Schuylkill County Democratic Committee

Breaking Excellent News: PA Dept of State moves to prevent counties from participating in Mastriano’s audit aka fraudit and any future ones like it: New direc...tive tells counties they shall not provide physical, electronic, or internal access to election equipment to third parties. Here’s a link to the directive See more

YOU are invited to join the Friends of Joe Groody on Saturday, August 21st. GROODY for Schuylkill County Sheriff

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY to Former President Jimmy Carter & wife Rosalynn who are celebrating 75 years of marriage today. It will be another milestone for the longest-married presidential couple in American history.

July 6, 2021 (Tuesday) Six months ago today, rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol, intending to stop the counting of the certified ballots that would make Joseph R.... Biden president and Kamala Harris vice president. This attack was unprecedented. It broke our nation’s long history of the peaceful transfer of power. You know the story of that day. Former president Donald Trump refused to accept the results of the 2020 presidential election, insisting that he had lost only because the election had been stolen from him, despite Biden’s decisive victory of more than 7 million votes and 74 electoral votes. He urged his supporters to stop Biden’s election from becoming official. What has surprised me most in the six months since is how quickly the leaders of the Republican Party turned from establishing oligarchya process that the country has undergone in the pastto embracing authoritarianism, which it hasn’t. Since 1986, Republican leaders have pushed policies that concentrate wealth and power into fewer and fewer hands. In 1986, they began to talk of voter integrity measures that would cull Black voters from the rolls; by 1994, after the Democrats passed the Motor Voter Act allowing voter registration at state offices like the Registry of Motor Vehicles, Republicans began to say they were losing elections only because of voter fraud. Suppressing the vote became part of the Republican strategy for winning. But voter suppression has a long history in America. Especially in the 1850s and the 1890s, political parties concerned about losing power cut their opponents out of the vote. After the end of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, Republican leaders accepted the support of talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh, who created a narrative in which Democrats were dangerous socialists, out to destroy home and family. With the establishment of the Fox News Channel in 1996, that narrative, shared not by reporters but by personalities behind sets meant to look like newsrooms, skewed reality for FNC viewers. But promoting a false narrative through media is not new to the United States. Elite enslavers in the 1840s and 1850s similarly shaped what information their neighbors could hear. In 2000, Republicans put into office George W. Bush, who had lost the popular vote by more than 500,000 votes. The election came down to the state of Florida, where more than 100,000 voters had recently been removed from the voter rolls. A recount there stopped after a riot encouraged by Roger Stone, and the Supreme Court then decided in favor of Bush. In 2016, Trump, too, lost the popular vote, but the distribution of those votes enabled him to win in the Electoral College. But installing a president who has lost the popular vote is not new, either. In 1877 and 1889, presidents Rutherford B. Hayes and Benjamin Harrison both took office after losing the popular vote, Hayes by 250,000 votes, Harrison by more than 100,000. In 2010, Republican leaders used Operation REDMAP (the Redistricting Majority Project) to win control of swing state legislatures and deliver the states to the Republicans by gerrymandering them. It worked. After the 2010 election, Republicans controlled the key states of Florida, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Ohio, and Michigan, as well as other, smaller states, and they redrew congressional maps using precise computer models. In the 2012 election, Republicans received 1.4 million fewer votes for the House than Democrats did, but won a 33 seat majority. Still, gerrymandering has been around for so long it’s named for early Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry, whose name a journalist mixed with salamander in 1812. Taken together, all these old tactics, amplified by modern technology, had enabled the Republican leadership to lay the foundation for an oligarchy. Beginning in 1981, wealth began to move upward significantly, reversing the trend from 1933 to 1980, when wealth compressed. By 2017, lawmakers who had initially opposed Trump appeared to come around when he backed a huge corporate tax cut and put three originalists who endorsed the Republican vision of America on the Supreme Court. Then Trump lost the 2020 election. Before January 6, Republican lawmakers seemed to humor the outgoing president as he refused to accept the outcome. Trump and his people launched and lost more than 60 lawsuits over the election. They tried to pressure election officials in both Georgia and Arizona to change the outcome in those states. They refused to start the normal transition process that would enable Biden and Harris to set up their administration. And Republican lawmakers, trying to court Trump’s help in the Georgia Senate special runoff elections of January 5, kept their mouths shut. And then January 6 happened. At a rally on Washington, D.C.’s Ellipse, Trump lied to his supporters again and again that the election had been stolen by emboldened radical-left Democrats. We will never give up, we will never concede, he told them. You don't concede when there's theft involved. He promised (falsely) that Vice President Mike Pence could send the ballots back to the states for recertification in his favor, and we become president and you are the happiest people. [W]e're going to have to fight much harder, he said, [b]ecause you'll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong. We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated, lawfully slated. And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore. So let's walk down Pennsylvania Avenue. In the ensuing crisis, lawmakers had to be rushed out of the chambers as rioters broke in. Five people died, and 140 police officers were injured. It could have been much worse: the insurrectionists erected a gallows for Pence. Nonetheless, even after the insurrection, 147 Republicans voted against certification of the electoral votes. Still, at first, many Republican lawmakers appeared to condemn the events of January 6. But they quickly came around to defending the Big Lie that Trump won the election. That lie is behind the voter suppression measures enacted by a slew of Republican-dominated states, as well as the new measures in Arizona and Georgia that enable legislatures to have control over election results. In the House, the Republicans removed Liz Cheney from a leadership position for her criticism of Trump and rejection of the Big Lie, replacing her with a Trump loyalist, tying House Republicans as a group to the former president. Republicans in the Senate came together to kill a bill to create a bipartisan, independent committee to investigate the events of January 6. Lawmakers and pundits are downplaying the insurrection itself, claiming either that it was not a big deal or that Democrats are using it to suppress rightwing activism. And now, of the 700 Republicans who have filed paperwork to run for Congress next year, at least a third of them have backed the idea that Trump won the 2020 election. In American history, the attempt to overturn our election procedures for one man, based on a lie, is unprecedented.

Every day we are grateful that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have taken the helm. Let’s work as hard as we can to support them. That means electing Democrats. Let’s work together to get them the Senate, Congress, state legislatures that they need and we deserve.

Lisa Von Ahn tackles the important issues at hand and brings them to the forefront!

Over the past year, we have lived through some of our darkest days. Now, I truly believe we are about to see our brightest future.

Happy birthday America

https://www.facebook.com//22470/permalink/431322431556010/

Lt. Gov.Fetterman said in a tweet: "their own supporters chased them from the House...." as Meuser votes to object the PA electoral college.

https://news.yahoo.com/pentagon-blocked-dc-national-guard-0

Trump says he 'will not be going' to Biden's inauguration

The photo....

Their names are Dave Argall, Dan Meuser, Scott Perry, Lloyd Smucker, Fred Keller, John Joyce, Guy Reschenthaler, Glenn Thompson & Mike Kelly. This insurrection is Trump's legacy, but also theirs - among the many other enablers within the party.

Senator Josh Hawley....remember his name as one of those involved in the false voter fraud objections which caused an end result of the chaos at the Capitol resulting in 5 deaths.

These objections don’t deserve an ounce of respect, not an ounce, said Congressman Conor Lamb as some representatives objected to the certification of the vot...e in Pennsylvania. A woman died out there tonight and you’re making these objections. Let’s be clear about what happened in this chamber today invaders came in for the first time since the War of 1812. They desecrated these halls, in this chamber, and practically every inch of ground where we work. Part of the objection to the vote, which was raised by Rep. Mike Kelly, was the expansion of mail-in voting in Pennsylvania Act 77 and if it was constitutional. Governor Tom Wolf signed Act 77 in October of 2019, which passed the Pennsylvania House and Senate with bipartisan majorities. I wanted to point out to all these great lovers and supporters of the Pennsylvania legislature that it was the Republican Pennsylvania legislature that passed a Republican bill that they all voted for and supported and set up the system under which we just ran the election, Lamb said on the floor.

Someone messed up on security

Don Jr livestreams the mob's destruction of the incited riot while his father, Donald Trump watches the melee.

https://www.nytimes.com//electoral-college-biden-objectors

It was a sad day filled with mayhem and terror in Washington DC on January 6, 2021.

Today, President Trump’s supporters attempted a coup. This was the direct result of a deliberate disinformation campaign by Republicans from the President down ...to legislators in Pennsylvania. They lied about the results of the election. They lied about voter fraud. They lied about my administration and other governors. They lied about the administration of the election here in Pennsylvania and across the country. On November 3, we had a remarkably well-run election despite historic challenges. Eight of the nine Republican members of Congress from Pennsylvania lied about our election in an attempt to pledge fealty to President Trump. Republican legislators enabled this every step of the way. They’ve held show trials to gin up President Trump’s supporters. They’ve intentionally spread disinformation. The actions of Republicans in Pennsylvania and across the country have led to violence. It is their fault. There should be no equivocation. It is past time for Republicans to stop lying and tell their supporters the truth. President Trump lost. The election was fair. President Trump received fewer votes. That’s it. We have had a peaceful transfer of power every election cycle in our nation’s history but because of the actions of Republicans, we can no longer say that. I am disgusted, but I will keep fighting to make our democracy stronger.

Democrats won the two Senatorial seats in Georgia. Congratulations to Senator Rev. Raphael Warnock and Senator Jon Ossoff.

Trump continually barraged his followers with rhetoric that the votes were fraudulent and he will not give up just an hour before the Senators were to meet and confirm the electoral votes and Joe Biden as our next President. Trump instructed the large crowd to go to the Capitol and he might join them there. A mob stormed the steps of our Capitol and unlawfully entered the Senate Chambers creating a dangerous situation for the VP Pence and Senators inside.

Chaos inside and outside the Capitol as some protesters turned out to be rioters climbing and scaled walls of the building and banged on the front doors resorting to smashing the windows. They stormed the Senate Chambers. It's become a dangerous situation and a horrible day for our Country.

The POTUS is watching this dangerous show of violence that he incited and not going into the briefing room to diffuse it.

From PA LT Gov. Fetterman "Today I got thrown out of the Pennsylvania Senate chamber. Here’s what happened: a very close race for State Senate came down to just a 69 vote margin. The Democrat, Jim Brewster, won. His Republican opponent sued to throw out hundreds of ballots, but lost in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Senator Brewster was supposed to be sworn in. But the Republican leadership in the Pennsylvania State Senate wouldn’t let us do it. They had to remove me from th...e chamber because I refused to allow a motion that would block this duly elected senator from being sworn in. I didn't want it to devolve into chaos today. I certainly didn't expect it to go down like this. But I refuse to stand by while GOP leaders in the commonwealth flout our election laws. This is an extraordinarily dangerous time for the country. We have one party that is just completely ignoring the rule of law. Ignoring court rulings. Dismissing legitimate election results that didn’t go their way. It starts at the top with Donald Trump, who was caught this week trying to get the Georgia Secretary of State to find 11,780 votes to reverse the results. You can draw a straight line from that behavior at the national level to the chaos in the Pennsylvania State Senate chamber today. It’s unclear what will happen at this point, but I can say one thing for sure: I am very worried about the direction this is heading. And if we don’t turn back now and get this right, it’s a whole lot more than one Democratic Senator not getting seated at stake. It’s our entire democracy on the line. I’ll try to provide updates as they come via Twitter. Follow me if you don’t already: https://twitter.com/JohnFetterman" John Fetterman Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania See more

Georgia....bring it home.

https://actionnetwork.org/lett/seat-senator-brewster-today

GEORGIA RUNOFF RECAP: Democrats control the US House of Reps. The US Senate now has 50 Republicans and 48 Democrats. Both Georgia's Senate elections have a runoff on TUESDAY (January 5).... If Raphael Warnock & Jon Ossoff both win, Senate will split 50-50 with Vice President-Elect Harris as the tie-breaker. A unified Democratic government means the Biden-Harris administration will have the power to act swiftly swiftly on Covid-19, an economic stimulus, health care expansion, climate protection, and racial justice.

NEW: Former House Speaker Paul Ryan denounces GOP lawmakers' plan to challenge the electoral college certification: "It is difficult to conceive of a more anti-...democratic and anti-conservative act than a federal intervention to overturn the results of state-certified elections." https://abcn.ws/3pLasM9 See more

NEW: Sen. Pat Toomey says Pres. Trump's call with Georgia election chief is "a new low," commends GOP election officials "who have discharged their duties with ...integrity...while weathering relentless pressure, disinformation, and attacks from the president and his campaign." https://abcn.ws/2Xbxj7q See more

Countdown to the Inauguration has begun....

Congratulations Madame Speaker Nancy Pelosi from the Schuylkill Co Dems. Nancy Pelosi has been presented with the House Speaker’s gavel for a fourth term.

Lisa shared: I used my column to write this open letter to our legislators about reforming the rules in Harrisburg to stop GOP leaders from "McConnelling" popular bills into oblivion. Would you like to see our part-time legislators earn their full-time pay? Let your state senator and representative know. In Schuylkill County, those are Sen. Dave Argall (570-621-3400) and Reps. Joe Kerwin (570-385-8235), Jerry Knowles ((570) 668-1240) and Tim Twardzik (no phone number available, but maybe he checks his Facebook page). The rules will be set on Tuesday, so there's no time to waste!

He needs to go in 2022

Happy New Year! 2021 is the year we begin a new chapter in American history and welcome new leadership to the White House. This is the year we will build back better.

The challenges we face as a nation will not disappear overnight, but as we look forward to the start of a new year, I’m filled with fresh hope about the possibilities of better days to come. After a year of pain and loss, let us unite, heal, and rebuild in 2021.

Looking forward to the New Year with new possibilities

January 20, 2021

December 29, 2020 (Tuesday) There is definitely a feeling of change in the air. For all his continuing insistence that he won the 2020 election, Trump is a lame... duck. Today’s complicated fight in the Senate over the one-time stimulus payment of $2000 illustrated that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), not Trump, now controls the Republican caucus. Trump originally refused to sign the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021, the bill that contains the coronavirus relief measures, because he claimed he objected to its meager $600 stimulus payments. Six hundred dollars was the amount his negotiators had demanded, but he suddenly said he wanted them to be $2000. Democrats in the House jumped on Trump’s demand for the higher payment and they passed a measure on Monday to increase the payments. Trump had attacked the bill largely because he is angry at McConnell and Senate Majority Whip John Thune (R-SD) (a whip keeps party members in line behind the party leader) for acknowledging Biden’s victory in November. He was trying to illustrate his power by refusing to sign the bill at all. But Sunday night he gave in without winning anything. Yet, he continued to say he wanted higher payments. The House was happy to give him what the Democrats had wanted all along; today, Trump lost the showdown in the Senate. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) introduced the measure, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) killed it. This enabled the two embattled Republican Senate candidates from Georgia both to support Trump and to claim they wanted higher payments, all without actually having to vote for the higher payments. McConnell bested Trump all around: he had no intention of raising those payments no matter what Trump tweeted... and he didn’t. Trump’s influence in Washington is waning in other ways, too. Yesterday, the House repassed the National Defense Authorization Act over Trump’s veto. Trump claims to object to the bill for a number of reasons, including that it will require that military bases currently named for Confederate generals be renamed, but this is the measure into which Congress put the Corporate Transparency Act I wrote about a few days ago. It will undercut the country’s plague of so-called shell companies, which enable money laundering and other criminal activity because they are owned and operated in secret. The new measure will require that all owners and operators of such companies be clearly identified. This will likely impact the Trump family, which uses shell companies. There were other rumblings today that Trump’s post-presidential life might have some sticky places. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has hired forensic accountants to help investigate Trump and his businesses. This investigation is a criminal investigation. New York Attorney General Letitia James is in charge of a civil investigation into Trump’s businesses. But the big thing which showed momentum is moving away from Trump is that President-Elect Joe Biden is forcefully criticizing the Trump administration for its failure to plan for distribution of the coronavirus vaccine. With more than 330,000 Americans dead of Covid-19 and infections spiking, Biden today noted that the Trump administration has fallen behind on vaccine distribution. The effort got off to a poor start as the administration delivered fewer doses than it had promised and initially blamed Pfizer for a miscommunication, only to have Pfizer state that it had millions of doses in a warehouse but had received no information about where to send them. The administration promised to vaccinate 20 million Americans by the end of December, but yesterday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that it had administered just 2.1 million doses in two weeks, although that number is likely somewhat low because of lag times in reporting. At the current rate, Dr. Leana S. Wen writes in the Washington Post, we can expect to achieve herd immunity in 10 years. The administration at first refused to share information with the Biden camp about distribution, claiming there was a plan, even though, when finally part of discussions in early December, Biden said [t]here is no detailed plan that we've seen, anyway, as to how you get the vaccine out of a container, into an injection syringe, into somebody's arm. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar responded that Biden’s claim was nonsense. [W]e have comprehensive plans from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention working with 64 public health jurisdictions across the country as our governors have laid out very detailed plans that we’ve worked with them on. We’re leveraging our retail pharmacies, our hospitals, our public health departments, our community health centers. Azar said the distribution process was being micromanaged and controlled by the United States military, as well as our incredible private sector. We do hundreds of millions of vaccinations a year. We’re leveraging the systems that are known, and that work here in the United States." Azar assured Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace that, as soon as the vaccines were approved, the government would be shipping them to all of the states and territories that we work with. And within hours they can be vaccinating, It turns out Biden was more right than Azar. The administration planned simply to get the vaccines to the states, and then leave to them the problem of actually getting the vaccines into people’s arms. But state Departments of Health are strapped for money after trying to manage the pandemic for nine months, and had been allotted only $6 million apiece to make the distributions happen. (The new Consolidated Appropriations Act that Trump just signed has significantly more money in it for distribution.) The Trump administration’s plan to distribute vaccines is falling behind, far behind, Biden said today. As I long feared and warned, the effort to distribute and administer the vaccine is not progressing as it should. Finally stung, Trump tweeted tonight that It is up to the States to distribute the vaccines once brought to the designated areas by the Federal Government. We have not only developed the vaccines, including putting up money to move the process along quickly, but gotten them to the states. Biden failed with Swine Flu! (Biden was not in charge of the Obama Administration’s response to H1N1 in 2009, which broke out three months after Obama took office.) Biden promised to invoke the National Defense Production Act, a law that permits the president to require companies to produce goods at the same time that it guarantees them a market for those goods, to speed up the production of supplies necessary to distribute the vaccine quickly. I have directed my team to prepare a much more aggressive effort, with more federal involvement and leadership to get things back on track, he said. But he warned that we are behind and, breaking with the Trump administration, warned that things are going to get much worse before they get better. The spike in infections along with the fallout from holiday gatherings means we will see high case numbers in January and high death tolls in February. It will be mid-March, he warns, before we see improvement. The next few weeks and months are going to be very tough, a very tough period for our nation maybe the toughest during this entire pandemic, Biden said. I know it’s hard to hear, but it’s the truth. We are going to get through this. Brighter days are coming, Biden said. But it’s going to take all of the grit and determination we have as Americans to get it done.