The atmosphere has grown so contentious, Raffensperger said, that both he and his wife, Tricia, have received death threats in recent days, including a text to him that read, “You better not botch this recount. Your life depends on it.”
“Other than getting you angry, it’s also very disillusioning, particularly when it comes from people on my side of the aisle. Everyone that is working on this needs to elevate their speech. We need to be thoughtful and careful about what we say.”
🚨 The normally mild-mannered Raffensperger saved his harshest language for U.S. Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.), who is leading the president’s effort to prove fraud in Georgia and whom Raffensperger called a “liar” and a “charlatan.”
The recount, Raffensperger said, will “affirm” results of the initial count. He said the hand-counted audit will also prove the accuracy of the Dominion machines; some counties have already reported that their hand recounts exactly match the machine tallies previously reported.
“I’m an engineer. We look at numbers. We look at hard data,” he said. “I can’t help it that a failed candidate like Doug Collins is running around lying to everyone. He’s a liar.”
Lindsey Graham questioned Raffensperger about the state’s signature-matching law and whether Raffensperger had the power to toss all mail ballots in counties found to have higher rates of nonmatching signatures, Raffensperger said.
Raffspenger was stunned Graham appeared to suggest he find a way to toss legally cast ballots. Absent court intervention, Raffensperger doesn’t have power to do what Graham asked as counties administer elections. “It sure looked like he was wanting to go down that road,” he said.
On the day Graham asked Raffensperger about throwing out mail ballots in counties with high rates of signature problems, a lawsuit was filed in federal court in GA challenging the way county election officials check signatures & allow voters a chance to fix ballots with errors.
Also that day, Trump tweeted: “Georgia Secretary of State, a so-called Republican (RINO), won’t let the people checking the ballots see the signatures for fraud. Why? Without this the whole process is very unfair and close to meaningless. Everyone knows that we won the state.”
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Biden’s life as father has been shaped by loss. His daughter Naomi died as an infant in the car crash that killed his wife. His son Beau died of brain cancer at 46. Beau, the golden boy, easy to love — who “had all the best of me, but with the bugs & flaws engineered out.”.
After Beau’s death, Joe decided not to run for president. Hunter holed up in his apartment and drank vodka. Then, one day, Hunter told the New Yorker, his dad showed up at the door and said: “I need you. What do we have to do?”
The Party of Lincoln had a good run. Then came Mr. Trump.
Mr. Trump accelerated his party’s demise, exposing the rot that has been eating at its core for decades, leaving it a hollowed-out shell devoid of ideas, values or integrity, committed solely to preserving power even at the expense of democratic norms, institutions & ideals.
Donald Trump’s re-election campaign poses the greatest threat to American democracy since World War II.
Mr. Trump’s ruinous tenure already has gravely damaged the United States at home and around the world. He has abused the power of his office and denied the legitimacy of his political opponents, shattering the norms that have bound the nation together for generations.
On the afternoon of Feb. 24, Trump Tweeted the coronavirus was “very much under control,” one of numerous rosy statements he and advisers made at the time about the worsening epidemic. He even added an observation for investors: “Stock market starting to look very good to me!”
But hours earlier senior members of his economic team privately addressed board members of the Hoover Institution & were less confident. A senior economic adviser told the group he could not estimate the effects of the virus on the economy, implying an outbreak could prove worse.
“Women belong in all places where decisions are being made. It shouldn't be that women are the exception." - Ruth Bader Ginsburg
“People ask me sometimes... 'When will there be enough women on the court?' And my answer is, 'When there are nine.' People are shocked, but there'd been nine men, and nobody's ever raised a question about that."
“Think back to 1787. Who were 'we the people'? … They certainly weren't women … they surely weren't people held in human bondage. The genius of our Constitution is that over now more than 200 sometimes turbulent years that 'we' has expanded and expanded."