White House News (白宮消息) | Nov. 25, 2020

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President-elect Joe Biden looks on during an event to introduce key foreign policy and national security nominees and appointments at the Queen Theatre on November 24, 2020, in Wilmington, Delaware. On Tuesday evening, Biden appeared on NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt for his first post-election interview.
Biden Says Trump Admin Hasn't Been 'Begrudging' in the Transition Process

Nov. 24 - President-elect Joe Biden said during his first interview since winning the presidential election that the transition between his incoming administration and President Donald Trump's outgoing administration "has not been begrudging" thus far.

The interview, which aired Tuesday evening on NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt, was conducted in Wilmington, Delaware, where Biden and members of his transition team are headquartered. Though the General Services Administration (GSA) granted Biden's team access to transition funds and materials on Monday and the White House gave Biden access to daily presidential briefings on Tuesday, Trump has not yet conceded the election.

During Tuesday's interview, Holt asked Biden about whether the GSA's acknowledgment of the election results had improved communication between the two camps.

"Yes. Immediately we've gotten outreach from the National Security shop, from—just across the board," Biden said. "We're already working out meeting with the COVID team in the White House, and how to not only distribute, but get from a vaccine being distributed, to a person being able to get vaccinated. So I think we're going to not be so far behind the curve, as we thought we might be in the past."     continue to read

Richard Archuleta, Taos Pueblo, NM voting rights advocate. 

GOP Trail of Tears
Giving Thanks to Indigenous Voters

• by Greg Palast
• for Nation of Change
• November 24, 2020

For those of you who wanted to see Donald Trump skedaddled from the White House, this is the week you should be celebrating Thanksgiving giving thanks to Indigenous peoples for giving Biden the White House.  The Native People’s vote provided the margin for Biden in Wisconsin, Nevada, and Arizona.

In Arizona, for example, the Tohono O’odham nation voted 98% Democratic!

If it were up to White folk, Trump would have walked away with Arizona, but Indigenous precincts in Navajo Nation lands reported a 60% to 90% vote for Biden-Harris.

The Indigenous vote has been crucial before.  In 2004, Native Nations gave John Kerry the votes he needed to win New Mexico and the presidency, but Kerry was never inaugurated… Because those native votes were never counted.

That’s right. Never counted.     source

Biden Introduces Foreign Policy Team, Says World Is ‘Looking Forward’ To America Leading Again

Nov. 24 - President-elect Joe Biden introduced his foreign policy team to the nation Tuesday, saying numerous world leaders have called to tell him they are looking forward to the U.S. returning to “lead the world” after President Donald Trump’s administration.

Biden’s foreign policy strategy intends to stray away from Trump’s more contentious relationships with certain world leaders, which Biden’s imminent administration views as unproductive. Biden’s nominee for secretary of state, Tony Blinken, argued America “can’t solve the world’s problems alone.” Biden’s team is notably much more friendly toward China than the current administration, with the incoming president describing the communist regime as a “competitor” rather than an adversary.

Biden spoke while flanked by Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, Blinken and his other nominees for foreign policy positions — Jake Sullivan as national security adviser, Linda Thomas-Greenfield as ambassador to the United Nations, and Alejandro Mayorkas as the head of the Department of Homeland Security. Biden has also selected former Sen. and Secretary of State John Kerry to lead his administration’s international efforts on climate change.   continue to read  


RELATED: GOP Reportedly Plans To Block Certain Biden Cabinet Picks, Dems May Offer ‘Sacrificial Lamb’

PBS NewsHour full episode, Nov. 24, 2020
Nov. 25, 2020
Tuesday on the NewsHour, President-elect Joe Biden moves quickly on the transition to the White House, the troubling surge continues as COVID-19 cases and deaths rise, the coronavirus exacerbates widespread food insecurity as the Thanksgiving holiday approaches, and national security professionals train the next generation of women.

White House News (白宮消息) | Nov. 24, 2020

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Antony Blinken, talking about refugees, told a Sesame Street character we ‘all have something to learn and gain from one another’. 
Antony Blinken: Biden's secretary of state nominee is sharp break with Trump era
A born internationalist, Blinken will seek to soothe the frayed nerves of western allies

Nov. 24 - After reports first emerged on Sunday night that Antony Blinken would be secretary of state in the Biden administration, one interview from his past began circulating on social media.

It was a September 2016 conversation with Grover, a character from Sesame Street, on the subject of refugees, directed at American children who might have new classmates from faraway countries. “We all have something to learn and gain from one another even when it doesn’t seem at first like we have much in common,” Blinken told the fuzzy blue puppet.

After four years of an administration that has separated migrant children from their parents and kept them in cages, Blinken’s arrival at the state department will mark a dramatic change, to say the least.

While Mike Pompeo has remained a domestic politician throughout his tenure as secretary of state, giving the lion’s share of his interviews to conservative radio stations in the midwest, for example, Blinken is very much a born internationalist.     continue to read

Antony Blinken is a longtime Biden confidant who served as No 2 at the state department and as deputy national security adviser in Barack Obama’s administration.
Joe Biden to nominate Antony Blinken as US secretary of state
Two other internationalists, Linda Thomas-Greenfield and Jake Sullivan, also tipped for top jobs

Nov. 24 - Joe Biden will nominate two veteran diplomats to the top US roles on the world stage – Antony Blinken as secretary of state and Linda Thomas-Greenfield as ambassador to the UN – in a move aimed at sending a message to Americans and allies that the new administration will mark a return to competence and experience.

Jake Sullivan, another Democratic insider, will be the new national security adviser, reflecting Biden’s approach of choosing professionals from the foreign policy establishment in preference to business executives and politicians, who were a hallmark of the Trump administration.

Blinken was Biden’s national security adviser when Biden was vice-president, and then served as the deputy secretary of state in the last two years of the Obama administration. Sullivan was an adviser to Hillary Clinton, took part in secret talks with Iran that led up to the 2015 nuclear deal, and then succeeded Blinken as Biden’s national security adviser in the Obama White House.

Thomas-Greenfield comes from the diplomatic corps, with a career stretching back to Reagan, and rose to become assistant secretary of state for African affairs in the Obama administration. The country’s most senior black diplomat was quickly fired by Donald Trump and his team, who distrusted diplomats, seeing them as part of an amorphous “deep state”.     continue to read

White House News (白宮消息) | Nov. 23, 2020

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Smercoish: Will President Trump ever concede?
Judge's devastating question for team Trump

Nov. 22, (CNN) - President Donald Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani made a rare appearance as an advocate in a courtroom this week in a baseless and hopeless effort to invalidate Joe Biden's victory.

Addressing the former New York City mayor, who was parroting Trump's lie about massive voter fraud, US District Court Judge Matthew Brann posed a devastating question at the hearing on Tuesday.

"You're alleging that the two individual plaintiffs were denied the right to vote. But at bottom, you're asking this court to invalidate more than 6.8 million votes, thereby disenfranchising every single voter in the Commonwealth. Could you tell me how this result could possibly be justified?"On Saturday, the judge effectively answered his own question by dismissing the lawsuit and saying, "this Court has been presented with strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations...and unsupported by evidence."     continue to read

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Photo by: Mary Altaffer
FILE - In this Nov. 6, 2020, photo, a canvas observer photographs Lehigh County provisional ballots as vote counting in the general election continues in Allentown, Pa. President Donald Trumps campaign filed a number of lawsuits across six battleground states this month as he tried to upend the 2020 election. Judges uniformly rejected his claims of vote fraud. The latest case ended Saturday, Nov. 21, when a federal judge in Pennsylvania said Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani presented only speculative accusations that brought to mind Frankensteins Monster.' (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File)

'One kind of fraud': Biden won thousands of illegal votes by noncitizens, study shows

Nov. 22 - A new study estimates that presumptive President-elect Joseph R. Biden benefited from thousands of illegal votes by noncitizens, providing President Trump’s backers another potential argument for a fraud-tainted election.

The study comes from the nonprofit research institute Just Facts, and its president, James D. Agresti, who looked at election returns from seven battleground states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

He compared U.S. Census numbers on noncitizens (a total of 21.7 million) with each battleground state’s demographics and election results. He then applied previous election polling of noncitizens.

The 2008-13 surveys show that a significant number of noncitizens register to vote and cast ballots, despite a federal law against it, and overwhelmingly vote for Democrats.

Based in New Jersey, Just Facts concluded that thousands of “extra” noncitizen votes went to Mr. Biden, enough to flip Arizona (plus 51,081) and Georgia (plus 54,950), but not sufficient to flip the election.    

“This is just one kind of fraud,” Mr. Agresti told The Washington Times. “It’s a sizable number, which is the point. It also decimates the predominant narrative that there is no evidence of large-scale fraud in U.S. elections.”

Mr. Trump is contesting the election in court on two major contentions: invalid mailed ballots because of fake signatures or other flaws, and a computer voting system that, his legal team says, switched Trump votes to Biden votes. The latter claim remains unproven.     source

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Nevada: “Judge rejects ‘shocking ask’ of new election over voter fraud claims brought by Sharron Angle and affiliated group”

Nov. 21 - A Clark County District Court judge has rejected what she called a “shocking ask” to nullify Nevada’s election results and order a new election on scant evidence of voter fraud brought by a group tied to former U.S. Senate candidate and conservative activist Sharron Angle.

Judge Gloria Sturman rejected the request by Election Integrity Project and Angle after a lengthy hearing Friday afternoon, saying that the group’s claims of potential voter fraud fell far short of the required level of evidence needed for a judgment in their favor — throwing out a state law allowing mail-in ballots to be sent to all active registered voters, declaring the 2020 election null and ordering a new election to take place.

Sturman said she didn’t want to outright dismiss concerns that people may have fraudulently voted in the 2020 election, but said there were other remedies available and that ordering a new election days before the statewide certification of vote totals would create a “very serious harm to the public.”

“I’m not saying that there might not be problems, and your client might not have found really serious problems, and there is an administrative remedy for people who do this kind of thing. They should be investigated by the secretary of state, and they should be prosecuted if found to have done something illegal,” she said. “But the civil remedy of throwing out an election is just, to me, a shocking ask.”     source

PBS NewsHour Weekend Full Episode November 22, 2020
Nov 23, 2020
On this edition for Sunday, November 22nd, another setback for the Trump administration as more states move to certify the election results, COVID-19 cases surge ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday as experts warn against travel, and, reckoning with history, a Maryland college unveils a memorial to enslaved peoples. Hari Sreenivasan anchors from New York.

White House News (白宮消息) | Nov. 22, 2020

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Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel listens to a question in Detroit on June 4, 2019. Nessel, according to reports on Saturday, Nov. 21, is exploring whether officials there risk committing crimes if they seek to block the certification of Joe Biden's victory in their state.
Michigan ponders criminal probes of officials seeking to block election certification

Nov. 21 - Michigan's attorney general is exploring whether officials there risk committing crimes if they seek to block the certification of Joe Biden's victory in their state, according to two people familiar with the review.

The move by Dana Nessel, a Democrat, reflected a growing sense of unease among many in her party and some Republicans that the president was continuing his unprecedented efforts to reach personally into the state's electoral process as he seeks to prevent Michigan from formally declaring a winner there.

On Wednesday, two Republican officials in Wayne County sought to rescind their vote to certify the election results in their county, where Detroit is located, after Trump called them Tuesday night.

On Friday afternoon, four leaders of Michigan's Republican-controlled state legislature met with Trump in the White House at his invitation.

Tensions surrounding the White House encounter seemed to ease somewhat late Friday when there were signs the lawmakers would not side with Trump.

No details of the meeting were available late Friday. But the lawmakers issued a statement saying that they "have not yet been made aware of any information that would change the outcome of the election in Michigan and as legislative leaders, we will follow the law and follow the normal process regarding Michigan's electors, just as we have said throughout this election."     continue to read

Republican members of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers William Hartmann, left and Republican chairperson Monica Palmer, to his right, were contacted by Donald Trump after they agreed to certify the county’s election results. 
Michigan attorney general looks at criminal charges for state officials who would overturn election results

Nov. 22 - Michigan's attorney general is reportedly looking into whether or not officials will be violating the law if they act on Donald Trump's instructions to block the certification of Joe Biden's victory in the state.

The Washington Post reported that Dana Nessel, a Democrat, is one of many officials growing increasingly concerned withthe president’s attempts to influence the outcome of the state's election.

The publication cited anonymous sources close to the attorney general.

Michigan was in the spotlight earlier this week when two Republican board members on a canvassing committee in Wayne County refused to certify the results of the 2020 election. After public backlash, the officials buckled and agreed to certify the results.

Mr Trump called the officials on Tuesday night, after which they sought to rescind their vote to certify the election.
Wayne County is the home to the city of Detroit. Refusing to certify the results would result in primarily Democrat and disproportionately Black voters having their legally cast ballots thrown out.     continue to read

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Nevada: “Judge rejects ‘shocking ask’ of new election over voter fraud claims brought by Sharron Angle and affiliated group”

Nov. 21 - A Clark County District Court judge has rejected what she called a “shocking ask” to nullify Nevada’s election results and order a new election on scant evidence of voter fraud brought by a group tied to former U.S. Senate candidate and conservative activist Sharron Angle.

Judge Gloria Sturman rejected the request by Election Integrity Project and Angle after a lengthy hearing Friday afternoon, saying that the group’s claims of potential voter fraud fell far short of the required level of evidence needed for a judgment in their favor — throwing out a state law allowing mail-in ballots to be sent to all active registered voters, declaring the 2020 election null and ordering a new election to take place.

Sturman said she didn’t want to outright dismiss concerns that people may have fraudulently voted in the 2020 election, but said there were other remedies available and that ordering a new election days before the statewide certification of vote totals would create a “very serious harm to the public.”

“I’m not saying that there might not be problems, and your client might not have found really serious problems, and there is an administrative remedy for people who do this kind of thing. They should be investigated by the secretary of state, and they should be prosecuted if found to have done something illegal,” she said. “But the civil remedy of throwing out an election is just, to me, a shocking ask.”     source

PBS NewsHour Weekend Full Episode November 21, 2020
Nov 22, 2020
On this edition for Saturday, November 21, hospitalizations continue to climb as COVID-19 cases break more records, an expert explains the relationship between climate change and extreme weather, such as hurricanes, and Art Garfunkel offers fresh insight on his time in the iconic duo Simon & Garfunkel, and his relationship with Paul Simon. Hari Sreenivasan anchors from New York

White House News (白宮消息) | Nov. 21, 2020

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GA Gov Certifies Election, But Says Door Open for Trump Challenges
Kemp's tone was notably more deferential to Trump than Georgia's secretary of state who said Friday that he was disappointed "our candidate didn't win” but "numbers don't lie."

Nov. 20- After a historic recounting of all five million ballots cast in Georgia, Republican state leaders confirmed on Friday that President-elect Joe Biden did, in fact, defeat President Donald Trump in the state, despite baseless claims to the contrary from Trump and his supporters.

But the state’s embattled governor and its top elections official diverged sharply in how they relayed the news.

In brief remarks on Friday evening from Atlanta, Gov. Brian Kemp said that under state law he must certify Biden as the winner. But the Trump-backed Republican, who has faced immense pressure from the president and his base to generally do something about his election loss, coated that message in criticism for the election process and insisted the Trump campaign can still fight the result.

The certification of the result allows the Trump campaign to request a formal recount of votes, conducted by machine, and “other legal options” through that process, said Kemp. While Georgia elections officials have defended the integrity of the system in recent weeks, Kemp zeroed in on the fact that the audit found several thousand previously uncounted votes, a discovery that has outraged Trump supporters even though the new votes hardly moved the statewide margin of the race.     continue to read

Shields and Brooks on the danger of Trump’s refusal to concede
Nov 21, 2020
Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week in politics, including President Donald Trump’s continuing and baseless claims about election fraud, how Republicans and Democrats have reacted and the long-term impacts of Trump’s refusal to concede on Americans’ faith in the electoral process.

Published Dec. 15, 2018 7:20PM ET
Investigation Finds Fraud Accusations By Brian Kemp In Georgia Governor's Election Likely Untrue

INVESTIGATION
Audrey McNamaraReporter
 
Brian Kemp's political campaign for governor of Georgia publicly accused the state's Democratic Party of trying to hack into the state's voter database before the election, but an investigation by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has found that no crime likely occurred. The accusation by Kemp against the party of Democratic opponent Stacey Abrams added last-minute drama to an already contentious election, and diverted scrutiny away from Kemp's own missteps as a Secretary of State in charge of an election in which he was running. In the weeks since the election, which Kemp won, no evidence has emerged to support the serious allegations his camp raised.     source