Despite what President Donald Trump is tweeting and saying publicly in the wake of Arizona and Wisconsin certifying President-elect Joe Biden's victory Monday, Trump sees the scoreboard and understands he has no chance of hanging on to the presidency, two White House advisers told CNN.

Asked whether the President realizes that he's been defeated, a close adviser who has been in contact with Trump about his legal strategy said Monday: "Yes, he does."

The same adviser told CNN that Trump will continue to pursue his legal challenges until they are exhausted, but that adviser pointed to the certification in Wisconsin and said, "The writing is on the wall." Without the ability to override the results in a combination of states, not to mention even one state, the adviser said Trump's election challenges are obviously doomed.

Trump is still sounding as if he could still win because he wants to believe it, the adviser continued. But the adviser added Trump is fully aware that he has lost.

Trump has not conceded the election and he still falsely claims that he won, but his administration has approved access to transition materials and national security briefings for Biden and his team.

Credit: CNN

When I sluggishly hopped onto the hamster wheel of life yesterday (this is what happens to one's mood when the sun sets at lunch), little did I know I would be treated to the most entertaining dramatic production I have ever seen, a masterwork to rival Shakespeare's "Comedy of Errors."

It was the Trump campaign's latest set of election fraud hearings in Michigan, wherein they presented a set of "extraordinary witnesses" of alleged voter fraud, who testified in front of members of the state legislature in an attempt to flip Michigan's electoral votes.

I think many people assumed that Rudy Giuliani's sweat-drenched screed from a few weeks ago, during which his own hair dye poured down his contorted face like toxic sludge, was the most ridiculous moment in the grand farce that is the Trump campaign's failing election results battle. But it was just the beginning. Compared to what we witnessed yesterday, the Giuliani incident was the apex of professionalism.

The day started off with a veritable carnival of eccentrics, who had a lot to say about what they saw as votes were counted in Michigan. For example, there was this man who said that his evidence of fraud was that the room was too hot.

There was this woman who said that her evidence of fraud was that an "Asian man" brought in a box of ballots.

But the highlight of the day's clown show was Melissa Carone, the campaign's "star witness," a "freelance IT consultant." She delivered her testimony while noticeably slurring her words, with the gusto of a woman trying to stay standing upright in a McDonald's at 2 am, convinced that the chicken nuggets she ordered and already ate never arrived. Melissa, who worked a 24-hour shift at Detroit's TCF Center on Election Day doing IT for Dominion Voting Systems, had already been declared "simply not credible" by a Michigan judge after a rambling appearance on Fox News, where she made a series of unverified claims to Lou Dobbs.

First, Melissa talked indignantly about how she was upset to learn she would be parking in a parking lot, and then shuttled to the vote counting location by a shuttle.

Then Melissa said speaking out about election fraud has made her scared for her life, unable to find a job, and so worried about her safety she had to delete her social media. (A few hours after delivering her testimony, she updated her Facebook profile picture.)

At one point, Rudy Giuliani tried to shush Melissa as she repeatedly interrupted one of the state representatives, saying things like, regarding a county poll book, "What did you guys do, take it and do something crazy to it?" and repeating "I know what I saw," with tremendous confidence. It was an exchange that could have been reproduced verbatim on Saturday Night Live.

Finally, after all of this, Giuliani, counsel to the President, audibly farted while delivering testimony.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi Friday ripped into House Republicans who joined a legal effort by Texas to overturn the election results in four key states that President-elect Joe Biden won in November.

The 126 Republican Members that signed onto this lawsuit brought dishonor to the House, Pelosi said. "Instead of upholding their oath to support and defend the Constitution, they chose to subvert the Constitution and undermine public trust in our sacred democratic institutions." In an unsigned order issued on Friday, the Supreme Court rejected the lawsuit brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton due to lack of standing.

The California Democrat lauded the Supreme Court's decision to toss the Texas case, which sought to invalidate the electoral results from Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, states where President Donald Trump and his campaign have long alleged voter fraud without providing any evidence to back up their claims.

"The Court has rightly dismissed out of hand the extreme, unlawful and undemocratic GOP lawsuit to overturn the will of millions of American voters," she said in a statement. "The 126 Republican Members that signed onto this lawsuit brought dishonor to the House. Instead of upholding their oath to support and defend the Constitution, they chose to subvert the Constitution and undermine public trust in our sacred democratic institutions."

In a brief unsigned order issued on Friday, the Supreme Court rejected the lawsuit brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Trump ally, due to lack of standing. In addition to Paxton, 17 state attorneys general had signed an amicus brief backing the lawsuit. "Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections," the Supreme Court's order said. "All other pending motions are dismissed as moot." While the GOP signees represented a broad swath of conservative districts, much of the party's House leadership was also on board, with Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California and Minority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana taking part in the lawsuit. But House Republican Conference Chair Liz Cheney of Wyoming, a member of the party's leadership, did not join the lawsuit.

In her statement, Pelosi highlighted COVID-19, criticizing the GOP for not focusing their legislative efforts on tackling the public policy issues caused by the highly-contagious virus. "The pandemic is raging, with nearly 300,000 having died and tens of millions having lost jobs," she added. "Strong, unified action is needed to crush the virus, and Republicans must once and for all end their election subversion - immediately." Biden cruised to a 306-232 Electoral College victory in the 2020 presidential election. To win the presidency, a candidate must receive at least 270 electoral votes.

The continued Republican resistance to Biden's victory comes as the Electoral College will meet on December 14, with electors set to formally cast their votes for the winners of each state.

Credit: CNN

Astronomers detect possible radio emission from exoplanet.

By monitoring the cosmos with a radio telescope array, an international team of scientists has detected radio bursts emanating from the constellation Boötes -- that could be the first radio emission collected from a planet beyond our solar system.

The team, led by Cornell postdoctoral researcher Jake D. Turner, Philippe Zarka of the Observatoire de Paris -- Paris Sciences et Lettres University and Jean-Mathias Griessmeier of the Université d'Orléans will publish their findings in the forthcoming research section of Astronomy and Astrophysics, on Dec. 16.

"We present one of the first hints of detecting an exoplanet in the radio realm, " Turner said. "The signal is from the Tau Boötes system, which contains a binary star and an exoplanet. We make the case for an emission by the planet itself. From the strength and polarization of the radio signal and the planet's magnetic field, it is compatible with theoretical predictions."

Among the co-authors is Turner's postdoctoral advisor Ray Jayawardhana, the Harold Tanner Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, and a professor of astronomy.

"If confirmed through follow-up observations," Jayawardhana said, "this radio detection opens up a new window on exoplanets, giving us a novel way to examine alien worlds that are tens of light-years away."

Using the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR), a radio telescope in the Netherlands, Turner and his colleagues uncovered emission bursts from a star-system hosting a so-called hot Jupiter, a gaseous giant planet that is very close to its own sun. The group also observed other potential exoplanetary radio-emission candidates in the 55 Cancri (in the constellation Cancer) and Upsilon Andromedae systems. Only the Tau Boötes exoplanet system -- about 51 light-years away -- exhibited a significant radio signature, a unique potential window on the planet's magnetic field.

Observing an exoplanet's magnetic field helps astronomers decipher a planet's interior and atmospheric properties, as well as the physics of star-planet interactions, said Turner, a member of Cornell's Carl Sagan Institute.

Earth's magnetic field protects it from solar wind dangers, keeping the planet habitable. "The magnetic field of Earth-like exoplanets may contribute to their possible habitability," Turner said, "by shielding their own atmospheres from solar wind and cosmic rays, and protecting the planet from atmospheric loss."

Two years ago, Turner and his colleagues examined the radio emission signature of Jupiter and scaled those emissions to mimic the possible signatures from a distant Jupiter-like exoplanet. Those results became the template for searching radio emission from exoplanets 40 to 100 light-years away.

After poring over nearly 100-hours of radio observations, the researchers were able to find the expected hot Jupiter signature in Tau Boötes. "We learned from our own Jupiter what this kind of detection looks like. We went searching for it and we found it" Turner said.

The signature, though, is weak. "There remains some uncertainty that the detected radio signal is from the planet. The need for follow-up observations is critical," he said.

Turner and his team have already begun a campaign using multiple radio telescopes to follow up on the signal from Tau Boötes.

In addition to Turner, Jayawardhana, Griessmeier and Zarka, the co-authors are Laurent Lamy and Baptiste Cecconi of the Observatoire de Paris, France; Joseph Lazio from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory; J. Emilio Enriquez and Imke de Pater from the University of California, Berkeley; Julien N. Girard from Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa; and Jonathan D. Nichols from the University of Leicester, United Kingdom.

Turner, who laid the groundwork for this research while earning his doctorate at the University of Virginia, received funding from the National Science Foundation.

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Source: Cornell University