kingdragonfly:  "Team Trump" is a very exclusive club; there's only one member.

The Republicans are still playing silly buggers ...

The Washington Post - Cruz, cadre of other GOP senators vow not to certify Biden win without probe of voter fraud claims

today

Nearly a dozen Republican senators and senators-elect led by Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas said Saturday they will reject electors from certain states won by President-elect Joe Biden, citing unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud and calling for an emergency 10-day audit of the results, an unprecedented attempt to thwart the democratic process.

 

The senators contend they are not trying to reverse the election results, but rather give voice to those who don’t believe it was conducted fairly, despite no investigation nor court finding any evidence of wrongdoing.

 

Still, President Trump and many of his Republican allies see next week’s joint session of Congress to certify Biden’s victory as their last stand to contest the election results, even if doing so is largely political theater to undermine and delay Biden’s inevitable win. ...

 

EDIT (more text from the above Post article)

For each successfully contested state, the joint session must recess, allowing the House and Senate to individually debate up to two hours and then vote on the challenges. Because of coronavirus precautions, House votes during the pandemic have taken an hour or more to conduct - meaning disposing of challenges for each state could take three to four hours.

 

Many House Republicans have already said they will contest the electoral college votes from multiple states. If Republican senators join House members in contesting all six won by Biden where the Trump campaign has questioned the results - Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin - the proceedings could conceivably last 24 hours or more.

 

and ...

The New York Times - 11 More Republican Senators Plan to Back Futile Bid to Overturn Biden’s Election

What the revolutionary idealists who founded America did not realise, is that one day they would be succeeded by weasels.

Sideface:

 

The Republicans are still playing silly buggers ...

 

The Washington Post - Cruz, cadre of other GOP senators vow not to certify Biden win without probe of voter fraud claims

 

today

 

Nearly a dozen Republican senators and senators-elect led by Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas said Saturday they will reject electors from certain states won by President-elect Joe Biden, citing unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud and calling for an emergency 10-day audit of the results, an unprecedented attempt to thwart the democratic process.

 

The senators contend they are not trying to reverse the election results, but rather give voice to those who don’t believe it was conducted fairly, despite no investigation nor court finding any evidence of wrongdoing.

 

Still, President Trump and many of his Republican allies see next week’s joint session of Congress to certify Biden’s victory as their last stand to contest the election results, even if doing so is largely political theater to undermine and delay Biden’s inevitable win. ...

 

and ...

 

The New York Times - 11 More Republican Senators Plan to Back Futile Bid to Overturn Biden’s Election

How many of these idiotic, arse licking Republican's are up for re-election in 2022 ? because I hope all this crap they are doing now, back fires on them in 2022. Trump will "fade away into the night" as he will be so tied up in legal issues and if he has a federal legal record against him he will not be able to run in 2024.

PS: just a small journalistic gripe. I dislike when it is said as in this example; Nearly a dozen Republican senators, when the exact figure is 11. You either know the exact figure or you don't. You hear it all the time from broadcast journalists. "Nearly 12 million dollars was spent" when the figure was 11,855,000. Brevity in this case is not a sign of wit but just lazy journalism.

I dunno if Trump will ever fade away, as such - his fanbase are quite passionate about him, although I realise this sentiment does not extend to all Republicans, but a fairly sizeable portion of them.

quickymart:

 

I dunno if Trump will ever fade away, as such - his fanbase are quite passionate about him, although I realise this sentiment does not extend to all Republicans, but a fairly sizeable portion of them.

 

Unless he crossed paths with a speeding bullet.

Which could easily happen if his lifetime Secret Service detail lost the plot.

Imagine trying to stay sharp while being intimately involved with Thing for the next 20 years.

Rationed booze. Listening to his crazy rants. Being forced to watch him cheating at golf.

Accompanying him to the can.

OMG. Doesn't bear thinking about.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Secret_Service

On April 14, 2012, the U.S. Secret Service placed 11 agents on administrative leave as the agency investigated allegations that the men brought prostitutes to their hotel rooms in Cartagena, Colombia, while on assignment to protect President Obama and that a dispute ensued with one of the women over payment the following morning.

After the incident was publicized, the Secret Service implemented new rules for its personnel.The rules prohibit personnel from visiting "non-reputable establishments" and from consuming alcohol less than ten hours before starting work. Additionally, they restrict who is allowed in hotel rooms.

In 2015, two inebriated senior Secret Service agents drove an official car into the White House complex and collided with a barrier. One of the congressmen in the United States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that investigated that incident was Jason Chaffetz. In September 2015, it was revealed that 18 Secret Service employees or supervisors, including Assistant Director Ed Lowery, accessed an unsuccessful 2003 application by Chaffetz for employment with the agency and discussed leaking the information to the media in retaliation for Chaffetz' investigations of agency misconduct. The confidential personal information was later leaked to The Daily Beast. Agency Director Joe Clancy apologized to Chaffetz and said that disciplinary action would be taken against those responsible.

In March 2017, a member of Vice President Mike Pence's detail was suspended after he was caught visiting a prostitute at a hotel in Maryland.

Only slightly off-topic - it all happened under the Trump regime ...

The New York Times - As Understanding of Russian Hacking Grows, So Does Alarm

02 Jan 2021

Short extracts from a long and detailed article ...

Interviews with key players investigating what intelligence agencies believe to be an operation by Russia’s S.V.R. intelligence service revealed these points:

 

• The breach is far broader than first believed.
  
  
• The hackers managed their intrusion from servers inside the United States.
  
  
• “Early warning” sensors placed by Cyber Command and the National Security Agency deep inside foreign networks to detect brewing attacks clearly failed.
  
  
• The government’s emphasis on election defense, while critical in 2020, may have diverted resources and attention from long-brewing problems like protecting the “supply chain” of software.
  
  
• SolarWinds, the company that the hackers used as a conduit for their attacks, had a history of lackluster security for its products, making it an easy target.
  
  
• Some of the compromised SolarWinds software was engineered in Eastern Europe.
  
  
• The U.S. government was clearly the main focus of the attack, with the Treasury Department, the State Department, the Commerce Department, the Energy Department and parts of the Pentagon among the agencies confirmed to have been infiltrated. 
  
  
• Intelligence officials say it could be months, years even, before they have a full understanding of the hacking. 
  
  

This is worth quoting ...

The Washington Post - Opinion - Cruz disrupting the electoral college count won’t change anything. It can still hurt democracy.

today

Sen. Ted Cruz’s 11th-hour effort to derail certification of Joe Biden’s election victory is the wrong solution to a non-problem at the wrong time. 

 

Fortunately, it also won’t succeed, but it nonetheless provides one more alarming sign of the perilous state of our democracy. ...

 

Sideface:

 

This is worth quoting ...

 

Something that struck me today is the below CNN headline:

'Nearly a dozen Republican senators say they will oppose counting some electoral votes. It's unlikely to undo the President-elect's victory.'

Up until now every single reference I have seen to this across multiple news sites has said the election result is set in stone and there is no chance whatsoever of it being changed. Now, for the first time I am aware, CNN has slipped in a qualifier. Should we be alarmed?

No, because Trump seems to think Michael can just say "oh, I disagree with the results because I and the President didn't like it [ie, we lost]." The House is controlled by the Democrats, and you know there's no way in hell any of them are going to do the same thing. It has to go through the House first before it goes to the Senate, otherwise it goes nowhere.

 

Rikkitic:  Up until now every single reference I have seen to this across multiple news sites has said the election result is set in stone and there is no chance whatsoever of it being changed.  ...

 

Remember the good old days in 2016 when there was "no chance whatsoever" that Trump would be elected?   🙁

Sideface: The Washington Post - Opinion - Cruz disrupting the electoral college count won’t change anything. It can still hurt democracy.

• Trump retweeted an unflattering photo of Cruz's wife, Heidi, juxtaposed with his wife, Melania.
  
  
• Trump threatened to "spill the beans" on Ted's wife.
  
  
• Trump suggested that Cruz's father may have been involved in the Kennedy assassination.
  
  
• called him a "servile puppy dog."
  
  
• Trump suggested Ted was Canadian or Cuban, not an American citizen.
  
  
• Trump said he wouldn't even accept Cruz's endorsement.
  
  
• More than once, Trump attacked Cruz's faith. "To the best of my knowledge, not too many evangelicals come out of Cuba, okay?"

Rikkitic: Up until now every single reference I have seen to this across multiple news sites has said the election result is set in stone and there is no chance whatsoever of it being changed. Now, for the first time I am aware, CNN has slipped in a qualifier. Should we be alarmed?

 

kingdragonfly:  I'm still wondering why Ted Cruz specifically is a Trump toadie / sycophant?  It almost falls into a twisted sadomasochism relationship. ...

 

They deserve each other.   🙁