This ain’t over

I went to Ferndale this afternoon to participate in a Count Every Vote rally organized by the group Protect the Result. Even though the national organization called off today’s rally, the local organization decided to hold it anyway because at the time we started Michigan hadn’t been called for Biden. It was a pleasant day for such an event – sunny (until it set) and temps about 65F. When I signed up for the rally the time had been set for 5:00-6:30. Then Daylight Savings Time ended. I was amused that just after that I got an email from the organizers saying the time had been changed to 4:00-5:30 so that we weren’t rallying in the dark. Somebody hadn’t been thinking of the time change. When I arrived at the rally I met a friend, who was working as a rally marshal. We spent most of the time catching up. We hadn’t seen each other in a couple years. The crowd was rather small. Part of it was because the national org called it off and I’m sure part of it was because there isn’t much urgency at the moment – the nasty guy hasn’t made a big move … yet. Today’s event was at the four corners of Woodward and Nine Mile in Ferndale. I took a few pictures and the best ones were taken from the median of Woodward towards the northeast and northwest. I rather like the sign above the door in the second picture.

Ferndale is a progressive suburb sharing a border with Detroit. It is the home of Affirmations LGBTQ Center. For a while it had a gay mayor. He just got re-elected to the job of Oakland County Executive – which is a pretty big deal because the guy who previously held the job held it for decades and was a Republican power broker in the state. So, on to the day’s news. A lot to catch up on. The nasty guy stepped before cameras about 2 am to declare he won yesterday’s election. He did that well before there was a projected win in enough states to justify it. I was pleased this morning when NPR referred to that incident they always used the phrase “falsely claimed.” When Joe Biden spoke in the early morning hours he only said: Keep counting. About the time I headed for my rally this afternoon the nasty guy campaign announced they had filed suit in the Michigan Court of Claims to halt the counting. My thought is what does that court have to do with it? I’m sure the count will be finished before the court will act. The nasty guy said he was going straight to the Supremes. But the Supremes don’t take a fresh case. It has to come from some other court (and probably not the Mich. Court of Claims). In response to that thread Biden has said he won’t back down from a legal challenge and is ready for whatever the nasty guy attempts. Much of Detroit’s count is being done in the big downtown convention center. A large number of “stop the count” protesters tried to get into the hall. They claimed that not enough nonpartisan challengers were inside. They were blocked by guards at the door. At the time the nasty guy was behind, so what was this going to accomplish? Actually, the Pennsylvania case had already been to the Supremes, so the nasty guy has filed to stop counting there. Then he declared victory – a way of telling the Supremes how to rule. Joan McCarter of Daily Kos explained the details. Before election day the PA GOP went to court to demand ballots that arrived after election day could not be counted. The lower court said the could, as long as they were postmarked by election day and arrived within three days. The Supremes were tied, so the lower court order stood. Three conservative justices said try again after election when there won’t be a chance for a tie now that Barrett is seated. So here we are. McCarter added a lawsuit has been filed in Georgia, which is also close. While I was at the rally I heard that Michigan had been called for Biden, though still counting. On the way home I heard that Biden’s lead in Wisconsin was small enough to trigger a recount. They were one of the later states to be called. Pennsylvania is still counting. Laura Clawson of Kos explained:

If you’ve been staring at slow-moving vote counts in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, wondering why the hell these states can’t get their acts together and come up with a count, you should know who to blame: their Republican-controlled legislatures.

Marissa Higgens of Kos listed the gains by LGBTQ candidates in this election. * Sarah McBride is the first openly transgender state senator and did so in Delaware. * Taylor Small, transgender, won a House seat in Vermont. * Mondaire Jones and Ritchie Torres of New York are the first openly gay black members of Congress. Torres is also Latino for the great mix of gay, black, and Latino. * Stephanie Byers is transgender and a member of the Chickasaw Nation. She won a seat in the Kansas legislature. * Shevrin Jones is Florida’s first openly LGBTQ state senator. * Jabari Brisport did the same for the New York. * Michele Rayner-Goolsby is the first openly LGBTQ black woman in the Florida House. * David Ortiz, bisexual, was elected to the Colorado state legislature. He’s also their first wheelchair user. * Kim Jackson to the Georgia state Senate. * Torry Harris to the Tennessee state House. * Mauree Turner, nonbinary and Muslim, to the Oklahoma legislature. There were more than 500 LGBTQ candidates on various ballots. They matter because visibility matters. When Florida was declared for the nasty guy and I heard mention that there was a noticeable difference between the polls and the results I suspected foul play. These issues tend to happen in states with GOP Secretaries of State, which is true for Florida. Joan McCarter of Kos reported another possibility. A few days ago federal district judge Emmet Sullivan of DC ordered the Postal Service to conduct sweeps of 27 mail processing facilities in 15 states to ensure ballots were delivered to election offices on time. There were over 300,000 ballots that had been scanned as having entered the postal system but not scanned to show they left. The response by Louis DeStroy and his minions was, gosh, the judge didn’t give us enough time to execute his order. And besides, many of those ballots were expedited by employees who pulled them out of the system and processed them by hand, bypassing the exit scanners. How many of the 300,000? Who knows? The affected cities include Atlanta; Philadelphia; Detroit; Greensboro, NC; and Lakeland, WI. See a pattern here? They’re all close states. Some of them Biden managed to win anyway. Even so, from the nasty guy’s and DeStroy’s perspective – mission accomplished. Joshua Potash tweeted that the missing ballots also affected Florida. It looks like Joe Biden will get enough Electoral College votes to be the next president. I said it that way because the nasty guy isn’t done. It also looks like the GOP gained a couple seats in the House, not enough to change the majority. Democrats gained a couple seats in the Senate but probably won’t flip it. And Moscow Mitch kept his job. So a Democrat president, a Democratic House, a GOP Senate led by Moscow Mitch. Say goodbye to any kind of reform in the courts, especially the Supreme Court. Perhaps also say goodbye to another virus relief package. Or a new health care system if the Supremes overturn the Affordable Care Act. And say goodbye for any sort of meaningful reform – well, action on anything – over the next two years. The GOP will block everything it can and take anything the Biden might do by executive order to court – where there is a solid conservative majority in the Supremes. And two years from now the GOP will campaign on Democrats being unable to get anything done. So back to the nasty guy. Today went smoothly. Tomorrow, and maybe the rest of the week, will too. But this ain’t over. And when the nasty guy calls out his thugs it could get deadly.