Anybody Who Believes This Sh-t IS IGNORANT!

Everyone is well aware of the fact that Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia was one of Trump's most fervent allies among the nation's Republican governors - that is until they started counting votes in the state after the November 3rd General Election! Governor Kemp was one of the first governors in the country to respond to Trump's call to reopen their schools and economies in the face of pandemic closures. Likewise, Kemp and the REPUBLICAN Secretary of State worked tirelessly to suppress black voting in their state (because it so heavily favored Democrats). Now, the Republican top leadership of the state are pariahs in Trumpland - RINOs (Republicans in Name Only), because they refuse to support his lies about voter fraud in their state.

Notice this Tweet from Trump today:

.@BrianKempGA, his puppet Lt. Governor @GeoffDuncanGA, and Secretary of State, are disasters for Georgia. Won’t let professionals get anywhere near Fulton County for signature verifications, or anything else. They are virtually controlled by @staceyabrams & the Democrats. Fools!

see Donald J. Trump

In similar fashion, Trump has turned on his favorite cable news network (Again, because they refuse to accept his narrative about a rigged and fraudulent election). Here's what he had to say about them:

Watching @FoxNews is almost as bad as watching Fake News @CNN. New alternatives are developing!

Before the election, EVERYONE knows that Fox was in the bag for Trump - his biggest cheerleaders.

Donald Trump is a crazy and devious SOB, and ANYONE who believes this sh-t is gullible and ignorant! Joe Biden won big, and he's going to be President of the United States at noon on the 20th of January - You need to start getting used to that fact, Donnie!

Trump's Christmas Gift To America

For weeks, Trump has been obsessed with election fraud and his loss to Joe Biden. During this time, he has largely been AWOL from his duties as president and has instead spent most of his time watching tv, tweeting, playing golf and pardoning his cronies. In the midst of the approval and initial distribution of a vaccine which he could justly take a measure of credit for helping along, he has been silent. And, when Congress finally reached a bipartisan agreement on some stimulus measures for our weakened economy and hurting populace (without any help or input from him), he threatens to veto the measure and leaves town! Merry Christmas America!  

The Republican Party

In much the same way that I regret my former affiliation with Herbert Armstrong's Worldwide Church of God, I'm now ashamed of the fact that I was ever affiliated with the Republican Party! And, although my religious beliefs have changed and evolved a great deal over the years, my former political party has undergone a transformation that makes my own religious experience look like baby steps by comparison!

The Republican Party that once stood for fiscal responsibility, limited government, free trade and democratic institutions is no more. In fact, Donald Trump's Republican Party is now unrecognizable as the party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower and Reagan. In near record time, it has been transformed into a Trump personality cult - completely dedicated to the maintenance of his (and their) grip on the reins of power. And, anyone within the party who dares to oppose Trump or his allies are labeled as RINOs (REPUBLICANS IN NAME ONLY).

As a former Republican, I believe that no one has better summarized the current status of the Grand Old Party than Lincoln Project founder Steve Schmidt. He recently said: "The Republican Party is an organized conspiracy for the purposes of maintaining power for self-interest, and the self-interest of its donor class. There is no fidelity to the American ideal...There has never been a force that has achieved power, or is within reach of achieving power in the next election, that’s been so hostile to the history, the founding, the essence and the entire meaning of the country, as is this Trump and Trumpist movement that has taken over lock, stock, and barrel the Republican Party. It’s no longer dedicated to American democracy. It is dedicated to Trump and Trumpism and to his family, to defense of his indecencies, his autocratic manner, his corruptions, an apologist for the profound damage he has done." see The Republican Party Is An Organized Conspiracy Unfortunately, I am forced to completely agree with his assessment of my old party.

Lessons from Pearl Harbor

On this 79th anniversary of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, it is good to reflect on those events and consider their implications for today. I had the opportunity and privilege to visit Pearl Harbor twenty years ago, and I was struck by the profound symbolism that I observed there.

Our guide was a veteran of those events, and his description of what happened that day was vivid and emotional. When we traveled out to see the USS Arizona Memorial, I read the names of all of the men who had died there and stared down into the water at the outline of the ship that now rests forever on the floor of the harbor. At that time, we could still see little drops of oil trickling up from the wreck below us - like the ship was still bleeding. It was the perfect representation of the death, devastation and defeat that had happened there. The story, however, did not end there.

From there, we traveled to the USS Missouri and walked along the deck where Douglas MacArthur accepted the Japanese surrender which concluded the Second World War. And, from the deck of this symbol of America's ultimate triumph, one could see the memorial over the wreck of the USS Arizona. The juxtaposition of these two symbols of defeat and victory had a profound effect on me and many of the folks who were a part of our tour.

On this important anniversary, we are reminded of the suffering, perseverance and eventual victory of a generation of Americans that Tom Brokaw named America's greatest. We are also reminded that defeats can also be turned into triumphs - that the darkest hours are often followed by a bright dawn. Many years now stand between us and those events, but we still have so much to learn from what happened there so long ago. 

THE 2020 ELECTION WASN'T CLOSE

I'm afraid that many Americans have been left with a false impression regarding the closeness of the recent Presidential contest between Biden and Trump. The notion that the vote was close is attributable to two factors: 1. The way that the vote totals were reported as a consequence of the large number of mail-in ballots because of the pandemic and 2. The hullabaloo created by Donald Trump surrounding spurious claims of fraud and a grand conspiracy to deprive him of victory. In short, the fact that the counting of votes has played out over weeks, and Trump's team has demanded several recounts and launched numerous legal challenges in a number of states has served to divert the public's attention from the actual results.

Nevertheless, despite all of the noise and distractions the counting continued and the results were tallied and are in the process of being certified. Unfortunately, Americans have a notoriously short attention span, and many of the partisans on both sides of the recent contest have largely already moved way beyond the actual results of it. Those results, however, tell a very different tale from the one that most Americans have accepted about the 2020 presidential election; and they deserve another look before we move ahead as a nation.

Joe Biden received 80.2 million votes (or 51.1% of the total), and Donald Trump received 74 million votes (or 47.1 % of the total). Stated another way, six million more Americans voted for Biden than voted for Trump! Where do these totals fit when we compare them to past elections? In 2016, Clinton received about 2.9 million more votes than Trump, but Trump ultimately prevailed in the Electoral College. In 2012, Obama received about 5 million more votes than Romney (Obama received about 51.1% of the total). Hence, we can see that the numbers Biden put on the board in 2020 are very respectable when compared to the previous two contests.

In terms of the Electoral College, Biden will receive 306 electors compared to 232 for Trump (the same margin of victory for Trump over Clinton). Biden won the popular vote in 25 of the 50 states (Trump carried 30 states in 2016). Biden's margins of victory in Michigan and Pennsylvania were significantly greater than Trump's in 2016. Moreover, Biden was able to squeeze out a narrow victory in Georgia and Arizona - two states that have voted Republican for many years).

Hence, we can see that the numbers suggest that Biden's victory over Trump in the 2020 election was decisive. By almost any standard which we could employ, this was NOT a close election! In fact, one might reasonably conclude that any suggestion that Trump won this contest (or that the result was even close) is delusional. In fact, when we look at just the numbers, we are forced to conclude that Donald Trump was soundly rejected for a second term as president!