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Zorro

Zorro's Journal
Zorro's Journal
December 1, 2020

Trump Campaign Pays $3 Million To Get Biden 87 More Votes In Wisconsin

The results of the Wisconsin recount are in! And Team Trump paid $3 million to add 87 votes to Joe Biden's margin of victory.

Womp womp.

The grifters on Team Trump have raised millions of dollars from their cult members so they can continue their absurd legal challenges to the election results. And so far, they are on quite the streak! If by "streak," you mean massive skidmark, being slapped down by court after court.

And now the Trump team has another notch to add to its belt, after paying $3 million to add votes to Biden's total.

Did we mention they paid $3 million to add votes to Biden's total? We should mention how they paid $3 million to add votes to Biden's total.

https://www.wonkette.com/trump-campaign-pays-3-million-to-get-biden-more-votes-in-wisconsin

December 1, 2020

Trump's latest Fox News rant was one of his most dangerous. Republicans can't ignore it.

Opinion by Editorial Board

PRESIDENT TRUMP’S Sunday Fox News rant ranks as one of the most dangerous of his presidency, and that is saying something. Mr. Trump issued claim after incoherent claim about vote rigging — machines switched thousands of votes, dead people voted, mail-in ballots were “phony,” poll watchers “weren’t allowed.” The United States just conducted probably the most secure, transparent presidential vote in its history; Mr. Trump calls it “the most messed-up election we have ever seen.” Proving there is no core national institution he will not besmirch, Mr. Trump attacked the judicial system for failing to ratify his lies and suggested that the Justice Department and the FBI are in on the conspiracy.

Either the president is delusional, or he is willing to knowingly tear down the democracy to deny that he is a loser. Either way, everyone else in a position of trust has a responsibility to defend the nation’s democratic system against Mr. Trump’s sustained assault. Some Republicans, mostly at the state and local levels, have done so, at times under extreme public scrutiny, counting the votes and refusing to manipulate the electoral process to overturn the popular will. For conscientiously overseeing the vote in his state — and standing up for its integrity against baseless attacks from Mr. Trump and the state’s two U.S. senators — Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and his family have received threats. He and other election officials have had to accept security details.

“It’s time to stand up and be counted,” Mr. Raffensperger said. “Are you going to stand for integrity? Or are you going to stand for the wild mob? You wanted to condemn the wild mob when it’s on the left side. What are you going to do when it’s on our side?”

The response of most national Republican “leaders” has been to sit on the sidelines, or worse. Three weeks after the major networks called the race for President-elect Joe Biden, Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) refused Sunday to refer to Mr. Biden as president-elect, arguing that the label is not “significant.” He managed to admit that the election was not “rigged,” but he also claimed that “there may have been ballots that shouldn’t have been cast” in Georgia and that “there were some things that were done that shouldn’t have been done. And I think there was some element of voter fraud.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-republican-dodge-on-trumps-lies-has-run-its-course/2020/11/30/0a0030c4-3354-11eb-a997-1f4c53d2a747_story.html

December 1, 2020

Median Home Price Sets New Record in California

Source: New York Times

The pandemic paused the housing market for a few months, but it has been on a rebound that has pushed the median price over $700,000.

Fueled by low interest rates and a historic housing shortage, California’s median home price in September reached $712,430, closing out four straight months of record highs.

The state’s housing market briefly cooled in the early months in the coronavirus pandemic, but by June, they were fully on the rebound, with the median sales price reaching $626,200, the highest ever at the time, according to a report from the California Department of Finance. For the next three months, as mortgage rates stayed below 3 percent and many buyers looked to upgrade to larger homes, that number would continue to climb. In August, it exceeded $700,000 for the first time in history.

“A lot of people think the pandemic equals the market is suffering, but that’s just not the case,” said Ryan Lundquist, an appraiser based in Sacramento. “It’s the perfect storm of low rates, a housing shortage that we already had and is getting worse, plus heightened demand.”

There has been much talk of the exodus triggered by California’s inflated cost of living, which has seen Californians trickle outward to states with a lower cost of living — states like Texas, Nevada, and Arizona — for more than a decade. But while the state did lose 650,000 residents last year, “We have 39 million people here,” Mr. Lundquist said. “It’s a drop in the bucket compared to how many people are here, and builders haven’t been able to build fast enough to satisfy our population.”

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/30/realestate/california-housing-market-price.html

November 30, 2020

Dad claims stand your ground in Riverview family slaying case

Ronnie Oneal is accused in the slayings of his girlfriend, their 9-year-old daughter and the attempted killing of their then-8-year-old son. His defense invoked Florida’s stand your ground law in the girlfriend’s killing.

Ronnie Oneal, the Riverview father accused in the 2018 slaughter of his girlfriend and their 9-year-old daughter, and the attempted killing of their then-8-year-old son, is claiming self-defense.

Attorneys for Oneal have invoked Florida’s stand your ground law to argue that he should be immune from prosecution, at least for the death of his girlfriend.

Kenyatta Barron was killed after she attacked Oneal in their home, defense attorneys wrote in a court paper. He had to act, they said, “to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself and/or his children.”

The claim was the subject of a Monday morning court hearing, which included the playback of a pair of 911 calls made the night of March 19, 2018.

https://www.tampabay.com/news/crime/2020/11/30/dad-claims-stand-your-ground-in-riverview-family-slaying-case/
November 30, 2020

Ravaged by fire, USS Bonhomme Richard bound for scrapyard, Navy says

Source: San Diego Union-Tribune

Investigations continue into the cause of the fire, which burned for almost five days and smothered south San Diego County in noxious smoke

A fire that raged for almost five days in July has doomed the San Diego-based amphibious assault ship USS Bonhomme Richard to the scrapyards, Navy officials announced Monday.

The ship will be decommissioned within a year and will be scrapped, a Navy official told reporters during a conference call Monday. The cause of the fire is still under investigation.

The cost of repairing the ship was estimated to be between $2.5 billion and $3.2 billion, said Rear Adm. Eric Ver Hage Monday. The cost and time involved were deemed to be too much by Navy leadership.

“After thorough consideration, the secretary of the Navy and the Chief of Naval Operations have decided to decommission the USS Bonhomme Richard,” said Ver Hage, the commander of Navy Regional Maintenance Center.

Read more: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/military/story/2020-11-30/ravaged-by-fire-uss-bonhomme-richard-bound-for-scrapyard-navy-says

November 30, 2020

Diaper Don

Courtesy of Rocky Mountain Mike...

November 30, 2020

The GOP: A party that cannot change

Opinion by James Downie

In the span of an hour, CNN’s “State of the Union” featured both new and old faces of the Republican Party. First, host Dana Bash interviewed Sen. Roy Blunt, who has held elective office from Missouri for most of the past 35 years. Then she welcomed Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) and Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), both newly elected members of the House. Though all three looked very different, they sounded much the same.

All three were in harmony when it came to supporting President Trump’s continued attempts to undermine democracy by questioning the election results. “The president should also use every legal avenue that he can to present evidence,” said Mace, after another week that saw Trump campaign lawsuits tossed out of court for lack of evidence. Even after Bash noted that “there is absolutely no evidence of widespread voter fraud,” Malliotakis simply repeated the talking point: “I believe that he is within his legal rights to be questioning any irregularities that have — may have surfaced.”

In response, Bash dryly noted, “I’m guessing it’s probably fair to say that neither of you thinks that the election that each of you won was rigged.”

Blunt, who at least has the virtue of experience, did little better. Asked whether Joe Biden is the president-elect, Blunt dodged the question time and again. He first tried to hide behind the fact that “there is no official job of president-elect.” (That’s technically true, but it didn’t stop Blunt from applauding “President-elect Trump” four years ago.)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/11/29/gop-party-that-cannot-change/

November 30, 2020

Man who attacked ex-girlfriend killed by victim's mom and sister with golf club and kitchen knife

A man who attacked his estranged girlfriend in her California home on Saturday was killed by the woman's mother and sister who used a golf club and a kitchen knife to defend her, authorities said.

Authorities pronounced the man dead at the South Pasadena home, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's department said in a news release. The county coroner's office identified him as Justin Goss, 40, of Glendale, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The women "were well within their right to act in defense of their sister and daughter" and are not expected to face charges, Lt. Barry Hall told the newspaper.

South Pasadena officers found the home's front window shattered and heard the women screaming inside after responding to a report of domestic violence on Saturday morning, according to the release. Authorities said the man broke into the house and began to beat and choke the woman.

https://news.yahoo.com/man-attacked-ex-girlfriend-killed-234120266.html

November 29, 2020

Marco Rubio is already suiting up for the politics of destruction

Opinion by Fred Hiatt

Let’s say you’re a Republican senator who claims to support democracy and U.S. leadership in the world.

Let’s imagine, too, that you’ve spent four years excusing and supporting a president who fawned over North Korea’s odious dictator, encouraged China’s ruling tyrant to build his concentration camps, took the word of Russia’s strongman over U.S. intelligence agencies and celebrated the Saudi despot who orchestrated the dismemberment of a dissident journalist.

And let’s posit that, on top of all that, you’ve been a profile in cowardice as your president tried to nullify a democratic election here at home.

Now the president-elect appoints a team of seasoned, moderate foreign policy experts who support democracy and American leadership in the world.

How do you respond?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/marco-rubio-is-already-suiting-up-for-the-politics-of-destruction/2020/11/28/af30e91e-2f74-11eb-bae0-50bb17126614_story.html

Rubio is an odious little pipsqueak.

Every Republican should be asked the question: "Why do you hate American democracy?"

Make them squirm.
November 28, 2020

In Key States, Republicans Were Critical in Resisting Trump's Election Narrative

They refuted conspiracy theories, certified results, dismissed lawsuits and repudiated a president of their own party.

The telephone call would have been laugh-out-loud ridiculous if it had not been so serious. When Tina Barton picked up, she found someone from President Trump’s campaign asking her to sign a letter raising doubts about the results of the election.

The election that Ms. Barton as the Republican clerk of the small Michigan city of Rochester Hills had helped oversee. The election that she knew to be fair and accurate because she had helped make it so. The election that she had publicly defended amid threats that made her upgrade her home security system.

“Do you know who you’re talking to right now?” she asked the campaign official.

Evidently not.

If the president hoped Republicans across the country would fall in line behind his false and farcical claims that the election was somehow rigged on a mammoth scale by a nefarious multinational conspiracy, he was in for a surprise. Republicans in Washington may have indulged Mr. Trump’s fantastical assertions, but at the state and local level, Republicans played a critical role in resisting the mounting pressure from their own party to overturn the vote after Mr. Trump fell behind on Nov. 3.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/28/us/politics/trump-republicans-election-results.html

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