https://apple.news/AEyxZl76nQ86rGOIEK0E5uA
Ryan Brooks reports for BuzzFeed:
Democrat Jon Ossoff won his tight Senate race, with both Georgia Democrats defeating their Republican runoff opponents in historic victories for a stunning rebuke of President Donald Trump in a state that had been a Republican stronghold for years. With Ossoff joining Democrat Raphael Warnock in the Senate, their party will be able to take total control of Congress.
Warnock is the first Black person elected to represent Georgia in the Senate and will be one of only three Black people in the Senate once his term begins. Ossoff, 33, would be the youngest member of the Senate.
The results are a testament to the decades-long political organizing of Black women in Georgia who worked toward expanding the electorate and protecting voting rights in the state.
“It is with humility that I thank the people of Georgia for electing me to serve you in the United States Senate. Thank you for the trust that you have placed in me,” Ossoff said in a video streamed online on Wednesday morning. Hours before, the campaign of his opponent, Sen. David Perdue, said it “will require time and transparency to be certain the results are fair and accurate.”
It is a close race. Decision Desk HQ has projected Ossoff will win. The vote-counting firm currently has Ossoff leading Republican Perdue by about .4% of the vote — about 16,000 votes — which is within the .5% threshold that allows Perdue to call for a recount. Georgia officials will continue counting the few remaining votes today, which are expected in areas that lean Democrat.
Ossoff’s win would push the Senate into a 50-50 split, with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris serving as a tie-breaking vote. The split would effectively give Democrats control of the Senate, removing the chamber from Sen. Mitch McConnell’s iron grip and dramatically expanding the possibilities for President-elect Joe Biden’s first years in office.
A litany of Black women-led voter registration groups like Stacey Abrams’s New Georgia Project and Black Voters Matter fanned out across the state in recent years to register new voters and to protect voters from being purged from rolls. In the weeks ahead of the runoff, Progressive grassroots groups organizing across the state made the shift toward door knocking and in-person canvassing after the party largely avoided the strategy during the general election because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Trump, on the other hand, spent the intervening two months claiming Georgia’s election was rigged against him — it was not, as the state’s Republican elected leaders frequently reminded him — attacking establishment Republicans in the state, and undermining the Republican base’s faith in the electoral process, and pushing lawsuits that largely focused on invalidating votes in majority Black cities. Perdue and Loeffler, then both serving in the Senate, often echoed Trump’s false claims about election fraud on the campaign trail and in the final days of the race they announced that they would support Senators who objected to certifying the electoral college results.
The runoff was defined by Trump’s meddling in the state’s election results after his loss in November and his failed last-ditch attempt to get more direct aid to people in the coronavirus relief package that passed Congress in December.
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Read the rest of the article at the link.
Congrats and deep appreciation to the amazing Stacey Abrams and her colleagues for bailing out America with their smarts, courage, hard work, and determination to stand up to the White Nationalists and beat them at the polls. Working harder and being smarter than the GOP!
The GOP has now “come out of the closet” and embraced (or empowered) its once-obscured “core beliefs” of treason, lies, racism, hate, selfishness, ignorance, incompetent governance, and destruction of our democracy. Even today, traitors Ted Cruz & Josh Hawley disingenuously try to play the “victim” in the face of calls to hold them responsible for their false and treasonous criminal conduct.
These guys knowingly promoted lies and White Nationalist conspiracy theories that helped stroke the totally unjustified “anger” of Trumpist GOP thugs who actually endangered the safety of Congressional members of both parties! How sick 🤮 is that! Talk about folks who deserve condemnation and removal from public office, if not jail sentences!
The majority of us who believe in democracy, diversity, humanity, truth, our Constitution, and social justice must redouble our efforts to insure that the anti-American cancer of GOP minority rule never infects our nation again!
The folks in Georgia have shown us that no matter how difficult or time consuming the fight might be, it can be won through democratic institutions; with effort, courage, and perseverance, our nation can be rescued from the GOP traitors who have “held us hostage” for the past four years!
The GOP has “hitched its wheelless and soulless wagon” to one of the vilest human beings and biggest losers in our national political history. We can’t let them off the hook!
Belatedly, Congressional toadies like Mitch McConnell and Lindsay Graham, and Cabinet toadies, like Mrs. Mitch and Betsy D, who happily enabled and furthered the violent, racist, White Nationalist agenda of Trump, Miller and the rest of the thugocracy/kakistocracy are trying to put some distance between themselves and their party’s treason and mis-governance. I heard mindless and dishonest Trump supporters on local TV try to disclaim the logical consequences of their supporting and voting for an immoral, dishonest, anti-American, insurrectionist scumbag!
Just think of the total disaster that would have ensued if the maliciously incompetent traitor they voted for had actually won, rather than being thrashed by more than 7 million popular votes and 74 electoral votes! These folks are threatening my country, our health and safety, and the world’s future with their ignorance, lies, and disloyalty. I’m tired of them and their vile White Nationalist nonsense that played out at my Capitol this week!
Don’t let them get away with this deadly, disingenuous, BS! Follow Stacey Abrams and others! Start working hard now to throw every elected GOP traitor out of office in 2022! Democracy and the modern GOP are incompatible! This is a battle for our country, the heart and soul of our nation, and humanity. We can’t afford to let the party of treason and racism win!
Yes, as Joe Biden says, America needs a legitimate, principled opposition party. Sadly, the GOP party doesn’t fit the bill and won’t unless it jettisons its White Nationalist racist agenda of lies, false narratives, and wacko conspiracy theories and moves into the 21st Century with the rest of us!
🇺🇸⚖️🗽👍🏼Due Process Forever!
PWS
01-08-21