Georgia on Our Minds: Not since Sherman’s march to the sea has the state of Georgia played such a critical role in American history. Georgia goes to the polls today to decide whether Democrats or Republicans will control the US Senate for the next two years under a Democrat president. 

  President Trump went to the state last night to pitch for the two Republican Senate candidates but campaigned mostly for himself. 

  “There’s no way we lost Georgia,” Trump said just after taking the stage. “I’ve had two elections. I’ve won both of them. It’s amazing.” After a passing mention of the two Senate candidates, Trump said, “They’re not going to take this White House. We’re going to fight like hell, I’ll tell you right now.” 

  Campaigning for the Democrats, President-elect Joe Biden hammered Trump for failing to fight the coronavirus. “The president spends more time whining and complaining than doing something about the problem, ” Biden said. “I don’t know why he still wants the job, he doesn’t want to do the work.” 

  Republican incumbents Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue are in a runoff with Democratic challengers Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff. The Democrats need to win both seats to get a 50/50 split in the Senate with soon-to-be Vice President Kamala Harris casting a deciding vote on legislation. 

  The average of polls has both Democrats leading, but that doesn’t mean they’ll win. Polls are not great predicters when they are within a couple of percentage points.

  More than three million Georgians voted early, about a million less than November. A total just shy of five million Georgians voted in November.

  A runoff like this is expected to attract fewer voters, but the stakes are high. Some Republicans are worried now that claims about fraud and President Trump’s insane phone call with the Georgia secretary of state will suppress the Republican turnout.

Reality Check: With Trump’s appearance, Sen. Kelly Loeffler announced yesterday that she’ll join other Republicans objecting to certification of the Electoral College vote tomorrow. Her fellow candidate, David Perdue, said on Fox News Sunday that, “There are huge irregularities in Georgia. They need to be investigated, and they need to be corrected, in my opinion.”

  Trump yesterday denounced Republicans who admit that he lost the election as the “Surrender Caucus.”

  Trump told the crowd in Georgia last night that he hopes Pence will throw the election for him. “I hope Mike Pence comes through for us, I have to tell you,” he said. “Of course, if he doesn’t come through, I won’t like him quite as much.” 

  Two versions of reality are at work here, and one of them is not real. Georgia’s manager of election systems gave a lengthy press conference delivering a point by point debunking of the election fraud claims President Trump made in his Saturday phone conversation with the Georgia secretary of state. “This is all easily, provably, false,” said Gabriel Sterling, Georgia’s voting systems implementation manager, “Yet the president persists.” 

  In the call Trump coaxed, cajoled, and bullied Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” votes to turn around the President’s election loss. 

  Asked about the call, Sterling said he “found it to be something not normal, out of place, and nobody I know who would be president would do something like that to a secretary of state.”

  Sterling spoke to assure Georgia voters, and the entire country, that 

“There is no shredding of ballots going on. That’s not real. That’s not happening.” He said his reaction to Trump’s claims was, “I wanted to scream.” 

Viral News: England has gone into another national lockdown in response to a surge in the coronavirus pandemic. 

  In Wisconsin, the pharmacist arrested for destroying 500 doses of the coronavirus vaccine is a conspiracy theorist who believed the vaccine would mutate peoples’ DNA.

  This morning, 20,824,387 Americans have been infected with the coronavirus and 353,628 have died. Nearly one out of every 60 people who get the disease is dying.

The Bulletin Board: One of the leaders of the far-right Proud Boys was arrested in Washington and accused of burning a Black Lives Matter banner stolen from a historically black church last month. Enrique Tarrio, 36, was taken with two high capacity firearm magazines, leading to an additional charge. — About 350 members of the National Guard are being called up for crowd control at tomorrow’s pro-Trump rally in Washington. 

The Obit Page: Gerry Marsden, whose band Gerry and the Pacemakers for a time rivalled The Beatles in the Liverpool rock scene of the 1960s, has died at age 78. The group’s hits included “Ferry Cross the Mersey,” “Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying” and “You’ll Never Walk Alone.”  Their song “How Do You Do It” was a No.1 hit before The Beatles were on the charts.

You Only Live Twice: Despite reports that ran all day yesterday, former Bond girl and Playboy model Tanya Roberts is not dead, her representatives say despite having previously announced her death. Roberts, 65, was reported to have collapsed the day before Christmas and to have died on Sunday. She’s now reported in serious condition.

  Roberts appeared in the James Bond movie “A View to a Kill” as well as “Charlie’s Angels” and some other television series as well as B-level movies. Most of her roles have featured her acting talents right up front.

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