A blog about societal, cultural, and civilizational collapse, and how to stave it off or survive it. Named after the legendary character "Crazy Eddie" in Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's "The Mote in God's Eye." Expect news and views about culture, politics, economics, technology, and science fiction.
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson on how election officials across the country are still looking for accountability for the Big Lie after facing pressure from the ex-president and his band of loyalists.
A Georgia grand jury investigating possible election interference from former President Trump found perjury may have been committed by one or more witnesses. It comes as the grand jury unanimously found no widespread election fraud in the state despite Trump’s repeated claims that there was.
MSNBC connected the Georgia election probe to something I mentioned yesterday.
MSNBC is all over that story, too, but that's a topic for another time. Follow over the jump for two more clips that comment on the released portions of the Georgia grand jury report.
The medals were awarded to police officers who defended the U.S. Capitol, and others who protected democracy, as Washington marks the second anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack.
I'm proud to see Benson being the first awardee called up.
President Biden on Friday will mark the second anniversary of the attack on the Capitol by awarding the Presidential Citizens Medal to a dozen election workers, officials and law enforcement officers. Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson will be among the recipients, and she joins Morning Joe to discuss.
Thank you, Madam Secretary, for your efforts to protect democracy. Looking forward to you serving the people of Michigan for years to come.
I begin my promised posts about the election results with news from my adopted home state of Michigan and start at the top of the ballot with Governor Gretchen Whitmer winning re-election. WOOD-TV used the graphic announcing that news as the preview image for Michigan's Election Day 2022 results.
In addition, Hillary Scholten won Peter Meijer's current seat. That's a relief, as I worried about the tactic used to get her a more favorable opponent after the primary.
Not only did TFG go after Meijer, the DCCC did as well, running ads "attacking" Gibbs as too extreme in the hopes that doing so would make him more attractive to the right-wing of the Republican Party so they would vote for him. On the one hand, that's smart politics, as it makes the seat easier for Hillary Scholten to win in November. On the other, it's punishing a holdout for decency and democracy in the GOP by removing him from Congress. Sigh. It worked last night, but I hope it doesn't backfire in November.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is delivering remarks after being the projected winner of the gubernatorial race.
Whitmer was first elected in 2018 after years in the Legislature and has since become a leading voice in the Democratic Party, delivering the party’s response to former President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address in 2020. She has said in interviews that she will not run for president in 2024 even if President Joe Biden doesn’t seek reelection.
Congratulations and go Big Gretch!
Follow over the jump for the rest of the election news from Michigan.
“There is no bottom,” as conspiracy-based legislation has real life effects on American voters nationwide, with insurrectionists winning elections and local election officials being replaced by those who say they will overturn results. Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson joins Ali Velshi to explain why we need to “start talking more about what’s happening behind the scenes,” and how the complete lack of accountability and consequences -- either legal or political -- is sending the wrong message to both voters and anyone who hopes to lead.
It looks like the people who buy Trump's "Big Lie" are learning from last year's failed effort to overturn the election by not just working the refs, but replacing them. I'm going to recycle my reaction from April in response.
Personally, I'd rather call it Trump's dangerous delusion, his fixed belief that the election was stolen from him despite allevidence, which I see as related to his vulnerabilitytoconspiracy theories, but "the Big Lie" is the established phrase used by CNBC and others, so I'm calling it that instead. It's a lie, too.
To paraphrase what I wrote last month, Benson's remarks show that Trump's delusion is not just dangerous but contagious.
I'm also going to recycle what I wrote two years ago: "The maintenance and expansion of democracy and liberty require constant effort and vigilance; progress will not happen by itself." That's just as true here and now as it was when I wrote it about Europe in 2019. May my readers remember that and act on it. We need the intensity.
Texas Democrats leaving the state for D.C. wasn't the only serious political event happening while I was busy observing holidays. Trump's attorneys in the hearings and lawsuits that alleged election fraud in Michigan appeared before a federal judge Monday to argue why they shouldn't be sanctioned. I found three videos about that story, beginning with Rachel Maddow on MSNBC reporting Pro-Trump Lawyers Called Out In Court.
Rachel Maddow talks with David Fink, attorney for the city of Detroit in the case in which pro-Trump attorneys are facing possible sanctions from a federal judge over their involvement in a lawsuit attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Michigan.
Maddow and David Fink made clear the connection between the legal attempts to overturn the election results and January 6coup attempt. Both are expressions of the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen. Fink also made his case that the lawyers advancing Trump's case should not only be sanctioned, but disbarred. So did Michigan's Attorney General Dana Nessel and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson when Anderson Cooper and Don Lemon interviewed them about the sanctions hearing, which CNN spliced together into Trump election lawyer faces possible sanctions over thin fraud claims.
A judge in Michigan pinned down lawyers in a marathon video court hearing Monday on whether they had done due diligence before filing election fraud claims in federal court in November. The grilling came in a hearing over whether the Trump-supporting lawyers should be penalized -- with the possible consequence of losing their law licenses -- following their lawsuit to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Much of the six-hour hearing hinged on Judge Linda Parker's line-by-line questioning about broad claims the lawyers had made alleging fraud and about sworn statements they had submitted to court from supposed witnesses speculating about ballot malfeasance, sometimes based on second- and third-hand chatter.
Ultimately the hearing became a painstaking recounting of the thinness of the claims supporting election fraud, and it came as former President Donald Trump has continued to repeat lies about the election's result and, in recent days, has rallied fellow Republicans around his claims.
Several state and national officials have verified the security of the 2020 presidential election and the integrity of its result: that Trump lost multiple swing states, including Michigan.
The judge on Monday repeatedly asked how much work the lawyers had done to verify the fraud claims. In response, several argued that they did not need to do that, if the witnesses believed that what they were saying was true. Fact-finding could be done during the course of the lawsuit, the attorneys who filed it argued.
At one point, Parker, sitting in the Eastern District of Michigan, asked the nine lawyers who took part in bringing the lawsuit if they had ever followed up to learn if any of their so-called witnessed actually saw a vote being changed.
Personally, I'd rather call it Trump's dangerous delusion, his fixed belief that the election was stolen from him despite allevidence, which I see as related to his vulnerabilitytoconspiracy theories, but "the Big Lie" is the established phrase used by CNBC and others, so I'm calling it that instead. It's a lie, too.
Powell shows that Trump's delusion is not just dangerous but contagious and when its believers said the suits were "releasing the Kraken," they were really releasing the Krak(pot)en(ing). I liked the Kraken better in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies.
In a hearing this week on possible sanctions for Trump-allied lawyers, a federal judge questioned whether the attorneys had done their due diligence before filing a lawsuit in Michigan last November in an attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. Washington Post political investigations and enterprise reporter Rosalind Helderman joined CBSN to discuss the hearing.
This case shows that it's time for Rudy to retire and I think his suspensions will finally make that happen. As for Trump's lawyers in Michigan, I watched the hearing and heard the judge gave the attorneys two weeks to prepare briefs. I expect her ruling shortly afterwards. I hope to report on it here when that happens. Stay tuned.
