OVERTON WINDOW SUCCESSFULLY MOVED

The last state election certifications took place a week ago. The Electoral College votes happened yesterday. The Trump campaign continues to lose in court after court.

But it's now considered prgress for some in the GOP to acknowledge that Joe Biden won the presidential election.

Here's a Politico headline:

'Time for everybody to move on': Senate GOP accepts Biden's win

And here's the lede:

Senate Republicans are finally starting to recognize Joe Biden as the next president of the United States — even if they waited until the very last minute.

But as we learn from the story, only a fraction of the Senate GOP concedes that Biden will be president.

When asked on Monday afternoon whether Biden was the president-elect, some GOP senators paused and asked how far along the Electoral College count was taking place that day. Others declined to comment until results were officially certified and until Biden climbed past the necessary 270 votes.

But as the day went on and the Electoral College’s verdict was made clear, an increasing number of Republican senators — though certainly not all — began to say what the leader of their party won’t and what they declined to acknowledge for weeks: Biden will take office in January.

It's really big of these folks to admit the obvious:

“I understand there are people who feel strongly about the outcome of this election,” said Senate Majority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.), the second-ranking Senate Republican. “But in the end at some point you have to face the music. And I think that once the Electoral College settles the issue today, it’s time for everybody to move on.”

“There’s clearly a constitutional president-elect,” added Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), the No. 4 GOP leader. Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) said “the Electoral College vote today makes clear that Joe Biden is now president-elect.” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) agreed that “it’s time to turn the page and begin a new administration.” And Sen Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) was unequivocal: “Vice President Biden is the president-elect based on the electoral count.”

But:

“Let’s see where the remaining legal challenges go. But it’s a very narrow path,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), the chair of the Judiciary Committee....

Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), another member of GOP leadership, told reporters that asking about Biden’s status was a “gotcha question.” ...

Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) said Trump still has every right to “get to the bottom” of any purported election discrepancies and suggested it would be weeks still before he calls Biden the president-elect....

And Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), when asked if Biden is the president-elect, gave a terse “no.”

[Mitch] McConnell has also yet to issue a public statement on the Nov. 3 election results.

So maybe half the Senate GOP acknowledges reality. And Politico wants to give them a cookie.

Meanwhile, The Washington Post tells us that the election truthers at Newsmax and One America News have begun to "grapple uneasily" with objective reality.

For the past six weeks, two upstart cable news channels — Newsmax and One America News — have tried to outflank Fox News from the right by embracing President Trump’s strategy of election denialism.

But on Monday, as the electoral college sealed Democrat Joe Biden’s victory, their paths seemed to diverge slightly.

John Bachman, who anchors an afternoon show on Newsmax, the larger of the two channels, referred to Biden as the president-elect and noted that Trump’s legal challenges of the election results have failed at almost every step.

“What I’m trying to do is manage everyone’s expectations,” Bachman told viewers. “These judges don’t seem to be taking up these cases. This is the reality. This is the motion set in place.”

But no other example is given of a Newsmax host acknowledging the truth. Just the opposite, in fact:

... on Newsmax’s “American Agenda,” which followed Bachman’s show, host Bob Sellers seemed to treat Biden’s victory as an unsettled issue, saying that people are “waiting with bated breath” for the results of the process and asserting that “there are still some outstanding cases of irregularity.”

Around 5:30 p.m., ... a guest on Newsmax talked about alternative slates of electors meeting and said: “I think we’ve still got several weeks here for this thing to play out.”

During one segment, when Washington Times writer Tim Constantine criticized the president and his team for continuing to argue that the election is fraudulent without sufficient evidence in a bid to stay politically relevant, Sellers gently chastised him: “Tim, it’s kind of strange that you say that.”

And One America News, we're told,

virtually ignored the unfolding developments as electors cast their votes, instead devoting about four hours of daytime programming to a live feed of a hearing by the Arizona Senate to address voting procedures. Its 4 p.m. news roundup failed to mention the electoral college vote at all.

There's only one acceptable response to what's happened since November 3: Everyone needs to acknowledge that Joe Biden is the president-elect. Everyone. We're now giving credit to the Republican Party and Fox's crazier cousins because one non-prime-time Newsmax host and some Senate Republicans are saying what they all should have said a month ago, and saying it as if someone has put a gun to their heads and forced them to say it. Not good enough. They deserve no credit for this.