Washington DC is like a City under a military siege, right at this hour. I was an eye witness on the eve of then-President-elect Obama’s swearing-in ceremony. I got selected to headline the African Inaugural Ball; the day was the 19th of January 2009. I performed to honor the incoming President around 1.a.m Eastern time.

After my performance, the entire crew rode freely amid thousands of folks to Capital Hill, where the swearing-in ceremony would occur. We also visited Baily’s house, where the Obamas stayed on the eve of his swearing-in ceremony. Our next port of call was the White house. I can never forget when a White Secret Service agent told me bluntly not to pass through his ‘yard.’ That night, around 3.a.m, President Bush and his family had their last night in the White House.
Thousands of people camped out at the national mall and folks who kept coming from different directions.

It was around 4.a.m that I drove back to New York City, leaving my crew behind in Washington D.C. I don’t have a word to describe what I saw as I saw thousands of people smiling, singing, and dancing in the streets. People partied across the United States all night long. Candidate Obama had mesmerized and dazzled a distressed nation with messages of hope. You can see that millions of people hoped that Obama would succeed after the economy took a turn for the worse.

Millions of people had lost their jobs. Companies went out of business.
A vast majority of Americans saw the President-Elect, Barrack Obama, who campaigned with a catchy phrase that says ‘Hope you can believe in,’ put their hopes on him. The man went to work as soon as he got sworn in; there was no drama, no scandal. Obama and Biden worked for the American people, who gave them a mandate. Obama, just like every other mortal out there, is not a perfect man; some of his policies, as controversial as they were, he dug the nation out of a hole. His detractors agreed.
Tonight as the United States people mourn the deaths of over four hundred thousand lives lost due to the coronavirus, Washington D.C is a no-go area. With over twenty thousand members of the national guard in military Kakis, their hands on the long guns, this night is the complete opposite of 2009 or even 2017 when the current President took over. The national guards are dealing with the harsh cold weather too. I don’t know how they do it, but this is hard. Imagine staying outside under this cold condition? Horrible. You can see hundreds of them sleeping on the bare floor. How do they even eat or shower under this condition? I salute these men and women who put their lives in harm’s way for us.

I remain grateful that I witnessed history in 2009, by every standard, Kamala Harris’s rise from slum to become the Vice president lect is historic. She was born and raised like an ordinary child out there. She rose from nothing to become somebody. Kamala also went to a regular school like every other poor kid in our neighborhood. The man who selected her ( President- Elect Joe Biden) is also an ordinary American whose parents lived from paycheck to paycheck. Many of us quarreled, fought, and became enemies and passionately supported our candidates. In the next 12 hours or less, a new President will be sworn in. Let’s bury the hatchets and be friends again. In politics, they say, there’s no permanent friendship but permanent interest.

It is an unusual night, surreal, frightful, and unprecedented in so many ways. Historians will never refer to this transition as a peaceful transfer of power. It reminds me of a military take over in Banana Republics. This night in Washington, D.C, looks nothing like an inauguration eve; it is a sad night. Earlier in the day, I saw the incoming President, Joe Biden, wept openly. I equally saw a woman, a staunch member of Qanon, who said President Biden would be arrested and won’t be sworn in as the President. Guys, these are challenging times; please pray for the United States, the land of the impossibilities.

https://allafrica.com/stories/200901120544.html

AGU’s a New York-based Musicologist, Singer, songwriter, producer, web developer, and businessman.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Friday dismissed a last-gasp lawsuit led by a House Republican that aimed to give Vice President Mike Pence the power to overturn the results of the presidential election won by Joe Biden when Congress formally counts the Electoral College votes next week.

Pence, as president of the Senate, will oversee the session Wednesday and declare the winner of the White House race. The Electoral College this month cemented Biden’s 306-232 victory, and multiple legal efforts by President Donald Trump’s campaign to challenge the results have failed.

The suit named Pence, who has a largely ceremonial role in next week’s proceedings, as the defendant and asked the court to throw out the 1887 law that spells out how Congress handles the vote counting. It asserted that the vice president “may exercise the exclusive authority and sole discretion in determining which electoral votes to count for a given State.”

In dismissing the lawsuit filed by Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, and a group of Republican electors from Arizona, Texas U.S. District Judge Jeremy Kernodle, a Trump appointee, wrote that the plaintiffs “allege an injury that is not fairly traceable” to Pence, “and is unlikely to be redressed by the requested relief.”

The Justice Department represented Pence in a case that aimed to find a way to keep his boss, President Donald Trump, in power. In a court filing in Texas on Thursday, the department said the plaintiffs “have sued the wrong defendant” — if, in fact, any of those suing actually have “a judicially cognizable claim.”

The department said, in effect, that the suit objects to long-standing procedures laid out in law, “not any actions that Vice President Pence has taken,” so he should not be the target of the suit.

“A suit to establish that the Vice President has discretion over the count, filed against the Vice President, is a walking legal contradiction,” the department argued.

Trump, the first president to lose a reelection bid in almost 30 years, has attributed his defeat to widespread voter fraud. But a range of nonpartisan election officials and Republicans has confirmed there was no fraud in the November contest that would change the results of the election. That includes former Attorney General William Barr, who said he saw no reason to appoint a special counsel to look into the president’s claims about the 2020 election. He resigned from his post last week.

Trump and his allies have filed roughly 50 lawsuits challenging election results, and nearly all have been dismissed or dropped. He’s also lost twice at the Supreme Court.

• President Donald Trump said he and first lady Melania Trump have tested positive for coronavirus, a stunning development just over a month away from Election Day.
• In a tweet, Trump said, “We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!”

Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 2, 2020

Shortly after Trump’s tweet, U.S. stock futures moved sharply lower with Dow futures falling more than 400 points.

Trump has come under withering criticism for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States, where more than 7.2 million have been infected and 200,007 people have died, according to a tally from Johns Hopkins University. 

White House physician Sean Conley said in a memo, “The President and First Lady are both well at this time, and they plan to remain at home within the White House during their convalescence.”

He also said he expects Trump to “continue carrying out his duties without disruption while recovering.”

The announcement came hours after the president said he would begin a quarantine process after top aide Hope Hicks tested positive for coronavirus.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines say people should stay home and quarantine if they might have been exposed to the virus. The agency says people should quarantine for 14 days. Two weeks from Thursday is Oct. 15, the date of the second presidential debate between Trump and Democratic rival Joe Biden.

Hicks, who has been known to spend a lot of time with Trump, had traveled with the president to the debate Tuesday night in Cleveland. She was seen not wearing a mask.

Trump, 74, himself rarely wears a mask and has mocked Biden, 77, for often wearing face coverings. At his age, Trump is considered to be part of a high-risk group.

The Biden campaign didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

PHILADELPHIA — Joe Biden on Tuesday praised the nationwide peaceful protests to the death of George Floyd, calling his killing in police custody a “wake-up call for our nation” and drawing a stark contrast between President Donald Trump’s tactics and how he would respond.

In a speech from Philadelphia City Hall, Biden repeated Floyd’s final words before he died after a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for more than eight minutes — and said it was time “to listen to those words … and respond with action.”

“I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. George Floyd’s last words,” the apparent 2020 Democratic presidential nominee said. “But they didn’t die with him. They’re still being heard. They’re echoing across this nation.”

“They speak to a nation where every day, millions of people — not at the moment of losing their life, but in the course of living their life — are saying to themselves, ‘I can’t breathe.’ It’s a wake-up call for our nation, for all of us,” Biden said.

Biden said the country was “crying out for leadership that can unite us” — and that he, not Trump, could provide it.

“I won’t traffic in fear and division. I won’t fan the flames of hate. I will seek to heal the racial wounds that have long plagued this country — not use them for political gain,” he said. “I’ll do my job and take responsibility. I won’t blame others. I’ll never forget that the job isn’t about me.

Addressing Monday night’s events outside the White House when police used tear gas against peaceful protesters to clear the area for Trump’s photo-op outside St. John’s Episcopal Church, Biden said that, “We can be forgiven for believing that the president is more interested in power than in principle, more interested in serving the passions of his base than the needs of the people in his care.”

Biden, noting that Trump had held up a Bible for the photo-op, said, “I just wish he’d open it once in a while.”

Trump, Biden added, “might want to open up the U.S. Constitution once in a while,” and read the First Amendment, hitting the president for urging governors across the U.S. to “dominate” protesters.

At the same time, Biden said there was “no place for violence” or “rioting” or “destroying property,” while also warning law enforcement that “nor is it acceptable for our police … to escalate violence.”

Biden’s remarks come a day after he spoke to African American leaders and visited a church in Wilmington, Delaware. On Sunday, he visited a site in Wilmington where demonstrators had protested Floyd’s death.

The former vice president recently came under fire for telling a radio host and African American voters in an interview that “you ain’t black” if they back Trump’s re-election. Biden later apologized for his comments, saying they were “really unfortunate” and that he “shouldn’t have been such a wise guy.”