After an election that respected election officials from both parties say went very well with no evidence of widespread fraud...
... in an election where Republicans generally did very well except for the top of the ticket with a historically unpopular president...
2/ ... the president, distraught, lies and spreads deranged conspiracy theories about the election and software, and attacks GOP officials for abiding by the law...
while raising hundreds of millions for his “legal defense” — though 75% of the money need not be spent that way..
3/ .... and court after court, official after official, many GOPers or appointed by GOPers, rule against these efforts to overturn the election because there is no real evidence of problems...
...while the lawyers for this effort behave, shall we say, erratically...
@reason@gtconway3d 3/ @EWErickson says of the Texas suit: "The level of debasement these people have been willing to engage in makes them seem more the ball-gagged gimp from Pulp Fiction, humiliating themselves for their master. They should be ashamed and embarrassed."
President-elect @JoeBiden will nominate former Obama WH chief of staff Denis McDonough to be the next Secretary of Veterans Affairs, a source familiar with the decision tells me.
Politico reported this first.
2/ After our interview, the president-elect told me that he was very focused on appointing someone who could tackle the difficult job of VA Secretary. We need to get that right, he said.
3/ After CNN broke the story of the VA scandal in 2014, then-WH chief of staff McDonough came on @TheLeadCNN to answer some tough questions about then-Secretary Shinkseki and the scandal at large.
Email to every member of House GOP from @RepMikeJohnson, R-LA, soliciting signatures for an amicus brief in the longshot Texas lawsuit seeking to invalidate electoral college votes from GA MI PA and WI. Trump is “anxiously awaiting the final list” to see who signs on.
@RepMikeJohnson 2/ Another way to look at this lawsuit: "Texas AG Asks the Supreme Court for a Coup," writes Harvard Law professor @NoahRFeldman
@RepMikeJohnson@NoahRFeldman 3/ For a conservative take, @gtconway3d weighed in on this case on @TheLeadCNN yesteday: "The notion that the Supreme Court is going to have a litigation...where states are attacking each others' rules for choosing electors is insane," he said.
Over the weekend, President-elect Biden reached out to former CENTCOM commander GEN Lloyd Austin (ret.) and offered the job of Secretary of Defense, a source familiar with the offer tells me; Austin accepted.
2/ For several weeks, there have been discussions about several top candidates serving as SecDef, including Austin, Jeh Johnson, Michelle Flournoy, and Sen. Tammy Duckworth. Austin emerged as the leading candidate last week.
3/ Biden as VP worked with Austin in a variety of positions, most prominently when Austin was commander of CENTCOM from 2013-2016, when they had discussions on a range of issues including the Middle East and Central and South Asia.
On this day in 1944, US Army Pvt. Macario Garcia, a Mexican national who lived in Texas and was drafted into the Army in '42, performed acts of heroism that earned him the Medal of Honor.
2/ In Germany, as acting squad leader of Company B, 22d Infantry, Garcia "singlehandedly assaulted two enemy machine-gun emplacements," per his MOH citation. His company "was pinned down by intense machine-gun fire and subjected to a concentrated artillery and mortar barrage."
3/ According to his biographers Robert and Katherine Bailey, even though Garcia had been shot, "This was the day the fate of his brothers fell on his shoulders. He summoned all his resolve and strength and managed to crawl into the underbrush, while the German machine gunner...