Election 2020: Disavow The Kraken!
I mentioned Friday evening that "it's apparent they're [Republicans] waiting for Trump's train of attempted sedition to derail on its own, which it appears will almost certainly happen, if not over the weekend, by Wednesday at the latest."
Wednesday was FAR too optimistic; Trump's effort to overturn the election essentially dissolved over the weekend.
Saturday evening, a Pennsylvania judge not only dismissed Guiliani's lawsuit, he destroyed it from the bench. "In the United States of America, this [lawsuit] cannot justify the disenfranchisement of a single voter, let alone all the voters of its sixth most populated state," he wrote. "Our people, laws and institutions demand more." Guiliani immediately responded that this was fine, actually, and he didn't like the Pennsylvania district court anyway and was taking his ball and going straight to the Supreme Court. There is one more tier of courts to have the suit dismissed by first, and that will probably happen on Monday.
Sunday morning, the news discussion shows were full of ex-Trump staff members and current advisors saying that the time for contesting the election was over. Among them were (unsurprisingly) John Bolton, (somewhat surprisingly) H. R. McMaster (a truly gifted wartime commander whose service under Trump will sadly forever be an asterisk to his record) and, shockingly, Chris Christie, who has painted himself as a pro-Trump partisan ever since he loyally knifed Marco Rubio back in the 2015 debates. Christie: “They allege fraud outside the courtroom, but when they go inside the courtroom, they don’t plead fraud and they don’t argue fraud. Elections have consequences, and we cannot continue to act as if something happened here that didn’t happen.”
As if that wasn't enough, one third of Donald Trump's TEAM NINJA ELITE LEGAL OTTER STRIKE FORCE, Sidney "Release the Kraken" Powell, was told under no uncertain terms she was on her own Sunday afternoon. As Tucker Carlson discovered earlier this week, when pressed with unreasonable demands regarding her arcane conspiracy accusations such as "provide some/any proof at all", she responds with more accusations. After being suspended from Twitter for apparently threatening Gov. Kemp of Georgia (a staunch pro-Trump Republican, at least until last week), the Trump campaign issued a brief press release stating the Kraken was released from further service.
In record time, leaks hit news sources that the reason she was let go was that she was too crazy for even Donald Trump. Which, to be fair, is an awfully impressive accomplishment when Rudy Giuliani is RIGHT THERE. For her part, Powell notified reporters that "the Kraken is on steroids", so hide your kids, I guess.
This all seems suspiciously like the few non-insane maniacs left within the Trump White House trying to impose some sort of exit strategy. Up until this point, the only exit strategy apparent was contracting COVID-19, something White House staffers share with a truly disturbing level of Americans, who are travelling this holiday week in the millions. Please, stay home.