Anderson@Large

Happy Presidents’ Day

The thought of a rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump in 2024 is dizzying. If only we could turn back the clock to 1964 and “Vote Dizzy.”

Trump Impeachment Trial 2.0

The article of impeachment for incitement of insurrection will be delivered to the Senate at 7 p.m. Monday.

In a letter to House Democrats, Speaker Nancy Pelosi wrote:

Monday, January 25, will be a momentous and solemn day, as the House sadly transmits the Article of Impeachment for Donald Trump to the Senate.

Our Constitution and country are well-served by our outstanding impeachment managers – lead manager Rep. Jamie Raskin and Reps. Diana DeGette, David Cicilline, Joaquin Castro, Eric Swalwell, Ted Lieu, Stacy Plaskett, Madeleine Dean, and Joe Neguse. I salute them for the great love of our country, dedication to our democracy and loyalty to our oath with which they have proceeded, as they ensure that no one is above the law.

The House has been respectful of the Senate’s constitutional power over the trial and always attentive to the fairness of the process. When the Article of Impeachment is transmitted to the Senate, the former President will have had nearly two weeks since we passed the Article. Our Managers are ready for trial before the 100 Senate jurors.

The Senate will begin Trump’s second impeachment trial the week of February 8. They call it “Stormy Monday.” For Donald John Trump, Tuesday and the coming weeks will be just as bad.

President Trump Pledges to Put ‘America First’

I viewed the inauguration of Donald J. Trump as the 45th president of the United States at Temple University. I went there because I wanted to watch the inaugural address on a big screen.

There was a small turnout of students, faculty and staff for the event. Still, I expected the post-inaugural discussion to be heated. It wasn’t. One student expressed concern that President Trump did not mention climate change. When a faculty member questioned his pledge to put “America first,” there was pushback. A student asked: What’s wrong with an American president putting America first?

Indeed, Rev. Jesse Jackson told an Atlanta television station:

The speech was full of hope and inclusion and he reached out to cities in a way they’ve not been reached out to for a long time. But with that must come a target, a timetable and a budget.

Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan said Trump declared his independence:

The inaugural address was utterly and uncompromisingly Trumpian. The man who ran is the man who’ll reign. It was plain, unfancy and blunt to the point of blistering. A little humility would have gone a long way, but that’s not the path he took. Nor did he attempt to reassure. It was pow, right in the face. Most important, he did not in any way align himself with the proud Democrats and Republicans arrayed around him. He looked out at the crowd and said he was allied with them.

He presented himself not as a Republican or a conservative but as a populist independent. The essential message: Remember those things I said in the campaign? I meant them. I meant it all.

[…]

It was an unmistakable indictment of almost everyone seated with him on the platform

Then a stark vow: “That all changes—starting right here and right now.” Jan. 20 “will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again.”

President Trump may turn out be the disaster the mainstream legacy media and political establishment hope and expect. But apart from the #NotMyPresident and #NeverTrump crowd, Trump’s “blunt” speech was “a ray of light for millions.”

President Obama’s Farewell Address

Tomorrow, January 10th at 9:00pm ET, President Barack Obama will go to his adopted hometown and deliver his farewell address.

In an email message, President Obama said:

In 1796, as George Washington set the precedent for a peaceful, democratic transfer of power, he also set a precedent by penning a farewell address to the American people. And over the 220 years since, many American presidents have followed his lead.

On Tuesday, January 10, I’ll go home to Chicago to say my grateful farewell to you, even if you can’t be there in person.

I'm just beginning to write my remarks. But I'm thinking about them as a chance to say thank you for this amazing journey, to celebrate the ways you've changed this country for the better these past eight years, and to offer some thoughts on where we all go from here.

Since 2009, we've faced our fair share of challenges, and come through them stronger. That's because we have never let go of a belief that has guided us ever since our founding—our conviction that, together, we can change this country for the better.

So I hope you'll join me one last time.

You can join him via livestream here. For African Americans, Barack Obama’s parting will be such sweet sorrow.

Bye Hillary

The Electoral College meets today in state capitols and the District of Columbia. You wouldn’t know it from all the fake news about the popular vote, but since 1804, the winner of the presidential election is the candidate who gets a majority of the electoral votes.

In the wake of Donald Trump’s shocking victory over Hillary Clinton, Hollywood celebrities have become, um, “experts” on the Electoral College.

Get over it, says Washington Post editorial writer Charles Lane:

Her 2.8 million popular-vote margin is one of the largest for the electoral-college loser in American history, or will be, once the electoral votes are officially cast on Monday. Still, it is fallacious to invoke this statistical byproduct of Nov. 8 to question the legitimacy of Trump’s victory — as opposed to that victory’s desirability, which is questionable indeed.

As all concerned knew going in, the object of the presidential election game is to win the most electoral votes in what are essentially 51 state-level contests (the District included), just as the object of football is to score the most points. Gridiron teams would play differently under instructions to maximize yardage; candidates would campaign differently if maximizing national popular votes were the prime directive.

Aiming for 270 electoral votes out of 538, both Clinton and Trump focused on 13 swing states; Trump won that contest-within-a-contest by 816,000 votes.

Today the Electoral College Class of 2016 – 306 Republicans and 232 Democrats – officially votes to elect Donald J. Trump as president. Hillary can claim her “Most Popular” trophy as she exits the stage.

Bye Hillary.

Democrats in the Age of Obama

President Barack Obama reportedly will go on a "farewell tour" in mid-January. In light of Democratic losses since 2009, he may want to fly over some states.

Washington Post political commentator Chris Cillizza recently wrote:

What Democrats expected to be the historic election of the first female president was instead a devastating loss — for Clinton, Obama and their political vision. That reversal of fortune was palpable in the days following the election as Democrats reeled from a knockout blow that they never even saw coming.

When President Obama passes the baton to President Donald J. Trump, Democrats will be left with memories.

Jill Stein’s Vanity Recount

I am a founding member of the Election Verification Network. The membership includes University of Michigan computer science professor J. Alex Halderman, the computer science expert who sparked Jill Stein’s petition for a recount in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Since its founding, EVN has pushed for voter-verified paper ballots and a forensic audit of every election. So it’s not surprising that Alex and other members have latched on to calls for recounts in three states.

But Jill Stein’s vanity recount is not advancing election integrity. Instead, it’s setting back electoral reform.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorialized, it smacks of a “vanity project”:

Maybe ‘democracy’ will be served by Jill Stein’s quixotic moralizing. More likely, Jill Stein and the Green Party will be served.

Jill Stein may actually believe that demanding a recount of presidential tallies in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania will ensure that “democracy” is served.

More likely, she believes the Green Party will be served by her audacious PR stunt.

Either way, the Stein recounts are a colossal waste of money and energy when there is not a shred of credible evidence of fraud or error and when the final vote in these three states likely will not change very much.

Stein’s quixotic moralizing damages the credibility of the very institution she claims to protect — the sanctity of the ballot box.

Those who donated to Recount 2016 did so voluntarily. Stein paid the state of Michigan $787,500. But taxpayers could end up paying $5 million in additional costs. So Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette has filed a lawsuit to halt the “dilatory and frivolous” recount:

Michigan voters rejected Stein’s candidacy by massive margins but her refusal to accept that state-verified result poses an expensive and risky threat to hard-working taxpayers and abuses the intent of Michigan law. We have asked the court to end the recount which Stein is pursuing in violation of Michigan laws that protect the integrity of our elections. It is inexcusable for Stein to put Michigan voters at risk of paying millions and potentially losing their voice in the Electoral College in the process.

Meanwhile, the Green Party has withdrawn its lawsuit for a statewide recount in Pennsylvania. Although Stein has raised over $7 million, they claim the petitioners “cannot afford to post the $1,000,000 bond required by the Court.”

In a tweet, Stein asks, “How odd is it that we must jump through bureaucratic hoops and raise millions of dollars so we can trust our election results?”

What’s really odd is that the candidate who received less than 1% of the vote is pushing for a recount in Pennsylvania rather than the candidate of the 1%, Hillary Clinton.

Facing long odds in Pennsylvania, the nutcase is taking her case to federal court. If the case winds its way through the federal court system and makes it to the U.S. Supreme Court, President Trump’s pick will be there waiting for Dr. Jill Stein.