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You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / GOP Venality Open Thread: Emily Murphy & the Misery of the Mid-Level Death Cult Careerist

GOP Venality Open Thread: Emily Murphy & the Misery of the Mid-Level Death Cult Careerist

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All Ms. Murphy wanted to do was to slow-walk some paperwork, make sure her current employer didn’t badmouth her to potential hires while she was shopping her resume, now that her current gig’s got a hard deadline. She should’ve remembered: Everything Trump Touches Dies! — especially careers.

… At first glance one can sympathize with Murphy’s predicament. It was a close election in a highly polarized moment, and ordinary Americans seem awfully eager to scold people on social media without doing their due diligence. Murphy clearly did anticipate the perils of a close election, consulting with her predecessors to see how controversies were handled in the past. Most of Murphy’s friends and colleagues who talked to CNN attempted to paint her in a positive light, describing her as “a technocrat and policy wonk.”

When we get to Murphy’s agonizing decision, however, CNN’s report raises a whole bunch of red flags: “It’s not clear what specific actions Murphy is waiting on before granting ascertainment. Sources tell CNN she is basing her decision on what she sees as the precedent set by the 2000 election, where there was not a clear winner for more than a month.”…

In 2020, Joe Biden is the clear winner. For Trump to win he would need to overturn the results not of one state, but three. The margin between the two candidates in those states is in the tens of thousands; no recount has ever overturned a U.S. election result in which the margin was that large. As time has passed, Biden’s lead in every swing state except Arizona has widened considerably. And as for the ongoing litigation, Trump’s campaign has won only one of the dozens of cases it has brought and subsequently lost that case on appeal. Rudy Giuliani has been put in charge, which is all you need to know.

The better comparison to 2020 is 2016. Trump won a couple of states by a narrow margin, and there was some push for recounts, but the outcome was not really in doubt after Election Day. The only difference between 2016 and 2020 is that the losing candidate in 2016 acted like a mature grown-up…

Right now, without any apparent logic, Murphy is guaranteeing to make the federal government less efficient, less effective and much less responsive to the American people. I feel her pain. But she seems oddly unaware that it is self-inflicted.

Reminder, as if it were needed: Anyone whose associates have to publicly insist is ‘a deeply moral person’… almost certainly isn’t. They’re just someone who’s found it profitable to assume the public forms of morality, up until it wasn’t profitable any more. Or until they got caught.

Developing…

Reader Interactions

116Comments

  5. 5.

    scav

    Deeply moral?!? I am deeply amused.

    That lot is deeply unhinged from reality and the dictionary, among many other things.

  7. 7.

    dmsilev

    Via the Post, an Emily Murphy that we legitimately can sympathize with.

    Emily W. Murphy is hearing from Americans demanding she do her job. There’s just one problem: She’s not that Emily W. Murphy.

    At her home in Northwest Washington, Emily W. Murphy was mostly amused as the stern admonitions began tumbling over the transom. It seems ordinary Americans had identified her as the Emily W. Murphy appointed by President Trump as head of the General Services Administration, who has infuriated many with her refusal to sign documents declaring Joe Biden as the apparent winner of the presidential election. That move would free up millions of dollars in transition funding and other resources that give the president-elect access to government operations. The writers and phone callers were demanding she sign the paperwork. One even sent her a packet of Bic pens.

    But Emily W. Murphy is not that Emily W. Murphy. And she thinks the letter writers could have gathered some readily available information before dashing off their complaints.

    “I was like, ‘Can you guys please just do a basic Google search and realize that you’re hassling a middle-aged Chinese lady,’ ” Emily Wang Murphy said in an interview Friday. “The most ironic part is that I could not agree more, but I’m not in charge of this. Please direct your rage to gsa.gov.”

  8. 8.

    Heywood J.

    She needs to be barred from gov’t service for life, and whatever pension is accrued can go to buy PPE for front-line Covid workers. Tired of this “moral dilemma” posturing. Her lies make the Baby Jebus cry.

  12. 12.

    NotMax

    Beyond disgusting.

    The suit also alleges that as Waterloo employees fell ill, Tyson transferred employees from another shuttered facility to Waterloo and did not properly test them beforehand, worsening the spread.

    “Around this time, Defendant Tom Hart, the Plant Manager of the Waterloo Facility, organized a cash buy-in, winner-take-all betting pool for supervisors and managers to wager how many employees would test positive for COVID-19,” the suit alleges. Source

  15. 15.

    Ruckus

    I’d say that she really doesn’t have a leg to stand on here. The only people to whom the presidential race is in question is one shitforbrains and this woman. And 90% of those 2 people seem to be insane, with overwhelming evidence to support that conclusion.

  17. 17.

    zhena gogolia

    @Baud:

    I’m feeling more and more doubts about the 2016 election (not that I didn’t have plenty before). The way they’re acting — it’s like, “Hey, it didn’t work this time!”

  18. 18.

    NotMax

    Thread where posted this may have been moribund, so repeating here.

    FYI.

    Wyandotte County [Kansas] District Attorney Mark Dupree demanded Thursday that his name be removed from any report produced by a commission that President Donald Trump ordered to study law enforcement issues, saying it had a “pernicious political agenda.”

    Dupree sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General William Barr on Thursday that said he was originally honored to serve on the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice.

    But Dupree said he later became concerned by the commission’s lack of transparency and inclusiveness, as well as his view that the commission sought to “attack and erode” the discretion of local prosecutors who looked to improve public safety while reducing incarcerations.
    [snip]
    “What I felt was it was a political agenda of wanting and trying to appease police to court them for political gain,” Dupree said.

    A federal judge in Washington, D.C., last month ruled that the Presidential Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice violated a law meant to ensure that federal advisory committees fairly balance the viewpoints represented and conduct their business publicly.

    U.S. District Court Judge John Bates said the commission’s work must stop and that it issue no report until it complied with the Federal Advisory Committee Act. Later, it was decided a report could be issued but would have to include a disclaimer that the terms of the Federal Advisory Committee Act were not met and the commission was not balanced.

    “At this time I have not heard if the AG or commission will put it out, seeing how they have to put all of this on it,” Dupree said. “If it is going to come out, I don’t want my name associated with it.” Source

  19. 19.

    Peale

    @zhena gogolia: I wouldn’t be surprised if they had actually paid Dominion to deliver the votes to them, but missed the level of fake votes in the countryside they needed to come up with this time.

    I’m only half joking.

  21. 21.

    H.E.Wolf

    @schrodingers_cat: GSA Karen can either do her job or resign. I am not interested in hearing her excuses.

    Quoted for truth.

    And also: Call your GSA Regional Rep and express your opinion of Slow-Walk Murphy’s behavior. Contact info is in the sidebar, under “Election Action!”

    If your call experience is similar to mine, you’ll get a GSA employee who strongly agrees with *us*. :)

  22. 22.

    Goku (Amerikan Baka)

    @NotMax:

    Ugh

    @Baud:

    I truly don’t understand the end game for them here. What do they hope to accomplish with this BS? I hope they end up destroying themselves in the process. I saw Kent in particular in a thread below said that this is what happened to the GOP in California before they became irrelevant.

    The way the media reacted to (and continues to cover) the Trump campaign and GOP’s coup attempts was encouraging not gonna lie. I never thought they would deliberately cut away from him, but they did. I guess attempts to delegitimize democracy was a step too far for the media.

  23. 23.

    Peale

    At the very least, call her before Congress to make it plain what criteria she is going to be using to call this.  I get that she can weasel about “uncertainty” because states haven’t certified. Another Norm out the window.  But once the states have certified, then what’s she going to do? Wait until Trump stops filing lawsuits and making press statements about Fraud?

  24. 24.

    TS (the original)

    @zhena gogolia:

    I’m with you with that thought. The number of honest republicans can be counted on one hand & they seem to be all that is stopping trump becoming the golf playing dictator he wants to be.

  25. 25.

    Goku (Amerikan Baka)

    @zhena gogolia:

    It makes me wonder if the polling was ever that far off in the first place, either in 2016 or this year. Then again, if that was the case, why not rig 2018, too? The GOP lost the House and several important governorships/state leg seats

  28. 28.

    dmsilev

    Via the LA Times, I suspect …somebody will have book-sale envy:

    Barack Obama’s “A Promised Land” sold nearly 890,000 copies in the U.S. and Canada in its first 24 hours, putting it on track to be the bestselling presidential memoir in modern history.

    The first-day sales, a record for Penguin Random House, includes preorders, e-books and audio.

    “We are thrilled with the first-day sales,” said David Drake, publisher of the Penguin Random House imprint Crown. “They reflect the widespread excitement that readers have for President Obama’s highly anticipated and extraordinarily written book.”

    The only book by a former White House resident to come close to the early pace of “A Promised Land” is the memoir by Obama’s wife, Michelle Obama, whose “Becoming” sold 725,000 copies in North America its first day and has topped 10 million worldwide since its release in 2018. “Becoming” is still so in demand that Crown, which publishes both Obamas and reportedly paid around $60 million for their books, has yet to release a paperback.

  29. 29.

    bbleh

    I would say that she is a True Karen — self-obsessed, oblivious to anything going on around her or to the consequences of her own actions, and very upset that she is being treated unfairly — but that would be SO unfair to all the men in Trump’s service who behave that way and are total dicks.

  31. 31.

    TS (the original)

    @Goku (Amerikan Baka):

    I give the media nothing. They created him, they supported him as a candidate, they allowed themselves to be put in cages and abused by his supporters. They listened to his lies and said “yes sir”. They have already started asking Biden the questions they should have been asking trump for 4 long years.

    Nothing the media can do should let any of them recover from the fact that they helped trump in his goal to bring down democracy. They deserve all and any contempt the Biden administration can give them.

  32. 32.

    Ridnik Chrome

    All of the Republicans who are attempting to interfere with the normal transition of power should go to jail. Full stop.

    Also, to hell with “considering legal action”. The Biden team should have filed a lawsuit on the same day the GSA refused to release the transition funds.

  33. 33.

    Keith P.

    @dmsilev: That’s her best out, really – find another job ASAP,  ascertain Biden as the apparent victor and immediately resign, and hope that Trump doesn’t tweet at her new employers that they should fire her or else.  Her other option is to start a Kickstarter for the inevitable legal fund she’s going to need once she gets hauled in front of Congress.

  36. 36.

    Spanky

    @bbleh: What would she be doing differently if we knew for certain that someone in the administration had threatened her with something?

  37. 37.

    Peale

    My new idea, now hear me out, is to set myself up as the “Dominion Bagman” and send out e-mails to any GOP assemblyman pretending to be from Venezuelan offering to sell them votes for $10,000 per 1,000 votes. Promise to deliver the codes before the next election. I think I should be able to get a few million. Enough to flee the country and live nicely on.  Thoughts?

  38. 38.

    evodevo

    @Peale: Yeah, I can bet that’s just what her justification will be…you only work for the Orange Mad King if his agenda suits you…she just thought she could be invisible in the bureaucracy and it didn’t work out…

  40. 40.

    Another Scott

    Everyone should remember that all we can go on is what people say and what they do. We cannot know their thoughts or feelings. They’re gaslighting us about poor, poor Emily.

    Also, GovExec (from January 20):

    The head of the agency that oversees the lease of the Trump hotel in Washington said on Tuesday that she only knows about foreign expenditures at the hotel from the news. This reinvigorated Democrats’ concerns over lax oversight of the lease and potential emoluments clause violations.

    General Services Administration Administrator Emily Murphy testified before a House Transportation and Infrastructure panel about GSA’s oversight of the Old Post Office Building lease to the Trump International Hotel, which the Trump Organization is looking to sell. Once again, Democrats raised concerns about potential conflicts of interest since the emoluments clause of the U.S. Constitution prohibits the president from receiving payments beyond his salary from federal, state or foreign governments, and criticized GSA for failing to keep a close eye on the lease.

    When pressed by Rep. John Garamendi, D-Calif., to confirm that GSA has no idea how much spending by foreign governments contributes to the income and profits at the Trump hotel, Murphy said, “that’s correct.” On foreign expenditures she said, “The only thing I know is what I’ve read in the paper.” Garamendi noted that foreign spending is considered an emolument.

    […]

    It was obvious from the beginning that Donnie’s lease at the Old Post Office should be terminated from the clear language of the contract (government employees cannot benefit) even before one gets to the obvious Emoluments issues. She protected him and the contract from the beginning.

    Unsurprisingly, she’s doing the same now.

    As Kay says, she’s bad at her job. She should pack her bags.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  41. 41.

    Jim Appleton

    Just watching the WH task Force briefing.

    WASF

    Fauci was inspired, but he chose potential over imperative. IF you want … as opposed to … you MUST if you want …

    Not sure his intended audience got that through the noise.

    Would love to be wrong.

  43. 43.

    Wag

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:   How true.  And there’s no way for Trump to file a bullying lawsuit, either.  Can you imagine Guiliani in court ” They promised us a win in the elections and failed todeliverr!  We demand payment in full AND a redo elections!”

  44. 44.

    Ksmiami

    @Ridnik Chrome: exactly these fuckers need to be lined up against a wall… I’m tired of the high road when dealing with GOP fascists. Time to rein down hell on them

  45. 45.

    Delk

    Fuck her and fuck her future employment. A whole lot of people have already lost their jobs because of trump. She can get in line, preferably in jail.

  46. 46.

    Roger Moore

    The big thing to me is to compare the consequences of her actions each way.  If Biden wins the election but she refuses to let him start his transition, she’s undermining the effectiveness of his administration and hence the government that 330 million people depend on.  We know the 9/11 attacks have been blamed at least in part on a slow transition in 2000/2001, so we’re talking about serious risk to the security of the country, and obviously thousands of lives.  If she lets him start his transition and then he somehow turns out not to have won, the US government is out a few million dollars, and maybe some FBI agents waste some time vetting people who wind up never getting a chance to be appointed.  The difference in consequences is staggering, but she’s erring on the side of the far more damaging option.

  47. 47.

    bbleh

    @Spanky: Uhhh … calling the FBI?

    And if you mean in addition, assuming she is actually trying to do her job correctly, then I’d say, doing her job correctly and making it publicly clear that she’d been threatened, the same way the GA SecState, the MI Governor, Anthony Fauci, et al., have done.

    (Needless to say, I do not assume that.)

  50. 50.

    RSA

    She’s afraid on multiple levels.

    I’d like to know which of those levels are connected to the performance of her government job, rather than her personal career prospects.

  51. 51.

    SiubhanDuinne

    From Dan Drezner’s WaPo piece, linked in the OP:

    At first glance one can sympathize with Murphy’s predicament.

    One can? One may, but one needn’t. One is annoyed, frankly, and not the least little bit sympathetic to Ms. Murphy and her soi disant “predicament.”

    It was a close election in a highly polarized moment

    I’ll grant Drezner the highly polarised moment, but a “close election”? 306-232 was a landslide four years ago, but now it’s close?

    I generally like Drezner, but c’mon, man.

  52. 52.

    Roger Moore

    @Ruckus:

    The big thing is that she’s twisting the meaning of “apparent winner”.  A winner is apparent when it seems very likely that they’ve won, not when it’s 100% guaranteed.  The whole point of the act is to let the transition start before the winner is absolutely certain, and she’s flatly ignoring that purpose for awful reasons.  At the very best, she’s being cowardly by letting people bully her into ignoring her duty; at worst she’s deliberately ignoring her duty because she doesn’t approve of the outcome of the election.

  53. 53.

    Martin

    @Roger Moore: This. There’s no downside to letting Biden’s transition go forward unless the GOP is threatening you.

    Reminder to all humans. If the job is too much for you, you can quit. You have free will.

  54. 54.

    Mai Naem mobile

    She won’t pay a price. She’ll end up on the wingnut welfare circuit like that anti gay marriage Kentucky chick whining. She’ll write a book make a million or two and move on. Cherry on top for her is her name Emily Murphy is common so she can change her hairdo, get a face-lift whatevs, tweak her resume and move on. Now if she spent some time in prison she may have an attitude adjustment as well as people in her party who think of pulling this stuff.

  55. 55.

    geg6

    Fuck this slob.  Fuck her sideways with a rusty chainsaw.  Moral, my ass.  Moral like the goddamn Falwells.

  56. 56.

    Steve in the ATL

    @SiubhanDuinne:

     

    I’ll grant Drezner the highly polarised moment, but a “close election”? 306-232 was a landslide four years ago, but now it’s close?

    Damn you–I was about to make this same point!

  57. 57.

    Benw

    I literally can’t believe there are MANY concerned reports empathizing with this lady’s fee fees. Do your fucking cushy ass job

  59. 59.

    JPL

    Big 20 month old imp was over for the day, and the goodness is I did not pay attention to the news.   The bad news is that I was afraid to log on, because our democracy is fragile, and I was afraid of what trump could do.

  60. 60.

    Goku (Amerikan Baka)

    @Steve in the ATL:

    Me too. It only ever seemed close until all of the mail-in/absentee ballots were counted tbh. Biden’s lead has only grown. He’s up 75,000 votes in PA last I heard. 150,000 in Michigan. I’d say that’s landslide

  61. 61.

    Martin

    PSA: California is implementing a 10PM-5AM curfew on purple counties for all non-essential travel. That’s all of SoCal and half of NorCal, starting Sat. No more 2AM Tommy runs for now.

  62. 62.

    LurkerNoLonger

    It’s amazing what we all did on November 3rd. We wrestled the government away from these maniacs. This GSAEmily (whoever she is) will be out of a job in January. We shouldn’t ever forget what we did. We’re awesome!

  63. 63.

    cmorenc

    Possibly emily’s too broke to stay financually afloat if she is abruptly fired by trump with no other gig yet in hand?  It might be that simple.

  64. 64.

    Martin

    Trump is just shifting strategy to the appointment of electors and the EC. It’s already in their latest lawsuits. This could go on for another month.

  65. 65.

    Goku (Amerikan Baka)

    @Martin:

    Ohio is also doing a statewide curfew from 10 pm until 5 am. I’m assuming it’s to discourage private gatherings like parties and people congregating at bars/nightclubs

  66. 66.

    TS (the original)

    @Jim Appleton:

    Fauci was inspired, but he chose potential over imperative.

    And it  was all  too little and 6 months too late. They all let trump set the agenda & now see the result of 100% failed action against covid.

  68. 68.

    moops

    “You can start the transition, or we can start impeachment proceedings.  You have until midnight tonight”

     

    That would settle ambiguity Emily Murphy of the GSA might be agonizing over.  She has already been out shopping for a new job.  Very few employers are going to want a former appointee that is barred for all the future working in the federal government.   For most people being impeached has a large negative impact on your future career.

  69. 69.

    Goku (Amerikan Baka)

    @Martin:

    It’s disturbing that they’re (as in the GOP too) are willing to go so far to fuck with the process. They probably won’t succeed this time, but I think’s a legitimate worry about next time an election is close. States like MI, PA, and WIS have gerrymandered state legislatures controlled by the R’s. If an R governor/SOS is elected in those states, the leg could play games with the EC elector slates or even change how the electors are selected in the first place, such as by congressional districts instead of popular vote

  70. 70.

    TS (the original)

    @cmorenc:

    Possibly emily’s too broke to stay financually afloat if she is abruptly fired by trump with no other gig yet in hand?  It might be that simple.

    Possibly Emily was employed by trump to do his bidding & for the complete term of the job, including now, that is what she is doing.  It is this simple.

  75. 75.

    J R in WV

    @TS (the original):

    The number of honest republicans can be counted on one hand & they seem to be all that is stopping trump becoming the golf playing dictator he wants to be.

    I had a good friend and teacher who lost most of three fingers on one hand in a beat-down by company thugs when he worked to organize miners in Kentucky’s infamous Harlan County (aka Bloody Harlan IIRC).

    He could still count the honest Republican office holders on the fingers of that one hand.

  76. 76.

    Peale

    @Martin: The question is, though, how exactly is that going to get into the courts in states where the laws need to be thrown out.  Until he finds a judge willing to allow the legislature to throw out its own laws and get that appealed to the supreme court, I’m not seeing where that would go.  Basically the state legs would need to sue themselves because they think selecting electors by popular vote is in itself unconstitutional.

  77. 77.

    different-church-lady

    She is not following precedent. Precedent says that when there is a clear outcome, you start the transition. There is a clear outcome.

  78. 78.

    dww44

    @LuciaMia: I was looking for that info too.  All I heard was that it had been completed and that Biden’s lead shrunk to below 13000 but he would still carry the state.  The Board of Elections in Rome/Floyd County in the ultra conservative northwest part of the state found 2600 votes.  Most of which were likely for Trump.  The County fired the head of their Board of Elections because this was the second time he’d been reprimanded this year.  Anyways the Atlanta Journal says that Biden still won..

  81. 81.

    Roger Moore

    @Goku (Amerikan Baka):

    I saw Kent in particular in a thread below said that this is what happened to the GOP in California before they became irrelevant.

    I don’t think the CA GOP ever tried something this crazy.  The worst they did was to recall Gray Davis, and that was 100% legal and above board and actually required a majority of voters to go along.

    The big thing about California, though, is that some of the change here has been accomplished by the worst people here moving out of state.  That’s not going to happen to a substantial degree at the national level.  If anything, conservative voters moving from California to other states may have hurt at the national level by keeping them red.

  82. 82.

    WaterGirl

    @dww44: I just read somewhere on BJ that the GA Secretary of State said “there’s not a thimble full of difference between …” and is very confident that GA stands as a Biden win.

  83. 83.

    KenK

    @Delk: @#45 ” A whole lot of people have already lost their jobs lives because of trump.”

    Also, too: horizontal stripes on Ms Murphy is really not a good look.

  85. 85.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Another Scott:

    she’s bad at her job.

    I beg to differ. She’s doing exactly the job she was hired to do, namely to protect Trump $$$ and obstruct on his behalf.

  89. 89.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Ksmiami: This “tough” talk is stupid and not actionable. Try doing something in the real world that makes a difference. I’ll note that it’s not unique to you. There are others on this blog who indulge in violent fantasy well beyond humorous hyperbole, which is disturbing and counter-productive.

  90. 90.

    (Not really a) Dr. Thoth Evans

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Are you being quite fair to Drezner? In the next paragraphs he makes it clear that at second glance Murphy’s position is utterly wrong.

  91. 91.

    Goku (Amerikan Baka)

    @WaterGirl:

    Correct. Trump’s legal efforts to overturn the results are going nowhere. Now, he’s going to try messing with EC elector slates. I don’t think it will work, because it would have to ultimately get past the Dem House

  92. 92.

    Roger Moore

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    I’ll grant Drezner the highly polarised moment, but a “close election”? 306-232 was a landslide four years ago, but now it’s close?

    People remember how nervous they were about the outcome on the evening of November 3rd and think that’s because the election was close.  In fact, it was never close, but the Republicans made it feel that way by engineering things so the votes most favorable to Biden would be counted later than the ones favorable to Trump.  It wasn’t a close election, but many people who experienced it in real time will continue to remember it that way because that’s how it felt at the time.

  95. 95.

    burnspbesq

    @Ridnik Chrome:

    So you’re saying that Biden should behave exactly like Trump, i.e., file lawsuits which are unsupported by law or fact and for which no relief can be granted?

    Have you learned nothing from the last four years?

  96. 96.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Goku (Amerikan Baka): That’s beside the point. A description on our top 10,000 blog does not humiliate her or cause her to resign, desirable though those goals may be. I’m supporting accuracy of description in our discussion. I do not subscribe to the “low quality hires” theory of Trump staff – although many of them are unqualified. One has to look at why Trump hired them and are they fulfilling that purpose. The answer in many cases, is yes. They are serving Trump’s goals, which are not synonymous with the department’s or the nation’s goals.

  97. 97.

    burnspbesq

    @Ksmiami:

    these fuckers need to be lined up against a wall… I’m tired of the high road when dealing with GOP fascists. Time to rein down hell on them

    Nice to know who among the jackals (1) doesn’t give a shit about the rule of law and (2) can’t spell.

  99. 99.

    Geminid

    @Roger Moore.  I think you are saying that people are trying to imply an equivalence between Biden’s win and Trump’s in 2016 by saying they were both close. That implication would be wrong. Biden’s margins in the close states are ample compared to trump’s 2016 margins, which were close enough for republicans to have stolen the election, which they likely did.

    But if I look at this election as a stand alone event, and consider that Biden won Pennsylvania by 1%, I believe, and three other states by less than 1%. I’ll call this a close election. But I may just be a nervous person. I wasn’t nervous just election evening, I was sweating this election till Thursday morning, when my friend in Atlanta told me that Biden was overtaking trump in Georgia. I don’t think I was the only one, either.

  100. 100.

    frosty

    @burnspbesq: I’ve seen a lot of misspellings from many valued commenters today. The worst was one in the punchline of the story that made the reader stop and say “what”? Spoiled the payoff completely.

    ETA: @Geminid: I was sweating it until Friday morning when Decision Desk and 270 called it for Biden with 273 EVs. And then of course, sweating it more until Saturday.

  101. 101.

    moops

    @Geminid: “closeness” is only meaningful with relation to precision.   Relative to our election precision there is nothing close or ambiguous here.

  102. 102.

    West of the Rockies

    Thank you very much, Cheryl, for a clear and reasoned post. I think you’re quite right.  I’m guessing that the police unions  will be among the last agencies  to push for transition.

  103. 103.

    hotshoe

    @Martin:

    Glad you mentioned that.

    It will affect me — even though I am never out socializing (or working) that late, I am often out for a late night walk around the neighborhood — which has been the best time to avoid everyone else.  So, now I won’t do that. It’s fine, just have to be back home before 10.  Not quite Cinderella hour ;)

  104. 104.

    oatler.

    “Keep  a  foot in both camps and they’ll build the barbed wire right through you”

    Funeral In Berlin

  109. 109.

    satby

    Am I the only one getting a weird full page ad interrupting between threads (as in when you move from one thread to the next)?

  110. 110.

    Another Scott

    @satby: It sounds like the issue that was discussed a bit yesterday.  If you can, get a screenshot and let Water Girl know – she’s trying to get evidence so that Cole will get it fixed.

    HTH a little.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  112. 112.

    WaterGirl

    @satby:

    Am I the only one getting a weird full page ad interrupting between threads (as in when you move from one thread to the next)?

    No, I don’t believe you are.  People talked about it this morning.

  115. 115.

    satby

    @WaterGirl: Ok. We weren’t able to get the Optis connected but that was more about time crunch. Doesn’t affect anything other than deciding where (which database) retinal photos get stored. Basically it adds a second, static storage. Nothing essential.

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