The raucous street protests
and last-ditch petitions aren't the only moves Donald Trump's critics are making to try to derail his inauguration.
Trump's critics are circulating leaflets with the names and numbers of each of the 16 Republican electors in Georgia who will cast a formal vote for Trump in the Electoral College on Dec. 19. It's part of a national movement design to foment a rebellion to stop Trump.
It is a sign of desperation: The GOP electors in Georgia and other states are some of the most committed Republican activists in the state, and they have pledged to support the ticket. And the skeptical electors have been silenced: When GOP elector Baoky Vu suggested in August he might deprive Trump of his Electoral College vote, he was forced to resign within hours and quickly replaced.
"I've been getting emails from all kinds of liberal activists saying that I can't in good conscience vote for Trump," Kirk Shook, one of the 16 GOP electors, told WGAU this morning. "It just makes my resolve even stronger when you're spamming my inbox every day." Here's the sound:
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On Sunday, former Georgia congressman Jack Kingston and New York Times columnist Charles Blow clashed on CNN over Donald Trump's selection of Breitbart chief executive Steve Bannon as chief strategist. Watch here:
Kingston said Trump wouldn't look to Bannon, who has a history of anti-Semitic views and a knack for catering to white nationalists, on "those topics."
“And I want to say this as a Republican, you know, we didn’t really like Paul Begala or David Axelrod or James Carville because we felt like they were too tough for us. So, I understand why the liberals are screaming and hollering because we felt the same way about those guys.”
When Blow criticized Bannon as something other than a GOP equivalent of Begala or Axelrod, Kingston cut in - and the exchange grew testy. Raw Story has the rest:
"I just want to know what alt-right means," Kingston [said].
"Okay, if you don't understand something, that is not my problem. Your deficiencies of understanding are not my problem. They're your problem."
"The point still remains," Blow said, "racism is a problem and if you're going to invite someone who has kind of hitched himself to that as a movement? That's a problem for all of us and it does not take a long time with Google to look at what has happened on Breitbart since Bannon arrived at Breitbart."
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Republicans in Cobb County are still reeling from the fact that Democrat Hillary Clinton took their GOP enclave. In a Saturday column, the Marietta Daily Journal quoted former Kennesaw city councilwoman Debra Williams as saying Cobb's Republican leadership couldn't get over Donald Trump's defeat of Ted Cruz:
"When it was decided by the voters that Trump would be the Republican nominee, the GOP leaders were sulking, whining, being defiant of the voters' choice, and waiting for Cruz to run as an independent. The entire GOP staff should be replaced with those who will keep their personal preferences out of it and vote the Republican choice — that's what the GOP is," Williams wrote.
Cobb County GOP chairman denied that county Republican leaders sat on their hands, but was quoted thusly:
This was true, by the by, for suburban counties across the nation, she said.
Cobb is a county where Republican women are in control of much of the GOP machine, and if they don't like you, then you've got a problem. Ask Tim Lee.
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Georgia legalized a limited medical marijuana program two years ago, but after voters in Florida, North Dakota and Arkansas approved broader medical marijuana initiatives, state Rep. Allen Peake offered this quick take:
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Buried in a Monday piece from the New York Times on Democratic reaction to the results of the presidential contest are these paragraphs:
Even Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the presumptive incoming Democratic leader and someone who is eyed warily by the left, has taken steps to signal that he recognizes the need to embrace a more populist economic orientation.
Mr. Schumer announced on Friday that he was supporting Representative Keith Ellison of Minnesota, a leading House progressive, to be the chairman of the Democratic National Committee. And earlier in the week, Mr. Schumer said in a private meeting at the A.F.L.-C.I.O. that while Democrats had been at the forefront of cultural change in the country on matters of race, gender and sexuality, they had not been talking in similarly transformational language on economics, according to a labor official in the room.
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Lawmakers return to Capitol Hill today for a lame duck session aimed at clearing the legislative decks for President-elect Donald Trump. First on the agenda is for House Republicans to decide who will lead them come January, and Paul Ryan isn't the only name on the secret ballot.
Gainesville Republican Doug Collins is running for the No. 5 position in the Republican leadership. He'll make his case to fellow Republicans this afternoon ahead of Tuesday's vote.
We’re told Collins, a former pastor, will look to sell himself as someone who understands the GOP base and would be an effective messenger who could sell the party's agenda.
He’s up against a well-known Texan who leads the massive Republican Study Committee (more two-thirds of House Republicans are members -- including Collins) and boasts the support of the large Texas delegation.
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