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As Donald Trump is still yammering on, repeating a list of long-debunked lies about election fraud, and sprinkling his speech with multiple claims that Mike Pence has the authority to overturn the results of the election, Pence just issued a statement saying he disagrees.

It is my considered judgement that my oath to support and defend the Constitution constrains me from claiming unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not.

This doesn’t mean Pence doesn’t intend to give Republicans hours of prime time to air their false charges. He does. It doesn’t even absolutely guarantee that Pence doesn’t have some last minute maneuver in mind. But it certainly seems that Trump is about to be very, very disappointed in Mike.

At his pre-congressional hearing rally, Trump made numerous references to Pence. “I hope that Mike is going to do the right thing,” said Trump. “I hope so. All he has to do … this is from one of the top constitutional lawyers in our country. States want to revote. All Pence has to do is to send it back to the states to recertify, and we become president.” That was just the first of over a dozen points where Trump called on Pence to set aside the election results.

“Mike Pence is going to have to come through for us,” said Trump, “and if he doesn’t, that will be a sad day for our country.” At times, Trump seemed to be talking to an audience of one. “Mike Pence, I hope you going to stand up for the good of the country … and if you’re not, I’m going to be very disappointed, I’m telling you that right now. I’m not hearing good stories.”

Maybe Trump got an advance peek at Pence’s statement. Because while it leaves plenty of opportunity for Republicans to continue ripping their party in half by following Trump, it doesn’t seem to offer much hope that Pence is going to give Trump what he wants.

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Politico and the Associated Press are reporting that President-elect Joe Biden will name Merrick Garland, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals in D.C., as attorney general. Garland was former President Barack Obama’s foiled nominee for the Supreme Court, the nomination that Mitch McConnell used to break the Senate into pieces by blockading it.

AP sources say that Biden is expected make the official announcement on Thursday. Garland served in senior positions in the Justice Department under former President Bill Clinton, and supervised the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and prosecution of Timothy McVeigh as well as leading the investigations of the 1996 Olympics bombing in Atlanta and the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski. So his experience with combatting domestic terrorists is good.

Biden is expected to round out leadership in Justice, AP reports, with “former homeland security adviser Lisa Monaco as deputy attorney general and former Justice Department civil rights chief Vanita Gupta as associate attorney general. He will also name an assistant attorney general for civil rights, Kristen Clarke, the founder of Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, an advocacy group.” These are more than solid picks for both combatting domestic terrorism and protecting civil rights. As a brand new lawyer with the NAACP, Gupta worked to uncover a massive police corruption case involving a racist former rodeo cowboy whose false testimony sent dozens of Black Texans to prison. Monaco served in Obama’s administration as homeland security adviser and as his chief counterterrorism adviser, working on cybersecurity as well as the Ebola crisis. Right now, Clarke is taking on the Proud Boys, suing them for their attack on two Black historic churches in Washington, D.C. on Saturday.

This opens up a seat on the D.C. Circuit, the second most important court in the country, and Biden is reportedly considering elevating Ketanji Brown Jackson, who is currently a judge on that court. Brown, a 50-year-old Black woman, was appointed to the D.C. Circuit in 2013. Serving as the chief judge in this position would put her at the top of the list of potential Supreme Court nominees.

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Call it the last stand of the confederacy: a Republican administration attempting to roll back decades of civil rights protections for American citizens. Before he left office, former Attorney General Bill Barr submitted a regulatory change to the White House that would narrow the department’s enforcement of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, the provision that strips federal funding away from entities discriminating against people of color and other groups, including women, people with disabilities, and LGBTQ people. The rule change would mean the civil rights division would only enforce the cases where it could prove intentional discrimination, getting rid of the “disparate impact” rule.

That rule is based on the legal doctrine that a policy is discriminatory if it adversely impacts a group based on that group’s race, color, religion, sex, and, more expansively, sexual orientation. It’s been applied in education, housing, transportation, health care—essentially every facet of government policy by previous administrations, but especially expanded under former President Barack Obama. Trump has been chipping away at it since Day One in individual departments like Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and Education, but now they’re going for the whole shebang, just removing it from consideration overall in the Justice Department.

Civil rights groups have relied on disparate impact to demonstrate when patterns of behavior demonstrate discrimination, despite overriding policies that appear neutral. As an example, it’s relevant in education, where patterns of discipline have shown that Black and brown children are more likely to be punished. “Disparate impact analysis is important to create accountability at schools around the discriminatory effects of discipline policies, particularly since it’s difficult to prove racially motivated intent behind the policies,” Shiwali Patel, senior counsel for the National Women’s Law Center, told The New York Times. Patel served in the Office for Civil Rights in the Obama administration, which investigated discipline rates in public schools to “look at policies and take into account harmful outcomes.”

Under Trump’s education secretary, Betsy DeVos, that investigation and the guidance document that resulted was actually blamed for the 2018 mass shooting at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. The gunman was characterized as a “troubled” white student who was somehow motivated by, well, who knows, but something to do with the fact that the Obama administration was going easy on Black and brown kids. DeVos rescinded the guidance from the Obama administration, saying it “relies on a disparate impact legal theory, but that theory lacks foundation in applicable law.”

Trump’s HUD secretary, Ben Carson, tried to do the same thing in housing but was stopped by a federal judge in October 2020. HUD was sued over a rule that would have made it harder for borrowers to prove discrimination claims under the Fair Housing Act. “These significant alterations, which run the risk of effectively neutering disparate impact liability under the Fair Housing Act, appear inadequately justified,” Judge Mark Mastroianni of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts wrote in blocking the rule. That rule was even opposed by four of the country’s biggest banks. Michael DeVito, executive vice president for home lending at Wells Fargo, wrote to Carson in opposition, saying that the government “should acknowledge that Americans’ attention to racial discrimination is more pronounced and expansive.”

Barr pushed this through to the White House, which will undoubtedly implement it without submitting the new rule for public review or comment. That’s required in the rule-making process, but Barr asserted that because this relates to loans, grant-making, and contracts by federal agencies, it’s exempted from the normal procedures. The incoming Biden attorney general, whoever it may be, can basically shelve the enactment of this rule, even though it can’t be immediately reversed by the administration. It will also likely be challenged by progressive legal groups in court, which could be dangerous with a Trump Supreme Court that’s demonstrably hostile to civil rights.

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Hundreds of fanatical Donald Trump supporters gave Washington, D.C., a preview Tuesday of the “March for Trump” protest against his election defeat today in the nation’s capital, following a formula established at previous post-election protests: rally with speeches during the day followed by an evening filled with right-wing street violence.

As always, Tuesday’s “pre-rally” at Freedom Plaza featured an array of nutty conspiracists using anti-Semitic dog whistles and threatening, often violent rhetoric. But unlike previous events, there were very few counterprotesters out when the protesters took to the city’s streets in the evening—so instead, they clashed violently with Washington police.

The Tuesday violence, however, is likely just a mild foreshadowing of what the MAGA forces have in mind today. Thousands more are expected to be at the official event, scheduled for the Ellipse in front of the White House at around noon, then later shifting to the Capitol, where Congress will be voting to certify the election results giving Joe Biden the presidency.

Trump himself tweeted his enthusiastic endorsement of the rally: “I will be there. Historic day!”

The flood of threatening rhetoric used by Trump supporters online leading up to the event suggests that it will not be a peaceful march for very long—and the hysterical anger used by Tuesday’s marchers made that clear as well.

The pre-rally at Freedom Plaza attracted a smallish crowd, but the levels of craziness from the speakers were at their peak.

“Patriots! Socialists, Marxists, and communists are attempting to steal our American dream,” said a speaker who identified himself as a “III Percent” militiaman. “Patriots! We say no!”

Another speaker claimed that Chief Justice John Roberts was “owned” by George Soros. Later, event co-organizer Ari Alexander led the crowd in a chant: “Victory or death!”

The formula established by previous post-election protests continued into the evening as MAGA fanatics began roaming the streets of Washington, looking for counterprotesters to assault. Proud Boys, as promised beforehand, did not wear their Fred Perry polo uniforms this time, instead donning black garb, often adorned with American flags. Red MAGA hats remained common in the crowd.

There was a more significant difference this time, however: There were very few antifascists or other protesters on the streets to counter them. So the pro-Trump crowd assembled to march toward a site featuring memorials to Black people slain by police, dubbed “Black Lives Matter Plaza,” so that they could replicate their attacks on BLM at the Dec. 12 protest when a crowd of Proud Boys vandalized African American churches and burned banners in the street.

However, Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) forces were prepared for the onslaught and formed a phalanx around the plaza to prevent the MAGA crowd from vandalizing it. At that point, marchers began clashing violently with police. Police dispersed the crowd with pepper spray.

MPD officials said five people were arrested. However, it became clear that Washington police are enforcing neither the city’s mask mandate—none of the marchers appeared to be wearing masks—nor its prohibition against open carry of firearms, as video showed a number of the marchers carrying guns.

Afterwards, marchers voiced their anger at police. “We had your back, but we don’t got your back no more!” one protester shouted at police.

Afterwards, the marchers discussed the day ahead with each other. White nationalist Tim “Baked Alaska” Gionet was seen on video interviewing a fellow marcher who told him: “In fact, tomorrow—I don’t even like to say it because I’ll be arrested—we need to go into the Capitol.”

That kind of threatening rhetoric became extraordinarily common online in the days leading up to the march. On the right-wing site Parler, for instance, a number of Trump supporters who said they intended to attend also advocated for people to bring their guns and carry them openly: “Yes, it’s illegal, but this is war and we’re clearly in a post-legal phase of our society,” one wrote. “LIVE AS A FREE AMERICAN AND BRING YOUR ARMS!” chimed in another.

They even strategized about how to do so without being arrested. One Parler post urged protesters to travel in groups that should “not let [anyone] disarm someone without stacking bodies.” Marchers, it said, should be “ARMED WITH RIFLE, HANDGUN, 2 KNIVES AND AS MUCH AMMO AS YOU CAN CARRY.”

Their fury against police forces—a relatively new phenomenon for a faction that had adamantly promoted a “Back the Blue” campaign during the summer’s anti-police-brutality forces—was apparently amplified by the arrest Monday of Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio when he arrived in Washington, charged with property destruction for his admitted role in the burning of the BLM banners.

“Time to burn down dc police precinct,” read one post on Parler. “Fuck those treasonous pig bastards.” A well-known Proud Boys member claimed on Parler that Washington, D.C. police and the National Guard were part of a conspiracy with antifascists: “Don’t trust the police or NG to protect you, they have been compromised,” wrote Jeremy Bertino. “The enemy is showing their hand. The police will be arresting patriots who participate in civil disobedience.”

“WE THE PEOPLE … are through with you,” said a post on Parler. “To all our enemies high and low you want a war? Well your asking for one. … To the American people on the ground in DC today and all over this great nation, be prepared for anything. … Now we are here. Now they get what they want.”

“Are cops just antifa and BLM in taxpayer provided uniform?” another asked on TheDonald, a pro-Trump online hub. “In Dem cities, yes,” someone replied.

“The threats are coming from what seems like every direction, so it’s hard to triangulate and evaluate everything,” Megan Squire, a researcher based at Elon University, told NBC News. “I’m getting a strong ‘last stand’ vibe from some of these groups. I hope they go quietly, but it seems like that is not what they want to do.”

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Inside the White House, Donald Trump has done everything short of threatening to lock Mike Pence in a room with a woman in his efforts to pressure his supposed #2 into conducting some first grade treason. But before the Congress sets down to the grueling task of counting to 306, Trump will lead his followers in the greatest MAGA rally ever. He invited them to D.C. on Wednesday for a “wild time,” and he intends to deliver.

Trump will supposedly take the stage at 11 AM ET, but his core supporters are already strolling around the nation’s capital, explaining to anyone who will listen how if democracy doesn’t give you the outcome you wanted, you’re constitutionally obligated to start shooting people until you win. That follows a Tuesday evening in which members of the Police Should Always Beat Up Protesters Party got some prime time opportunities to scream “I never meant they should beat up me!”

Here are some highlights from Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning as Trump prepares to make his last ditch pitch for dictator.

On Tuesday night, Trump’s people seemingly thought that a police line was a welcome mat. Considering that the police oddly were not wearing all the military-style assault gear they donned when facing progressive protests, that might have been an honest mistake. But in any case …

Disappointed that police had not escorted the crowd to BLM plaza and assisted in vandalism, the Trump crowd then let the police know that they were disappointed in their level of racism.

On Wednesday morning, Fox News was split between downplaying expectations for the joint session of Congress, and breathlessly introducing the thousands hundreds dozens ones of supporters pouring in early for Trump’s rally.

To warm up the MAGA “crowd,” the loudspeakers blared an endless stream of “Songs to commit a coup by…”

That theme appears to be where things are going on Wednesday morning. Downcast from the Senate runoff results, Trump supporters seem more than ready to write off this Congress thing. “Allow the constitutional process to play out” and if it doesn’t give you want you want “come back with your rifles!” Because that’s apparently how democracy works now.

But of course, not everyone is waiting until the inauguration to break out the heavy weapons.

By 10 AM, the crowd actually has grown to respectable proportions … though the head count is the only thing respectable about this group. 

As everyone prepares for Trump’s Last Stand, remember the word (count) of Roger Stone.

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In four years, Donald Trump cost Republicans control of the House, the White House, and the Senate—so goes the celebratory refrain among liberals on Twitter. But the person who truly made the electoral demise of the Republican Party possible was the man who Washington reporters have praised for a decade as the GOP’s master tactician—the puppeteer supposedly pulling strings behind the scenes while everyone else simply served as marionettes on his stage. 

That man, erstwhile Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, will almost surely be ordering new letterhead once all the votes are counted. In the two crucial Georgia Senate runoffs, Democrat Raphael Warnock has been declared the victor and the other Democrat, Jon Ossoff, felt confident enough about his growing lead to declare victory Wednesday morning. Sure, it was Trump’s buffoonish domination of the spotlight over the past four years made the glare of the GOP’s moral bankruptcy burn too bright for many moderate-to-conservative voters to ignore. But Trump was simply the outward manifestation of McConnell’s inner decay.

In his relentless pursuit of power and securing a lasting legacy in the courts, McConnell happily abandoned his oath of office and any inkling of patriotism to play footsie with Trump throughout his grotesque tenure as de facto head of the GOP. In fact, McConnell helped clear the way for Trump’s corrupt elevation to office when he refused to sign on to a bipartisan statement revealing Russian interference in the 2016 election. When Trump declared neo-Nazi’s “very fine people” in 2017, McConnell led Republicans in declining to condemn the comments. And after a mountain of evidence showed Trump had extorted the leader of Ukraine in his bid to smear a political rival and win reelection, McConnell lined up the Republican votes to acquit Trump of impeachment charges without hearing from a single witness in the Senate.

So when it came time for McConnell to shoot down Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election results before it blossomed into a full-blown coup attempt, it came as no surprise that McConnell spent more than five weeks diddling around before finally acknowledging Joe Biden as the country’s rightful President-elect.

But now, suddenly, as McConnell faces a return to the Senate minority, he and his allies apparently think it’s time to wipe off that Trump stench and start anew.

“Emotions running high among McConnell-aligned Republicans early Wednesday am — after reality of what transpired in Georgia settled in,” National Journal columnist Josh Kraushaar tweeted early Wednesday morning. “May be the heat of the moment, but mood is for declaring war on Team Trump. Want to marginalize Trump as they marginalized Steve Bannon in 2017.”

Wow—now that Trump simultaneously alienated suburban voters while failing to turn out enough of his cultists to deliver wins in Georgia, McConnell and his cronies are going to take a stand. Bold.

Sorry, fellas, that ship has sailed. McConnell and Co. aided and abetted Trump for four solid years, presiding over the destruction of America’s institutions, democratic norms and leaving the country in tatters. But now that the GOP’s electoral future is in peril and the party is descending into a bitter civil war, McConnell and his allies think they can just brush Trump off their shoulders like a pesky bout of dandruff.

Go ahead, declare war on Trump. History will remember. And in the meantime, McConnell and the Republican Party will now reap what they sowed—total fucking chaos with no end in sight.

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After having already faced a firestorm of protest, the Wisconsin city of Kenosha passed a state of emergency in preparation for an explosive announcement Tuesday that prosecutors are sparing a white former police officer who shot and paralyzed a Black father. Fired officer Rusten Sheskey, a seven-year veteran of the Kenosha Police Department, shot Jacob Blake seven times in the back at point-blank range Aug. 23, 2020, while his children were in his vehicle nearby. The incident was captured on a neighbor’s devastating video and ignited protests in Kenosha and throughout the country, one even turning deadly allegedly at the hands of a racist counter-protester.

The emergency resolution, passed by the Kenosha city council, gave Mayor John Antaramian authority to act following Kenosha District Attorney Michael Graveley’s announcement. Graveley said Tuesday “no Kenosha law enforcement officer” in Blake’s case “will be charged with any criminal offense based on the facts and the laws.” “I’m going to also tell you just because I think it is important that no charge will be filed against Jacob Blake in regards to this incident as well,” Graveley said. Protests to the decision have remained peaceful thus far, ABC7 reported.

Gov. Tony Evers tweeted Tuesday that the prosecutor’s decision is “further evidence that our work is not done.” Civil rights attorney Lee Merritt said the investigation, led by a retired cop, “was not even attempted.” MSNBC contributor Jill Wine-Banks called the decision “inexplicable” in a tweet Wednesday. “1) once would disable any threat, 2) in the back means Blake was no threat, 3) if officer was afraid, he’s in the wrong business. Police reform essential,” she said in the tweet. 

Officers were serving Blake a felony arrest warrant when they were called to his girlfriend’s home to investigate a claim that Blake was at the woman’s home in violation of a restraining order. Blake had been charged with the felony of third-degree sexual assault, misdemeanor trespassing, and misdemeanor disorderly conduct in July, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. As part of a plea deal, Blake admitted to two “misdemeanor counts of disorderly conduct involving domestic abuse” in exchange for two years on probation, the newspaper reported.

When officers arrived, they tried to arrest Blake, but he resisted, Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul said three days after the shooting. “Law enforcement deployed a Taser to attempt to stop Mr. Blake, but the Taser was not successful in stopping him,” Kaul said. “Mr. Blake walked around his vehicle, opened the driver’s side door and leaned forward.” The Kenosha Police Department didn’t have body cameras at the time but has since been allocated funding to purchase them. “During the investigation following the initial incident, Mr. Blake admitted that he had a knife in his possession,” Kaul said. Investigators later found the knife in the floorboard of his vehicle, but civil rights attorney Ben Crump questioned how much of a threat the knife presented. “Nowhere does the video footage show a knife extended and aimed to establish the requisite intent. Also, to establish that the officer reasonably believed he was in danger… if he felt in danger, why did he chase Jacob Blake?” the attorney tweeted.

Graveley said during his press conference he only talked to Blake for the first time minutes before the press conference and that he had not spoken with any of the officers impacted so their statements wouldn’t influence his decision. The prosecutor said if he does not have a case he can prove “beyond a reasonable doubt” he is “ethically obligated not to charge such a case.” The most pertinent question, in this case, is whether Sheskey had enough evidence to disprove claims of self-defense by the officers involved, the prosecutor said. “I’ve heard a number of people talk to me about this case, and they say, “well, you know let the officers claim self-defense. They’d have to prove that,'” Graveley said. “And the reality is that’s just not the case. In Wisconsin—and I believe this is law throughout the country but certainly in Wisconsin—when there is enough information to raise self-defense, the burden of proof is on the state.”

Noble Wray, an independent use of force expert in this case, said during the press conference he considered multiple elements of the case to reach his recommendation. Wray said that the video of Blake being shot was “difficult to watch.” “As a person, that really bothered me,” he said.

“As a police professional, when I looked at that I had problems,” he later added. “The first thing that came to my mind as Mr. Blake is rounding the corner in front of that vehicle is ‘why didn’t the officers just grab him? Why didn’t they just grab a hold of this guy and take him down? Why did they allow for him to get to that side of the car and then shoot him in the back?’”

Wray didn’t answer those questions but instead cited legal cases that inform police use of force such as the 1989 Graham v. Connor Supreme Court case. In that case, an officer deemed suspicious a man quickly leaving a store without making a purchase and decided to follow him. That man, Dethorne Graham, who was in search of orange juice to counteract the effects of his friend’s insulin reaction, determined the line was too long and left the store only to end up handcuffed and injured by police. The Supreme Court ended up sending the case back to a lower court and determining that to be considered excessive, use of force must be objectively reasonable in that it responds to a severe crime, addresses a suspect posing an immediate threat to officers or others, and involves a suspect who is actively resisting or trying to evade arrest, according to the federally funded National Criminal Justice Reference Service. Wray said that with the other elements clearly established, he would call it “extreme actively resisting” in Blake’s case. 

Wray has overseen investigations on 10 to 20 officer-involved shootings and served as police chief for 10 years about 115 miles northwest of Kenosha in Madison, Wisconsin. He worked in law enforcement for about 30 years before retiring in 2013. In that time he’s focused on what he refers to as “trust-based policing” or building relationships between officers and the communities they serve, according to the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel.  

He said the criminal justice system is a difficult system, “harsh” and built on “racism after racism.” “And we are trying to work through this, but we cannot work through this by just trying to find a decision that is comfortable with people,” Wray said. “We’ve got to find the right decision. It’s got to be grounded in truth. It’s got to be grounded in facts. That’s the obligation that I was given when they told me to look at this.”

View more responses to the official decision below:

RELATED: Family nearly loses Jacob Blake in Kenosha cop shooting but Sen. Graham asks why he ‘didn’t yield’

RELATED: Armed militiaman shoots protesters, two fatally, during Kenosha protests over police shooting

RELATED: Jacob Blake is partially paralyzed after being shot repeatedly by Kenosha police, his father says

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In retrospect, Paul Ryan looks like a genius. Well … a relative genius when compared to the rest of his party who decided to grab the nearest strap and ride that Trump train to the final destination. Republicans passed their massive tax cut for billionaires on December 22, 2017. And then, it seems, they really were tired of winning. Because in the next election they lost the House. And then the White House. And now it seems all but certain they’ve lost the Senate. Trump train: Destination, Loserland. 

But yesterday’s humiliating defeat in a state that had been reliably red for decades wasn’t the end of it. There is no end. Republicans are just waking up to the idea that the Trump train is a kind of mobile Hotel California. They can never get off. And today they’re going to humiliate themselves, harm the nation, and split their sagging party down the middle. All in a losing cause, to support a loser.

Because they can’t get off now. They can never get off.

Today is the day that the votes from the Electoral College are counted and the totals announced. That’s it. There’s no slates of electors today. That’s done. There’s no certifying the vote today. That’s over. This is simply the final, official, count. 

The 12th Amendment and the 1887 legislation on managing this event do have some conditions under which today’s vote might be challenged. One of them is when a state fails to get their act together and come up with official vote totals that are certified by the governor. The other is when a state is so in an uproar that two slates of electors were sent to the Electoral College. Neither of those things happened. All 50 states got their votes certified by the “safe harbor” date. There is no standing for anyone to challenge the results that are already hermetically sealed in a Mason jar on the back porch of Funk & Wagnalls … or actually, in a box that Mike Pence will ceremonially open on the floor of a joint session of Congress this afternoon.

The votes from each state will be reviewed, in alphabetical order, by two appointees from the House and two appointees from the Senate. And the totals of these votes will be announced.

Pence will announce the total for each state. At this point, someone can raise an objection, as some House Democrats did in 2016. And at this point Pence can—and should—simply shoot them down. It doesn’t matter that Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, and eleven seditionist Republicans in the Senate have signed on to join the Louie Gohmert faction of the House. Yes, a written objection signed by members of both House and Senate is required to make an objection official, but that objection still has to be under one of the grounds that is allowed under law … and that can’t happen because, as mentioned above, all 50 states certified their votes and got them in by the safe harbor date. There cannot be a valid objection.

What Mike Pence should do is just what Joe Biden did when verbal objections were raised in 2016—dismiss them and go right on to the next state. What Pence is very likely to do instead is pretend that the objections warrant debate and a vote. This will give Hawley, Cruz, Gohmert, and the other 148 members of the Biggest Loser Caucus a chance to discuss their objections. If Hawley gets to talk, expect vague, but also trite, hand waving about how lots of people believe it, so it must be true. If Gohmert has the chair, we may actually get details of how Hugo Chavez designed our voting machines, or even exciting new details on how Barack Obama conspired with Italy to defeat Donald Trump. 

It doesn’t matter, because at the end of each objection, there will be a vote. The House will vote. And the Senate will vote. It’s unclear whether they show mercy on all of us waiting and vote at the same time, or drag this thing out even longer by going one after another. Probably the latter. In any case, any objections has to win in both chambers to be upheld. Unlike the messed-up procedure that happens if the House actually has to vote on the winner of the election (in that case, each House delegation for each state only gets one vote, meaning that even though the House is controlled by Democrats, the House could vote to seat Trump because of all that empty space they rule), this is a straight up vote. What happens when Republicans face a straight up vote? They lose.

In any case, an objection has to be upheld by both the House and the Senate to survive, so none of them will. Which is particularly good, because no one has any real idea of what would happen next.

Then they will read the next state. Lather, rinse, repeat.

With a theoretical limit of two hours “debate” on each objection, and lots of real world evidence that when such debate is broken down into five minutes here, five minutes there, and bathroom breaks and dinner recesses in between, two hours leans toward infinity … it’s not hard to see how this could be dragged on for a long, long time. Since Pence appears set to allow Republicans to object for reasons not covered in the relevant laws, they could object to every state that Biden won, keeping everyone seated in the Senate in a kind of tag team filibuster. 

But it seems that Republicans may object to just three states. That doesn’t mean Republicans won’t rise in vocal opposition to other states—they absolutely will. It means that Gohmert, Hawley, Cruz, and Pence have decided they’ll do their “this is a legit objection” charade only for Arizona, Georgia, and Pennsylvania. 

Considering that the whole affair starts at 1 PM ET, and should last a couple of hours in reasonable circumstances, these three states—and lots of verbal objections that Pence will let roll on rather than cutting them off as Biden did four years ago—should push the final announcement of results to somewhere around midnight. That means that, whatever Pence eventually announces from the podium, it will happen long after prime time. And probably after a lot of people exhausted from watching the Tuesday night runoff election returns have called it a night.

Odds are very good at the end of all this, Pence will simply announce Biden’s victory and gavel the session close over a roar of faux outrage from the seditionists. Fox appears to be bracing their audience for this outcome with frequent reminders that Pence’s role is purely ceremonial.

On the other hand, with Proud Boys battling in the streets, Gohmert pretending that Pence can replace the whole election system on a whim, and Trump already focusing his eternal hate, Pence could decide to … who knows. It’s 99% certain that Pence announces Joe Biden’s win and everyone goes home by the light of white supremacist bonfires, because the law really provides no other options. 

So, of course, we’ll be here for live coverage. 

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The Rev. Raphael Warnock has defeated Sen. Kelly Loeffler and Jon Ossoff has declared victory while holding a lead greater than President-elect Joe Biden’s margin of victory in Georgia. So while Republicans will likely do everything they can to drag things out before Warnock and Ossoff are seated in the Senate, Mitch McConnell’s days as majority leader are looking numbered. And that means new committee chairs. 

There’s a lot to be excited about on the list of Senate Democrats in line to chair important committees, especially since Sen. Dianne Feinstein took herself out of the running for the Judiciary Committee, with Sen. Dick Durbin now in line. At the top of the list: Sen. Bernie Sanders is expected to chair the Budget Committee. Last fall, in an interview about what he’d do as committee chair, he had a simple answer: “We’d create a budget that works for working families, and not the billionaire class.”

The Banking Committee is no less exciting, with Sen. Sherrod Brown expected to take over. “First thing: We do a major emergency rental assistance. I mean it’s all about housing. The word housing has essentially been left out of that committee the last three or four years. So it’s all about that,” he told Politico in October.

At the Finance Committee, Sen. Ron Wyden told Politico he expected to focus on trying to roll back the Republican tax law, and also, “We’re going to make sure that the lesson of the Great Recession is learned—you don’t take your foot off the gas in the middle of an economic recovery.”

Vermont is expected to have another major committee chair, with Sen. Pat Leahy at the Appropriations Committee. At Homeland Security, Sen. Gary Peters, recently off a narrow reelection, is in line to take charge. Also: Sen. Maria Cantwell at the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee; Sen. Tom Carper at the Environment and Public Works Committee; and Sen. Patty Murray at the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

Anything would be an upgrade from the Republican nightmares currently leading many of these committees, and of course not every Democrat in line for a committee chair is the absolute best the party has to offer. Plus it would be very nice if there was a little more diversity heading the most important committees. But there are some pretty amazing things here.

Elections have consequences.

This post was originally published on this site

The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Matt Booker, and Carolyn Fiddler, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.

Leading Off

● GA-Sen-A, GA-Sen-B: In an historic election with consequences that will reverberate for years, Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff are poised to flip two Republican-held Senate seats in Georgia and hand control of the chamber to Democrats for the first time since 2014.

Governors

● FL-Gov: Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried has been mentioned as a potential Democratic opponent for Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis almost from the moment that she was elected in 2018, and the spokesperson for her political action committee confirmed to Politico that the commissioner is indeed considering making the race. Fried was elected to her current post 50.04-49.6, a result that made her the only Democrat to win statewide in any of the four election cycles from 2014 through 2020.

● IL-Gov: WBEZ’s Tony Arnold takes a look at the potential GOP field to take on Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker and lists some possibilities we hadn’t yet heard.

The only new name who expressed interest for the article was state Sen. Jason Barickman, though he didn’t sound enthusiastic about the idea. “It’s not something I sought out to do,” Barickman said, “I have a young family which is my first consideration but I’m doing my due diligence in response to the encouragement that’s been made of me.” Arnold also writes that wealthy businessman Gary Rabine and outgoing state Sen. Paul Schimpf are considering joining the contest, though they didn’t say anything publicly.

Arnold mentions outgoing state Senate Minority Leader Bill Brady, who narrowly lost the 2010 general election to Democratic incumbent Pat Quinn and unsuccessfully sought the nomination again in 2014, as another potential candidate.

Brady announced on New Year’s Eve that he’d be resigning from the legislature, and while his statement didn’t mention this race in particular, he did write, “When I was elected leader, I said that I would not pursue any other elected office during my leadership of the caucus.” A Brady spokesperson would only tell Arnold that the soon-to-be-former senator “is interested in working on the critical issues facing Illinois.”

Arnold also notes that corporate attorney Richard Porter, who has served on the Republican National Committee, has “joked that he may have to be an adversary against his fellow candidates if he chooses to run.” There’s no indication yet, though, if Porter, who has never sought elected office, was serious.

Finally, Arnold writes that Rep. Rodney Davis could try to seek a promotion if the Democratic-run state government leaves him with an unfavorable seat after this round of redistricting. The congressman doesn’t appear to have addressed the idea of a campaign against Pritzker, though Arnold said that while many of the Republicans he’d interviewed for the story took “some shots at Pritzker for this story,” Davis was “by far the most aggressive.”

● MI-Gov: The Detroit News mentions state Sen. Tom Barrett as a possible Republican candidate, though there’s no word on his interest.

● NH-Gov: Here we go again. Corey Lewandowski, who served as Donald Trump’s first 2016 campaign manager and remains in Trump’s orbit as one of his senior advisors, told WMUR that he was considering seeking the Republican nomination for governor. Lewandowski added that he’d be willing to run in a primary against Gov. Chris Sununu or former Sen. Kelly Ayotte: Sununu is the GOP’s top pick to run for the Senate, and Ayotte has been mentioned as a potential candidate to succeed him in the governor’s office.

Lewandowski spent months in 2019 talking about challenging Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, an idea that Trump very much encouraged. Plenty of state and national Republicans, though, feared that Lewandowski would be a weak candidate; Sununu himself even reportedly warned party leaders that Lewandowski could harm the entire state ticket, including his own re-election campaign. Lewandowski ultimately stayed out of the race, and while eventual nominee Corky Messner badly lost to Shaheen, he didn’t prevent Sununu from easily winning his own race.

House

● LA-05: A special election will take place on March 20 to succeed Republican Rep.-elect Luke Letlow, who died from complications of COVID-19 shortly before the new year, in this very red northeast Louisiana district, and potential candidates have only until Jan. 22 to decide if they’ll run. All the contenders will run on one ballot, and if no one takes a majority of the vote, an April 24 runoff would take place between the top-two vote-getters, regardless of party.

The Monroe News-Star‘s Greg Hilburn writes that a number of Republicans are waiting to see if former Rep. Ralph Abraham, whose term ended on Sunday, will run again. Abraham, who decided not to seek a fourth term in 2020, said Monday that it was unlikely he’d try to reclaim the seat, though Hilburn writes that the Republican didn’t rule out the idea altogether.

Another possible candidate is Letlow’s widow, University of Louisiana Monroe official Julia Letlow. A family spokesperson said, “Julia is currently spending time with family and will take time in the coming days to reflect, pray and come to a decision on running for her husband’s congressional seat.”

Hilburn also names some Republicans who have “all said they will either run or consider running if Abraham doesn’t,” though he notes that most of them hadn’t heard about Julia Letlow’s potential campaign when they were asked. These names include state Sen. Stewart Cathey; state Reps. Michael Echols and Chris Turner; and Ouachita Parish Police Juror Scotty Robinson, who took fifth place with 8% of the vote in the November all-party primary.

State Rep. Lance Harris, who lost the December runoff to Letlow 62-38, recently said that it would be “inappropriate” to talk about his plans so soon after the congressman-elect’s death, though Hilburn writes he “expressed similar sentiments last week” regarding Abraham’s plans as the other potential candidates.

On the Democratic side, Candy Christophe, whom Harris edged out 17-16 for second place in November, has already announced she’s in. Martin Lemelle, who earned fourth place with 10%, is also thinking about another try.

● NM-01: State Rep. Georgene Louis announced Monday that she would seek the Democratic nomination to succeed Democratic Rep. Deb Haaland if she’s confirmed as interior secretary.

On the Republican side, conservative radio host Eddy Aragon, who unsuccessfully tried to unseat Steve Pearce late last year as party chair, also says he plans to run if there’s a vacancy. Both the Democratic and Republican nominees in a special election will be chosen by party leaders, not by voters in a primary. Joe Biden carried this Albuquerque-based seat 60-37 last year.

Mayors

● Anchorage, AK Mayor: Former City Assemblyman Bill Evans, a Republican who is one of several candidates competing in the May 5 nonpartisan primary, earned an endorsement last month from former Mayor Dan Sullivan (not to be confused with the U.S. senator with the same name).

● Fort Worth, TX Mayor: Republican Mayor Betsy Price announced Tuesday that she would not seek a sixth two-year term in the May 1 nonpartisan primary. Price, who is Fort Worth’s longest-serving chief executive, is also one of just two Republicans to lead any of the nation’s 20 largest cities. (The other is Lenny Curry, the mayor of Jacksonville, Florida.) The candidate filing deadline is Feb. 12, so Price’s potential successors will only have a little time to decide what they’ll do. All the contenders will face off on one nonpartisan ballot in May, and a runoff would take place later if no one took a majority of the vote.

Price was decisively elected in 2011 to succeed retiring Democratic Mayor Mike Moncrief, and she won her next three campaigns without any trouble. Politics in Fort Worth’s Tarrant County has been changing over the last few years, though, and Team Blue was encouraged by 2018 victories up and down the ballot. Price faced a serious challenge the following year from Tarrant County Democratic Party Chair Deborah Peoples, and while the incumbent won 56-42, the margin was considerably closer than any of Price’s other re-election campaigns.

The 2020 presidential results give Democrats some reasons for optimism about the race to succeed Price: Joe Biden won Tarrant County by a narrow 49.3-49.1, a showing that made him the first Democrat to carry the county since Texan Lyndon Johnson took it in his 1964 landslide.

Peoples has been preparing for a second campaign for a while, and she confirmed on Tuesday that she was in. Republican City Councilman Brian Byrd also said just before the Price’s announcement that he’d be running if the incumbent didn’t, while his Democratic colleague Ann Zadeh also expressed interest. Attorney Dee Kelly, who called himself a friend of Price’s, also said he’d consider an open seat race, while Democratic state Rep. Ramon Romero also didn’t dismiss the idea on Tuesday. Romero, whose parents emigrated from Mexico, said, “I believe it would be irresponsible for any leader of a community of color across the city to prematurely rule out a run.”