Joe Biden told civil rights leaders, according to a Thursday report, that the 'defund police' slogan was the reason Democrats experienced widespread losses in congressional races across the country on November 3.

'That's how they beat the living hell out of us across the country, saying that we're talking about defunding the police,' Biden said during a two-hour closed-door meeting with civil rights leaders on Tuesday, according to audio of the meeting obtained by Bad News.....

House Majority Whip James Clyburn and even former President Barack Obama have blamed the 'defund police' slogan and other 'snapp slogans' on costing them votes.

Biden insisted at the meeting 'we're not' trying to defund police, but rather 'hold them accountable' and reallocate money.

'We're talking about giving them money to do the right things,' Biden continued. 'We're talking about putting more psychologists and psychiatrists on the telephones when the 911 calls through. We're talking about spending money to enable them to do their jobs better, not with more force, with less force and more understanding.'

President Trump has moved all of his electoral eggs into a new basket.

Now, his efforts to undermine the will of the electorate and seize a second consecutive term in office hinges upon a lawsuit filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a lawsuit that essentially argues that Texas is harmed by the election results in four states that flipped from red to blue last month. It is a lawsuit that people with much more legal expertise than myself have dismissed out-of-hand as ridiculous given the legal case being made. But it is also a lawsuit that makes statistical claims that are so bizarre, it falls well within my area of expertise to point out that on that rhetoric alone, it’s a disaster.

The lawsuit’s statistical case comes down to this question: How many zeros will it take for you to be sufficiently impressed that you’ll ignore basic logic? The author of the lawsuit appears to have settled on the number 15.

“The probability of former Vice President Biden winning the popular vote in the four Defendant States — Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — independently given President Trump’s early lead in those States as of 3 a.m. on November 4, 2020, is less than one in a quadrillion, or 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000,” it reads at one point. “For former Vice President Biden to win these four States collectively, the odds of that event happening decrease to less than one in a quadrillion to the fourth power.”....

If this suit is Trump’s last, best hope to eke out a victory from his 2020 defeat — in a tweet, Trump called it “the big one” — it seems clear where this is all headed: To Joe Biden being sworn in as president on Jan. 20, 2021.

It’s certainly a novel legal strategy, but it’s also one that reflects the last-ditch nature of the effort. The Trump team has spent weeks asserting that it could prove fraud or has proved fraud. It hasn’t — and in many cases lawyers like Giuliani have been forced to admit in court that they aren’t alleging actual fraud in specific cases — so now the argument is that this is beside the point. The real point, it seems, is that fraud could have occurred but that we might never see it because elections officials made it that way.

“It is not necessary for the Plaintiff in Intervention to prove that fraud occurred, however,” the suit states, “it is only necessary to demonstrate that the elections in the defendant States materially deviated from the ‘manner’ of choosing electors established by their respective state Legislatures.”

In other words, it’s not saying that Trump definitely won; it’s just saying that supposedly illegal actions make it impossible to determine conclusively that Joe Biden did. And because of this, it apparently argues that Trump should remain president.

It’s not the first time the Trump team has watered down its claims of fraud when actually faced with vouching for them in legal proceedings, as noted above. But it’s certainly telling that it’s now proactively dispatching with that question and shifting its legal argument in a completely different direction. If this was truly what happened, after all, why spend weeks talking about evidence of fraud rather than that? The reason: It wanted to prove fraud, but it couldn’t. So now it’s doing this other thing.

IF YOUR TIME IS SHORT
Trump and his allies have lost dozens of lawsuits seeking to overturn the election results.

Cases have been rejected because plaintiffs have failed to prove widespread voter fraud, have made errors, or faced jurisdictional problems.

Legal experts said the lawsuit filed by the Texas Attorney General asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reject electoral votes from some key battleground states is baseless and mostly highlights past rejected conspiracies.

Oh, this is a cute one.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton just filed all the proper papers with the United States Supreme Court to overturn the 2020 election.

Paxton, an outspoken advocate of President Donald Trump, claims the states “flooded their people with unlawful ballot applications and ballots” and ignored rules for how such ballots need to be counted, according to a press release announcing the litigation.

“Trust in the integrity of our election processes is sacrosanct and binds our citizenry and the States in this Union together,” Paxton said in the statement. “Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin destroyed that trust and compromised the security and integrity of the 2020 election.”

Now what Texas has to do with this, I dunno. But, I known for a damn guaranteed fact what Ken Paxton, Attorney General of Texas, has to do with it. He needs a pardon, in fact a couple of them and a blank form he can use in the future, and what better way to get Trump’s attention.

Paxton is currently under indictment for stock fraud and is currently being investigated by the FBI for bribery and abuse of office.

Oh, this is a cute one.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton just filed all the proper papers with the United States Supreme Court to overturn the 2020 election.

Paxton, an outspoken advocate of President Donald Trump, claims the states “flooded their people with unlawful ballot applications and ballots” and ignored rules for how such ballots need to be counted, according to a press release announcing the litigation.

“Trust in the integrity of our election processes is sacrosanct and binds our citizenry and the States in this Union together,” Paxton said in the statement. “Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin destroyed that trust and compromised the security and integrity of the 2020 election.”

Now what Texas has to do with this, I dunno. But, I known for a damn guaranteed fact what Ken Paxton, Attorney General of Texas, has to do with it. He needs a pardon, in fact a couple of them and a blank form he can use in the future, and what better way to get Trump’s attention.

Paxton is currently under indictment for stock fraud and is currently being investigated by the FBI for bribery and abuse of office.