Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton asks Supreme Court to block Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan from voting in the Electoral College, alleging that pandemic-related voting changes in these states violated federal law. I would expect our Supreme Court to ask why Texas didn't file this lawsuit at the time the laws were changed, but we must also remember that, well, Mr. Paxton has plenty of reasons to distract us right now. Gosh, I wonder why state Solicitor General/fellow Republican Kyle Hawkins isn't arguing this suit before our Court. Please note that by "I wonder why" I mean "because he knows it's a frivolous lawsuit and wants to have a career after 2020."
Upon hearing that South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem has argued that her state is doing quite well handling COVID using "cherry-picked numbers," I kind of expected her to do some sleight-of-hand like saying OUR CASEZ AREZ TEH DECLININGZ!!!! when they're actually still increasing but at a lower rate. But no: her cherry-picked numbers describe how other states, that locked down more than South Dakota did, are handling COVID -- and she doesn't even get those right! When you're justifying your own actions by criticizing others' actions, you're on pretty shaky ground, but sadly, so many Americans are so intimidated by numbers that I don't expect her to experience very much of the shame she deserves.
Right-wing cable news outlet Newsmax beats right-wing cable news outlet Fox News in the ratings -- in one demographic in one hour of one day, to be sure, but the journey of a thousand miles, et cetera. And CNN's average viewership has been higher than Fox's over the last month, but since all cable news networks suck, none of this is really anything to celebrate -- unless schadenfraude is your only pleasure in life, which I hope it's not! After all, Fox might spend some time trying to chase its viewers who are running away to Newsmax and OAN -- or it might position itself as the "sensible conservative" alternative without changing anything it does, which would, you guessed it, help move the center further right, just like they all do. Give us a la carte cable packaging and this would all matter a lot less.
Don't get too excited about Sen. Romney calling a mooted House attempt to challenge the Electoral College vote "madness." His entire comment essentially legitimizes the nearly five dozen frivolous lawsuits our soon-to-be-ex-President has filed, and he knows as well as anyone else that no matter what happens in Georgia, Republicans will be able to obstruct a Biden Administration a great deal, just as they've been doing whenever they lose the upper hand. Also, too, if "(r)ecounts are appropriate," I guess he also thinks demanding a second recount from Georgia, or only recounting Wisconsin counties with a lot of black folks, are also appropriate.
Finally, our Federal Trade Commission (or FTC) and 40 U.S. states say Facebook has monopolized social media and should be broken up. I'm old enough to remember when quite a few social networks existed -- I enjoyed Tribe and Orkut an awful lot, and I sometimes wish I'd gotten more into MeetUp, LiveJournal and Flickr -- so breaking up Facebook wouldn't exactly "break the internet." It doesn't sound like they're going to break Facebook up very much, though -- merely taking Instagram and WhatsApp away from them wouldn't exactly destroy their monopoly. But Facebook pointing to the existence of TikTok and Parler as evidence they're not monopolists? That is to laugh.
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