HOW IT ENDS: The heated partisan politics of Capitol Hill will jump to scorching today, when TRUMP’s staunchest GOP allies will launch a formal, public and futile effort to keep him in power by overturning the results of the Nov election. w/⁦Lillis⁩

The extraordinary gambit has convulsed the Capitol in the final days of Trump's reign and cleaved the GOP into warring factions - divisions that will bear long-lasting implications for both the future direction of the GOP and the success of ambitious 2024 hopefuls.

Such challenges have been tried before, but not on this scale: At least 13 Senate Republicans and more than 100 House Republicans are expected to vote to reject certification of Joe Biden’s EC victory

With Trump agitating his base and threatening to recruit primary challengers to run against disloyal lawmakers, many Republicans, particularly in the House, feel that it would be political suicide to defy him.

“We don’t have a choice,” said one.

What you need to know about today’s Electoral College challenges @alexanderbolton & @juliegraceb

My sincerest hope is that yesterday's abhorred invasion of white entitlement has taught the politicians who encouraged and enabled it that their political theatrics aren't a joke.

Lawmakers can incite a radical insurgency if they lie convincingly enough, but as lawmakers that insurgency will come for your heads after they've gotten bored attacking the marginalized people you unleashed them on.

Try to install a dictator and that dictator's rabid followers will put your heads on the chopping block right next to the rest of us.

As representatives, your jobs are to do whats best for all citizens. All of us whether you like us or not. That starts with putting an end to gridlock, revisionism, and blaming groups of marginalized people and the other side of the aisle.

Keeping the country stable takes compromise, not winning at all costs. We are your neighbors, not your enemies.

Republican List challenging Electoral College results:
Rep. Brian Babin
Rep. Andy Biggs
Rep.-elect Lauren Boebert
Rep. Mo Brooks
Rep. Ted Budd
Rep.-elect Jerry Carl
Rep.-elect Madison Cawthorn
Rep.-elect Andrew Clyde
Rep. Jeff Duncan
Rep. Matt Gaetz

Alright, so let's do a thread on what the fuck just happened in Georgia tonight. Unless something changes, it sure looks like Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff will be Georgia's senators in the 117th Congress. With that in mind, let's litigate this disaster.

Before saying anything else, we should state that Raphael Warnock, Jon Ossoff, David Perdue, and Kelly Loeffler are all horrendous candidates. I will explain below.

Raphael Warnock is a radical leftist and a vicious antisemite. A healthy body politic would never let him get near the levers of power.

Jon Ossoff is a trust-fund bozo who has never accomplished anything in his 33 years of life and is not remotely qualified to be a senator.

Good afternoon! Today, @JakeLahut and I will be live-blogging the joint session of Congress to count slates of presidential electors, led by @VP Pence, where we expect GOP lawmakers to object to multiple states presidential electors for the first time

In addition to my explainer on the Electoral Count Act process for objecting to electors from yesterday, which you should go check out, here’s a little thread rundown of what we can expect to see today

As a quick terminology note, you may see some places refer to today’s events as “certification,” but Congress isn’t really certifying anything — they’re just counting slates of electors that have already been certified in the states

Pence’s role is purely procedural. There will be four tellers, two from each party, who will read out every state’s certificate of their electoral votes out of a special box. Unless one member from each chamber raises an objection, the states’ slate of electors is accepted

Per reporting from @poliitco and other outlets, it seems like the GOP has enough support from representatives and senators to object to slates of Biden electors from Arizona, Georgia, and Pennsylvania (could be more or fewer depending on how the day goes)

I clearly & categorically condem the violence that we witnessed in the Capitol building in Washington yesterday during the meeting of the Electors. I believe that the election was rigged& Trump was robbed but violence in any shape or form has no place in a democratic setting.1/

..All matters concerning the American Presidency ought to be resolved in a peaceful manner & I am glad that President Donald Trump had the presence of mind to tell the protesters to disperse and go home. As much as I love @realDonaldTrump and believe that he was cheated out..2/

..of the election I will not support any action from his supporters that would disturb the peace, jeopardise life & property or lead to a civil war in America. Those of us that love & believe in him fought a good fight & stood firm, regardless of the odds& the insults, right..3/

..to the end. It is time to accept the reality of a Biden presidency and move on. We must not let this matter divide and destroy America and indeed the world any further. This is the time to build bridges and come together. This is the time to emulate great men like..4/

...Nigeria's @GEJonathan, let things go & maintain the peace for the sake of all. In 2015 he was robbed & rigged out of the election too but he refused to urge his supporters to indulge in violence, he conceeded his right to fight till the end & he put the peace, safety and..5/

Tough choice: @GavinNewsom and @JoeBiden speaking at the same time...

Going w/@GavinNewsom budget talk:

"There's no better investment than #teacher preparation."

You have my attention...

2/

Adding funds for Special Ed, Early Childhood and Preschool- "Historic investments".

Of the $13B in deferrals $9.2B will be paid off- if #CaLeg adopts proposal

$2B to support reopening schools for in-person teaching

Go on... #Budget2021
3/

"We're going to be serious about women re-entering the #workforce" $2B action package for equity
Early childhood support (3 & 4 YOs)
#Preschool PreK/K

Schools will also get federal funds $6.7B to help re-open
4/

Now onto #highereducation
No tuition, fee increases
More student aid
Community College support (hooray!)
Open source text books (smart)

5/

Thread.

@hughhewitt has this to say about those of us who believe the president should be impeached.

"Whatever the impeachment chorus is, it isn’t principled, it isn’t concerned with justice and it isn’t concerned with the future."

Some thoughts

Hewitt writes that many impeachment proponents have “Trump Derangement Syndrome” and the claims to know what motivates them – and what doesn’t.

“Of concern for the country, well, concern for that part of the country they don’t inhabit, there is none.”

2/

On Thursday morning, The Dispatch published our first-ever editorial calling for the impeachment & removal of President Trump.

It's a principled case, driven by a desire for justice & w/concerns for the future (immediate and distant) at its core.

3/

People can disagree with our case. Some folks we respect surely do. We’ve lost some members over it – including of the Founding Lifetime variety at $1500 a pop.

We’d gladly publish the same editorial again today. It’s become more urgent – not less – that Trump is removed.

4/

Hewitt chose not to engage our arguments, opting instead to claim it’s all “a punitive mission based on cable talking heads ‘hot takes.’” He insists, w/o evidence, that to those who favor impeachment the views of Trump’s 74 million voters “do not matter.”

Well then.

5/

1. What good has @realDonaldTrump done?
Find yourself not knowing or know others who dont care? Fed up of hearing the same old crap.
*this thread was created by someone else. I thought I'd bookmarked the OP.

Please let me know if anybody knows who! (I saved all images)

They are storming DC!
Trump supporters just tore down some barriers at the Capitol in Washington, DC #StopTheSteal #WashingtonDC

NEW/THREAD: A forthcoming analysis from @TRACReports says @BuzzFeedNews has filed more #FOIA lawsuits--58-- than any other media organization in the US during Trump's presidency.

Here's a look back at the secrets my colleagues & I pried loose in 2020

1/

We started off 2020 publishing some of the most important and highly sought-after documents from former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation: summaries of FBI interviews with key White House officials.

In February 2020, @BuzzFeedNews secured more than 1K pages of emails from NOAA related to Trump’s "doctored" map of Hurricane Dorian — dubbed #SharpieGate — and the panic, outrage, and internal revolt it triggered among top officials at those

That month, we also filed a #FOIA lawsuit against DOJ for docs related to Barr's intervention in the Flynn & Stone cases. Emails we obtained brought to light the behind-the-scenes drama between the lead prosecutor in the Stone case & his

The federal response to #FOIA requests, which was already shitty, got worse during last year’s coronavirus outbreak. Some agencies used the pandemic to justify cutting off responses altogether and to abruptly halt the processing of FOIA requests.

But we fought back. We sued.

5/

Women are the real election mobilizers, look at the percentage of those who vote during Nigerian elections, the data tells it all. Women do not only mobilize, they ensure these voters go out to cast their ballot. We’ve got more @staceyabrams in most Nigerian communities/villages.

Political elites place premium to “market women” votes, I recall how important the “iyaloja” position was/is in Lagos. It is the votes these women pull. When you need mobilizers. You can bank on women but importantly bank on women to also lead in your administration.

Elections show how men dominate politics in Nigeria. Although 47 percent of registered voters are women, according to the electoral commission @inecnigeria, their political representation is limited. That needs to change...

Since 1999, the story behind the elections in Nigeria can be told in numbers and women make up that number, we have continued to observe voter apathy at the ballots but women still show up strong when its time to vote 🗳. These women go underreported but they’ve become the force.

I have seen arguments (not data) suggesting women are “told who to vote for by their husbands” not sure if this is a beer parlor statistics but what I know is, these women are the movers and shakers of electoral processes in Nigeria - pay attention to women mobilizers.They showup

1 (Thread) Reminders of what the democrats said before the election to create what is happening today.

Trump is a dictator lol my a$$ 😂

Although we will end up with one

2/ Manufacturing a dictator: The media started in 2016 setting up the Nazi narrative

3/ Tila Tequila small group of people gained international attention because of this ridiculous media creation.

I am a marketer. There's no way I could get international media to pay attention to a small insignificant group of people without an agenda

4/ Then we have Russian interference and Facebook's help in stealing the election

5/ Which went on and on and on

So ... a quick recap.

1) There was *massive* voter fraud.
2) Republicans claimed they wouldn't stand for it, and object to the illegal electoral votes.
3) A handful of people (most probably Antifa) gained access to what *should* be a highly guarded building. >>>

4) Some chaos ensues for a few hours, but not a single person was hurt or killed (inside the Capitol, that is)
5) And all of a sudden, this causes our once fierce Republicans to drop their objections, and agree to a stolen election.

... 🤔

>>>

Further observations:

1) It seems the Washington Police *helped* the so-called "protesters" to gain access to the Capitol --- it's not the first time the DC Police Force acts *against* the interests of Trump.

>>>

2) The only person that died yesterday was an *actual* Trump-supporter ... shot by the DC Police.
3) There's footage around that seems to suggest the mayhem in the Capitol was staged.

>>>

4) And, most interestingly: Trump leaves a *pre-recorded* message on Twitter, that almost immediately gets an entirely *new* Twitter-warning, stating this message shouldn't even be retweeted. Why? Because the message *proves* Trump *knew exactly* what was going to happen.

>>>

@IndLeftNews @BenSpielberg @jimmy_dore (1) The #ReplacePelosiJan3 & negotiate w/other Speaker candidates 2 THEN #ForceTheVote + get more changes campaign was drowned out by the FTV movement. Today, the FTV ppl on the ground in DC r condemning Squad votes 4 Pelosi. Way too little & way 2 late.

@BenSpielberg @jimmy_dore (2) But, a more important 1, is that the Squad felt free 2 decide how 2 vote on Pelosi w/o consulting the ppl's movement. These advocates of bottom-up democracy did not practice it all when it came 2 the most important decision they would make during the next 2 years.

@BenSpielberg @jimmy_dore (3) They're not the only ones of course. Bernie Sanders did the same thing when he dropped out of the pressidential race. His "Not me. Us!" movement suddenly turned into an "it's my decision alone", affair. That enraged me at the time. It still does. After extracting all that ...

@BenSpielberg @jimmy_dore (4) work & money, often from poor ppl, he didn't feel he had to consult w/anyone else but, at most, his inner circle about whether it was time to support Biden or not. Going beyond progressive "leaders" however, I think all our politicians in our "democracy" feel free 2 take ...

@BenSpielberg @jimmy_dore (5) support of all sorts from us w/out involving us in decisions they are taking that are critical to our lives. Very few of them talk bottom-up democracy, but even those who do, practice top-down democracy, in which they mobilize us for fundraising & 4 coming out to vote 4...