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President-elect Biden (a few historic tidbits)

As everyone on earth knows by now, Joe Biden has won the election and will be the 46th president of the United States. Pennsylvania became the deciding state. He is on track to winning 306 electoral votes, if he ultimately wins Georgia.

Here are a few historic tidbits about the election:

  • Biden received the most votes of any presidential candidate in history. That is partly due to the unusually large turnout this year, and efforts to make participation easier for people during the pandemic with early voting and vote-by-mail.
  • Biden won a majority of the votes cast, which Trump never has.
  • Trump became the 10th U.S. president to lose reelection. You can see a short list of the previous losing incumbents here.
  • Biden becomes the oldest president-elect in history, at age 77.
  • If he goes on and wins Georgia, Biden will be the first Democrat to win that state since Clinton in 1992, and the first non-Southern Democrat to win Georgia since JFK in 1960.
  • If Trump doesn’t concede, he will be the first loser not to do so in modern history. The modern understanding of a public concession can be traced to 1896, when William Jennings Bryan sent opponent William McKinley a cordial telegram.
  • And of course Kamala Harris makes history as the first Black woman and first person of Asian descent elected vice president.

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Trump’s condition worsens, Biden tests negative

In the latest developments, Trump is to be taken to Walter Reed Medical Center Friday afternoon according to two administration officials, less then 24-hours after testing positive for the deadly coronavirus. He is expected to remain there for several days.

The president’s condition worsened on Friday, officials said, though they maintained he remained “in good spirits.” The president is struggling with a low-grade fever, a cough and nasal congestion, among other symptoms, two people familiar with his condition.

Joe Biden’s campaign announced that Biden and his wife, Jill Biden, have both tested negative for the coronavirus.

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Donald and Melania Trump Test Positive for Coronavirus

Breaking news. – WASHINGTON — Trump said early Friday that he and the first lady have tested positive for the coronavirus, throwing the nation’s leadership into uncertainty and escalating the crisis posed by a pandemic that has already killed more than 207,000 Americans and devastated the economy.

Trump received the test result after one of his closest advisers, Hope Hicks, became infected, bringing the virus into his inner circle and underscoring the difficulty of containing it even with the resources of a president. Trump has for months played down the severity of the virus and told a political dinner just Thursday night that “the end of the pandemic is in sight.”

Trump’s positive test result could pose immediate difficulties for the future of his campaign against Biden. with just 33 days before the election on Nov. 3. Even if Mr. Trump, 74, remains asymptomatic, he will have to withdraw from the campaign trail and stay isolated in the White House for an unknown period of time. If he becomes sick, it could raise questions about whether he should remain on the ballot at all.

Even if he does not become seriously ill, the positive test could prove devastating to his political fortunes given his months of diminishing the seriousness of the pandemic even as the virus was still ravaging the country and killing about 1,000 more Americans every day. He has repeatedly predicted the virus “is going to disappear,” asserted that it was under control and insisted that the country was “rounding the corner” to the end of the crisis. He has scorned scientists, saying they were mistaken on the severity of the situation.

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Trump Again Refuses To Abide By Election Results But Top Republicans Promise Peaceful Transfer of Power

Trump’s refusal to commit to accepting the results of November’s election — something no other modern president has put in doubt — led several prominent Republicans, including Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, to insist Thursday that there would be a peaceful transfer of power come January.

“The winner of the November 3rd election will be inaugurated on January 20th,” Mr. McConnell wrote on Twitter. “There will be an orderly transition just as there has been every four years since 1792.”

Trump also went on to question the integrity of “the ballots” — apparently referring to mail-in voting, which he has falsely called rife with fraud — and added that if he were able to “get rid of” the ballots and ensure a “continuation” rather than a “transfer,” it would be peaceful.

The peaceful transfer of power and accepting election results are fundamentals of democracy.

Many Republicans, including McConnell, distanced themselves from the remarks and insisted that there would be a peaceful transfer of power if Biden wins the presidency.

Senator Dan Sullivan, Republican of Alaska, declaired, “of course we’re going to have a peaceful transition of power. We’re the United States of America. We’re not a banana republic.”

“I don’t know what his thinking was, but we have always had a controlled transition between administrations,” said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine. She said “the peaceful transfer of power is a fundamental tenet of our democracy, and I am confident that we will see it occur once again.”

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina said, “People wonder about the peaceful transfer of power,” he said. “I can assure you, it will be peaceful.” He added, “I promise you as a Republican, if Joe Biden wins, I will accept the result. If Republicans lose, we’ll accept the result.”

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Trump escalates, breaks voting laws, and encourages others to as well; North Carolina officials outraged

North Carolina officials condemned President Trump for encouraging North Carolinians to try to vote twice, an attempt to “sow chaos” in the state’s election, according to the state attorney general.

On Wednesday, Trump told supporters in the state they should try to vote twice, once by mail and once in person, as a test of the security of the election process — and incidentally a way to have their vote counted twice if election officials mistakenly allow it.

Voting twice is illegal — as is encouraging others to do so.

“So let them [mail] it in and let them go vote, and if their system’s as good as they say it is, then obviously they won’t be able to vote. If it isn’t tabulated, they’ll be able to vote,” Trump said when asked about the mail-in system in the swing state, adding, “So that’s the way it is. And that’s what they should do.”

Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, issued a statement Thursday reminding residents that voting twice is a Class I felony.

“Attempting to vote twice in an election or soliciting someone to do so also is a violation of North Carolina law,” said Bell. “There are numerous checks in place in North Carolina that prevent people from double voting. Electronic pollbooks with information about who has already voted are used at every early voting site. If a voter tries to check in who has already voted, they will be prevented from voting a regular ballot.”

Trump’s comments Wednesday generated enough confusion that the N.C. Board of Elections issued a statement saying that it is a Class 1 felony to intentionally vote twice. The board also noted that it is illegal to solicit someone to vote twice.

In a statement, Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the board, also discouraged voters from coming to the polls on Election Day to verify that their mail-in ballots had been counted.

“The State Board office strongly discourages people from showing up at the polls on Election Day to check whether their absentee ballot was counted,” Bell said. “This is not necessary, and it would lead to longer lines and the possibility of spreading COVID-19.”

Separately, Facebook announced that it would delete a video of Trump’s original comments.

“This video violates our policies prohibiting voter fraud and we will remove it unless it is shared to correct the record,” the company said in a statement.

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Lincoln misquotes at the Republican National Convention

The Republican Convention needs non-stop fact checking. Of course there were incorrect statements at the Democratic Convention as well, but the GOP out-and-out made up statements, distortions, and lies are drowning the coverage. Fact checkers can’t keep up. They seem to just make things up as they go along.

Just a couple, about Lincoln.

Lara Trump:

“Abraham Lincoln once famously said ‘America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.’ While those words were spoken over 150 years ago, never have they been more relevant.”

Lincoln never said this. Historians agree it is an apocryphal quote. Snopes and PolitiFact have traced it to a Facebook meme that went viral last year.”

Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron:

“Lincoln said that ‘any nation that does not honor its heroes will not long endure,’” Cameron continued. “Sadly, there are some who don’t believe in this wisdom or in the better angels of our shared American history, as they tear down the statues of people like Ulysses S. Grant, Frederick Douglass and even Mr. Lincoln himself.”

Lincoln did not say that. The earliest occurrence is actually from a speech given about Lincoln in 1911 by Hugh Gordon Miller.

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Trump tries to delay election, Republicans and Democrats universally say no way

Trump is attempting to seed doubt on the democratic process itself because of his huge drop in the polls, increasingly unlikely chance at re-election, downturn in the economy, racist appeals which are backfiring, and severe mismanagement of the Covid-19 pandemic crisis.

On Thursday, Trump raised the prospect of delaying the November election because of the COVID-19 pandemic, though the president lacks the legal authority to delay elections on his own. He tweeted a complaint about potential problems with mail-in voting, a concern he has floated without citing specific evidence for months, and which Attorney General William Barr himself dismissed as baseless before Congress on Tuesday.

The U.S. Constitution requires congressional elections every two years. To hold congressional and presidential elections together, a delayed presidential election would still need to take place in 2020.

Delaying a presidential election would be unprecedented – the nation did not do so even during the Civil War and World War II.

But Trump’s tweet nevertheless drew criticism from Democrats and Republicans for again sowing doubt about the accuracy of elections.

Ari Fleischer, former spokesman for President George W. Bush, told Trump in a tweet: “Mr. President – please don’t even pretend to mess with this. It’s a harmful idea.”

Both Democrats and Republicans denounced the idea. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., tweeted the language of the U.S. Constitution at Trump: “The Congress may determine the Time of choosing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States.”

On the Republican side, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, cited the Constitution, and said “we’re a country based on a rule of law. No one is going to change anything until we change the law.” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said the Nov. 3 election should go forward. And Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said the election would be held on November 3 regardless of the situation.

Regardless, the four-year term of a president, in this case Trump, ends at noon on Jan. 20, according to the 20th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Therefore, if the presidential election were somehow not held, Trump would not continue to hold office. Instead, the new speaker of the House, or Nancy Pelosi if the Democrats maintain control, would be first in line to be acting president.

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Possible 2nd whistleblower. And what does Sanders’ hospitalization mean for the Democratic primary?

Whistleblower Update

A second intelligence official who was alarmed by Trump’s dealings with Ukraine is weighing whether to file his own formal whistle-blower complaint and testify to Congress, according to two people briefed on the matter.

The official has more direct information about the events than the first whistle-blower, whose complaint that Trump was using his power to get Ukraine to investigate his political rivals touched off an impeachment inquiry. The second official is among those interviewed by the intelligence community inspector general to corroborate the allegations of the original whistle-blower, one of the people said.

Things are spinning all over Washington at a dizzying rate.

Meanwhile with the Democrats…

With Elizabeth Warren either closing in on, or slightly passing, Joe Biden in the latest polls, what impact does Sanders’ sudden hospitalization for stent procedures have on the nomination process?

If Sanders were to withdraw, would his supporters flock to Warren? And if so, would she then become the clear leader for the candidacy?

And if Warren gets the nomination, does she have a better chance of beating Trump than Biden has? She still has yet to clarify her health insurance ideas, even though she is famous for “having a plan” for just about everything else.

There is some concern that if she sticks to the idea of abolishing private health insurance in favor of a mandatory Medicare for All that it will frighten away many voters who like the plans their unions fought for. That could be too much of a sudden upheaval for the complicated U.S. market. On the other hand, if she threads the needle too finely and supports a public option, what Buttigieg calls, “Medicare for all who want it,” and is supported by Biden, Harris, and Klobuchar, that Warren’s supporters might feel sold out. Warren apparently is still saying that she is looking at all options.

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About United News Reports

With the 2020 Election season upon us, this site has become even more important.

Previously “Trump Fact Book” this site was just about documenting Trump’s endless lies. That story has been told over and over again.

Now there is real movement away from Trump in key midwest battleground states which he barely won last time, such as Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Those midwestern states had gone Democratic the previous 30 years, and could easily swing back again. Trump is losing among his previous supporters in those states. If even just those three states swing back, Trump will surely lose in 2020.

Thus United News Reports… We have to stick together. We have to be united. We have to end divisions and get people working together for a common cause. And we need to keep those vital midwest states in mind as we move forward and try to return decency and sanity to American politics. For everybody’s sake.

The Democratic candidate has not yet been chosen. There are some great contenders. We must unite behind the future nominee. This site will continue to shed light on the dangerous, ignorant, deranged, immature, and immoral nature of Trump as we go forward.

But more importantly, we will help unite people to defeat Trump in 2020.

And we’ll use truth, facts, and common humanity to do it!

Feel free to forward this on so we can get more subscribers. We’re just a small part of the upcoming campaign – but maybe we can make some difference. Thanks!

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Updating Trump Fact Book for the 2020 Election!

With the 2020 Election season upon us, this site has become even more important. I went back and forth in my mind what to do, because I feel it’s important to have say in what goes on during the election.

While I also created a FaceBook group, I think our own blog has its merits. People can search it. There is more social media exposure potential. People outside FaceBook can also easily participate. And who knows? We may become a “go to” site for facts about the upcoming election!

Previously, this site was just about documenting Trump’s endless lies. The records for those (11,000 lies tracked and counting) are universally available. While a core base of his supporters don’t seem to care, there is movement away from Trump in key battleground states which Trump barely won last time, such as Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Those midwest states had gone Democratic the previous 30 years, and could easily swing again. Trump is losing badly among his previous supporters in those states right now. If even just those states swing back, Trump will surely lose.

The Democratic candidate has not yet been chosen. There are some great contenders. We must unite behind the future nominee. And this site will be here to shed light on the dangerous, ignorant, deranged, immature, feeble-minded, anti-democracy, and immoral nature of Trump as we go forward. But always with facts!

So thanks for participating going forward.