Trump's transition sabotage threatens vaccine rollout

 https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/17/politics/election-2020-transition-coronavirus-donald-trump-joe-biden/index.html

 President Donald Trump's refusal to coordinate with President-elect Joe Biden on the critical Covid-19 vaccine is bringing a staggering possibility into clearer view: that an outgoing US commander in chief is actively working to sabotage his successor.

Trump's denial of his election defeat, his lies about nonexistent mass coordinated voter fraud and his strangling of the rituals of transferring power between administrations are not just democracy-damaging aberrations.

Given the current national emergency, they threaten to cause practical fallout that could damage Biden's incoming White House not just in a political sense. There are increasing concerns that Trump's obstruction will slow and complicate the delivery of the vaccine that brings the tantalizing prospect of a return to normal life amid stunning news from trials showing doses are effective in stopping more than 90% of coronavirus infections.

Seriously

Trump bids to take credit for Moderna vaccine while Biden offers cautious optimism

 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/16/trump-vaccine-moderna-biden-coronavirus

 “Another vaccine just announced,” Trump tweeted, seeking to claim credit. “This time by Moderna, 95% effective. For those great ‘historians’, please remember that these great discoveries, which will end the China Plague, all took place on my watch!”

Rather than working to combat the virus, which is spreading faster than ever and on average killing more than 1,000 Americans a day, Trump has stayed focused on unsubstantiated claims that the presidential election was stolen.

 Critics say Trump has all but surrendered to the pandemic, which has killed more than 244,000 people in the US and is averaging more than 100,000 cases per day. Michael Osterholm, an adviser to Biden, told NBC on Sunday: “We are in a very dangerous period – the most dangerous public health period since 1918.”

A breakdown of Rudy Giuliani's role in Trump's post-election fight

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Is Cuomo Directive to Blame for Nursing Home COVID Deaths, as US Official Claims?

 https://khn.org/news/is-cuomo-directive-to-blame-for-nursing-home-covid-deaths-as-us-official-claims/

 Our Ruling

In a tweet, the HHS assistant secretary for public affairs said that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo “forced” nursing homes across the state to admit COVID-positive patients and that this policy fueled the spread of COVID-19 that led to thousands of deaths in the nursing home population.

Although nursing homes felt pressure to accept COVID-positive patients, they were not actually forced to do so. State regulations require nursing homes to accept patients only if they can care for them, and they could have refused them on those grounds.

 In addition, it’s unclear the extent to which the governor’s policy was responsible for nursing home COVID-19 deaths. Infection control is a long-standing problem in nursing homes, predating the pandemic, and a report showed peak numbers of nursing home deaths came prior to the peak influx of patients as a result of Cuomo’s advisory. While the introduction of COVID-19 positive patients into nursing homes no doubt had an effect on infection spread, Caputo’s statement suggests it was solely responsible. That’s not what the evidence shows.

We rate this Mostly False.

Netanyahu: I will speak to Biden soon

 http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/291367

 Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said he would be making a call to US president-elect Joe Biden in the near future.

In an apparent slip-of-the-tongue, Netanyahu attempted to avoid referring to Biden as the incoming president.

"I've been told that I will be speaking to the President ... with Joe Biden ... who is going to be appointed as the next president," Netanyahu said during a press conference tonight

 

Democracy

President Trump’s Lawyers Withdraw Key Pennsylvania Voter Fraud Claim

 https://time.com/5912350/trump-lawyers-withdraw-voter-fraud-claim-pennsylvania/

  President Donald Trump’s campaign is withdrawing a central part of its lawsuit seeking to stop the certification of the election results in Pennsylvania, where Democrat Joe Biden beat Trump to capture the state and help win the White House.

Ahead of a Tuesday hearing in the case, Trump’s campaign dropped the allegation that hundreds of thousands of mail-in and absentee ballots — 682,479, to be precise — were illegally processed without its representatives watching.

The campaign’s slimmed-down lawsuit, filed in federal court on Sunday, maintains the aim of blocking Pennsylvania from certifying a victory for Biden in the state, and it maintains its claim that Democratic voters were treated more favorably than Republican voters.

Trump's failure to work with Biden is becoming more urgent as Covid spreads

 https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/16/politics/election-2020-donald-trump-joe-biden-transition-coronavirus/index.html

 President Donald Trump is facing a barrage of calls to permit potentially life-saving transition talks between his health officials and incoming President-elect Joe Biden's aides on a fast-worsening pandemic he is continuing to ignore in his obsessive effort to discredit an election that he clearly lost.

The increasingly urgent pleas are coming from inside his administration, the President-elect's team and independent public health experts as Covid-19 cases rage out of control countrywide, claiming more than 1,000 US lives a day. More than 246,000 Americans have now died from the disease, and a bitter winter lies ahead even amid encouraging news such as Monday's announcement that a vaccine developed by Moderna is demonstrating a high success rate in early clinical trials, the second such positive vaccine news in about a week.

But instead of listening or mobilizing to tackle what some medical experts warn is becoming a "humanitarian" crisis, Trump spent the weekend during which the US passed 11 million infections amplifying lies and misinformation about his election loss. At one point, he appeared to acknowledge Sunday in a tweet that Biden won, before backtracking with a stream of defiance on Twitter.

This came as the nation's top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said on CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday that "of course it would be better if we could start working with" the Biden team that will take office on January 20.

Anderson Cooper: That's an actual quote from a GOP official

Cuomo rolls the tape on GOP calling out election deniers in 2016

Republicans in 2018 Post-Midterm Elections | The Daily Social Distancing Show

The conspiracy theory of the 2020 election is here to stay

'Stop the steal' disinformation campaign connected to Roger Stone

Bolton: Time is running out for Republican Party's credibility

 http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/291304

 John Bolton, former National Security Adviser to US President Donald Trump, on Sunday warned members of the Republican Party that time is running out for them maintain the party’s credibility in the wake of President Donald Trump’s challenges of the results of the presidential election.

In an op-ed for The Washington Post, Bolton wrote, “As of this writing, the Republican Party has not suffered permanent damage to its integrity and reputation because of President Trump’s post-election rampaging. This will not be true much longer.”

He pointed out that so far, Trump has failed to produce valid legal arguments and persuasive evidence for his claims of election fraud and added, “If he can’t, his ‘right’ to contest the election is beside the point. The real issue is the grievous harm he is causing to public trust in America’s constitutional system. Trump’s time is running out, even as his rhetoric continues escalating…Here is the cold political reality: Trump is enhancing his own brand (in his mind) while harming the Republican brand. The party needs a long internal conversation about the post-Trump era, but first it needs to get there honorably.”

 

Trump criticizes John Bolton for pushing election loss as legal fight continues

 https://www.foxnews.com/politics/live-updates-trump-criticizes-john-bolton-for-pushing-election-loss

 President Trump lashed out at John Bolton on Sunday, calling him "one of the dumbest people in government" after the former national security adviser urged GOP Party leaders to accept the 2020 election results and encourage their supporters to acknowledge defeat.

Gen. Mark Milley: 'We Take an Oath to the Constitution, Not an Individual'

Stelter: Fox News has never seen competition like this in its history

Trump is bashing Fox News on Twitter as pandemic rages

Trump says Biden ‘won’ because vote was ‘rigged,’ then says he’s not conceding

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-tweet-trump-finally-says-biden-won-but-only-because-election-was-rigged/

US President Donald Trump Sunday finally appeared to acknowledge his loss to Joe Biden in the presidential elections, but quickly followed up by saying he conceded “nothing” and again claimed without evidence that voting was “rigged” in favor of his Democratic rival.

“He won because the Election was Rigged,” Trump said in a tweet

As Donald Trump Refuses to Concede, America Is Caught Between Crisis and Confusion

 https://time.com/5910875/trump-concede-biden/

 Under normal circumstances, few Americans would know Emily Murphy’s name. The head of the General Services Administration (GSA) is the ultimate Washington bureaucrat, responsible for signing the leases and procuring the supplies that keep the Executive Branch running. “I am not here to garner headlines or make a name for myself,” she testified in 2017. “My goal is to do my part in making the federal government more efficient, effective and responsive to the American people.” The Senate unanimously confirmed her to her post, which she has held ever since.

But in the days after Joe Biden was determined to have won the presidential election, Murphy found herself at the center of the most tumultuous transfer of power in decades. Media outlets from the Associated Press to Fox News called Biden the winner on Nov. 7, assessing that despite the usual isolated irregularities and a smattering of lawsuits, it was mathematically impossible for Donald Trump to overcome his vote deficit in enough states to change the Electoral College result. But Trump has refused to concede, and has conjured fantasies of widespread fraud for which he has provided no proof. Taking their cues, nearly all Republican officials have refused to recognize Biden’s victory until Trump’s challenges are exhausted. And Murphy has so far declined to issue the letter, known as an “ascertainment,” that would formally allow the presidential transition to begin.

 

 

Russia Probe Ordered by Barr Won’t Release Findings Before Election

 https://www.wsj.com/articles/durhams-russia-probe-wont-release-findings-before-the-election-11602272001

 Attorney General William Barr has told top Republicans that the results of a wide-ranging inquiry into the origins of the FBI’s 2016 Russia investigation won’t be made public before the election, according to people familiar with the matter.

 

"The Inspector General’s report now makes clear that the FBI launched an intrusive investigation of a U.S. presidential campaign on the thinnest of suspicions."

 https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2019/dec/11/william-barr/barr-disputes-inspector-generals-report/

 Our ruling

Barr said, "The Inspector General’s report now makes clear that the FBI launched an intrusive investigation of a U.S. presidential campaign on the thinnest of suspicions."

The report found that the decision to start the Russia investigation was justified. But the FBI did secure a FISA warrant to surveil Page, a technique that is permitted but considered intrusive.

We rate Barr’s statement Mostly False.

Arrests in Washington as Trump supporters clash with counterdemonstrators

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/arrests-in-washington-as-trump-supporters-clash-with-counterdemonstrators/

 Fervent supporters of US President Donald Trump rallied in Washington on Saturday behind his spurious claim of a stolen election and swarmed his motorcade in adulation when he detoured for a drive-by on his way out of town.

 They chanted “USA, USA” and “four more years,” and many carried American flags and signs to show their displeasure with the vote tally. After making the short detour for the slow drive around the site, the motorcade headed to the president’s Virginia golf club. 

The march was largely peaceful during the day before turning tense at night, with multiple confrontations as small groups of Trump supporters attempted to enter the area around Black Lives Matter Plaza, about a block from the White House, where several hundred anti-Trump demonstrators had gathered.

Trump Is The Loser Of The 2020 Race And AG Barr Can’t Change That | The Beat With Ari Melber | MSNBC

Lawsuits Won't Work, Faithless Electors Won't Work. It's Over. Trump Lost/Biden Won. Transition Time

After Trump Lost Election, See How He's Losing In Court | The Beat With Ari Melber | MSNBC

Pro-Trump groups gather in Washington to protest election