiple buildings at the Capitol complex.

“This is extremely dangerous rhetoric,” The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake said in response to Giuliani’s comments, adding that “a trial by combat is when you literally physically fight someone to decide a legal issue, irrespective of actual evidence.”

Donald Trump Jr. claps back at GOP after losing Senate — then vainly tries to control Capitol chaos

Donald Trump Jr., the eldest adult child of outgoing President Donald Trump, shot back Wednesday morning at his father’s Republican detractors, declaring that “this is Donald Trump’s Republican Party” just hours after the GOP appears to have lost control of the Senate in spectacular fashion.

Addressing a crowd of protesters who descended on the nation’s capital to demand that Republican lawmakers object to the ratification of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, Trump Jr. sent “a message” to officials who have pushed back against the doomed effort.

“This should be a message to all the Republicans who have not been willing to actually fight. The people who did nothing to stop the steal,” Trump Jr said. “This gathering should send a message to them: This isn’t their Republican Party anymore. This is Donald Trump’s Republican Party. This is the Republican Party that will put America first.”

Later in the day, as Congress debated Republican objections to the electoral votes and pro-Trump protesters broke through police lines and tried to storm the Capitol itself, Trump Jr. sought to strike a different tone. At this writing, however, his father has said nothing about the unprecedented violence.

Trump Jr.’s remarks came hours after Democrats Jon Ossoff and the Rev. Raphael Warnock stunned the GOP with two apparent upsets in Georgia’s Senate runoffs, defeating multimillionaire incumbents David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler. (The race between Ossoff and Perdue has not yet been called by the Associated Press, but Ossoff’s victory seems nearly certain.) If Democrats win both seats, the resulting victories 50-50 partisan split in the upper chamber would give their part an effective majority, with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris casting the deciding vote as Senate president.

Trump Jr. told Republican lawmakers that they could be a “hero” or a “zero,” suggesting that if they failed to object to the Electoral College votes, “I’m gonna be in your backyard in a couple of months.”

“You have an opportunity today: You can be a hero or you can be a zero. And the choice is yours, but we are all watching,” Trump Jr said. “If you’re gonna be the zero and not the hero, we’re coming for you and we’re going to have a good time doing it.”

“I suggest you choose wisely,” he warned, adding: “These guys better fight for Trump. Because if they’re not, guess what? I’m gonna be in your backyard in a couple of months.”

Trump Jr.’s remarks appear aimed at a faction of conservatives who have over the last two months resisted the president’s doomed efforts to sow doubt in the public about the Democratic process and rewrite the results of the election he lost. Although the Georgia debacle is still brand new, party leaders have already begun to signal it may be time to jettison Trump.

A senior Trump campaign official blamed Georgia on Trump’s “addiction” to conspiracy theories, which the official told Salon had turned off independents and drummed up the Democratic base to a degree that virtually candidate no one could overcome.

“The president’s addiction to every conspiracy theory has pushed out the middle independents, and disenfranchised soft Republicans. His continued rhetoric also drove record money and enthusiasm to defeat Republicans,” the official said. “Unfortunately, he made the math too difficult to overcome for nearly any candidate.”

A Republican who worked on the Georgia races told Politico a similar story.

“Turns out if the leader of a party spends two months actively delegitimizing elections and saying voting doesn’t matter, voters listen,” the operative said, adding: “There was one decisive factor in Georgia and anyone who says otherwise is probably sharing substances with Lin Wood.” (That factor, to be clear, was Trump himself.)

Wood, a Georgia attorney and Trump ally, has in recent weeks pumped up the Trump base with bizarre QAnon conspiracy theories, arguing that Vice President Mike Pence’s resistance to throwing out Electoral College votes was equivalent to treason, and suggesting that Pence should be executed. Wood told Salon in a recent phone call that he had heard rumors about Pence having sex with children, a libelous and scurrilous claim that has evident roots in QAnon lore.

As the Georgia runoffs approached, Trump chose instead to throw his energy into pushing false claims that the state’s election system was rigged and attacking its Republican leaders, a narrative that fit his misguided attempts to overturn his own historic defeat in the Peach State. He did not campaign in Georgia until the eve of the election, and threw a wrench into on-the-ground strategy with a last-minute endorsement of $2,000 direct stimulus checks.

Asked why Loeffler and Perdue lost, a senior Senate Republican aide told Politico the reason was simple: “Donald J. Trump.”

Don’t dismiss Trump’s “Stop the Steal” tantrum: The GOP is trolling our democracy to death

Republican efforts to stop the certification of the electoral college votes, cementing Joe Biden’s win against Donald Trump, will fail. That is the most important thing to remember as this GOP circus kicks off. 

The events scheduled for January 6, when Congress officially counts the Electoral College vote, are typically a routine ceremonial process to affirm the results of the presidential election two months prior. This time around, however, Trump is denying he lost the race, and is spewing all manner of preposterous conspiracy theories to justify his narcissistic temper tantrum. And so a group of Republicans in Congress — at least 140 in the House and 13 in the Senate, and led by Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri — plans to object to the Electoral College vote in Congress Wednesday, dragging out the proceedings and making a big, dramatic show of support for Trump’s lies. 

Why are they doing this? Not because they think it will work, at least not in the way that Trump hopes, which is to illegally install him in a second term. No, it’s clearly meant as a political stunt, though, even as a stunt, it seems ill-advised. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has been actively discouraging Republicans from making these objections. His concern, which is well-founded, is that it’s unwise to force Republicans in Congress to choose between appeasing Trump’s base and doing their legal duty. It’s one of those no-win situations that caucus leaders and competent politicians usually try to avoid — but Cruz, Hawley and the rest of the “sedition caucus” are forging ahead anyway. 

The likely reason is that they’re following the principle that increasingly guides all Republican actions: Always be trolling. 

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While objecting to the electoral college and bolstering false accusations of “voter fraud” cannot achieve any of the traditional political goals, it does a smash-bang job of “triggering the liberals.” The one thing guaranteed is that this stunt will freak out a lot of Democratic voters.

For hours on Wednesday, there will be headlines and cable news chyrons and other such media coverage that will create the impression that something very dramatic is happening and Biden’s electoral win is imperiled. And while there will be reassurances from some talking heads that this is all noise and nonsense, a lot of Democratic voters — burned after watching Trump slip the noose time and again — will understandably react with anxiety. Fear will be amplified by the crowds of violence-eager fascists who have been causing trouble in the D.C. streets. 

Indeed, it’s arguable that the very fact that this will fail is why they’re pulling this stunt. 

Cruz’s public comments suggest he sees this as a cost-free way to troll Democrats. Responding to critics on Fox News, Cruz said “everyone needs to calm down” and said it was “hyperbole” to accuse him of undermining democracy. He clearly wants to have it both ways, where he can pull this stunt while also insisting that he’s not really undermining democracy. Cruz wants to play this off as a lark, a political stunt to pander to rubes that vote for him, and not a serious effort. 

If so, then this is a classic case of hubris, because the reality is that there will absolutely be profound, long-term costs that follow from these trolling games. After all, it’s not just Democratic voters who will take this as an earnest assault on democracy. Republican voters — strong majorities of whom support Trump’s attempted coup — are very likely going to be buoyed by hope that this time Trump’s attempts to overturn the election will actually work. And when it inevitably fails, they’re going to get angrier, more embittered, and more determined than ever to gut the democratic systems that fail to give them the power they believe they’re entitled to. 

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That this assault on democracy is more than just a game to the Republican masses was demonstrated Tuesday in Pennsylvania, when the Republican-controlled state senate refused to seat a newly elected Democrat Jim Brewster, all because the Republican who lost the race refuses to concede. To make it worse, when Lt. Gov. John Fetterman tried to follow the law and seat the Democrat anyway, Republicans removed Fetterman from his legal role in overseeing the proceedings. Brewster’s win has been certified by state election officials and their counting methods have been upheld by the state Supreme Court. But Republicans are pulling out all stops, turning to the federal courts in a desperate bid to get this legal election thrown out and a Republican installed in the seat. 

“We’re at a dangerous time in this country,” Fetterman told Greg Sargent at the Washington Post. “One party is ignoring court rulings and election results. If the results don’t match what they like, they do their level best to subvert them.”

Clearly, the elected Republicans in Pennsylvania are inspired by Trump’s coup efforts. They’re deadly serious about this, and don’t see this as just a fun bit of political theater to pander to the cheap seats. 

No matter how much Cruz and Hawley might want the D.C. media elite to see their behavior as meaningless political theater, the audience for said theater, both Republican voters and lower-level elected officials, are taking this in earnest. These stunts only encourage an already growing sense among the larger world of Republican voters and politicians that democracy itself is the problem, and that any election Republicans lose is inherently illegitimate. Biden’s election is secure, but there can be no doubt there will be a dramatic increase in Republican efforts to void legitimate elections won by Democrats. And there’s a real danger that a lot of these efforts are going to start working. 

Kelly Loeffler’s husband simply won’t say what came of the SEC’s insider trading investigation

Sen. Kelly Loeffler, the unelected Georgia Republican who just lost a runoff election to the Rev. Raphael Warnock — but is back in Washington on Wednesday to support President Trump’s efforts to overturn his own election defeat — drew scrutiny from government investigators last spring amid press reports of well-timed stock trades that she and her husband, Jeff Sprecher, chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, made ahead of the coronavirus pandemic. Two of the investigations were closed, but eight months later, Sprecher’s company still won’t say what came of the third.

At the time of the trades, Loeffler argued that she and Sprecher, the founder and CEO of Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), a global financial giant which bought the New York Stock Exchange in 2013, had complied with insider trading rules. The Republican-led Senate and the Department of Justice investigated, and both probes were eventually closed. Loeffler marked the occasion with a campaign ad called “Cleared,” which claimed that the “fake news” had “lied” about her trades.

“The Senate Ethics Committee has come to the exact same conclusion as the U.S. Department of Justice: Senator Loeffler did absolutely nothing wrong and has been completely exonerated,” a Loeffler spokesperson said following the Senate’s move to dismiss in July.

But in May, Loeffler, along with other senators ensnared in the trading scandal, also handed documents over to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the federal agency that regulates stock trades, and it is still unclear what became of that probe.

A Loeffler spokeswoman said at the time that “Senator Loeffler has welcomed and responded to any questions from day one.”

The campaign, however, has not answered Salon’s questions about the SEC investigation, and the SEC would not comment on the existence of investigations. A senior Justice Department official not involved with the matter told Salon that in joint probes like this one, the SEC’s enforcement arm typically makes decisions about civil citations or settlements independent from the DOJ.

A spokesperson for Sprecher’s company, Josh King, has also refused to respond to multiple inquiries. Asked again this week what came of the probe, King referred Salon to the Loeffler campaign. When asked specifically what came of the investigation into Sprecher’s trades, King declined to reply. He referred another follow-up question back to the campaign, and then declined again to answer when Salon pointed out that the question was not about Loeffler, but Sprecher.

Marc Fagel, former director of the SEC’s San Francisco office, told Salon that such investigations frequently last a long time.

“An SEC investigation can take one to two years to complete, so it would not be surprising, if the SEC opened an investigation, for it to be ongoing with no comment from the involved parties,” Fagel said, adding that the SEC does not settle matters “quietly” — any enforcement action, whether a settlement or litigation, is announced publicly.

If the SEC decides to close an investigation without further action, Fagel said, it will send a closing letter to the relevant parties, which they are free to share with the public. King did not reply when asked whether Sprecher had received such a letter.

Fagel said that the agency can choose to proceed in a number of ways, such as by filing a civil case in federal court or through internal administrative action, with penalties ranging from fines to suspensions.

“Most SEC actions are settled before filing, with the settlement and the underlying action disclosed simultaneously by the SEC,” he said. “In an insider trading case, remedies can include disgorgement of improper trading profits, penalties — typically one to two times the disgorgement amount — and possibly bars or suspensions from associating with a broker or adviser, or serving as an officer or director of a public company.”

The SEC does offer executives of publicly held companies the option of trading through a pre-planned brokerage arrangement, called a 10b5-1 plan, allowing them to access cash while guarding against the appearance of insider trading. In March, ICE responded to reports about Loeffler and Sprecher’s sales in a statement that said company policy included a 30-day waiting period. As chairman of the NYSE, Sprecher must also abide by its rules, which define a conflict of interest as “when an individual’s private interest interferes in any way — or even appears to interfere — with the interests of the corporation as a whole.”

But Salon’s review of Loeffler and Sprecher’s transaction history over the last several years indicates that they made significant changes to their plan for 2020, doubling in frequency and more than doubling the volume and value of sales of their ICE stock this year:

2016: $18.8 million

2017: $13.8 million

2018: $25 million

2019: $15.8 million

2020: $58 million

These changes appear to come after Loeffler was appointed to her Senate seat in December 2019 by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, and just weeks before she received an unusually structured $9 million severance package from her husband’s company, where she had worked as CEO of a subsidiary that focused on cryptocurrency. Days after she was sworn in, Loeffler was named to the Senate subcommittee that oversees regulation of her husband’s company, as well as the company she had just left.

“I have worked hard to comply with both the letter and the spirit of the Senate’s ethics rules and will continue to do so every day,” she said at the time.

Loeffler recused herself from that subcommittee in early May, after the trades became public and as she was submitting documents to investigators from the DOJ, SEC and Senate. She still sits on the parent Agriculture Committee, however, which retains oversight. (She also oversees her brother’s soybean operation.)

It was possible, the attorney suggested, that the couple wanted to have cash on hand in anticipation of funding Loeffler’s re-election bid. They poured at least $31 million into politics during the 2020 election cycle, $23 million of it to Loeffler’s campaign, according to FEC filings, beginning with a $5 million loan in December 2019. However, Loeffler accessed the first $17 million of her self-funded campaign contributions through a line of credit from Morgan Stanley Private Bank, and did not transfer any funds from her personal account until September.

Earlier that month, ICE bought Ellie Mae, a software company that processes nearly half of all new residential mortgages in the U.S. The $11 billion purchase proved a boon for Sprecher: He became a billionaire at the end of his wife’s first year in office, according to Bloomberg, after his company’s stock rose more than 22%, boosting the couple’s net worth from roughly $800 million since last summer.

Salon reported last week that a number of last-minute Loeffler donors are executives at major real estate and equity firms, some of whom did not disclose the names of their employers.

According to a transaction report filed with the SEC last week, on Dec. 28, Sprecher gave away 80,000 shares of ICE stock, valued at a little more than $9 million. That was by far the largest gift of stock Sprecher has ever reported. The recipient is unknown.

Pennsylvania Senate GOP kicked out top official and refused to seat Democrat. Now what happens?

Republican state senators in Pennsylvania refused to seat a Democratic senator on Tuesday because his GOP challenger disputed the certified results of the November election.

The Republican senators, some of whom recently backed President Donald Trump’s baseless bid to overturn his defeat in the state, refused to seat incumbent Democratic Sen. Jim Brewster. The Democrat defeated Republican challenger Nicole Ziccarelli by 69 votes, a result that has been certified by the secretary of state. But Ziccarelli has filed a federal lawsuit against Allegheny County, seeking to throw out hundreds of mail-in ballots that did not include a handwritten date on the ballot envelope but which the state Supreme Court allowed the county to tabulate. The 311 ballots in question favor Brewster by a two-to-one margin, meaning that throwing them out would be enough to reverse the election result if the suit is successful. Brewster has argued that the federal court has no jurisdiction to overturn a state Supreme Court decision.

Republicans said they would not seat Brewster because the case was still pending in federal court.

State Sen. Jake Corman, the top Republican in the Senate, called it a “fairly unique, if not unprecedented situation.”

“I think this unique set of circumstances dictates that the Senate review it and take very seriously the contest,” he said.

The move set off a shouting match with Democrats, who accused the GOP of trying to “steal an election.”

“This is only the Republican Party trying to steal an election and not allow it to go forward given the fact that they believe that they disagree with the court’s decision. And they want to take it upon themselves and render a different decision,” Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa, a Democrat, shouted on the Senate floor, arguing the stunt was right out of “the Trump playbook.”

Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who presided over the session, refused to recognize the Republican measure, prompting the GOP senators to vote to have him removed from the chamber.

“I’m not sure why we’re voting. We’ve crossed a bridge, we’ve broken all sorts of rules today,” state Sen. Anthony Williams, a Democrat, complained.

Fetterman initially refused to leave and tried to speak over Corman but ultimately relented.

“There was no sense in me remaining,” he told The Washington Post. He told the Philadelphia Inquirer that Corman had “subverted the democratic will of the voters.”

Democrats countered by refusing to back Corman as president pro tempore of the Senate.

“The president pro tempore is to be a leader for the entire body — not of one party,” Costa said. “Nowhere in the constitution does it say that the leader should be beholden to the partisan whims of his own party.”

It’s unclear how long Republicans plan to block Brewster from being seated.

“While we work to resolve this issue expeditiously we … are confident a brief delay in filling the seat for the 45th Senate District will not affect the balance of power in the Senate,” Corman said in a statement, adding that the district’s residents “will continue to receive assistance with their state-related issues.”

Brewster, who has represented his district in McKeesport, just southeast of Pittsburgh, for the last decade, said he was concerned that the process could “take months.”

“This doesn’t look good for our government. Doesn’t look good for our state,” he told the Post. “Let me get on with my job — the budget, the pandemic, all those things. And let the legal challenges play out.”

Under Pennsylvania law, senators can object to a swearing-in if someone is “unqualified,” according to the Post. But Democrats said Republicans were abusing the statute.

“They’re trying to usurp the authority of the courts as to whether or not ballots should be counted,” Costa told the outlet.

“What is going on now is way beyond anything envisioned in the constitution,” Brewster’s attorney, Cliff Levine, told Spotlight PA. “The Senate majority is taking it upon itself to decide an election.”

Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, said the refusal to seat Brewster was “simply unethical and undemocratic” and said there was no precedent or “legal rationale” for the measure.

“Republicans in Pennsylvania and nationally have spread disinformation and used it to subvert the democratic process,” he said in a statement. “Voters, not Harrisburg politicians, decided this election, and Sen. Brewster is the rightful winner.”

The seat will not affect the balance of power in the chamber, where Republicans hold 28 of 50 seats.

But Democrats argued that the move showed the extent to which Trump’s attacks on the democratic system had poisoned the Republican Party.

“It’s Trumpian in its very essence, because that’s what he’s trying to do in Washington, D.C.,” said Democratic state Sen. Vincent Hughes, pointing to Trump’s attempt to pressure Georgia officials to overturn his loss. “Just listen to the tapes of him and the election officials in Georgia. Do you see a similarity? Do you see a connection? Do you see where this all comes together?”

Fetterman said both attempts to overturn election results, in Pennsylvania and nationwide, are being carried out by “people who know they are lying.”

“It’s part of this toxic culture that has seeped into our political discourse,” he told CNN on Wednesday, “where you have a party willing to subvert basic core democracy.”

Democrats on the verge of retaking Senate: Warnock wins, Ossoff leads in Georgia runoffs

Democrats appear poised to recapture the Senate in dramatic fashion, with a clear victory in one Georgia runoff election and a likely win in the other. The Associated Press projected the Rev. Raphael Warnock, pastor of Atlanta’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, as the winner of his runoff election against Sen. Kelly Loeffler, while Democrat Jon Ossoff holds a narrow lead over Republican incumbent David Perdue in their race, with most of the outstanding votes likely to come from heavily Democratic counties.

Warnock was projected to defeat Loeffler at around 2 a.m. Eastern time, and now holds a lead of around 52,000 votes with 98% of ballots counted. Warnock holds a 1.2% lead that The New York Times projects to grow closer to 2% once all of the results are in, putting the race well clear of recount territory.

Ossoff leads Perdue by a much narrower margin of less than 16,000 votes, or 0.36%, though the outstanding votes are expected to push his lead closer to 1%, according to the Times forecast. Perdue can request a recount if the race finishes within 0.5%. Decision Desk HQ, which provides election data to various news outlets, called the race for Ossoff at around 2 a.m. but the Associated Press and other major news sources still view the race as too close to call.

The night marks a stark reversal from November’s election and from decades of the state’s electoral history. Although President-elect Joe Biden became the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry the state in nearly 30 years, Perdue led Ossoff by about 88,000 votes in November but just failed to reach the 50% threshold needed to win outright. Biden’s victory margin over President Trump was less than 12,000 votes, and it appears certain that both Democrats in the Senate runoffs will win by significantly more than that.

If Ossoff holds on, the Democrats would control 50 seats in the Senate. That would put them in the majority once Vice President-elect Kamala Harris takes over as president of the Senate and will give Democrats control of both chambers of Congress and the White House for the first time since early in Barack Obama’s first term.

“We were told that we couldn’t win this election,” Warnock said Tuesday in a victory speech delivered remotely on video. “But tonight we proved that with hope, hard work and the people by our side, anything is possible.”

Loeffler also spoke to supporters in Atlanta and did not concede, claiming she had a chance to win despite Warnock’s growing lead. “We have a path to victory,” she said, “and we’re staying on it. We’re going to win this election.”

It appears, however, that Loeffler’s career in politics will be brief: She was appointed to the Senate by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp in December of 2019, to replace Sen. Johnny Isakson, a Republican who was forced to resign for health reasons. This special election was held to fill the final two years of Isakson’s term, and Warnock will be up for re-election in 2022. 

Ossoff’s campaign manager Ellen Foster predicted that “when all the votes are counted we fully expect that Jon Ossoff will have won this election.”

Perdue’s campaign vowed to “exhaust every legal recourse to ensure all legally cast ballots are properly counted” and predicted that he would be “victorious.”

Democrats were boosted by surprisingly high Election Day turnout after they ran up the count in the early mail-in vote. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said about 4.5 million votes were cast in the runoff, down only about 15% from November’s turnout.

The two Democrats also significantly outraised their Republican counterparts, though outside GOP PACs leveled the playing field.

President Trump held a rally in the state on Monday but has spent most of his time since the November election baselessly sowing doubt in the state’s voting and attacking Republican officials. The rally came after The Washington Post released audio of him pressuring Raffensperger to “find” him enough votes to overturn his November defeat. Loeffler has vowed to join a futile Republican challenge to the Electoral College results when she returns to Washington on Wednesday, likely for her final appearance on the Senate floor.

“This is the first indication of the damage [Trump has] done his own level of influence in the party in the last two months,” wrote The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman. “He’s spent two months refusing to concede the election. It left a mark.”

Many Democrats credited former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams and other grassroots organizers whose work to turn out the vote helped give Warnock and Ossoff an edge.

Michael McDonald, who heads the US Elections Project at the University of Florida, said there were a lot of factors that influenced Warnock’s win and Ossoff’s lead. He pointed to “HUGE” Black turnout, more than 125,000 new voters who did not participate in the previous election, lower Republican turnout, and a changing electorate in the Atlanta suburbs.

Exit polls, although imperfect, show that Ossoff won Black voters by 76% in November but increased that margin to 86% on Tuesday. He won Hispanic voters by just 9% in November but improved to a 30% margin among those voters in this week’s runoff.

Assuming the Democrats win both Georgia seats, the party will be posed for a critical Senate takeover when Biden takes office. Mitch McConnell’s six-year tenure as Senate majority leader will come to an end; he will be replaced by Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York. Democrats would assume control of all Senate committees. In one striking example, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont (although not technically a Democrat) would be in position to chair the Senate Budget Committee. Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio would be in line to take over the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, and Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont would become chair of the Appropriations Committee. It’s not yet clear who will chair the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee, which must approve all judicial appointments, given Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s decision to step down as ranking Democrat following a wave of criticism. Her likely replacement is Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, who will also be Schumer’s No. 2 in the Senate leadership.

Despite holding the slimmest possible Senate majority, Democrats would also be able to unilaterally roll back many of Trump’s executive actions on climate change, immigration and health care.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said the Democratic victory in Georgia “must lead to transformative change.”

“Recurring survival checks, union jobs that pay a living wage, guaranteed health care, racial justice, voting rights, immigration reform, climate action, repro justice, education, and MUCH more,” she tweeted. “It can’t wait!”

Biden on Monday told Georgia voters that Warnock and Ossoff would help make the $2,000 checks rejected by Senate Republicans a reality.

Warnock reiterated that vow and promised his first priority would be to address the coronavirus pandemic in an interview with CNN Wednesday morning.

“We’ve got to respond in an intelligent and thoughtful way to this pandemic. We’ve got to get the vaccine safely and efficiently distributed and we need to get people the relief that they need,” he said. “We ought to pass a $2,000 stimulus relief and give ordinary struggling people who are literally just trying to keep their head above water what they need, so that we can begin to get the economy going again.”

In latest colossal lie, Trump falsely claims Pence has power to “reject” electors

Dragging loyalist Vice President Mike Pence even deeper into his doomed-to-fail effort to overturn the results of the November election, President Donald Trump on Tuesday claimed that the VP has the authority to unilaterally toss out electoral votes he deems “fraudulent”—a characterization of the law that experts dismissed as completely false.

“The vice president has the power to reject fraudulently chosen electors,” Trump tweeted, a message that came just 24 hours before Congress is set to meet to certify President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.

J. Michael Luttig, a former United States Court of Appeals judge and a conservative legal scholar, said Tuesday that “the only responsibility and power of the vice president under the Constitution is to faithfully count the electoral college votes as they have been cast.”

“The Constitution does not empower the vice president to alter in any way the votes that have been cast, either by rejecting certain of them or otherwise,” Luttig added.

Others similarly rejected Trump’s claim about the vice president’s authority as well as the notion that Biden’s electoral votes are “fraudulent”:

During a rally in Milner, Georgia on Monday, Pence declared to the crowd, “I promise you, come this Wednesday, we’ll have our day in Congress. We’ll hear the objections. We’ll hear the evidence.” The vice president didn’t say anything about a potential attempt to reject electoral votes.

While Wednesday’s proceedings are likely to be drawn out by opposition from House and Senate Republicans, the day is expected to conclude with the official certification of Biden’s decisive electoral college win, given the virtual impossibility that majorities in both chambers of Congress will vote to sustain any of the GOP objections.

That his ploy to invalidate the election and disenfranchise tens of millions of voters is all but certain to fail has not stopped Trump from continuing to abuse the power of the presidency in a desperate attempt to undo or sidestep his defeat. On Saturday, Trump pressured Georgia’s top election official to “find” enough votes to overturn Biden’s win in the state—a demand that legal experts said was likely a violation of state and federal law.

Speaking in Dalton, Georgia late Monday just ahead of the state’s pivotal U.S. Senate runoffs, Trump said of the Democratic Party: “They’re not taking this White House. We’re gonna fight like hell.”

The lame-duck president also said he is hoping that Pence “comes through for us” during Wednesday’s certification process, despite the vice president’s largely ceremonial role.

“He’s a great guy,” Trump said. “Of course, if he doesn’t come through, I won’t like him quite as much.”

Last week, as Politico reported, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) filed a lawsuit asking a federal court to give Pence “the sole authority to decide whether some of Biden’s electoral votes should be rejected.”

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals both rejected the suit.

This could all have been prevented: How mental health experts were silenced

There is an unambiguous reason why mental health experts have not been seen or heard or read in the national media during the past four years. The mainstream media has intentionally blocked these experts from speaking out about Donald Trump’s mental pathology and its dangerous impact on the public’s safety and welfare. The professionals who understand Trump the best have been gagged and muzzled. The media has been a major enabler of Trump — and that continues to this day.

Mental health experts could have helped to prevent Trump’s election in 2016, minimized his destructiveness from 2016 to 2020, and/or thwarted his re-election chances in 2020. Their collective voices could have been loud, compelling and impactful. History will show that the mainstream media has been as complicit with Donald Trump as any other group of enablers, including congressional Republicans, cabinet members, close associates and his millions of supporters.

The role of the free press is vital in a representative democracy such as ours. It is protected in the First Amendment of the Constitution. The overarching purpose of the press is to be a watchdog of government and of our elected officials. The press is our indispensable friend. We depend on it to expose, inform, explain, interpret and, yes, warn. The free press is the foundation of our democratic way of life. It is what separates us from authoritarian regimes and third world countries.

A duty to warn the public is a central component of the role of the watchdog press. Politicians are under the microscope because they are our elected officials and must be held to account. That is the specific task of the press. When a politician is malicious or engages in nefarious activities, it is the responsibility of the free press to expose and warn — all for the greater good of the people.

It seems clear that the American Psychiatric Association (APA) informed prominent decision-makers in the mainstream media that its “Goldwater rule” prohibited psychiatrists — and perhaps others in the mental health field — from speaking out publicly about Donald Trump’s mental health. The Goldwater rule is an ethical guideline advanced by the APA in 1973 that no one cared about until Trump became president. It asserts that psychiatrists should not comment on political figures because they have not interviewed them personally.

Far too many people in the media bought into the APA’s narrative about the Goldwater rule. All mental health professionals were blocked from speaking out because it was deemed unethical. From that point on, any experts who chose to speak out anyway were to be seen as reckless and opportunistic.

The exact motives of the APA will never be known. One working theory is that the APA did not want to anger this president since that might have directly threatened the organization’s federal funding and its scope of influence. After all, Trump responds with intense vindictiveness when he detects even slight disloyalty. The APA buckled, deciding that it needed to safeguard its own viability and sustainability. Its leading members did not want to rock the boat, and did not want any other members to do anything that might interfere with their organization’s stature.

In fact, mental health experts are compelled to speak out when they see dangerousness or unfitness in a political figure. They have a social and ethical responsibility to voice their opinions and to inform the public. The public’s safety and welfare are paramount. Experts who speak out are noble and good citizens and should be applauded, not ridiculed.

Almost immediately after Trump’s election in 2016, mental health professionals were faced with an ethical dilemma imposed by the Goldwater rule. How could experts speak out in their duty to warn the public when they were supposedly prohibited from doing so by an ethical restraint? 

Their conundrum was compounded by the media’s decision to honor the Goldwater rule, and generally not allow mental health experts to voice their opinions.

In 2017, Dr. Bandy X. Lee, a psychiatrist, edited a bestselling book, “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump.“ The chapters were written by mental health professionals who described Trump’s mental pathology and dangerous qualities in detail. But that cutting-edge book did not open the floodgates for appearances by mental health experts in the media. In fact, they were blocked at every turn, and the Goldwater rule was often cited. 

The Goldwater rule is outdated. Its relevance has passed. Today, mental health professionals have access to thousands of audios, videos, tweets, interviews, speeches, books, collateral interviews and more by politicians. A personal interview would be helpful, but it is not sufficient or comprehensive. Behavioral information over time is much more revealing, instructive and diagnostic.

Beyond that, mental health experts do not need to be shackled. They are highly trained. They have a wealth of knowledge. They are ethical. They do not discuss matters outside their area of expertise. They are fair and balanced. They acknowledge their limitations. Their political leanings are excluded in their well-reasoned opinions.

To add insult to injury, the media has had no qualms in publishing any number of articles by journalists about Trump’s apparent pathology, while mental health experts themselves have been silenced. Furthermore, there is ample precedent for reporters, editors or producers to seek out experts in other medical specialties. For example, if Trump had a heart attack, cardiologists — who had not examined him — would be invited to share their expertise. The same should be true for mental health professionals.

As Trump’s mental pathology became more malignant, it was hoped that leaders in the media would wake up, accept their vital role as watchdog, and actively encourage mental health experts to express their collective voices. Nothing of the kind happened. Many in the media dug in their heels, allowing Donald Trump to continue his mission of destruction without inviting the input of mental health experts. Their abdication of responsibility to warn the public has been glaring. Their lack of courage has been disappointing.

Trump’s mental pathology has been a national emergency of historic proportions. But that stark reality has been largely undermined by the media — and the public is paying a devastating price:  lies, gaslighting, pandemic deaths, economic woes, tribalism, racism, xenophobia, terrorism, cruelty, corruption, subversion and so much more.

Trump has been devilishly adept at undermining the media’s credibility with the public. He has called the free press “the enemy of the people.” When he does not like a story, he calls it “fake news.” Millions of Americans now view the mainstream corporate media as hopelessly biased, liberal, and unfair in their coverage of the president. Trump’s attacks served the purpose of putting the media on its heels. It became passive and reactive. It cowered, apologized, fired back weakly. Many in the media have treated Trump with kid gloves, hoping that perhaps his barrage of attacks on them would lessen or cease.

By not allowing experts to speak out, the media has contributed to the normalization of Trump’s mental pathology — also known as malignant normality. Let us be clear: Donald Trump is a psychopath. He is in a class all to himself. Look at how he has created unprecedented havoc in the country since his election defeat. His desire to subvert our democracy is a reflection of the severity of his psychopathy. He is drunk with power, adulation, greed and corruption. He has utter contempt for the will of the people. His recorded conversation last Saturday with the Georgia secretary of state shows his potentially illegal attempt to overturn the election results in that state. Trump is a menace to the safety and welfare of the public. 

Mental health experts should have been front and center in warning about Trump’s pathology all along. But their voices have been silenced. And the public has been profoundly ill-informed about this president. Decisive information about his dangerousness, his unfitness, his cruelty and his corruption has been suppressed. His psychopathy has been allowed to flourish.

But here is the ultimate irony. The media and mental health experts have the exact same mission: to serve the public. They are not adversaries. They do not have conflicting goals. Duty to warn the public is the cornerstone for both. They should be working together in lockstep.

Trump could have been stopped years earlier had the media taken their duty seriously and provided the platform for mental health experts to speak out. Instead, they shirked their responsibility. They ran and hid. This silencing of mental health experts is a terrible untold story. This purposeful subversion of the duty to warn the public has had — and is still having —  catastrophic consequences in our country.

The darkness and heartache of Donald Trump’s last days in office make that only too clear. 

Georgia runoffs cap a Democratic comeback: Last election of the Trump era may lock GOP out of power

As I write this, the results of the two Senate runoff races have not yet been officially certified, but most of the smart election analysts project both Democrats have won. The Cook Reports’ Dave Wasserman issued his famous “I’ve seen enough” early Tuesday evening for Democrat Rev. Raphael Warnock, who successfully challenged unelected incumbent Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler, and a couple of hours later tweeted the same for Democrat Jon Ossoff, who has apparently defeated Republican multimillionaire David Perdue to become the first millennial in the Senate.

Anything’s possible in close races so I am withholding my euphoria — but if this holds, it’s hard to overstate just how important this result is going to be. If the Senate is ultimately tied 50-50, Kamala Harris is able to cast the deciding vote as vice president.

Georgia’s election results mean the difference between the U.S. finally controlling the pandemic to recover economically and … not doing that. Lives will be saved and families and businesses will be able to get back on their feet. That is the immediate crisis we face and with the Congress in Democrats’ hands, the Biden administration can move much faster and more efficiently than if Mitch McConnell remained in the way as majority leader of the upper chamber.

As for the rest of the Democratic agenda, we will have to see. History shows that when the Congress is divided so closely, power tends to flow to the “moderates” in both parties who tend to form a coalition and serve as a veto point for both conservative and progressive legislation. In Barack Obama’s book, this comment in the preface is an important insight that I hope he’s discussed with his wingman Joe Biden:

“I confess there have been times during the course of writing this book, as I reflected on my presidency and all that’s happened since, when I’ve had to ask myself whether I was too tempered in speaking the truth as I saw it, too cautious in either word or deed, convinced as I was that by appealing to what Lincoln called the better angels of our nature, I stood a greater chance of leading us in the direction of the America we’ve been promised.”

In his quest to unify the country and embrace a bipartisan Grand Bargain, Obama now seemingly admits, he empowered slick hyper-partisans like Paul Ryan, the former Republican from Wisconsin who served as speaker of the House, by treating him as an honest broker. The Republicans responded to Obama’s overture by sabotaging as much of his presidency as they could. It took Obama and his team much too long to realize that the Republicans were radical obstructionists regardless of what he proposed or how much he tried to “reach across the aisle.” The administration’s flailing in the first term only made Republicans realize the extent of the power and they have been exercising it ruthlessly ever since. After Trump, Republicans will no longer be bound by any sense of shared commitment to the Constitution or even democracy. 

Considering how close the Senate split is likely to be, it’s also important to remember that Obama was hindered by some of the centrist divas in the Democratic caucus as that may end up being a greater challenge for Joe Biden.

Even with a Senate majority, there will still be Joe Manchin, D-W. Va, both Kirsten Sinema and probably Mark Kelly, the moderate Democrats from Arizona, along with some others like Virginia’s Mark Warner and Delaware’s Chris Coons who will join with the GOP’s perpetually concerned caucus of Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, Maine’s Susan Collins and Mitt Romney of Utah to wring their hands and clutch their pearls about anything necessary for fundamental change. We already know this much:

Former President Barack Obama has called on the Senate to do away with the filibuster, but that won’t happen if West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin has anything to say about it.

“I will do everything I can to prevent it from happening,” Manchin, a Democrat, told Yahoo News in an interview on Wednesday. “We will not have the democracy we know today if that [filibuster elimination] happens, I can assure you.”

Recall that the Democrats briefly had a 60-vote majority in 2009 and getting Obamacare passed was a months-long, hard-fought negotiation that ended up being stymied when Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy died and was replaced by Republican Scott Brown. Even with 59 seats, Democrats still had to pass the Affordable Care Act through the reconciliation process so they would only need 50 votes. It barely passed.

Doing anything important is difficult in a polarized country with an undemocratic institution like the Senate. Sometimes a crisis can move the dial a bit more dramatically, but, for the most part, it’s like pulling teeth to make fundamental change through legislation these days. I’m just hoping that Biden will use whatever executive power he has and that the Democrats move quickly to deliver material improvements to people.

None of that is to say this isn’t a huge relief and a major opportunity. With a Democratic majority, Biden will be able to make the appointments he wants, including judges, and the Democrats will set the agenda. They will control the committees and will have the ability to investigate what has happened during the Trump era and seek some justice for the outrageous assaults on our democracy over the past four years.

Those assaults continue today as what would normally be a pro-forma ceremonial task of confirming the Electoral College votes in the U.S. Congress is being turned into a circus sideshow by the president and his followers. On Tuesday night the president refuted a New York Times report that Vice President Pence had informed him that he didn’t have the authority to change the election outcome, which he certainly does not. Trump simply refuses to believe it, apparently, and is now threatening to take revenge on Republicans who failed to help him overturn the election. It sounds like Pence might be among them.

One name that won’t be on the list is Kelly Loeffler, whose loss in the runoff in Georgia was likely because of her servile bootlicking of Trump. His insistence that the vote was stolen is almost certainly one reason why the Democrats won. At the Georgia rally on Monday night, Trump predicted, “If they win, I’ll get no credit, if they lose, they’re gonna blame Trump.” He’s undoubtedly right about that. According to the New York Times,  voter surveys showed that 56 percent of Georgia voters said they disapproved of Trump’s handling of the results of the presidential election. It turns out that insulting their leaders and trying to coerce them into overturning an election wasn’t such a great get-out-the-vote strategy.

What happens now is anyone’s guess. But now that the Senate appears to be in Democratic hands I would be lying if I didn’t admit to feeling a tremendous sense of schadenfreude at what’s about to take place in the Republican Party. It couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch of people. 

No, Pence can’t start a coup: Despite Trump’s bullying, VP has no power to “reject” Joe Biden’s win

On the eve of the certification of the Electoral College vote in favor of Joe Biden for the 46th President of the United States, Donald Trump ramped up the pressure on his own vice president, reportedly warning Mike Pence that it would be politically “damaging” for him to refuse to block certification on Wednesday. While Trump angrily denied that he was rebuffed by Trump in a misdated statement, it is true that Pence cannot disqualify the votes of so-called fraudulent electors to overturn the president’s election loss. Trump is now expected to “lash out pretty quickly” at Pence, CNN reported, likely during a “Stop the Steal” rally of supporters in Washington DC on Wednesday. 

We’ve finally reached the culmination of the Electoral College process, with states’ Nov. 3 election results formally recorded during a joint session of Congress. Pence, who is technically president of the US Senate, will preside over the official count the Electoral College votes that qualify Biden to take the oath of office on January 20. While over a dozen GOP senators plan to challenge the results of the vote, along with several dozen Republican members of the House, the likelihood that either chamber will procure enough votes to overturn the election is slim to none. 

Trump’s latest push comes shortly after his assistant Peter Navarro’s claimed in a Fox News interview with Jeanine Pirro that “Vice President Pence, he has the authority to give that 10-day window to do what needs to get done.” Navarro argued, “And I cannot imagine, when he goes through the facts, he won’t vote the right way on that.” 

While the Constitution makes clear that the President-elect must be inaugurated on January 20th, Navarro nevertheless claimed that he “would not be surprised to see a special counsel on this.”

The vice president’s Constitutionally-mandated role is strictly limited to opening each elector’s slate, reading the results aloud, and “maintaining order.” If the Vice President is to leave the session for any reason, Senate pro tempore Sen. Charles E. Grassley will preside over the proceedings. 

Pence has yet to comment on Trump’s fallacious claim. According to his staff, Pence has been “studious” and “diligent about how he’s going to approach tomorrow,” studying the Election Count Act and reviewing various legal opinions to prepare. Still, it remains unclear how wide a berth Pence will give dissenting senators. 

“Vice President Pence shares the concerns of millions of Americans about voter fraud and irregularities in the last election,” said Pence’s chief of staff Marc Short, “[He] welcomes the efforts of members of the House and Senate to use the authority they have under the law to raise objections and bring forward evidence before the Congress and the American people on January 6th.”

“[Pence] will follow the law and The Constitution,” one insider told CNN:

 

The President is now angry with Pence following their meeting, a source close to the White House said. Trump may “lash out” at his vice president on Wednesday morning during a speech at a rally staged to support the President’s attempts to overturn the election, which is taking place near the White House grounds.

“I think he will lash out pretty quickly” at Pence, the source said of Trump’s speech. White House officials say Trump will speak at the Ellipse 11 a.m. ET Wednesday, just as Pence is set to preside over the counting of the electoral votes.

Sources told CNN that the vice president is expected to make statements supportive of Trump’s efforts to contest the results while baselessly alleging the results are fraudulent.

A source close to Trump told NBC on Monday, “[Pence is] hoping he can get through it without incurring wrath from Trump and keeping intact whatever reputation he has.”

Amid the election certification noise, a Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney in Georgia, Byung J. “BJay” Pak, quietly left his post on Monday following Trump’s leaked phone call with Georgia’s Secretary of State. It’s unclear why Pak, a staunch “never-Trumper,” resigned just fifteen days before his supposed exit date.

Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va.,called Pak’s departure “completely unacceptable.” Beyer noted that the Justice Department pulled a similar stunt in its ousting of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Geoffrey Berman in order to muffle Berman’s past prosecutions of Trump associates. The President will replace Pak with Trump-appointed attorney Bobby Christine, who was formerly serving the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia.

 

Can undivided Democratic control “heal” the United States? Political experts disagree

When Joe Biden becomes president on Jan. 20, 2021, he will lead a fractured nation whose political factions are separated by a chasm. In his victory speech, Biden asked Americans to “come together” and “stop treating opponents as enemies.”

Is healing possible between red America and blue America? We asked experts on political polarization whether Biden’s goal is realistic.

How to thaw enmity and disdain

–Arie W. Kruglanski

The image of two monolithic cultures at loggerheads, though perhaps intuitive and appealing, is a myth that doesn’t hold up on closer scrutiny.

As a political psychologist who has investigated radicalization, polarization and populism, I believe a “two tents” metaphor would be more accurate.

If you look at 2020 election data, you’ll find both the Trump and Biden camps contained diverse points of view, interests and concerns.

Within the Trump tent were Republican stalwarts bent on fiscal conservatism but also working-class backers of progressive economic policies who supported President Donald Trump for cultural reasons and evangelical Christians passionately against abortion. Present were white “America First” adherents who were vociferously anti-immigration but hold anti-corporation sentiments typically voiced by liberals; Latinos who themselves are immigrants; and African Americans who saw pro-business policies as a route to economic advancement.

Biden’s supporters were urban and suburban dwellers who differed in many ways but shared concern about the mishandling of COVID-19. His tent contained centrist Democrats and economic socialists, Black Americans intent on addressing systemic racism and members of the LGBTQ community defending their rights.

These tents overlap, and many Americans have walked from one tent to the other. Trump won more Black and Latino votes than any Republican in 60 years. But millions of evangelicals he won in 2016 voted this year for Democrats, including Biden. There have been notable rifts among Republicans, and a significant coterie of high-profile GOP party members supported Biden.

Across the political spectrum, American voters say they want the president to be a uniter rather than a divider. In October 2020, 89% of Biden backers and 86% of Trump backers said they wanted their candidate to address the needs of all Americans. They delivered the White House to Biden, a candidate who emphasized unity over resentments, while supporting Republicans in Congress.

Such election results signal that Americans are resistant to either party’s domination, which is effectively a call for collaboration. With society shocked by COVID-19 casualties and Trump’s unconventional presidency, the pieces of the American political puzzle may fit together in novel ways.

Toning down the rhetoric, resisting extremism, avoiding vindictiveness and stressing pragmatic solutions can build up a common ground that will mend the fraying fabric of our society.

Dan Raviv, an author and media analyst, contributed to this article.

America’s political divide will be very hard to heal

-Robert Talisse

In his victory speech, Joe Biden said that partisanship “is not due to some mysterious force” but “a choice we make,” asking Americans to “give each other a chance.”

His advice for doing that: “listen.”

Other political analysts have advised listening, too, as a way to heal America’s divide.

But lack of listening isn’t the problem here. My research on polarization shows political divisions have more to do with negative feelings toward opponents than with misunderstanding their views. When those feelings are intense, as they are right now, listening can actually deepen divisions. So when opponents speak, partisans hear only distortion and hypocrisy.

As a result, Americans today see their opponents as untrustworthy, dishonest, unpatriotic, threatening and even harmful to the nation, according to recent polling by the Pew Research Center. Bitter partisanship has rendered Americans unable to treat their opponents as democratic partners.

Research shows that momentary exposure to political messages that slightly oppose our own typically intensifies animosity toward rivals. And when opponents attempt to correct us, we commonly double down and escalate. That’s why even fact-checking Trump’s tweets amplifies divisions: When Twitter marks a Trump tweet as misleading, research finds, Republicans grow more inclined to believe it, while Democrats grow less inclined.

Listening can heal only when our divides lie within democracy’s mutual ground — the basic principle that, despite their differences, citizens are political equals. Today’s bitter partisanship has eroded this mutual ground in the United States.

In order to heal, Americans must recover the democratic mutual ground. Doing so would require rehabilitating people’s views of their fellow citizens. That is, Americans would need to see other Americans as people first, independently of their partisan affiliation.

This isn’t easy. Partisan division is a feature of our everyday social environments, with Republicans and Democrats often living entirely different kinds of lives.

If we already define ourselves and others in terms of partisan loyalties, the road to healing does not run through more political dialogue. Instead, Americans would need to do things together that have nothing to do with politics, engaging in activities that in no way express our partisan loyalties — volunteering with a community organization, for example, or joining a bowling league.

Yet opportunities for this kind of nonpartisan interaction have dwindled. And how do you heal a nation through bowling, anyway? You can’t, of course. Meanwhile, all the big stuff Americans do as a nation, from voting to raising families, is tinged with partisanship.

Until we can put politics in its right place — and I can’t fathom when that will be — partisan divides will persist.

Arie Kruglanski, Professor of Psychology, University of Maryland and Robert B. Talisse, W. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy, Vanderbilt University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Trump strong-arms Georgia’s top election official

Did Donald Trump just commit another violation of federal law by threatening the Georgia secretary of state to find votes for him by recalculating the November election results or face vague criminal charges himself?

The Washington Post obtained and published the audiotape of the call; the key excerpts here, the full transcript can be found here. The Post quoted election experts who noted that the call was beyond inappropriate and immoral and verged on violations of state and federal law.

“I just want to find 11,870 votes,” one vote more than the Joe Biden majority in the state election, Trump told Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state who oversaw the election. It’s not even a you-should-look-at it; it was in pursuit of a specific number of votes that Trump wants overturned.

As the Post summarized, Trump “alternately berated Raffensperger, tried to flatter him, begged him to act and threatened him with vague criminal consequences if the secretary of state refused to pursue his false claims, at one point warning that Raffensperger was taking “a big risk” for criminality by not reporting fraud. It was a shakedown by any other name.

Trump acknowledged in a tweet that he had spoken to Raffensperger, renewing his attack on the Republican state officials that they have failed to look hard enough for the fraud Trump insists happened despite multiple recounts, audits and court hearings.

Trump did not own up to threatening Raffensperger, but you can hear it yourself in the tape excerpts. There are both state and federal election laws that pertain here as well as blackmail liability.

Trump noted that Georgia faces a close election of two U.S. senators on Tuesday and that angry Trump voters would retaliate by withholding support for Republican candidates – fostering yet another strange link to how legal elections are supposed to work.

Then, just for icing, the word from state Republican officials was that Trump was filing lawsuits against Raffensperger and his agency’s lawyer for taping the shakedown call.

Let’s remember Trump got himself impeached in the aftermath of abusing his office to seek dirt on Biden, though he was saved by the partisan makeup of the Senate. He wants the Republicans to save him again in a losing effort and sees no bar in appropriateness, morality or law to bar him from using threats.

Perhaps, rather than seeking to overturn results to keep Trump in office, we should be talking of removing him.

In the Senate

Meanwhile, there was a barrage of last-minute maneuvering to dramatize Wednesday’s routine acceptance of Electoral College votes.

  • Republican senators were scrambling to decide how to react to a move by a dozen Republican colleagues who say they will challenge the vote.
  • Separately, a federal appeals court shot down an appeal of a crazy, losing lawsuit by Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), seeking to demand that Vice President Mike Pence has the right, if not the duty, to decide on acceptability of Electoral College slates.
  • There were calls for massive street protest in Washington to coincide with the showdown. Gohmert had to issue statements walking back remarks supporting violence in the streets.
  • Pence, who plays only a ceremonial role, himself fought the lawsuit, then turned around and said it would be fine to hear a challenge of the election outcome.

The political theater was creating weird alliances.

Suddenly Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) and Mitt Romney (R-Utah) were on the same side as Democrats who will vote against any such challenge. Indeed, four Republicans, Susan Collins (Maine), Bill Cassidy (La.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Romney, joined in a public statement with five Democrats and one Independent to trash the challenges and recognize Joe Biden as president-elect.

With no new evidence, Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), and several other sitting and incoming senators say they want yet another 10-day audit of selected state elections because their Republican voters want to believe the election was stolen by Democrats, voting machines, mail ballots, dead voters and thousands of people voting multiple times.

On Saturday, Trump used a phone call organized by the group Got Freedom? to urge nearly 300 state legislators from Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, all won by Biden, to decertify the results of the election. States are weeks past the deadlines for any such challenges.

In any event, Trump lacks the numbers in a Congressional vote on these issues to win. But then, Trump is so far into his obsession that reality seems unable to enter.

And a new Congress

Amidst all of this, a new Congressional session opened Sunday, with the coronavirus hanging over the proceedings. Incoming House member Luke Letkow (R-La.) died of the disease and two others were missing while quarantining, as was a third who is suffering from cancer. In the Senate, Georgia’s David Perdue, running tomorrow for re-election, could not be seated because his term had run out.

Despite the vacancies and a slimmer Democratic majority, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi won what likely will be her last term in that job.

We’ve got a nice bunch of coconuts.

Proud Boys sued by historic Black church after leader admits to burning BLM sign during D.C. rally

An historic Black church in Washington, D.C. on Monday sued the Proud Boys, the right-wing hate group whose leader acknowledged burning a Black Lives Matter sign at the house of worship during a violent December 2020 rally in support of President Donald Trump.

The lawsuit (pdf), filed by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law; Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs; and the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP on behalf of the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church against Proud Boys Interntational, LLC, accuses members of the group of “engaging in acts of terror and vandalizing church property in an effort to intimidate the church and silence its support for racial justice.”

On December 12, 2020, hundreds of Proud Boys from across the country descended on the nation’s capital, where they confronted and attacked counterprotesters in the streets. At least four people were stabbed during the clashes, which some critics linked to Trump’s September presidential debate directive to the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by.”

According to the lawsuit, members of the Proud Boys had prepared for violence ahead of the December gathering, exhorting each other to “buy ammo [and] clean your guns.” One Proud Boy wrote that “tonight we keep our enemies awake, tonight we become nightmares.”

Designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the all-male Proud Boys are known for their white nationalist, Islamophobic, and misogynistic rhetoric, as well as their presence at the deadly 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. 

Speaking against the advice of his attorney, Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio repeatedly claimed to have burned Metropolitan AME’s Black Lives Matter sign during the December demonstration. 

“Let me make this simple,” Tarrio told the Washington Post last month. “I did it.” 

“I have nothing to hide,” he said, explaining that he believes Black Lives Matter—the nonviolent movement for racial justice—”has terrorized the citizens of this country.” 

“In the burning of the BLM sign, I was the one that lit it on fire,” Tarrio said on a far-right podcast last month, according to The Independent. “I was the person that went ahead and put the lighter to it and engulfed it in flames, and I am damn proud that I did.”

Washington, D.C. police and the FBI are investigating the buring of Black Lives Matter banners at Metropolitan AME and Asbury United Methodist Church—also on December 12—as possible hate crimes, although Tarrio claims he was unaware the churches are predominantly Black.

Karl Racine, the D.C. attorney general, said in a letter to U.S. Attorney for the Disrict of Columbia Michael Sherwin that the Proud Boys’ actions on December 12 were meant to “terrorize Black people,” and that they “violated D.C. law and were hate crimes.”

“They harmed people of color, and every person who lives and works in our city who believes in fairness, justice, and racial equity,” asserted Racine.

Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said in a statement that “white supremacists like the Proud Boys would rather see the country burn than to see it united together under justice and freedom for all.”

“Black churches and other religious institutions have a long and ugly history of being targeted by white supremacists in racist and violent attacks meant to intimidate and create fear,” added Clarke. “Our lawsuit aims to hold those who engage in such action accountable. We are proud to represent Metropolitan AME, which has a long history of standing against bigotry and hate and whose courage and determination to fight back is a beacon of hope for the community.”

In a Washington Post op-ed following the vandalism, Metropolitan AME pastor Rev. William H. Lamar IV said he was “deeply disturbed” by the incident. 

“But I am more disturbed by the continued mythology of imperial America,” he wrote. “This mythology supports those who commit violence against human beings for political ends, deny citizens their right to vote, denigrate sacred spaces, and claim as their own whatever they survey.”

“It mattered not that the land was ours,” added Lamar. “It mattered not that the sign was ours. The mythology that motivated the perpetrators… was the underbelly of the American narrative—that white men can employ violence to take what they want and do what they want and call that criminality justice, freedom, and liberty.”

The lawsuit states that Metropolitan AME is seeking “compensatory, consequential, and punitive damages,” as well as “injunctive relief.”

The suit states that the Proud Boys are planning to return to Washington, D.C. for rallies on January 6 and January 20 “to continue their conspiracy to engage in violent and destructive acts against their ‘enemies,’ including racial justice activists and supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement.”  

The lawsuit further states that Tarrio said Proud Boys members would dress “incognito” instead of in the black and yellow attire mandated by the group’s bylaws,  that they would “spread across downtown D.C. in smaller teams” to “conceal intentions” and “pose as a friend” in order to “stir up waters to catch fish” and “keep others in suspended terror.”